What's Behind the War on WikiLeaks

By Ray McGovern
December 8, 2010

WikiLeaks has teased the genie of transparency out of a very opaque bottle, and powerful forces in America, who thrive on secrecy, are trying desperately to stuff the genie back in.

Read on.

Obama Aids His Enemies on Tax Deal

By Michael Winship
December 8, 2010

There’s this old joke about the French Revolution. A group of prisoners is lined up before the guillotine. One by one, their heads are lopped off. Then, the next man is put in place. The lever is pulled, but the blade stops just inches above his neck.

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Who's Right? Obama or the 'Base'?

By Robert Parry
December 8, 2010

When President Barack Obama lashed out at the liberal base of the Democratic Party – condemning many on the Left as “sanctimonious” purists – he underscored how profoundly his actions have alienated some of his past supporters and how little he understands why.

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Getting Sensible about the Koreas

By Ivan Eland
December 7, 2010

Why does the U.S. government’s foreign policy often hinge on the naïve and moralistic expectation that other countries should act against their own interests? Wouldn’t a more realistic U.S. foreign policy be better for everyone concerned?

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How Jesus's Message Was Hijacked

By the Rev. Howard Bess
December 6, 2010

The great religious divide in the world today is not a divide between Christianity and other religions, but rather within Christendom.

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Ellsberg Calls for Boycott of Amazon

By Daniel Ellsberg
December 6, 2010

I hope you will join me and others in boycotting Amazon -- inconvenient as that may be -- to provide some counter-pressure to efforts by Senator Lieberman and the Administration to demonize, hound, block and prosecute Wikileaks, and ultimately to control whistleblowing and dissent on the Internet.

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Killing the Goal of 'Open Diplomacy'

By Lawrence Davidson
December 6, 2010

Given the ahistorical nature of the public mind, few people will recall that as the United States prepared to enter World War I, American citizens were quite exercised over the issue of "open diplomacy."

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CIA Dodges Guilt for Peru Tragedy

By Melvin A. Goodman
December 4, 2010

Last month, the Central Intelligence Agency released a blistering inspector general’s report that dissected a secret drug interdiction program in Peru that was responsible for the death of an American missionary and her infant daughter in 2001.

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The US Empire Targets Iran

By William Blum
December 4, 2010

One of the most common threads running through the WikiLeaks papers is Washington's manic obsession with Iran.

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Gitmo Detainees Given Risky Drug

By Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye
December 3, 2010

The Defense Department forced "war on terror" detainees arriving at the Guantanamo Bay prison to take a high dosage of a controversial antimalarial drug, mefloquine, an act that an Army public health physician compared to subjecting the prisoners to “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

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NYT Stokes Fear of Iran

By Ray McGovern
December 2, 2010

From the very large photo dominating page nine of the New York Times of Nov. 29, you can just tell from the look on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s face, not to mention the endless ranks of military officers standing in rows behind him, that Iran is determined to build a nuclear weapon. Anyone can tell. It’s obvious, right?

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The Right's Power of Media Money

By Robert Parry
December 2, 2010

In assessing what went wrong with the U.S. political process over the past few decades, it’s easy to see the broad outlines of the right-wing Republican ascendancy and the liberal-left Democratic decline, an imbalance that has now left the nation incapable of doing much besides waging endless wars, bailing out too-big-to-fail banks, slashing taxes for the rich, and running massive deficits.

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A Full-Body Scan for the US Empire

By Phil Rockstroh
December 2, 2010

As many wags have noted, the disclosures of WikiLeaks have subjected the U.S. Empire and its operatives to their own version of a full-body scan.

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Flush Republicans Play Hardball

By Michael Winship
December 2, 2010

Bees in Brooklyn are producing honey that’s bright red in color. Or, as The New York Times described it, “an alarming shade of Robitussin.”

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NYT Takes US Side in Iran Missile Flap

By Gareth Porter
November 30, 2010

A diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks provides a detailed account of how Russian specialists on the Iranian ballistic missile program refuted the U.S. suggestion that Iran has missiles that could target European capitals or intends to develop such a capability.

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The Painful History of US-Iran Distrust

By Danny Schechter
November 30, 2010

The building was smaller than I remembered. The fading images in my mind were grainy: angry crowds, students marching, flags burning, chants of “Death to America,” and Americans diplomats in blindfolds.

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Behind Benedict's Shift on Condoms

By Daniel C. Maguire
November 29, 2010

There is nothing new about the recent shift of Pope Benedict on condom use. It is also no novelty when conservatives in the church say no shift is happening at the very moment it is happening.

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Cables Hold Clues to US-Iran Mysteries

By Robert Parry
November 29, 2010

Newly released U.S. diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks show that the Obama administration, like its predecessors, has played a double game with Iran’s Shiite government, mixing public offers of reconciliation with secret collaboration on hard-line strategies favored by its Sunni Arab rivals and Israel.

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Beck v. Assange, or Fiction over Fact

By Lawrence Davidson
November 29, 2010

For those who pay attention to the battle of ideas that constantly goes on in the United States, two people presently have taken center stage for diametrically opposite reasons: Glenn Beck and Julian Assange.

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Young Christians Desert US Churches

By the Rev. Howard Bess
November 28, 2010

Chances are that if you are in your 20s or 30s, you are not hanging around a church.

Read on.