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.

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.

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.

Three Generations of Conspicuous Destruction by the Military-Industrial Complex and a New Cold War

The topsy-turvy nature of the Trumpian version of the American century is something this country — and certainly the Biden administration — still hasn’t fully come to grips with.

At the dawn of the new millennium, we directed our national resources in the exact wrong direction. But it’s not too late to turn things around.