Portside

A careful examination of the Obama administration's summary of the intelligence on which it is basing the case for military action to punish the Assad regime for alleged use of chemical weapons reveals misleading language evocative of the infamous 2002 Iraq WMD intelligence estimate.

The government account expresses "high confidence that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack" on August 21. The Mint report (Mint Press News) bore the headline "Syrians in Ghouta Claim Saudi-Supplied Rebels Behind Chemical Attack." Which of these two versions should we find more credible?

The administration is about to launch a ferocious propaganda blitz that will engulf a wide range of U.S. media. And as a fallback, the president is reserving the option of attacking Syria no matter what Congress does.

There are few things more bizarre than watching people advocate that another country be bombed even while acknowledging that it will achieve no good outcomes other than safeguarding the "credibility" of those doing the bombing. Relatedly, it's hard to imagine a more potent sign of a weak, declining empire than having one's national "credibility" depend upon periodically bombing other countries.

Does anyone still believe that the massive surveillance operations revealed by Edward Snowden were really geared toward protecting us from terrorists?