Portside

President Obama speaking at the Air Force Academy in 2012, told the assembled cadets that they should "never bet against the United States of America... [because] the United States has been, and will always be, the one indispensable nation in world affairs." On that basis, he suggested, the twenty-first century, like the twentieth, would be an American one. You get idea. We are... go ahead, chant it: indispensable! (Tom Engelhardt)

When President Obama spoke at the UN last week, it was as if climate change and war were distinct ontological categories when in fact climate change is both a catalyst of conflict and a result of it. Competition over resources - land, water, energy - has always been the ground of conflicts within and between nations despite the fact that they may be clothed in the trappings of ethnic, religious or national rivalries.

A response to Chelsea Manning's strategy to leave `self contained' enclaves for IS to rule - it is a crude, self righteous, inhuman lack of consideration for the populations involved, on the ground, and for what they want for themselves. (Response to original piece in The Guardian and re-posted on Portside.)

Reader Comments - People's Climate March, Greening of the Labor Movement, What Next; ISIS, Syria, Iraq, Muslim Fundamentalism; Ongoing War in Middle East; Elizabeth Warren and Israel; Theodore Roosevelt; Emmett Till, Michael Brown - Ongoing Struggle for Racial Justice; Guns and the Southern Freedom Struggle; Texas School Text Books; Military Weaponry in Schools - WTF?; Socialism, Worker Cooperatives; Today in History; Abraham Lincoln Brigade celebrations

Voices of war; PR defeats journalism; Wipeout; Late Nite Whiteness; Net neutrality slowdown

Chelsea Manning, the intelligence analyst arrested for passing cache of documents to WikiLeaks, breaks her silence, warns the US-led mission to destroy the extremist group is destined to fail - it will merely feed a "cycle of outrage, recruitment, organizing and even more fighting that goes back decades". Veteran Mideast and world reporter Seumas Milne declares, 'bombing and more intervention can't destroy Isis. The US is at the heart of the crisis in the Middle East.'

Reader Comments- People's Climate March - climate change, environmental activism, labor unions; Syria, Iraq, ISIS; public education; labor organizing; Zephyr Teachout - Working Families Party, Democratic Party, 2016 elections; Spain, Scotland, Cuba, Gaza, El Salvador; racial bias; worker cooperatives; Announcements - Film Screening African Americans in Spanish Civil War; Mobilizing Against Inequality Book Launch; Southern Tenant Farmers Union celebrates 80th anniversary

Syria, Iraq, ISIS and the increased role of the U.S. (once again) has prompted wide-spread opposition, discussion and disagreements by those on the left. Yesterday's Congressional vote on war appropriations, with many who have opposed the Afghanistan and Iraq war, now voting for a new war, shows this lack of clarity and unity. Two long-time activists for peace and social justice, Seymour Joseph and James E. Vann sent Portisde opposing perspectives.

Weakening ISIS requires eroding the support it relies on from tribal leaders, military figures, and ordinary Iraqi Sunnis. Here's how to do it without bombs. As has been the case with so many presidents before him, he is telling the rest of the international community that national sovereignty can be violated at will without regard for international law, the U.N. Charter and other treaties whenever it suits the U.S.

The recent surge of minors at the border is a symptom of our current failed immigration policy. We need to continue our work with labor and the immigrants' rights movement toward a fair and comprehensive immigration reform for the U.S. - a better bill than the one passed last year in the Senate, which among other things called for doubling the current border patrol by hiring an additional 20,000-plus border agents.