(6 comments) SHARE        Sunday, October 11, 2015
How CNN Shapes Political Debate CNN was happy to add a right-wing questioner for the Republican debate but won't add a progressive for the Democratic debate, another sign of how the "mainstream media" shapes what's acceptable in political discussion, a lesson that ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern has learned from personal experience.

(6 comments) SHARE        Sunday, October 4, 2015
The Hope Behind Putin's Syria Help President Obama insists on looking the gift horse of Russian military help for Syria's embattled government in the mouth. Rather than welcome assistance in blocking a Sunni extremist victory, Obama bends to the neocons and liberal hawks, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.

(4 comments) SHARE        Monday, September 21, 2015
A Moral Challenge for Pope Francis In modern times, the Catholic Church has made excuses for unjustifiable wars even as it has made abortion a Cardinal sin, a hypocrisy that will be tested as Pope Francis visits the United States, a country immersed in all the immorality that comes from warfare, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

(4 comments) SHARE        Monday, September 14, 2015
US Intel Vets Decry CIA's Use of Torture Torture defenders are back on the offensive publishing a book by ex-CIA leaders rebutting a Senate report that denounced the brutal tactics as illegal, inhumane and ineffective. Now, in a memo to President Obama, other U.S. intelligence veterans are siding with the Senate findings and repudiating the torture apologists. Submitted by former CIS analyst Ray McGovern.

(12 comments) SHARE        Monday, August 17, 2015
Propaganda, Intelligence and MH-17 Propaganda is the life-blood of life-destroying wars, and the U.S. government has reached new heights (or depths) in this art of perception management. A case in point is the media manipulation around last year's Malaysia Airlines shoot-down over Ukraine, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

(5 comments) SHARE        Saturday, July 4, 2015
Still Waiting for USS Liberty's Truth During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli warplanes and warships tried to sink the USS Liberty, killing 34 of the spy ship's crew. Afterwards, U.S. and Israeli officials excused the attack as an unfortunate mistake and covered up evidence of willful murder, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.

(3 comments) SHARE        Friday, July 3, 2015
An Obama Anniversary Worth Noting We should have seen it coming. Exactly eight years ago came a clear sign that prudence dictated a hard look into the mouth of this gift (Trojan?) horse running for President. It was Barack Obama's capitulation to NSA and the giant telecoms that should have raised our antennae higher.

(6 comments) SHARE        Thursday, July 2, 2015
Ray Gets Letter Printed in WashPost In his June 28 Sunday Opinion essay, "The Ukraine cease-fire fiction," Sen. John McCain was wrong to write that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea without provocation.

(2 comments) SHARE        Sunday, June 28, 2015
Ray's Letter to Washington Post on Racism and Torture Dionne asks, "Are we so demented and our senate and house members so cowardly that they cannot even pass [gun-control] laws?" Let me flip the question over and suggest it is an equally cowardly evasion for our country's leaders to pretend we need new laws against torture rather than enforce those already on the books.

(17 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Barack Obama: No Jack Kennedy A half century ago -- at the peak of the Cold War -- President Kennedy appealed to humankind's better nature in a daring overture to Soviet leaders, a gamble that brought bans on nuclear testing and a safer world, a bravery that President Obama can't seem to muster, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

(3 comments) SHARE        Sunday, June 7, 2015
Obama's "G-1-plus-6" As much as President Obama needs President Putin's help on Syria, Iran and other global hotspots, he has fallen in line behind U.S. hardliners in seeking to ratchet up the confrontation over Ukraine and now is trying to bring the Europeans along at the G-7, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

(11 comments) SHARE        Saturday, June 6, 2015
Will Allies Fold Again on Ukraine? Europeans have a giant economic stake in what happens at the "G1-plus-six" summit in Bavaria. Trouble is, European press coverage of Ukraine is almost as poor as the thin gruel served up in U.S. media. Would you believe President Putin's account of what went down in Kiev since early 2014 is far more factually based? Well, you ought to believe that, because it is.

(4 comments) SHARE        Saturday, May 30, 2015
Resurgence of the "Surge" Myth Official Washington loves the story -- the Iraq War was failing until President George W. Bush bravely ordered a "surge" in 2007 that won the war, but President Obama squandered the victory, requiring a new "surge" now. Except the narrative is dangerous make-believe, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

(5 comments) SHARE        Sunday, May 17, 2015
William And Mary Honors War Criminal Condoleezza Rice has crossed the threshold into esteemed celebrity -- a welcomed speaker at this year's College of William and Mary commencement -- despite her record as the liar who sold the illegal war in Iraq and choreographed torture at CIA "black sites," writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

(7 comments) SHARE        Friday, May 15, 2015
The Phony "Bad Intel" Defense on Iraq Jeb Bush's stumbling start to his presidential bid has refocused attention on Official Washington's favorite excuse for the illegal, aggressive and disastrous war in Iraq -- that it was just a case of "bad intelligence." But that isn't what the real history shows, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern recalls.

(3 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Punishing Another Whistleblower Just weeks after ex-CIA Director David Petraeus got a no-jail-time wrist-slap for divulging secrets to his biographer/lover, ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling got 42 months in prison for allegedly alerting a U.S. journalist to a dubious covert op, a double standard of justice, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

(8 comments) SHARE        Friday, May 8, 2015
Obama's Petulant WWII Snub of Russia Russia will celebrate the Allied victory over Nazism on Saturday without U.S. President Obama and other Western leaders present, as they demean the extraordinary sacrifice of the Russian people in winning World War II -- a gesture intended to humiliate President Putin, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

(10 comments) SHARE        Friday, May 1, 2015
The Lasting Pain from Vietnam Silence Many reflections on America's final days in Vietnam miss the point, pondering whether the war could have been won or lamenting the fate of U.S. collaborators left behind. The bigger questions are why did the U.S. go to war and why wasn't the bloodletting stopped sooner, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern reflects.

(9 comments) SHARE        Monday, April 20, 2015
The West Snubs Russia over V-E Day Last year's U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine -- followed by violence and tensions -- has soured plans for the May 9 commemoration in Moscow of World War II's V-E Day, the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany, a war which cost the Russian people nearly 27 million dead, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern describes.

(12 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Russia Impinges on Israeli "Right" to Bomb Iran American neocons are in a lather over Russia's decision to go ahead with the sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. The apparent outrage is that Iran thinks it has a right to protect its citizens from Israel's right to launch airstrikes into Iran's territory, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains.