American journalist Edward Bernays is often described as the man who invented modern propaganda. The nephew of Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psychoanalysis, it was Bernays who coined the term “public relations” as a euphemism for spin and its deceptions. In 1929, as a publicist for the cigarette industry, Bernays persuaded feminists to promote cigarettes for women by smoking in the New York Easter Parade – behavior then considered outlandish. One feminist, Ruth Booth, declared, “Women! Light...

There is a major news development with the release of a letter from FBI Director James B. Comey that the Bureau has decided that new evidence requires further investigation into the Clinton emails. It was a surprising change just days before the election. After all, as recently as September 27, 2016, Comey rejected the idea that the bureau would reopen its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. Comey wrote in a letter to top members...

As a former soldier and war correspondent who has covered 14 conflicts, I look at all the media hoopla over tightening siege of Mosul, Iraq and shake my head. This western-organized “liberation” of Mosul is one of the bigger pieces of political-military theater that I’ve seen. Islamic State (IS), the defender of Mosul, is a paper tiger, blown out of all proportion by western media. IS is, as this writer has been saying for years, an armed mob made up of 20-something malcontents, religious...

Several weeks ago, contemporaneously with the release of Oliver Stone’s excellent movie Snowden, friends and admirers of Edward Snowden launched a campaign to have President Obama pardon him for disclosing the NSA’s super-secret illegal surveillance scheme to the American people and the world. The reasons for the pardon request were excellently summarized in an op-ed that appeared in the New York Times entitled “Pardon Edward Snowden” by Kenneth Roth and Salil Shetty. Not surprisingly, the US...

Washington, DC, may be the only place in the world where people openly flaunt their pseudo-intellectuality by banding together, declaring themselves “think tanks,” and raising money from external interests, including foreign governments, to compile reports that advance policies inimical to the real-life concerns of the American people. As a former member of the House of Representatives, I remember 16 years of congressional hearings where pedigreed experts came to advocate wars in testimony...

Hillary Clinton has a plan for defeating Islamic State in Syria. Donald Trump has one, too. With the conflict in Syria spreading beyond its borders, it’s essential to understand the new president’s strategies – and how they may need to be adjusted over the next four years. Trump: Safe Zones Trump has advocated for a “safe zone” for Syrians to ride out the conflict. Such a zone would be a swath of territory inside the country, where today’s refugees would reside instead of fleeing to Europe and...

Sometimes I wonder if I live in an alternative universe. The third dimension or the twilight zone. Do women in America honestly think it is a sign of “equality” to be forced to register for a military draft? In a recent interview with Greta Van Sustern, Air Force Secretary Deborah James seems to think so. As reported by Claire Zillman in Fortune Magazine, James said “equality” has led us to the place where women should be forced to register for the draft. Need I remind the world of what a...

“Today the path to total dictatorship in the US can be laid by strictly legal means,unseen and unheard by Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system … a well-organized political-action group in this country, determined to destroy our Constitution and establish a one-party state.... The important point to remember about this group is not its ideology but its organization… It operates...

While the mainstream media continues its obsessive reporting on the mud-slinging campaign for the White House, a dramatic development in China last week brought President Obama’s “pivot to Asia” to a sudden halt. Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, while in Beijing, announced his country’s “separation” from the United States. He told his Chinese audience, “Your honors, in this venue, I announce my separation from the United States … both in military, but also economics.’’The State Department...

“We came, we saw…he died” boasted a beaming Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, speaking of the 2011 western overthrow of Libya’s leader Muammar Khadaffi.She was, of course, shamelessly paraphrasing Caesar’s famous summary of his campaign around the Black Sea. Mrs. Clinton, who seems ordained to be America’s next president, should have been rather more cautious in admitting to murder.This week marks the fifth anniversary of Khadaffi’s grisly death. The Libyan leader was fleeing in a motor...

Everywhere in the western world, printed newspapers are struggling to stay afloat. The old advertising-based model is no longer sustainable as more people turn to the Internet and alternative sources for their news and analysis. Hungary is no different. But some newspapers are more equal than others, and sometimes when market forces determine that a Washington-favored newspaper overseas goes out of business it becomes a matter of "human rights" and "free expression." That is the case in...

As I watch the paranoid apoplexy that US officials and their acolytes in the mainstream press are displaying over the hacking of Democratic Party computers and the disclosure of their emails, I’m tempted to say that it might all be some sort of karmic justice. But since I’m a Christian rather than a Buddhist, I’m more tempted to say that it might all be a ratification of the principle, “You get what you sow.” Consider their accusation: that it was the Russkies who did the hacking and the...

The US spends spends $5 billion of your tax money a year in “aid” to Afghanistan, plus billions more for the cost of the thousands of American troops and Pentagon-sponsored military contractors there.An “Epidemic of Graft”One of the (many) reasons why all that money has accomplished close to jack squat in 15 years of war is corruption. Extraordinary amounts of US money simply disappears, siphoned off at high levels, passed on as bribes to suppliers and Taliban hustlers at the lower levels. It...

The saga of Julian Assange seems to be drawing to a climax – one that will decide the fate of this historic whistleblower who, for years, has been a giant thorn in the side of governments everywhere.His role in exposing the machinations of the US government over the years earned him the plaudits of liberals – until the Bush era ended, and he started exposing the crimes of the Obama administration and – most pointedly – the hypocrisy and venality of Hillary Clinton and her journalistic...

The Syrian and Iraqi cities of Aleppo and Mosul have strikingly similar situations – yet the Western media perform a complete mental flip over the respective conflicts. Consecutive reports in news broadcasts set new standards of doublethink by presenting the battles underway in each city as diametrically opposite, when in fact they’re the same. Both are crucial sites for the defeat of illegally armed insurgents. Aleppo and Mosul, each located far north in neighboring Arab countries, are the...