Current CIA director Gina Haspel described graphic acts of deliberate physical torture including the waterboarding of a suspected Al-Qa’ida terrorist under her supervision when she was chief of base at a CIA black site in Thailand in 2002, according to declassified CIA cables – most of which she wrote...
The name Allard Lowenstein (1929-1980) may not mean too much to political activists today, but in the 1960s and 1970s he was a well-known liberal figure associated with many of the progressive causes of the day. For this reason, it would come as something of a shock to many of...
There is strong evidence to suggest that both Juan Guaidó and the U.S. government were intimately involved in a botched weekend insurrection. The government of Venezuela is celebrating after thwarting another foreign-backed coup attempt Sunday, just two days after another coup attempt by self-declared “Interim President” Juan Guaidó ended in...
Ronald Reagan is heralded by conservatives today as a heroic figure who rejuvenated American society after the malaise of the 1970s. Reagan’s worshippers, however, fail to acknowledge the rise of massive inequality in the 1980s, Reagan’s support for death squad operations in Central America, and the fact that Reagan only...
Ramparts magazine was a beacon of the 1960s social movements: an anti-establishment muckraking magazine that published important exposés of the CIA, including its involvement in the murder of Ché Guevara, its infiltration of the National Student Association (NSA), and its support for clandestine police training programs in South Vietnam...
Richard C. Cook is a retired U.S. federal analyst who served with the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury and as an aide to U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). He has just published a thoughtful book, Our Country Then and Now, which provides a sweeping economic history of...
For over seven weeks, events in Nicaragua have devolved into an increasingly common scenario for leaders who find themselves at odds with Washington: the country’s president, Daniel Ortega, stands accused of “killing his own people” after authorities have used “lethal force” in quelling recent protests. The unrest, which has resulted in...
In a February 1985 episode of the hit NBC television series Miami Vice, Eagles singer Glenn Frey played a swashbuckling CIA pilot, Jimmy Cole, who flies ace detective Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Rafael Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) to Colombia to conduct a drug deal. Crockett and Tubbs had been...
The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba condemns the escalation of pressures and actions of the U.S. government in preparation for a military adventure under the guise of a “humanitarian intervention” in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and calls on the international community to mobilize in order to...
The effects of this poisonous coup attempt—cooked up at Langley more than 30 years ago—had lingering consequences which exacerbated income equality, stifled economic growth and undercut human rights. Back in the 1980s New Zealand registered in the global consciousness because of its then-Prime Minister, the late David Lange, and his...