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. By Robert Parry In late summer 2013, Official Washington was rushing to the judgment that the “evil” Syrian President Bas [...]

America's leadership had to embarrass Europe to impose economic hits on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine - even though the EU was opposed to such a motion, US Vice President Joe Biden revealed during a speech at Harvard. “We’ve given Putin a simple choice: Respect Ukraine’s sovereignty or face increasing consequences,” Biden told a gathering at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard [...]

US Vice-President Joe Biden has accused America's key allies in the Middle East of allowing the rise of the Islamic State (IS), saying they supported extremists with money and weapons in their eagerness to oust the Assad regime in Syria. America’s “biggest problem” in Syria is its regional allies, Biden told students at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the Institute of Politics at Harvard [...]

Islamic State has been a key foreign policy instrument for the US and a number of its allies and become one of the main drivers of the rebellion in Syria, Charles Shoebridge, security analyst and former British army officer, told RT. The US has one of the most powerful intelligence services in the world, but reports suggest it's not robust enough to target jihadists and safeguard civilians. How [...]

Secret Service Director Julia Pierson resigned from her post atop the security detail in charge of protecting United States President Barack Obama on Wednesday following several recent serious breaches. Pierson, who was appointed only last year to head the US Secret Service after the agency’s reputation was marred by events that preceded her tenure as director, testified on Capitol Hill earli [...]

Washington harshly criticized Israel's decision to move forward with new settlements in east Jerusalem on Wednesday, adding that the plan could alienate Tel Aviv from "even its closest allies." US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the development – which calls for more than 2,600 new homes in a highly contested area of east Jerusalem – would make world nations “question Israel� [...]

The US-led military operation against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) militants has likely so far cost between $780 and $930 million, according to an estimate by Washington-based think tank specializing in defense issues. The estimate is part of a report attempting to forecast how much the operation might cost in the future. [...]

The new President of Afghanistan Ghani Ahmadzai has paved the way for US troops to stay in the country. He has signed a security deal with the US, which will see just under 10,000 American soldiers present, to help train and assist Afghan forces. National security adviser Hanif Atmar and U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham signed the bilateral security agreement in a televised ceremony at the pres [...]

Since 1990, the people of Iraq have sustained some level of US military aggression by four successive US presidential administrations. Yet they failed to find WMDs much like they failed to preclude the rise of the Islamic State. The Obama administration, while channeling weapons to anti-government Syrian rebels, many with connections to terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda, [...]

Under the auspices of the UN Security Council, with president Obama chairing the session, the US has called upon the international community to adopt strong measures, at national and international levels, to curtail the recruitment of IS fighters. What is not mentioned in the media reports is that the heads of State and heads of government who have endorsed America’s campaign against the Isla [...]

Washington's hegemonic position is being threatened by a new global movement that is fast becoming reality, with the BRICS group being a very important component of creating a truly multipolar world, Don DeBar, of CPR News, told RT. On Sept. 26, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the US for his first official visit after a nine-year visa ban over allegations that he failed to stop a [...]

Ron Paul, America's most outspoken libertarian and anti-mainstream politician, has slammed US military strikes in Syria and Iraq. Not known for mincing his words or flip-flopping, Paul told RT’s Abby Martin that President Obama’s decision to use military force in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State [IS], without approval from the UN or the US Congress, was “immoral and illegal” und [...]

Publicly announcing that US intelligence agencies “underestimated” the presence and activity of Islamic State militants in Syria, US President Barack Obama in an interview with CBS called the country a “ground zero” for international jihadists. “Over the past couple of years, during the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swaths of the country that are compl [...]

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. During President Barack Obama’s first term, he generally was careful in making comments about world affairs – not that he was always complete [...]

This US-engineered Coalition is in for some surprises. With few common goals, it has thrust itself into battle against the most determined players in the region and beyond. The airwaves are still heaving with spin two days after US airstrikes against Syria. Undoubtedly the attacks were timed to occur on the eve of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations, so ‘Coalition’ p [...]

Citing its battle damage assessment “up until now,” the Pentagon has denied any civilian casualties as a result of airstrikes in Syria, saying that reports remain unconfirmed and videos posted on social media showing civilians underneath rubble are fake. Earlier this week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that eight civilians, including three children, were killed in US-led a [...]

Hundreds of Denver-area high school students walked out their classrooms in a mass protest against what they call an attempt to censor their history curriculum by refocusing it on topics that promote citizenship, patriotism and obedience. Students at six Denver-area highs schools walked out their classrooms en masse, protesting a plan by the conservative-majority Jefferson County school board t [...]

Thousands of Americans living overseas continue to give up their citizenship as foreign banks turn them away over the burden of completing increasingly expensive and complicated tax returns required by a controversial new tax law. More than 1,500 Americans have renounced their citizenship in so far 2014, the Guardian reports. [...]

The United States and its partners launched a new round of strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria on Wednesday, only hours after President Barack Obama called on the world to help end the extremist group's reign of terror in the Middle East. “I can confirm that US military and Arab partner forces are undertaking additional strikes today against ISIL terrorists in Syria,” Pentagon [...]

Following the US President's speech at the UN, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov was puzzled with Barack Obama's ranking of international threats: deadly Ebola virus top, followed by so-called Russian aggression and ISIS in Syria and Iraq only third? Gathered at the UN headquarters in New York, the world leaders attending the 69th General Assembly heard Barack Obama highlighting the three most significa [...]

It was the West that armed and financed ISIS and it is “outrageous” to blame Muslims for supporting extremists and close their bank accounts when they’ve done nothing wrong, Massoud Shadjareh from the Islamic Human Rights Commission, told RT. Earlier in September, some US banks closed dozens of accounts without any explanation. Letters were sent to business owners, nonprofits, and student [...]

Moscow is bewildered by Washington's warmongering rhetoric, which accompanied President Petro Poroshenko's visit to the US. Russia has also noted all the Russia-unfriendly opinions voiced recently by hawkish American politicians. “We’ll keep in mind all signals, including those unfriendly towards Russia, that were heard during the visit of the Ukrainian president to Washington,” commented [...]