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Thursday, January 15, 2009
What's Hayden Hidin'? Outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden is going around town telling folks he has warned President-elect Barack Obama "personally and forcefully" that if Obama authorizes an investigation into controversial activities like water boarding, "no one in Langley will ever take a risk again."
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Monday, June 25, 2012
Asylum for Julian Assange -- Former Awardee for Integrity Decisions to speak out inside or outside one's chain of command -- let alone to be seen as a whistle-blower or leaker of information -- is fraught with ethical and legal questions and can never be undertaken lightly. But there are times when it must be considered. Official channels for whistle-blower protections have long proved illusory.
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Saturday, September 25, 2010
Petraeus Cons Obama on Afghan War The contempt felt by Gen. Petraeus,towards Obama comes through clearly in Bob Woodward's new book. Obama... lacks the courage of his convictions. Teaching law or speed-reading a teleprompter does not a president make. 800 years ago, Thomas Aquinas observed that courage is the precondition of all virtue. ie., you can be smart and well intentioned as all get-out; but you cannot be a real leader if you have no guts.
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Thursday, January 19, 2012
Obama Stands Up to Israel, Tamps Down Iran War Threats For months, Israeli hardliners and their neocon allies in the United States have been beating the war drums over Iran. But apparent resistance to war from President Obama has brought a softening of rhetoric in Israel
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Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Note to Nancy Pelosi: Colin Powell Got Snookered at CIA, too We're in a tough situation, Ray McGovern says he's never seen in his 40+ years of government service, The president of the United States and Leon Panetta are afraid of the CIA. Now, thanks to Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's chief of staff, we know a lot more about how Powell allowed himself to be snookered into helping Bush sell the war-- and bad information acquired by torturing al-libi, who lied to evade further torture.
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Saturday, March 6, 2010
Mullen Wary of Israeli Attack on Iran Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came home with sweaty palms from his mid-February visit to Israel. He has been worrying aloud that Israel will mousetrap the U.S. into war with Iran. This is of particular concern because Mullen has had considerable experience in putting the brakes on such Israeli plans in the past. This time, he appears convinced that the Israeli leaders did not take his warnings...
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Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Obama: Profile in Courage, or Cave-In? The choice, in my view, is between courage and cowardice cloaked as politics of the possible. Let me guess what you're thinking—“But that's asking too much of the young President; “cowardice†is too strong a word; Obama cannot possibly face down the entire military establishment.†John Kennedy did. So the question is whether Barack Obama is “no Jack Kennedy,†or whether he will summon the courage to stand up to
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Friday, August 14, 2009
Pundits Trying to Help Cheney Avoid Jail The stenographers of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) are missing the most obvious explanation for former Vice President Dick Cheney's widely reported "disappointment"- with former President George W. Bush on the issue of pardons - self-interest.
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Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Obama and Insubordination: Is He Truman or Mr. Milquetoast? McChrystal, however inadvertently, has given the President the unexpected opportunity to change course and leave behind the fool's errand called Afghanistan. But the general has also thrown down the gauntlet.
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Tuesday, December 1, 2015
The US-Russia Proxy War in Syria The risk of Syria becoming a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia became real last week when Turkey and Syrian jihadists used U.S.-supplied weaponry to shoot down a Russian warplane and rescue helicopter, killing two Russians, a danger that ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explores.
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Saturday, November 10, 2012
Good Riddance Petraeus Much of Official Washington is in mourning after David Petraeus admitted to an extramarital affair and resigned as head of the CIA. Top pundits were as smitten by the former four-star general as his mistress was, and are out there beating the integrity drums for Petraeus, non-stop.
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Monday, July 24, 2017
New, Solid Evidence "Russian Hack" of DNC Was Inside Job The "Russia hack" of the DNC was not a hack. It was an inside job. That's what NSA and CIA experts are saying, based on hard forensic evidence. This revelation massively changes several narratives.
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Saturday, October 22, 2011
Falling For New Neocon Propaganda One not-so-funny fact about Washington is that nearly all the news media stars who fell for neoconservative falsehoods about Iraq are still around to fall for new ones on Iran, even some like Richard Cohen who briefly regretted his earlier gullibility.
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Monday, October 3, 2011
Israel's Window to Bomb Iran Israeli leaders continue to pound the drum about taking out Iran's nuclear program -- and some hardliners may want to strike soon, fearing the window of opportunity will close if President Barack Obama wins reelection and is less susceptible to political pressures.
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Friday, December 30, 2011
Urging Obama to Stop Rush to Iran War A torrent of war propaganda against Iran is flooding the American political scene as U.S. neocons and Israeli hardliners see an opening for another war in the Middle East, a momentum that ex-CIA analysts Ray McGovern and Elizabeth Murray urge President Obama to stop.
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Wednesday, December 30, 2020
FBI: Another Fraud on the Court? Establishment media are ignoring the latest FBI flip-flop (surprise, surprise); they are reporting instead that incoming president Joe Biden wants Christopher Wray to stay on as FBI director? What's that all about?
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Monday, November 22, 2010
U.S. Intelligence Thwarted Attack on Iran A draft NIE update on Iran's nuclear program, completed earlier this year, is dead in its tracks, apparently because anti-Iran hawks inside the Obama administration are afraid it will leak. It is said to repeat pretty much the same conclusions as the NIE from 2007. That, in 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program."
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Saturday, June 18, 2011
Gaza: Cradle of Killing -- Americans Too As we embark on "The Audacity of Hope" and its humanitarian mission to Gaza, we can expect no help from the likes of Petraeus, senior NSC officials or, for that matter, President Barack Obama, who last year maintained a studied silence when Israeli forces killed nine passengers and wounded fifty in stopping a similar international flotilla.
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Saturday, December 3, 2011
Are Americans in Line for Gitmo? Though the 9/11 attacks occurred more than a decade ago, Congress continues to exploit them to pass evermore draconian laws on "terrorism," with the Senate now empowering the military to arrest people on U.S. soil and hold them without trial, a serious threat to American liberties.
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Thursday, January 10, 2019
Don't Be Afraid, Nancy; IMPEACH If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi trashes the Constitution by not allowing Jerold Nadler, D, NY, chair of the Judiciary Committee, to begin impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, the Constitution will become, in effect, what George W. Bush called it in 2005 "just a go*damned piece of paper."
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Friday, November 25, 2011
Ask the Candidates Real Questions -- Like These During recent presidential debates, moderators have asked mostly predictable questions and--except for some notable gaffes---have elicited mostly talking-point answers. It's time for citizens to put politicians on the spot with some more pointed questions.
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Sunday, April 26, 2020
Former UK Ambassador Craig Murray Indicted This indictment is the basis on which they are attempting to put me in prison -- in fact the indictment specifies up to two years in jail and an unlimited fine as the punishment sought from the court. I think the public interest, and my own interest, in it being public is very substantial.
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Thursday, April 23, 2009
Obama Plays Hamlet; Shredders Hum The New York Times has finally put a story together on the key role played by two faux psychologists in helping the Bush administration devise ways to torture people. We should, I suppose, be thankful for small favors. Apparently, a NY Times exposé requires a 21-month gestation period. The substance of the Wednesday's lead story on torture had already appeared in an article in the July 2007 issue of Vanity Fair.
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Friday, November 20, 2009
McChrystal to Obama: Fogh You; McChrystal Testing the Limits It's hard to know if the Obama-led ongoing consultation on Afghanistan is for real, or just a charade. I seem to be in the minority comprised of those who tend to give the President the benefit of the doubt. This decision is a BIG one. What is abundantly clear is the extreme pressure he is under, mostly from the senior military, some of whom (Petraeus) have political ambitions of their own.
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Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA? A document from Harry Truman's library sheds light on tensions between the White House and CIA, writes Ray McGovern.
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Monday, January 3, 2011
Obama Should Read WikiLeaks on Afghanistan "Perhaps President Barack Obama should give himself a waiver on the ban prohibiting U.S. government employees from downloading classified cables released by WikiLeaks, so he can get a better grasp on the futility of his Afghan War strategy," says former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern.
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Monday, December 13, 2010
What's Behind the War on WikiLeaks The corporate-and-government-dominated media appears apprehensive over the challenge that WikiLeaks presents. Perhaps deep down they know, as Dickens put it, "There is nothing so strong " as the simple truth."
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Monday, November 16, 2009
Shining Light on Roots of Terrorism Media commentary on the upcoming 9/11 trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has raised concern that state secrets may be divulged, including details about how the Bush administration used torture to extract evidence about al-Qaeda.
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Monday, July 26, 2010
Afghan War Leaks Expose Costly, Deceitful March of Folly The brutality and fecklessness of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan have been laid bare in an indisputable way just days before the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on whether to throw $33.5 billion more into the Afghan quagmire, when that money is badly needed at home. On Sunday, the Web site Wikileaks posted 75,000 reports written mostly by U.S. forces in Afghanistan during a six-year period from January 2004
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Monday, July 23, 2018
Moon-Strzok No More, Lisa Page Spills the Beans The meaning of a crucial text message between two FBI officials appears to have been finally explained, and it's not good news for the Russia-gate faithful, as Ray McGovern explains.
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Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Military Tribunal May Keep 9/11 Motives Hidden The Obama administration's decision to use a military tribunal rather than a federal criminal court to try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others means the real motives behind the 9/11 attacks may remain obscure.
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Sunday, December 22, 2013
Truman's True Warning on the CIA National security secrecy and a benighted sense of "what's good for the country" can be a dangerous mix for democracy, empowering self-interested or misguided officials to supplant the people's will, as President Truman warned and ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.
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Sunday, August 12, 2012
Israel's "Bomb Iran" Timetable As the clock ticks down to the U.S. elections in November, another clock is ticking in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, whether Israeli forces should exploit the American political timetable to pressure President Obama to support an attack on Iran's nuclear sites.
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Thursday, May 14, 2009
Rumsfeld Redux: 'Ugly' Questions for Gen. Myers Ex-CIA analyst, Ray McGovern, reminiscent of his CNN broadcast grilling of Donald Rumsfeld in Atlanta in 2006, questions former Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers about his role in stopping an in-depth legal review on torture. McGovern once again shows the "Fawning Corporate Media" how it's done. He describes Myers' actions as, "a combination of dullness, cowardice and careerism."
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Thursday, January 5, 2017
Emails were leaked, not hacked Because NSA can trace exactly where and how any "hacked" emails from the Democratic National Committee or other servers were routed through the network, it is puzzling why NSA cannot produce hard evidence implicating the Russian government and WikiLeaks. Unless we are dealing with a leak from an insider, not a hack, as other reporting suggests.
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Friday, January 20, 2017
Did Obama Slip & Tell the Truth? Oops. Did President Barack Obama acknowledge that the extraordinary propaganda campaign to blame Russia for helping President-elect Donald Trump become president has more holes in it than a sieve?
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Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Cheney Sweats Out the Summer His situation has grown pathetic. Aside from the man himself, it has fallen almost solely to faithful daughter Liz to defend her dad and to start a political backfire to keep him out of prison. She is to be admired for her faithfulness. In the process, though, she has unwittingly given much away.
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Saturday, July 16, 2011
Neocons Fume Over US Boat to Gaza At the behest of Tel Aviv and Washington, Greek authorities stopped a small flotilla from sailing to Gaza in a challenge to Israel's four-year blockade of the narrow strip of land and its 1.6 million people. Now, apologists for Israel's right-wing Likud government are heaping scorn on the passengers.
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Saturday, July 2, 2011
A July Fourth Shame on the Founders A group of American humanitarians and activists are still trying to make their way to Gaza in protest of the harsh Israeli embargo on the 1.6 million Palestinians confined there. However, an attempt to set sail from Athens on Friday was stopped by the Greek Coast Guard, apparently at the behest of Washington and Tel Aviv.
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Sunday, July 18, 2010
Iranian Scientist Would Not Play Curveball Useful insights often must be seen through a glass darkly. But some can be pulled through the smoke and mirrors shrouding the wanderings of Iranian scientist Shahram Amiri, who is now back home in Iran after 14 months in the U.S. as guest of the CIA.
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Saturday, March 1, 2014
Ukraine: One "Regime Change" Too Many? Russia’s parliament has approved President Putin’s request for the use of force inside neighboring Ukraine, as the latest neocon-approved “regime change†spins out of control and threatens to inflict grave damage on international relations, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.
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Saturday, April 23, 2011
Surprise, Surprise! Iraq War Was About Oil One can understand, without condoning it, that many Americans have become comfortable with the notion we are somehow exceptional, and thus entitled to more than our proportionate share of the world's natural resources. The FCM are a very huge help in persuading Americans that it is okay to ignore the suffering and devastation inflicted abroad; we have to protect our "way of life" from those who are just plain "jealous."
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Saturday, April 30, 2016
Hillary Clinton's Damning Emails Before the Democrats lock in their choice for President, they might want to know if Hillary Clinton broke the law with her unsecure emails and may be indicted, a question that ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern addresses.
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Thursday, December 29, 2016
Evidence-free Intelligence Accusations? The U.S. media circus orchestra, conducted by maestro John Brennan, made a herculean effort to divert attention from the content of the emails, by confecting a successful story line that diverted attention to "the Russians," blaming them for "hacking" highly embarrassing (albeit authentic) emails depicting the screwing of Sanders.
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Monday, March 19, 2018
Former CIA Chief Brennan Running Scared With former CIA Director John Brennan accusing President Donald Trump of "moral turpitude" for his "scapegoating" of Andy McCabe, it remains to be seen whether a constitutional crisis will be averted, writes Ray McGovern.
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Saturday, August 1, 2009
“Christians†Wink at Torture Anyone harboring doubts that the institutional Church is riding shotgun for the system, even regarding heinous sin like torture, should be chastened by the results of a recent survey by the Pew Research Center.
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Saturday, June 6, 2015
Will Allies Fold Again on Ukraine? Europeans have a giant economic stake in what happens at the "G1-plus-six" summit in Bavaria. Trouble is, European press coverage of Ukraine is almost as poor as the thin gruel served up in U.S. media. Would you believe President Putin's account of what went down in Kiev since early 2014 is far more factually based? Well, you ought to believe that, because it is.
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Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Did Tenet Hide Key Info on 9/11? Former White House director for counterterrorism Richard Clarke has accused former CIA Director George Tenet of denying him and others access to intelligence that could have thwarted the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11.
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Monday, November 8, 2010
Bush Boasts About Waterboarding George W. Bush is now peddling his book. In it, he brags that he gave the CIA authorization to waterboard Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Waterboarding has always been considered torture, so we now have a former president whose book includes self-incrimination under international and U.S. law. (And, alas, a current President too scared to do anything about it.)
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Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Cheney's Legacy: Honesty Still in Short Supply All the American public gets is boilerplate about how al-Qaeda evildoers are perverting a religion and exploiting impressionable young men. There is almost no discussion about why so many people in the Muslim world object to U.S. policies so strongly that they are inclined to resist violently and even resort to suicide attacks.
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Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Counterterrorism In Shambles; Why? there is no getting around the necessity to address the root causes of terrorism or, in the vernacular, "why they hate us." If we don't go beyond self-exculpatory sloganeering in attempting to answer that key question, any "counter terrorism apparatus" is doomed to failure. Honest appraisals can tread on delicate territory, but any intelligence agency worth its salt must be willing/able to address it.
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Wednesday, February 23, 2011
The Push of Conscience and Secretary Clinton At each such turning point, Secretary Clinton predictably sides with the hard-line Israeli position and shows remarkably little sympathy for the Palestinians or any other group that finds itself in Israel's way.
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Wednesday, March 2, 2011
How to Read Gates's Shift on the Wars Gates has announced he will retire in the coming months. By abandoning his post on the bridge of the sinking pro-war ship now, Gates will let the next secretary of defense take the blame when the U.S. does not "prevail" in Afghanistan. Gates can point to his echoing of MacArthur's warning.
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Thursday, October 13, 2011
Petraeus' CIA Fuels Iran Murder Plot The public record shows that former Gen. Petraeus has long been eager to please the neoconservatives in Washington and their friends in Israel by creating "intelligence" to portray Iran and other target countries in the worst light. There has been close to zero real evidence coming from the main source of information -- the Justice Department, which has long since forfeited much claim to credibility.
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Friday, August 15, 2008
Out Damn Blot: A Letter to Colin Powell Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, in an open letter to Colin Powell, offers an opportunity to wipe the "blot" off his record.
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Monday, January 11, 2010
Answering Helen Thomas on Why They Want to Harm Us Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas broke through the terrorism boilerplate by asking why, Ray McGovern says.
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Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Obama on the Backs of the Poor The outcome of the debt-ceiling battle has left many disillusioned Democrats and progressives now certain that it's foolhardy to expect Obama to behave any differently, even though he continues to promise a vigorous debate on the proper role of government in American society but then never delivers.
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Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Break the CIA in Two Ray McGovern writes, "After the CIA-led fiasco at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, President John Kennedy was quoted as saying he wanted to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds." I can understand his anger, but a thousand is probably too many."
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Saturday, March 8, 2014
Is Israel Really a U.S. Ally? Ray McGovern and other speakers gathered to discuss the United States relationship with Israel. How special is that relationship? This summit is very revealing.
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Sunday, December 11, 2016
The Syrian-Sarin "False Flag" Lesson Amid Official Washington's desire to censor non-official news on the Internet, it's worth remembering how the lack of mainstream skepticism almost led the U.S. into a war on Syria, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Sunday, November 25, 2018
Adam Schiff's Incredible, Incurable Credulity Some of our "Justice" officials today apparently think they can detour around 1st amendment hurdles if they can dredge up, or manufacture, "evidence" enabling them to use the Espionage Act of 1917 against Assange.
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Friday, June 25, 2010
Obama Misses the Afghan Exit Ramp Has it occurred to President Barack Obama that Gen. Stanley McChrystal might actually have wanted to be fired -- and thus rescued from the current March of Folly in Afghanistan, a mess much of his own making? McChrystal leaves behind a long trail of broken promises and unfulfilled expectations.
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Friday, February 2, 2018
Nunes Memo Reports Crimes at Top of FBI And DOJ The newly released "Nunes Memo" reveals felony wrongdoing by top members of the FBI and DOJ for misrepresenting evidence to obtain a FISA warrant and may implicate other intelligence officials, writes Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, August 31, 2010
What Obama Won't Say Tonight Instead of simply caving in to complaints from Cheney about my "dithering"-" and giving Petraeus and McChrystal nearly all the troops they asked for -" I should have applied the full resources of the U.S. intelligence community to get a handle on the real prospects for Afghanistan.
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Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Did Tenet Hide Key Info on 9/11? Former White House director for counterterrorism Richard Clarke has accused former CIA Director George Tenet of denying him and others access to intelligence that could have thwarted the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11.
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Monday, August 8, 2011
They Died in Vain; Deal With It Troops returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan know better. It must be particularly hard for them to hear the lies about "progress," and then be ridiculed and marginalized for having PTSD.
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Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Iran a Threat? I Mean, Really? Netanyahu may not be impressed -" or deterred -" by anything short of a public pronouncement from Obama that the U.S. will not support Israel if it provokes war with Iran. The more Obama avoids such blunt language, the more Netanyahu is likely to view Obama as a weakling who can be played politically.
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Monday, December 20, 2010
Witness at the White House Fence if the making of peace today means prison, that's where we need to be. It is time to accept our responsibility to do ALL we can to stop the violence of wars waged in our name. Now it's our turn to ponder those questions.
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Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Russia Impinges on Israeli "Right" to Bomb Iran American neocons are in a lather over Russia's decision to go ahead with the sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. The apparent outrage is that Iran thinks it has a right to protect its citizens from Israel's right to launch airstrikes into Iran's territory, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.
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Monday, June 1, 2009
Navy Vet Honored, Foiled Israeli Attack What's the difference between murder and massacre? The answer is Terry Halbardier, whose bravery and ingenuity as a 23-year-old Navy seaman spelled the difference between the murder of 34 of the USS Liberty crew and the intended massacre of all 294.
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Saturday, November 8, 2014
The Mystery of Ray McGovern's Arrest On Oct. 30, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern was arrested for trying to attend a public speech by retired Gen. David Petraeus. McGovern had hoped to ask Petraeus a critical question during Q-and-A but was instead trundled off to jail, another sign of a growing hostility toward dissent, McGovern says.
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Tuesday, September 30, 2008
To Joe Biden: Time for Confession Dear Senator Biden, I don't have to remind you of the importance of this Thursday's debate from a political perspective. But as you prepare, I invite you to spare a few minutes to look at the opportunity from a moral and religious perspective.
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Monday, June 29, 2020
RAY McGOVERN: Russiagate's Last Gasp One can read this most recent flurry of Russia, Russia, Russia paid the Taliban to kill GIs as an attempt to pre-empt the findings into Russiagate's origins.
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Thursday, July 23, 2009
Dallas: Into the Belly of the Beast Ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern reports on his attempt to bring some accountability to George W. Bush's new home front.
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Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Help for Obama Speech Wednesday Evening The President, I believe, can use all the input he can get. My draft includes suggestions about how to save billions for healthcare reform by putting a timely end to wasteful spending on the feckless foreign adventures launched by his predecessor. Here is my unsolicited draft. I no longer have access to the White House. If you do, please pass this along.
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Thursday, November 14, 2019
Ukraine For Dummies There was no excuse for Congress' ignorance of Ukraine. Here is a guide to help.
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Monday, April 13, 2015
Neocon "Chaos Promotion" in the Mideast After the Persian Gulf War in 1991, America's neocons thought no country could stand up to the high-tech U.S. military, and they realized the Soviet Union was no longer around to limit U.S. actions. So, the "regime change" strategy was born -- and many have died, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Saturday, November 19, 2016
Installing a Torture Fan at CIA The CIA's torturers can breathe a sigh of relief after President-elect Trump tapped a defender of "enhanced interrogation techniques" to become CIA director, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Saturday, October 18, 2008
Attack on Iran Off the Table? On Sept. 23, the neo-conservative chiefs of the Washington Post's editorial page mourned, in a tone much like what one hears on the death of a close friend, that "a military strike by the United States or Israel [on Iran is not] likely in the coming months." One could almost hear a wistful sigh, as they complained that efforts to stop Iran's nuclear program has "slipped down Washington's list of priorities."
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Monday, August 29, 2011
The Rise of Another CIA Yes Man The gross manipulation of CIA analysis under George W. Bush pushed a new generation of "yes men" into the agency's top ranks. Now one of those aspiring bureaucrats will be Gen. David Petraeus's right-hand man
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Tuesday, July 16, 2019
Sic Transit Gloria Mueller Democrats, stenographers who pass for journalists and the "Mueller team" will need all the time they can to come up with imaginative responses to two recent bombshell revelations, says Ray McGovern.
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Friday, July 24, 2009
Recalling the Downing Street Minutes The minutes observed quite bluntly that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
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Wednesday, January 4, 2012
A Betrayal of the Founders Though voicing "serious reservations" about encroachments on civil liberties in a military authorization bill, President Obama signed the law anyway to avoid a nasty veto fight with Congress. But courage, not timidity, is what's needed at such moments.
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Friday, February 26, 2010
Iran Captures a 'Good' Terrorist The Iranian government is celebrating the capture of Abdolmalek Rigi, the leader of a violent group called Jundullah (Arabic for Soldiers of God), which Tehran says is a terrorist organization supported by the United States, Great Britain and Israel.
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Monday, May 23, 2016
Intel Vets Urge Fast Report on Clinton's Emails A group of U.S. intelligence veterans is calling on President Obama to expedite the FBI review of former Secretary of State Clinton's alleged email security violations so the public can assess this issue in a timely fashion.
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Saturday, February 18, 2012
Brutality and Hillary Clinton -- A Year Later Hillary's nonchalance and neocon advisers, plus the President's public assurance that the U.S. will work "in lockstep" with Israel, are the kinds of things that make it increasingly likely that there will be open hostilities with Iran before the U.S. elections in November.
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Saturday, May 26, 2018
South Korean President Moons Bolton The summit may still be alive because it appears advisers around Trump may well be warning him not to follow his national security adviser down the road to disaster, comments Ray McGovern.
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Wednesday, May 19, 2010
US/Israel Challenged on Iran There is every reason to believe that Israel will search deep into its toolbox for a way to sabotage the agreement, but it isn't clear that the usual diplomatic tools will work at this stage, and even Israel might deem the covert action ones too risky. There remains the possibility that Israel will go for broke and launch a preemptive military strike at Iran's nuclear facilities.
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Thursday, October 10, 2013
Snowden Accepts Whistleblower Award Though former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has been indicted for leaking secrets about the U.S. government's intrusive surveillance tactics, he was honored by a group of former U.S. intelligence officials as a courageous whistleblower during a Moscow ceremony
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Friday, January 9, 2015
Will France Repeat US Mistakes after 9/11? As three suspects in the Charlie Hebdo massacre die in a shootout with French police, the cycle of violence that has engulfed the Mideast again reaches into the West, but the challenge is to learn from U.S. mistakes after 9/11 and address root causes, not react with another round of mindless violence, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Monday, August 17, 2015
Propaganda, Intelligence and MH-17 Propaganda is the life-blood of life-destroying wars, and the U.S. government has reached new heights (or depths) in this art of perception management. A case in point is the media manipulation around last year's Malaysia Airlines shoot-down over Ukraine, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Kerry's Propaganda War on Russia's RT Secretary of State Kerry, who has bumbled through a string of propaganda fiascos on Ukraine, decries Russia's RT network as a "propaganda bullhorn" that Americans should ignore -- just trust what the U.S. government tells you, an idea that ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern rejects.
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Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Julian Assange's Artful Dodge Faced with extradition from London to Sweden to face sex-abuse allegations, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange fled to the Ecuadorian embassy and asked for asylum, what ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern considers an artful dodge to avoid possible U.S. persecution.
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Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Closing In on the Torturers Ray McGovern asks: Do you think the wardens will let George Tenet wear his Presidential Medal of Freedom over the orange coverall?
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Saturday, September 3, 2016
Georgetown's Gesture on Slavery's Evils After decades of delays and denials, Jesuit-led Georgetown University finally confessed to a near-two-century-old abuse of African-American slaves, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, February 8, 2011
America's Stay-at-Home Ex-President Bush and his high command could decide whether "humane" treatment would be granted or not. If they saw a "military necessity" for, say, waterboarding somebody 183 times, then they could so order. There is no way to square this circle. Bush's memorandum violated international law, creating the giant loophole through which Rumsfeld and Tenet drove the Mack truck of torture.
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Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Clapper Admits Gross Intelligence Failure on Iraq WMDs But Still Escapes Justice Former DNI James Clapper had his own words read back to him by Ray McGovern, exposing his role in justifying the Iraq invasion based on fraudulent intelligence.
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Saturday, January 31, 2009
From Prison to Award for Iraq War Whistleblower On Jan. 26 in Copenhagen, I had the privilege to present to former Danish intelligence officer, Frank Grevil, the annual Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence. Our purpose was not only to honor Sam's memory; it was also to show future generations of intelligence officers that it is possible-actually, it is morally required-to expose the lies that facilitate war.
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Monday, October 30, 2017
The Deep State's JFK Triumph Over Trump Fifty-four years after President Kennedy's assassination, the CIA and FBI demanded more time to decide what secrets to keep hiding -- and a chastened President Trump bowed to their power, observes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Saturday, March 14, 2015
Guiding Obama into Global Make-Believe The Orwellian concept of "information warfare" holds that propaganda can break down enemies and decide geopolitical outcomes, a strategy that has taken hold of the U.S. government's approach to international crises, especially the Ukraine showdown, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.
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Monday, June 6, 2011
Gen. Keane Keen on Attacking Iran The possibility of an attack on Iran seems to be on the front burner again, thanks to neoconservatives like Keane. In Washington in the not-too-distant past, we used to call such aficionados of pre-emptive war "the crazies"; many have since become the capital's opinion leaders.
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Saturday, November 24, 2018
Ray Was Face-to-Face With Adam Schiff, ranking member, House Intelligence Committee, on January 25, 2017 The camera was still running after the formal session and caught Ray asking Adam Schiff, D, California, whether he is claiming he knows more than Obama about the gaping evidence-gap between Russian hacking and WikiLeaks.
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Monday, October 15, 2012
The Real Blame for Deaths in Libya Rep. Darrell Issa and the Republicans are making political hay from last month's killings in Libya of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. But the real blame traces back to Official Washington's endless interventions in the Middle East.
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Saturday, August 20, 2016
A Lawless Plan to Target Russians in Syria Official Washington's disdain for international law -- when its doing the lawbreaking -- was underscored by ex-CIA acting director Morell reiterating plans for murdering Russians and Iranians in Syria, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern says.
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Tuesday, January 7, 2014
NSA Insiders Reveal What Went Wrong In a memo to President Obama, former National Security Agency insiders explain how NSA leaders botched intelligence collection and analysis before 9/11, covered up the mistakes, and violated the constitutional rights of the American people, all while wasting billions of dollars and misleading the public.
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Sunday, August 30, 2009
Media Ape Goebbels in Defending CIA Abuses It seems coverage of the Bush administration's “war on terror†has been put back on track by the editors of the Washington Post and their “sources,†who appear determined to highlight the supposed successes of waterboarding and other forms of torture. In the last few days the Post has markedly increased its effort to “catapult the propaganda†(to borrow a phrase from former President George W. Bush).
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Wednesday, June 8, 2022
Lies About Russia Still Matter - a Lot It should go without saying that five years of the Russia-Gate plot and publicity have proven consequential - A large majority of Americans have been brainwashed to hate Russians.
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Saturday, November 8, 2008
Try These on Your CIA Briefer, Mr. President-Elect Aware that I helped prepare the President's Daily Brief for Presidents Nixon and Ford and conducted one-on-one PDB briefings of Reagan's most senior advisers, [Mike Cadell of Radio Free Kansas] suggested that I focus on what I would tell President-Elect Barack Obama if I were Mike Morell, CIA's Director of Intelligence...It seemed more useful to prepare questions of the kind President-Elect Obama might wish to ask Morell.
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Monday, February 19, 2018
Nunes: FBI and DOJ Perps Could Be Put on Trial House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes has stated that "DOJ and FBI are not above the law," and could face legal consequences for alleged abuses of the FISA court, reports Ray McGovern.
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Monday, June 6, 2016
Will Hillary Clinton Get Favored Treatment? Hillary Clinton's private emails jeopardized the safety of undercover CIA officers, suggesting criminal charges, but the Obama administration might make an exception for the Democratic frontrunner, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Can WikiLeaks Help Save Lives? Unless one is to believe, contrary to all indications, that Petraeus is not all that bright, one has to assume he knows that the Afghanistan expedition is a folly beyond repair.
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Friday, March 1, 2019
Sorry, Russia-gaters; WikiLeaks Got the DNC Emails From Insider, not Russia President Barack Obama dropped a huge hint two days before he left office, using his last press conference to point out that the "conclusions of the intelligence community" regarding how WikiLeaks received the DNC emails were "inconclusive." The nerve!
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Thursday, May 9, 2019
Fascism in Plain Sight in the Nation's Capital We are at the point Edward Snowden described as "turnkey tyranny." Last night the key was turned a bit more, but at least until now it has been an almost imperceptibly gradual process, like the proverbial frog in the pan, as the water starts to boil. And, of course, this has happened before.
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Friday, May 15, 2015
The Phony "Bad Intel" Defense on Iraq Jeb Bush's stumbling start to his presidential bid has refocused attention on Official Washington's favorite excuse for the illegal, aggressive and disastrous war in Iraq -- that it was just a case of "bad intelligence." But that isn't what the real history shows, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern recalls.
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Sunday, April 17, 2016
The Shame of the Jesuits A spotlight has fallen on a shameful chapter in the history of Georgetown University's Jesuits, the 1838 sale of 272 African-Americans into Deep South slavery, but moral lapses didn't end there, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Wednesday, November 28, 2012
The Humiliation of Bradley Manning Many in Official Washington find nothing wrong with humiliating Manning with forced nudity and breaking down his psychiatric health through prolonged isolation. After all, they say, his release of classified information might have put the lives of some U.S. allies at risk (although there is no known evidence to support that concern).
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Monday, February 24, 2020
Ukraine Pay-to-Play: If the Facts Come Out, it Could Finish Biden The Establishment media is in a frenzy about what they hope will be the downfall of Trump, but if the facts come out, it could be the downfall of Joe Biden instead, writes Ray McGovern.
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Thursday, June 1, 2017
Mad Dog Shows His Bite on Face the Nation When President-elect Donald Trump sent his talent scouts to the attack-dog kennel run by defense industry giant General Dynamics, in order to recruit former Marine General James "Mad Dog" Mattis to be secretary of defense, cries of apprehension were drowned out by smug one-percent reassurances.
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Friday, April 6, 2012
Render to Caesar, Extraordinarily On Good Friday, Christians observe the brutal torture and crucifixion of Jesus at the hands of Roman occupiers, but many modern Christians don't mind when it's "their" side doing the extraordinary renditions of alleged subversives to be tortured and sometimes killed.
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Saturday, May 22, 2010
Dirty Linen Gets Intel Chief Fired Former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern, weighs in on the firing of U.S. Intel Chief, Dennis Blair. "An incompetent manager? Seems so. But Blair also demonstrated a strain of integrity. And that can often be the kiss of death in Official Washington," writes McGovern.
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Sunday, April 20, 2014
Ukraine; Trying Not to Give Peace a Chance-- Again The trust between President Obama and President Putin helped avert a U.S. war on Syria and got Iran to agree to limit its nuclear program, but the neocon-driven crisis in Ukraine has dashed hopes of building on that success for a more peaceful world, Obama needs to tell the neocons within his own administration -- as well as John Kerry -- to cease and desist with their inflammatory rhetoric and their demands for confrontation
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Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Memorandum for: The President, Subject: WAR WITH IRAN We write to alert you to the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month, that Israeli leaders expect you to give unstinting support, include committing US troops and weapons. This can be stopped, but only if you move quickly to pre-empt an Israeli attack by publicly condemning such a move before it happens.
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Sunday, June 7, 2015
Obama's "G-1-plus-6" As much as President Obama needs President Putin's help on Syria, Iran and other global hotspots, he has fallen in line behind U.S. hardliners in seeking to ratchet up the confrontation over Ukraine and now is trying to bring the Europeans along at the G-7, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Thursday, May 16, 2019
Pretexts for an Attack on Iran Ray McGovern probes the step-up in U.S. belligerence towards a country posing the same non-existent strategic threat as Iraq.
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Friday, November 22, 2019
The Pitfalls of a Pit Bull Russophobe Like so many other glib "Russia experts" with access to Establishment media, Fiona Hill, who testified Thursday in the impeachment probe, seems three decades out of date.
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Tuesday, August 13, 2019
Rich's Ghost Haunts the Courts It is verboten to utter his name, but a lawsuit and possible declassification of NSA documents could get to the bottom of the Seth Rich controversy, says Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, August 27, 2013
The Broader Stakes of Syrian Crisis Though some intelligence analysts still doubt that the Syrian government launched a chemical attack, the political momentum for a U.S. retaliatory strike may be unstoppable. But the broader framework of the crisis involves the Israeli-Iranian dispute and the future of regional peace.
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Friday, July 13, 2018
Strzok Hoisted on His Own Petard FBI agent Peter Strzok may be soon "thrown under the bus" in the ongoing investigation into Clinton's emails and his alleged role in the Russia-gate investigation, comments Ray McGovern.
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Sunday, June 25, 2017
Intel Behind Trump's Syria Attack Questioned The mainstream media is so hostile to challenges to its groupthinks that famed journalist Seymour Hersh had to take his take-down of President Trump's April 6 attack on Syria to Germany, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Wednesday, May 30, 2012
The Moral Challenge of "Kill Lists" Although Obama vowed to "align the fight against Al Qaeda with American values," he has now ordered the obedient Brennan to prepare a top secret "nominations" list of people whom the President may decide to order killed, without charge or trial, including American citizens.
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Saturday, December 20, 2014
Torture's Time for Accountability America's reputation for cognitive dissonance is being tested by the Senate report documenting the U.S. government's torture of detainees and the fact that nothing is happening to those responsible. Ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern says the nation must choose between crossing the Delaware or the Rubicon.
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Monday, July 3, 2017
Russia-China Tandem Shifts Global Power Official Washington's arrogance in trying to push around Russia and China has pushed the two countries together, creating a dangerous new dynamic in international relations, explains ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Edward Snowden's Brave Integrity President Obama says he welcomes the debate on post-9/11 surveillance of Americans and the world, but that debate was only made meaningful by the disclosures of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who was then indicted and sought asylum in Russia, where he just met with some ex-U.S. intelligence officials, including Ray McGovern.
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Friday, October 10, 2014
A Murder Mystery at Guantanamo Bay America's plunge into the "dark side" last decade created a hidden history of shocking brutality, including torture and homicides, that the U.S. government would prefer to keep secret, even though many of the perpetrators are out of office, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Friday, September 30, 2016
Russia-Baiting and Risks of Nuclear War The propaganda war on Russia is spinning out of control with a biased investigation blaming Moscow for the MH-17 tragedy and angry exchanges over Syria, raising the risks of nuclear war, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Sunday, April 12, 2015
The Nasty Blowback from America's Wars There are historical warnings to countries that inflict violence abroad, that the imperial impulse will blow back on the domestic society with suppression of public debate and repression of common citizens, that the war will come home -- as is happening in the United States, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Friday, August 27, 2010
Obama Boxed In by Generals on Afghanistan The next two years are far more likely to witness a Donnybrook between the Pentagon and White House, as the security situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate and Petraeus -- now commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, with his vaunted reputation riding on success -- inevitably demands more troops.
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Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Pvt. Manning and Imperative of Truth The prosecution of Pvt. Bradley Manning for inconvenient truth-telling is more proof of how hypocritical Official Washington is, especially when Manning's case is compared to how Bush administration officials walked despite clear evidence that they sanctioned torture and other war crimes.
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Sunday, July 16, 2017
Moral Corrosion of Drone Warfare The U.S. government uses drones to eliminate risk to its soldiers and thus domestic opposition to war, but that heightens the moral imperative to challenge the remote-controlled killings, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Friday, May 1, 2015
The Lasting Pain from Vietnam Silence Many reflections on America's final days in Vietnam miss the point, pondering whether the war could have been won or lamenting the fate of U.S. collaborators left behind. The bigger questions are why did the U.S. go to war and why wasn't the bloodletting stopped sooner, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern reflects.
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Sunday, September 27, 2009
CIA Torturers Running Scared For the CIA supervisors and operatives who were responsible for torture, the chickens are coming home to roost. That is, if President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder mean it when they say no one is above the law — and if they have the courage to stand up to brazen intimidation ~ Ray McGovern
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Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Premature US Victory-Dancing on Ukraine The post-coup election of a pro-Western politician as president of Ukraine --- and the escalating slaughter of lightly armed anti-coup rebels in the east -- have created a celebratory mood in Official Washington, but the victory dance may be premature, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Should We Fall Again for "Trust Me"? Forgetting lessons from the Tonkin Gulf to the Iraq War, the U.S. news media has mostly elbowed past doubts about whether the Syrian government launched the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack and now is focused on the political drama of congressional approval for war, a big mistake.
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Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Bye-bye Biden The over-credulous Schiff founders and sinks. Schiff's main problem seems to have been his tendency to believe former CIA Director John Brennan. Schiff will sink with Brennan. Worse still, septuagenarian ineptitude could bring four more years of Donald Trump.
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Saturday, September 17, 2016
US Media Ignores CIA Cover-up on Torture A group of U.S. intelligence veterans chastises the mainstream U.S. media for virtually ignoring a British newspaper's account of the gripping inside story on how the CIA tried to block the U.S. Senate's torture investigation.
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Monday, October 3, 2016
Obama Warned to Defuse Tensions with Russia A group of ex-U.S. intelligence officials is warning President Obama to defuse growing tensions with Russia over Syria by reining in the demonization of President Putin and asserting White House civilian control over the Pentagon.
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Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Obama Caves to Israel Lobby On Tuesday morning Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, employed the indicative mood in describing the high value that Chas Freeman, his appointee to head the National Intelligence Council (NIC), will bring to the job-"his long experience and inventive mind," for example. By five o'clock in the afternoon, Freeman announced that he had asked that his selection "not proceed."
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Thursday, October 23, 2014
Citizenfour's Escape to Freedom in Russia An international community of resistance has formed against pervasive spying by the U.S. National Security Agency with key enclaves in Moscow (with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden) and in London (with WikiLeaks' Julian Assange), way stations visited by ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Merkel Urged to Temper NATO's Belligerence Before things get still worse, seasoned NATO leaders need to demonstrate a clear preference for statesmanship and give-and-take diplomacy over saber-rattling. Otherwise, some kind of military clash with Russia is likely, with the ever-present danger of escalation to a nuclear exchange.
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Sunday, June 26, 2011
Spirits of Justice Going to Gaza And so, all aboard "The Audacity of Hope." And what grand company I find myself in: Justice friends, old -- like Ann Wright, Medea Benjamin, Ken Mayers, Robert Naiman and Kathy Kelly -- and new -- like Alice Walker, Paki Wieland, Gale Courey Toensing, and dozens of others.
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Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Recalling the Slaughter of Innocents From the Archive: The quarter-century anniversary of an early U.S. war crime in Iraq passed largely unnoticed this week, the bombing of a civilian air-raid shelter in Baghdad during President George H.W. Bush's Persian Gulf War, an atrocity that killed more than 400 women and children, as Ray McGovern recalled in 2011.
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Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Ray McGovern: What Have Our Generals Been Up To? When top US generals were ordered to withdraw completely from Afghanistan they decided deliberately to make the withdrawal as messy as could be. How better to demonstrate that "civilian authority" does not know what it is doing and might even have to send some of the withdrawn military units, or new ones, back into Afghanistan.
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Friday, April 16, 2010
Lie to Congress; Get Fourth Star What has happened to the Army's senior officer corps is lamentable in the extreme. Taguba is right. And, with McChrystal and other star-studded generals being card-carrying members of what Taguba calls "the Mafia," the implications are far-reaching indeed.
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Wednesday, August 13, 2014
The Berlin Wall and Missed Opportunities The U.S. State Department's obsession with "information warfare" as a strategic weapon has made U.S. credibility one more casualty of the Ukraine crisis, along with any remaining trust in the mainstream U.S. media. It was not always thus, laments ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Saturday, June 27, 2020
UN Reporting on Torture of Assange Banned from Corporate Media Nils Melzer, UN Rapporteur on Torture, belatedly learned that Julian Assange was being tortured. Meltzer came to realize that he had been misled by the "news" about Assange in the Establishment media, so he did his own investigation.
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Sunday, May 21, 2017
Not Remembering the USS Liberty Desperately seeking some praise, President Trump surely won't remind Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu about the USS Liberty, which Israel nearly sank a half century ago killing 34 sailors.
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Friday, April 7, 2017
Die-Hard Dems on "Russia's Meddling" On Thursday I witnessed some imaginative bear hunting by PTSD-afflicted, Hillary-Should-Have-Won (HSHW) Democrats at the "progressive" Clinton/Podesta Center for American Progress Fund.
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Friday, November 1, 2019
First They Came For Max They had already come for Chelsea Manning; for Julian Assange; for John Kiriakou; for Jeffrey Sterling -- the list is longer still. Last Friday they came SWAT-Like for the founder and editor of thegrayzone.com, journalist Max Blumenthal, whom they arrested, cuffed, jailed, and shackled, and prevented immediate access to a lawyer.
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Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Anatomy of Bush's Torture 'Paradigm' The prose of the recently leaked report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on torture seems colorless. It is at the same time obscene - almost pornographic.
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Thursday, July 2, 2020
RAY McGOVERN: New York Times Deploys Heavy Gun to Back "Intel" on Russian Bounties After examining his record, New York Times readers should be skeptical of anything David Sanger writes, including his latest artful works of deception.
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Monday, November 14, 2022
Time to Act if the making of peace today means prison, that's where we need to be. It is time to accept our responsibility to do ALL we can to stop the violence of wars waged in our name. Now it's our turn to ponder those questions.
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Saturday, March 5, 2011
Pvt Manning: Is Army Aping Mafia? How better to demonstrate to other soldiers the punishment that one should expect -- being locked away in a tiny cell with minimal human contact for a half century or more -- should s/he be tempted to follow Manning's example. How better to divert attention from the damning substance of the WikiLeaks documents, and to focus attention instead on the supposed sins of releasing classified material.
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Monday, February 26, 2018
Growing Risk of U.S.-Iran Hostilities Based on False Pretexts, Intel Vets Warn As President Donald Trump prepares to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week, a group of U.S. intelligence veterans offers corrections to a number of false accusations that have been levelled against Iran.
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Friday, September 28, 2012
Netanyahu Backs Off on Iran While Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was belligerent in tone at the UN, he signaled a retreat on substance, postponing his threatened attack on Iran's nuclear sites. That suggests he is reading the U.S. polls and thinks he may have to deal with President Obama in a second term. Clearly, Netanyahu's bullying of recent weeks has backfired. It apparently has now run its course.
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Thursday, December 21, 2017
Intel Vets Tell Trump Iran Is Not Top Terror Sponsor A group of U.S. intelligence veterans urges President Trump to stop his administration's false claims about Iran being the leading state sponsor of terrorism when U.S. allies, such as Saudi Arabia. are clearly much guiltier.
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Sunday, November 16, 2014
How Many Islamic State Fighters Are There? As the United States slides back into war in the Middle East, the specter of Vietnam hovers over the endeavor with some observers wondering if wishful thinking will again replace hardheaded analysis about the risks and the costs, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012
US/Israel: Iran NOT Building Nukes Recent comments by U.S and Israeli military leaders indicate that the intelligence services of the two countries agree that Iran has not decided to build a nuclear bomb, a crack in the Western narrative that the U.S. press corps won't accept.
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Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Brennan Increasingly Desperate It is possible to regard this latest outrage as a kind of prophylactic: If Trump goes after Brennan, the former CIA chief can try to make it appear to be retaliation for "the goods Brennan has on Trump -- but (of course) cannot reveal in detail because of the sensitivity of 'sources and methods.'"
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Saturday, September 21, 2019
If Biden's Proven Corrupt, It's Trump's Fault The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal are desperately trying to steal the ball and get ahead in the publicity game. But time is about to run out, and pre-emptive propaganda is unlikely to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat. IF the facts do come out and IF they are reported, Biden's presidential hopes may suffer a mortal blow.
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Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Ro Khanna: Another "Progressive" for Regime Change "Saddam's gassing his own people" was such an effective rhetorical and emotional flourish against "the evil Iraqi dictator" that, a decade later, neocons (with nary a dent in their teflon armor from the fiasco in Iraq) tried it again, with "the evil Syrian dictator," Bashar al-Assad, the target this time.
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Monday, July 22, 2019
A Non-Hack That Raised Hillary's Hackles On the third anniversary of the release by WikiLeaks of the DNC emails, Ray McGovern looks back at how the DNC diverted the damaging contents into a trumped up conspiracy blaming Russia with no evidence at all.
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Monday, April 20, 2015
The West Snubs Russia over V-E Day Last year's U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine -- followed by violence and tensions -- has soured plans for the May 9 commemoration in Moscow of World War II's V-E Day, the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany, a war which cost the Russian people nearly 27 million dead, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern describes.
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Friday, May 8, 2015
Obama's Petulant WWII Snub of Russia Russia will celebrate the Allied victory over Nazism on Saturday without U.S. President Obama and other Western leaders present, as they demean the extraordinary sacrifice of the Russian people in winning World War II -- a gesture intended to humiliate President Putin, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Friday, February 21, 2014
Standing Up to War and Hillary Clinton From the Archive: Ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern has filed suit over an incident three years ago when he was roughly arrested for standing, back turned to Secretary of State Clinton as she gave a speech on the right to dissent. McGovern also was placed on a special watch list. He described his arrest in 2011.
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Friday, May 20, 2011
Obama, Tell Netanyahu -- Don't Mess With Flotilla to Gaza McGovern to Obama: "Before meeting with Netanyahu, have a look at what Isaiah says about "proclaiming liberty to captives and release to prisoners" and how Jesus of Nazareth repeats that, word for word, eight centuries later. Please give that some serious thought, and be prepared to put justice above politics."
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Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Seeing Syrian Crisis Through Russian Eyes While there is a glimmer of hope that international negotiations may finally find a way to resolve the Syrian war, there is also growing pressure on President Obama to escalate U.S. military involvement even if that risks a wider war with Russia, a danger that ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern assesses.
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Monday, December 3, 2012
Why to Say No to Susan Rice Like other myopic policymakers and spokespersons, Rice ignores the misery in Gaza and the West Bank because to do otherwise would cast her outside Official Washington's perceived wisdom, which holds that no smart politician or pundit confronts Israel too directly or too frequently.
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Thursday, May 17, 2012
Applying the Six-Day War to Iran America's neocons continue to beat the drums for war with Iran, brushing aside warnings even from Israeli intelligence veterans. Another part of the propaganda is to merge a future war against Iran with the heroic memories of the Six-Day War nearly 45 years ago.
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Tuesday, April 12, 2016
How an Iran War Was Averted A decade ago, the Bush administration was eager to bomb Iran but U.S. intelligence analysts challenged the casus belli by finding that Iran was not building a nuclear bomb, recalls ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, March 28, 2017
The Surveillance State Behind Russia-gate Amid the frenzy over the Trump team's talks with Russians, are we missing a darker story, how the Deep State's surveillance powers control the nation's leaders, ask U.S. intelligence veterans Ray McGovern and Bill Binney.
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Monday, September 8, 2008
Trickle-Down Preemption: Baghdad on the Mississippi Ten days ago, as the nation focused attention on the hurricane nearing the Mississippi delta, another storm was brewing far upstream in St. Paul, Minnesota - a storm far more dangerous, it turned out, but one by and large overlooked by the Fawning Corporate Media(FCM).
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Saturday, September 10, 2011
Bird-Dogging Torturers in NYC As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 nears, many ex-Bush administration officials who approved torture in the "war on terror" and botched the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are back in the spotlight taking bows from appreciative audiences in tightly controlled settings.
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Saturday, May 30, 2015
Resurgence of the "Surge" Myth Official Washington loves the story -- the Iraq War was failing until President George W. Bush bravely ordered a "surge" in 2007 that won the war, but President Obama squandered the victory, requiring a new "surge" now. Except the narrative is dangerous make-believe, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Thursday, May 5, 2011
What Has Bin Laden's Killing Wrought? While there is the possibility that the United States might finally begin to wind down a near-decade-long war in Afghanistan, there is the countervailing prospect of the United States consolidating an official policy of assassination and violence as the way to impose Washington's will on the Muslim world.
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Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Torture at 'Justice': Better Not to Ask All that is required is a mind-trick to convince ourselves that Jesus did not really mean to say what he said, that he did not really mean to do what he did in exposing the evils of empire. Sadly, help is at hand. It is easy to find a pastor preaching a domesticated Jesus -- an ahistorical Jesus far more interested in "piety" than justice.
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Tuesday, November 13, 2018
"Progressives" Rally to Protect Mueller; Prefer to Wait for Godot "Hope springs eternal." As MoveOn and other Democratic Party oriented organizations orchestrate preemptive demonstrations to protect Saint Robert Mueller and his endless investigation, it seems only fair to ask how much more time they think he needs. Is it not time to wind things up?
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Friday, August 9, 2019
"Kim.com" Comments on Seth Rich The evidence presented by Kim.com about Seth Rich can be verified or disproven if President Trump summons the courage to order the Director of NSA to dig out the relevant data, including the conversations to which Kim.com refers and if the NSA Director complies with the order (which, sadly, is not a foregone conclusion).
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Sunday, August 17, 2014
A USS Liberty Hero's Passing Silver Star winner Terry Halbardier, the hero who got off the SOS that saved the USS Liberty from Israeli destruction in 1967, died last week in California, prompting ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern to recall the murderous attack and the cowardly cover-up that followed.
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Friday, February 7, 2020
German TV Exposes the Lies That Entrapped Julian Assange A major German TV network has aired an interview with the UN rapporteur on torture that reveals the invention of the Swedish "rape" case against Julian Assange.
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Friday, August 12, 2016
Mike Morell's Kill-Russians Advice Washington's foreign policy hot shots are flexing their rhetorical, warmongering muscles to impress Hillary Clinton, including ex-CIA acting director Morell who calls for killing Russians and Iranians, notes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Is Israel fixing The intelligence to justify An attack On Iran? So far the "evidence" against Iran consists primarily of trust-me assertions by Mr. Netanyahu. The likelihood of hostilities with Iran before the presidential election in November is increasing. Beware of "fixed" intelligence.
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Thursday, December 11, 2008
Will Obama Buy Torture-Lite? You've got to hand it to them. Torture aficionados at the White House and CIA have conned key congressional leaders into insisting not only that torture-lite would be a swell idea, but advocating also that the overseers of torture be kept on.
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Friday, February 16, 2018
Russians Spooked by Nukes-Against-Cyber-Attack Policy New U.S. policy on nuclear retaliatory strikes for cyber-attacks is raising concerns, with Russia claiming that it's already been blamed for a false-flag cyber-attack -- namely the election hacking allegations of 2016, explain Ray McGovern and William Binney.
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Thursday, March 5, 2015
Gen. Petraeus: Too Big to Jail While lesser Americans face years in jail for leaking secrets -- even to inform fellow citizens of government abuses -- retired Gen. David Petraeus gets a misdemeanor wrist-slap for exposing covert officers and lying about it, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who was jailed just for trying to ask Petraeus a question.
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Saturday, August 23, 2014
Russia's Humanitarian "Invasion" Official Washington's war-hysteria machine is running at full speed again after Russia unilaterally dispatched a convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian supplies to the blockaded Ukrainian city of Luhansk, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Sunday, November 3, 2013
Clarifying Snowden's "Freedom" A common angle from the mainstream U.S. media is that NSA leaker Edward Snowden will regret his asylum in Russia (rather than life in prison in the U.S.). A quote from ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern was used in support of that theme, but he has asked the New York Times to clarify it.
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Thursday, June 12, 2014
How NSA Can Secretly Aid Criminal Cases Though the NSA says its mass surveillance of Americans targets only "terrorists," the spying may turn up evidence of other illegal acts that can get passed on to law enforcement which hides the secret source through a ruse called "parallel construction," writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Friday, September 6, 2019
Obama Was Almost Mousetrapped Into Another Open War in Syria: Will Trump Be Able to Resist Similar Mounting Pressure? It's all about Israel. The current danger is that Trump will countenance a skirmish with Iran, in order to help Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu do well enough in the Sept. 17 election to retain power and not incidentally stay out of jail.
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Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Is Texas Harboring Torture Decider? Seldom does a crime scene have so clear a smoking gun. A two-page presidential memorandum of Feb. 7, 2002, leaves no room for uncertainty regarding the "decider" on torture. His broad-stroke signature made torture official policy. This should come as no surprise. You see, the Feb. 7, 2002, memorandum has been posted on the Web since June 22, 2004, when then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales mistakenly released it...
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Thursday, May 6, 2010
Loose Lips on Iran Can Sink America Recently I have been looking on in disbelief as some of the same Democrats (and media personalities) who helped grease the skids for the unnecessary, unprovoked attack on Iraq, are doing a reprise -- changing the script from Iraq to Iran.
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Sunday, July 28, 2019
Tucker Carlson: No Holds Barred on Mueller and the Democrats On July 25, the day after Mueller appeared, Carlson's eight-minute commentary might as well have been labeled: "Have we now had our full of Schiff?" ***
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Saturday, May 9, 2020
RAY McGOVERN: Once We Were Allies; Then Came MICIMATT As the 75th anniversary of World War II's end is marked on Friday, few Americans know the Soviet Union's major role in that victory, making them vulnerable to today's anti-Russian messaging.
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Thursday, August 5, 2021
US Abroad: Color It Racist U.S. policy-makers are tinged with white supremacy and the benighted notion of U.S. "indispensability."Afghanistan neighbors would be well advised to expect U.S. resistance rather than cooperation, if/when they undertake a serious effort to seize this liminal opportunity for peace and reconstruction in Afghanistan.
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Monday, October 28, 2019
Thanks to a Soviet Navy Captain -- We Survived 1962 Captain Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov spared humanity from extinction on what has been called "the most dangerous moment in human history."
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Saturday, June 18, 2016
Talk in front of Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany Ray gave a talk in front of Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany, at the start of the ceremony concluding an anti-drone demonstration by 5,000 on June 10. The demonstrators had formed an 11.5-kilometer human chain linking them together as they marched from Kindsbach to Ramstein.
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Friday, December 23, 2016
Eunuchs vs Snowden House Intelligence Committee eunuchs defame Edward Snowden, in large part because he exposed their own complicity in what former NSA directors (predecessors of the malleable Dick-Cheney tool, Michael Hayden) publicly called "clear violations of the law."
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Monday, July 8, 2019
Ex-FBI, CIA Officials Draw Withering Fire on Russia-gate The Deep State almost always wins. But if Attorney General Barr leans hard on Trump to unfetter investigators, all hell may break lose, says Ray McGovern.
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Saturday, April 7, 2018
Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President... From the Archives: As President Trump faces opposition from his generals to pull U.S. troops from Syria, here's a look back to a similar fix another new president had gotten himself into, as Ray McGovern reported on March 28, 2009.
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Tuesday, June 21, 2022
Lithuanians Stick New Finger in Eye of Russian Bear The Lithuanians announced they were banning the rail transit of goods through Lithuania to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad - the ban went into effect on June 18.
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Monday, July 21, 2014
Kerry's Unenviable Record for Veracity Still arguing for war on Syria, Kerry was asked at the end of a Sept. 9 press conference in London whether there was anything at all that Assad could do to prevent a U.S. attack. Kerry answered (quite dismissively -- particularly in view of subsequent events) that Assad could give up all his chemical weapons, but "He isn't about to do that; it can't be done."
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Monday, March 28, 2011
Obama Muddling Thru Afghan War, But Not Clearly wo years after President Obama sank his feet deeper into the Big Muddy of Afghanistan, it's still not clear what the open-ended conflict is all about or who is really in charge. Clearly, adult supervision is lacking. It may be time to put out vacancy notices to solicit some help from grown-ups.
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Saturday, July 4, 2015
Still Waiting for USS Liberty's Truth During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli warplanes and warships tried to sink the USS Liberty, killing 34 of the spy ship's crew. Afterwards, U.S. and Israeli officials excused the attack as an unfortunate mistake and covered up evidence of willful murder, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.
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Wednesday, September 20, 2017
More Holes in Russia-gate Narrative New tests support the skepticism of U.S. intelligence veterans that Russia "hacked" the DNC's computers, pointing instead to a download of emails by an insider, write ex-NSA official William Binney and ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Saturday, August 11, 2018
Senator Richard Burr: a Longtime Fan of Torture Newly released declassified documents prove once and for all that CIA Director Gina Haspel oversaw torture in Thailand, which the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee knew all along, as Ray McGovern explains.
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Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Why Iran Distrusts the US in Nuke Talks The mainstream U.S. media portrays the Iran nuclear talks as "our good guys" imposing some sanity on "their bad guys." But the real history of the West's dealings on Iran's nuclear program shows bad faith by the U.S. government
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Friday, July 26, 2019
Mueller Agonistes: Over-the-Hill Marine Can't Take the Hill With the Democrats, it was still more of the gift that won't stop giving -- giving, that is, to Trump and his prospects for a second term. The emotionally and physically crestfallen, often stumbling witness was a far cry from the lusted-after Deus ex Mueller the Democrats had been hoping would magically appear and rescue the ruse.
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Saturday, January 3, 2015
Rebuilding the Obama-Putin Trust Heading into the last quarter of his presidency, Barack Obama must decide whether he will let the neocons keep pulling his strings or finally break loose and pursue a realistic foreign policy seeking practical solutions to world problems, including the crisis with Russia over Ukraine, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Monday, June 22, 2020
Putin Tries to Set Record Straight Like almost all Americans, I cannot begin to know, in any adequate sense, what it is actually like to be part of a society with a history of being repeatedly invaded and/or occupied whether from East or West.
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Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Presumptuous Pompeo Pushes Preposterous "Peking" Policy A rant by Mike Pompeo regarding what the U.S. should do with China led to a fruitful exchange between an old China, and an old Soviet hand, writes Ray McGovern.
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Saturday, December 28, 2013
Gen. Michael "No Probable Cause" Hayden Ex-NSA chief Michael Hayden, who once declared that "probable cause" is not part of the Fourth Amendment, is sure to hurl more stones at NSA leaker Edward Snowden, especially after a New York judge endorsed the NSA's "metadata" as legal, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Monday, July 8, 2013
Obama Needs To Take Charge On NSA Spying Scandal With most Americans thinking of themselves as non-terrorists, and opposing eavesdropping on them, Obama could draw on a reservoir of support. Clapper, after all, has already apologized for lying under oath, and it is an open secret that Alexander, too, has lied to Congress. It's in Obama's best interests to demonstrate that even Alexander cannot escape accountability for unconstitutional steps to "keep us safe."
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Thursday, July 4, 2019
North Korea, Bolton, Pompeo, and the Rapture The CrossTalk discussion on DMZ diplomacy and possible next steps addressed the main substantive points, as well as the obstacles like the already too-long tenure of John Bolton and Mike Pompeo.
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Monday, May 16, 2022
Ray McGovern: The Real Possibility of Nuclear War Over Ukraine - Antiwar.com Blog The Veterans for Peace Nuclear Abolition Working Group was honored to present an important talk by Ray McGovern, who discussed the origins of the war in Ukraine and how it could too easily escalate into a nuclear war.
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Tuesday, February 3, 2015
A Pointed Letter to Gen. Petraeus As retired Gen. and ex-CIA Director David Petraeus was about to speak in New York City last Oct. 30, someone decided to spare the "great man" from impertinent questions, so ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern was barred, arrested and brought to trial, prompting McGovern to ask some questions now in an open letter.
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Monday, November 13, 2017
Mocking Trump Doesn't Prove Russia's Guilt President Trump is getting mocked for "trusting" Vladimir Putin's denial about "meddling" in U.S. politics -- and not accepting Official Washington's groupthink -- but ridicule isn't evidence, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Divining the Truth about Iran Like before the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. news media is flooding Americans with alarmist accounts about Iran's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. Even when U.S. officials suggest nuance and caution, the media ignores the signals
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Sunday, April 17, 2016
Is Hillary Clinton Above the Law? Secretary of State Clinton was harsh on subordinates who were careless with classified information, but those rules apparently weren't for her, a troubling double standard, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Saturday, August 20, 2011
Lemmingly, We Roll Along When soldiers die, the politicians who sent them to their deaths typically use euphemisms and circumlocutions -- like "lost," "fallen," or "ultimate sacrifice." On one level, the avoidance of blunt language can be seen as a sign of respect, but on another, it is just one more evasion of responsibility for the snuffing out of young lives.
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Sunday, September 29, 2019
Red "Whistleblowing" Herrings There has been serious mischief -- and worse -- when intelligence analysts, sitting side-by-side with policy makers, slip into the role of policy maker, blurring the lines and letting their own political/ideological views (and/or the views of those who "detailed" them) intrude inappropriately on policy making.
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Saturday, May 27, 2017
Europe May Finally Rethink NATO Costs his speculative article suggests that, eventually, the dunning of NATO nations to chip more money into the military alliance may inadvertently cause some Europeans to rethink the over-the-top anti-Russian propaganda and the need for all that money for the arms makers and arms dealers.
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Tuesday, December 14, 2010
'Giant' Holbrooke Failed on Afghan War There will be many more dead and wounded in Afghanistan and Pakistan by the time you read this. Sadly, Holbrooke is one of the Establishment "giants" responsible. The esteemed Holbrooke, who died from a ruptured aorta at the age of 69, has already garnered much praise and attention. Do those to be killed and wounded today in "Af-Pak" -- many much closer to the beginning of their lives -- also merit some mention?
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Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Reich Recommends Re-set to 'Nullify' Trump and all his works and all his pomps! No half-measures. Great idea; now Mueller has to come up with the goods
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Monday, May 11, 2020
RAY McGOVERN: New House Documents Sow Further Doubt That Russia Hacked the DNC For two and a half years the House Intelligence Committee knew CrowdStrike didn't have the goods on Russia. Now the public knows too.
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Thursday, January 8, 2009
Obama Picks a Conscience for the CIA At long last. Change we can believe in. In choosing Leon Panetta to take charge of the CIA, President-elect Barak Obama has shown he is determined to put an abrupt end to the lawlessness and deceit with which the administration of George W. Bush has corrupted intelligence operations and analysis.
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Saturday, August 14, 2021
Hold the Generals Accountable This Time If, after the horrors of this week in Afghanistan, the four-Starry-eyed generals responsible for this 20-year March of Folly are not held accountable, there will be still worse to come. None were held accountable for the disasters of Vietnam or Iraq, and now the allegedly smart four-Star Generals and Admirals are -- get this -- preparing for war with China and Russia.
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Tuesday, December 28, 2021
What! No Russian Invasion of Ukraine? Biden voiced deep concern about "Russia's escalation of forces surrounding Ukraine" and called for "de-escalation and a return to diplomacy".
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Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Obama's Legacy But Clinton's Judgment President Obama calls on blacks to vote for Hillary Clinton to protect the first black president's legacy, but there are questions about Clinton's judgment and Obama's legacy that deserve answers, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Wednesday, August 31, 2016
When Putin Bailed Out Obama As pressure again builds on President Obama to attack Syria and press a new Cold War with Russia, the extraordinary events of three years ago after a sarin attack near Damascus are worth revisiting, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Monday, June 17, 2019
FBI Never Saw CrowdStrike Unredacted or Final Report on Alleged Russian Hacking Because None was Produced The FBI relied on CrowdStrike's "conclusion" to blame Russia for hacking DNC servers, though the private firm never produced a final report and the FBI never asked them to, as Ray McGovern explains.
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Saturday, April 11, 2020
What if Ignored Covid-19 Warnings Had Been Leaked to WikiLeaks? Julian Assange was arrested one year ago on Saturday and sent to Belmarsh Prison where he still languishes, a symbol of the Empire's oppression.
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Thursday, June 28, 2012
How Iran Might See the Threats Hard-headed realism and outside-the-box thinking might be needed to avert another catastrophe in the Middle East, this time an Israeli attack on Iran and the unpredictable consequences. In that light, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern imagines a bleak report that an Iranian intelligence officer might report back to Tehran.
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Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Barr Blasts Inspector General For Whitewashing FBI Barr took unusually strong public issue with Horowitz's conclusion that there was adequate reason to mount an FBI investigation of the Trump campaign and suspected ties to Russia.
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Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Barack Obama: No Jack Kennedy A half century ago -- at the peak of the Cold War -- President Kennedy appealed to humankind's better nature in a daring overture to Soviet leaders, a gamble that brought bans on nuclear testing and a safer world, a bravery that President Obama can't seem to muster, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Saturday, July 9, 2016
The Warfare Comes Home The recent killings in Baton Rouge, Minneapolis and Dallas recall the racial violence of the 1960s which also occurred against a backdrop of U.S. warfare, a parallel that ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern notes.
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Sunday, January 6, 2019
Transcript: When Clapper Was Asked Real Questions Clapper's remarks in November at the Carnegie Endowment cannot be described as entertaining, but they are highly revealing particularly the things he admits to in hawking his memoir, Facts and Fears: Hard Truths From a Life in Intelligence. Hard truths indeed.
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Thursday, January 15, 2015
"Justice" Hidden Behind a Screen Behind a physical (and perhaps metaphorical) screen, the U.S. government is putting on its case to pin ten felony charges on ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling for allegedly leaking secrets to a U.S. journalist about a risky and convoluted covert op against Iran, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern reports.
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Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Punishing Another Whistleblower Just weeks after ex-CIA Director David Petraeus got a no-jail-time wrist-slap for divulging secrets to his biographer/lover, ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling got 42 months in prison for allegedly alerting a U.S. journalist to a dubious covert op, a double standard of justice, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Friday, July 18, 2014
Facts Needed on Malaysian Plane Shoot-Down As usual, the mainstream U.S. media is rushing to judgment over the crash of a Malaysian airliner in war-torn eastern Ukraine, but the history of U.S. government's deceptions might be reason to pause and let a careful investigation uncover the facts, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Sunday, December 14, 2014
Clashing Face-to-Face on Torture It's rare on TV when you see two former senior U.S. officials clashing angrily over something as significant as torture. Usually decorum prevails. But ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern wasn't going to let the ex-House intelligence oversight chief get away with a bland defense of torture, as McGovern recounts.
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Monday, September 28, 2009
Intelligence Veterans Urge President to Authorize Wider CIA Probe A dozen U.S. intelligence veterans urge President Obama to reject a call from seven ex-CIA directors to stop a torture probe.
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Sunday, October 4, 2015
The Hope Behind Putin's Syria Help President Obama insists on looking the gift horse of Russian military help for Syria's embattled government in the mouth. Rather than welcome assistance in blocking a Sunni extremist victory, Obama bends to the neocons and liberal hawks, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.
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Monday, June 15, 2020
RAY McGOVERN: How an Internet "Persona" Helped Birth Russiagate Guccifer 2.0 turns four years old today and the great diversion he took part in becomes clearer by the day, writes Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Harassing the Whistleblowers Food and Drug Administration officials reacted to suspected whistleblowing by some of its scientists, about excessive radiation from medical imaging devices, by spying on several. But the larger issue is the need to alert the public to unnecessary risks.
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Monday, June 12, 2017
NBC's Kelly Hits Putin with a Beloved Canard To prove their chops, mainstream media stars can't wait to go head-to-head with a demonized foreign leader, like Vladimir Putin, and let him have it, even if their "facts" are wrong, as Megyn Kelly showed and Ray McGovern explains.
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Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Russia Reads US Bluster as Sign of War As U.S. politicians and pundits have fun talking tough about Russia and demonizing President Putin, they are missing signs that Moscow isn't amused and is preparing for actual conflict, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Will Congress Face Down the Deep State? The House Intelligence Committee's vote on Monday to release a memorandum describing alleged malfeasance at the DOJ and the FBI could test constitutional principles
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Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling, Who Went Through Kafkaesque Trial, Wins 2020 Sam Adams Award Ray McGovern reviews the case of CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling, who spent more than two years in jail, and the decision to award him the 2020 Sam Adams award.
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Thursday, January 11, 2018
The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate In the Watergate era, liberals warned about U.S. intelligence agencies manipulating U.S. politics, but now Trump-hatred has blinded many of them to this danger becoming real, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern notes.
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Wednesday, February 15, 2017
German Intel Clears Russia on Interference Mainstream U.S. media only wants stories of Russian perfidy, so when German intelligence cleared Moscow of suspected subversion of German democracy, the silence was deafening, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Thursday, May 12, 2022
US Counting On Putin To Signal Before Using Nukes Putin will probably first signal "beyond what he has done thus far" before using nukes. Right!
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Wednesday, March 7, 2018
"Progressive" Journalists Jump the Shark on Russiagate A lack of skepticism has characterized much of the reporting on Russiagate, with undue credibility being given to questionable sources like the Steele dossier, and now progressives like Jane Mayer and Cenk Uygur are joining the bandwagon, Ray McGovern observes.
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Saturday, May 20, 2017
The Gaping Holes of Russia-gate Between Russia-gate and President Trump's potential impeachment, Washington is blending the thrill of McCarthyism and the excitement of Watergate, as ex-U.S. intelligence officials Ray McGovern and William Binney explain.
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Thursday, March 5, 2009
Iran in the Crosshairs President Barack Obama's first major international crisis may be provoked by Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu's determination to strike at Iran's nuclear facilities, say Gareth Porter and Ray McGovern.
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Monday, September 17, 2012
Why the Mideast Exploded, Really The new conventional wisdom, in the wake of angry protests roiling the Middle East, is that Muslims are either way too sensitive or irrational. How else to explain the fury over an offensive anti-Islam video? But the video was just the spark that ignited a long-smoldering fire.
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Friday, December 28, 2018
Russia-gate For Dummies There is a lot of truth in alternative media; but we don't get on TV or in "mainstream" newspapers, so becoming better informed requires some extra effort. Remember, years after the 2003 attack on Iraq, 70 percent of those in the U.S. still believed what the media led them to believe -- that Saddam Hussein played a role in 9/11; the percentage believing today in Russia-gate seems to be about the same.
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Friday, November 21, 2014
CIA's Torturous Maneuvers on Torture The CIA is fighting congressional demands to release a report on its covert program for torturing "war on terror" suspects, even as the spy agency contemplates a reorganization that could give the covert-action side more ways to bend the truth, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Saturday, March 28, 2009
Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President Former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern, responds to President Obama's decision for a military escalation in Afghanistan, a path that parallels Vietnam.
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Friday, June 19, 2009
Ray McGovern: Why single-payer health insurance is close to his heart Ray McGovern shares an intimate experience that has moved him to "promote single-payer health insurance as the only real way to get everyone covered."
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Monday, September 19, 2022
Putin - Terrorists Near Russian Nuclear Power Plants It is a war led by the United States against Russia which now features daily rocket attacks on more and more border towns on the Russian side.
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Sunday, October 30, 2016
Putin-Obama trust evaporates The U.S.-led coalition air strikes on known Syrian army positions killing scores of troops just five days into the September cease-fire -- not to mention statements at the time by the most senior U.S. generals -- were evidence enough to convince the Russians that the Pentagon was intent on scuttling meaningful cooperation with Russia.
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Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Obama's Super-Bowl Fumble on Iran In a televised interview before the Super Bowl, President Obama had the chance to send a clear signal to Israel not to launch a preemptive war against Iran but instead offered ambiguous remarks that Israeli hard-liners might read as a partial green light.
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Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Queen's Counsel Charges vs Assange "Significantly Overwrought" The CIA and Pentagon are saying, in effect, "Trust Us." What could possibly go wrong? - aside from a publisher of accurate information spending the rest of his life in prison.
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Wednesday, July 2, 2014
The Risk of a Ukraine Bloodbath Pressured by neocons and the mainstream U.S. media, the Obama administration is charting a dangerous course by seeking a military solution to Ukraine's political crisis and possibly provoking Moscow to intervene to protect ethnic Russians, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern warns.
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Sunday, October 18, 2015
Fox News: Giving the Nod to a Wannabe CIA Con Man Wayne Shelby Simmons, convinced Fox News and defense contractors that he was part of CIA's "outside paramilitary special operations group," and had led "Deep Cover Intel Ops." Alas, the "credentials" Simmons claimed proved as hard to verify as claims of WMD in Iraq. On Thursday he was accused of making false statements and major fraud against the United States, arrested, and jailed.
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Thursday, June 7, 2018
Still Waiting for Evidence of a Russian Hack More than two years after the allegation of Russian hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential election was first made, conclusive proof is still lacking and may never be produced, says Ray McGovern.
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Thursday, December 13, 2018
Yes, Virginia, There Is a Deep State and Bob Parry Exposed It In his efforts to uncover the Iran-Contra plot and the machinations surrounding Russia-gate, Bob Parry was in the forefront of journalists exposing the inner workings of the Deep State, recalls Ray McGovern during our Winter Fund Drive.
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Monday, October 10, 2022
Relentless: JFK on Cuba - Putin on Ukraine Biden did well to cite the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and compare it to the 2022 crisis in Ukraine. The analogy is apt. Whether the President understands the important implications is not so clear.
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Monday, March 16, 2020
Ray McGovern to Joe Biden: Time for Confession This piece, written by Ray McGovern for Consortium News 12 years ago, is unfortunately as relevant now regarding Joe Biden as it was then
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Monday, August 15, 2022
Will China Mess With US Warships Headed For Taiwan Strait? Would the Chinese expect Russia to have their back so to speak if they moved to interdict or harass US warships in the Strait? I believe they would expect that.
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Saturday, August 8, 2020
RAY McGOVERN: What Scowcroft Failed to Do Brent Scowcroft badly served his friend George H. W. Bush on Iraq by not doing all he could to stop Bush's son from committing a war of aggression, writes Ray McGovern, who used to brief H.W.
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Thursday, April 22, 2021
Putin Isn't Bluffing on Ukraine Russian President Vladimir Putin's stern warning not to cross what he called Russia's "red line" needs to be taken seriously.
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Saturday, March 4, 2017
Another Hatchet Job on Snowden The hatchet jobs against NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden keep on coming with a new book whose author says he applied James Angleton's counterintelligence techniques to Snowden, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Saturday, April 29, 2017
Former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern on the CIA's History of Disseminating Faulty Intelligence Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer and McGovern discuss the agency's influence during the Vietnam War and the role it now plays in America's perception of Russia.
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Friday, August 17, 2018
Trump Strikes Back at 'Ringleader' Brennan At war with current and former intelligence officials since before he was elected, Donald Trump on Wednesday moved to strip Barack Obama's CIA chief of his security clearance, though worse may be in store for John Brennan, says Ray McGovern.
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Thursday, February 22, 2018
My First Day as CIA Director Former CIA analyst and founder of Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Ray McGovern, in this tongue-in-cheek article, outlines steps he would take on Day One as CIA Director to get to the bottom of Russiagate.
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Tuesday, May 19, 2020
RAY McGOVERN: Turn Out the Lights, Russia-gate is Over The possibility that Trump will not chicken out this time, and rather will challenge the Security State looms large since he felt personally under attack.
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Saturday, August 22, 2020
RAY McGOVERN: Catapulting Russian-Meddling Propaganda The New York Times is leading the full-court press to improve on what it regards as Special Counsel Robert Mueller's weak-kneed effort to blame the Russians for giving us Donald Trump.
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Thursday, April 28, 2011
Petraeus: Can He Tell It Straight? the kind of intelligence analysis that, at times, could challenge the military, why is he giving the CIA job to a general with a huge incentive to gild the lily regarding the "progress" made under his command?
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Monday, July 1, 2019
Hope for a Breakthrough in Korea Trump will have to remind his national security adviser, John Bolton, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, that he is the president and that he intends to take a firmer grip on reins regarding Korean policy. Given their maladroit performance on both Iran and Venezuela, it would, at first blush, seem easy to jettison the two super-hawks.
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Saturday, September 14, 2013
How War on Syria Lost Its Way What looked like another U.S. march to war in the Mideast has turned in the direction of a peaceful settlement that carries hope of not only getting Syria to relinquish its chemical weapons but achieving a cease-fire and negotiations to end the civil war. But some parties want to resume the drive toward a U.S. attack.
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Monday, October 14, 2019
The New York Times' Preemptive Reporting on James Comey With the Justice Dept's coming inspector general report that could find serious wrongdoing by former FBI director James Comey and other senior officials the Times runs a glowing defense of Comey.
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Monday, April 6, 2009
Holder and Powell Ain't Misbehavin' I used to take a certain pride by association with prominent Bronxites who have "made it." Cancel that for Attorney General Eric Holder and former secretary of state Colin Powell. Why would they want to whitewash torture, given what blacks have suffered at the hands of torturers in this country and abroad?
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Sunday, July 5, 2020
RAY McGOVERN: Mutiny on the Bounties Has there been another mutiny in Trump's White House, as Obama's former ambassador to Russia piles on the nonsense about Trump being in Putin's pocket?
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Thursday, January 10, 2019
Don't Major In Political Science The twin travels around the Middle East of Secretary of State Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton would be high comedy, were killing and destruction some kind of game. They are on tour to 'splain to U.S. vassal states what their boss really meant about withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria.
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Tuesday, August 24, 2021
War Criminals Welcome at Fordham Law? - Ray McGovern John Rizzo, the CIA's top lawyer, who gave the green light for torture, is dead.
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Monday, February 14, 2011
Mourning Iraqi Wives, Children on Valentine's Day As we celebrate this year's Valentine's Day and other holidays that stress love and peace, let's keep in mind that more painful anniversaries must also be marked; they must be witnessed to; attention must be paid to the plight of "small" people still further diminished by the euphemism "collateral damage."
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Tuesday, February 22, 2022
What Accounts for Putin's Assertiveness on Ukraine? Nothing will happen on either Ukraine or Taiwan without coordination between Beijing and Moscow seems to be key to understanding why Putin is 'feeling his oats'.
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Monday, March 12, 2018
NBC's Clueless Boost for Putin With the Russian president in the heat of a re-election campaign, Putin sat down to talk with NBC's Megyn Kelly for an interview that enabled him to burnish his credentials to the Russian electorate, Ray McGovern explains.
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Friday, June 2, 2017
Hiding the Ugly Business of Torture A grisly feature of the "war on terror" was America's descent into torture, but the powers-that-be have decided that the common folk shouldn't worry their little heads about this ugliness
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Wednesday, July 31, 2019
DNI Nominee Intent on Getting to Bottom of Russiagate Attorney General Bill Barr will have a new deputy sheriff to go after those responsible for Russia-gate, if John Ratcliffe is confirmed as new DNI, as Ray McGovern explains.
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Saturday, July 1, 2017
What Trump Can Expect from Putin President Trump will have his first meeting with President Putin at a time of dangerous U.S.-Russian tensions, amid demands to "get tough," but ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern, a former presidential briefer, urges Trump to see Putin's side.
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Monday, September 9, 2013
Time to Reveal US Intel on Syria Countering growing opposition to plans for bombing Syria, the White House dispatched Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to the Sunday talk shows. But the choice underscored the Obama administration's credibility problems and raised new doubts about the case for war.
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Sunday, May 17, 2015
William And Mary Honors War Criminal Condoleezza Rice has crossed the threshold into esteemed celebrity -- a welcomed speaker at this year's College of William and Mary commencement -- despite her record as the liar who sold the illegal war in Iraq and choreographed torture at CIA "black sites," writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, January 26, 2016
The Iraq War's Known Unknowns In September 2002, as the Bush-43 administration was rolling out its ad campaign for invading Iraq because of alleged WMD, the Joint Chiefs of Staff received a briefing about the paucity of WMD evidence. But the report was shelved and the war went on, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.
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Saturday, March 10, 2018
Gang of Four: Senators Call for Tillerson to Enter into Arms Control Talks with the Kremlin Four United States senators are urging a new approach to U.S.-Russian relations based on renewed arms control efforts, but you probably haven't heard about it from the mainstream media, Gilbert Doctorow and Ray McGovern report.
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Thursday, April 19, 2018
On the Criminal Referral of Comey, Clinton et al: Will the Constitution Hold and Media Continue to Suppress the Story? Ray McGovern reports on a major development in the Russia-gate story that has been ignored by corporate media: a criminal referral to the DOJ against Hillary Clinton, James Comey and others, exposing yet again how established media suppresses news it doesn't like--about as egregious an example of unethical journalism as there is.
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Tuesday, January 3, 2017
Obama's Deadly Afghan Acquiescence From his first days, President Obama showed a lack of guts when confronted by powerful insiders. He backed down even when that meant squandering U.S. soldiers in the futile Afghan War "surges," says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Sorting Out the Facts about Iran Neocons, including the Washington Post's editors, keep playing games with the facts regarding Iran's nuclear program. The plan apparently is to guide the United States into a military confrontation whether President Obama and the American people want one or not.
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Thursday, October 12, 2023
"Can you give a brief synopsis of what's happening in Israel?" Answer to a Close Friend on Palestine Sorry, this is as brief as I can make it.
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Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Did Sen. Warner and Comey "Collude" on Russia-gate? The U.S. was in talks for a deal with Julian Assange but then FBI Director James Comey ordered an end to negotiations after Assange offered to prove Russia was not involved in the DNC leak, as Ray McGovern explains.
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Saturday, July 18, 2020
RAY McGOVERN: Powell & Iraq -- The Uses and Abuses of National Intelligence Estimates A NYT Magazine piece on Colin Powell and the case to invade Iraq highlights an NIE that was prepared not to determine the truth, but rather to "justify" preemptive war on Iraq where there was nothing to preempt.
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Friday, February 6, 2009
Leon Panetta Makes Nice "I am a creature of Congress," said Leon Panetta with a broad smile, which was returned by equally wide smiles from members of the Senate intelligence committee meeting yesterday to consider his nomination to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency.I really wish he hadn't said that. For that sobriquet fits the worst of the worst, so to speak, of former CIA directors-the tarnished Medal of Freedom awardee, George Tenet.
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Thursday, March 24, 2022
Will Humans Be the Next 'Freedom Fries'? The Pentagon may boast about its formidable offensive strategic capabilities but it has no way to protect us from a Russian nuclear attack.
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Sunday, October 11, 2015
How CNN Shapes Political Debate CNN was happy to add a right-wing questioner for the Republican debate but won't add a progressive for the Democratic debate, another sign of how the "mainstream media" shapes what's acceptable in political discussion, a lesson that ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern has learned from personal experience.
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Thursday, May 26, 2016
Clinton's Imperious Brush-off of Email Rules The State Department's Inspector General issued a blunt report criticizing Hillary Clinton's imperious refusal to follow email rules as Secretary of State, adding to Clinton's credibility problem, notes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Monday, April 4, 2022
The Late-Deceased Paradigm on Russia/China Rapprochement between Russia and China has grown to entente - someone needs to tell Biden.
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Thursday, September 30, 2010
Obama-Men: Innocents Abroad; Politicos at Home Before reading through Woodward's book, the excerpts already published had left doubts in my mind that the Obama White House could be host to such an amateurish decision-process-without-real-process. I had seen a lot of White House fecklessness in my 30 years in intelligence analysis, but it was, frankly, hard to believe that it could be so bad this time.
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Saturday, April 17, 2021
Afghanistan: "White Man's Burden" Lifted? You did not have to go through the crucible of Vietnam to discern how Americans, including some presidents, were being misled on Afghanistan.
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Monday, October 1, 2012
Silence of the Drones Even as the United States has withdrawn from Iraq and has begun to wind down the Afghan War, the lethal reach of the U.S. military has been extended into other countries through Predator drones. What is less known is the full human and political costs.
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Thursday, September 13, 2018
On the Brink with Russia in Syria Again, 5 Years Later It's deja-vu all over again in Syria, with the U.S. on the verge of a confrontation with Russia as Donald Trump faces his biggest decision yet as president, comments Ray McGovern.
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Friday, August 21, 2009
Unwritten Death Contract Awarded to Blackwater Hats off to Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times for ferreting out what it was that sent CIA Director Leon Panetta scurrying over to Congress in late June.
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Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Not Explaining the Why of Terrorism President Obama signed a U.S.-Afghan strategic agreement on May 1, committing U.S. combat forces to withdraw by the end of 2014 while leaving behind U.S. counter-terrorism teams for another decade. But Obama and his aides still duck a full debate over the causes of terrorism.
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Thursday, January 31, 2013
When Truth Tried to Stop War The year 2013 is the one-decade anniversary of the U.S. political/media system's failure to stop a criminal President from launching a war of aggression on Iraq. It was a shameful time when only a few brave individuals, like the U.K.'s Katharine Gun, did the right thing.
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Saturday, March 17, 2018
Ides of March 2018 UK Radio Hosts Ray McGovern on front-burner, immediate Issues.
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Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Trump's Timidity is Letting Comey Off the Hook With just a few days left before Congress adjourns, House Republicans, like their President, have pretty much let the clock run out. There's little chance now in "taking on the intelligence community," says Ray McGovern.
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Sunday, June 8, 2014
Leaving the USS Liberty Crew Behind Justifying the swap of Taliban prisoners for Sgt. Bergdahl, President Obama cited a principle of never leaving U.S. soldiers behind, but that rule was violated in the shabby treatment of the USS Liberty crew, attacked 47 years ago by Israeli warplanes, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Monday, September 26, 2016
CIA Whistleblower Kiriakou Honored for Integrity The U.S. government gives free passes to officials who commit war crimes but imprisons whistleblowers who tell the truth, a fate that befell CIA's John Kiriakou for disclosing torture. But he was honored by some ex-intelligence officers, reports Ray McGovern.
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Friday, May 22, 2009
Cheney: Support for Israel Feeds Terrorism Former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern writes,"If we hear in the coming days that former Vice President Dick Cheney has fired one of his speechwriters - or perhaps grounded Lynne or Liz - it will be clear why. Oozing out of the sleazy speech he gave Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute was an inadvertent truth regarding the Israeli albatross hanging around the neck of U.S. policy in the Middle East."
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Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Afghanistan for Dummies I'm going to ask for my money back. I've seen this Afghanistan movie before. The first time, Vietnam was in the title. As in an early scene from the Vietnam version, U.S. military officials are surprised to discover that the insurgents in Afghanistan are stronger than previously realized.
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Thursday, May 20, 2021
Will Biden Stay in Bibi's Pocket? Will Netanyahu see President Biden as a wimp, with Biden's mealy-mouthed comment that he "expects to see a significant de-escalation on the path to a ceasefire" in Gaza
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Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Musharraf Out, Like Nixon; Bush Still In, Like Flynn Most of the fawning corporate media (FCM) coverage of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's resignation Monday was even more bereft of context than usual.
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Sunday, May 27, 2018
How to Honor Memorial Day From the Archive: Memorial Day should be a time of sober reflection on war's horrible costs, not a moment to glorify war. But many politicians and pundits can't resist the opportunity, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains in this updated commentary from 2015.
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Thursday, May 5, 2016
A Need to Clear Up Clinton Questions As the Democrats glumly line up for Hillary Clinton's belated coronation, the risk remains of potential criminal charges over her Libyan testimony or her careless emails, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern describes.
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Sunday, August 20, 2017
Truth and Lives vs. Career and Fame As President Trump considers sending more troops to Afghanistan, it's worth recalling the modern U.S. dynamic of politicians and generals making misguided judgments about war, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Wednesday, April 7, 2021
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity on Avoiding War in Ukraine - Antiwar.com Blog We wish to draw your attention to the dangerous situation that exists in Ukraine today, where there is growing risk of war unless you take steps to forestall such a conflict.
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Sunday, July 18, 2021
The Guardian: Regurgitating the Russia-Gate Canard Luke Harding and two other Guardian hired hands -- Julian Borger and Dan Sabbagh -- spin quite a tale aboutt. Putin ordering various Russian intelligence agencies to help an impulsive and "mentally unstable" Trump to become president.
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Saturday, December 1, 2018
The Bushes: Fathers and Sons (With Apologies to Turgenev) In a story worthy of the great Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev, in the Bushes' case the sins of the son were visited upon the father, who neglected an opportunity to stop them from happening, as Ray McGovern explains.
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Saturday, March 3, 2018
Putin Claims Strategic Parity, Respect Vladimir Putin's announcement of new weapons systems to achieve nuclear parity was the result of the erosion of arms control regimes, such as the ill-advised U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty in 2002, Ray McGovern explains.
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Tuesday, January 8, 2019
A Look Back at Clapper's Jan. 2017 "Assessment" on Russia-gate On the 2nd anniversary of the "assessment" blaming Russia for "collusion" with Trump there is still no evidence other than showing the media "colluded" with the spooks, says Ray McGovern.
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Friday, March 11, 2016
Hillary's Hypocrisy: Silent Protester Assaulted and Ejected from Speech Hillary Clinton on Thursday said she was "distraught and appalled" in response to Wednesday's assault on a protestor at a Donald Trump rally. In an interview with Rachel Maddow she stated that security at these events should handle demonstrators in an "appropriate manner," and defended the right to protest. She called the event "distressing."
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Wednesday, May 2, 2018
Robert Mueller: Gone Fishing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's strategy may be to try to lure Donald Trump into perjury when Mueller can already get all the answers to his questions from the NSA, say Ray McGovern and Bill Binney.
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Monday, February 4, 2013
Colin Powell: Conned or Con-Man? A decade ago, President George W. Bush was hurtling toward an aggressive war against a country not threatening the United States. Only a few people had a chance to stop the rush to war with Iraq, but one -- Colin Powell -- instead joined the stampede.
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Friday, March 18, 2016
Behind the Crimea/Russia Reunion Official Washington marches in propaganda lockstep about Crimea's decision to rejoin Russia two years ago, with references to a Russian "invasion" and a "sham" referendum of Crimea's voters, but the reality is different, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Intel Committee Rejects Basic Underpinning of Russiagate The assumption underpinning Russiagate -- that Vladimir Putin preferred Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton -- is not supported by the facts, according to "Initial Findings" of the House Intelligence Committee, as Ray McGovern reports.
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Saturday, December 20, 2008
Deterring Torture Through the Law Former FBI agent Coleen Rowley and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern discuss criminal intent as it relates to Bush/Cheney approved torture.
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Monday, June 10, 2019
A USS Liberty's Hero's Passing On the 52nd anniversary of the attack on the USS Liberty, Ray McGovern focuses on Terry Halbardier, who sent the SOS that saved the ship from Israeli destruction.
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Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Ukraine Invasion Scheduled for Wednesday Canceled "Foiled again"! Rose the cry from those expecting Russian President Vladimir Putin to step out of character and risk war just as he finally succeeds in getting the U.S. to take Russia's security concerns seriously and even address them.
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Friday, October 7, 2011
The Moral Imperative of "Activism" How I look forward to descending on our own "Tahrir Square" at Freedom Plaza in Washington starting on Oct. 6. In the final analysis we will be confronting the "upper crust," which my Irish grandmother described as "a bunch of crumbs held together by a lot of dough."
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Tuesday, June 22, 2021
Please! Someone Set Biden Straight on China "Squeezing" Russia President Joe Biden's words about China at the Geneva summit shows him to be woefully misinformed about the "world correlation of forces."
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Saturday, January 22, 2022
Godot Likely To Arrive Before Russia Invades Ukraine "Foiled again!" rose the cry Friday from those expecting Russian President Vladimir Putin to step out of character and risk war, just as he - Ray McGovern for Antiwar.com Original
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Friday, May 6, 2022
Germany: Bad News Far Outweighs the Good - Ray McGovern The good news from Germany is very limited and parochial; the bad news downright alarming. Alarm rises from increasing evidence that - how to say this - Germany has "kicked its World War II syndrome once and for all",
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Wednesday, October 7, 2020
RAY McGOVERN: Trump Orders Russiagate Documents Declassified The current kerfuffle began a week ago when the director of national intelligence dropped a bombshell on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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Thursday, September 16, 2021
Plenty of Intelligence To Prevent 9/11 Lying by senior officials is bad enough, and there is now plenty of evidence that former CIA Director George Tenet and his closest agency associates are serial offenders. They could have prevented 9/11.
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Saturday, July 24, 2021
Love Triangle Exposed: Democrats-Mueller-NY Times A former Marine, Mueller followed orders from a corrupt Justice Department and an FBI with lots of shenanigans to hide. Not to mention the incessant "guidance" Mueller and his team got from an equally corrupt mainstream media, drumming Trump-Russia perfidy into the consciousness of all Americans.
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Sunday, July 28, 2013
Puttin' the Pressure on Putin The Obama administration continues to compound the diplomatic mess around former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The latest blunder was announcing that the U.S. wouldn't torture or execute Snowden, a reminder to the world how far Official Washington has strayed from civilized behavior.
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Monday, January 22, 2018
Foxes in Charge of Intelligence Hen House Recent revelations of "inadvertent" deletions of electronic data at the FBI and NSA relating to alleged felonies are being described as a "foul-up," but the intelligence agencies' track record suggests a possibly more nefarious explanation, explains Ray McGovern in this op-ed.
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Thursday, December 11, 2014
What's the Next Step to Stop Torture? The grim details about the CIA's torture techniques -- from waterboarding to "rectal rehydration" --- have overwhelmed the final defenses of the torture apologists. Now the question is what to do with this evidence and how to make sure this behavior doesn't happen again, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Friday, February 25, 2022
Biden: NO COMMENT re China on Ukraine Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a liminal moment in post WWII history - and a coda for an overreaching West that failed to read the signs of the times. - Ray McGovern for Antiwar.com Original
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Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Kafka and Uighurs at Guantanamo "There is no right to due process for an alien who is not here," insisted Solicitor General of the United States, Gregory G. Garre, proudly representing the President of the United States. Garre claimed that U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina had exceeded his authority on Oct. 7, 2008 in ordering that 17 men held in Guantanamo for almost seven years be brought to his court for a fair hearing on the modalities of their release.
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Saturday, January 2, 2021
What I Learned Last Year As long as today's journalists/stenographers keep feeding from the trough of the Security State, and criticize those who don't as "conspiracy theorists," they will continue to live high on the hog.
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Thursday, May 27, 2021
Is the Biden-Putin Summit Doomed? A shifting correlation of forces will form an influential backdrop to the U.S.- Russia summit planned for June 16 in Geneva. While China will not be taking part in the discussions, it will be very much there.
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Sunday, July 15, 2018
Memo to the President Ahead of Monday's Summit With Friday's indictments of Russian intelligence officers, Ray McGovern and Bill Binney have written an open letter to President Trump making clear that the "evidence" behind the indictments is as fraudulent as the intelligence alleging WMD in Iraq. It is being published exclusively here ahead of the Trump-Putin summit on Monday.
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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Robert Gates: As Bad As Rumsfeld? "As Bad As Rumsfeld?" The title jars, doesn't it. The more so, since Defense Secretary Robert Gates found his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, such an easy act to follow. But the jarring part reflects how malnourished most of us are on the thin gruel served up by the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM).
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Saturday, April 9, 2022
Corporate Media Deploys the Big Guns on Ukraine Judith Miller and US Air Force General Philip Breedlove are back! At first I thought it a sickening flashback. Two nights ago there were Judy Miller and former NATO Commander Philip Breedlove on TV pontificating on Ukraine.
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Saturday, May 28, 2022
Scott Ritter & Ray on Ukraine, Russia, China Bottom line: Scott predicts that the U.S. will be at war with China within six months to a year - and will lose. This could be avoided if the U.S. takes the military aspect out of the equation in confronting China and does the sensible thing in limiting the competition to the economic sphere.
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Monday, December 13, 2021
Assange Verdict: Vengeance Is Ours, Saith the Agency Are the CIA and its contractors able to bully not only the U.S. Department of Justice, but also the UK judiciary? This is not hard to conclude after the High Court decision announced early Friday to bow to the US and extradite Julian Assange.
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Friday, December 3, 2010
NYT Still Stalking Bête Noire Iran Even to this old-timer, it was shocking the way the Times, and the Post, used the WikiLeaks cables for their campaign for "regime change" in Iran.
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Sunday, July 4, 2021
Needed on July 4: μετανοίa Flawed as they were (like the rest of us) Thomas Jefferson and the other founders of our country did a radical thing 245 years ago. They adopted the Declaration of Independence, declaring: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
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Thursday, July 26, 2018
The Gray Lady Thinks Twice About Assange's Prosecution Though The New York Times itself has not reported it, it's No. 2 lawyer told a group of judges that the prosecution of Julian Assange could have dire consequences for the Times itself, explains Ray McGovern.
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Monday, March 18, 2013
A Last-Second Appeal for Sanity Ten years ago, the U.S. invasion of Iraq was only hours away, but the case for this unprovoked war was already falling apart with exposure of hyperbole, half-truths and even a forgery. On March 18, 2003, a group of U.S. intelligence veterans pleaded with President George W. Bush to postpone the attack.
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Saturday, June 18, 2016
Human chain demonstration at Ramstein The highly respected German on-line newspaper Telepolis did an extensive interview with Ray this week. Among the issues addressed: "Whistleblowing -- What Ray Wishes He Had Done;" "The Not-So-Occult Art of Blaming the Russians (Whatever the Evidence);" and "Clinton or Trump."
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Thursday, November 29, 2018
Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski Wins 2018 Sam Adams Award Karen Kwiatkowski has won the 2018 Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award for trying to stop the "shock and awe" attack on Iraq. Kwiatkowski is featured in the film "Shock and Awe" to be shown at an awards ceremony Saturday.
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Saturday, July 8, 2017
The Syrian Test of Trump-Putin Accord The U.S. mainstream media remains obsessed over Russia's alleged "meddling" in last fall's election, but the real test of bilateral cooperation may come on the cease-fire in Syria, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Friday, July 23, 2010
For Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone, a Terror Topping A recent exposé in the Washington Post shows that if you have a security clearance and are comfortable being part of a lucrative "self-licking ice cream cone" -" a process that offers few if any benefits while perpetuating its own existence -" then the "war on terror" is definitely for you!
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Monday, October 4, 2021
NYT Gives Russia-Gate CPR- WSJ Pronounces It Dead Special Council John Durham's indictment of Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann met differing reactions from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
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Monday, October 25, 2010
Wikileaks' Julian Assange Honored at London Press Conference You are not likely to learn this from "mainstream media,' but WikiLeaks and its leader Julian Assange have received the 2010 Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award for their resourcefulness in making available secret U.S. military documents on the Iraq and Afghan wars.
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Sunday, July 29, 2018
Ahed Tamimi and Her Mother are Free Ahed Tamimi and her mother were freed from prison on Sunday and Ray McGovern looks back on when he met the Tamimi family last year in their West Bank village and reflects on the spirit that drives them.
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Wednesday, June 3, 2020
RAY McGOVERN: US-Russia Ties, from Heyday to MayDay Whatever hopes Russia's leader may have had for a more workable relationship with the U.S. have been "trumpled," so to speak.
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Thursday, April 15, 2021
Biden and Blinken Blink on Ukraine President Joe Biden has now taken a waiver on the "unwavering," full-throated support that he, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had been giving to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
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Wednesday, July 13, 2022
Blinken Leading the Blind Into the Mideast Desert The Israelis are given carte blanche - that they think they can get away with murder - should be no secret whoever happens to be president in Washington.
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Monday, August 30, 2021
Generals End-Run Around Civilian Intel Analysts On the fateful US withdrawal from Afghanistan in recent weeks, was the intelligence analysis limited to folks working for CENTCOM commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie? This would be no surprise. N
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Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Doubting Obama's Resolve to Do Right It's astonishing that so many progressives seem intent on accentuating the positive. To do that, one must prescind from 4 years and 4 months of experience with the invertebrate now in the Oval Office. It serves no useful purpose to cut him still more slack. It's downright harmful to do that in the present circumstances. We need to hold his feet to the fire. It is up to us. No one else can be expected to do it.
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Friday, June 1, 2018
Bolton Flunky Fleitz Raises Stakes for Iran From the Archive: Islamophobe & Bolton pal Fred Fleitz has been named chief of staff for the National Security Council. Fleitz was a danger a decade ago in the Bush administration and is even more so now, recalls Ray McGovern.
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Thursday, May 15, 2014
How NATO Jabs Russia on Ukraine he U.S. mainstream media portrays the Ukraine crisis as a case of Russian "imperialism," but the reality is that Moscow has been reacting to aggressive moves by Washington to expand NATO to Russia's border in violation of a post-Cold War pledge, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Michael Isikoff Cuts His Losses at "Russian Roulette" Michael Isikoff, one of the biggest proponents of the Russia-gate story now says that Robert Mueller's investigation is "not where a lot of people would like it to be," says Ray McGovern.
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Saturday, June 28, 2014
Who Violated Ukraine's Sovereignty? The West has accused Russia of violating a 1994 pledge to respect Ukraine's sovereignty in exchange for its surrender of Soviet-era nuclear weapons. But the West's political and economic interference might also represent a violation, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Friday, December 21, 2018
Send the Mad Dog to the Corporate Kennel "Mad Dog" Mattis was famous for quipping, "It's fun to shoot some people." It remains a supreme irony that Mattis was widely considered the only "adult in the room" in the Trump administration, argues Ray McGovern.
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Friday, July 8, 2022
Russia Ukraine - A Taste of the Truth Putin looks east for less threatening friends - allies even. The world has again become bipolar but now it's the lily-white West against pretty much the rest of the world.
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Monday, April 28, 2014
Killing the Putin-Obama "Trust" Last year, Russian President Putin and U.S. President Obama became a geopolitical odd couple as they worked to cool off hotspots such as Syria and Iran. But U.S. hawks succeeded in killing that collaboration via the crisis in Ukraine, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.
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Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Justice Dept Likely to Slow-Walk Declassification Don't hold your breath. While the media is breathlessly describing yesterday's order by President Donald Trump's "to provide for the immediate (emphasis added) declassification" of Russia-gate materials as a "showdown," any likely showdown is months away, if it comes at all.
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Monday, April 17, 2017
Crucifixion by Drone: Justice Action at NY Drone Base; Nine Arrested by Agents of the Roman American Empire On Good Friday nine nonviolent resisters-to-Empire, led by Upstate Drone Action, were arrested and jailed for blocking the main entrance to Hancock Air National Guard Base near Syracuse, in a witness against extrajudicial drone killings in which the base plays an important role.
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Sunday, February 24, 2013
Eyes Wide Shut on the Iraq War As the tenth anniversary of the Iraq War approaches, it's worth recalling one moment when the curtain was prematurely lifted on the lies justifying the invasion -- and how quickly government officials and the complicit mainstream press pulled it back down.
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Thursday, April 18, 2019
DNC-Gate: Patrick Lawrence Saw Through It From the Start. Patrick Lawrence was onto it from the start. He commented that he had "fire in the belly" on the morning of July 25 and wrote what follows pretty much "in one long, furious exhale" within 12 hours of when the media started really pushing the "the Russians-did-it" narrative.
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Friday, April 15, 2016
Hillary Clinton's Gender Argument Hillary Clinton calls on women to support her to be the first female President, but all Americans should look carefully at her record advocating bloody, neocon "regime change" wars, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Friday, April 12, 2019
Requiem for the Fourth Estate Today we honor WikiLeaks, and one of its leaders, Julian Assange, for their ingenuity in creating a new highway by which important documentary evidence can make its way, quickly and confidentially, through the ether and into our in-boxes. Long live the Fifth Estate!
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Saturday, April 3, 2021
Stephanopoulos, Blinken Score Win for MICIMATT George Stephanopoulos mouse-trapping President Biden into calling Putin a "killer" and Secretary of State Blinken's boorish attempt to get China to kowtow in Alaska. Both were disastrous.
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Torture: the Fault is Not in Our Stars Unlike many of my progressive friends, for me the current administration's behavior on torture is a glass half full. In my view, the real scandal is how very few have taken a sip.
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Friday, October 21, 2022
Biden Has an 'Off-Ramp' on Ukraine It should be no secret to Biden that there is, as Gottemoeller suggests in so many words - an off-ramp for both - a ramp with time-tested guardrails called "inspections." Trust but verify.
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Thursday, June 13, 2013
Secrecy's Tangled Web of Deceit U.S. government officials insist that their secret surveillance techniques are so valuable in fighting "terrorism" that they must be kept completely in the dark -- along with the American people. This alleged imperative has justified even lying to Congress.
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Friday, July 8, 2011
Gaza and a Liturgy for Justice The more aware I became of the particular courage it takes to weather the inevitable charges of being "self-hating Jews" -- even from one's family and close friends -- the more respect I gained for my Jewish co-travelers, many of whom gave adroit but unflinching leadership to the entire enterprise.
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Tuesday, June 3, 2014
The Real Villains of the Bergdahl Tale The right-wing media is denouncing Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl as a "deserter" who wasn't worth ransoming from the Taliban, but the real villains are the architects of the disastrous Iraq and Afghan wars who frivolously put the many Bergdahls in harm's way, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Monday, March 25, 2019
Initial reaction by NYT to Mueller report If today's Senate failed to convict Trump as seems almost certain so what? The impeachment of Trump might well hinder him from committing still more crimes like attacking Iran or risking a military confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia, as he is being urged to do by "the crazies" he adopted, Bolton and Pompeo.
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Friday, September 1, 2017
Seymour Hersh Honored for Integrity An organization led by former U.S. intelligence officials has selected legendary journalist Seymour Hersh to be the recipient of an annual award for integrity and truth-telling, named for the late CIA analyst Sam Adams.
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Friday, May 17, 2013
Boston Suspect's Writing on the Wall Hiding and near death, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev reportedly scrawled on the inside of a boat that he did what he did to avenge innocent Muslims killed by U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a rare look at the why behind "terrorism."
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Friday, December 28, 2012
The Larger Question of Chuck Hagel The up-in-the-air nomination of Chuck Hagel to be Defense Secretary has become a test of whether the Israel Lobby can still shoot down an American public servant who is deemed insufficiently passionate regarding Israel, a test that now confronts President Obama.
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Thursday, September 22, 2022
Brainwashed for War With Russia Most Americans are just as taken in by the media as they were 20 years ago when they were told there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They simply took it on faith nor did the guilty media express remorse or a modicum of embarrassment.
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Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Ray McGovern on Eric Holder and Snowden Ray was asked by RT about former Attorney General Eric Holder's Eureka moment when he said that Ed Snowden "actually performed a public service." Too bad Holder didn't remember that his own public service, as the country's highest law enforcement official, was to honor his oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.
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Monday, September 20, 2021
Old Soldier Mark Milley Should "Fade Away" Milley saw fit to warn his Chinese counterpart that he would give him a heads-up if an armed attack on China was coming, there is the equally astonishing revelation that Milley instructed senior Pentagon officials that he had to be involved in any discussions about launching nuclear weapons.
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Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Trump Ponders Petraeus for Senior Job President-elect Trump's promise to "drain the swamp" of Washington seems forgotten -- like so many political promises -- as he meets with swamp creatures, such as disgraced Gen. David Petraeus, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Monday, February 27, 2012
CNN Silences War-Skeptical Soldier The FCM's latest drumming for war is likely to reach a crescendo during the first days of March, with Netanyahu crashing the cymbals loudly and the propaganda orchestra swelling in a martial symphony designed to stir the American people into another standing ovation for another preemptive war.
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Thursday, July 26, 2018
Suspected agent Maria Butina's Russian pride Butina's arrest last week on charges that she was acting as an unregistered Russian agent and allegations that she has ties to Russian intelligence rattled those who knew her at American University, where she spent two years in the global security program at the School of International Service. Wouldn't a Russian agent have been more covert, and have worked to keep her Kremlin advocacy under wraps?
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Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Obama Urged to Fire DNI Clapper Last March --- before Edward Snowden revealed the NSA's sweeping collection of phone and other data --- Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said no such operation existed. Now, a group of ex-national security officials urge President Obama to fire Clapper.
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Friday, March 12, 2010
Taboo Thwarts Candor on Israel/Iran Participants at an otherwise informative discussion on "Iran at a Crossroads" at the Senate on Wednesday seemed at pains to barricade the doors against the proverbial elephant being admitted into the room -- in this case, Israel.
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Friday, December 30, 2022
Biden Reneged - Now Russian Army Will Talk - Antiwar.com Original A year ago today (on Dec. 30, 2021) U.S. President Joe Biden, in a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, assured him that - Ray McGovern for Antiwar.com Original
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Monday, September 21, 2015
A Moral Challenge for Pope Francis In modern times, the Catholic Church has made excuses for unjustifiable wars even as it has made abortion a Cardinal sin, a hypocrisy that will be tested as Pope Francis visits the United States, a country immersed in all the immorality that comes from warfare, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Saturday, April 14, 2018
Attacking Syria: Thumbing Noses at Constitution and Law It was a sad spectacle to see U.S. brass rubbishing the Constitution and trying to silence critics of the U.S. strike on Syria, says Ray McGovern in this commentary.
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Tuesday, March 1, 2022
Putin No 'Pariah' in Beijing Two and a half months ago Moscow and Beijing described their strategic relationship as being so close that it "even exceeds an alliance."
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Saturday, June 21, 2014
Iraqis Are Not "Abstractions" U.S. policymakers have long behaved like spoiled, destructive children treating Iraq as if it were some meaningless plaything. The game has been about who "wins" or "loses" in Washington, not who lives or dies in Iraq, a moral failure that ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern addresses.
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Friday, September 7, 2012
Obama Ruling Shields Torturers Attorney General Eric Holder's decision not to prosecute CIA torturers in two high-profile homicides bows to the political difficulty of going after field agents while sparing superiors, including ex-President George W. Bush. But the all-clear on torture sends a dangerous message, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Thursday, June 13, 2019
DOJ Bloodhounds on the Scent of John Brennan With Justice Department investigators' noses to the ground, it should be just a matter of time before they identify Brennan as fabricator-in-chief of the Russiagate story, says Ray McGovern.
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Sunday, May 29, 2022
On Memorial Day - Thoughts on Action & Inaction 12 & 20 Years Ago It is time to accept our responsibility to do ALL we can to stop the violence of wars waged in our name. Now it's our turn to ponder those questions.
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Thursday, February 3, 2022
US Makes Putin Offer He Can Hardly Refuse The leaked text (to Spain's El Pais) of Washington's response to Russia's December security proposals augurs well for an eventual peaceful denouement on - Ray McGovern for Antiwar.com Original
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Thursday, July 22, 2021
Ray McGovern: Put Russiagate Out of its Misery Why won't disproven Russiagate ever go away? It takes the truth.
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Wednesday, February 2, 2022
China Gives Oomph to Russia's 'Nyet' on NATO - Antiwar.com Original Fourteen years ago today, when then-ambassador to Russia William Burns, in an IMMEDIATE cable titled "Nyet Means Nyet: Russia's NATO Enlargement - Ray McGovern for Antiwar.com Original
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Friday, July 3, 2015
An Obama Anniversary Worth Noting We should have seen it coming. Exactly eight years ago came a clear sign that prudence dictated a hard look into the mouth of this gift (Trojan?) horse running for President. It was Barack Obama's capitulation to NSA and the giant telecoms that should have raised our antennae higher.
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Thursday, January 21, 2021
Round Up the Usual Suspects; Don't Forget Putin Putin is aware of the parallels between the demonization of him and Russia and how Jews were blamed for just about everything during the Thirties. Evidence-free accusations by the likes of Pelosi and Clinton will make the task of restoring a modicum of trust an uphill battle.
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Saturday, July 10, 2021
A Cyber-Culprit Other Than Russia? Will Biden let himself be shamed into taking "some kind of visible action" against Russia; something much stronger than just another "verbal warning"? What could possibly go wrong?
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Sunday, February 20, 2022
Russia and Ukraine - A Light Conversation on Dark Subjects During the second half of 2021 the presidents of Russia and China spared no effort to demonstrate that their strategic relationship "in its closeness and effectiveness exceeds an alliance."
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Thursday, September 24, 2020
Biden: Advice for Tuesday's Debate As he prepares to debate President Donald Trump next Tuesday, Biden might pause long enough to weigh the merits of complete honesty now a highly endangered species.
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Monday, October 5, 2020
Comey's Amnesia Makes Senate Session an Unforgettable Hop, Skip & Jump to Fraud If Trump loses in November the National Security State will get away with unconscionable misbehavior in the monitoring of campaign aide Carter Page. And if he wins"
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Sunday, May 8, 2016
Price for Witnessing Against War The funeral for anti-war priest Daniel Berrigan was a reminder of humanity's need to challenge immoral government actions and the price that one pays for doing so, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, December 21, 2021
Putin Has a Big Brother in Xi Putin on the streets of Leningrad, I on the streets of the Bronx. The point here is that even as a statesman Putin has been way out there, alone without demonstrably strong support until now.
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Monday, September 14, 2015
US Intel Vets Decry CIA's Use of Torture Torture defenders are back on the offensive publishing a book by ex-CIA leaders rebutting a Senate report that denounced the brutal tactics as illegal, inhumane and ineffective. Now, in a memo to President Obama, other U.S. intelligence veterans are siding with the Senate findings and repudiating the torture apologists. Submitted by former CIS analyst Ray McGovern.
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Thursday, July 2, 2015
Ray Gets Letter Printed in WashPost In his June 28 Sunday Opinion essay, "The Ukraine cease-fire fiction," Sen. John McCain was wrong to write that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea without provocation.
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Friday, November 11, 2022
Biden Has a Date With Xi - Putin's 'Main Squeeze' Biden might be able to appreciate that China and Russia are each fully aware that if one of them goes down, the other is next in the sights of a US military desperate to get back on the winning track after so many misadventures over the last 77 years.
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Monday, January 27, 2014
No Tears for the Real Robert Gates In Official Washington, the gap between image and reality can be wide, but there is a virtual canyon separating the mainstream’s awestruck regard for Robert Gates as a “wise man†and his record as a deceitful opportunist known to his former colleagues, like ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Thursday, May 28, 2009
Colin Powell: No Good Samaritan Watching retired Gen. Colin Powell cite Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan during Sunday's Memorial Day ceremonies on the Mall in Washington, it struck me that Powell was giving hypocrisy a bad name. Those familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan and the under-reported behavior of Gen. Powell, resurgent star of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM), know that the two do not mesh.
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Friday, September 16, 2022
'Dear Friends' Xi and Putin - Project Unity The "core interest" mutual support was given prominence in the official Chinese readout of the Putin-Xi conversation. "President XI emphasized that China will work with Russia to extend strong mutual support on issues concerning each other's core interests.
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Wednesday, November 18, 2015
CIA Whistleblower Kiriakou Honored CIA officer John Kiriakou, the first U.S. official to confirm that waterboarding was used to torture "war on terror" detainees, then faced a retaliatory prosecution and 30 months in prison. Recognizing his sacrifice, the literary group PEN gave Kiriakou its First Amendment Award, observed ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Post-Iraq-War US Intel Chief Praised The November 2007 NIE landed like a dead fish on the White House doorstep, causing the neocons and other war hawks to challenge the unanimous judgment of all 16 intelligence agencies as naive. The drafters were pilloried with charges that they were soft on Iran and just trying to stop a war! But the deed was done; and we were spared another unnecessary bloodletting.
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Monday, July 23, 2012
Will Downing St. Memo Recur on Iran? A decade after the infamous "Downing Street Memo" and its "fixed" intelligence for invading Iraq, the pressure is on again to make the case -- whatever the facts -- for a new war with Iran. Will the UK's MI6 and the CIA bend again or hold firm, ask ex-intelligence analysts Annie Machon and Ray McGovern.
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Sunday, June 28, 2015
Ray's Letter to Washington Post on Racism and Torture Dionne asks, "Are we so demented and our senate and house members so cowardly that they cannot even pass [gun-control] laws?" Let me flip the question over and suggest it is an equally cowardly evasion for our country's leaders to pretend we need new laws against torture rather than enforce those already on the books.
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Sunday, November 8, 2015
Bush-41 Finally Speaks on Iraq War A dozen years too late, President George H.W. Bush has given voice to his doubts about the wisdom of rushing into the Iraq War, putting much of the blame on President George W. Bush's "iron-ass" advisers, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.
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Friday, May 3, 2019
Orwellian Cloud Hovers Over Russia-gate Ray McGovern calls out the void of evidence at the heart of the Senate hearing with Attorney General Barr on Wednesday.
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Monday, May 7, 2018
Will a Torturer Become CIA Director? Gina Haspel faces a confirmation hearing on Wednesday to become CIA director despite her record of supporting torture, which even the Pentagon admitted does not work, says Ray McGovern.
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Monday, December 29, 2014
Udall Urged to Disclose Full Torture Report Sen. Mark Udall has called for the full release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on torture. However, as a still-sitting member of Congress, he has a constitutional protection to read most of the still-secret report on the Senate floor -- and a group of intelligence veterans urges him to do just that.
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Wednesday, June 9, 2021
Biden-Putin Summit: Boon or Bust? Reading the tea leaves a week before Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin meet in Geneva puts a premium on the kind of media analysis we old-school Kremlinologists had to rely on back in the day.
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Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Four-letter Word for Tenet; : Liar Tenet's book is a self-indictment for the crimes with which Socrates was charged: making the worse cause appear the better, and corrupting the youth. But George is not the kind to take the hemlock. Rather, with no apparent shame, he accepted what one wag has labeled the "Presidential Medal of Silence" in return for agreeing to postpone his Nixon-style "modified limited hangout" until after the mid-term elections last Nov.
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Wednesday, December 8, 2021
Did Biden Thwart Putin's 'Plan' To Invade Ukraine with 175,000 Troops? National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan emphasized that Biden was "direct and straightforward" with Putin, warning not only of more draconian economic sanctions but also of additional arms to Ukraine if Russia attacked.
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Thursday, January 29, 2015
Honoring NSA's Binney and Amb. White In our age of careerism, it's rare for high-ranking officials to sacrifice their powerful posts for principle, but that was what NSA's William Binney and the late U.S. Ambassador Robert White did. Their sacrifices and integrity were honored by likeminded former government officials, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern describes.
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Saturday, February 9, 2013
John Brennan's Tenet-Like Testimony erhaps what should disqualify Brennan as much as anything is his intimate connection to the lies and abuses perpetrated by the thoroughly discredited George Tenet. As one of Tenet's former proteges, Brennan could not even bring himself to admit on Thursday that waterboarding was torture. His disingenuousness is another reason to reject his nomination to be CIA director.
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Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Seeking Integrity at the CIA Without integrity and courage, all virtue is specious, and no amount of structural or organizational reform will make any difference. Instructive lessons can be drawn from the performance of George Tenet, the sixteenth director since the establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947, and from his predecessors regarding what attributes a director needs to discharge the duties of the office.
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Friday, February 26, 2016
VIPS Offers Advice to Candidates Former Secretary of State Clinton, whose campaign is brimming with establishment foreign policy advisers, has chided Democratic rival Sen. Sanders for lacking a roster of experts. But ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern says an untapped resource for any candidate is the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
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Thursday, April 5, 2018
Coming Attraction: Lunatic Loose in West Wing As Uber-Hawk John Bolton prepares to take over as national security adviser on Monday, Ray McGovern looks back at when Bolton was one of the "crazies" in the George W. Bush administration.
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Thursday, July 21, 2022
Ukraine-US-Russia - Dangers of Tit-for-Tat The West in impotent rage or in a desire to aggravate the situation as much as possible pumps Ukraine with more and more long range weapons.
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Sunday, October 23, 2011
Switching Focus From Iraq To Iran President Barack Obama's withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq is a blow to the neocons who had long dreamed of permanent military bases. But the neocons are now trying to spin the Iraq disaster into another excuse to confront Iran
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Friday, November 13, 2020
RAY McGOVERN: What is John Brennan So Worried About? Given the uncertainties of Donald Trump's actions as he faces a White House exit, the possible declassification of certain documents has the former CIA director sweating.
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Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Putin Shuns Syrian "Quagmire" Gambling that President Obama will cooperate in seeking peace for Syria, Russian President Putin called back much of Russia's military force dispatched to Syria last fall, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Unaccountable Media Faced with Dilemma in Next Phase of Deep State-gate Now that the media has been exposed for wrongly siding with the intelligence agencies, how will it handle Devin Nunes's criminal referrals in Deep State-gate?, asks Ray McGovern.
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Monday, September 7, 2020
Remembering the Last Candid NYT Report on Israel -- Seven Years Ago On September 6, 2013, with President Obama under considerable pressure to launch an open attack on Syria (in ostensible "response" to what turned out to be a false-flag chemical attack), an honest report from Jerusalem slipped by the NYT censors and crept onto the front page.
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Wednesday, March 13, 2013
An Unheeded Warning on Iraq Ten years ago, as the clock was ticking down to George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, a campaign of U.S. government lies and exaggerations had convinced many Americans that they were the ones under threat. A few U.S. intelligence veterans spoke up, but were heard mostly in Europe and on the Internet.
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Sunday, November 23, 2008
Gates and the Urge to Surge It may become a biennial ritual. Every two years, if the commander-in-chief (or the commander-in-chief-elect) says he wants to throw more troops into an unwinnable war for no clear reason other than his political advantage, panderer-in-chief Robert Gates will shout "Outstanding!" Never mind what the commanders in the field are saying - much less the troops who do the dying.
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Friday, August 31, 2007
Do We Have The Courage To Stop War With Iran? I fear our country is likely to be at war with Iran""and with the thousands of real terrorists Iran can field around the globe. It is going to happen, folks, unless we put our lawn chairs away on Tuesday, take part in some serious grass-roots organizing, and take action to prevent a wider war""while we still can.
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Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Australia Bolts Iraq Over Bush's Lies Even into the sixth year of war in Iraq – even as ex-White House press secretary Scott McClellan admits the deceptions used to justify the invasion – the U.S. news media still averts its eyes from the full ugliness of what happened in 2002-03.
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Sunday, December 20, 2020
VIPS MEMO: To Biden: Don't Be Suckered on Russia VIPS hopes President-elect Joe Biden will avoid the mousetrap being laid for him to make it more difficult for his administration to deal in a sensible way with Russia.
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Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Bush League War Drums Beating Louder on Iran Attacking Iran Would Be Crazy! Despite the administration's war-like record, many Americans may still cling to the belief that attacking Iran won't happen because it would be crazy; that Bush is a lame-duck president who wouldn't dare undertake yet another reckless adventure when the last one went so badly. But rationality and common sense have not exactly been the strong suit of this administration.
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Monday, April 16, 2012
Iran's Phantom Menace The panel discussion took place against the backdrop of all-too-familiar warnings to Iran that it has one "last chance" to stop doing what the CIA and pretty much all serious intelligence agencies say it is not doing -- namely, working on a nuclear weapon.
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Sunday, December 20, 2020
A Pandemic of "Russian Hacking" Neither the actor, nor the motive, nor the damage done is known for certain in this latest scare story, write Ray McGovern and Joe Lauria.
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Thursday, January 28, 2010
President Put Politics First on Afghanistan Nothing highlights President Obama's abject surrender to Gen. David Petraeus on the "way forward" in Afghanistan than two cables U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry sent to Washington on Nov. 6 and 9, 2009, the texts of which were released Tuesday by the New York Times.
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Thursday, June 30, 2022
NATO Scribes vs. Russian Artillery and Rockets Since there is zero evidence Moscow plans to attack a NATO country I would guess that Russian leaders have mixed reactions to the announcement that NATO's rapid response force will increase from 40,000 to 300,000 troops.
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Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Whistleblowers Honored on Nov. 21 In recent decades, information -- the lifeblood of democracy -- has often been cut off from the American body politic on "national security" grounds or because insiders feel it wouldn't be "good for the country." To counter that benighted view, a group of ex-U.S. intelligence officials honors brave whistleblowers, this year Thomas Drake and Jesselyn Radack.
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Saturday, May 12, 2012
Honoring a "Terror War" Architect In this season of graduations -- and the rush to bestow honorary degrees on the "great and powerful" -- one ironic moment will play out at Fordham University, where Jesuits are giving top billing among its honorees to White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan.
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Sunday, September 16, 2007
Greenspan Misses Cheney's Memo: Spills the Beans on Oil For those still wondering why GW Bush and Dick Cheney sent our young troops into Iraq, the secret is now "largely" out. No, not from the lips of former secretary of state Colin Powell. It appears we shall have to wait until the disgraced general/diplomat draws nearer to meeting his maker before he gets concerned over anything more than the "blot" that Iraq has put on his reputation. We get the truth from Alan Greenspan.
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Friday, December 11, 2020
RAY McGOVERN: Why Michael Morell Cannot Be CIA Director Gross manipulation of CIA analysis under George W. Bush pushed a new generation of "yes men" into the agency's top ranks and now one of them is being considered by Joe Biden for the top job, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Wednesday, January 9, 2013
The Grilling that Brennan Deserves When President Obama's national security nominees reach the Senate, the toughest challenge is expected against Chuck Hagel for Defense, but CIA Director-designee John Brennan has more to explain about his work over the past decade on the terror war's "dark side." It might be nice if the American people could see the secret legal justifications underpinning Brennan's last four years as keeper of the "kill lists."
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Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Gaza and Thoughts of a Starving Ireland Phil McGovern, the letter carrier. It struck me that, in carrying letters of support to Gaza, I am trying to be faithful not only to a faith tradition with the inescapable mandate that we "Do Justice," but also to the Post Office and letter-carrier tradition that I inherited from my grandfathers.
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Saturday, July 23, 2011
Ray McGovern to Gov. Brown on Prisons In recent weeks, prisoners in California's over-crowded prison system have been on hunger strikes demanding more humane treatment. This crisis has prompted me, a Jesuit-schooled, former CIA analyst, to write an open letter --- an appeal for justice --- to California Gov. Jerry Brown, who also received Jesuit training.
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Sunday, July 21, 2013
Gen. Hayden's Glass House Official Washington's national security/mainstream media incest was on scandalous display when ex-NSA chief Michael Hayden posed as a CNN analyst to denounce Edward Snowden for exposing surveillance excesses that Hayden had a hand in creating.
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Saturday, January 30, 2016
Jerry Berrigan Blockade at Hancock Drone Base On Thursday morning, January 28, 30 life-sized cutouts of Syracuse peacemaker Jerry Berrigan blockaded the main entrance of Hancock Air National Guard Base outside Syracuse, NY. The 30 cutouts were accompanied by 12 nonviolent, drone-resisters, who were arrested and jailed after blockading for an hour and a half.
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Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Bush's Wooden-Headedness Kills I began this article last night, with the idea of focusing on the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on terrorism, parts of which were declassified and made available yesterday. But it became quickly clear there was a much larger—and more important—story here...and that, when all is said and done, the NIE is not going to make much difference one way or another.
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Monday, May 13, 2013
The Deepening Shame of Guantanamo For more than a decade, the Guantanamo Bay prison has been a blot on America's conscience. President Obama vowed to close it but acceded to congressional demands to keep it open. Now, an emerging humanitarian crisis -- a mass hunger strike -- is drawing only scant attention.
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Thursday, January 20, 2022
Breathe Easier: Blinken, Lavrov Meet Friday What about the impasse, the deadlock? Might it mean no Russian invasion of Ukraine at least not yet?
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Saturday, January 19, 2013
The Moral Torment of Leon Panetta Leon Panetta returned to government in 2009 amid hopes he could cleanse the CIA where torture and politicized intelligence had brought the U.S. to new lows in world respect. Yet, after four years at CIA and Defense, it is Panetta who departs morally compromised.
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Saturday, December 12, 2015
The Courage from Whistle-blowing Courage, like cowardice, can grow when an action by one person influences decisions by others, either toward bravery or fear. Thus, the gutsy whistle-blowing by some NSA officials inspired Edward Snowden to expose mass data collection on all Americans, recalls ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, March 5, 2013
"Talking Points' for Hagel on Iran Some neocons hope they softened up new Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel during his bruising confirmation fight. But ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern suggests in these proposed "talking points" that Hagel stick to his principled reputation as someone who tells it like it is, regardless of political pressures.
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Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Guantanamo's Force-Feeding Challenged In the Kafkaesque world of Guantanamo, even inmates cleared for release are held indefinitely and -- if they try to kill themselves via hunger strikes -- are brutally force-fed to keep them alive. Finally, a U.S. court is confronting whether the force-feeding can be done more humanely, reports Ray McGovern.
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Monday, August 20, 2012
Pussy Riot's Appeal for Justice A Russian judge has sentenced three female "punk" rockers from the group "Pussy Riot" to two years in prison for performing a protest song at a Moscow cathedral, what the judge called anti-religious "hooliganism." But Ray McGovern sees the protest as in the spirit of Mary, mother of Jesus.
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Sunday, May 25, 2014
WPost Seeks US-Patrolled "Safe Zone" in Syria Neocons never blush at their own hypocrisies, demanding Russia respect international law and do nothing to protect eastern Ukrainians, while demanding President Obama ignore international law and create a rebel "safe zone" in Syria, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Crime and CIA Embarrassments Ex-CIA official Jeffrey Sterling is going on trial for espionage because he allegedly told a reporter about a botched covert op that sent flawed nuclear designs to Iran, but powerful people want to spare ex-CIA Director David Petraeus indictment for leaking secrets to a mistress, notes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Thursday, June 25, 2009
Torture eats away at the soul of this nation Something evil has seeped into the soul of our nation. Those many years when we looked the other way, choosing to ignore the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, eroded our morality.
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Monday, June 3, 2013
Moral Imperative of Bradley Manning Official Washington still glorifies George W. Bush's "successful surge" in Iraq while ignoring the wanton slaughter inflicted on Iraqis. So, there remains a high-level desire to harshly punish Pvt. Bradley Manning for exposing the horrific truth about that and other war crimes.
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Saturday, March 31, 2018
U.S. Establishment: Nixing Arms Control Trump's new National Security Adviser John Bolton has been instrumental in launching wars and scrapping arms control treaties -- just the man for the job as the U.S. embarks on a new arms race with Russia, Ray McGovern sardonically observes.
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Monday, March 15, 2010
Yoo Besmirches Legacy of Jefferson Initially I was shocked at the thought of the University of Virginia welcoming former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo to the "Academical Village" founded by Thomas Jefferson. There was something very wrong about that picture. Was it not Mr. Jefferson who condemned tyrannical acts--including ones that fell far short of waterboarding--in the Declaration of Independence?
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Friday, January 28, 2022
Will Putin Accept Half a Loaf? Putin asserts that verbal assurances from the US can be worthless and recalls that Moscow was repeatedly told that Russian concerns about NATO expansion were without merit.
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Friday, February 19, 2021
Will Comey's Words Come Back To Haunt Him? Former FBI Director James Comey attested to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the now-discredited information from former British spy Christopher Steele regarding Russian collusion had been "verified."
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Tuesday, August 12, 2014
The Rear-Guard Defense of Torture Official U.S. policy is to decry torture -- at least when done by adversaries -- but ambiguities abound when U.S. operatives do the torturing. Then, torture becomes debatable and its defenders go on TV talk shows and even get honors from universities, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern notes.
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Thursday, April 26, 2018
Talk Nation Radio: Ray McGovern: Russia and U.S. Senators Want Disarmament, U.S. Media Does Not In this radio interview with host David Swanson, Ray McGovern criticizes the mainstream media for ignoring or downplaying Russian President Vladimir Putin's offer of disarmament talks with the United States (after revealing a terrifying new weapon).
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Monday, April 21, 2008
What About the War, Benedict? Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Washington last week against a macabre backdrop featuring reports of torture, execution, and war. He chose not to notice. Looks as if the Vatican made a deal with the MSM. If the pope doesn't say anything meaningful on the war, torture, you name it, we the MSM will suppress the unconscionable role he played in covering up the widespread pedophilia and he can present himself as hero not goat.
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Tuesday, January 12, 2021
RAY McGOVERN: Can Burns Change the CIA? The hope is that diplomat William Burns, tapped for CIA director by Joe Biden, will be able to change the culture at Langley and not be subsumed by it.
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Thursday, May 22, 2008
An Appeal to Admiral Fallon on Iran I have not been able to find out how to reach you directly, so I drafted this letter in the hope it will be brought to your attention. First, thank you for honoring the oath we commissioned officers take to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. At the same time, you have let it be known that you do not intend to speak, on or off the record, about Iran.
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Monday, January 10, 2022
Putin's Quid No Offensive Missiles in 'ABM' Sites You would not know it amid the gloom and doom about "another Russian invasion" of Ukraine but diplomacy, not war, is about to break out this month.
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Monday, August 12, 2013
The Moral Imperative of Activism Today's crises -- endless war, environmental catastrophe, desperate poverty and more -- can seem so daunting that they paralyze action rather than inspire activism. But the imperative to do something in the face of injustice defines one's moral place in the universe.
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Wednesday, July 16, 2014
When the U.S. Welched on Shevardnadze James Baker keeps repeating that the Cold War "could not have ended peacefully without Shevardnadze." But he and others are silent on the quid pro quo. The quid was Moscow's agreement to swallow the bitter pill of a reunited Germany in NATO; the quo was a U.S. promise not to "leapfrog" NATO over Germany farther East. Washington welched on the deal.
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Wednesday, April 8, 2009
After Torture, Resurrection Three years ago, Easter dawned on Crawford, Texas, for the many friends of justice and peace who were gathered there to celebrate new hope. Rev. Joseph Lowery gave an inspired message that morning, in what turned out to be a warm-up for his Benediction at the Inauguration of our new president in January 2009.
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Saturday, March 17, 2012
Speak, Memory! When Obama got briefed on the history of Afghanistan and the oft-proven ability of Afghan "militants" to drive out foreign invaders -- from Alexander the Great, to the Persians, the Mongolians, Indians, British, Russians -- surely he would understand why they call mountainous Afghanistan the "graveyard of empires." But no -- that doesn't seem to be the case...
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Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Julian Assange and the Mindszenty Case Courageous publishers like Julian Assange and principled churchmen like Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty are a rarity: Neither would be silenced; and both had to seek asylum; but the similarity ends there, explains Ray McGovern.
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Monday, June 17, 2013
UK Grapples with Spying Disclosure British authorities are scrambling to justify how they --- while hosting a global economic summit in 2009 --- spied on their guests with help from America's National Security Agency. Some UK media outlets seem a little spooked themselves in getting commentary on the incident.
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Friday, January 14, 2022
Peeking Past the Pall Put Over Arms Talks With Russia Western media are painting an image of gross failure for Russia at the U.S.-Russia bilateral talks in Geneva, as well as subsequent talks between Russia - Ray McGovern for Antiwar.com Original
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Sunday, July 21, 2013
From The Past: Answering Helen Thomas On Why From the Archive: Often annoying her press colleagues, the late Helen Thomas was one of the few Washington journalists who would shatter the predictable frame for discussing tough issues. When she heard lazy rationalizations, Thomas would press the policymaker on why, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern wrote in 2010.
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Wednesday, March 23, 2016
US Intel Vets Warn Against Torture Experienced intelligence professionals reaffirm that torture -- while popular with "tough" politicians -- doesn't work in getting accurate and actionable information, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
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Saturday, December 5, 2020
Barr Kicks Durham Can Down the Street Attorney General William Barr has abandoned the Trump ship. He poured cold water on President Trump's allegations of voter fraud, announcing that the Justice Department had found no fraud "on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election."
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Thursday, June 19, 2008
Impeach Bush now? Congressional proceedings would help prevent another mistaken war. A move to impeach would bolster the resistance to Bush among our senior military leaders who know that attacking Iran at this time would be the strategic equivalent of the marches into Russia by Napoleon and Hitler.
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Tuesday, March 9, 2021
Will Lloyd Austin Speak Truth on Afghanistan? Afghanistan: Stay or Go? The final decision will depend largely on whether Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin can face down white White House armchair warriors allergic to "losing" wars already long lost, as well as arms makers profiteering on the ones that drag on for decades.
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Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Jail Time for Tenet? As president, young George has found he can escape accountability altogether. Now when he screws up royally, he need not call Dad; George W. Bush is himself in control of all the levers he needs to pull in order to bail himself out. Is this a great country or what?
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Friday, February 22, 2013
Brennan's Loose Talk on Iran Nukes Fresh, prejudicial evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt that John Brennan is unfit to become director of the CIA. We Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity faxed to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, a Memorandum discussing that evidence.
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Monday, October 26, 2020
Russia-gate Limps On The walking-wounded Russia-gate limps along -- witness how many former functionaries will still sign on to anything Clapper/Brennan sponsor and give it to a hungry Establishment media to regurgitate.
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Monday, April 8, 2019
Mexican Daily Front-pages VIPS Warning on Venezuela The group Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS, by its initials in English) warns in its current memorandum to the government of US President Donald Trump that his attempt to intervene in Venezuela could end up provoking a war between the US and Russia.
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Monday, February 22, 2010
New Grist for Hype on Iran Here we go again. A report issued Thursday by the new Director General of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano, has injected new adrenalin into those arguing that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, writes Ray McGovern.
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Thursday, February 7, 2013
Drone Memo Puts Brennan on Spot President Obama is finally giving the congressional Intelligence Committees a look at a Justice Department legal opinion justifying the killing of Americans in senior al-Qaeda positions plotting attacks on the U.S. The disclosure comes as the Senate considers John Brennan to be CIA director.
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Tuesday, February 12, 2013
To Obama: Close the Deal with Iran The State of the Union offers President Obama a high-profile opportunity to finally close the deal with Iran over its nuclear program by accepting the need for U.S. concessions on sanctions, but there are doubts he will seize this Nixon-to-China moment.
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Thursday, September 27, 2007
Bush, Oil "" and Moral Bankruptcy As the truth about our country's policy becomes clearer and clearer, can we summon the courage to address it from a moral perspective? The Germans left it up to the churches; the churches collaborated.
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Sunday, April 29, 2007
Sorry They’ve Been So Mean To You, George Tenet George Tenet's book shows that he remains, first and foremost, a politician - with no clue as to the proper role of intelligence work. He is unhappy about going down in history as "Slam Dunk Tenet." Maybe Tenet was naive enough to believe that the president, whom he describes as a "kindred soul," would protect him from thugs like Vice President Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld...
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Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Freedom Plaza Protesters Settle In On Day Four of our "occupation" in DC, hundreds of military personnel, veterans and families against war marched at noon Sunday from Freedom Plaza to the White House to ask President Barack Obama, "Where's Our Beer Summit?" The Secret Service would not forward our petition, but rather gave us a telephone number to call.
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Friday, October 30, 2009
Kipling Haunts Obama's Afghan War You may be in a position to help give the President the wherewithal to resist pressure to escalate the war in Afghanistan
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Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Rudman: Deus ex Machina on Torture The announcement in mid-March that CIA Director Leon Panetta had picked former Sen. Warren Rudman to act as CIA "liaison" with the Senate Intelligence Committee during its "review" of interrogation and detention practices has drawn virtually no criticism from the Fawning Corporate Media.Yet,it is a dead give-away as to how congressional leaders plan to go through the motions for a year or so, and then let everyone off the hook
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Wednesday, January 2, 2013
What Hagel Could Give Obama With the "fiscal cliff" partly solved and partly delayed, President Obama may now turn his attention to filling his national security team for the second term, including whether to face down neocon opposition to Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary. Hagel would be the first Secretary of Defense in 30 years with lessons learned from direct combat experience.
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Monday, June 2, 2008
McClellan Book Proves Bush Replays Iraq Games on Iran Neglected in all the McClellan material is what he said (to Keith Olbermann) about propaganda preparation for attacks on Iran. This piece picks up from there, and deals with the difficulty the White House has encountered in picking the best rationale to "justify" bombing/missile attacking Iran. Again, there are malleable martinets doing the president's bidding and a president who prefers Israeli intelligence to ours.
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Tuesday, July 10, 2012
The Mystery of Arafat's Death In 2004, when Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat suddenly fell ill and died, suspicions swirled that he might have been poisoned, but no autopsy was performed. Now, nearly eight years later, his death is getting new scrutiny, although there are doubts a complete answer will ever be found.
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Thursday, September 11, 2008
Iran's Road Less Traveled to Nukes Thomas Fingar, the U.S. government's top intelligence analyst, in a public speech on Sept. 4, repeated the intelligence community's key judgment that Iran's work on the "weaponization portion" of its nuclear development program "was suspended" in 2003. Not that the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) has exactly trumpeted this important conclusion.
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Saturday, January 12, 2008
Gulf Shenanigans: No Laughing Matter a message to HONEST intelligence analysts and managers still on "active duty." Last Sunday's misadventure in the Strait of Hormuz shows that our senior military need all the help they can get from intelligence officers more concerned with the truth than with "keeping lines open to the White House" and doing its bidding. If you find that your leaders are cooking intelligence, think long and hard...
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Tuesday, November 6, 2007
former intelligence and national security officials Speak out on Mukasey Nomination Twenty-four former intelligence and national security officials delivered an urgent message yesterday morning to the chairman and the ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, calling on them to hold the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey for attorney general until he states his opinion on the legality of waterboarding.
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Monday, January 7, 2013
Excusing Torture, Again The neocon Washington Post let ex-CIA official Jose Rodriguez, who oversaw waterboarding and other torture and then destroyed the videotaped evidence, make his case that there was no torture, just effective interrogation that helped get Osama bin Laden. Aren't you glad that newspapers like the Washington Post still give folks like Rodriguez prominent space to tell their lies?
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Monday, June 10, 2013
Another Truth-Teller Steps Forward Edward Snowden, the person who disclosed top-secret documents on the U.S. government's massive surveillance programs, is reportedly in Hong Kong and seeking asylum from countries that value openness and freedom, conditions seen as slipping away at home.
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Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Are Americans Really "Better Than That?" The past few weeks have witnessed an unseemly square dance in Congress, highlighting conflicting claims about what those who are supposed to be overseeing the intelligence community knew and when they knew it""about torture, about Iran, about many things. It is an insult to the Founders that members of the House and Senate can find nothing more useful to do than wring their hands over their largely self-inflicted powerlessness
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Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Heeding George Kennan's Wise Advice It is yet to be known how many Americans will die in Afghanistan if President Obama follows the advice of his generals – much as President Johnson did – and escalates. Can we not learn from history?
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Friday, February 1, 2008
Iniquities and Inequities of War Oil-- that was Bush's true reason, in spite of his hundreds of lies-- for invading and occupying Iraq. And this becomes painfully clear as heroic writer, Ray McGovern discusses the top rate health care he's receiving for his cancerous tumor, compared to the pathetic care our Iraq vets are receiving, let alone the close to 50 million Americans who receive no health insurance supported care at all.
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Thursday, December 13, 2012
Growing Doubts About Susan Rice Republicans have blasted U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice for her TV comments about the fatal attack in Benghazi, Libya, but her real unfitness to be Secretary of State rests in her excessive careerism and insufficient compassion.
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Monday, March 11, 2013
John Brennan's Heavy Baggage After a messy confirmation -- which asked new questions about drone assassinations and old questions about enhanced interrogations -- John Brennan has taken over at CIA. But his past may not be so easily forgotten in a world looking for accountability.
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Sunday, July 15, 2007
Ray McGovern: Remembering an: Ill-Starred Day Four Years Ago For those tracking the long train of abuses and usurpations of a modern-day George who would be King and his eminence grise behind the throne, July 14 has a resonance far beyond the fireworks of Bastille Day. Four loosely related events on that same day four years ago throw revealing light on key ingredients of the debacle in Iraq.
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Friday, June 20, 2008
Bomb Iran? What's to Stop Us? I have been reviewing the bidding on the possibility of a U.S. attack on Iran. I found the assurance and confidence projected by Israeli PM Olmert after his hour-and-a-half with President Bush truly alarming.
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Monday, July 2, 2007
Unimpeachably Impeachable The evidence has now grown beyond a reasonable doubt: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have committed impeachable offenses. In this guest essay, former CIA officer Ray McGovern writes that any lingering doubts in his mind were dispelled by a series in The Washington Post detailing Vice President Cheney's disdain for the law and the Constitution, with the buck also stopping on President Bush's desk
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Thursday, March 27, 2008
Frontline: Too Timid, Too Little, Too Late Frontline has been, let's just say it, cowardly in real time""no doubt intimidated partly by attacks on its funding that were inspired by the White House. And now? Well the retrospective criticism of incompetence comes as polling shows two-thirds of the country against the Iraq occupation (and the number is surely higher among PBS viewers). So, Frontline is repositioning itself as a mild ex-post-facto critic of the war...
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Thursday, January 8, 2009
Obama Picks a Conscience for the CIA In choosing Leon Panetta to take charge of the CIA, President-elect Barak Obama has shown he is determined to put an abrupt end to the lawlessness and deceit with which the administration of George W. Bush has corrupted intelligence operations and analysis. First and foremost, the appointment gives hope that torture and "rendition"(a euphemism for kidnapping people for delivery to foreign torture chambers) is over ...
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Saturday, December 8, 2007
White House & Press Spinning Iran's Centrifuges Without Spinmeister Karl Rove and former spokesman Tony Snow, it is amateur hour at the White House. And the theater would be as funny as The Daily Show, were the subject not so serious. Judging from President George W. Bush's words and body language he is far from giving up on ways to "justify" attacking Iran's nuclear program""weapons-related or not.
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Monday, March 31, 2008
Delusionary, Dancing Bush At the American Enterprise Institute war-cheerleaders, dressed as academicians, were delivering a panegyric on how peaceful and stable the situation in Iraq had become. The "surge," they announced had nipped a civil war in the bud.
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Saturday, August 26, 2006
Hoekstra's Hoax: Just When You Thought You'd Seen Everything With an Iran war as the target in his crosshairs House intelligence committee chair, Pete Hoekstra is blowing off the real intelligence of the intelligence community, pulling the same crap Cheney and the Office of Special Plans used to gin up the Iraq war with fraud, lies and distortions.
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Monday, February 12, 2007
Are Bush and Cheney the Biggest Threats to Israel's Survival? President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are unwittingly playing Dr. Jack Kevorkian in helping the state of Israel commit suicide.
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Friday, March 9, 2007
Why Cheney Lost It When Joe Wilson Spoke Out There was plenty else to enrage Dick Cheney. It is a safe bet that he went bananas when he learned that Joe Wilson's wife was a CIA officer - and working on the issue of highest priority, how to prevent countries like Iraq and Iran from obtaining weapons of mass destruction.
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Sunday, July 20, 2008
Obama, McCain Allergic to New Iraq Reality Campaign rhetoric by both Obama and McCain ignores dramatic change in the policital landscape in Iraq. Israel is likely to be preparing a September/October surprise designed to keep the US bogged down in Iraq and in the wider region by provoking hostilities with Iran. And don't be surprised if it starts as early as August.
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Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Counter Terrorism in shambles: Why? The recent incident of the so called underwear bomber highlights the lack of competence in counter terrorism leadership. This article by Ray McGovern and Coleen Rowley appeared in today's truthout.org op-ed.
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007
"Swear Him In" I wrote this after being thrown out of the Petraeus hearing earlier this afternoon. That's all I said in the unusual silence on Monday afternoon as first aid was being administered to Gen. David Petraeus' microphone before he could make himself heard before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees.
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Friday, December 28, 2007
Creeping Fascism: Lessons From the Past "There are few things as odd as the calm, superior indifference with which I and those like me watched the beginnings of the Nazi revolution in Germany, as if from a box at the theater...Perhaps the only comparably odd thing is the way that now, years later...." These are the words of Sebastian Haffner who as a young lawyer in Berlin during the 1930s experienced the Nazi takeover and wrote a first-hand account.
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Friday, September 7, 2007
Are Petraeus and Westmoreland Birds of a Feather? Official Washington is awaiting the Iraq War assessment of Gen. Petraeus, though it's clear he will tout progress in line with President George W. Bush's pro-surge rhetoric. The Petraeus team in Baghdad already is massaging the numbers, much like another ambitious commander did four decades ago. In this Vietnam flashback, veteran intelligence analyst Ray McGovern notes the parallels between Petraeus and Gen. William We
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Saturday, August 19, 2006
The Constitution: Checking a Would-Be King Who can forget the chutzpah of President George W. Bush as he bragged to Bob Woodward, "I'm commander in chief.... That's the interesting thing about being president...I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." Wrong, Mr. President. You and Vice President Cheney seem to have missed "Constitution 101."
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Wednesday, July 25, 2007
John Conyers Is No Martin Luther King What do Rep. John Conyers (D, Michigan), chair of the House Committee on the Judiciary, and President George W. Bush have in common? They both think they can dis Cindy Sheehan and count on gossip columnists like the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank to trivialize an historic moment.
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Monday, February 12, 2007
Wake Up! The Next War Is Coming Sen. Rockefeller, why not stop the war against Iran before it starts. You are chair of the intelligence committee. You don't have to be stonewalled, as previous chair Sen. Bob Graham was in 2002. Yes, he voted against the war in Iraq because he knew of the games being played with the intelligence. But he failed to play a leadership role; he didn't tell his 99 colleagues they were being diddled. It's time for some leadership.
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Monday, December 3, 2007
Fact-Based Intelligence Prevails on Nukes and Iran For those who have doubts about miracles, a double one occurred today. An honest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear program has been issued and its Key Judgments were made public. With redraft after redraft, it was what the Germans call "eine schwere Geburt"""a difficult birth, ten months in gestation. Page 1 of 29 First Last Back Next 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 View All |