[ This opinion piece is a reprint, originally appearing at Common Dreams ] There are three basic problems with the CIA: its objectives, methods, and unaccountability. Its operational objectives are whatever the CIA or the President of the United States defines to be in the U.S. interest at a given…
[ This interview originally appeared at Truthdig November 2, 2023. ] ‘What Does One Do When Both Options Are Catastrophic?’: An Interview With Cornel West Author, academic and public intellectual Dr. Cornel West has long been a fiery fixture of America’s political discourse. Proselytizing and pronouncing in the Biblical prophetic…
Whenever Joe Biden speaks, you have to make sure your bullshit detector is switched on, to borrow Hemingway’s pungent phrase. As is well-documented, our president has spent his public life making it up as he goes along. No surprise, there was a lot of boilerplate junk in the two much-noted…
[ What follows is the entire text of Vladimir Putin’s speech at the 20th Annual Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi. ] Participants in the plenary session, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad to welcome you all in Sochi at the anniversary meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club. The moderator has already mentioned that this is…
President Anderson, members of the faculty, board of trustees, distinguished guests, my old colleague, Senator Bob Byrd, who has earned his degree through many years of attending night law school, while I am earning mine in the next 30 minutes, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. It is with great pride…
After the breakout of the First World War, the Second International and the numerous socialist organizations affiliated with it across Western Europe threw their weight behind their governments’ new military adventurism and became completely oblivious to the suffering of their fellow man at the hands of their countries’ economic and political…
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump, and his most current book, Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union. He served in the Soviet Union as…
Absolutely fascinating, incisive interview of Ray McGovern, a solid source of accurate information and profound insights into the machinations of the security agencies and pitfalls of our foreign policy.
The total federal deficit at $33 trillion? This is madness! Maybe it’s time for some creative thinking . . . a totally unique strategy that benefits all Americans, not just capitalist predators. Special use currency is not unprecedented. Abraham Lincoln used “greenbacks” — the paper currency shown above, backed by nothing more than confidence in…
Smedley Butler, a two-time recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor and former US Marine Corps major general, famously observed that “war is a racket.” Speaking about his 33 years in the service of his nation, Butler noted that he “spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man…