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Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at
Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'
(9 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 24, 2010 The CIA/Likud Sinking of Jimmy Carter
History must finally confront the troubling impression that remains: that disgruntled elements of the CIA and Israel's Likud hardliners teamed up to remove a U.S. president from office. CIA officer Miles Copeland said, "Carter was not a stupid man," adding that Carter had an even worse flaw: "He was a principled man."
(25 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 20, 2014 What Did US Spy Satellites See in Ukraine?
The U.S. media's Ukraine bias has been obvious, siding with the Kiev regime and bashing ethnic Russian rebels and Russia's President Putin. But now -- with the scramble to blame Putin for the Malaysia Airlines shoot-down -- the shoddy journalism has grown truly dangerous, says Robert Parry.
(102 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 27, 2012 Ron Paul's Appalling World View
There was buzz on the Internet after libertarian Ron Paul delivered what was billed as his final address in Congress. But his near-hour-long speech sounded more like the ramblings of a right-wing crank than the coherent thoughts of the principled idealist that his fans rave about.
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, June 5, 2009 Ronald Reagan: Worst President Ever?
There's been talk that George W. Bush was so inept that he should trademark the phrase "Worst President Ever,"- though some historians would bestow that title on pre-Civil War President James Buchanan. Still, a case could be made for putting Ronald Reagan in the competition. [U]nprecedented greed was unleashed on Wall Street, fraying old-fashioned bonds between company owners and employees.
(20 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 22, 2011 The Disappearance of Keith Olbermann
The ongoing significance of media imbalance is that it gives the Right enormous capabilities to control the national debate, not only during election campaigns but year-round. Republicans can deploy what intelligence operatives call "agit-propaganda," stirring controversies that rile up the public and redound to the GOP's advantage. The sudden disappearance of Keith Olbermann is an ominous omen.
(22 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 23, 2010 A Perjurer on the US Supreme Court
It is now obvious that Thomas committed perjury as a necessary element of gaining his seat as one of nine justices on the Supreme Court and only its second African-American. Though perjury before Congress is a felony, the Right appears to have suddenly lost its enthusiasm for demanding impeachment as the proper remedy for high officials caught lying under oath.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 18, 2014 WPost's Slimy Assault on Gary Webb
The movie, "Kill the Messenger," portrays the mainstream U.S. news media as craven for destroying Gary Webb rather than expanding on his investigation of the Contra-cocaine scandal. So, now one of those "journalists" is renewing the character assassination of Webb, notes Robert Parry.
(83 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 15, 2011 The 9/11 'Truth' Parlor Game
At times, "9/11 truth" has taken on the feel of a political movement, if not a cult. One elderly historian told me that he had felt "pressured" by "truthers" to give them something that they could cite as an endorsement of their position. Other notable people on the Left have described meetings with "truthers" as akin to "recruitment" sessions.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, December 21, 2012 The Right's Second Amendment Lies
A big obstacle to commonsense gun control is the Right's false historical narrative that the Founders wanted an armed American public that could fight its own government. The truth is that George Washington looked to citizens militias to put down revolts and maintain order.
(14 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 2, 2014 What Neocons Want from Ukraine Crisis
Special Report: The Ukrainian crisis – partly fomented by U.S. neocons including holdovers at the State Department – has soured U.S-Russian relations and disrupted President Obama’s secretive cooperation with Russian President Putin to resolve crises in the Mideast, reports Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 14, 2012 The Romney "Fact-Checking" Scandal
Mitt Romney cites "independent fact-checkers" to spare him from having to explain exactly what he did with Bain Capital after February 1999. But those "fact-checkers" are acting less like impartial journalists and more like argumentative lawyers covering Romney's political flanks.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 5, 2009 Colin Powell and Lessons of My Lai
"We burned down the thatched huts, starting the blaze with Ronson and Zippo lighters," Powell recalled. "Why were we torching houses and destroying crops? Ho Chi Minh had said the people were like the sea in which his guerrillas swam. ... We tried to solve the problem by making the whole sea uninhabitable. In the hard logic of war, what difference did it make if you shot your enemy or starved him to death?"
(32 comments) SHARE Friday, October 15, 2010 The 'Teach-the-Dems-a-Lesson' Myth
The Left's sideline-sitting contributed to the unnecessary deaths of millions in wars from Vietnam and Central America to Iraq and Afghanistan. Even worse, US inaction on global warming a neglect surely to be continued if Republicans and Tea Partiers are victorious in Election 2010 may doom the future of a livable planet. In other words, the "teach-the-Dems-a-lesson" strategy not only doesn't work, it's extremely dangerous.
(15 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 25, 2012 Is Mitt Romney a Racist?
Mitt Romney "jokingly" observed that "no one's ever asked to see my birth certificate" as he once again pandered to "birthers" and their racist conspiracy theory. But TV commentators rushed to put down any suggestion that Romney is a racist. But -- is he?
(18 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 19, 2009 Why Obama Is Failing
After all the compromising and concessions, Obama and the Democrats are now looking at disaster in the congressional races for 2010. The millions of voters who were inspired by Obama's call for change in 2008 are disillusioned if not embittered. Many are likely to stay home next fall.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, March 8, 2010 How Reagan's Propaganda Succeeded
In the late 1970s and through the 1980s, conservative foundations poured millions of dollars into right-wing think tanks, media outlets and anti-journalism attack groups that targeted American reporters who challenged the Reagan administration's propaganda.
(15 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 15, 2009 Is Joe Lieberman Protecting Israel?
Lieberman has been careful not to connect his disruptive behavior on health-care reform to his support for Israel, but there can be little doubt that a chastened Obama, either defeated on health care or forced to sign a bill that liberals will view as a betrayal, will have much less political capital to expend in applying pressure on Israel.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, September 3, 2012 Romney's New Global-Warming "Joke"
At the Republican National Convention and on the campaign trail, Mitt Romney has come up with a new laugh line, mocking President Obama's policies to slow global warming. In doing so, Romney distorts a quote from an Obama speech in 2008 about ocean levels.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 9, 2015 A Day When Journalism Died
Dec. 9 has a grim meaning for the Republic, the date in 2004 when investigative reporter Gary Webb, driven to ruin by vindictive press colleagues for reviving the Contra-cocaine scandal, took his own life, a demarcation as the U.S. press went from protecting the people to shielding the corrupt, writes Robert Parry.
(21 comments) SHARE Friday, August 8, 2014 Was Putin Targeted for Mid-Air Assassination?
Official Washington's conventional wisdom on the Malaysia Airlines shoot-down blames Russian President Putin, but some U.S. intelligence analysts think Putin, whose plane was flying nearby, may have been the target of Ukrainian hardliners who hit the wrong plane, writes Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 8, 2015 Cruz Threatens to Nuke ISIS Targets
Republican presidential campaign rhetoric is red-hot regarding Islamic terrorism, with Sen. Cruz suggesting the use of nuclear weapons to see "if sand can glow in the dark," a threat even more troubling than Donald Trump's call to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the U.S., writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 20, 2015 You Be the Judge
An Australian news show bristled at being caught broadcasting misleading images designed to prove Russian President Putin was responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 last July. The program says it simply opted for "a wide shot" to give its audience the fuller "layout," reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Thursday, July 17, 2014 The Human Price of Neocon Havoc
Neocons are the "masters of chaos" as they destabilize disfavored governments around the world. But real people pay the price as we've seen with Israel's slaughter of four boys on a Gaza beach and an apparent shoot-down of a Malaysian airliner over war-torn Ukraine, writes Robert Parry.
(16 comments) SHARE Monday, October 20, 2014 Germans Clear Russia in MH-17 Case
For months, Western governments and media have accused Russia of supplying the anti-aircraft missile that brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 killing 298 people. But now German intelligence has reportedly determined the missile came from a Ukrainian military base, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, November 1, 2010 Iranian Students Ask About 1980
another part of the secret Reagan/Bush operation in the 1980s was to balance the U.S. weapons going to Iran, via Israel, with other clandestine military support to Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Reagan's CIA Director William Casey, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, would sometimes joke that the real goal was to get Iranians and Iraqis to kill each other off.
(11 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 17, 2013 The Abject Failure of Reaganomics
House Republicans got next to nothing from their extortion strategy of taking the government and the economy hostage, but they are sure to continue obstructing programs that could create jobs and start rebuilding the middle class. What they won't recognize is the abject failure of Reaganomics.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 28, 2012 Iran War on the Ballot
War or peace with Iran will be on the U.S. presidential ballot, with Barack Obama's reelection likely to clear the way for direct talks on resolving the dispute over Iran's nuclear program but with a victory by Mitt Romney putting neocons in a position to seek "regime change,"
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, December 9, 2011 The Warning in Gary Webb's Death
Webb's suicide on the evening of Dec. 9, 2004, was also a tragic end for one man whose livelihood and reputation were destroyed by a phalanx of major newspapers -- the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times -- serving as protectors of a corrupt power structure rather than as sources of honest information.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 1, 2012 The Source of Romney's Lying
An enduring mystery about Mitt Romney is why he lies so persistently and with so little shame. Some people blame his business experience or cite the basic dishonesty of politics, but there is also the curious foundation of his Mormon religion which was started by a proven conman.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 27, 2014 A Shadow US Foreign Policy
The National Endowment for Democracy, a central part of Ronald Reagan's propaganda war against the Soviet Union three decades ago, has evolved into a $100 million U.S. government-financed slush fund that generally supports a neocon agenda often at cross-purposes with the Obama administration's foreign policy. U.S.-financed outfits like NED are doing all they can to create crises for Putin on his own border.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 1, 2010 How Rev. Moon's 'Snakes' Infested US
Even the passing of Moon's Washington Times will not mean that the snakes and other vermin that Moon let loose in the American political system will soon disappear. In fact, they may be more prevalent than ever.
(71 comments) SHARE Friday, January 13, 2012 Ron Paul's False Founding Narrative
Rep. Ron Paul and other right-wingers have lured many average Americans into their camp by creating a false narrative about America's Founding, claiming that the drafters of the Constitution wanted a weak central government. But that's not the real history
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 6, 2011 Ronald Reagan, Enabler of Atrocities
Democrats mostly approached this deification of Reagan as harmless, an easy concession to the Republicans in the name of bipartisanship. Some Democrats would even try to cite Reagan as supportive of some of their positions as a way to protect themselves from attacks launched by the increasingly powerful right-wing news media.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 18, 2012 An Israeli October Surprise for Obama?
A pressing foreign policy question of the U.S. presidential race is whether Israel might exploit this politically delicate time to bomb Iran's nuclear sites and force President Obama to join the attack or face defeat at the polls, a predicament with similarities to one President Carter faced in 1980.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, December 9, 2016 Big Media's Contra-Cocaine Cover-up
Twelve years ago, a campaign of character assassination by the major U.S. newspapers drove an honest journalist to suicide. Now those papers claim to be paragons of truth-telling, says Robert Parry.
SHARE Thursday, December 9, 2010 Big Media's Guilt in Gary Webb's Death
The ostracism of Gary Webb was part of a larger back story. It was a prelude to the massive journalism failures of the past decade when many of the same newspapers joined the stampede for George W. Bush's wars, instead of showing professionalism and skepticism.
(17 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 14, 2016 Democrats, Too Clever by Half on Clinton
Democratic Party honchos who wanted Hillary Clinton's coronation are having some regrets as her weaknesses become obvious, her poll numbers sink, and Donald Trump surges toward the lead, reports Robert Parry.
(59 comments) SHARE Monday, July 13, 2015 The Mess that Nuland Made
Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine's "regime change" in early 2014 without weighing the likely chaos and consequences. Now, as neo-Nazis turn their guns on the government, it's hard to see how anyone can clean up the mess that Nuland made, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 14, 2012 Turning America into Pottersville
The Republican presidential race has taken a detour into the "class warfare" that the party supposedly despises, with Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry tagging Mitt Romney as an elitist who got rich by laying off workers. But this spat misses the larger point of what the Right is doing to America.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 9, 2009 Why Journalist Gary Webb Died
Webb's death on the night of Dec. 9, 2004, came as the U.S. press corps was at a nadir, having recently aided and abetted President George W. Bush in taking the country to war in Iraq under false pretenses. The press corps also had performed abysmally in Bush's two presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004, hesitant to take on the powerful Bush Family.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 12, 2011 Jimmy Carter's October Surprise Doubts
If Carter had freed the hostages and won a second term, the United States might have continued on a path toward alternative energy, the federal deficit would not have soared as it did under Reagan, and deregulation of corporations would not have opened the environment and the financial sector to such dangers.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 13, 2010 Haiti and America's Historic Debt
Recent Republican administrations have been particularly hostile to the popular will of the impoverished Haitian masses. When leftist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide was twice elected by overwhelming margins, he was ousted both times -" first during the presidency of George H.W. Bush and again under President George W. Bush.
(87 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 19, 2017 Why Hillary Clinton Really Lost
An insider book on Campaign 2016 reveals a paranoid Hillary Clinton who spied on staff emails after losing in 2008 and carried her political dysfunction into her loss to Donald Trump, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 16, 2008 Predictable Economic Disaster by George W. Bush
In his trademark goofy way, George W. Bush explained why he supported a bailout of the U.S. financial markets, saying he was "a free-market person, until you're told that if you don't take decisive measures then it's conceivable that our country could go into a depression greater than the Great Depression."
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 27, 2011 Taking a Bush Secret to the Grave
The National Archives has approved an appeal by journalist Robert Parry seeking release of a 30-year-old secret, the address where George H.W. Bush supposedly went on an October weekend in 1980 -- when several witnesses put Bush in Paris meeting with Iranians. But it turns out the "alibi witness" is now dead.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, August 12, 2011 Keeping a Curious Bush Secret
One of the strange mysteries from the Reagan-Bush era is where did George H.W. Bush go on one Sunday in October 1980 when some witnesses placed him meeting with Iranians in Paris. More than three decades later, Bush's supposed alibi remains a state secret.
(13 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 21, 2013 Newtown's Hidden Crime-Scene Photos
Each time, these "gun rights" enthusiasts shout out their truncated version of the Second Amendment -- leaving out the parts about "a well-regulated militia" and the "security of a free state" -- they could have these images of mangled children flash through their minds.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 9, 2016 Why Trump Won; Why Clinton Lost
Hillary Clinton's stunning defeat reflected a gross misjudgment by the Democratic Party about the depth of populist anger against self-serving elites who have treated much of the country with disdain, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 4, 2011 Making the US Economy "Scream"
Over the past several decades, Republican methods for winning national power have come to resemble CIA techniques for destabilizing an enemy country -- through the use of black propaganda, political skullduggery and economic disruptions. Now, heading toward Election 2012, the Republicans appear poised to make the U.S. economy "scream."
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 11, 2016 Donald Trump's Incendiary Language
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is taking a P.R. pounding for a sloppy Second Amendment reference interpreted as calling for Hillary Clinton's assassination, but what was his intent, asks Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 29, 2011 Reagan's 'Tear Down This Wall' Myth
None of the ugly reality of the Cold War is likely to find its way into the U.S. news media's adulation over the late Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday. Instead, the American people will get a steady dose of Reagan shouting, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" -- and the Wall magically coming down.
(9 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 22, 2014 The Mystery of a Ukrainian Army "Defector"
U.S. intelligence officials suggest that the person who fired the missile that downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 may have been "a defector" from the Ukrainian army, an apparent attempt to explain why some CIA analysts thought satellite images revealed men in Ukrainian army uniforms manning the missile battery, writes Robert Parry.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 28, 2016 Troubling Gaps in the New MH-17 Report
The new accusation of Russian complicity in 2014 Malaysia Airlines shootdown was based on Ukrainian intelligence intercepts that were selectively interpreted while contrary information was ignored, writes Robert Parry.
(51 comments) SHARE Monday, February 23, 2015 Ready for Nuclear War over Ukraine?
A year after a U.S.-backed coup ousted Ukraine's elected president, the new powers in Kiev are itching for a "full-scale war" with Russia -- and want the West's backing even if it could provoke a nuclear conflict, a Strangelovian madness that the U.S. media ignores, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 8, 2013 The Koch Brothers' "Samson Option"
The fiscal crisis in Washington is not simply a threat to economic and government stability, as serious as that is. It is a premeditated scheme to carve out a new constitutional structure that gives the Koch Brothers and other right-wing billionaires the power to void the democratic process.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 5, 2011 Reagan's "Greed Is Good" Folly
For three decades, the United States has undertaken an extraordinary social experiment, incentivizing greed among the richest Americans by cutting their top tax rates in half or more. The results are now in from Ronald Reagan's bold gamble and they aren't good.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, November 28, 2014 Der Spiegel Tones Down Anti-Putin Hysteria
The mainstream U.S. news media continues to spew out a steady flow of anti-Russian propaganda over the Ukraine crisis, but the prominent German newsmagazine Der Spiegel has begun to temper its belligerent tone, finally reflecting the more nuanced reality, reports Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 20, 2016 Democrats in "Group Think" Land
When Sunday's Democratic presidential debate turned to world affairs, the NBC correspondents and both Sen. Sanders and ex-Secretary Clinton fell in line behind "group thinks" about Syria, Iran and Russia that lack evidentiary support, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Tuesday, November 28, 2006 Why Trust Robert Gates on Iraq?
While in charge of the CIA's analytical division in the mid-1980s, Robert M. Gates made wildly erroneous predictions about the dangers posed by leftist-ruled Nicaragua and espoused policy prescriptions considered too extreme even by the Reagan administration, in one case advocating the U.S. bombing of Nicaragua.
(12 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 3, 2014 Flight 17 Shoot-Down Scenario Shifts
From magazine covers to pronouncements by top politicians, Official Washington jumped to the conclusion that Ukrainian rebels and Russia were guilty in the shoot-down of a Malaysian passenger plane. But some U.S. intelligence analysts may see the evidence differently, writes Robert Parry.
(26 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 20, 2016 NYT Advocates Internet Censorship
The New York Times wants a system of censorship for the Internet to block what it calls "fake news," but the Times ignores its own record of publishing "fake news," reports Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 17, 2011 Ray McGovern Bloodied at Clinton Talk
In comments after being jailed on Tuesday, McGovern explained the reason for his protest: "Hillary is the driving force, together with a few others, behind the war in Afghanistan. "When people die because we have hypocrites at the top of our government, that compels me to make a statement in whatever way I can.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, January 28, 2011 Ronald Reagan's 30-Year Time Bombs
Many other trends set during the Reagan era continued to corrode the U.S. political process in the years after Reagan left office. After 9/11, for instance, the neocons reemerged as a dominant force, reprising their "perception management" tactics, depicting the "war on terror" -- like the last days of the Cold War -- as a terrifying conflict between good and evil.
(20 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 23, 2014 Neocons and the Ukraine Coup
Exclusive: American neocons helped destabilize Ukraine and engineer the overthrow of its elected government, a “regime change” on Russia’s western border. But the coup – and the neo-Nazi militias at the forefront – also reveal divisions within the Obama administration, reports Robert Parry.
(11 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 22, 2016 Washington's New Lock-Step March of Folly
Confident in a Hillary Clinton victory, Washington's foreign policy elite is readying plans for more warfare in Syria and more confrontations with nuclear-armed Russia, an across-the-spectrum "group think" that risks life on the planet, says Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, August 20, 2010 Spinning the US Failure in Iraq
There seems to be more relief that the war is finally coming to an end than a willingness to comment on the American failure. There is also some suspicion on the Left that the U.S. military occupation will simply continue under some new subterfuge. Yet, without hard-hitting assessments of the failure, Official Washington gets yet another reprieve on any accountability.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 13, 2005 Colin Powell Being Colin Powell
What we found in our investigation of Powells legend was not the heroic figure of his press clippings, but the story of an ambitious man with a weak moral compass. He either hid in the reeds when others were standing up for what they knew to be right or he contributed to the wrongdoing.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 23, 2010 US Democracy's End of the Road
after the Supreme Court ruling allowing corporations to spend whatever they want to punish some politicans and reward others, it is hard to see a road back for American democracy. President Obama may begin striking a more populist tone, but it may be too little, too late. Even if he's sincere, he's sure to be bombarded with corporate-funded 30-second ads mocking him and his policies.
(10 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 14, 2012 The Neocons' Waterloo
The last week has witnessed what might be called the Neocons' Waterloo as their bid to reclaim power was beaten back by President Obama's reelection and their last major government ally, CIA Director David Petraeus, resigned amid a sex scandal.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 21, 2011 Netanyahu Sets Limits for Obama
With another angry Likud prime minister taking aim at the second term of another Democratic president, who is perceived as pushing too hard for a Palestinian state, it might finally be time for this important history to be examined honestly and presented clearly to the American people.
(11 comments) SHARE Friday, March 14, 2014 Neocons Have Weathered the Storm
Official Washington’s bipartisan hysteria over Ukraine and Crimea is evidence that the neocons not only weathered the public fury over the Iraq War but are now back shaping U.S. geopolitical strategies, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Monday, October 22, 2012 The October Surprise Mysteries
With hopes brightening that President Obama is close to a negotiated settlement of the Iran nuclear dispute, Mitt Romney's campaign is eager to counter any positive news. The moment is reminiscent of past October Surprise moments, says Robert Parry in this article adapted from America's Stolen Narrative.
(13 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 26, 2017 The Rise of the New McCarthyism
As the New McCarthyism takes hold in America, the neocon Washington Post makes Russia the villain in virtually every bad thing that happens, with U.S. dissidents treated as "fellow-travelers," writes Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 19, 2014 Neocons' Ukraine-Syria-Iran Gambit
The Ukraine crisis – in part stirred up by U.S. neocons – has damaged prospects for peace not only on Russia’s borders but in two Middle East hotspots, Syria and Iran, which may have been exactly the point, reports Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 24, 2016 Another Kerry Rush to Judgment on Syria
The U.N. withdrew its claim that an airstrike hit its Syrian relief convoy but Secretary of State Kerry relied on the outdated claim in lashing out at Russia in a repeat of his earlier rushes to judgment, writes Robert Parry.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 15, 2010 America's Decoupling from Reality
As Election Day 2010 approaches -" as the United States wallows in the swamps of war, recession and environmental degradation -" the consequences of the nation's three-decade-old decoupling from reality are becoming painfully obvious.
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 5, 2014 The Age of the Oligarchs
The concentration of power in the hands of billionaire “oligarchs” may be most alarming in places like Ukraine but the United States is moving in the same direction as wealth is consolidated at the top — and both elections and media are up for sale, says Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, April 27, 2015 Syria's Nightmarish Narrative
With military and political help from Saudi Arabia and Israel, the nightmare scenario of an Al-Qaeda and/or Islamic State victory in Syria may be coming true, as the army of the more secular Syrian government retreats and as President Obama seems frozen by indecision, reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 10, 2015 Enforcing the Ukraine "Group Think"
U.S.-taxpayer-funded Radio Liberty has a checkered history that includes hiring Nazi sympathizers as Cold War commentators. Now, one of its current writers has used the platform to bash an American scholar who won't join Official Washington's "group think" on Ukraine, Robert Parry reports.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 18, 2011 Tea Party Gets the Constitution Wrong
The Tea Partiers love to cite the U.S. Constitution as supporting their contempt for the federal government. But they don't realize that the Constitution represented the most important assertion of central authority in American history.
(37 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 28, 2017 'Getting Trump' with the New McCarthyism
National Democrats and many progressives are embracing a troubling New McCarthyism to justify what amounts to a "soft coup" against Trump.
(19 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 14, 2017 The 'Soft Coup' of Russia-gate
The Russia-gate hysteria has grown stronger after President Trump's firing of FBI Director Comey, but the bigger question is whether an American "soft coup" is in the works, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, September 10, 2012 Romney's Audacious Corporate Raid
Wall Street's audacity in pushing one of its own, Mitt Romney, to be President has the look of a classic corporate takeover, targeting a struggling U.S. and plotting to install new management for restructuring. But that usually means the big boys get the profits and everyone else the sacrifice.
(11 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 10, 2014 NYT Discovers Ukraine's Neo-Nazis at War
Throughout the Ukraine crisis, the U.S. State Department and mainstream media have downplayed the role of neo-Nazis in the U.S.-backed Kiev regime, an inconvenient truth that is surfacing again as right-wing storm troopers fly neo-Nazi banners as they attack in the east, Robert Parry reports.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, March 20, 2015 A Family Business of Perpetual War
Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan have a great mom-and-pop business going. From the State Department, she generates wars and -- from op-ed pages -- he demands Congress buy more weapons. There's a pay-off, too, as grateful military contractors kick in money to think tanks where other Kagans work, writes Robert Parry.
(17 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 5, 2017 Neocons Leverage Trump-Hate for More Wars
The enactment of new sanctions against Russia and Iran -- with the support of nearly all Democrats and Republicans in Congress -- shows how the warmongering neocons again have come out on top, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Tuesday, October 9, 2012 Mitt Romney Lies to the World
While it's true that all politicians play games with the facts, it is actually rare for a politician to be an inveterate liar. But Mitt Romney is one of that rare breed on matters both big and small. And with some polls showing his surge toward victory on Nov. 6, his dishonesty may soon become an issue for the entire world.
(11 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 28, 2015 NYT Publishes Call to Bomb Iran
The New York Times continues its slide into becoming little more than a neocon propaganda sheet as it followed the Washington Post in publishing an op-ed advocating the unprovoked bombing of Iran, reports Robert Parry.
(12 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 26, 2009 The GOP's Anti-Obama Propaganda
Today's Republicans are thumbing through Newt Gingrich's worn playbook of 1993 looking for tips on how to blunt President Barack Obama's political momentum and flip it to their advantage. In doing so, they also appear to have dug in to what might be called the secret appendix.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, February 9, 2015 Wretched US Journalism on Ukraine
The U.S. news media has failed the American people often in recent years by not challenging U.S. government falsehoods, as with Iraq's WMD. But the most dangerous violation of journalistic principles has occurred in the Ukraine crisis, which has the potential of a nuclear war, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 21, 2012 Getting Rid of "Anti-Israel" Presidents
Some staunch supporters of Israel believe that its interests are so compelling that they trump American self-governance, with one extremist suggesting the murder of President Obama. Others, however, appear to have joined in an earlier subversion of U.S. democracy.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 6, 2010 Key October Surprise Evidence Hidden
The congressional investigation was shoddy and incomplete, thus reopening the question of whether Reagan's landslide victory in 1980 was, in part, set in motion by a dirty trick that extended the 444-day captivity of the hostages who were freed immediately after Reagan was sworn into office on Jan. 20, 1981.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, June 12, 2015 U.S. House Admits Nazi Role in Ukraine
The U.S. House of Representatives has admitted an ugly truth that the U.S. mainstream media has tried to hide from the American people -- that the post-coup regime in Ukraine has relied heavily on Nazi storm troopers to carry out its bloody war against ethnic Russians, reports Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, November 11, 2011 Richard Nixon's Darkest Secret
In just-released Watergate grand jury testimony from 1975, ex-President Richard Nixon complained that his 1968 campaign was bugged by the Johnson administration. But there was little curiosity then -- or now -- as to why that surveillance was justified.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, December 17, 2010 Special Report: Hitler's Shadow Reaches toward Today
The Washington Times remains a reliably right-wing voice in the U.S. capital, although Moon, now 90, has ceded much of the day-to-day control of his organization to his wife and children.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, March 11, 2011 How the US Press Corps Lost Its Way
Often called "the Dean of the Washington press corps," Broder was more the efficient police officer who tells the public, "move along, nothing to see here." He forever made excuses for the crimes of Washington's powerful and discouraged investigations that might expose serious wrongdoing.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 29, 2015 The Day After Damascus Falls
The Saudi-Israeli alliance has gone on the offensive, ramping up a "regime change" war in Syria and, in effect, promoting a military victory for Al-Qaeda or its spinoff, the Islamic State. But the consequences of that victory could toll the final bell for the American Republic, writes Robert Parry.
(27 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 29, 2017 The Sleazy Origins of Russia-gate
Official Washington's groupthink is that Russian "disinformation" helped elect Donald Trump, but the evidence is actually much stronger that Russian "dirt" was helping Hillary Clinton, reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 20, 2010 George W. Bush: Dupe or Deceiver?
after finishing Decision Points, I still wasn't sure where the line was between Bush being the one getting manipulated and the one manipulating the rest of us. Had he drunk his own Kool-Aid or had he cynically instructed his ghost writer to fashion some old talking points into a memoir designed to rehabilitate himself and his powerful family?
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, March 4, 2011 From The Archives: Bush's Interrogators Stressed Nudity
The CIA said the prisoner is kept nude (or occasionally dressed in a diaper) while being subjected to other "conditioning techniques," sleep deprivation and a bland diet of Ensure. Nudity continues while interrogators apply other more aggressive techniques designed to emphasize a prisoner's helplessness.
(8 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 28, 2009 Who to Trust on a Truth Commission?
While woeful in terms of penetrating official lies in pursuit of truth, Hamilton parlayed his performance as a congressional investigator into the esteemed status of a Washington's Wise Man. He was a natural choice for the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group, someone who would do all he could to avoid ruffling the feathers of prickly Republicans.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 4, 2012 Did Romney "Win" the Debate?
The instant analysis after the first presidential debate -- even on liberal-leaning MSNBC -- was that Mitt Romney was the decisive "winner." But Romney not only ducked the specifics of his plans but looked sneaky and nervous in doing so.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 14, 2016 Getting Fooled on Iraq, Libya, Now Russia
After the British report exposing falsehoods to justify invading Iraq in 2003, a new U.K. inquiry found similar misconduct in the 2011 attack on Libya, but no lessons are learned for the West's new propaganda about Russia, writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 9, 2015 Obama's Stupid Propaganda Stuff
Just last month, President Obama dispatched Secretary of State Kerry to secure Russian President Putin's help in addressing the Syrian crisis and other world hotspots -- but despite Putin's agreement, Obama has reversed himself and is back hurling insults at the Russians, a troubling development, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 7, 2012 The Almost Scoop on Nixon's "Treason"
The Nixon campaign's brazen attempt to ensure his victory in 1968 by sabotaging peace talks was so shocking then that Democrats shied away from discussing it publicly even after they found evidence.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 2, 2017 A Blacklisted Film and the New Cold War
As Congress still swoons over the anti-Kremlin Magnitsky narrative, Western political and media leaders refuse to let their people view a documentary that debunks the fable, reports Robert Parry.
(12 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 10, 2010 Hard Lessons from Election 2010
Because of the magnitude and intensity of the Right's media, Republicans can confidently sell a wide variety of propaganda themes to the American people. The themes might not make much sense, but they develop a ring of truth because they get repeated so often.
(18 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 12, 2011 Pity the Poor Tea Partier!
Ryan's 2012 proposal doesn't envision balancing the budget for almost 30 years. So, as the Tea Partier hobbles through his late 60s, suffering through insurance-induced poverty and anticipating an early death, the prospect of the government having its fiscal house in order will still be a hazy future promise, maybe a decade or more still to go.
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 10, 2014 Burning Ukraine's Protesters Alive
For the second time in a week, Ukrainian anti-regime protesters holed up in a building were killed by fires set by pro-regime attackers with ties to newly formed neo-Nazi security forces, reports Robert Parry.
(34 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 8, 2016 Key Neocon Calls on US to Oust Putin
A prominent neocon paymaster, whose outfit dispenses $100 million in U.S. taxpayers' money each year, has called on America to "summon the will" to remove Russian President Putin from office, reports Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 27, 2014 The Danger of False Narrative
Like a decade ago with Iraq, Official Washington’s pundits and pols are locked shoulder-to-shoulder in a phalanx of misguided consensus on Ukraine, presenting a false narrative that is taking U.S. policy into dangerous directions, writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, June 1, 2012 Showing that Hostage-Taking Works
The U.S. news media has been quick to cite the lousy May jobs report as proof that President Obama's economic stimulus has failed and that Mitt Romney's odds of winning have improved. But the real winner is the Republican strategy to make the U.S. economy "scream."
(10 comments) SHARE Monday, May 5, 2014 Ukraine's "Dr. Strangelove" Reality
The horrendous fire in Odessa, killing dozens of ethnic Russians protesting against the U.S.-backed coup regime in Kiev, has lurched the country closer to full-scale civil war and disrupted the American media's efforts to deny the existence of pro-regime neo-Nazis, Robert Parry reports.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 31, 2017 Sorting Out the Russia Mess
The U.S. mainstream media finally has its "smoking gun" on Russia-gate -- incriminating information from a junior Trump campaign adviser -- but a closer look reveals serious problems with the "evidence," writes Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 11, 2015 Nuland's Mastery of Ukraine Propaganda
In House testimony, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland blamed Russia and ethnic-Russian rebels for last summer's shoot-down of MH-17 over Ukraine, but the U.S. government has not substantiated that charge. So, did Nuland mislead Congress or just play a propaganda game, asks Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, October 17, 2014 The Neocons -- Masters of Chaos
America's neoconservatives, by stirring up trouble in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, are creating risks for the world's economy that are surfacing now in the turbulent stock markets, threatening another global recession, writes Robert Parry.
(15 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 12, 2017 Russia-gate's Fatally Flawed Logic
By pushing the Russia-gate "scandal" and neutering President Trump's ability to conduct diplomacy, Democrats and Congress have encouraged his war-making side on North Korea, writes Robert Parry.
(13 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 15, 2009 Betraying 'President's Men' Legacy, WaPo Becomes Neocon Propaganda Sheet
For Americans who hear the name Washington Post and still think of "All the President's Men" brave journalists and editors facing down a corrupt President today's version of the newspaper would be a sad disappointment, a betrayal of a noble past.
(16 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 23, 2015 NYT's Orwellian View of Ukraine
In the up-is-down Orwellian world that is now The New York Times' editorial page, there was no coup in Ukraine in 2014, no U.S.-driven "regime change," no provocation on Russia's border, just Moscow's aggression -- a sign of how propaganda has taken over mainstream U.S. media, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 7, 2015 Ukraine Merges Nazis and Islamists
Ukraine's post-coup regime is now melding neo-Nazi storm troopers with Islamic militants -- called "brothers" of the hyper-violent Islamic State -- stirring up a hellish "death squad" brew to kill ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, on Russia's border, reports Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 21, 2016 A Cheap Shot at Bernie Sanders' Summer Home
Charles Lane and other Washington Post editorialists defend neocon and neoliberal orthodoxies by demonizing foreign leaders who step out of line and now by making fun of Bernie Sanders for buying a summer home, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 13, 2011 Rick Perry's Revolutionary War "History"
The stupidity of the Republican presidential field seems to know no bounds, with Gov. Rick Perry's putting the American Revolution in the 1500s and joining Rep. Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party in messing up the history of the nation's founding
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 14, 2015 US Intel Stands Pat on MH-17 Shoot-down
Almost eight months after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine -- creating a flashpoint in the standoff between nuclear-armed Russia and America -- the U.S. intelligence community claims it has not updated its assessment since five days after the crash, reports Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 27, 2010 The Supreme Court's Partisanship
The Right's influence is so wide and so deep that it can front for wealthy special interests under the guise of "populism" and persuade many Americans that their real enemy is not Big Corporations, but Big Government.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, April 27, 2009 Democrats' 'Battered Wife Syndrome'
In recent years, the Washington political dynamic has often resembled an abusive marriage, in which the bullying husband (the Republicans) slaps the wife and kids around, and the battered wife (the Democrats) makes excuses and hides the ugly bruises from outsiders to keep the family together. So, when the Republicans are in a position of power, they throw their weight around, break the rules, and taunt: "Whaddya gonna do "bou
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 10, 2013 New Evidence of Contra-Cocaine Scandal
Special Report: Since journalist Gary Webb died in 2004, the story that destroyed his life has slowly come into clearer focus, revealing how President Reagan's beloved Contras really were enmeshed in cocaine trafficking. On this ninth anniversary of Webb's suicide, new corroboration has emerged.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, September 9, 2016 UN Team Heard Claims of "Staged" Chemical Attacks
A widely touted U.N. report accusing the Syrian government of two chlorine-gas attacks relied on shaky evidence and brushed aside witness testimony that claimed some incidents were staged, reports Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 3, 2012 LBJ's "X" File on Nixon's "Treason"
In the dusty files of Lyndon Johnson's presidential library in Austin, Texas, once secret documents and audiotapes tell a dark and tragic story of how Richard Nixon's team secured the White House in 1968 by sabotaging peace talks that might have ended the Vietnam War four years earlier.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 10, 2012 Behind Petraeus's Resignation
The resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus over an extramarital affair marks a stunning reversal for the longtime media darling. But some in President Obama's inner circle are not displeased the neocon-friendly ex-general is gone.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, September 9, 2011 Bush's "October Surprise' File in Dispute
The enduring October Surprise mystery -- whether Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign sabotaged President Jimmy Carter's efforts to free 52 American hostages in Iran -- has reached a possible turning point, whether details of George H.W. Bush's activities on a key day will be released.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 17, 2013 How False History Props Up the Right
The Right's policy nostrums are failing across the board -- from free-market extremism to austerity as a cure for recession to continuing the old health-care dysfunction -- leaving only an ideological faith that this is what the Framers wanted. But that right-wing "history" is just one more illusion.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, February 4, 2011 Reagan's Epoch Shatters in Egypt
The political crisis sweeping the Middle East is another part of Ronald Reagan's dark legacy that is shattering into chaos even as the United States prepares to lavishly celebrate his 100th birthday.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 3, 2014 The Whys Behind the Ukraine Crisis
Given the very high stakes of a nuclear confrontation with Russia, some analysts wonder what's the real motive for taking this extraordinary risk over Ukraine. Is it about natural gas, protection of the U.S. dollar's dominance, or an outgrowth of neocon extremism, asks Robert Parry.
(11 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 12, 2011 Palin Depicts Herself as Tucson Victim
Palin still did not seem willing to reflect on the harm that violent rhetoric can inflict on a democratic society, especially one like the United States where prominent leaders have been struck down by assassins. Instead, she defended her verbal assaults as something of a civic duty, even as she condemned any criticism of herself.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, May 29, 2015 More Video Fakery on MH-17
Australia's "60 Minutes" program refuses to admit the obvious: that it messed up in determining the location where the "getaway" video was taken after last July's Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 shoot-down. Instead, the show presented an update with more deceptive video, reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 7, 2010 A Long History of America's Dark Side
Reagan operatives were not shy about their defense of political terror as a necessity of the Cold War. Neil Livingstone, a counter-terrorism consultant to the National Security Council, called death squads "an extremely effective tool, however odious, in combatting terrorism and revolutionary challenges."
(11 comments) SHARE Friday, November 18, 2016 What to Do About "Fake News"
A pushback is coming to the Internet's success in giving the world access to diverse opinions and dissenting information. Politicians, mainstream media and technology giants are taking aim at what they call "fake news," reports Robert Parry.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 6, 2016 Hillary Clinton as Damaged Goods
FBI Director Comey's judgment that Hillary Clinton was "extremely careless" but not criminal in her sloppy email practices leaves her limping to the Democratic nomination and stumbling toward the fall campaign, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 28, 2007 The Truth about Colin Powell
Few modern Americans have enjoyed better press clippings than Colin Powell, which made him the perfect choice to sell the Iraq War. But there was a troubling side of Powell's history that Americans should have known,
(17 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 2, 2010 Does Obama Know the War He's In?
When out of power in recent years, the Republicans haven't even pretended to cooperate with Democrats; instead, the GOP and its media allies have set out to make Washington ungovernable. The incivility is not just some naturally occurring phenomenon; it is a conscious strategy for regaining power.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, December 18, 2009 Elliott Abrams and 'Neocon-ing' Obama
For the eight years of the Bush-II administration, a key behind-the-scenes architect of U.S. strategy in the Middle East was Elliott Abrams, a neoconservative whose devotion to Israel is hard to overstate -" and who is now engaged in what looks like a PR campaign to bend Barack Obama's Mideast policies in the direction favored by Israel's hard-line Likud government.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, May 18, 2015 Fake Evidence Blaming Russia for MH-17?
Pointing the finger of blame at Russian President Putin for the Malaysia Airlines shoot-down last July, an Australian news show claims to have found the spot where the Russian BUK missile battery made its getaway, but the images don't match, raising questions of journalistic fakery, writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, December 22, 2014 The Liberal Idiocy on Russia/Ukraine
American pundits are often more interested in scoring points against their partisan rivals than in the pain that U.S. policies inflict on people in faraway lands, as columnists Paul Krugman and Thomas L. Friedman are showing regarding Russia and Ukraine, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 24, 2015 Ukraine's Oligarchs Turn on Each Other
Ukraine's post-coup regime is facing what looks like a falling-out among thieves as oligarch-warlord Igor Kolomoisky, who was given his own province to rule, brought his armed men to Kiev to fight for control of the state-owned energy company, further complicating the State Department's propaganda efforts, reports Robert Parry.
(7 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 27, 2014 Blaming Russia as "Flat Fact"
The American rush to judgment blaming ethnic Russian rebels and Russian President Putin for the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 continues unabated despite other possible explanations, writes Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 2, 2014 Who's Telling the "Big Lie" on Ukraine?
Official Washington draws the Ukraine crisis in black-and-white colors with Russian President Putin the bad guy and the U.S.-backed leaders in Kiev the good guys. But the reality is much more nuanced, with the American people consistently misled on key facts, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 4, 2015 Sleepwalking to Another Mideast Disaster
Denied crucial information about Syria, the American people are being led toward the precipice of another Middle East war, guided by neocons and liberal hawks who are set on "regime change" even if that means a likely victory for Sunni terrorists, writes Robert Parry.
(16 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 29, 2016 The De Facto US/Al Qaeda Alliance
Buried deep inside Saturday's New York Times was a grudging acknowledgement that the U.S.-armed "moderate" rebels in Syria are using their U.S. firepower to back an Al Qaeda offensive, reports Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 7, 2011 Rep. Ryan's Free-Market 'Death Panels'
Ryan has been widely hailed by the mainstream media as a "courageous" visionary, a thoughtful guy brave enough to make tough choices. Watching CNN and CNBC--not to mention Fox--it's as if the revenue side of the budget crisis is non-existent. "Political courage" only comes from destroying the remnants of FDR's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, if not Theodore Roosevelt's progressive era.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 16, 2017 Russia-gate Spreads to Europe
The Russia-gate hysteria has jumped the Atlantic with Europeans blaming Russia for Brexit and Catalonian discontent. But what about Israeli influence operations or, for that matter, American ones, asks Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 2, 2016 How Hillary Clinton Ignores Peace
Despite neocon-instigated chaos and bloodshed across the Mideast (and now into Europe), Hillary Clinton continues to advocate more "regime change" wars with almost no fear from a marginalized anti-war movement, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 11, 2015 WPost Plays Ukraine's Lapdog
Ukraine's Prime Minister Yatsenyuk and Finance Minister Jaresko are on a U.S. trip to drum up weapons and money to crush the ethnic Russian resistance in the east -- and they are finding a lapdog U.S. press that won't ask them tough questions, reports Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 5, 2015 Gifting Russia "Free-Market" Extremism
Official Washington's Putin-bashing knows no bounds as the Russian president's understandable complaints about U.S. triumphalism and NATO expansion, after the Soviet collapse in the 1990s, are dismissed as signs of his "paranoia" and "revisionism," writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 31, 2013 The Russian-Saudi Showdown at Sochi
Last summer, Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar reportedly offered Russian President Putin a deal: if Russia abandons Syria, Saudi Arabia would protect the Sochi Olympics from Islamic terrorists. Putin is said to have angrily rebuffed the offer. Now, with two terrorist attacks, it's Putin's move, writes Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, March 2, 2015 Playing Chicken with Nuclear War
U.S.-Russian tensions keep escalating -- now surrounding the murder of Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov -- yet almost no one on the American side seems to worry about the possibility that the tough-guy rhetoric and proxy war in Ukraine might risk a nuclear conflagration, writes Robert Parry.
(21 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 24, 2015 NYT Is Lost in Its Ukraine Propaganda
One danger of lying is that you must then incorporate the falsehood into the longer narrative, somehow making the lies fit. The same is true of propaganda as the New York Times is learning as it continues to falsify the narrative of the Ukraine crisis, writes Robert Parry.
(13 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 5, 2017 The Politics Behind "Russia-gate"
The hysteria over "Russia-gate" continues to grow -- as President Trump's enemies circle -- but at its core there may be no there there while it risks pushing the world toward nuclear annihilation, writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 3, 2016 Phony "Corruption" Excuse for Ukraine Coup
The U.S.-backed "regime change" in Ukraine -- launching the New Cold War with Russia in 2014 -- was rationalized by the need to rid Ukraine of corruption, but post-coup officials are busy lining their pockets, reports Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 13, 2013 "Dirty War" Questions for Pope Francis
The U.S. "news" networks are bubbling with excitement over the selection of Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to be Pope Francis I. But there was silence on the obvious question that should be asked about any senior cleric from Argentina: What was Bergoglio doing during the "dirty war."
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, April 24, 2015 Obama's "Openness" and Deceit
President Obama claims to value "openness" as a core principle of democracy, but the truth is that his administration has been among the most secretive and manipulative in modern times, tailoring what the public hears about foreign crises to what serves his agenda, writes Robert Parry.
(16 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 9, 2009 Ancient Israeli Myths Deter Peace
"This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Isrealites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel," summed up Professor Ze'ev Herzog, director of the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 21, 2010 Colin Powell's Tolerance of Murder
Powell's peripheral role in the My Lai cover-up did not slow his climb up the Army's ladder, indeed it may have helped by establishing him as the kind of guy who would play along with whatever his superiors wanted.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 25, 2011 Cheering Netanyahu's Intransigence
Republicans and Democrats in Congress leapt to their feet again and again to applaud Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even as he was challenging the policies of President Barack Obama. Yet, this pro-Israeli solidarity could have harmful consequences for Israel, the Palestinians and the United States.
SHARE Thursday, September 13, 2012 Romney's Jaw-Dropping Incoherence
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's latest distortion about an attempt by the U.S. Embassy in Egypt to calm Mideast tensions is not only renewing concerns about his honesty but raising new questions about his mental stability.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 9, 2015 MH-17 Case Slips into Propaganda Fog
Almost a year ago, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine killing 298 people. Yet, instead of a transparent investigation seeking justice, the case became a propaganda game of finger-pointing, with the CIA withholding key evidence all the better to blame Russia, reports Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 18, 2016 Good Deaths in Mosul, Bad Deaths in Aleppo
As the U.S.-backed offensive in Mosul, Iraq, begins, the mainstream U.S. media readies the American people to blame the terrorists for civilian casualties but the opposite rules apply to Syria's Aleppo, reports Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 5, 2015 Whining White Southerners
Some brave white Southerners, including the son of segregationist Strom Thurmond, have spoken out against Confederate symbols like the battle flag, but many whites still react with fury at calls for retiring those symbols and other honors bestowed on Confederate leaders, writes Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 30, 2011 Unmasking October Surprise "debunker"
The fake "debunking" of the 1980 October Surprise case in the early 1990s was driven by a few "journalists," including Steven Emerson, who has been identified in a recent report as a "misinformation expert" spreading anti-Muslim propaganda.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, August 25, 2017 The Possible Education of Donald Trump
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is ratcheting up war tensions in Syria again, but President Trump reportedly is not happy with the threats as he shifts again toward resisting the neocons, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 23, 2009 Neocon Judge's History of Cover-ups
On Sept. 11, the eighth anniversary of the terror attacks on New York and Washington, Silberman issued a 2-to-1 opinion dismissing a lawsuit against the private security firm, CACI International, brought by Iraqi victims of torture and other abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.
(16 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 15, 2010 Some Hard Truths about America
Since Reagan's presidency, the Republicans have been determined to "starve" the government of resources so it can't address problems like climate change, renewable energy, education, transportation, health care, housing, etc. The only big expenditure that the GOP won't cut is military spending, especially for overseas wars.
SHARE Monday, December 21, 2009 How Myths Can Kill
Grand theories about American "exceptionalism" have rationalized U.S. imperial interventions around the world, wars and covert actions that would have been condemned as aggression or even terrorism if carried out by some other nation.
SHARE Monday, April 3, 2006 Condi, War Crimes & the Press
During the three years of carnage in Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has shifted away from her now-discredited warning about a mushroom cloud to assert a strategic rationale for the invasion that puts her squarely in violation of the Nuremberg principle against aggressive war.
(8 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 18, 2014 The Best and Worst US Presidents
From the start of the Republic, some U.S. presidents favored government activism to address the nation’s problems, while others let the states do what they wanted and business tycoons have their way, a distinction that Robert Parry says can define the best and worst.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 1, 2015 Obama's Secrecy Obsession
Though President Obama likes to present himself as a regular guy, he acts like an elitist when he unnecessarily withholds information from the American people. At this critical juncture of his presidency, he might finally take a chance on trusting the public with facts, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Sunday, February 27, 2011 Gates Agrees, Bush's Wars Were Nuts
You might think that "opinion leaders" who were so completely gulled by the sophistry of the neoconservatives -- or who perhaps simply went opportunistically along with a war that was an international crime -- might suffer some negative consequences, like a demotion or a firing. But that's not the world we live in.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 3, 2017 Hillary Clinton's Deceptive Blame-Shifting
While complaining about "fake news" that undercut her campaign, Hillary Clinton continued her own "fake news" falsehood about the U.S. intelligence assessment on Russian election "meddling."
(7 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 6, 2015 NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine
The New York Times keeps insisting that last year's Ukrainian coup wasn't a coup and anyone who thinks so lives inside "the Russian propaganda bubble." But a slanted Times "investigation" shows that the newspaper remains lost inside the U.S. government's "propaganda bubble," writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 13, 2014 Ignoring Ukraine's Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers
You might think a story about modern-day Nazi storm troopers attacking a European city without mercy would merit front-page coverage in the U.S. press, but not when the Nazi paramilitaries are fighting for the U.S.-backed Ukrainian government and are killing ethnic Russians, writes Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, January 19, 2015 The Danger of an MH-17 "Cold Case"
The Obama administration continues to drag its feet on releasing U.S. intelligence evidence on who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 six months ago, a failure that has given the guilty parties time to scatter and has created a new breeding ground for conspiracy theories, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 20, 2016 "Fraud" Alleged in NYT's MH-17 Report
An amateur report alleging Russian doctoring of satellite photos on the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 case -- a finding embraced by The New York Times -- is denounced by a forensic expert as an "outright fraud," reports Robert Parry.
(15 comments) SHARE Monday, September 22, 2014 High Cost of Bad Journalism on Ukraine
By driving a wedge between President Obama and President Putin over Ukraine, America's neocons and the mainstream media can hope for more "shock and awe" in the Mideast, but the U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill, including $1 trillion more on nuclear weapons, writes Robert Parry.
(10 comments) SHARE Friday, December 19, 2014 Krugman Joins the Anti-Putin Pack
Official Washington's "group think" on the Ukraine crisis now has a totalitarian feel to it as "everyone who matters" joins in the ritualistic stoning of Russian President Putin and takes joy in Russia's economic pain, with liberal economist Paul Krugman the latest to hoist a rock, reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 24, 2009 Iran Divided & the 'October Surprise'
Extensive evidence now exists that Begin's preference for a Reagan victory led Israelis to join in a covert operation with Republicans to contact Iranian leaders behind Carter's back and delay release of the 52 American hostages until after Reagan defeated Carter in November 1980.
Khomeini's blessing allowed Rafsanjani, Karoubi and later Mousavi to proceed with secret contacts that involved emissaries from the Reagan camp
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 7, 2015 Holes in NFL's "Deflategate" Report
A high-profile NFL probe into the champion New England Patriots concluded that "it is more probable than not" that quarterback Tom Brady's footballs were intentionally deflated prior to a January playoff game, but the report sloughs off scientific evidence that undercuts the finding, writes Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 11, 2013 The Right's Second Amendment Fraud
The Senate has beaten back a filibuster from Tea Party Republicans to block debate on possible gun-reform laws in the wake of last December's massacre of 20 first-graders and six educators in Connecticut. But the setback won't stop the extremists from continuing to twist the Second Amendment.
(19 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 4, 2009 Democrats Ponder Health-Care Suicide
If Democrats enact something like the health-care bill emerging from the Senate Finance Committee, they may call it a legislative victory and it may keep the campaign donations flowing from the insurance industry, but the Democrats would surely infuriate millions of American voters.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 17, 2011 How I View the American Crisis
The Right feels it is strong enough to impose its Ayn Rand vision of a winner-take-all society and deploy its vast resources to prevail on Election Day. It is possible that the Republicans have overreached this time, with their ambitious agenda of slashing domestic spending, replacing Medicare with a voucher system, and lavishing more tax reductions on the rich.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 5, 2016 New "Group Think" for War with Syria/Russia
Official Washington has a new "group think" that is even more dangerous than the one that led to the Iraq War. This one calls for U.S. escalation of conflicts against Syria and nuclear-armed Russia, writes Robert Parry.
(11 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 18, 2017 Netanyahu Pushes Trump Toward Wider Wars
Russia-gate is empowering Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to strong-arm President Trump into escalating the Syrian war by abandoning a recent cease-fire and challenging Iran and Russia, reports Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 3, 2015 WPost Blames Obama for Syrian Mess
As Al-Qaeda forces advance in Syria -- with the help of the Saudi-Israeli alliance -- American neocons are shielding themselves from the blame if Damascus falls to the jihadists by preemptively faulting President Obama for not intervening for "regime change" earlier, Robert Parry reports.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, March 14, 2011 Inside America's 'Adjustment Bureau'
In effect, the October Surprise/Iran-Contra storyline has been split into two contradictory narratives that coexist in the same confused space that is now American history, like the shifting diagrams maintained by the felt-hatted operatives in "The Adjustment Bureau."
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 10, 2015 Madness of Blockading Syria's Regime
The U.S. State Department is trying to block Russian supplies going to Syria's embattled government despite the risk that collapsing the regime would create a vacuum filled by the Islamic State or Al Qaeda, another nightmare dreamt up by the neocons and liberal hawks, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 4, 2014 America's Staggering Hypocrisy
Official Washington is in deep umbrage over Russia’s intervention in Ukraine after a U.S.-backed coup overthrew the democratically elected president. Some top neocons want a new Cold War, but they don’t want anyone to note their staggering hypocrisy, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 15, 2014 Ukraine's Neo-Nazis Demand Respect
Thousands of Ukraine's neo-Nazis surrounded the parliament in Kiev demanding that the government honor Ukrainian paramilitary forces who fought for Adolf Hitler in World War II, another embarrassing reminder of the extremism unleashed by last February's U.S.-backed coup, says Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 24, 2011 America's Debt to Bradley Manning
The cables and videos allegedly leaked by Pvt. Bradley Manning offer the American people gritty "ground truth" about what the U.S. government has done in their names, such as the slaughter in Iraq, but the information also sheds light on a possible future war with Iran
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, August 25, 2014 Selective Outrage over Ukraine POWs
The U.S. news media regularly engages in selective outrage, piously denouncing some adversary for violating international law yet hypocritically silent when worse abuses are committed by the U.S. or allied governments, as the New York Times has shown again, writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 4, 2009 Israel's Looming Catastrophe
For the past three decades, Israel has charted a course that invites its own destruction by relying on two risky propositions: first, that it could extend its security perimeter beyond the reach of a devastating missile attack, and second, that it could permanently control the political debate inside its crucial ally, the United States.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 15, 2011 Will Iraq Debacle Prevent Iran War?
Neoconservatives are livid over President Obama's declaration that the Iraq War is over, fearing that its disastrous outcome will undercut plans for a new war with Iran. But Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich says, if elected, he stands ready to join Israel in invading Iran
(42 comments) SHARE Friday, December 23, 2016 The Good That Trump Could Do
Despite fears about the many negatives from a Donald Trump presidency, one positive could be his shattering of the monopoly that neocons and liberal hawks now hold over U.S. foreign policy, says Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 13, 2015 Who's to Blame for Syria Mess? Putin!
Official Washington's new "group think" is to blame Russia's President Putin for the Syrian crisis, although it was the neocons and President George W. Bush who started the current Mideast mess by invading Iraq, the Saudis who funded Al Qaeda, and the Israelis who plotted "regime change," says Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 8, 2016 The Need to Hold Saudi Arabia Accountable
One of Official Washington's favorite "group thinks" is to insist that Iran is the "chief sponsor of terrorism," but the reality is that Saudi Arabia is much guiltier and U.S. officials know it, says Robert Parry.
(29 comments) SHARE Monday, May 16, 2016 The Coming Democratic Crackup
Though the mainstream media is focused on Republican divisions, a more important story could be the coming Democratic crackup, as anti-war Democrats resist Hillary Clinton's pro-war agenda, writes Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 19, 2015 Tangled Threads of US False Narratives
Official Washington's many false narratives about Russia and Syria have gotten so tangled that they have become a danger to the struggle against Sunni terrorism and conceivably a threat to the future of the planet, a risk that Robert Parry explores.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 5, 2016 The NYT's Neocon "Downward Spiral"
Every day, The New York Times -- America's "paper of record" -- sinks deeper into the swamp of propaganda, now reliably touting predictable neocon notions about the Middle East and Russia, reports Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, February 6, 2015 Nuclear War and Clashing Ukraine Narratives
America and Russia have two nearly opposite narratives on Ukraine, which is more an indictment of the U.S. news media which feigns objectivity but disseminates what amounts to propaganda. These divergent narratives are driving the world toward a possible nuclear crisis, writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 16, 2011 The Dangerous Reagan Cult
Ronald Reagan's anti-government philosophy inspires Tea Party extremists to oppose any revenue increase, even from closing loopholes for corporate jets. For their part, Democrats try the spin that "even Reagan" showed flexibility on debt and taxes.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 25, 2015 Embracing the Saudi War on Yemen
Fearful of further offending the powerful Saudi-Israeli alliance, President Obama is deploying the U.S. Navy to seal off poverty-stricken Yemen so the Saudi air force has free rein to pummel its regional rivals from the air while the population faces a humanitarian crisis on the ground, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Tuesday, January 10, 2012 NYT "Clarified" Santorum's "Black" Quote
Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum is denying his slur about "black people" and "somebody else's money" with absurd claims that the recordings of his quote aren't accurate, now getting a sympathetic hearing from a New York Times reporter.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 28, 2016 Escalating the Risky Fight with Russia
To box in President-elect Trump, the neocons and liberal hawks are pushing for "crippling sanctions" against Russia that they see as crucial to their dangerous "regime change" agenda in Moscow, reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, March 23, 2015 Crimeans Keep Saying No to Ukraine
In a rare moment of honesty, a Western news outlet, Forbes, admits that the people of Crimea expressed their legitimate will in last year's referendum when they voted to abandon Ukraine and rejoin Russia, an inconvenient truth for the U.S. State Department and press corps, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Saturday, October 15, 2011 Is Mitt Romney a Neocon Purist?
Anyone still doubting that the Washington Post is the media flagship for neoconservatism should reflect on Saturday's editorial in which the Post criticizes Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney for saying U.S. troops should be pulled out of Afghanistan "as soon as we possibly can."
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 7, 2011 The Curious Bush/Bin Laden Symbiosis
When Bush failed to take action as president to prevent 9/11, the blame had to be shifted to his predecessor, and now when his successor succeeds at getting bin Laden, the credit must accrue to Bush. Perhaps Bush's apologists will next claim that Bush deserves credit for getting bin Laden because he gave the terrorist leader what turned out to be a false sense of security.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 28, 2014 The Victory of "Perception Management"
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration pioneered "perception management" to get the American people to "kick the Vietnam Syndrome" and accept more U.S. interventionism, but that propaganda structure continues to this day getting the public to buy in to endless war, writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, September 16, 2011 Cheney's Unintended Admissions
Former Vice President Dick Cheney's memoir is filled with accounts about the great and wonderful people who agree with him -- and the evil buffoons who don't. But the book offers some unintentional insights into how the American Republic got into today's mess.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 11, 2015 Obama's Deadly Cold War Legacy
President Obama is endangering his legacy by letting neoconservatives still set his foreign policy, including the creation of a new and costly Cold War with Russia that could have been easily avoided and that now risks spinning off into a nuclear showdown, writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 8, 2016 New York Times: Apologist for Power
Over the past couple of decades, America's preeminent newspaper, The New York Times, has lost its journalistic way, becoming a propaganda platform and an apologist for the powerful, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 15, 2015 Did Money Seal Israeli-Saudi Alliance?
The odd-couple relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel may have been sealed with more than a mutual desire to kiss-off Iran. According to an intelligence source, there was a dowry involved, too, with the Saudis reportedly giving Israel some $16 billion, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Wednesday, November 4, 2015 America's Chalabi Legacy of Lies
The passing of Iraqi fabricator Ahmed Chalabi, one of the "heroes in error" who duped the American people into the Iraq invasion, is a good time to remember how the corrupted intelligence/media process worked back then -- and how it continues to operate today, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 25, 2016 Neocon Kagan Endorses Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton's cozy ties to Washington's powerful neocons have paid off with the endorsement of Robert Kagan, one of the most influential neocons. But it also should raise questions among Democrats about what kind of foreign policy a President Hillary Clinton would pursue, writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 18, 2016 The State Department's Collective Madness
More than 50 U.S. State Department "diplomats" sent a "dissent" memo urging President Obama to launch military strikes against the Syrian army, another sign that Foggy Bottom has collectively gone nuts, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 28, 2016 Trading Places: Neocons and Cockroaches
Neocons want a new Cold War -- all the better to pick the U.S. taxpayers' pockets -- but this reckless talk and war profiteering could spark a nuclear war and leave the world to the cockroaches, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Wednesday, October 12, 2011 Free Market v. Government Intervention
Today's rapacious capitalism is unsustainable at least without devastation to the livability of the planet and to the living standards of the vast majority of its inhabitants. But most people will opt to cling to the little comfort and security they have rather than throw it away for some ill-defined, post-modern future that is more frightening than it is promising.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, December 5, 2014 Ukraine's Made-in-USA Finance Minister
A top problem of Ukraine has been corruption and cronyism, so it may raise eyebrows that new Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, an ex-U.S. diplomat and newly minted Ukrainian citizen, was involved in insider dealings while managing a $150 million U.S. AID-backed investment fund, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 2, 2011 Neocons Want War and More War
The neoconservatives remain powerful in Washington in large part because of their continued influence inside leading opinion-setting journals like the New York Times and the Washington Post, two prestige newspapers that have pressed ahead with the neocon agenda despite serious blows to their credibility in recent years, a dilemma.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, March 20, 2015 Ukraine's Poison Pill for Peace Talks
The Ukraine government's latest maneuver -- undermining the Minsk-2 agreement with a requirement for a rebel surrender -- is likely to drive the country back into a full-scale civil war and push the U.S. and Russia closer to a nuclear showdown, reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 12, 2015 Tom Brady and Theoretical Crime
The NFL meted out a four-game suspension to New England Patriot quarterback Tom Brady while also fining the team $1 million and taking away two draft picks -- though the NFL didn't conclusively prove that footballs were deflated, establishing only a theoretical crime, a dangerous precedent, writes Robert Parry.
(16 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 29, 2017 NYT Finally Retracts Russia-gate Canard
A founding Russia-gate myth is that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies agreed that Russia hacked into and distributed Democratic emails, a falsehood that The New York Times has belatedly retracted, reports Robert Parry.
(27 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 12, 2017 Has the NYT Gone Collectively Mad?
Crossing a line from recklessness into madness, The New York Times published a front-page opus suggesting that Russia was behind social media criticism of Hillary Clinton, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, September 12, 2016 The Existential Madness of Putin-Bashing
Official Washington loves its Putin-bashing but demonizing the Russian leader stops a rational debate about U.S.-Russia relations and pushes the two nuclear powers toward an existential brink, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 7, 2013 "October Surprise" and "Argo"
Iran's ex-President Bani-Sadr, in criticizing inaccurate history in "Argo," says most Iranian officials wanted a quick end to the 1980 U.S.-Iranian hostage crisis, but Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign struck a deal with Ayatollah Khomeini to delay the hostages' release.
(9 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 29, 2015 The Misinformation Mess
As Americans approach Election Year 2016, the crisis of misinformation is growing more and more dangerous. On issues from foreign policy to the economy, almost none of the candidates in the race appears to be addressing the real world, writes Robert Parry.
(12 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 4, 2016 The Danger of Excessive Trump Bashing
The prospect of Donald Trump in the White House alarms many people but bashing him over his contrarian views on NATO and U.S.-Russian relations could set the stage for disasters under President Hillary Clinton, writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 14, 2011 Mitch Daniels, Architect of US Debt Crisis
In his hard sell for Bush's policies, Daniels also was not above hitting his opponents below the political belt. In December 2001, he denounced Democratic "tax and spend extremists" as "people for whom taxes can't be high enough and we can never spend too much government money."
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 4, 2009 How Two Elections Changed America
Two clandestine operations during hard-fought presidential elections. One unfolded in the weeks before Election 1968 and the other over a year before Election 1980. These operations altered the nation's course and went a long way toward defining the current personalities of America's national parties, the anything-goes Republicans versus the ever-accommodating Democrats.
SHARE Thursday, December 16, 2010 Journalists Are All Julian Assange
The Obama administration appears to be singling out Assange as an outlier in the journalistic community who is already regarded as something of a pariah. In that way, mainstream media personalities can be invited to join in his persecution without thinking that they might be next.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 7, 2016 The Forgotten Libyan Lessons and the Syrian War
Western leaders are plotting to bomb another Mideast nation, this time Syria, citing "humanitarianism." But similar claims in Iraq and Libya were deceptive and ended up killing far more people than were "saved," says Robert Parry.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, April 10, 2015 Neocons, R2Pers and Hypocrisy
R2Pers say America has a "responsibility to protect" endangered people around the world, but this R2P moral imperative is selective, often indistinguishable from neocons tolerating some slaughters and choosing to wage war against certain enemies -- just dressed up in liberal rhetoric, reports Robert Parry.
(9 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 15, 2012 The 2nd Amendment and Killing Kids
As Americans reel in shock over the slaughter of 20 schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut, defenders of "gun rights" insist, in effect, that such deaths are part of the price of "liberty" enshrined by the Framers in the Second Amendment. But this was not what James Madison had in mind.
(12 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 3, 2014 Obama, the People and the Facts
The political crisis facing President Obama and the Democratic Party results from a profound loss of faith in the U.S. government, made worse by Obama's obsessive secrecy. But he could address both problems by opening the books on some key hidden chapters relevant to today, writes Robert Parry.
(21 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 5, 2012 The "Blame Obama" Syndrome
Obama did make mistakes. He can be fairly faulted for not recognizing early that his bipartisan outreach was a fool's errand, that the likes of Olympia Snowe lacked the courage to buck party discipline, that he would get no credit from the Republicans for giving a pass to George W. Bush regarding his misguided and criminal policies.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 22, 2010 Rand Paul Exposes the Real Tea Party
What Paul was really doing was explaining what the Tea Party movement is truly about. Though it draws from a variety of political animosities -" like white resentment of the nation's demographic changes and a desire to "take our country back" from the likes of President Barack Obama -" the Tea Party's core mission is to stop the federal government from limiting the power of corporations.
(14 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 9, 2012 A "Treason" Trial for Barack Obama?
Right-wing propagandists have gulled many of their followers into accepting a false narrative of America's Founding, a made-up history that now has become the basis for some extremists to call for President Obama's trial for "treason," an idea that Mitt Romney only belatedly rejected.
(12 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 17, 2015 Neocons: The "Anti-Realists"
America's neocons, who wield great power inside the U.S. government and media, endanger the planet by concocting strategies inside their heads that ignore real-world consequences. Thus, their "regime changes" have unleashed ancient hatreds and spread chaos across the globe, as Robert Parry explains.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 7, 2009 A Special Report -- The Crazy October Surprise Debunking
An irony of the falsified October Surprise history was that Hamilton's wished-for bipartisanship never materialized. The Republicans pocketed the Democratic readiness to cover up for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush–and then launched a partisan war against Bill Clinton.
Now 30 years after Iranian radicals seized the American hostages, the real story of how the Republicans manipulated the process remains mostly unknown.
(16 comments) SHARE Monday, March 13, 2017 When "Disinformation" Is Truth
Democrats and liberals have climbed into bed with the neocons to push the "Russia-did-it" conspiracy theory as a way to "get Trump," but this New McCarthyism has grave dangers, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 22, 2010 Is Barack Obama the Problem?
One truism that I've learned about political and media survival in Washington is that it's always smart to shift toward where the power lies. In effect, that is what "practical" politicians and journalists do. They venture only as far as they feel they can without creating undue political or career risks for themselves.
(23 comments) SHARE Monday, January 1, 2018 An Apology and Explanation
Perversion of principles -- twisting information to fit a desired conclusion -- became the modus vivendi of American politics and journalism. And those of us who insisted on defending the journalistic principles of skepticism and evenhandedness were increasingly shunned by our colleagues, a hostility that first emerged on the Right and among neoconservatives but eventually sucked in the progressive world as well.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 18, 2012 The Right's "Limited Government" Scam
Libertarians and Tea Partiers pretend they are the only Americans who believe in "limited government" as envisioned by the Framers, but that is a false conceit. The real history is that Madison and Washington devised a Constitution with broad powers to promote the "general Welfare."
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, February 7, 2014 Israeli Rabbis Warn Kerry of God's Wrath
Secretary of State John Kerry’s negotiations to resolve the generations-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict may look like a quixotic pilgrimage into endless frustrations to many. But it is causing worries among nationalists on Israel’s Right, Robert Parry reports.
SHARE Sunday, November 6, 2016 NYT Admits Key Al Qaeda Role in Aleppo
In a backhand way, The New York Times admits that the U.S.-backed "moderate" rebels in east Aleppo are fighting alongside Al Qaeda jihadists, an almost casual admission of this long-obscured reality, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, November 6, 2017 Learning to Love McCarthyism
Many American liberals who once denounced McCarthyism as evil are now learning to love the ugly tactic when it can be used to advance the Russia-gate "scandal" and silence dissent, reports Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 3, 2014 Will Ukraine Be NYT's Waterloo?
As Ukrainian soldiers from the coup regime in Kiev tighten the noose around anti-coup rebels in eastern Ukraine, the New York Times continues its cheerleading for the coup regime and its contempt for the rebels, raising grave questions about the Times' credibility, writes Robert Parry.
(11 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 28, 2013 The Four Eras of the American Right
In the coming weeks, the Republican Party and its Tea Party extremists vow to create budgetary and fiscal crises if the Democrats don't gut health-care reform and submit to a host of other right-wing demands. But a driving force in this craziness is an anti-historical view of the Constitution.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 12, 2014 When Henry Kissinger Makes Sense
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger disputes the mainstream U.S. media's view of the Ukraine crisis, noting that Russia's response was reactive to the West's actions, not the other way around. But the MSM keeps up the drumbeat about Russian "aggression," writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 18, 2014 The Crazy US "Group Think" on Russia
Congress has voted to up the ante in the showdown with Russia over Ukraine, embracing a new Cold War and the neocon scheme for "regime change" in Moscow. But -- amid the tough-guy-ism -- there was little consideration of the risks from destabilizing nuclear-armed Russia, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 12, 2010 Bush v. Gore's Dark American Decade
A decade after the fateful court ruling with the results of Bush's presidency now painfully apparent and his own appointed justices helping to open the floodgates of special-interest money to further distort the democratic process Bush v. Gore must be viewed as a moment when the United States started down a very dark road.
(11 comments) SHARE Friday, December 1, 2017 The Scalp-Taking of Gen. Flynn
The Russia-gate prosecutors have taken the scalp of ex- National Security Adviser (and retired Lt. Gen.) Flynn for lying to the FBI. But this case shows how dangerously far afield this "scandal" has gone, reports Robert Parry.
(21 comments) SHARE Monday, February 20, 2017 Was Thomas Jefferson a Rapist?
As Thomas Jefferson's apologists retreat in their denials about Sally Hemings, the new defensive line is to assert that Jefferson's sex with his slave girl was "a relationship," not another r-word, writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, November 21, 2016 Trump's Tulsi Gabbard Factor
By inviting in Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat hostile to "regime change" wars, President-elect Trump may be signaling a major break with Republican neocon orthodoxy and a big shake-up of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Saturday, December 31, 2011 Cables Hold Clues to U.S.-Iran Mysteries
As the West's confrontation with Iran grows more dangerous -- and major U.S. news outlets blame Iran -- it may be worth recalling the documents that revealed how the U.S. and its allies showed bad faith in talks with Iran about its nuclear program.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 5, 2011 Justice Scalia's 'Originalist' Hypocrisy
A decade after the fateful court ruling -- with the results of Bush's presidency now painfully apparent and his appointed justices helping to open the floodgates of special-interest money to further distort the democratic process -- Bush v. Gore must be viewed as a moment when the United States started down a very dark road.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, April 23, 2012 Mitt Romney: Professional Liar
Last week, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney claimed his dad had been attacked by President Obama, who "likes to attack fellow Americans." Yet, Romney's verbal assault on Obama was itself a multi-layered fabrication that revealed Romney consummate skill as a professional liar.
SHARE Tuesday, April 21, 2015 The US Hand in Libya's Tragedy
Some 900 Libyans may have died when their boats capsized in the Mediterranean Sea as they fled the barbaric chaos that the Obama administration helped unleash in Libya in 2011. Yet, the mainstream U.S. media has amnesia about the bloody American hand in this tragedy, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 16, 2013 Pope Francis, CIA and "Death Squads"
In the 1970s, Father Jorge Bergoglio faced a moment of truth: Would he stand up to Argentina's military neo-Nazis "disappearing" thousands including priests, or keep his mouth shut and his career on track? Like many other Church leaders, Pope Francis took the safe route.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 16, 2017 The Kagans Are Back; Wars to Follow
The neocon royalty Kagans are counting on Democrats and liberals to be the foot soldiers in the new neocon campaign to push Republicans and President Trump into more "regime change" wars, reports Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 7, 2016 New York Times and the New McCarthyism
The New Cold War and its fellow-traveler, the New McCarthyism, are arriving on the hawkish wings of The New York Times and other mainstream U.S. media outlets, writes Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 20, 2016 America's Worldwide Impunity
The mainstream U.S. media is treating the U.S.-led airstrike that killed scores of Syrian troops as an unfortunate boo-boo, ignoring that the U.S. and its allies have no legal right to operate in Syria at all, writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 20, 2011 The Dark Legacy of Reaganomics
For half a century -- from the depths of the Great Depression until the rise of Ronald Reagan -- the U.S. government invested in building the nation and funding key research. And the country flourished. But Reagan then reversed those priorities. The results are in.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 16, 2016 NYT's Absurd New Anti-Russian Propaganda
The New York Times is so determined to generate hate against Russia that it has lost all journalistic perspective, even portraying Russia's military decoys -- like those used in World War II -- as uniquely evil, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Wednesday, October 25, 2017 What Did Hillary Clinton Know?
With the disclosure that Hillary Clinton's campaign helped pay for the original Russia-gate allegations against Donald Trump, a new question arises: what did Clinton know and when did she know it, reports Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 8, 2010 Standing Up for Helen Thomas
The key problem with the Washington press corps wasn't that it had one Helen Thomas, it was that it only had one Helen Thomas, someone willing to ask the impertinent but important questions. #When Thomas departed the scene, the thankful Washington press corps was finally freed from those periodic embarrassments of having to watch presidents squirm in reaction to Thomas's out-of-the-box questions.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 18, 2017 Blaming Russia for the Internet "Sewer"
As the Russia-gate hysteria spirals down from the implausible to the absurd, almost every bad thing is blamed on the Russians, even how they turned the previously pristine Internet into a "sewer," reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Tuesday, February 9, 2010 Palin, Psy-Ops & 'Condescending' Libs
The American Right again has taken on the "populist" mantle of the plucky underdog facing down the "elitist" Obama and his arrogant entourage of House Speaker Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, defenders of Big Government, not to mention the "liberal" news media.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 8, 2013 Second Thoughts on October Surprise
New evidence has shaken the confidence of former Rep. Lee Hamilton in his two-decade-old judgment clearing Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign of going behind President Carter's back to frustrate his efforts to free 52 U.S. hostages in Iran, the so-called October Surprise case
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 10, 2016 Hillary Clinton's Turn to McCarthyism
Hillary Clinton's campaign is engaging in over-the-top Russia-bashing and guilt-by-association tying Donald Trump to the Kremlin, a McCarthyism that previously has been used on Democrats, including Bill Clinton, writes Robert Parry.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, April 25, 2014 John Kerry's Sad Circle to Deceit
Secretary of State John Kerry is framing the Ukraine narrative to make the U.S. side -- despite neo-Nazis overthrowing an elected president -- the good guys and Russians the bad guys. But Kerry's strident propaganda is a sad ending to a career that began as a truth-teller, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 14, 2017 Trump Caves on Flynn's Resignation
President Trump's acceptance of National Security Advisor Flynn's resignation marks Official Washington's first big success in neutering Trump and killing hopes for a detente with Russia, reports Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 15, 2016 Trump's Slim Chance for Greatness
Special Report: Donald Trump's unlikely victory created the opportunity to finally break with the orthodoxy of Washington's neocon/liberal-hawk foreign policy, but can Trump find enough fresh thinkers to do the job, asks Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, September 27, 2010 How Bush Holdovers Trapped Obama
President Barack Obama trapped himself in the morass of Afghanistan by his post-election decision to show bipartisan continuity and to keep in place George W. Bush's military command structure, particularly Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, July 13, 2012 Bohemian Grove & Reagan's "Treason"
This weekend, Occupy protesters are targeting the Bohemian Grove in California, where well-connected rich men go on retreats several weekends each summer. The secrecy of the 1980 encampment became a factor in the cover-up of possible "treason" by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 8, 2016 Reasons to Risk Nuclear Annihilation
The latest neocon/liberal-hawk scheme is for the U.S. population to risk nuclear war to protect corrupt politicians in Ukraine and Al Qaeda terrorists in east Aleppo, two rather dubious reasons to end life on the planet, says Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 3, 2011 Is Obama to Blame for America's Mess?
With the 2009 stimulus money running dry and with businesses unnerved by Washington's political gridlock and brinksmanship, America's weak "recovery" has stalled, prompting more criticism of President Barack Obama.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 25, 2015 Saudis Said to Aid Israeli Plan to Bomb Iran
As the Obama administration is rushing to complete a nuclear agreement with Iran and reduce regional tensions, the Israeli media is reporting on a deal with Saudi Arabia to let Israeli warplanes transit Saudi airspace en route to bombing Iran, reports Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 27, 2016 The Dumbed-Down New York Times
A New York Times columnist writes Americans are so "dumbed-down" that they don't know that Russia "invaded" Ukraine two years ago, but that "invasion" was mostly in the minds of Times editors and other propagandists, says Robert Parry.
(21 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 6, 2014 Was Turkey Behind Syrian Sarin Attack?
Journalist Seymour Hersh has unearthed information implicating Turkish intelligence in last summer’s Sarin attack near Damascus that almost pushed President Obama into a war to topple Syria’s government and open a path for an al-Qaeda victory, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 2, 2015 Neocon Fugitive Given Ukraine Province
Ukraine's President Poroshenko has tapped another international "carpetbagger" to rule his people, ex-Georgian President Saakashvili, a neocon hero wanted in his homeland for embezzlement and human rights abuses who now governs Odessa, reports Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 16, 2016 Yes, Hillary Clinton Is a Neocon
The argument over whether Hillary Clinton is a neocon may have been settled by her hawkish debate performance on Thursday, which followed her Israel-pandering speech before AIPAC, reports Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 20, 2014 Delusional US "Group Think" on Syria, Ukraine
Official Washington's "group think" on Syria and Ukraine is so delusional that it is putting the whole world in danger, but -- as with the Iraq War -- the major U.S. news media is part of the problem, not part of any solution, writes Robert Parry.
(10 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 25, 2013 Supreme Court's War on Democracy
The U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority is a serial killer of American democracy -- first Bush v. Gore, then Citizens United, now gutting the Voting Rights Act -- but another part of this crime story is the Right's grotesque last stand for white supremacy.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 31, 2015 Deciphering the Mideast Chaos
The tangle of conflicts in the Middle East is confusing to many Americans who lack some key facts, such as the transformational Israeli-Saudi alliance that is dragging the American people into a sectarian religious war dating back 1,300 years, as Robert Parry explains.
SHARE Sunday, October 23, 2011 Neocons Blame Obama For Iraq Disaster
The solution favored by the Post's editors and the Republicans is to continue the U.S. military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, just as they want a similar open-ended war in Afghanistan and sought a more aggressive U.S. military role in Libya. Simply put: Spare no expense in the blood of U.S. soldiers and the dollars of U.S. taxpayers.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, August 26, 2013 A CIA Hand in an American "Coup"?
The U.S. government decries leaks, but the other side of the story is that key chapters of American history are hidden from the public for decades and maybe forever. The CIA has just admitted its 1953 Iran coup and may never acknowledge a role in ousting Jimmy Carter in 1980.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 12, 2015 How "Free Markets" Defame "Democracy"
Venezuela seems to be following Ukraine on the neocon hit list for "regime change" as Washington punishes Caracas for acting against a perceived coup threat. But a broader problem is how the U.S. conflates "free markets" with "democracy," giving "democracy" a bad name, writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 21, 2015 Failing Tonkin Gulf Test on Ukraine
As the Ukraine crisis worsens, Official Washington fumes only about "Russian aggression" -- much as a half century ago, the Tonkin Gulf talk was all about "North Vietnamese aggression." But then and now there were other sides to the story -- and questions that Congress needed to ask, writes Robert Parry.
(14 comments) SHARE Monday, September 4, 2017 How "Regime Change" Wars Led to Korea Crisis
The U.S.-led aggressions against Iraq and Libya are two war crimes that keep on costing, with their grim examples of what happens to leaders who get rid of WMDs driving the scary showdown with North Korea, writes Robert Parry.
(15 comments) SHARE Monday, September 26, 2011 The One Answer: Tax the Rich
When President Barack Obama suggested a minor adjustment in tax rates for the rich -- to make sure they pay at least the same percentage as their employees -- Republicans cried "class warfare." But higher taxes on the rich may be the only way to rebuild the middle class.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, April 6, 2015 Obama's Fateful Indecision
With Israel and Saudi Arabia siding with the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda versus Iran and its allies, President Obama faces a critical decision -- whether to repudiate those old allies and cooperate with Iran or watch as Sunni terrorist groups possibly take control of a major country in the Mideast, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Tuesday, March 3, 2015 Congress Cheers Netanyahu's Hatred of Iran
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu showed off his extraordinary control of the U.S. Congress as he bathed in waves of applause while denouncing President Obama's proposed deal with Iran and urging America to sign up for the Israeli-Saudi regional war on Iran and its Shiite allies, reports Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, September 11, 2017 Echoes of Iraq -- WMD Fraud in Syria
Just as the West ignored signs in 2002-03 that anti-government Iraqis were fabricating WMD claims, evidence is being brushed aside that Syrian jihadists have ginned up chemical attacks, reports Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, July 31, 2017 Can Trump Find the "Great" Path?
After a half year in office, President Trump is stumbling toward a "reality TV" irrelevance or worse, but a narrow path remains to make a historically important contribution to the nation, writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, September 18, 2015 Obama's Fateful Syrian Choice
President Obama faces a choice that could define his legacy and the future of the American Republic: He can either work with Russia's President Putin to stabilize Syria or he can opt for a confrontation that could lead to an open-ended war with grave risks of escalation, writes Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 3, 2010 US Voters Drink Reaganism's Kool-Aid
History may shake its head over why so many progressives abandoned the nation's first African-American president less than two years after his election. Obama's core political mistake may have been trying to stabilize a very sick patient, the U.S. economy, rather than applying more radical remedies.
SHARE Wednesday, October 24, 2012 "Moderate Mitt": Neocon Trojan Horse
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney did all he could in Monday's debate to calm voters' fears that he would revert to George W. Bush's neocon foreign policy. But there was one telling slip-up when Romney signaled that his heart remains with the neocon plan to remake the Middle East.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 12, 2013 Israeli-Saudi Alliance Slips into View
The Israeli-Saudi détente is slowly emerging from the shadows, with a media report on a secret Jerusalem meeting and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's oblique reference in his UN speech. But this powerhouse collaboration could mean trouble for U.S. diplomacy in the Mideast.
SHARE Wednesday, June 1, 2011 The Mysterious Robert Gates
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is leaving the Pentagon as a Washington "wise man," admired by both Republicans and Democrats for his supposed judgment and integrity. But does he deserve that reputation -- or is he just an especially clever manipulator of the political process?
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 22, 2011 America 'Trapped' by False Narratives
As long as this political-media dynamic continues, Americans can expect to be herded like confused sheep toward the slaughterhouse, with the powers-that-be picking which wars to fight and selecting an economic strategy that concentrates wealth at the top.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 2, 2017 Russia-gate's Totalitarian Style
The New York Times is at it again, reporting unproven allegations about Russia as flat fact, while anyone who questions the Russia-gate groupthink faces ugly attacks, reports Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 20, 2014 Ukraine's Neo-Nazi Imperative
The mainstream U.S. news media is flooding the American people with one-sided propaganda on Ukraine, rewriting the narrative to leave out the key role of neo-Nazis and insisting on a “group think” that exceeds even the misguided consensus on Iraq’s WMD, reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, October 3, 2016 Do We Really Want Nuclear War with Russia?
The U.S. propaganda war against Russia is spinning out of control, rolling ever faster downhill with a dangerous momentum that threatens to drive the world into a nuclear showdown, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 4, 2013 The White Man's Last Tantrum?
With the U.S. government shutdown and a threatened credit default, Tea Party Republicans are testing out a new system of national governance in which they get their way -- or else. But is this the beginning of a new Jim Crow era of imposed white supremacy or just the white man's last tantrum?
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 29, 2009 Obama, They Want You to Fail
For almost as long as I've been in Washington (I arrived for the Associated Press in 1977) it has worked the other way. Even when the Republicans appear to be on the defensive and outnumbered, they band together and vote as a bloc, while Democrats bend over backwards to be "bipartisan."
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 25, 2014 Treating Putin Like a Lunatic
Official Washington treats whatever comes out of Russian President Putin's mouth as the ravings of a lunatic, even when what he says is obviously true or otherwise makes sense, as the New York Times has demonstrated again, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Monday, January 2, 2012 Iran/Iraq "Defectors" and Disinformation
Official Washington has a soft spot for "defectors" from hostile nations, especially if their tales of perfidy about their ex-homelands fit with favored policy. That was the case with Iraq before the 2003 invasion and now with Iran, but these "defectors" often tell lies.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 26, 2014 NYT Revamps Its False Ukraine Narrative
Official Washington's Ukraine narrative has been that it was all Vladimir Putin's fault, that the Russian president staged the crisis to restore the Russian empire, a storyline that never made sense and is now being rearranged to explain why Putin is seeking peace, writes Robert Parry.
(25 comments) SHARE Friday, July 17, 2015 MH-17 Mystery: A New Tonkin Gulf Case?
In 1964, the Tonkin Gulf incident was used to justify the Vietnam War although U.S. intelligence quickly knew the facts were not what the U.S. government claimed. Now, the MH-17 case is being exploited to justify a new Cold War as U.S. intelligence again is silent about what it knows, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 9, 2017 U.N. Enablers of "Aggressive War"
U.N. investigative reports, like a new one condemning Syria for alleged sarin use, are received as impartial and credible, but are often just more war propaganda from compromised bureaucrats, reports Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 14, 2015 The World Rebukes Netanyahu
Led by President Obama, six world powers ignored Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's harangues against Iran and agreed to a plan for limiting -- not bombing -- Iran's nuclear program. But Netanyahu wields more sway with Congress and the mainstream media, which parrot his complaints, writes Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 31, 2010 A Method to Republican 'Madness'
There is another way to view the GOP political strategy, as neither principled nor reactive to the rantings of Tea Partiers, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. It is that the Republicans are following a playbook that has evolved over more than four decades, to regain power by sabotaging Democratic presidents.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, September 17, 2010 Lee Hamilton, the Un-Wise Man
The sad truth is that Lee Hamilton has done great damage to the U.S. political process by elevating bipartisanship above a commitment to the truth. One reason why many Americans buy into baseless conspiracy theories today is that Hamilton failed to expose real ones when he was in Congress.
(29 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 21, 2017 Selectivity in Trashing Trump
Around the United States, massive demonstrations have protested the inauguration of Donald Trump, but there is a danger that the anti-Trump forces could block the positive elements of his message, writes Robert Parry
(13 comments) SHARE Friday, February 10, 2017 The Neocons' Back-Door to Trump
By enforcing a "group think" calling Iran the chief sponsor of terrorism, Official Washington's neocons are maneuvering the Trump administration into conforming with Israeli (and Saudi) desires, reports Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, February 13, 2015 The Putin-Did-It Conspiracy Theory
A new truce agreement in Ukraine rekindles hope that the bloodshed can be reduced if not stopped, but Official Washington's gross misunderstanding of the crisis, blaming everything on Russia's President Putin, raises doubts and portends a potentially grave catastrophe, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, November 11, 2013 Why France Sank an Iran Nuke Deal
Saudis and Israelis wanted to sink the negotiated deal on Iran's nuclear program, so the French launched the diplomatic torpedo to take it down. But behind France's action were Saudi financial muscle and Israel's political skill.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 25, 2014 Obama's Propagandistic UN Address
The longer President Obama has been in office the less honest he has become, a problem growing more apparent in his second term as he reads speeches containing information that he knows to be false or at least highly misleading, Robert Parry recounts.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 24, 2013 Racist Roots of GOP War on Obama
Right-wing Republicans in Congress are plotting to cripple the U.S. government if Barack Obama, the first African-American president, doesn't submit to their demands. The battle pretends to be over the size of government but it echoes the whips, chains and epithets of America's racist past.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, June 24, 2016 A "Brexit" Blow to the Establishment
British voters turned a deaf ear to scary warnings about leaving the E.U. and struck a blow against an out-of-touch, self-interested and incompetent Western Establishment, a message to the U.S., too, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 19, 2012 Neocons Guided Petraeus on Afghan War
Gen. David Petraeus was so cozy with neocon think-tankers that he ensconced two of them in his Afghan War command and granted them top-secret access to U.S. military policy. One later leveraged Petraeus's friendship to impress military contractors for funding support.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 17, 2016 MH-17: Two Years of Anti-Russian Propaganda
Two years ago, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot out of the sky over eastern Ukraine killing 298 people and opening an inviting path for a propaganda campaign toward a new Cold War with Russia, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, July 12, 2013 Ignoring the GOP's White Racism
Conservative columnist David Brooks can't understand why right-wing Republicans are so determined to kill immigration reform, especially since the Senate-approved bill would boost the economy and cut the deficit. But Brooks ignores what might be called the white elephant in the room.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, July 24, 2015 Israel Clears the Bench in Iran Fight
Israel -- in its desperation to kill the Iran nuclear deal -- is exposing its often-denied influence over the U.S. political/media process. Israeli officials are even using football analogies to rally U.S. lawmakers while emptying the bench of friendly "experts" to mount a goal-line stand, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 31, 2015 Holes in the Neocons' Syrian Story
The Islamic State and Al-Qaeda's Nusra Front continue to make gains in Syria while Official Washington plays the blame game, pushing a dubious narrative that the crisis wouldn't have happened if President Obama had just backed "regime change" earlier, Robert Parry reports.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 14, 2010 Israel, the US and Propaganda's Power
Beyond his evenhanded comment about the need "to break out of old patterns of antagonism," Obama further irritated the Likud government by holding the security summit amid demands that all countries rein in nuclear ambitions and increase transparency for their programs.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 4, 2010 CIA's 'Red Cell' Hypocrisy on Terror
Reagan was well aware of the contras' cruelty (he privately called them "vandals" in a conversation with CIA officer Duane Clarridge), while he hailed them publicly as "freedom fighters" and equated them with America's "Founding Fathers."
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 4, 2014 The Right's Tenth Amendment Myth
Millions of Americans have been deceived into a false understanding of what the Constitution's Framers intended because of a right-wing lie about the significance of the insignificant Tenth Amendment, reports Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 17, 2012 Mitt Romney's "Perry Mason" Moment
Mitt Romney thought he had President Obama set up for the fall, like TV lawyer Perry Mason boring in on a suspect. He called out Obama on his claim to have termed the Benghazi attack "an act of terror." But the Republican presidential nominee again showed a reckless disregard of the facts.
(44 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 18, 2017 The Did-You-Talk-to-Russians Witch Hunt
Democrats, liberals and media pundits -- in their rush to take down President Trump -- are pushing a New McCarthyism aimed at Americans who have talked to Russians, risking a new witch hunt, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, December 11, 2017 Russia-gate's Litany of Corrections
As much as the U.S. mainstream media insists that the Russia-gate scandal is growing, what is undeniably growing is the list of major corrections that news outlets have been forced to issue, reports Robert Parry.
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, November 24, 2014 Possible Motives for Ousting Hagel
At the start of Barack Obama's second term, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was seen as the best hope for standing up to the neocons, inside and outside the administration. Though Hagel proved to be a weak champion, his sudden removal could portend more trouble ahead, writes Robert Parry.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 8, 2014 Putin's Subtle Message to Obama
Russian President Putin sought to cool the rhetoric over Ukraine with an appeal for a postponed referendum in the east and an order to pull back Russian troops, but another message was to President Obama -- over the State Department's head -- that it's time to talk, reports Robert Parry.
(14 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 25, 2017 Policing "Truth" to Restore "Trust"
The U.S. mainstream media insists it just wants "truth" algorithms to purge "fake news" from the Internet, but the real goal seems to be restoring public "trust" by limiting what the people get to see, reports Robert Parry.
(10 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 16, 2016 America's Journalistic Hypocrites
The U.S. news media flip-flops on whether international law is inviolate or can be brushed aside at America's whim -- and similarly whether killing civilians is justified or not depending on who's doing the killing, says Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 8, 2014 Is Arlington County, VA, Racist?
Many Southerners get outraged at the suggestion that racism persists these days, but residues of segregation continue in laws discouraging black voting and in the casual neglect of minority communities, even in places like Arlington, Virginia, writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 8, 2010 Neocons, Likud Conquer DC, Again
The clout of Washington's neoconservatives and the political fear induced by Israel's Likud hardliners were on display again with recently released e-mails in which Gen. David Petraeus grovels before a key neocon and in White House meetings at which President Obama pandered to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, January 27, 2012 Selling the "Supply-Side' Myth
Any rational assessment of America's economic troubles would identify Ronald Reagan's reckless "supply-side" economics as a chief culprit, but that hasn't stopped Republican presidential hopefuls, led by Newt Gingrich, from selling this discredited theory to a gullible GOP base.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, September 15, 2017 The NYT's Yellow Journalism on Russia
The New York Times' descent into yellow journalism over Russia recalls the sensationalism of Hearst and Pulitzer leading to the Spanish-American War, but the risks to humanity are much greater now, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 14, 2016 Donald Trump's False Martyrdom
Donald Trump is presenting himself as a martyr absorbing the "slings and arrows" of false charges that he groped and abused women, even though he boasted about doing exactly that, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 4, 2010 George Shultz's Counterfeit 'Coin'
The fact that PBS is continuing to move in that same direction -" helping to establish a bogus, neocon version of the history of the Cold War -" is demonstrated by its readiness to air a fawning and flawed three-part series on George Shultz, paid for by his admirers.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 19, 2014 The Powerful "Group Think" on Ukraine
Official Washington's "group think" on Ukraine -- blaming everything on Russian President Putin -- is so dominant that even independent thinkers like Paul Krugman get sucked into the collective misinformation, reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, August 6, 2010 October Surprise Cover-up Unravels
It should come as no surprise that "respectability" and "honors" don't necessarily go to people who stand up for the truth or for rationality. Indeed, it's almost always the opposite; they are bestowed on people who go with the flow and get along.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 1, 2016 The Orwellian War on Skepticism
Official Washington's rush into an Orwellian future is well underway as political and media bigwigs move to silence Internet voices of independence and dissent, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Friday, April 17, 2015 How Ukraine Commemorates the Holocaust
Pundit Thomas Friedman says the new Ukraine regime "shares our values" but -- as much of the world marked the 70th anniversary of the Nazi Holocaust finally being ended by Russian and U.S. armies -- politicians in Kiev were busy honoring Ukraine's Nazi collaborators, writes Robert Parry.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 23, 2017 How Trump Could Be a Truth-teller
Viewed as uncaring about facts, President Trump could change his image by releasing important information about recent turning-point moments that President Obama chose to hide from the people, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 5, 2012 Mitt Romney as Eddie Haskell
The conventional wisdom has spoken: Mitt Romney trounced Barack Obama in the first debate. But there was a squirrely sneakiness to Romney's behavior as if Eddie Haskell from "Leave It to Beaver" had grown up and somehow won the Republican presidential nomination.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 10, 2017 Russia-gate Jumps the Shark
Russia-gate has jumped the shark with laughable new claims about a tiny number of "Russia-linked" social media ads, but the U.S. mainstream media is determined to keep a straight face, reports Robert Parry.
(31 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 20, 2015 MH-17 Case: "Old" Journalism vs. "New"
For skilled intelligence operatives, the Internet can be a devil's playground, a place to circulate doctored photos, audio and documents, making investigations based on "social media" and such sources particularly risky, a point worth recalling in the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, says Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 9, 2014 The Sordid Contra-Cocaine Saga
If you ever wondered how the mainstream U.S. media changed from the hard-nosed Watergate press of the 1970s into the brown-nose MSM that swallowed the Iraq War lies, a key middle point was the Contra-cocaine scandal of the 1980s/1990s, the subject of a new movie, reports Robert Parry.
(10 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 1, 2016 Waiting for California and the FBI
Some Democratic leaders are privately scouting around for someone to replace Hillary Clinton if she stumbles again in California and/or the FBI detects a crime in her email scandal, reports Robert Parry.
(10 comments) SHARE Monday, April 14, 2014 What's the Matter with John Kerry?
As a young warrior and senator, John Kerry stood up to politicians who spread propaganda that misled the public and got people killed. Now, as a 70-year-old Secretary of State, he has become what he once challenged, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Friday, December 23, 2011 The GOP History of Hostage-Taking
Since the days of Richard Nixon, Republicans have pursued an anything-goes brand of politics that often has the look of hostage-taking, with Democrats usually caving in. But, has President Obama finally learned that the only way to stop bullying is to stand up to it?
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 19, 2013 Racism and the American Right
From the start of the Republic to today's Republican ranting against Barack Obama, racism has been a central element of the American Right. But this ugly feature of U.S. history has often come concealed behind words praising traditions, liberty and states' rights.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, November 7, 2011 The Gop's History Of "Hostage-Taking"
For more than four decades, Democrats have tolerated Republican abuses, claiming accountability wouldn't be "good for the country." But this softness has only encouraged the kind of hardball behavior that has now taken the U.S. economy "hostage."
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, August 19, 2016 Trump and the Long History of Media Bias
The mainstream U.S. news media insists that its bias against Donald Trump is an aberration justified by his extraordinary recklessness, but the truth is U.S. media bias has a long history, says longtime journalist Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, April 22, 2013 Second-Guessing George W. Bush
At the heart of the new George W. Bush Presidential Library -- and the Bush Family's frantic efforts to rehabilitate its image -- is a novel approach toward putting visitors on the spot by putting them in Bush's shoes as he faced tough choices, a challenge that Robert Parry agrees to take on.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 7, 2016 How War Propaganda Keeps on Killing
The "fake news" hysteria has become the cover for the U.S. government and mainstream media to crack down on fact-based journalism that challenges Official Washington's "group thinks," writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 18, 2015 Netanyahu Unmasks Israel
For years, U.S. politicians have rejected allegations of Israeli racism and excused mistreatment of the Palestinians as a temporary necessity that would be fixed by a two-state solution. But Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has destroyed those arguments in his panic to keep his job, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, June 10, 2016 Deflategate Twist: 31 NFL Teams Are Cheating
In pressing ahead with the absurd "Deflategate" case against Tom Brady, the NFL's 31 rival owners appear to be using a made-up scandal to get an edge on the New England Patriots and -- to put it bluntly -- cheat, writes Robert Parry.
(18 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 1, 2017 Dangers of Democratic Putin-Bashing
As national Democratic leaders continue to blame Russian President Putin for their 2016 defeat, they're leading their party into a realignment with the neocons and other war hawks, reports Robert Parry.
(12 comments) SHARE Monday, November 5, 2012 Risking a Repeat of Election 2000
President Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney are locked in a tight race with Tuesday's election likely to be decided in a few hard-fought battleground states, much like 2000. And, Robert Parry sees other troubling parallels to that disastrous election.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 16, 2014 Mainstream US Media Is Lost in Ukraine
The U.S. mainstream news media is reaching a new professional low point as it covers the Ukraine crisis by brazenly touting Official Washington’s propaganda themes, blatantly ignoring contrary facts and leading the American public into another geopolitical blind alley, writes Robert Parry.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 4, 2015 Al-Qaeda, Saudi Arabia and Israel
Saudi Arabia is under a new cloud after a jailed al-Qaeda operative implicated senior Saudi officials as collaborators with the terror group -- and the shadow could even darken the political future of Israeli Prime Netanyahu because of his odd-couple alliance with Riyadh, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Thursday, April 2, 2015 The US-Israel-Iran Triangle's Tangled History
Iran and world powers have gone into double-overtime in negotiations to ensure that Iran doesn't build a nuclear bomb, but the shadow over the talks is darkened by decades of distrust and double-dealing, a dimly understood history of the U.S.-Israeli-Iranian triangle, reports Robert Parry.
(59 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 2, 2013 Climate-Denying Libertarianism
Some "libertarians" accept the global-warming science but still can't bring themselves to recognize that a coordinated government response is needed. Anti-government ideology trumps even the possible destruction of life on the planet, a very real possibility given the likelihood of mass dislocations of populations and the availability of nuclear weapons.
(19 comments) SHARE Friday, August 18, 2017 Russia-gate's Evidentiary Void
5A cyber-warfare expert sees no technical evidence linking Russia to the Democratic email releases, but The New York Times presses ahead with a new hope that Ukraine can fill the void, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 20, 2013 Who Controls US Foreign Policy?
The new Saudi-Israeli alliance wants to drag the U.S. government -- and military -- into the region's Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict by sabotaging negotiations over Iran's nuclear program and the Syrian civil war.
SHARE Monday, September 1, 2008 Palin's Trouble with the Police
You have to admire the Republican chutzpah. Still confronting a national scandal about packing the Justice Department with "loyal Bushies," they pick a vice presidential candidate who in her two executive jobs in Alaska ousted top law-enforcement officials because they were insufficiently loyal or not malleable enough.
(29 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 19, 2013 How Fake 2nd Amendment History Kills
Another mass shooting has stunned America, although the sentiment is now more numbness and hopelessness than outrage and resolve. The gun carnage will probably never end unless the Right's bogus history of the Second Amendment is exploded and the real intent of the Framers is explained.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 10, 2012 Demonizing Gunter Grass
One of the angriest Israeli accusations against Grass -- echoed in the news columns of the New York Times and among German officials -- was the poet's alleged offense of treating Israel and Iran as moral equivalents, or as the Times put it "placing Israel and Iran on the same moral plane."
(9 comments) SHARE Monday, September 29, 2014 Neocons' Noses Into the Syrian Tent
The neocons say the next step in President Obama's bombing raids inside Syria must be to move from attacking the terrorist Islamic State to destroying Syria's air force and air defenses, all the better to achieve the neocons' long-sought "regime change," reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Thursday, June 11, 2009 Two Key Health-Care Numbers
President Barack Obama says he strongly supports inclusion of a public option in any reform legislation as necessary to keep the private industry "honest." His reference to the public option during a speech on Thursday in Green Bay, Wisconsin, was greeted with some of the strongest applause as was his reference to prohibiting insurers from denying someone coverage because of a "preexisting condition."
SHARE Monday, April 20, 2015 A Fact-Resistant "Group Think" on Syria
CBS News' anchor Scott Pelley is known for his clueless journalism which never goes beyond Official Washington's "group think" -- and he was at it again in a dangerously provocative "60 Minutes" segment on the sarin gas attack near Damascus, Syria, in 2013, reports Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 15, 2017 How Netanyahu Pulls Trump's Strings
It turns out that Hillary Clinton was partly correct: President Trump is a "puppet," but his puppet master isn't Russian President Putin but Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, reports Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 12, 2012 Mitt Romney: The New Teflon Man
Mitt Romney is fast becoming the new Teflon man. Whenever he faces criticism for his past business practices, "independent fact-checkers" rush to his rescue and insist that he's been wronged, regardless of what the evidence actually is.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 28, 2011 How Greed Destroys America
New studies show that America's corporate chieftains are living like kings while the middle class stagnates and shrivels. Yet, the Tea Party and other anti-tax forces remain determined to protect the historically low tax rates of the rich and push the burden of reducing the federal debt onto the rest of society.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 11, 2015 Official Washington's Delusions on Delusions
Official Washington operates in its own bubble of self-delusion in which the stars of U.S. politics, policy and media don't realize how the rest of the world sees their sociopathic behavior. This craziness is now reaching a crisis point on Iran and Russia, reports Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 17, 2011 The Back Story on Iran's Clashes (A Special Report)
Mousavi, who came in second in the election, seemed to acknowledge this point when he released his supposed proof of the rigged election, accusing Ahmadinejad of buying votes by providing food and higher wages for the poor. At some Mousavi rallies, his supporters reportedly would chant "death to the potatoes!" in a joking reference to Ahmadinejad's food distributions.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, March 6, 2017 Official Washington Tips into Madness
President Trump responded to evidence-lite accusations from Democrats about his ties to Russia with his own air-filled allegations about President Obama wiretapping Trump Tower, as Robert Parry shakes his head.
SHARE Thursday, June 11, 2009 Tying Obama to Bush's Budget Mess
So, it is useful to read Wednesday's New York Times analysis of the CBO budget projections, which revealed that Obama's stimulus plan and other domestic programs account for "only a sliver" of the deficits, about 10 percent of the projected $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 16, 2010 NY Times Promotes UN-Syria Conspiracy Theory
That stubbornly one-sided approach has now extended to the fifth anniversary of the Hariri slaying. Instead of acknowledging the flaws in Mehlis's initial findings -" or recognizing how recklessly premature those accusations were -" the Times is now promoting a conspiracy theory that U.N. officials willfully tanked the investigation.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 12, 2016 NATO Reaffirms Its Bogus Russia Narrative
President Obama and NATO leaders signed on to the false narrative of a minding-its-own-business West getting sucker-punched by a bunch of Russian meanies, a storyline that suggests insanity or lies, reports Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, July 9, 2012 The Silence on Global Warming
What has become most striking about the growing evidence that climate change is a clear and present danger -- indeed an emerging existential threat -- is the simultaneous failure of the U.S. news media to deal seriously with the issue, another sign of how the Right can intimidate the mainstream into going silent.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 1, 2011 The Lost Opportunity of Iran-Contra
A quarter century ago with the breaking of the Iran-Contra scandal, the United States had a chance to step back from its march toward Empire and to demand accountability for White House crimes. But instead a powerful cover-up prevailed
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 3, 2016 Clinton's "Russia Did It" Cop-out
In a last-ditch effort to salvage Hillary Clinton's campaign, establishment Democrats are slinging McCarthyistic mud, joining in smearing independent journalists and blaming everything on Russia, writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 23, 2016 Will NYT Retract Latest Anti-Russian "Fraud"?
In covering the new Cold War, The New York Times has lost its journalistic bearings, serving as a crude propaganda outlet publishing outlandish anti-Russian claims that may cross the line into fraud, reports Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, June 28, 2013 The Marriage of Libertarians and Racists
The modern Republican Party and its chic libertarians have dallied with white supremacists as a political necessity, because blacks and other minorities have rallied to the Democrats due to their better civil rights record. But the Right's dancing with the racist devil is not new. It's as old as the Founding.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 16, 2015 Syrian Rebels Caught in "False-Flag" Kidnapping
In August 2013, when the U.S. government almost went to war in Syria over a Sarin attack, suspicions that it was a rebel "false-flag" were ridiculed. But new disclosures about a rebel role in kidnapping NBC's Richard Engel several months earlier show the rebels knew such propaganda tricks, says Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 27, 2014 Why Neocons Seek to Destabilize Russia
Any propaganda war starts by planting stories that your target is getting rich, whether he is or isn't, the latest move in demonizing Vladimir Putin. But the larger question is what might happen if the neocons succeed in destabilizing nuclear-armed Russia, asks Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, December 16, 2016 Making Russia "The Enemy"
Despite conflicting accounts about who leaked the Democratic emails, the frenzy over an alleged Russian role is driving the U.S. deeper into a costly and dangerous New Cold War, writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 30, 2010 The Coming War over the Constitution
While supposedly revering the Constitution and its original intent, the Tea Partiers and their Republican allies simultaneously are proposing a radical revision of the founding document, an amendment that would allow a super-majority of states to overturn laws passed by Congress and signed into law by the president.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, June 8, 2015 Cold War II to McCarthyism II
With Cold War II in full swing, the New York Times is dusting off what might be called McCarthyism II, the suggestion that anyone who doesn't get in line with U.S. propaganda must be working for Moscow, reports Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, November 29, 2010 Cables Hold Clues to US-Iran Mysteries
Newly released U.S. diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks show that the Obama administration, like its predecessors, has played a double game with Iran's Shiite government, mixing public offers of reconciliation with secret collaboration on hard-line strategies favored by its Sunni Arab rivals and Israel.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 25, 2011 The Lie Behind the Afghan War
A recurring refrain about the Afghan War is that the United States must stay for the long haul now to avoid repeating the "mistake" made in 1989 when Soviet forces left and Americans supposedly disappeared, too. But this conventional wisdom, spread by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others, is a lie.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 8, 2012 Fleecing the Angry Whites
Subtly and not so subtly, Republican presidential contenders are playing the race card again, hoping to win over the votes of angry whites by implicitly blaming the shrinking of the middle-class on preferential treatment of blacks and other minorities.
(9 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 1, 2013 Regret over Gary Webb's Demise
For several decades, mainstream U.S. journalists have fled from the career-threatening label "liberal," even to the point of destroying honest colleagues who got in the crosshairs of the Right. The story of the late Gary Webb and his Contra-cocaine revelations was a troubling case in point.
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, January 30, 2015 "Group-Thinking" the World into a New War
The armchair warriors of Official Washington are eager for a new war, this time with Russia over Ukraine, and they are operating from the same sort of mindless "group think" and hostility to dissent that proved so disastrous in Iraq, reports Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, September 8, 2017 A New Hole in Syria-Sarin Certainty
A new contradiction has emerged in the West's groupthink blaming Syria for an April 4 chemical attack, with one group of U.N. investigators raising doubt about the flight of a Syrian warplane, reports Robert Parry.
(16 comments) SHARE Monday, January 14, 2013 More Second Amendment Madness
The Right's powerful propaganda apparatus has sold millions of Americans on the dangerous -- and false -- notion that the Framers of the U.S. Constitution incorporated the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights so an armed population could fight the government that the Framers had just created.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 18, 2012 The Delusional Mr. Romney
Mitt Romney told supporters behind closed doors that he's disadvantaged because he was born to a rich white family, that he'd have a better chance to win if his dad were a Mexican. It's getting hard to decide if Romney is simply a country-club racist or delusional.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 14, 2017 The Legacy of Reagan's Civilian "Psyops"
When the Reagan administration launched peacetime "psyops" in the mid-1980s, it pulled in civilian agencies to help spread these still-ongoing techniques of deception and manipulation, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Monday, March 7, 2011 CNBC Advocates Unbridled Capitalism
Reagan's anti-government mantra became the dominant message of the era amplified by a growing right-wing media that propagandized the public. Over the next three decades, propelled by Reagan's strategy of massive tax cuts for the rich and hostility to unions, the rich got richer, while the poor and middle class stagnated, struggled and sank.
SHARE Thursday, June 9, 2011 Three Deadly War Myths
The U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have involved myths pleasing to Official Washington -- about its own wisdom and the evil of the enemy -- but these false narratives have caused President Barack Obama and other U.S. policymakers to base decisions on illusion rather than reality.
(10 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 17, 2009 The Ugly Truth about Jobs
Many Americans have been sold on the right-wing and neoconservative message that any government effort to address the nation's domestic needs is dreaded “socialism” and that the government's primary -- if not only -- role must be to lavish money on the military to “keep us safe.”
SHARE Friday, May 8, 2015 Why Write about NFL's "Deflategate"
After release of a tendentious NFL report on "Deflategate," there is now a rush to the penalty phase with the media and public demanding severe punishment for quarterback Tom Brady -- despite any clear evidence that he did anything wrong, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 14, 2017 America's Righteous Russia-gate Censorship
Arriving behind the anti-Trump "resistance" and the Russia-gate "scandal" is a troubling readiness to silence dissent in the U.S., shutting down information that challenges Official Narratives, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, August 2, 2010 Washington's Ethical Double Standard
As two longtime members of the Congressional Black Caucus -" Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters -" are dragged into the public square to be punished for alleged ethical indiscretions, it may be worth remembering how Official Washington responded to evidence that President George W. Bush aided and abetted his corrupt benefactors at Enron.
SHARE Wednesday, July 15, 2015 US/Israeli/Saudi "Behavior" Problems
In Official Washington's latest detour from the real world, top pundits are depicting Iran as the chief troublemaker in the Mideast and saying the nuclear deal should hinge on Iranian "behavior." But the real "behavior" problems come from Israel, Saudi Arabia and the U.S., writes Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 17, 2017 Harvard's Cowardice on Chelsea Manning
In an abject display of intellectual cowardice, Harvard's Kennedy School withdrew a fellowship from Chelsea Manning after hearing protests from accomplices in the war crimes she exposed, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Friday, November 10, 2017 Did Al Qaeda Dupe Trump on Syrian Attack?
Buried deep inside a new U.N. report is evidence that could exonerate the Syrian government in the April 4 sarin atrocity and make President Trump look like an Al Qaeda dupe, reports Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 13, 2017 Reagan Documents Shed Light on U.S. "Meddling"
"Secret" documents from the Reagan administration show how the U.S. embedded "political action," i.e., the manipulation of foreign governments, in ostensibly well-meaning organizations, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Wednesday, November 9, 2011 Who Is Judge Richard Leon?
The appointment of federal judges is a key power of the U.S. president. It can reward partisan allies for past services and ensure favorable rulings in the future. Both factors were in play for District Judge Richard Leon who just struck down new cigarette warnings.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 8, 2011 Neocons Spin Two "Lost" Wars
The looming U.S. defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan represent a threat to the political fortunes of America's neocons -- if they get blamed for the disasters. However, if they can hang the failures around President Obama's neck, the two lost wars might help bring the neocons back to power as early as 2013.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 30, 2014 Ukraine's Inconvenient Neo-Nazis
When Ukrainian neo-Nazis – infuriated over the killing of an ultranationalist leader – surrounded the Parliament in Kiev, the incident presented a problem for the U.S. news media which has been trying to airbrush the neo-Nazis out of the Ukraine narrative, Robert Parry reports.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 27, 2016 A Sour Holiday Season for Neocons
For the past couple of decades, the neocons have ruled the roost of American foreign policy, but they have now suffered some stunning reversals that have left them fuming, reports Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 7, 2017 Castigating Trump for Truth-Telling
President Trump says much that is untrue, but he draws some of Official Washington's greatest opprobrium when he speaks the truth, such as noting that senior U.S. officials have done a lot of killing, writes Robert Parry.
(10 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 19, 2017 Trump Falls in Line with Interventionism
President Trump's U.N. speech showed that despite his America First rhetoric, his policies are virtually the same as the neocon strategies of George W. Bush and liberal interventionism of Barack Obama, says Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 29, 2017 Trump Lets Saudis Off His "Muslim Ban"
By leaving Saudi Arabia and other key terrorism sponsors off his "Muslim ban," President Trump shows the same cowardice and dishonesty that infected the Bush and Obama administrations, writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, January 23, 2012 Reagan's Hand in Guatemala's Genocide
Guatemala has begun a politically difficult process to make human rights violators of the 1980s accountable for their crimes, including genocide inflicted on Indian villages, but the United States still heaps praise on the killers' chief American accomplice, Ronald Reagan.
(13 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 25, 2017 How US Flooded the World with Psyops
The mainstream U.S. media obsesses over Russian "propaganda" yet the U.S. government created a "psyops" bureaucracy three decades ago to flood the world with dubious information, reports Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 26, 2016 Kerry Balks at Supplying MH-17 Data
The father of a young American killed aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014 says Secretary of State Kerry balks at turning over U.S. data that Kerry cited three days after the tragedy in eastern Ukraine, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 8, 2017 Fresh Doubts about Russian "Hacking"
The gauzy allegations of Russia "hacking" the Democrats to elect Donald Trump just got hazier with WikiLeaks' new revelations about CIA cyber-spying and the capability to pin the blame on others, reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 24, 2011 Budget Crisis? Duh, Tax the Rich!
The solution to these many problems -- from the budget deficit to crumbling infrastructure, from mass joblessness to income inequality, from environmental degradation to educational shortfalls -- is to raise taxes on the rich and to use that money to get the United States back on track and advancing toward the future.
SHARE Thursday, August 29, 2013 The Saudi-Israeli Superpower
Egypt's counterrevolution and Syria's civil war could herald the arrival of a new superpower coalition, an unlikely alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia, one with great political clout and the other with vast financial wealth, together flexing their muscles across the Middle East.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, November 20, 2017 The Lost Journalistic Standards of Russia-gate
The Russia-gate hysteria has witnessed a widespread collapse of journalistic standards as major U.S. news outlets ignore rules about how to treat evidence in dispute, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 11, 2010 Big Media's Curious Nixon Judgment
We get to learn from the new Nixon tapes that he made bigoted assertions about "abrasive and obnoxious" Jews, Irish who get "mean" drunk, Italians without "heads screwed on tight," and blacks who would need "500 years" and have to "be, frankly, inbred" to become useful contributors to the nation.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 17, 2016 The Danger of Demonization
As the West is sucked deeper into the Syrian conflict and starts a new Cold War with Russia, the mainstream U.S. news media has collapsed as a vehicle for reliable information, creating a danger for the world, writes Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, October 6, 2017 President Zigzag
President Trump boasts about his "zigzag" foreign policy as if inconsistency is an attribute in dealing with a fragile world, but his zigzagging endangers backchannel intermediaries handling outreach to North Korea, reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 27, 2016 The Modern History of "Rigged" US Elections
Donald Trump claims the U.S. presidential election is "rigged," drawing condemnation from the political/media establishment which accuses him of undermining faith in American democracy. But neither side understands the real problem, says Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, December 8, 2014 The New Republic's Ugly Reality
Mainstream pundits are outraged over a Silicon Valley barbarian riding in and defacing The New Republic, a temple to all that is wonderful about deep-thinking policymaking and long-form journalism. But the truth about the Washington-based magazine is much less honorable, writes Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 23, 2017 Democrats Trade Places on War and McCarthyism
The anti-Russia hysteria gripping the Democratic Party marks a "trading places" moment as the Democrats embrace the New Cold War and the New McCarthyism, flipping the script on Republicans, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Wednesday, July 13, 2011 Inside the October Surprise Cover-up
The George H.W. Bush Library in Texas has just released thousands of pages of documents on the October Surprise mystery, revealing how Bush's inner circle handled allegations that the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 struck a treacherous deal with Iran. It was a textbook case of controlling the narrative.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 22, 2015 Congress Seeks Netanyahu's Direction
Conservative Pat Buchanan once got in trouble by calling Capitol Hill "Israeli occupied territory," but even he might not imagine what's happening now -- with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu invited to address a joint session of Congress to decry President Obama's foreign policy, Robert Parry notes.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 3, 2015 NYT's New Propaganda on Syria
The New York Times' new conspiracy theory about Syria is that the Assad regime is in cahoots with the Islamic State, calling those two bitter foes only "nominal enemies" and using this new story to implicitly push for another U.S.-imposed "regime change," writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, January 27, 2017 Donald Trump and His "Magic Mirror"
President Trump's vain tirades about crowd size and voter fraud make him look like Snow White's evil queen gazing into her mirror, but he could turn that around by telling some important truths, says Robert Parry.
SHARE Wednesday, April 9, 2014 Reagan-Bush Ties to Iran-Hostage Crisis
The Senate wants to block Iran’s new UN ambassador because he was linked to the Iran hostage crisis 35 years ago, but that standard would strip honors from Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, implicated in extending the hostage crisis to win the 1980 election, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 27, 2016 Washington Post's "Fake News" Guilt
The "fake news" theme has captivated The Washington Post and the mainstream U.S. media so much that it is stooping to McCarthyistic smears against news outlets that don't toe the State Department's propaganda line, says Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 6, 2009 Obama's Mideast Peace Dilemma
While it is unclear how President Obama feels about the Iranian initiative, he did mute his criticism of the Iranian post-election crackdown, at least initially.
(11 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 2, 2014 Ukrainians Get IMF's Bitter Medicine
Though lacking legitimacy from national elections, Ukraine’s coup regime has approved a harsh IMF austerity plan that hits Ukraine’s “99 percent” the hardest and asks little from the country’s “1 percent,” including the corrupt “oligarchs,” reports Robert Parry.
(9 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 21, 2009 To Save the Republic, Tax the Rich?
We thought technological progress was going to mean more free time for the human race "" to play with the kids, to read a book, to travel or to just take it easy.
Instead, technology has contributed to making our lives more slavish and more brutish, especially when job loss is combined with lost health benefits and endless pressure from bill collectors.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 12, 2016 What Hillary Knew about Libya
In Official Washington's propaganda world, the U.S. government and its "allies" are always standing for what's right and good and the "enemies" are the epitome of evil doing the vilest things. But some emails to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton depicted a far different reality, writes Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 28, 2017 Russia-gate Is No Watergate or Iran-Contra
Many comparisons have been made between Russia-gate and the earlier scandals of Watergate and Iran-Contra, but the similarities are at best superficial, explains Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 22, 2015 We Lucky Molecules
As American neocons and other war hawks push for endless war in the Mideast and now eastern Europe, the resulting chaos is straining the capacity of civilization to meet basic human needs and raising the risk of nuclear war, what would be a tragic ending to the Universe's luckiest molecules, writes Robert Parry.
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, December 2, 2013 Contra-Cocaine Was a Real Conspiracy
he 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination saw a mainstream media blackout of nearly all evidence of conspiracy in that case. But New York Magazine went even further, mocking the proven Contra-cocaine scandal as a "conspiracy theory."
SHARE Thursday, May 21, 2015 Obama's Strategic Shift
President Obama has belatedly detected the looming catastrophe in Syria and Iraq as Sunni terrorists gain ground. He also grasps the need for Russian and Iranian help. But his administration remains infested with neocons and liberal war hawks who could sabotage the needed deals, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 19, 2015 Seeking War to the End of the World
Despite the disastrous Iraq War, neocons still dominate Official Washington's inside-outside game, government policymakers coordinating with think-tank opinion leaders to keep world tensions high and money flowing to military projects, a process personified by Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland, says Robert Parry.
SHARE Friday, April 3, 2015 Iran Deal: A Possible Crossroads to Peace
The Israeli-Saudi alliance and the American neocons are furious over the framework agreement for a peaceful settlement to the Iran nuclear dispute, but the deal gives hope to people who see the need to end the perpetual wars that have roiled the Middle East and deformed the U.S. Republic, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 26, 2013 Return of "Three-Fifths' of a Person
Stung by back-to-back defeats to Barack Obama, the Republican Party is undertaking a national strategy to devalue the votes of blacks and other minorities, a partial revival of the infamous clause in the U.S. Constitution rating African-American slaves as "Three-Fifths" of a person.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 5, 2014 Forgetting Why Al-Qaeda Spread
Al-Qaeda extremism is resurgent across the Middle East with its affiliates seizing territory in western Iraq and in neighboring Syria. But the neocons are whitewashing their role in spreading this extremism via George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 24, 2017 Obama Bequeaths a More Dangerous World
President Obama may have entered the White House with a desire to rein in America's global war-making but he succumbed to neocon pressure and left behind an even more dangerous world, reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, September 26, 2014 The CIA/MSM Contra-Cocaine Cover-up
With Hollywood set to release a movie about the Contra-cocaine scandal and the destruction of journalist Gary Webb, an internal CIA report has surfaced showing how the spy agency manipulated the mainstream media's coverage to disparage Webb and contain the scandal, reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, July 26, 2010 How Bush Botched the Afghan War
Though the reports don't directly address Bush's strategic blunder, they tell the story of badly stretched U.S. forces trying to manage a complex task in Afghanistan while the Taliban, al-Qaeda and their allies in Pakistan regrouped along the border and became a dangerous adversary.
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, August 3, 2012 More on "Vanity of Perfectionism"
Americans are faced with a tough choice this fall: to stick with Barack Obama despite his faults, switch to Mitt Romney who is surrounded by neocons and trickle-down economists, or essentially boycott the process by voting for a third party or staying home. Some are angry because Robert Parry criticized Option Three.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, May 21, 2012 NYT Admits Lockerbie Case Flaws
Even in death, Libyan Ali al-Megrahi is dubbed "the Lockerbie bomber," a depiction that proved useful last year in rallying public support for "regime change" in Libya. But the New York Times now concedes, belatedly, that the case against him was riddled with errors and false testimony.
(9 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 21, 2016 Trump's Need to Trust Americans
President Obama promised transparency but delivered a deceptive administration hostile to truth-tellers. President-elect Trump's narrow path to greatness would require the opposite choice, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, September 22, 2017 The Crazy Imbalance of Russia-gate
If the U.S. government and mainstream media are really concerned about foreign influence in American politics, they might look at Israel and other nations with much more clout than Russia, notes Robert Parry.
SHARE Sunday, July 19, 2009 Cronkite's Unintended Legacy
After the broadcast, President Lyndon Johnson is reported to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost the country." Johnson began serious negotiations aimed at ending the war before he left office, an endeavor that the Nixon campaign surreptitiously sabotaged.
SHARE Thursday, October 26, 2017 Russia-gate Breeds "Establishment McCarthyism"
As Russia-gate gives cover for an Establishment attack on Internet freedom and independent news, traditional defenders of a free press and civil liberties are joining the assault or staying on the sidelines, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 18, 2012 Mitt Romney's New Lie
Mitt Romney is echoing a lie that has been rumbling through the right-wing echo chamber, a selectively edited comment by President Obama about how roads, bridges and other public spending help business. This is a classic case where "independent fact-checkers" could help out.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, April 6, 2009 Another Bush Intelligence Failure
Despite these two intelligence disasters, the bipartisan 9/11 Commission operated within its own narrow concept of what was politically acceptable, meaning that it couldn't very easily decry the politicization that Ronald Reagan molded and Bill Clinton hardened.
Instead, the commission recommended putting a new bureaucratic box on top of the old flow chart.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 12, 2013 Ronald Reagan: Accessory to Genocide
More than any recent U.S. president, Ronald Reagan has been lavished with honors, including his name attached to Washington's National Airport. But the conviction of Reagan's old ally, ex-Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt, for genocide means "Ronnie" must face history's judgment as an accessory to the crime.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 14, 2016 NFL's Crazy Conspiracy Theory Prevails
The lesson of the absurd "Deflategate" case is that a powerful institution like the NFL can ride roughshod over almost anyone, including quarterback Tom Brady, regardless of what the facts and logic are, reports Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, December 15, 2017 Protecting the Shaky Russia-gate Narrative
The New York Times continues its sorry pattern of falsifying the record on Russia-gate, giving its readers information that the newspaper knows not to be true, reports Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 21, 2014 Behind Obama's "Chaotic" Foreign Policy
The chaos enveloping U.S. foreign policy stems from President Obama's unwillingness to challenge Official Washington's power centers which favor neoconservatism and "liberal interventionism" -- strategies that have often undercut real U.S. national security interests, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 12, 2013 Obama's Syria Strategy at a Crossroads
The Islamic Front's capture of a U.S.-stocked supply depot in northern Syria prompted a suspension of those shipments to "moderate" Syrian rebels. The incident also drove home how Islamists are gaining ground -- and why President Obama may shift U.S. strategy.
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, September 7, 2015 How Neocons Destabilized Europe
The neocon prescription of endless "regime change" is spreading chaos across the Middle East and now into Europe, yet the neocons still control the mainstream U.S. narrative and thus have diagnosed the problem as not enough "regime change," as Robert Parry reports.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 24, 2015 The Nitwits Are in Charge
Pundit Thomas Friedman laments that the new Cold War isn't funny enough for him, but there really isn't anything funny about the U.S. plunging into an unnecessary nuclear showdown with Russia over Ukraine while Friedman and his fellow VIPs misreport what's happening, writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, August 21, 2015 The Riddle of Obama's Foreign Policy
For nearly seven years of his presidency, Barack Obama has zigzagged from military interventionist to pragmatic negotiator, leaving little sense of what he truly believes. Yet, there may be some consistent threads to his inconsistencies, writes Robert Parry.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 11, 2014 Blaming Obama for Iraq's Chaos
As Islamic militants gain ground in Iraq, Official Washington's neocons and the mainstream media are blaming President Obama for ending the U.S. military occupation, but they ignore their own role in destabilizing Iraq with the 2003 invasion, Robert Parry reports.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 16, 2012 How Tea Partiers Diss the Framers
The Framers of the U.S. Constitution never looked smarter than when the American system of a strong central government is compared to the European Union model, a loose federation staggered by disunity. But the Tea Partiers want a states' rights structure more like Europe's.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 28, 2017 The Slimy Business of Russia-gate
As the U.S. government doles out tens of millions of dollars to "combat Russian propaganda," one result is a slew of new "studies" by "scholars" and "researchers" auditioning for the loot, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, May 17, 2013 Reagan and Argentina's Dirty War
The 87-year-old ex-Argentine dictator Jorge Videla died Friday in prison where he was serving sentences for grotesque human rights crimes in the 1970s and 1980s. But one of Videla's key backers, the late President Ronald Reagan, continues to be honored by Americans.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 8, 2011 Is Gingrich Fit to Be President?
Soaring in the polls, Newt Gingrich is confidently predicting his capture of the Republican presidential nomination and now sees the White House within his grasp. But, is this divisive megalomaniac fit to run the most powerful nation on earth?
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 1, 2015 Ukraine Rightists Kill Police; Putin Blamed
As rightists riot in Ukraine -- killing three policemen in a protest against making any concessions to ethnic Russians in the east -- The New York Times had to move nimbly to again foist all the blame on Russia's President Putin, but the Times was up to the propaganda task, writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 6, 2014 Sidestepping Ukraine's "N-Word" for Nazi
The mainstream U.S. media is hazing German Chancellor Merkel and President Obama for sidestepping the "I-word" -- invasion -- in reference to Russia and Ukraine. But the MSM goes mute on Ukraine's "N-word" for "Nazi" so as not to disrupt the pro-Kiev "group think," says Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 1, 2014 Will the Right's Fake History Prevail?
Tea Partiers have convinced millions of Americans that they are standing with the Constitution's Framers in a common disdain for a strong, activist federal government. That is false history but it is undergirding the expected Republican congressional victories on Tuesday, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Wednesday, February 18, 2015 Ukraine Finance Minister's American "Values"
Special Report: Among the arguments for why Americans should risk nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine is that the regime that took power in a coup last year "shares our values." But one of those "values" -- personified by Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko -- may be the skill of using insider connections, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Monday, February 28, 2011 Kicking the Vietnam Syndrome
What Americans didn't know at the time -- and still don't understand today -- is that this first U.S. war with Iraq had become less about liberating Kuwait and more about consolidating domestic public support behind a new phase of the American Empire, one that continues to this day.
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 10, 2016 Would a Clinton Win Mean More Wars?
Savvy neocons see Hillary Clinton as their Trojan Horse to be pulled into the White House by Democratic voters, raising the question: would a Clinton-45 presidency mean more wars? asks Robert Parry.
(10 comments) SHARE Monday, September 15, 2014 Ukraine's "Romantic" Nazi Storm Troopers
While most civilized people view the Swastika and other Nazi symbols as abhorrent reminders of unspeakable evil, the Washington Post trotted out a new way of seeing them -- as "romantic" -- a sign that apologists for Ukraine's coup regime know no limits, reports Robert Parry.
(10 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 2, 2016 The Bigger Nuclear Risk: Trump or Clinton?
If the U.S. election comes down to Hillary Clinton v. Donald Trump, the American people will have to decide between two candidates who could risk the future of the planet, albeit for very different reasons, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 10, 2011 Bachmann's Aide Hides $10M Secret
When Rep. Michelle Bachmann landed Ed Rollins as her campaign manager, the move gave a shot of credibility to her presidential bid. Washington pundits adore Rollins and his blunt style, so much so that they have ignored the fact that he is still covering up an illegal $10 million suitcase full of cash from Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
(11 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 5, 2009 The Need to Hold the GOP Accountable
Congressional Republicans voted almost unanimously against every major piece of legislation that Obama proposed to address short- and long-term national problems. It was, as some observed, like watching the arsonist who set the fire throwing rocks at the firefighters who tried to put out the blaze.
Which brings us to the central role of George W. Bush's younger brother Jeb at a Saturday event in Arlington, Virginia....
(7 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 14, 2010 Cheney Exposes Torture Conspiracy
Cheney acknowledged that the White House had told the Justice Department lawyers what legal opinions to render. In other words, the opinions amounted to ordered-up lawyering to permit the administration to do whatever it wanted.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, April 5, 2010 Is Vatican Guilty in Child-Sex Scandal?
As the outside world has looked on with horror at the endless accounts of child molestation, the main Church response has been to tighten the protective circle around the Vatican and especially Pope Benedict. Despite some words of regret about the rape victims, the Vatican's angrier reactions have been directed against those who would dare question the pope.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 25, 2010 Covert US Military Strategy on Iran
"The Obama administration insists that for the moment, it is committed to penalizing Iran for its nuclear activities only with diplomatic and economic sanctions. Nevertheless, the Pentagon has to draw up detailed war plans to be prepared in advance, in the event that President Obama ever authorizes a strike."
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 9, 2013 Rethinking Watergate/Iran-Contra
New evidence continues to accumulate showing how Official Washington got key elements of the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals wrong, especially how these two crimes of state originated in treacherous actions to secure the powers of the presidency.
SHARE Wednesday, April 26, 2006 Bush's Hypocrisy: Cuban Terrorists
Like an aging rock star singing a beloved oldie, George W. Bush can count on cheers whenever he delivers a favorite line from the Bush Doctrine enunciated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks: Any country that harbors a terrorist is equally guilty as the terrorist.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 24, 2014 The State Department's Ukraine Fiasco
The State Department's handling of the Ukraine crisis may go down as a textbook diplomatic fiasco, doing nothing to advance genuine U.S. interests while disrupting cooperation with Moscow and pushing Russia and China back together, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 23, 2010 Bush Gloats Over Dan Rather's Ouster
George W. Bush, in his memoir Decision Points, says he was shown a copy of a purported memo about his shirking of his National Guard duty before a story citing the document appeared on CBS' "60 Minutes-2," and the former president gloats over the resulting controversy that cost the jobs of Dan Rather and his star producer Mary Mapes. Bush's account suggests the White House may have had a larger role in discrediting the memo.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 29, 2010 Gen. Petraeus and the 'Surge' Myth
It appears that people in both Iraq and Afghanistan don't much like having foreigners from around the world occupying their countries. But that is not a reality that David Petraeus -- or the Washington press corps -- is likely to take to heart.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 4, 2017 How 2nd Amendment Distortions Kill
The Las Vegas massacre underscores the intellectual dishonesty of the "gun rights" lobby, which falsifies Second Amendment history and pretends armed citizens could shoot back to stop slaughters, writes Robert Parry.
(17 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 6, 2014 Obama's Last Chance
For six years, President Obama has bent to the will of Official Washington by reneging on promises to the American people for "transparency" and operating instead as an out-of-touch "insider." Now, the Democratic election debacle offers him a last chance to remember why he was elected, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 6, 2010 Obama Threatens Iran with Nukes
In readjusting U.S. policy on when to launch a nuclear strike, President Barack Obama has repudiated the use of nukes against non-nuclear states with the exception of Iran, which he termed an "outlier" along with North Korea.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, October 20, 2017 Man Bites Dog: NYT Does Journalism
When the Trump administration blamed Cuba for a "sonic attack" on U.S. diplomats, a New York Times reporter did something unusual for his newspaper: he tried objectively to assess the evidence, as Robert Parry reports.
(18 comments) SHARE Monday, April 4, 2016 "Corruption" as a Propaganda Weapon
Mainstream U.S. journalism and propaganda are getting hard to tell apart, as with the flurry of "corruption" stories aimed at Russia's Putin and other demonized foreign leaders, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, September 12, 2011 Who Are These People?
When President George W. Bush took aim at Iraq in 2002-03, it was the smart career play in the U.S. news media to jump on the pro-war bandwagon and cheer on propaganda about WMD and other excuses for war. Belatedly, the New York Times' Bill Keller admits that mistakes were made
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 30, 2013 Tea Party and "12 Years a Slave"
Some on the Right like to compare the Affordable Care Act to slavery, apparently to get under the skin of Barack Obama, the first African-American president. But the glib talking point also reveals a callous disregard for slavery's evils, which popular culture is finally addressing.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 12, 2017 Pulling a J. Edgar Hoover on Trump
President-elect Trump is fending off a U.S. intelligence leak of unproven allegations that he cavorted with Russian prostitutes, but the darker story might be the CIA's intervention in U.S. politics, reports Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 18, 2009 Why the Right's Propaganda Works
As much as the Left criticizes Obama and the Democrats for bungling health-care reform and showing a lack of courage on a range of other issues "" all valid points "" the larger problem can be traced back to the Left's historic miscalculation on media.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, December 30, 2016 Details Still Lacking on Russian "Hack"
The mainstream U.S. media is all atwitter about Russia having to pay a price for hacking into Democratic emails and supposedly tilting the U.S. election to Donald Trump, but the evidence still is lacking, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Wednesday, October 19, 2016 The Democrats' Joe McCarthy Moment
To shield Hillary Clinton from criticism of her Wall Street speeches, the Democrats are engaging in a new McCarthyism for the New Cold War, suggesting that Donald Trump is in league with the Russians, writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 14, 2017 The Foundering Russia-gate "Scandal"
Taking on water from revealed FBI conflicts of interest, the foundering Russia-gate probe -- and its mainstream media promoters -- are resorting to insults against people who note the listing ship, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 26, 2013 Obama's Not-So-Terrible Year
Official Washington is giving a big thumb down to President Obama's performance in 2013. But his diplomatic breakthroughs in the Middle East and even some of his troubles with Obamacare and the NSA could ultimately make the year a historic turning point, says Robert Parry.
(9 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 7, 2017 US Report Still Lacks Proof on Russia "Hack"
Despite mainstream media acceptance, the U.S. intelligence community's assessment on alleged Russian "hacking" still lacks hard public evidence, a case of "trust-us" by politicized spy agencies, writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 19, 2016 Will We Miss President Obama?
President Obama doesn't take on Official Washington's powerful neocons head-on, but he does drag his heels on some of their crazy schemes, which is better than America can expect from Hillary Clinton, writes Robert Parry.
(7 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 22, 2013 What to Make of Barack Obama?
In his Second Inaugural Address, President Obama offered a powerful rejoinder to the Right by arguing that progressive reform fits firmly within the Founders' vision of a strong country advancing the "general Welfare" and securing "Blessings of Liberty." But does his rhetoric reflect the real Obama?
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 22, 2012 "Lucky" Voters Can Pick Romney
Mitt Romney's political struggles are testing the patience of the Republican presidential nominee and his wife Ann, who tells Americans that they should know how "lucky" they are that her husband is offering himself as the nation's savior. Romney's message to voters is "you're welcome."
SHARE Thursday, September 30, 2010 Our Unheeded Warnings to Obama
In the days after Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, we published a three-part series warning him of dangers ahead. However, the new President chose to ignore all our warnings. So nearly two years later, it might be a good time to assess whether our concerns were valid or not.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 27, 2016 Clinton Toned Down Her Hawkishness
Hillary Clinton's strongest point in Monday's debate may have been what she didn't say, as she avoided a return to her hawkish rhetoric that has alienated many anti-war Democrats, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 8, 2017 Trump and Democrats Misread Mandates
Neither the Democrats nor President Trump learned the right lessons from the 2016 election, leaving the nation divided at home and bogged down in wars abroad, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Tuesday, May 4, 2010 Did Kent State Have to Happen?
Today, looking at the consequences from the resulting Republican political dominance over much of the past four decades -" weakened labor unions, rampant deregulation, a shrinking American middle class, a swelling national debt, endless foreign wars, crimped civil liberties, and a deeply polarized electorate -" the question must be: did it all have to happen?
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 9, 2010 Hard Lessons from Decades Past
By the early 1990s, the historic role of the American press as watchdogs for the public had been transformed. Instead of growling at the corrupt and powerful, the press corps had become guard dogs, protecting the new Republican establishment and snarling at citizens, whistleblowers and even fellow journalists who sought to expose wrongdoing.
(9 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 3, 2014 Itching for a Genocide
A meeting of French, German, Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers sought a new ceasefire in Ukraine, but the U.S. State Department and the mainstream U.S. media seem eager for more bloodshed, an unseemly rush into a war that could become genocide, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 11, 2012 The Neocons and 9/11
The emerging history of 9/11 reveals that President George W. Bush's failure to protect the nation resulted from neocon insistence that Iraq was the real threat, not al-Qaeda. The political relevance today is that the neocons want back into power under a Mitt Romney presidency.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 4, 2014 The Only Standards Are Double Standards
President Obama is still embracing Official Washington's false narrative on Ukraine as he hypocritically blames the crisis entirely on Moscow and ignores the West's role in toppling an elected president and provoking a nasty civil war, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 3, 2016 MH-17 Probe's Torture-Implicated Ally
The Ukrainian intelligence service at the center of the inquiry into who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is accused by a top U.N. official of blocking a probe into Ukrainian government torture, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 9, 2008 The Significance of Nixon's 'Treason'
You might have thought that when audiotapes were released of President Lyndon Johnson accusing Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign of "treason" for sabotaging Vietnam peace talks - as 500,000 U.S. troops sat in a war zone - the major U.S. news media would be all over it, providing insight and context. If you thought that, of course, you would be wrong.
SHARE Tuesday, November 10, 2015 How Ukraine's Finance Chief Got Rich
Ukraine's Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko collected at least $1.77 million in bonuses from a U.S.-taxpayer-funded investment project that she ran even as it was losing money, a sign that her image as a paragon of public-interest "reform" may not be all that it's cracked up to be, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Friday, February 1, 2013 The Lesson in Hagel's Inquisition
Several U.S. senators rudely questioned Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel for alleged heresies against Official Washington's orthodoxies, like his strange detection of an Israel Lobby operating on Capitol Hill and his refusal to accept that the 2007 troop "surge" in Iraq won that war.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 31, 2011 In Libya, a Bloodbath Looms
The Orwellian hypocrisy of NATO's mission "to protect civilians" in Libya has now been encapsulated in a vow from a NATO-backed Libyan rebel who announced plans to crush the few towns still loyal to Muammar Gaddafi with the words, "sometimes to avoid bloodshed you must shed blood."
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, October 31, 2016 Who Will Weed Out the Warmongers?
Progressive Democrats are gearing up to fight Wall Street appointees to a Hillary Clinton administration, but there is no similar campaign to weed out neocon/liberal-hawk warmongers, writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 24, 2015 Turkey Provokes Russia with Shoot-down
Turkey appears to have deliberately shot down a Russian warplane as a provocation designed to escalate tensions between NATO and Russia, a ploy that seems to have sucked in President Obama as he tries to look tough against Russia to appease his neocon critics, writes Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 17, 2011 Dick Cheney: Son of the New Deal
"When I was born [on Jan. 30, 1941] my granddad wanted to send a telegram to the president," Cheney writes in his memoir. "Both sides of my family were staunch New Deal Democrats, and Granddad was sure that FDR would want to know about the 'little stranger' with whom he now had a birthday in common."
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 4, 2014 Another NYT "Sort of" Retraction on Ukraine
The mainstream U.S. media likes to talk about Ukraine as an "information war," meaning that the Russians are making stuff up. But the false narratives are actually being hatched more on the U.S. side, as a new New York Times story acknowledges, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, December 6, 2013 Honoring Mandela, Not Reagan
The U.S. government's relationship with Nelson Mandela was often strained, from the CIA's hand in his imprisonment to Ronald Reagan's veto of a sanctions bill aimed at getting him freed, lost history that must now be reconciled.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 7, 2013 The Right's Re-Branding, 1860 to 1776
A new poll says 44 percent of Republicans believe "an armed revolution" may be needed in the next few years "to protect liberties," proof of the Right's success in re-branding itself with Revolutionary War symbols and fueling paranoia about the elected national government.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, June 15, 2015 Samantha Power: Liberal War Hawk
Liberal interventionist Samantha Power -- along with neocon allies -- appears to have prevailed in the struggle over how President Obama will conduct his foreign policy in his last months in office, promoting aggressive strategies that will lead to more death and destruction, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, July 21, 2014 Kerry's Latest Reckless Rush to Judgment
Though the investigation of the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 has barely begun, the Obama administration and the U.S. media have sold the world on the narrative blaming Russia's President Putin, with Secretary of State Kerry sealing the deal, writes Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 24, 2008 Cheney's Shocking Admissions on How Close He Came to Nearly Destroying the Country
Though Cheney cited constitutional precedents from the Civil War&WWII to justify his position,what has made the "war on terror" such an insidious basis for asserting the broadest presidential powers is that it is amorphous both in time &space.Unlike conventional wars that have beginnings and ends-as well as battlefronts-this "war" is theoretically everywhere and never-ending,with constitutional limits eliminated forever.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 29, 2013 NYT Backs Off Its Syria-Sarin Analysis
For months, the "slam-dunk" evidence "proving" Syrian government guilt in the Aug. 21 Sarin attack near Damascus was a "vector analysis" pushed by the New York Times showing where the rockets supposedly were launched. But the Times now grudgingly admits its analysis was flawed, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, June 15, 2012 Admissions on Nixon's "Treason"
Definitive proof of a historical mystery is often elusive, even with archival documents and memoirs. Skeptics can always say some witness or some evidence isn't perfect. But the case that Richard Nixon sabotaged the Vietnam peace talks in 1968 to win that pivotal election is clear.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 20, 2012 How to Save the GOP
The only practical way to get the U.S. back on track economically is to raise taxes on the rich and use the money to rebuild the country. But anti-government extremists have taken over the Republican Party and won't let go. So, what can be done to save the GOP from itself?
SHARE Tuesday, October 11, 2016 Debate Moderator Distorted Syrian Reality
The American people are receiving a highly distorted view of the Syrian war -- much propaganda, little truth -- including from one of the moderators at the second presidential debate, writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 14, 2008 Obama and US-Russia Tensions
Author's Note: The following article was written by two analysts from an international organization. However, given the political sensitivity of NATO expansion and anti-missile deployments, we are publishing the article anonymously at their request
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, October 30, 2017 Guardians of the Magnitsky Myth
In pursuit of Russia-gate, the U.S. mainstream media embraces any attack on Russia and works to ensure that Americans don't hear the other side of the story, as with the Magnitsky myth, reports Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 9, 2016 Democrats Are Now the Aggressive War Party
For nearly a half century -- since late in the Vietnam War -- the Democrats have been the less warlike of the two parties, but that has flipped with the choice of war hawk Hillary Clinton, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, February 13, 2012 The Right's Inside-Out Constitution
The revisionist view is now at the heart of the Tea Party movement and is reflected in comments by Republican presidential hopefuls, such as the insistence of Rep. Ron Paul of Texas that much of what the federal government has done domestically in recent decades has been unconstitutional. It also apparently was what Gingrich was driving at with his recent comment about his belief in the Constitution and the Federalist Papers.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 26, 2015 The Trump/Sanders Phenomenon
The prospect of another competition between the Clinton and Bush dynasties has sent activists from across the political spectrum searching for someone new -- and leading to the unlikely emergence of unorthodox candidates, billionaire Donald Trump and socialist Bernie Sanders, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, March 25, 2011 The Neocons Regroup on Libyan War
Over the past several decades as the neocons have grown in influence inside the U.S. political/media circles, one of their consistent characteristics has been to advocate wars against perceived "enemies" in the Muslim world. The neocons have one great strength: they are clever enough -- and well-connected enough -- to block any accountability.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 20, 2014 WPost's Anti-Putin "Group Think"
In a stunning display of “group think,” virtually the entire Washington Post editorial section was devoted to denunciations of Russian President Putin, especially his “crazy” belief that the U.S. government often ignores international law and applies “the rule of the gun,” reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 4, 2016 Libya's "Chaos Theory" Undercuts Hillary
Hillary Clinton's Libyan "regime change" project remains in chaos with one U.S. official likening rival factions to rogue water "droplets" resisting a U.S.-carved rewards-and-punishment "channel" to reconciliation, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 18, 2016 A Spy Coup in America?
As the Electoral College assembles, U.S. intelligence agencies are stepping up a campaign to delegitimize Donald Trump as a Russian stooge, raising concerns about a spy coup in America, reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, August 19, 2013 Did Manning Help Avert War in Iran?
Government prosecutors are seeking 60 years in prison for Pvt. Bradley Manning as punishment for his release of classified documents. But little attention is being paid to the benefits from those disclosures, including how he may have helped prevent a war with Iran.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 16, 2015 Explaining Myself
U.S. government propagandists know that the best way to get Americans to support a war is to get them despising and laughing at some "designated villain," though the technique applies to more mundane cases, too. That's when journalists should step in but often they just pile on, says Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 21, 2016 WPost's "Agit-Prop" for the New Cold War
The Washington Post, the neocons' media flagship, has fired a broadside at a new documentary after it blasted a hole in the side of the anti-Russian Magnitsky narrative, which helped launch the new Cold War, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, December 12, 2014 How "Awesome" Is America?
America has an extraordinary capacity to submerge unpleasant truths about its past and present, from African-American slavery and Native-American genocide to bloodbaths in Vietnam and Iraq. Now faced with clear evidence of torture, one cheerleader simply says the U.S. is "awesome," as Robert Parry reports.
SHARE Sunday, April 8, 2012 GOP Five's Code: "Power Is Power"
In December 2000, what was at stake was not only the enormous powers of the presidency but one specific power in particular, the ability to appoint federal judges and justices. If Gore had been allowed to become president, that would have meant at least 12 consecutive years of Democratic control of the judicial appointment power, thus threatening Republican domination of the Supreme Court and the lower courts.
SHARE Monday, January 10, 2011 Dangerous Right-Wing 'Victimhood'
Though it was clear from initial reports that Loughner was a troubled young man, it was less clear what exactly set him off. FBI Director Mueller noted how threats and hate speech especially over the Internet, can lead to "lone wolves or lone offenders undertaking attacks." Another common thread in the recent history of political violence is how often attackers are motivated by what they view as their "victimhood."
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 19, 2016 US Media as Conduits of Propaganda
The "group think" about the Syrian government crossing President Obama's "red line" in a 2013 sarin attack has collapsed, but The New York Times still reports it as flat fact, an industry-wide problem, writes Robert Parry.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 9, 2017 Trump's Foreign Policy at a Crossroads
Recent U.S. foreign policy -- driven by neocons and liberal hawks -- has spread chaos and death around the globe. But can "crazy" Donald Trump bring sanity to how the U.S. approaches the world, asks Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 3, 2009 Obama Pleases the Neocons
The neocon detachment from reality continues to pervade their wishful thinking about a successful counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, the nation they persuaded Bush to put on the back burner so they could advance their grandiose vision of Middle East victories.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 30, 2011 Questioning Obama's Americanism
While some on the American Left seem to have forgotten how extraordinary it was for the United States to elect a talented black politician as president, it does not appear that the Right has been so colorblind.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 30, 2015 A Glimmer of Hope for Syria
With new negotiations starting in Geneva -- and with Iran now allowed to participate -- there is finally a glimmer of hope that the Syrian slaughter might end. But that will require concessions from all sides and President Obama standing up to the neocons who put "regime change" ahead of peace, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Tuesday, July 3, 2012 Shamir's October Surprise Admission
Two decades ago, ex-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir offered the stunning confirmation that "of course" an October Surprise plot had blocked President Jimmy Carter from gaining the release of 52 U.S. hostages in Iran, thus helping Ronald Reagan win the presidency in 1980.
(10 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 13, 2016 Hypocrisy Behind the Russian-Election Frenzy
The madness sweeping Official Washington and the mainstream media about alleged Russian interference in the U.S. election is pervaded by breathtaking hypocrisy, writes Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 15, 2015 Are Neocons an Existential Threat?
Despite a record of unprecedented error, American neocons remain the dominant foreign policy force in Official Washington, demanding more "regime change" in the Middle East and a new Cold War that could heat up and end all life on the planet, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, February 15, 2013 How Neocons Messed Up the Mideast
Newly available documents reveal how Ronald Reagan's neocon aides cleared the way for Israeli arm sales to Iran in 1981, shortly after Iran freed 52 U.S. hostages whose captivity doomed Jimmy Carter's reelection. The move also planted the seeds of the Iran-Contra scandal.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 11, 2016 Neocons and Neolibs: How Dead Ideas Kill
Hillary Clinton wants the American voters to be very afraid of Donald Trump, but there is reason to fear as well what a neoconservative/neoliberal Clinton presidency would mean for the world, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Monday, February 27, 2012 Santorum "Throws Up" on JFK/Obama
Rick Santorum says he almost threw up reading John Kennedy's 1960 speech on religious tolerance, and the GOP presidential hopeful sees sinister intent in President Obama's plea that young Americans seek higher education. So, what would a Santorum America be like?
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 3, 2010 The Right Gets Itself 'Wired'
"The ability of a single e-mail to shape a message illustrates the power of the conservative network -- loosely affiliated blogs, radio hosts, "tea-party' organizers and D.C. institutions that are binding together to fuel opposition to President Obama," said the Washington Post's Jerry Markon.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 23, 2014 NYT Retracts Russian-Photo Scoop
After starting a propaganda stampede --- with a lead story about photos of Russian troops purportedly in Ukraine --- the New York Times admits the pictures really don't prove much, and one photo was labeled as snapped in Russia when it was really taken in Ukraine, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, December 23, 2013 UN Investigator Undercuts NYT on Syria
Amid last summer's rush to judgment on the Aug. 21 Sarin attack in Syria, the New York Times joined the stampede blaming the Assad regime by pushing a "vector analysis" showing where the rockets supposedly were launched, but now that certainty has collapsed.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 1, 2014 Official Washington's Syrian "Fantasy"
It is perhaps not news that the U.S. government bases wars on illusions, such as the nonexistent WMD in Iraq, but it is rare when there is a broad consensus before the conflict begins that a war's success rests on a "fantasy" like the chimera of "moderate" Syrian rebels, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 2, 2014 NYT Shows How Propaganda Works
The U.S. mainstream media pretends it operates with professional standards of objectivity and fairness, but -- especially in its international reporting -- the only real standards are double standards, as the New York Times has shown on Ukraine and Syria, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, March 20, 2017 NYT's "Tinfoil Hat" Conspiracy Theory
There is a "tinfoil-hat" quality to The New York Times' pushing its "Donald Trump Is Russia's Manchurian Candidate" conspiracy theory as the newspaper sinks deeper into a New McCarthyism, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Tuesday, November 22, 2011 Slanting the Case on Iran's Nukes
The U.S. news media shows no skepticism as it accepts the toughly worded report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program. Ignored is the fact that the IAEA's new chief appears to have joined the U.S./Israel camp.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 12, 2014 How "Looking Forward" Tripped Up Obama
President Obama has stumbled into a constitutional firefight between the CIA and Senate Intelligence Committee over the spy agency’s attempted cover-up of its Bush-era torture practices, a clash he could have averted by wielding a declassification stamp, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Sunday, October 29, 2006 Original October Surprise (Part 3)
Editor's Note: Part 3 of our series about the "Original October Surprise" of 1980 addresses the troubling question of whether disgruntled CIA officers collaborated with their former boss, George H.W. Bush, to sabotage President Jimmy Carter's Iran-hostage negotiations -- and thus changed the course of U.S. political history. Links to part 1 & 2 are featured also.
SHARE Friday, December 27, 2013 The Year of the "Leaker"
Critics of "leakers" Manning and Snowden claim that unauthorized disclosures risk lives, but a stronger case can be made that many more lives have been lost due to government deceptions on issues of war or peace, lies that secrecy made possible, writes Robert Parry.
(10 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 9, 2009 Obama's Era of Openness Is Closed
Obama's cover-up of the Bush administration's crimes also enables the Republicans to gloss over the abuses of the past eight years and makes a GOP comeback more likely in the not-too-distant future. It's also a sure bet that the Republicans will do Obama no reciprocal favors, anymore than they did for Bill Clinton, who similarly concealed Reagan-Bush-I abuses.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 9, 2016 Two Corrupt Establishments
The insurgent campaigns of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have staggered Official Washington's twin corrupt establishments on the Republican and Democratic sides, but what happens next, asks Robert Parry.
(17 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 4, 2013 Rethinking Thomas Jefferson
Americans are proud that their Declaration of Independence was also a declaration of universal rights. But the hard truth is that, in 1776, the words were mere propaganda cloaking the fact that a third of the signers were slaveholders, including the famous author, Thomas Jefferson.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 5, 2014 An Insider's View of Nixon's "Treason"
A recently released oral history by one of President Nixon's secretive operatives sheds new light on perhaps Nixon's darkest crime, the sabotaging of Vietnam peace talks so he could win the 1968 election, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 3, 2013 Perverting the Constitution for Power
The U.S. Supreme Court's right-wingers are making bizarre arguments for gutting the Voting Rights Act, suggesting their real goal is to allow more suppression of minority voters and thus elect a Republican president who will keep the right-wingers as the Court's majority.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 18, 2016 Risking Nuclear War for Al Qaeda?
The risk that the multi-sided Syrian war could spark World War III continues as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and U.S. neocons seek an invasion that could kill Russian troops -- and possibly escalate the Syrian crisis into a nuclear showdown, amazingly to protect Al Qaeda terrorists, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, February 3, 2017 "Deflategate" Cloud over the Super Bowl
There's a larger point to the NFL's bizarre Deflategate story -- how checks and balances have broken down in America letting powerful institutions do almost whatever they want to anyone even Tom Brady, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, April 18, 2014 The Dangerous Neocon-R2P Alliance
After U.S. neocons helped stir up a crisis in Ukraine—with a big assist from the biased American press corps – the Obama administration looked for a diplomatic off-ramp, but this pattern of hyped outrage and belated reconciliation is a risky way to make foreign policy, says Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 29, 2011 Slip-Sliding to War with Iran
Having apparently learned nothing from the Iraq disaster, many of the same political/media players are reprising their tough-guy roles in a new drama regarding Iran. These retread performances may make another war, with Iran, hard to avoid, writes Robert Parry
SHARE Wednesday, December 31, 2014 Murdoch, Scaife and CIA Propaganda
The rapid expansion of America's right-wing media began in the 1980s as the Reagan administration coordinated foreign policy initiatives with conservative media executives, including Rupert Murdoch, and then cleared away regulatory hurdles, reports Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 29, 2009 Al-Qaeda Outwitted Bush, Neocons
One of the most remarkable aspects of life in Washington today is how the neocons remain exceptionally influential. They keep their well-paid jobs at prestigious think tanks, write books for major publishing houses, and control key opinion columns in the Washington Post and, to a lesser degree, the New York Times.
SHARE Sunday, August 16, 2009 WTimes' Hypocritical Obama-Nazi Slur
Anti-Obama protestors were showing up at rallies with Obama pictured with a Hitler mustache. Talk show host Rush Limbaugh likened Obama's logo for health care reform to a Nazi symbol. A swastika was painted on the office sign of a Democratic member of Congress.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, September 28, 2015 The Power of False Narrative
"Strategic communications" or Stratcom, a propaganda/psy-op technique that treats information as a "soft power" weapon to wield against adversaries, is a new catch phrase in an Official Washington obsessed with the clout that comes from spinning false narratives, reports Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, June 29, 2015 Confronting Southern "Victimhood"
Many white Southerners are getting their backs up again over demands that the Confederate flag and other symbols of slavery be removed. But the core problem is that the South never admitted that slavery and then segregation were wrong, instead offering endless excuses, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 7, 2016 Reality Peeks Through in Ukraine
With corruption rampant and living standards falling, Ukraine may become the next failed state that "benefited" from a neoconservative-driven "regime change," though the blame will always be placed elsewhere -- in this case, on the demonized Russian President Putin, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 21, 2010 Al Haig and a 'Green Light' to Chaos
A "top secret" document authored by Haig in 1981 contained a stunning claim: that Carter, frustrated over his failure to resolve the hostage crisis, gave a "green light" to Iraq's Saddam Hussein to invade Iran in September 1980, starting a war that altered the region's power balance and reverberates to today.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 3, 2015 Dangerous Redefinition of "Terrorism"
"Terrorism" is a word of condemnation, referring to the coldblooded killing of civilians to advance a political cause. But U.S. pundits and officials have blurred its meaning to cover attacks on American soldiers in foreign lands, a word game that can contribute to more wars, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 19, 2017 How the NYT Plays with History
By failing to tell the hard truth about Establishment wrongdoing, The New York Times -- along with other mainstream U.S. media outlets -- has destabilized American democracy, reports Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 15, 2011 Big Media's Double Standards on Iran
The mainstream U.S. press corps is again pounding the propaganda war drums, this time over dubious accusations of Iran's secret work on a nuclear bomb. It is a pattern of bias that is the U.S. media's worst -- and most dangerous -- ethical violation.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, August 13, 2012 Romney-Ryan Bet on "Greedy Geezers"
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan were quick to assure U.S. seniors that they will be grandfathered in to today's Medicare -- even if younger Americans get stuck with an inferior system -- a bet that the selfishness of "greedy geezers" will grease the way to a Republican victory.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 22, 2015 Will US Grasp Putin's Syria Lifeline?
The neocons' obsession with "regime change" in Syria is driving another one of Official Washington's "group thinks" toward rejecting Russia's offer to help stabilize the war-torn country and stem the destabilizing flood of refugees into Europe, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, April 30, 2012 Some Israelis Resist Netanyahu
In the past week, several senior Israelis have criticized the extremism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toward Iran and the Palestinians, but his American supporters continue to escalate their denunciations of anyone who won't march in lockstep.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 8, 2010 Who's Right? Obama or the 'Base'?
Obama compared the current liberal furor over his tax-cut deal with Republicans to the fury on the Left over his abandonment of the "public option" in health-care reform. But the latest anger among progressives reflects more than that; it is a cumulative disgust.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, June 17, 2011 Bob Gates' "Business" of Lying
As Defense Secretary Robert Gates prepares to retire in late June, he is routinely lauded as a "wise man" committed to telling it like it is, even making a frank comment this week about how "most governments lie to each other." But Gates's own record for honesty is a deeply checkered one.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 9, 2014 The Heinous Crime Behind Watergate
The mainstream media's big takeaway from Richard Nixon's Watergate resignation is that "the cover-up is always worse than the crime." But that's because few understand the crime behind Watergate, Nixon's frantic search for a file on his 1968 subversion of Vietnam peace talks, reports Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, March 18, 2011 Through the US Media Lens Darkly
As Americans turn to their news media to make sense of the upheavals in the Middle East, it's worth remembering that the bias of the mainstream U.S. press corps is most powerful when covering a Washington-designated villain, especially if he happens to be Muslim.
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, March 28, 2016 Bernie Sanders as Commander-in-Chief
Tulsi Gabbard, a Hawaii congresswoman and Iraq War veteran, stars in a stunning ad endorsing Bernie Sanders as "Commander-in-Chief," a potential turning point in the Democratic race, writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 18, 2009 WPost Is a Neocon Propaganda Sheet
For Americans who hear the name Washington Post and still think of "All the President's Men" brave journalists and editors facing down a corrupt President today's version of the newspaper would be a sad disappointment, a betrayal of a noble past.
SHARE Sunday, August 16, 2015 Neocons to Americans: Trust Us Again
Marching in lockstep with Israeli hardliners, American neocons are aiming their heavy media artillery at the Iran nuclear deal as a necessary first step toward another "regime change" war in the Mideast -- and they are furious when anyone mentions the Iraq War disaster and the deceptions that surrounded it, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, May 1, 2009 Who Betrayed 'Objective' Journalism?
Though the world has now seen the extraordinary cost in blood and treasure because of the failure of the U.S. news media to act professionally in the run-up to the Iraq War, there is little indication that the national press corps has learned lasting lessons from that catastrophe.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 28, 2013 The Neo-Confederate Supreme Court
The Right's desperation over U.S. demographic changes has spread to the U.S. Supreme Court where its five Republican partisans appear ready to tear up the most important part of the Voting Rights Act and thus clear the way for suppressing the votes of minorities. The Supreme Court's arguments tend to sound more like a pundit debate on Fox News.
SHARE Tuesday, February 28, 2017 Mainstream Media's "Victimhood"
Just weeks ago, mainstream U.S. media decried "fake news" and backed a blacklist of independent news sites over "Russian propaganda." Now, under fire from President Trump, the MSM loves a free press, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 4, 2014 Eyes Finally Open to Syrian Realities
For the past three years, Official Washington has viewed the Syrian civil war as "white-hatted" rebels against "black-hatted" President Assad, but finally some of the "gray-hatted" reality is breaking through, though perhaps too late, Robert Parry reports.
SHARE Thursday, October 20, 2011 Petraeus's Cia Steers Obama On Policy
President Barack Obama may have thought appointing David Petraeus as CIA director was a political masterstroke, keeping the ambitious ex-general inside the tent. But Petraeus's close ties to the neocons may now be undercutting Obama's policy goals.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 27, 2010 Ahmadinejad Won, Get Over It!
The New York Times and its senior editors have matched the Post's hysterical coverage of Iran, much as they also contributed to the rush to war in Iraq. Since last June, the Times has run many editorials and news stories that reflect a deep-seated bias against Ahmadinejad and his government.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 14, 2015 Can Obama Level with the People?
Another terrorist outrage -- this one in Paris -- is spreading fear and fury across Europe. Which makes this a key moment for President Obama to finally level with the American people about how U.S. "allies" -- such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar -- have been aiding and abetting extremists, reports Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, January 18, 2013 The Right's Dangerously Bad History
Reacting to President Obama's modest executive orders on gun safety and his proposed legislation to Congress, the Right is engaging in hysterical rhetoric about "tyranny" and riling up angry whites to arm themselves. But key Republicans can't even get their historical facts straight.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 7, 2007 Zeroing in on Cheney-Bush
The four-count conviction of White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice has left many Americans, including the jury, wondering why Libby's bosses weren't in the dock with him. The evidence, viewed chronologically, leaves little doubt that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and other senior officials had a hand in both the exposure of a covert CIA officer's identity and the cover-up.
SHARE Saturday, July 19, 2014 Airline Horror Spurs New Rush to Judgment
President Obama and the State Department's "anti-diplomats" are fanning flames of anger against Russia after the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine. But some U.S. intelligence analysts doubt the popular "blame-the-Russians" scenario, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Saturday, November 17, 2012 The Death Toll of Watergate
Major gaps in the history of Watergate and Iran-Contra have let Republicans minimize those scandals by comparing them to the fabricated "scandal" over the Benghazi attacks. A fuller understanding of Watergate would reveal its links to Richard Nixon's prolonging the Vietnam War.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, January 15, 2010 Lessons from America's Lost Decade
Not only did the Great American Job Engine grind to a halt in the past decade, but the dire economic numbers were accompanied by massive increases in federal debt, part of a risky right-wing strategy to hamstring the government's ability to ever address domestic problems in the future.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 28, 2014 How Neocons Constrain Obama's Message
President Obama said that just because the U.S. military is "the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail" -- a wise observation -- but he then confused his foreign policy speech by pandering to neocon narratives on crises in Ukraine and elsewhere, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Thursday, July 23, 2015 NYT Enforces Ukraine "Group Think"
Determined to enforce the "group think" on Ukraine, the editors of The New York Times lashed out at Russia for urging an expanded inquiry into last year's MH-17 shoot-down. But the Times won't join calls for the U.S. government to release its intelligence on the tragedy, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Wednesday, July 1, 2015 Hillary Clinton's Failed Libya "Doctrine"
Libya remains a nation shattered by political chaos and bloody terrorism, a result of the U.S.-backed "regime change" in 2011 that Secretary of State Clinton championed and once saw as her crowning foreign policy achievement, even the basis for a "Clinton Doctrine," reports Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 21, 2006 Bush Shields Dad on Chile Terrorism
Chilean investigators say the Bush administration is undercutting their case against former dictator Augusto Pinochet for his alleged role in the terrorist assassination of a political rival on the streets of Washington three decades ago, a crime that then-CIA Director George H.W. Bush appears to have tolerated and then helped cover-up.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 6, 2014 NYT Dishes More Ukraine Propaganda
The mainstream U.S. media continues to sell the American people a one-sided storyline on the Ukraine crisis as the Kiev regime celebrates a key military victory at Slovyansk, an eastern city at the center of ethnic Russian resistance to last February's violent coup that ousted elected President Yanukovych, writes Robert Parry.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 6, 2013 Dangerous "State Sovereignty" Myth
In the U.S. system, the "supreme law" of the land is set by the Constitution and the federal government, though states, counties and cities have wide discretion over local matters. But problems arise when right-wingers start espousing the notion of "state sovereignty."
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, November 17, 2014 Letting the Neocons Lead
At the G-20 meeting, Putin-bashing was all the rage, as President Obama and other Western leaders berated Russian President Putin for his supposed "aggression" in Ukraine. The mainstream media also piled on. But the reality is much more complex, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 11, 2014 Obama and the Truth Agenda
The euphemism, "enhanced interrogations," is finally fading amid truth-telling that President George W. Bush authorized -- and the CIA engaged in -- torture of "war on terror" detainees. The lack of a backlash to the stomach-turning new details also suggests that Americans are ready for a truth agenda, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 9, 2014 Malaysia Airlines Whodunnit Still a Mystery
More than seven weeks after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed in eastern Ukraine killing 298 people, a preliminary report failed to address the mystery of who shot the plane down. The Dutch investigators didn't even try to sort through conflicting allegations and evidence, writes Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, May 25, 2009 Colin Powell Skates Free on Torture
There is no one, it seems, that the U.S. mainstream news media loves more than Colin Powell, a "moderate" Republican who gives a careerist journalist the chance to do some smart positioning in the "center." But the truth about this retired four-star general is that he is the ultimate careerist.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 16, 2013 Tales of Reagan's Guatemala Genocide
Guatemala is finally putting ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt on trial for genocide in the extermination of hundreds of Mayan villages in the 1980s, but Ronald Reagan remains an American icon despite new evidence of his complicity in this historic crime.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 9, 2014 Crimea’s Case for Leaving Ukraine
Virtually everyone in Official Washington is condemning Russian “aggression” in Ukraine and demanding a belligerent U.S. response to Crimea’s desire to secede and join Russia, as a new Cold War hysteria grips U.S. pols and pundits, reports Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, September 8, 2014 Seeing No Neo-Nazi Militias in Ukraine
With a new Amnesty International report on possible war crimes by a Ukrainian militia against ethnic Russians in the east, the evidence is mounting that the U.S.-backed Kiev regime willfully deployed extremists, including neo-Nazis, as part of a conscious strategy, reports Robert Parry.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 24, 2010 On Korea, Here We Go Again!
Before the war rhetoric gets completely out of control again and creates another political dynamic that leads toward a bloody escalation perhaps the U.S. news media should reflect for a moment on all the other times the American press corps has let itself and the country be stampeded into a dangerous misunderstanding of an international incident.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 23, 2013 Treating Anti-Syria Charges as Flat Fact
More than two months after the chemical weapons attack near Damascus, President Obama has still not released any proof to support his allegations blaming the Syrian government. But the New York Times has embraced the accusations as flat fact, a replay of the run-up to invading Iraq.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, November 1, 2013 NYTimes Mentions Israeli Nukes
The U.S. press is very tolerant of Israeli cross-border attacks inside Syria, like the latest one against a military target in Latakia. Israel's nuclear arsenal usually goes unmentioned, too. But the New York Times surprisingly deviated from that pattern.
SHARE Wednesday, July 4, 2012 How Scalia Distorts the Framers
In rejecting the Commerce Clause as the constitutional foundation for the Affordable Care Act, the Supreme Court's right-wing justices distorted America's founding narrative, including one made-up view attributed to Alexander Hamilton.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 1, 2010 Rethinking Iran-Contra
with Washington's failure to get at the larger truth about the Iran-Contra Affair, crucial patterns were set: Republicans acted aggressively, Democrats behaved timidly, and the U.S. national news media was transformed from Watergate-era watchdogs, to lapdogs and finally to guard dogs protecting national security wrongdoing.
SHARE Monday, September 25, 2017 WPost Pushes More Dubious Russia-bashing
The Washington Post has published another front-page story about Russia maybe placing some ads on Facebook, but the article violates a host of journalistic principles in hyping its case, reports Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 8, 2014 Robert Gates Double-Crosses Obama
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is slamming President Obama in a new memoir, accusing him of lacking enthusiasm for the Afghan War. But perhaps Obama’s bigger mistake was trusting Gates, a Bush Family operative with a history of dirty dealing, writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 23, 2014 Prepping for a Ukrainian Massacre
As the rhetoric rages out of control, worsening violence in Ukraine grows more likely. Official Washington is readying the American people to view the slaughter of eastern Ukrainians as justified because they are “terrorists” and linked to the hated Russians, Robert Parry reports.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 20, 2016 No Reward for Sanders's Israel Stance
Sen. Sanders showed guts when he broke from the political lock-step of unrestrained praise for Israel, but his loss in the New York primary shows there's little reward for such courage, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 26, 2015 Obama's Flak Demeans Putin's Posture
Afraid of neocon criticism, President Obama is going out of his way to insult Russian President Putin prior to a summit meeting. Obama's press secretary mocked Putin as "desperate" and accused him of displaying poor posture in a meeting with Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Sunday, March 20, 2011 Protecting Libyan Civilians, Not Others
Absent the enforced jingoism that usually accompanies a U.S. war buildup, the American press corps also seemed a bit less gung-ho. One should offer thanks for small favors. At least in this third ongoing U.S. war in the Muslim world, there hasn't been quite the propaganda bullying that surrounded the other two.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 11, 2009 The GOP's Jihad on Obama
Only a few weeks into Barack Obama's presidency, a threatening political and media dynamic has rushed to the fore cutting short a very brief honeymoon.
(8 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 25, 2011 Why The Left Won't Accept Success
With the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops, the neocon dream of U.S.-controlled bases in Iraq has been dashed and the diplomatic outposts are already being downsized. The gargantuan embassy complex in Baghdad may well be viewed in the future as more a monument to American hubris than a hub of U.S. intervention.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 11, 2015 NYT Whites Out Ukraine's Brown Shirts
The New York Times has been more biased on the Ukraine crisis -- endlessly promoting State Department propaganda -- than when it published false Iraqi WMD stories last decade. Case in point: a story from Mariupol hailing the Azov battalion without noting its neo-Nazi fighters, writes Robert Parry.
SHARE Thursday, May 1, 2014 Who's the Propagandist: US or RT?
After Secretary of State Kerry lashed out at Russia's RT network over its reporting on Ukraine, a senior aide assembled a list of particulars, which have backfired by showing how weak Kerry's case is and how hypocritical Kerry's State Department has been, reports Robert Parry.
SHARE Monday, February 16, 2015 President Gollum's "Precious" Secrets
Despite promises of "openness," President Obama has treated information that could inform American democracy like Tolkien's character Gollum coveted his "precious" ring. Obama is keeping for himself analyses that could change how the public sees the crises in Syria and Ukraine, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 12, 2012 Herding Americans to War With Iran
The murder of a fifth Iranian scientist on the streets of Tehran had all the earmarks of an Israeli-sponsored assassination. The killing also worsened tensions at a moment when the momentum toward war with Iran seems unstoppable.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, October 31, 2014 Petraeus Spared Ray McGovern's Question
New York City police arrested ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern to prevent him from attending a public event where he planned to pose a pointed question to retired Gen. David Petraeus, another sign of how much U.S. neocons love democracy, writes Robert Parry.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 30, 2015 Obama's Ludicrous "Barrel Bomb" Theme
In addressing the United Nations, President Obama singled out for condemnation Syria's President Assad and his alleged use of "barrel bombs," but Obama was silent on his own use of far more powerful ordnance or the civilian tolls from Saudi/Israeli attacks with highly lethal U.S. bombs, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 13, 2014 Tea Party and Thomas Jefferson
Black History Month celebrates talented African-Americans, but it also should be a time to reflect on distorted white history that has ignored damage inflicted by racist ideologues, like how Thomas Jefferson’s hypocrisies helped give us the Civil War and the Tea Party, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 1, 2011 Enduring Terror Double Standards
President Barack Obama ordered the targeted killing of al-Qaeda figure and American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki despite the lack of any legal due process. But the same week, the U.S. government continued to turn a blind eye to a Cuban-American terrorist harbored in Miami.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, October 14, 2011 The Tale of Two Assassination Plots
The top aim of today's neocon agenda is to support Israel's eagerness to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities -- with the United States either taking part directly or at least providing support. As CIA director, Petraeus finds himself in a perfect position to generate the necessary "intelligence" to bolster that neocon goal.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 24, 2013 A Saudi-Israeli Defeat on Iran Deal
The Saudi-Israeli alliance hoped to sink a deal between Iran and world powers that limits but doesn't end Iran's nuclear program, so the deal's signing in Geneva is both a defeat for that new alliance and a victory for President Obama and diplomacy.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 28, 2010 Obama's Fear of the Reagan Narrative
Obama generally has fit into the mold of a risk-avoidance pol. Despite his protestations that he is eager for a debate on Reaganism and its trickle-down economics, he has shown little stomach for such a fight. Indeed, when he's had the chance, Obama has followed the timid pattern of most national Democrats in finding excuses to praise Ronald Reagan.
(10 comments) SHARE Friday, July 27, 2012 The Vanity of Perfectionism
As President Obama faces a tough reelection fight, some on the Left vow to sit it out or vote for a third party, saying support for Obama would dirty them. But there is another moral imperative, to mitigate the harm a U.S. president can inflict on the world's people and the planet itself.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, February 11, 2011 Hard Lessons from the HuffPost Sale
A lesson for progressives from AOL's purchase of Huffington Post may be that they should be a bit more leery of converts from the Right, especially those who don't explain adequately what led to their ideological switch.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 20, 2015 Facing America's Great Evils
A 21-year-old white supremacist is charged with entering a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, and murdering nine black parishioners, merging two of America's great evils -- gun violence and racial injustice. But what can be done, asks Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 21, 2013 How Reagan Promoted Genocide
A newly discovered document reveals that President Reagan and his national security team in 1981 approved Guatemala's extermination of both leftist guerrillas and their "civilian support mechanisms," a green light that opened a path to genocide against hundreds of Mayan villages.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 28, 2015 When Israel/Neocons Favored Iran
The modern history of U.S.-Israeli-Iranian relations dates back 35 years to a time of political intrigue when Israel's Likud leaders and the Reagan administration's neocons secretly worked to arm Iran's radical regime, an inconvenient truth given today's anti-Iran hysteria, writes Robert Parry.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 5, 2014 Putin or Kerry: Who's Delusional?
Official Washington and its compliant mainstream news media operate with a convenient situational ethics when it comes to the principles of international law and non-intervention in sovereign states. The rules apply only when they’re convenient, explains Robert Parry.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 31, 2010 A Neocon Re-write of American History
What Boot and other neocons envision for American citizens is endlessly footing the bill for a global police force, one that would wage war anytime and anywhere to defend some vaguely defined U.S. interest, essentially what President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney set off to do after the 9/11 attacks with catastrophic results.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 16, 2015 A Blind Eye Toward Turkey's Crimes
The alleged ties between Turkish President Erdogan and Islamist terrorists in Syria is an embarrassment for the Obama administration and the U.S. news media, which would prefer to look the other way rather than face up to the danger created by an out-of-control NATO "ally," writes Robert Parry.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 18, 2012 Lieberman Edges US to War with Iran
American neocons have moved the United States closer to war with Iran via a subtle change in the "red line" phrasing, inserting the word "capability" after the usual threats to take out an Iranian "nuclear weapon." Now, Sen. Joe Lieberman is making the shift official.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, November 30, 2009 How the War Hawks Caged Obama
Obama went with war-time “continuity” and bipartisanship in keeping Gates and U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus. By doing so, Obama ensured that the “surge” escalation strategy that Gates and Petraeus sold in Iraq would be repackaged for Afghanistan.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, June 21, 2013 The Tea Party's Legacy of Racism
The American Right demeans racial minorities for playing the victim's role, but today's Tea Party is draped in "victimhood," claiming to be the target of an African-American president and feeling threatened by the nation's demographic shift. But racist fears have always had a home on the Right.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 5, 2013 Is the Constitution Still Relevant?
The U.S. Constitution has become part of today's political battlefield, with the Right claiming to be its true defender and the Left questioning why the old parchment should undercut democratic choices in the modern age. But neither side seems very interested in what the document actually did.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 22, 2012 The Enduring Secrets of Watergate
Forty years ago, burglars working for President Nixon planted bugs in the Democrats' Watergate headquarters. Then, a month later, a follow-up break-in went awry, touching off America's most notorious political scandal. But few understand what really happened.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 4, 2012 Profiting Off Nixon's Vietnam "Treason"
The Rostow memos are in a file with scores of secret and top secret documents tracing Nixon's peace-talk gambit as Johnson tried frantically to stop Nixon's blocking operation and still reach a peace agreement in the waning days of his presidency. The Vietnam War dragged on another four years, leading to the deaths of an additional 20,763 U.S. soldiers, with 111,230 wounded.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 24, 2011 The Slaughter in Norway
A right-wing Christian fundamentalist has reportedly taken credit for the terrorist slaughter of some 92 people in Norway on Friday. The alleged perpetrators' stated goal was to spark a Christian war against Muslims, a reaction to what he saw as a growing multiculturalism, an echo of Christian Right extremism elsewhere.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 2, 2016 Taking a Page from Joe McCarthy
Hillary Clinton and her supporters have turned to ugly McCarthyism in attacking Donald Trump to divert attention from their email scandals, a dangerous use of Russia-bashing, says Robert Parry.
SHARE Friday, April 1, 2016 Cleaning Up Hillary's Libyan Mess
U.S. officials are pushing a dubious new scheme to "unify" a shattered Libya, but the political risk at home is that voters will finally realize Hillary Clinton's responsibility for the mess, writes Robert Parry.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, May 18, 2009 Knowing 'What's Good for the Country'
In my three decades-plus in Washington journalism, I have witnessed the creeping opportunism behind this claim of doing "what's good for the country," which usually translates into keeping unpleasant truths from the American people and spares politicians and journalists from the difficult task of having to speak ill of some U.S. government actions.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 27, 2011 Taking the Side of the Billionaires
America's Right pitches itself as populist, taking the side of the common man against "big guv-mint" and "lib-rhul elites," but its actual policies -- from the NFL lockout to Rep. Paul Ryan's budget -- side with the billionaires in what amounts to an escalating class war against the middle class and the poor.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 27, 2011 Who Commits Terrorism?
A right-wing Christian nationalist has claimed credit for the terrorist attacks in Norway, killing at least 76 people. Though his writings show that Anders Behring Breivik was inspired by anti-Muslim extremists in the United States, that bigotry also made Muslims the early suspects in the U.S. media.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 14, 2010 The Return of Madcap Capitalism
Amid relentless anti-government propaganda and endless pressures for more deregulation, madcap capitalism has returned. The consequences can now be seen from the desolate factory towns in Michigan to the oil spill poisoning the Gulf of Mexico, from teacher layoffs in California to crazy market swings on Wall Street.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 9, 2016 Is Hillary Clinton "Qualified"?
The question of "qualifications" is suddenly at the center of the Democratic race with Hillary Clinton's backers touting her resume but ignoring her many failures in job after job, writes Robert Parry.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, September 6, 2010 Blair Reveals Cheney's War Agenda
Cheney wanted forcible "regime change" in all Middle Eastern countries that he considered hostile to US. Cheney thought the world had to be made anew, and that after 11 September, it had to be done by force and with urgency. So he was for hard, hard power. No ifs, no buts, no maybes." interests, according to Blair.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, October 12, 2015 Needling Obama for More Wars
Rather than encourage a healthy, wide-ranging debate on world affairs, the mainstream U.S. news media prevents any serious deviation from Official Washington's war-loving "group thinks," a task undertaken by CBS' Steve Kroft in a hostile interview with President Obama, reports Robert Parry.
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, June 24, 2011 Afghan War: No Vietnam Redux
Many on the American Left are furious with Barack Obama -- and find nothing to praise in his gradual troop drawdown in Afghanistan. But the President's speech may be seen, in retrospect, as an important turning point in U.S. war policy toward the Muslim world as well as a signal that the Afghan conflict will not follow the pattern of the Vietnam War with one incremental escalation after the next.
(9 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 1, 2015 Should US Ally with Al Qaeda in Syria?
The new U.S. "group think" is that Russian President Putin broke his promise to attack only the Islamic State when his warplanes hit other rebel targets in Syria. But Putin never limited which terrorists he'd hit and the targeted rebel coalition includes Al Qaeda's affiliate, as Robert Parry reports.