Portside

The brink of war - overview and details

Defining imperialism today - what’s changed, and what hasn’t?

Almost singular these days, the Times media critic does a salient institutional self-criticism of a wayward reporter and the indulgence of top management in fostering a string of poorly sourced when not fabricated international news stories.

Turkey’s incursion into Syria has roiled the Middle East and NATO countries, demonstrating one key polarizing divide on both sides of the Mediterranean. As far as I can tell, that divide is between supporters of political Islam and its opponents.

As a bloody siege looms over Idlib, the U.S. is digging into the east, and conflict between Iran and Israel may put Syria in the crosshairs. Turkey will have to eventually withdraw from Syria; Israel will eventually have to come to terms with Iran...

Reader Comments: For the Victims in Las Vegas, Puerto Rico and Yemen; Puerto Rico; Vietnam - More than Burns and Novick film; Attack on Organized Labor - What it Means for African Americans; Tom Petty; Socialist Writing; The Russians Are Coming - Are They?; Fake Olive Oil - Bertolli Responds; Dag Hammarskjold; Star Wars; How Much Did Your Congressional Representatives Get from the NRA; Prosecuting ISIS Crimes against Women and LGBTIQ Persons; and more .....

Torture is an excellent way to be trolled by a seasoned operative, with potentially disastrous consequences, as Iraq showed

The Turks don't want a Kurdish mini-state on their frontier any more than the Syrians want to lose territory to the Kurds (and neither do the Iranians, nor do the Russians want a Kurdish state on their border). And, Turkey is warming up to Russia and Iran in a bid to exit before a total rout of its proxies in Syria. Here Robert Fisk and Vijay Prashad present two nuanced perspectives.

Victor Grossman reports from Berlin on causes of the spate of violence striking Germany and across Europe. We need not look too far to find possible causes of such hatred or, frequently, of distorted despair. I think of what so many have gone through. War-torn home towns, shootings, explosions and bombings in their native Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, a terrifying flight to get away, to find some haven, where they can escape and perhaps even realize their hopes and wishes.