Gareth Porter

Mainstream Media’s Russian Bogeymen

by Gareth Porter | Jan 16, 2017 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

In the middle of a major domestic crisis over the U.S. charge that Russia had interfered with the U.S. election, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) triggered a brief national media hysteria by creating and spreading a bogus story of Russian hacking into U.S. power infrastructure. Seal of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security DHS had initiated the now-discredited tale of a hacked computer at the Burlington, Vermont Electricity Department by sending the utility’s managers misleading and alarming information, then leaked a story they certainly knew to be false and continued to put out...

US strikes on Syrian troops: Report data contradicts ‘mistake’ claims

by Gareth Porter | Dec 7, 2016 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Moscow and Damascus cited the attacks as the reason for declaring an end to the ceasefire in Syria The summary report on an investigation into US and allied air strikes on Syrian government troops has revealed irregularities in decision-making consistent with a deliberate targeting of Syrian forces. The report, released by US Central Command on 29 November, shows that senior US Air Force officers at the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) at al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar, who were responsible for the decision to carry out the September airstrike at Deir Ezzor: misled the Russians about where...

How a Syrian White Helmets Leader Played Western Media

by Gareth Porter | Nov 30, 2016 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Reporters who rely on the White Helmets' leader in Aleppo ignore his record of deception and risk manipulation. The White Helmets, founded to rescue victims trapped under the rubble of buildings destroyed by Syrian and Russian bombing, have become a favorite source for Western news media covering a story on Russian-Syrian bombing. Portrayed as humanitarian heroes for over the past year and even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize last summer, the White Helmets have been accorded unquestioned credibility by journalists covering the Syrian crisis. Yet the White Helmets are hardly a non-political...

Trump’s National Security Adviser Facilitated the Murder of Civilians in Afghanistan

by Gareth Porter | Nov 25, 2016 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

After retired Lt. Gen. Michael J. Flynn spoke at the Republican National Convention, The Washington Post captured the prevailing media view of Flynn in the headline: “He was one of the most respected intel officers of his generation. Now he’s leading ‘Lock her up’ chants.” Now that President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Flynn as his national security adviser, media coverage has given prominence to the more serious issue of Flynn’s denunciation of Islam as a “cancer” and other manifestations of his embrace of Islamophobia. But the mainstream media view of Flynn’s military record ignores his...

The Bolton Threat to Trump’s Middle East Policy

by Gareth Porter | Nov 14, 2016 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Post-election comments on Middle East policy last week by President-elect Donald Trump and one his campaign advisers have provoked speculation about whether Trump will upend two main foreign policy lines of the Obama administration in the Middle East. But the more decisive question about the future of US policy toward the region is whom Trump will pick for his national security team – and especially whether he will nominate John Bolton to become Secretary of State. Bolton, one of the most notorious members of Dick Cheney’s team plotting wars in the George W. Bush administration, would...

Justifying the Saudi Slaughter in Yemen

by Gareth Porter | Oct 31, 2016 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The Obama administration has carried out a deliberately deceptive campaign accusing Iran of covertly sending arms to the Houthis by sea, a claim that Washington cites to help justify the Saudi massive air attack against the Houthis that began last year. By repeating the accusation over and over, the administration has been largely successful in turning a dubious allegation into accepted fact, even though it is contradicted by evidence that is well-documented on the public record. Saudi King Salman bids farewell to President Barack Obama at Erga Palace after a state visit to Saudi Arabia on...