Portside

Hit that old song again, loud and clear! "Over there, over there, Send the word, send the word, That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming." Yes, sirree! Shades of 1918 and the Battle of the Marne! Shades of 1944 and the beaches of Normandy! But no, not just shades and not just words have already been sent. The U.S. is sending significant military assets to Germany, and to countries bordering Russia.

International media has provided a constant stream of stories and editorials about the collapse of the Venezuelan economy. Shortages of food and medicine, hours-long lines, incomes eroded by triple-digit inflation have dominated press reports. Adherents to this explanation say the downward spiral will continue until the chavistas are removed from power, either through elections or through a coup (most pundits don't care which). The reality is more complicated.

The next U.S. president will have an unprecedented opportunity to put some distance between Washington and Riyadh.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, called for peace and a de-escalation in tensions between the US and Russia. What is the future for dialogue between the two countries under current circumstances? Gorbachev spoke in Reykjavik on Monday, calling for increased dialogue between the US and Russia

The simple yes-or-no choice presented by the October 2 referendum does not take into account how the accord will be implemented and the profound divisions that exist after decades of civil war, militarization and politically motivated violence, and is a historic achievement. Nowhere is the resistance to any agreement with FARC more visible or vocal than in the rightwing political movement founded and led by Sen. Alvaro Uribe Vélez, Colombia's former president.

This was a big missed opportunity for the network-and for voters. It showed that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, will say just about anything to win in November. Hours before, Trump made an address in Philadelphia where he kowtowed to the Republican foreign-policy establishment, pledging to lavish tax dollars on the military. In a rambling answer to a question about Iraq, Trump noted the biggest mistake made in Iraq was that the U.S. did not 'take the oil.'

The major powers are planning for war and claim that's the best way to defend against war. Will this mutual hawkishness lead to armed conflict?

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.

In an era of too-big-to fail generals, an age in which top commanders from winless wars retire to take prominent posts at influential institutions and cash in with cushy jobs on corporate boards, AFRICOM chiefs have faced neither hard questions nor repercussions for the deteriorating situation. (Similar records -- heavy on setbacks, short on victories -- have been produced by Washington’s war chiefs in Afghanistan and Iraq for the past 15 years...)

A new book shows how aggressive policing tactics exasperates structural racism and leads to more violence against marginalized communities.