Friday, October 15, 2010

'RED': A High-Brow Spy Caper

By Lisa Pease
October 15, 2010

Ever wonder what happens to CIA assassins after they retire? Screenwriters (and brothers) Jon and Erich Hoeber decided to find out, to hilarious effect.

Read on.

Pentagon Releases Tally of Dead Iraqis

By Rory O'Connor
October 15, 2010

In July, the United States military issued its largest release of raw data on deaths during the Iraq war. The Pentagon tallied almost 77,000 Iraqis – both civilians and security forces – as having died in the carnage between January 2004 and August 2008.

Read on.

The 'Teach-the-Dems-a-Lesson' Myth

By Robert Parry
October 15, 2010

If my e-mail inbox is any indication, many American progressives plan to use the Nov. 2 election as an opportunity to “teach the Democrats a lesson” by either not voting or casting ballots for third parties, even if this contributes to the expected Republican (and Tea Party) landslide.

Read on.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Treating Detainees Like Guinea Pigs

By Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye
October 14, 2010

In 2002, as the Bush administration was turning to torture and other brutal techniques for interrogating "war on terror" detainees, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz loosened rules against human experimentation, an apparent recognition of legal problems regarding the novel strategies for extracting and evaluating information from the prisoners.

Read on.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Leakers, Beware the Corporate Media

By Ray McGovern
October 13, 2010

The following is a Code-Orange Advisory to patriotic truth-tellers, sometimes called whistleblowers or leakers: It is anachronistically naïve to expect the New York Times or other organs of today’s Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) to publish classified material like the Pentagon Papers without their first clearing it with the government.

Read on.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Foreclosure Fraud's Outrage Gap

By Danny Schechter
October 12, 2010

The other day, during an interview on Al Jazeera, I was asked if I was frustrated because my warnings and worries about the financial meltdown and foreclosure crisis, first aired in 2006, have been ignored so long.

Read on.

Awe of Military vs. Free Speech

By Ivan Eland
October 12, 2010

The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a case where the father of a fallen serviceman is suing members of a church over its picketing of military funerals with signs that say, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “God Killed Your Sons,” and “Thank God for 9/11.”

Read on.

Saturday, October 09, 2010

Islamophobia's Scholarly Godfather

Nabil Al-Khowaiter
October 9, 2010

While it may appear that Islamophobia is a new phenomenon in America – the result of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington – its roots can be traced back to the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, followed by the Arab oil embargo and a quadrupling of gas pump prices.

Read on.

Friday, October 08, 2010

Obama's Mission Impossible

By Danny Schechter
October 8, 2010

With the midterm election less than a month away and the economic crisis unabated, the Obama Administration may be at a crossroads.

Read on.

Thursday, October 07, 2010

A Long History of America's Dark Side

By Peter Dale Scott and Robert Parry
October 7, 2010

There is a dark -- seldom acknowledged -- thread that runs through U.S. military doctrine, dating back to the early days of the Republic.

Read on.

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Indian Genocide and Republican Power

By Thomas J. DiLorenzo
October 7, 2010

The real culture of violence in the American West of the latter half of the 19th Century sprang from the U.S. government’s policies toward the Plains Indians. It is untrue that white European settlers were always at war with Indians, as popular folklore contends.

Read on.

What a GOP Majority Would Mean

By Don Monkerud
October 6, 2010

Under the Republican Party's blueprint for America, BP will no longer be required to clean up the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; the F.D.A. will not restrict the new diabetes drug Avandia just because it's unsafe; and donors will be allowed to keep their contributions to political campaigns secret.

Read on.

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Petraeus's New Afghan War Ploy

By Ivan Eland
October 5, 2010

Although David Petraeus, the top American commander in Afghanistan, recently peddled the notion that senior Taliban chieftains had made contact with senior Afghan government officials about the possibility of starting reconciliation talks, such talk of peace in our time is likely to be hype.

Read on.

An Inside Look at the Afghan Debacle

By Melvin A. Goodman
October 5, 2010

Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars offers a disturbing account of President Barack Obama's lack of leadership and the flawed decision-making practices of his national security team.

Read on.

Monday, October 04, 2010

The Bigot Whisperers of the Right

By Phil Rockstroh
October 4, 2010

I was born, at slightly past the midpoint of the 20th Century, in the Deep South city of Birmingham, Alabama -- "The Heart of Dixie."

Read on.

The Enduring Battle with Chaos

By the Rev. Howard Bess
October 4, 2010

In the Sixth Century B.C.E., amid the power of the Babylonian empire – with a group of defeated Israelites living there in exile – the questions of how the earth began and how it might end were not subjects of speculation or interest, for Babylonians or Israelites.

Read on.

Sunday, October 03, 2010

A Gentle March for American Unity

By Danny Schechter
October 3, 2010

I have been marching on Washington — and covering marches for more years that I can remember. As a kid, I was part of the original March on Washington back in ’63. It was for jobs and freedom.

Read on.

Guatemala: A Test Tube of Repression

By Robert Parry
October 3, 2010

Last week’s grotesque revelation about American public health doctors infecting nearly 700 Guatemalans with venereal disease to test penicillin from 1946-48 marked just the start of the U.S. government’s post-World War II abuse of that Central American country.

Read on.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Obama's Hypocrisy on Torture

By Jason Leopold
October 2, 2010

This week, in a burst of stunning hypocrisy, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that imposes sanctions on Iran for human rights abuses and targets eight Iranian government and military officials who are blamed for the torture, abuse and murder of citizens who protested Iran’s 2009 presidential election.

Read on.

Friday, October 01, 2010

What a Burned Pentagon Book Reveals

By David Swanson
October 1, 2010

The Pentagon spent $50,000 of our money to buy up the first edition of Operation Dark Heart by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and destroy every copy.

Read on.

Finally, Israel Lobby Gets Challenged

By Lawrence Davidson
October 1, 2010

Two news articles have recently appeared, each discussing a different approach to overcoming the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobby that presently has enough clout to substitute its own parochial interests for the U.S. national interest.

Read on.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

CIA Analysts Shut Out on Afghan War

By Ray McGovern
September 30, 2010

Thumbing through Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars, I should not have been surprised that the index lacks any entry for “intelligence.”

Read on.

Fear Still Erodes American Liberties

By Danny Schechter
September 30, 2010

There is a saying I may be twisting in the retelling to the effect of what you do unto others will be done onto you. In Karmic terms, it boils down to what goes around cones around.

Read on.

Our Unheeded Warnings to Obama

By Robert Parry
September 30, 2010

In the days after Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, we published a three-part series warning him of dangers ahead. However, the new President chose to ignore all our warnings. So nearly two years later, it might be a good time to assess whether our concerns were valid or not.

Read on.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Israeli Commandos Accused of Murder

By Gareth Porter
September 29, 2010

The report of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla released last week shows conclusively that U.S. citizen Furkan Dogan and five Turkish citizens were murdered execution-style by Israeli commandos.

Read on.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Mystery of a 'Disgraced' War Reporter

By Don North
September 28, 2010

War changes – and often harms – not only its combatants but its eyewitnesses, including the war correspondents with their unique job of getting as close as possible to a conflict, reporting what they see, and somehow surviving to tell about it.

Read on.

Rove's Money Tramples Democracy

By Kevin Zeese
September 28, 2010

In this first post-Citizens United election, voters are the victims of a crime against democracy that the government seems unable, or unwilling, to stop despite it occurring right before our eyes.

Read on.

The Neocons' 'Democracy' Fraud

By Ivan Eland
September 28, 2010

American policymakers love to see purple thumbs in the developing world, especially in countries in which the United States has undertaken “nation-building” projects (read: invasions and occupations).

Read on.

Monday, September 27, 2010

How Bush Holdovers Trapped Obama

By Robert Parry
September 27, 2010

President Barack Obama trapped himself in the morass of Afghanistan by his post-election decision to show bipartisan continuity and to keep in place George W. Bush’s military command structure, particularly Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus.

Read on.

Must Christianity Dominate America?

By the Rev. Howard Bess
September 27, 2010

One of the great sins of Christianity over the centuries is that it has sought dominance over believers in other religions as well as non-believers.

Read on.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Big Media Won't Forgive Colbert

By Jeff Cohen
September 26, 2010

Let's face it: Some in the Washington press corps still resent Stephen Colbert because he so brilliantly lampooned them to their faces at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner over their coziness with the Bush White House.

Read on.

New FBI Raids in 'War on Dissent'

By Coleen Rowley
September 26, 2010

The war on dissent, rather than terrorism, continued full steam with FBI SWAT teams breaking down doors at 7 a.m. Friday morning and raiding the homes of several anti-war leaders and activists in Minneapolis, Chicago and possibly a couple other Midwest cities.

Read on.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Obama's Anti-historical UN Speech

By Lawrence Davidson
September 25, 2010

On Sept. 23, as President Obama took his turn at the United Nations’ podium, there were a world of problems to address but, not unexpectedly, he chose to concentrate on the Middle East.

Read on.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Petraeus Cons Obama on Afghan War

By Ray McGovern
September 24, 2010

One thing that comes through clearly in Bob Woodward’s new book, Obama’s Wars, is the contempt felt by Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, toward President Barack Obama.

Read on.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Testing the Value of Truth

By Rory O'Connor
September 23, 2010

On Aug. 29, 2008, just prior to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, presidential candidate John McCain announced he had chosen Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Read on.

The No-Longer Endless Summers

By Danny Schechter
September 23, 2010

As the November election approaches, the White House seems to be ending its Rip Van Winkle-like slumber and has begun crawling out of the bubble of its own making. Many fear it’s a bit late.

Read on.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Losing Ahmadinejad's Translation

By Lawrence Davidson
September 22, 2010

Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was at the United Nations on Tuesday to address the Millennium Development Goals Summit. What he had to say was, as usual, a mixed bag of worthwhile insights and questionable assertions.

Read on.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Ed Newman, a Newsman's Newsman

By Michael Winship
September 21, 2010

I was in London last week when news came of the death of the great NBC newsman Edwin Newman, 91 years old.

Read on.

Colin Powell's Tolerance of Murder

By Robert Parry
September 21, 2010

Former Secretary of State and retired four-star Gen. Colin Powell has returned as the Washington media's favorite oracle, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to tell President Barack Obama, the Republican Party and the nation what they should be doing. That has been followed by media figures like MSNBC’s Chris Matthews swooning at the revealed wisdom from the ultimate Wise Man.

Read on.

Monday, September 20, 2010

How Gen. Petraeus Deceived Obama

By Gareth Porter
September 20, 2010

In interviews in recent weeks, Gen. David Petraeus has been taking a line on what will happen in mid-2011 that challenges President Barack Obama’s announced intention to begin a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by that date.

Read on.

TNR's Peretz Reveals Mideast Bigotry

By Lawrence Davidson
September 20, 2010

Martin Peretz is editor-in-chief of The New Republic, a position he acquired by simply buying the magazine in 1974. Although he resold it to a group of investors in 2002, they were, and apparently remain, his ideological soul mates for he continues to this day to be the magazine’s top editor.

Read on.

Friday, September 17, 2010

A Campaign to Free Bradley Manning

By Ann Wright
September 17, 2010

Bradley Manning is accused of telling the truth.

Read on.

Lee Hamilton, the Un-Wise Man

By Robert Parry
September 17, 2010

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius has become the latest voice of influence to sing the praises of former Rep. Lee Hamilton, who is almost universally hailed in U.S. power circles as a modern-day Wise Man, a Democratic centrist who shuns partisanship and puts love of country over politics.

Read on.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Nixon's Vengeful War on Marijuana

By William John Cox
September 16, 2010

In 1971, President Richard Nixon appointed Pennsylvania Gov. Raymond P. Shafer to chair a national commission to report on the effects of marijuana and other drugs and recommend appropriate drug policies. Though Shafer was a former prosecutor and was known as a "law and order" governor, he did not give Nixon the alarmist findings that the President wanted.

Read on.

The Great Muslim Scare

By Lawrence Davidson
September 16, 2010

In 1951, American working-class intellectual Eric Hoffer described those he called the “true believers,” people who start out alienated from their present conditions and suffering feelings of insecurity and uncertainty about the direction of their lives and communities.

Read on.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

America's Decoupling from Reality

By Robert Parry
September 15, 2010

As Election Day 2010 approaches – as the United States wallows in the swamps of war, recession and environmental degradation – the consequences of the nation’s three-decade-old decoupling from reality are becoming painfully obvious.

Read on.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Great Britain's Brave New World

By Danny Schechter
September 14, 2010

London looks pretty much like it did the last time I was here except for all the closed stores and businesses I passed on the way to the War and Media Conference that brought me here.

Read on.

GOP Leaders Embrace Ugly Intolerance

By Michael Winship
September 14, 2010

Gentlemen, start your defibrillators. To baby boomers like me it gives the heart a bit of jolt to realize that 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the presidential campaign between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon.

Read on.

Rory Kennedy's "The Fence"

By Lisa Pease
September 14, 2010

Rory Kennedy's upcoming HBO documentary “The Fence” (“La Barba”) presents a compelling argument that the border fence, the subject of the film, is an ill-conceived and expensive mistake.

Read on.

Has US Empire Benefited the World?

By Ivan Eland
September 14, 2010

In a recent column, Thomas Friedman, probably the most influential “internationalist” — read: proponent of U.S. interventionism in faraway places — has finally discovered that the United States must soon turn inward and put domestic economic growth first because of its massive public debt, huge federal budget deficit, and looming fiscal crisis caused by a dramatic automatic escalation in entitlements spending.

Read on.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Marijuana 'Prohibition' on CA's Ballot

By Kevin Zeese
September 13, 2010

Since the founding of the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1973, 15 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana.

Read on.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

US Hypocrisy Hobbles Human Rights

By Lawrence Davidson
September 12, 2010

On Aug. 23, Israel’s most prestigious human rights organization, B’Tselem released a short report on the condition of water supplies in the Gaza Strip.

Read on.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Would Jesus Hate Muslims?

By Rev. Howard Bess
September 11, 2010

Early in the 21st century, America is being gripped by xenophobia, the fear of strangers or foreigners, or more broadly the fear of the unfamiliar.

Read on.

America's Excessive Fear of the World

By Jonathan Schwarz
September 11, 2010

The question of whether America is safer today is sort of strange, for two reasons.

Read on.

After 9/11, Making Matters Worse

By Melvin A. Goodman
September 11, 2010

The terrorist attacks on Washington and New York City nine years ago extracted a terrible price in terms of blood and treasure. Unfortunately, the U.S. reaction to 9/11 has also extracted a terrible price with no end in sight.

Read on.

NYT Pushes Confrontation with Iran

By Robert Parry
September 11, 2010

Apparently having learned no lessons from the Iraq WMD debacle, the New York Times is pushing for a heightened confrontation with Iran, slipping into the same kind of hysteria that it and other major U.S. news organizations displayed in 2002 and 2003.

Read on.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Hillary's Imperial Dream Meets Reality

By Danny Schechter
September 10, 2010

Oh, Hamid, Oh Hillary: How your worlds converge and diverge.

Read on.

Islam Basher Claims to Unmask Cleric

By Robert Parry
September 10, 2010

Last month, Steve Emerson, a propagandist with close ties to Israel’s Likud and America’s neocons, went on a national radio program and claimed that Islamic cleric Feisal Abdul Rauf would likely not “survive” Emerson’s disclosure of supposedly radical comments that Rauf made a half decade ago.

Read on.

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Toning Down the 9/11 Tirades

By Michael Winship
September 9, 2010

This past Sunday was beautiful, bright and warm, not unlike the sky blue day when those two airliners hit the World Trade Center in 2001, just a mile or so from where I live. That day, a Tuesday, was a bit hotter, a bit more humid, yet just as sunny and promising.

Read on.

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

The Value of Real Journalism

By Mort Rosenblum
September 8, 2010

The University of Colorado is scrapping journalism for communications. At least, I think they are.

Read on.

Iraq Pullout v. the Base Temptation

By Ivan Eland
September 8, 2010

As President Obama gave a self-congratulatory speech about keeping his campaign promise to remove U.S. combat forces from Iraq by the end of August, he accomplished this feat by merely redefining the mission of the 50,000 combat-trained U.S. forces remaining there to “advising and assisting” Iraqi forces.

Read on.

Why the Israeli Boycott Is Growing

By Lawrence Davidson
September 8, 2010

On Sunday, the Israel newspaper Haaretz published an article with the headline "Anti-Israel Economic Boycotts are Gaining Speed" and with the subtitle, "the sums involved are not large, but their international significance is huge."

Read on.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Petraeus Spins the Afghan War Mess

By Barbara Koeppel
September 7, 2010

A few weeks ago, Gen. David Petraeus pulled off a flawless remake of Gen. William Westmoreland’s 1967 performance in which the Vietnam War commander detected “light at the end of the tunnel” – just months before the Viet Cong launched its Tet offensive, proving the resistance was very much alive and well.

Read on.

Banksters Steal Away with the Loot

By Danny Schechter
September 7, 2010

Ben Affleck’s next movie, “The Town,” is set in Charlestown, Massachusetts, known for the battle of Bunker Hill and dubbed in the past by tabloid TV as “hell’s half acre” for all the crimes that take place there.

Read on.

Monday, September 06, 2010

Blair Reveals Cheney's War Agenda

By Robert Parry
September 6, 2010

Ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s new memoir offers the expected rationalizations for his joining in an illegal, aggressive war against Iraq, even to the point of quibbling about the death toll. But Blair does reveal how much more war was favored by Vice President Dick Cheney and the neocons.

Read on.

Sunday, September 05, 2010

Must the Bible Remain 'Holy'?

By the Rev. Howard Bess
September 5, 2010

Christianity is in a great state of flux, exceeding even the diversity that came out of the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago. Today’s upheaval is fostered by the Internet and its free flow of information and opinions.

Read on.

Saturday, September 04, 2010

CIA's 'Red Cell' Hypocrisy on Terror

By Robert Parry
September 4, 2010

The Central Intelligence Agency has scoffed at an internal memo that cites a few terrorist acts by some American citizens as possibly causing foreign nations to see the United States as an “exporter of terrorism.” The CIA notes that the paper came from its “red cell” analysts who are assigned to “think outside the box” to “provoke thought.”

Read on.

Friday, September 03, 2010

Recession Snuffs Out New Media Hope

By Danny Schechter
September 3, 2010

When your life and your work is as entwined as mine has been – fusing the personal and the political over all these years – it may be stretching things to consider yourself unemployed, but that’s what I am as Labor Day approaches.

Read on.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Posturing on the PanAm 103 'Bomber'

By William Blum
September 2, 2010

The British government recently warned Libya against celebrating the one-year anniversary of Scotland's release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Libyan who's the only person ever convicted of the 1988 blowing up of PanAm flight 103 over Scotland, which took the lives of 270 largely Americans and British.

Read on.

WikiLeaks and Defining 'Journalism'

By D.H. Kerby
September 2, 2010

There is a strong intuition among the American people that there is a fundamental difference between publishing a secret for all the world to read and secretly informing an enemy of a secret.

Read on.

Will US Really Prosecute WikiLeaks?

By Ivan Eland
September 2, 2010

The U.S. Justice Department is apparently considering prosecuting Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, which is a Web site that publishes classified documents from governments, under the rarely used Espionage Act of 1917.

Read on.

The Afghan Pincer Attack on Obama

By Melvin A. Goodman
September 2, 2010

The "double envelopment" or pincer movement is a classic military maneuver that finds the flanks of the opponent under simultaneous attack from the opposing forces.

Read on.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

How the Right Still Frames Iraq

By Robert Parry
September 1, 2010

President Barack Obama’s instruction to “turn the page” on the Iraq War has set off a new wave of frustration on the American Left, which believes that the architects of this war of aggression should face some accountability for the death and destruction.

Read on.

Obama Sugarcoats Iraq War Realities

By David Swanson
September 1, 2010

Lies aren't used just to start wars, but also to escalate them, continue them, and even reduce or end them. And we got a pile of war lies from President Barack Obama on Tuesday evening.

Read on.

Beck's Washington Monument Myth

By Jonathan Schwarz
September 1, 2010

I realize this isn't breaking news, but...listening to Glenn Beck is the mental equivalent of falling into a vat of Karo syrup. You thrash around, can't get out, and feel like you're going to die in the most insipid way possible.

Read on.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Beck and the American Know-Nothings

By Michael Winship
August 31, 2010

Watching Glenn Beck's performance Saturday at his "Restoring Honor" rally in Washington, DC, I thought of the novelist Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry, the charlatan evangelist who seduces most of those around him with his hearty backslapping and false piety.

Read on.

War on Terror: Greatest Covert Op Ever

By Douglas Valentine
August 31, 2010

The politics of terror are the greatest covert operation ever.

Read on.

What Obama Won't Say Tonight

By Ray McGovern
August 31, 2010

My Fellow Americans,

Read on.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Obama vs. the Generals

By Rory O'Connor
August 30, 2010

On Feb. 27, 2009, barely a month after entering the White House, President Barack Obama revealed his plans for completing the combat portion of America’s ongoing military involvement in Iraq.

Read on.

Why US Media Is Soft on Wall Street

By Danny Schechter
August 30, 2010

When you connect the dots in your writing or look for deeper explanations behind the decisions of policymakers, market makers and media-makers, it’s easy to be dismissed as a conspiracy nut.

Read on.

The Christian Right Needs 'Enemies'

By the Rev. Howard Bess
August 30, 2010

At the heart of American Christian Fundamentalism is a basic religious dualism that is obsessed with a never-ending struggle between Good and Evil. These Christian fundamentalists must always have an “enemy” with whom to fight.

Read on.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Hawks Box in Obama on Afghan War

By Ray McGovern
August 26, 2010

Just back from Afghanistan, Marine Commandant, Gen. James Conway held a news conference to add his voice to the Pentagon campaign to disparage the July 2011 date President Barack Obama set for U.S. troops to begin leaving Afghanistan.

Read on.

Karl Rove Exploits Corporate Money

By Kevin Zeese
August 26, 2010

In the last week Democrats were gloating about how little money the Republican Party had in its campaign coffers. The Republican National Committee has just over $5 million in the bank for the final stretch of the 2010 midterm election campaign and is carrying over $2 million in debt.

Read on.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

At War with American Workers

By Michael Winship
August 25, 2010

Among the many TV ad jingles sadly cluttering my brain since childhood (although useful in trivia contests) is the one that went, "The finest apples from Apple Land/Make Mott's Apple Sauce taste grand!"

Read on.


Twisting Palestinian Arms for Peace

By Lawrence Davidson
August 25, 2010

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has announced that direct "negotiations" between Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas will begin on Sept. 2. It is reported that Abbas agreed to these talks only after heavy pressure from both the United States and the European Union.

Read on.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Christian Nationalism's War with Islam

By Rev. Howard Bess
August 24, 2010

An underlying issue in the dispute over a proposed Islamic center near the site of 9/11’s Ground Zero is the emergence of Christian nationalism, which embraces a vision of the world in which every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Christ is Lord.

Read on.


Making a 'Mosque' a 'Wedge' Issue

By Ivan Eland
August 24, 2010

The American media, and to a lesser extent the world media, focus on symbolism at the expense of underlying reality. And sometimes they can’t even make sense of the symbolism.

Read on.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Turning Iraqi Cities into Slums

By Adil E. Shamoo
August 23, 2010

Iraq has between 25 and 50 percent unemployment, a dysfunctional parliament, rampant disease, an epidemic of mental illness, and sprawling slums. The killing of innocent people has become part of daily life.

Read on.

Fiddling While the US Economy Burns

By Danny Schechter
August 23, 2010

We know we live in hard times that are on the verge of getting harder with 500,000 new claims for unemployment last week, a recent record.

Read on.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Transocean Questioned on Burma Deal

By Thomas Maung Shwe
August 20, 2010

U.S.-Swiss drilling company Tranoscean has admitted it is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury over its “operations in Myanmar [Burma]”. The probe comes amid intense public scrutiny since its rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico.

Read on.

Spinning the US Failure in Iraq

By Robert Parry
August 20, 2010

When I watched the last U.S. combat battalions leave Iraq on Wednesday night, I couldn’t help but recall the scene when the last Soviet troops departed Afghanistan on Feb. 15, 1989. In both cases, the two governments soft-pedaled the hard truth about the strategic defeats that the withdrawals represented.

Read on.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Tea Partiers' Historical Fictions

By Jada Thacker
August 18, 2010

Today’s adherents to the Tea Party movement claim to share common cause with American “Sons of Liberty” rowdies who, on Dec. 16, 1773, dumped about 90,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor.

Read on.

Do Religions Reject Gay Marriage?

By Daniel C. Maguire
August 18, 2010

Through much of history, especially prior to the Fourteenth Century, many Christians did not share the view that marriage was a reward for being heterosexual, nor that a same-sex union was objectionable.

Read on.

Mosque Furor Endangers US Troops

By Robert Parry
August 18, 2010

For years, the American Right and neocons have been quick to accuse critics of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars of endangering American troops – by causing disunity, exposing counter-terror techniques, etc. – but these war enthusiasts are now the ones putting the lives of U.S. soldiers in jeopardy.

Read on.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Letting the Banksters 'Settle'

By Danny Schechter
August 17, 2010

Another day, another bank in the news -- with the settlement blues.

Read on.

Making the US Look Small to the World

By Alvaro Vargas Llosa
August 17, 2010

New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission was right not to designate the building at 45 Park Place, two blocks from Ground Zero, a historical landmark.

Read on.

Old-Time Bigotry Alive in America

By Michael Winship
August 17, 2010

As citizens of the nation continue through the summer, distracting themselves from difficult truths by howling at the moon and one another, I spent this past weekend in Manhattan seeing revivals of two classic period pieces of American theater.

Read on.

The Truth about Pat Tillman's Death

By Rory O'Connor
August 17, 2010

Of the many lies George W. Bush told us about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some were larger but none worse than that told about the death of Pat Tillman.

Read on.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Behind a Lethal Israel-Lebanon Clash

By Lawrence Davidson
August 16, 2010

On Aug. 3, violence erupted along Lebanon’s southern frontier, followed almost simultaneously by verbal assaults against Lebanon from the U.S. House of Representatives. Lebanon soon lost, at least temporarily, $100 million in U.S. military aid. What is this all about?

Read on.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

How Truth Can Save Lives

By Ray McGovern
August 15, 2010

If independent-minded Web sites, like WikiLeaks or, say, Consortiumnews.com, existed 43 years ago, I might have risen to the occasion and helped save the lives of some 25,000 U.S. soldiers, and a million Vietnamese, by exposing the lies contained in just one SECRET/EYES ONLY cable from Saigon.

Read on.