Portside

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.

A May Day to remember

She fought for the rights of Iraqi women, queer people, and marginalized communities. Now Yanar Mohammed has been shot dead in broad daylight in Baghdad.

The biggest lesson from this déjà vu moment? We must resist every one of Washington’s might-makes-right policies, and fight for an entirely different relationship between the US and the rest of the world.

Trump’s blunder into Venezuela and how we got here

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)

This week: News and analyses from Asian parties and movements

Just as the 9/11 attacks “did not speak for themselves,” neither did Hamas’s attacks on Israel. In remarks at a bilateral meeting with President Biden, however, Prime Minister Netanyahu strategically compared the Hamas attacks to the 9/11 ones.

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.

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.