Everything the CIA does is deniable. It’s part of its Congressional mandate. Congress doesn’t want to be held accountable for the criminal things the CIA does. The only time something the CIA does become public knowledge – other than the rare accident or whistle blower – is when Congress or the President think it’s helpful for psychological warfare reasons to let the American people know [...]

The Most Honest 6 Minutes Off-TV Ever This is a clip taken from the premiere episode of the American television political drama series "The Newsroom" created and principally written by Aaron Sorkin. It premiered on HBO on June 24, 2012. The clip features Jeff Daniels answering the question, "Can you say why America is the greatest country in the world?" with a very thought-provoking answer. Rare [...]

The US Treasury Department has exposed Saudi Arabia's total US debt holdings for the first time in 40 years, allowing analysts to answer the crucial question of whether or not Riyadh can carry out its threat to undermine America's economy. A month ago, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir threatened Washington, saying his country would sell off up to $750 billion in US Treasures and o [...]

The twin explosions of post-9/11 national security extravagance and Citizens United political spending bonanza have reshaped Washington — not only in its political outlook but physically, with this New Class preferring lavish McMansions to show off their newfound wealth, as Mike Lofgren describes. In 1927, H.L. Mencken rode by train through the Pennsylvania coal country. [...]

In this episode of teleSUR's The Empire Files, Abby Martin interviews world-renowned philosopher and linguist Professor Noam Chomsky. Prof. Chomsky comments on the presidential primary "extravaganza," the movement for Bernie Sanders, the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal, the bombing of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, modern-day libertarianism and the reality of "democracy" u [...]

Democracy, as a noble principle of self-governance, is fading away in big ways and small, with special interests seizing control of both media and politicians and with the people increasingly manipulated and misinformed. In this impassioned appeal, Bill Moyers calls it “the fight of our lives.” In the fall of 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11, as families grieved and the nation mourned, Washin [...]

A little-known US senator named Barack Obama said in 2002: “I don’t oppose all wars. […] What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. […] A war based not on reason but on passion.” Americans were angry after 9/11 and President George Bush Jr chose to channel their anger not against Saudi Arabia (most of the Al-Qaida terrorists involved came from there), but aga [...]

The former commander of US Special Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq said that without the Iraq war, the Islamic State wouldn’t exist today, according to the German newspaper Der Spiegel. He also blamed a poor emotional response to the 9/11 attacks. [...]

Given the recent attacks in Paris and the ongoing chaos in Libya and Iraq, Western leaders who continue to pursue their post-9/11 war on terror should realize that they have failed to “remake the world in their own image” and any attempt to topple a regime in the Middle East will wind up giving power to “hard-line Islamists”, according to US media. [...]

The post-9/11 war on terror has failed, and from now on it won’t be part of a ”neoconservative project to remake the world in our own image,” according to US-based political analyst Emile Simpson. Any attempt to topple a regime in the Middle East will only end up providing power to hard-line Islamists, he said in an article published in Foreign Policy magazine. [...]

It is all deja vu; a repeat of the post-9/11 scenario that led to the bombing of Afghanistan in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Both interventions wreaked havoc and destruction and unleashed gross violations of human rights in the name of a "war on terror." Once again, most Western governments are making use of the heart-wrenching scenes of loss and sorrow to serve this misguided war, which [...]

Echoing the post-9/11 era, intelligence officials and lawmakers are exploiting Friday's massacre to expand mass surveillance Despite no available evidence that terror suspects used encryption to plan the Paris attacks, U.S. intelligence officials and lawmakers are seizing on the massacre to demand access to protected communications—in what critics warn is a blatant attempt to exploit fear in [...]

I have written and spoken extensively about the agenda behind the unfolding global financial crisis and here I will expose the coordinating force, or at least the prime one, behind that agenda and so much else, including 9/11. It is widely known as Zionism or, as I call it, more accurately, I suggest … Rothschild Zionism. I add the ‘Rothschild’ to constantly emphasise the true creators of [...]

Abby Martin debuts teleSUR's The Empire Files exploring the U.S. Empire, its rise to world hegemony and its impact on people and the planet. The Rise of History's Biggest Empire 9/11 and the Belligerent Empire /* */ /* */ [...]

Amnesty International has accused Washington of "sweeping under the carpet" a December Senate report that the CIA tortured militants using the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" during the post 9/11 War on Terror. Naureen Shah, a researcher for Amnesty, accused the Obama administration of ignoring the painstaking five year investigation, which culminated in the Senate Report. [...]

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta says that he was cursed at by President Barack Obama's former chief of staff after he agreed to cooperate with the Senate's investigation into his agency's torture tactics in the wake of 9/11. In passages taken from his new book and published online bythe Intercept, Panetta explains the event that triggered the outburst, which flowed from the former chief of sta [...]

Tuesday this week commemorates 13 years since the start of the Afghan War "America's longest running campaign of its kind" yet an end to the operation is hardly on the horizon. Under the terms of the Bilateral Security Agreement, the pact signed last week by representatives for both the United States and Afghanistan, the US will significantly reduce the number of soldiers involved in its post-9 [...]

US Senate report may confirm that Diego Garcia was used for extraordinary rendition after 9/11. The government stands accused of seeking to conceal Britain's role in extraordinary rendition, ahead of the release of a declassified intelligence report that exposes the use of torture at US secret prisons around the world. [...]

Air travel in the US is set to become more expensive beginning next week - but airline profits and jet fuel costs aren't to blame this time. Instead, the price hike will come as a result of a TSA fee increase. The Transportation Security Administration’s fee – known as the ‘Civil Aviation Security’ or the ‘9/11 Security’ fee – helps fund the agency. [...]

So after the grotesquerie of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 suicide killers of 9/11, meet Saudi Arabia’s latest monstrous contribution to world history: the Islamist Sunni caliphate of Iraq and the Levant, conquerors of Mosul and Tikrit – and Raqqa in Syria – and possibly Baghdad, and the ultimate humiliators of Bush and Obama. [...]

A Senate report found that CIA officials lied to the government and public about its post-9/11 torture program, most notably by distorting intelligence gleaned from traditional interrogations as that attained by far more brutal methods. [...]

Obama'€™s Director for National Intelligence, James Clapper, has declassified new documents that reveal how the NSA was first given the green light to start collecting bulk communication data in the hunt for Al-Qaeda terrorists after 9/11. [...]