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Syria and the 'Red Line' Nonsense

Peter Hart Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Most pundits are careful about not advocating for direct U.S. military intervention in Syria (that is left to the Republican politicians who appear on the Sunday shows). But their message boils down to a concern over the credibility of the president's threats of violence more important than the credibility of his evidence. The White House has been saying their reticence is informed by the Iraq debacle; many pundits don't seem to have learned a similar lesson.

This Week in People’s History, Oct 16–22

Portside
Harpers Ferry as it looked in 1857 Harpers Ferry, a Bridge Too Far (1859), Lynch Mob Gets Served (1894), A Frame-Up Falls Apart 15 Years Too Late (1989), George Washington’s Indigenous ‘Enemies’ (1779), Civil Servants In the Crosshairs (2020), A Guilty Verdict Reversed by Trump (2014)

Living on a Smoke-Bomb of a Planet

Tom Engelhardt TomDispatch
As those Canadian wildfires suggest, we’re now living on a new, not terribly recognizable, ever more perilous world in which not just this country but Planet Earth itself is in decline. Climate change is quickly becoming the climate emergency.

In Breaking Iraq, America Broke Itself

Thanassis Cambanis The Century Fund
History offers countless examples of societies refashioned in the wake of disorder. For the United States, a first step toward a just new order requires naming the mistakes—the violations of law and morality, the crimes against humanity.

A Tale of Two Exceptionalisms: Russia and the USA

Rebecca Gordon tomdispatch
Russia is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court, which means that its nationals can’t be tried at the ICC for war crimes in Ukraine. The United States is the other Great Exception to the rules of war.
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