NBC's Richard Engel in 'false flag' kidnapping.It has been confirmed that TV journalist Richard Engel’s kidnapping/rescue in norther Syria in late 2012 was a hoax. NBC management knew the story was probably false but proceeded to broadcast it anyway. There are at least two good things about “Engelgate”: * It is clear evidence of mainstream media bias in their reporting and characterization of the conflict in Syria. The kidnapping was meant to show that “bad” Assad supporters had kidnapped...

Last week two prominent Ukrainian opposition figures were gunned down in broad daylight. They join as many as ten others who have been killed or committed suicide under suspicious circumstances just this year. These individuals have one important thing in common: they were either part of or friendly with the Yanukovych government, which a US-backed coup overthrew last year. They include members of the Ukrainian parliament and former chief editors of major opposition newspapers. While some...

Having now had a year’s time to get better acquainted with their new Ukrainian friends and the neighborhood overall, Europeans are losing their taste for economic sanctions on Russia. Contrary to American assurances, economic warfare against Russia meant to compel the return of Crimea to Ukraine hasn’t worked. Nor did the Ukrainian military’s campaign against the Donbas tame the Russian “aggression” mainstream media shouts about daily. All Europe has achieved to date is tens of billions in...

Nearly the whole world, seemingly paid off by Saudi money, is waging war against Yemen. How else can one explain the silence that surrounds the Saudi bombing campaign that will lead to devastating starvation in Yemen and will turn that country into a second, bigger Gaza? The sycophantic UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon kicked out the UN envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, because Benomar did not endorse the Saudi bombing campaign. He will be replaced with the Saudi choice Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmad...

The case of Mohanad Mahmoud Al Farekh is a perfect example of how the national-security state apparatus that was grafted onto our federal governmental structure as part of the Cold War has revolutionized America’s governmental system. Farekh is an American citizen. Two years ago, the Pentagon and the CIA — the two principal components of the national-security state branch of the federal government — were urging President Obama to authorize an assassination of Farekh. Apparently the request was...

Easter should be a time of celebration for Christians, but for those of the faith living in the Middle East, there hasn’t been too much to celebrate in recent years. “Kill the Christians” is the title of a new BBC documentary, to be broadcast this week. In it, veteran reporter Jane Corbin travels “across the Middle East, to examine why Christianity is facing the greatest threat to its existence. She finds hundreds of thousands of Christians are fleeing Islamic extremists, conflict and...

Militarism and military spending are everywhere on the rise, as the new Cold War propaganda seems to be paying off. The new “threats” that are being hyped bring big profits to military contractors and the network of think tanks they pay to produce pro-war propaganda. Here are just a few examples:The German government announced last week that it would purchase 100 more “Leopard” tanks – a 45 percent increase in the country’s inventory. Germany had greatly reduced its inventory of tanks as the...

The US-backed Saudi military intervention in Yemen is entering a dangerous phase. Clearly, the Saudi air attacks, guided by US intelligence and logistics support, have not had any worthwhile impact so far on the Houthi campaign to seize control of southern Yemeni port city of Aden. But it is Pakistan that may have dealt a lethal blow to the US-Saudi campaign today. The country’s parliament has unanimously called for Pakistan staying neutral in the Yemen conflict except in the highly improbable...

This week regional leaders from 35 Latin American and Caribbean nations meet at the Seventh Summit of the Americas. The meeting in Panama will be a historical encounter ending the 50-year exclusion of Cuba from the Organization of American States. Both presidents Obama and Raul Castro will be present and a highly-anticipated meet and greet between them has the potential to rapidly advance a thaw in relations and an end to the unpopular US embargo against Cuba. While Latin American governments...

“The greatness of America lies in the right to protest for right.”—Martin Luther King Jr. Everything this nation once stood for is being turned on its head. Free speech, religious expression, privacy, due process, bodily integrity, the sanctity of human life, the sovereignty of the family, individuality, the right to self-defense, protection against police abuses, representative government, private property, human rights—the very ideals that once made this nation great—have become casualties...

The American reconstruction campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have, and continue, to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on pointless projects seemingly designed solely to funnel money into the pockets of US government contractors. Empowering Women These projects (Iraq War examples are detailed in my book We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People seem to bounce between the merely pointless, such as dams that are never completed and roads to...

The Iranian framework agreement is an astonishingly good deal, and has the potential to become a historic game-changer. As Robert Parry astutely observed, its about much more than sheaving the threat that Iran will get the bomb: The April 2 framework agreement with Iran represents more than just a diplomatic deal to prevent nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. It marks a crossroad that offers a possible path for the American Republic to regain its footing and turn away from endless war....

Following the murder of Russian opposition leader, and former Deputy Prime Minister, Boris Nemtsov in Moscow on Feb. 27, the West had a field day. Ranging from strong innuendo to outright accusation of a Kremlin-directed political murder, the Western media and politicians did not miss an opportunity to treat Russian President Vladimir Putin as a football practice dummy. The European Parliament adopted a resolution urging an international investigation into Nemtsov’s death and suggested that...

Since the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was announced last week, the Obama administration—echoing previous pledges that nuclear talks with Tehran do not presage a US-Iranian “grand bargain”—has assiduously reaffirmed that progress on the nuclear issue does not signal a wider diplomatic opening. Such a posture ignores an overwhelming strategic reality: America’s position in the Middle East is in free fall, and the only way out is to realign US relations with the Islamic Republic of...