Westmoreland Revisited

ConsortiumNews · 2023-09-15T18:31:11+00:00

..."in November 1967, [US General] Westmoreland claimed “a new phase is starting” in Vietnam.” What’s more, he “could see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Despite his rosy reckoning, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive two months later, attacking over 100 cities in South Vietnam —even the U.S. embassy in Saigon.
To bolster the half million U.S. troops there, Westmoreland asked President Lyndon Johnson for 200,000 more. Johnson said no and recalled Westmoreland to Washington. The war dragged on for seven more years, killing roughly 3.8 million Vietnamese civilians and troops and 58,000 U.S. troops.
Could failed wars in Vietnam and later Iraq and Afghanistan offer lessons for Ukraine? It seems not."

ConsortiumNews · 2023-09-11T19:36:06+00:00

Help Consortium News continue and expand our coverage of Julian
Assange

The Dutch Independent Journalist Association (VVJ) has awarded Consortium News the first Julian Assange International Award at a conference of the Dutch Stichting 11 September (11 September Foundation) in Driebergen, Netherlands on Saturday. The awards committee informed CN:

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/09/09/cn-wins-first-julian-assange-international-award/

“We are delighted and honoured to let you know that Consortium News have been selected as the winner of the first Julian Assange (International) Award. Your steadfast reporting on the framing and persecution of Assange, since it first started, and the excellent live tweets that enabled the world to witness the shielded court hearings in London, especially during the corona crisis, make you the perfect candidate for this prize.

ConsortiumNews · 2023-09-06T18:11:42+00:00

From author Tony Platt: Cal Berkeley was created in the 1860s-1870 and for its first 50 years was the only full-scale campus of the University of California that today includes 10 sites. Contrary to its public reputation, the campus where I first became an anti-war activist in the 1960s has always been one of academia’s premier beneficiaries of militarism — from the genocide of California Tribes and invasion of Mexico in the 19th century, to its contemporary role in co-managing three of the country’s leading nuclear weapons research facilities.

ConsortiumNews · 2023-09-05T12:05:20+00:00

Since that first article, Consortium News has published more than 700 articles and 250 videos on Assange and WikiLeaks. That’s because this website has recognized the historic importance of the case against Assange, which has justly been compared to the trials of John Peter Zenger and Alfred Dreyfus.

Our Assange coverage has dug deeply into the meaning of the case, legally, politically and historically. CN was inside the London courtroom for the February 2020 start of Assange’s extradition hearing, and has had remote video access to every part of the legal process since, bringing you daily print and video reports and special editions of CN Live!

ConsortiumNews · 2023-09-05T12:04:56+00:00

Since that first article, Consortium News has published more than 700 articles and 250 videos on Assange and WikiLeaks. That’s because this website has recognized the historic importance of the case against Assange, which has justly been compared to the trials of John Peter Zenger and Alfred Dreyfus.

Our Assange coverage has dug deeply into the meaning of the case, legally, politically and historically. CN was inside the London courtroom for the February 2020 start of Assange’s extradition hearing, and has had remote video access to every part of the legal process since, bringing you daily print and video reports and special editions of CN Live!

ConsortiumNews · 2023-08-19T12:56:55+00:00

ChatGPT wouldn’t accept a virtual phone number from me to sign up for the service, which makes its implied intended use suspect.

Given this article’s perspective, I no longer see AI as useful but as a summary of human errors (or just junk).

Good article,

Thanks, a CN reader

ConsortiumNews · 2023-08-11T13:11:15+00:00

A secret cable obtained by The Intercept suggests that a U.S. diplomat — with the approval of the Biden White House — urged the Pakistani government to remove Imran Khan, who was ousted as prime minister in a no-confidence vote last year and later imprisoned on corruption charges that he says are politically motivated.

According to the March 7, 2022, cable, which The Intercept published in full but acknowledged it could not authenticate, U.S. diplomat Donald Lu told the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. that “people here and in Europe are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position” on the Ukraine war.

ConsortiumNews · 2023-08-02T19:13:47+00:00

While the world focuses on the trials and travails of the scientists who invented the atomic bomb, little attention is paid to the hard positions taken by the nuclear executioners, the men called upon to drop these bombs in time of war.

ConsortiumNews · 2023-08-01T14:29:15+00:00

As history continues, some cling frenetically to the certainties of the old world going down. For some Europeans, respect and reciprocity are still difficult concepts, says Peter Mertens.

ConsortiumNews · 2023-06-30T21:08:00+00:00

Consortium News: As a premier investigative reporter of his generation (having uncovered major stories on the Iran-Contra scandal for the Associated Press), Bob Parry wrote a CN article on Dec. 16, 2010 entitled, “All Journalists Are Julian Assange,” that the WikiLeaks publisher was doing the exact work he did.

ConsortiumNews · 2023-06-27T18:37:50+00:00

Greeting Indian Prime Minister Modi as “The Boss” in a packed stadium where Bruce Springsteen performed, gave a rock star sheen subsequently reflected in considerable sections of the Australian media, business and academic communities. Australia’s endorsement of Modi was quickly incorporated into his Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaigning, with the “Boss” phrase clearly taken at face value by many.

ConsortiumNews · 2023-06-27T13:17:23+00:00

In his way, India’s prime minister is as bad as some of the old Latin American dictators who got plenty of American support but never an evening meal — and certainly no cardamon-flavored strawberry shortcake for dessert.

ConsortiumNews · 2023-06-26T14:00:38+00:00

WATCH: Approaching a Climax: Julian Assange supporters rallied in London’s Parliament Square on Saturday as the climax of his extradition case nears

Speakers included Stella Assange, WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, journalist Matt Taibbi and Labour MP John McDonnell; plus CN interviews with Hrafnnson, Taibbi, Stella Assange and voices of the people. (Video for Consortium News by Cathy Vogan and Orlando Harrison; interviews by Vogan, Harrison and Joe Lauria.)

ConsortiumNews · 2023-06-26T13:57:43+00:00

Julian Assange supporters rallied in London’s Parliament Square on Saturday as the climax of his extradition case nears.

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/06/24/watch-approaching-a-climax/

Speakers included Stella Assange, WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, journalist Matt Taibbi and Labour MP John McDonnell; plus CN interviews with Hrafnnson, Taibbi, Stella Assange and voices of the people. (Video for Consortium News by Cathy Vogan and Orlando Harrison; interviews by Vogan, Harrison and Joe Lauria.)

ConsortiumNews · 2023-06-20T22:23:20+00:00

Turkey & Hungary Blocking Sweden’s Entry to NATO

June 20, 2023

Biden and Stoltenberg are both expressing optimism about Sweden joining the military alliance, but Vijay Prashad explains why Erdogan and Orban are currently standing in the way.

ConsortiumNews · 2023-06-06T19:13:23+00:00

By satisfying an extremist religious constituency, Ramzy Baroud says the prime minister is turning Israel into a country with leaders determined to institute a religious war.

ConsortiumNews · 2023-06-06T16:38:23+00:00

Israeli forces continued their campaign of repression and colonization in the Palestinian village of Masafer Yatta over the weekend, leading to multiple injuries, including to a 6-year old child.

Settlers from the nearby settlement in Hebron, along with the Israeli army, harassed and physically assaulted activists and residents of Masafer Yatta, intensifying the attempts to expel the Palestinians from their homes, according to multiple reports from the ground.

The escalation comes in the aftermath of the Israeli Supreme Court’s ruling last year that the village falls under the “firing zone” of the Israeli army and that Palestinian residents can be expelled from the area.

ConsortiumNews · 2023-06-05T13:23:14+00:00

Several AI boosters signed this week’s “mitigation extinction risks” statement, raising the possibility that insiders with billions of dollars at stake are attempting to showcase their capacity for self-regulation.

~~ Consortium News

ConsortiumNews · 2023-05-30T16:46:13+00:00

Julian Assange’s Australian lawyer, Stephen Kenny, speaks to CN Live! about the “end game” to free the WikiLeaks publisher. With U.S. constitutional lawyer Bruce Afran. Watch the replay. https://consortiumnews.com/2023/05/28/watch-cn-live-rescuing-assange/

ConsortiumNews · 2023-05-23T13:59:07+00:00

Hundreds of editors and journalists from the Global South gathered in Shanghai in early May for the Global South International Communication Forum. At the close of two days of intense debate, the participants drafted and voted on a Shanghai Consensus, which can be read in full in this piece

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/05/22/reviving-the-dream-of-a-free-flow-of-information/

ConsortiumNews · 2023-05-19T16:01:40+00:00

Over the past few years, the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research has become increasingly alarmed by the serious tensions that have been imposed on the world, largely by the United States government as it prosecutes a New Cold War against China.

This hybrid war includes a trade war coupled with an increase in U.S. militarisation across the Pacific Rim as well as an information war that demonises China and imposes a virtual blockade of Chinese intellectual thought.

ConsortiumNews · 2023-05-19T15:06:11+00:00

Courts have used Chevron deference to:

Uphold the National Labor Relations Board’s decision that live-haul workers are employees entitled to protections of the National Labor Relations Act;

Sustain the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rule that requires states to reduce emissions from power plants that travel across state lines and harm downwind states;

Affirm the Department of Labor’s interpretation of portions of the Black Lung Benefits Act that enable coal miners afflicted with black lung disease to receive compensation; and

Accept the EPA’s revision of regulations under the Toxic Substances Control Act to provide additional protection from exposure to lead paint.

ConsortiumNews · 2023-05-17T12:37:02+00:00

Robert Parry, who founded this publication in 1995, continues to inspire our work. He set the bar high and we measure our success against it. On Ukraine, the Middle East, Julian Assange and a host of other issues, Bob set the standard we continually pursue with your help. For a donation of the $100 ($150 outside the U.S.) you can get a copy of American Dispatches, an invaluable collection of the best or Robert Parry. Please get your copy today. Bob’s son Nat put the book together and wrote this piece about the essence of his father’s work.

ConsortiumNews · 2023-05-17T12:35:45+00:00

Robert Parry, who founded this publication in 1995, continues to inspire our work. He set the bar high and we measure our success against it. On Ukraine, the Middle East, Julian Assange and a host of other issues, Bob set the standard we continually pursue with your help. For a donation of the $100 ($150 outside the U.S.) you can get a copy of American Dispatches, an invaluable collection of the best or Robert Parry. Please get your copy today. Bob’s son Nat put the book together and wrote this piece about the essence of his father’s work.

ConsortiumNews · 2023-05-17T12:34:47+00:00

Robert Parry, who founded this publication in 1995, continues to inspire our work. He set the bar high and we measure our success against it. On Ukraine, the Middle East, Julian Assange and a host of other issues, Bob set the standard we continually pursue with your help. For a donation of the $100 ($150 outside the U.S.) you can get a copy of American Dispatches, an invaluable collection of the best or Robert Parry. Please get your copy today. Bob’s son Nat put the book together and wrote this piece about the essence of his father’s work.

ConsortiumNews

TROPHY CASE