Portside

Bradley Manning, acting on what he felt was true patriotism leaked documents revealing the killing of journalists in Iraq; corruption in Tunisia that led to the first of the Arab Spring revolts; the use of drones, and the secret drone war; US spying on UN diplomats; and John Kerry's pressing of Israel to return to pre-1967 borders. Yes, Bradley Manning has changed the world we live in.

A broad coalition of South African organizations, including COSATU, has called for mass demonstrations against President Obama's visit to Johannesburg. Coalition is in opposition to the University of Johannesburg plan to award Obama with an honorary doctorate for his contributions to the international community. Among the coalition demands are freedom for Bradley Manning, support for the Cuban Five, and the closing of Guantanamo.

The deepening violence of the Syrian civil war is also in some measure a consequence of Libya: Qaddafi's disbanded army and unguarded weapons moved southward in Africa, but they also moved eastward to Asia. The state terror of the most "surgical" air war leaves in its wake many thousands of stateless terrorists.

New York Times is asked to examine its coverage of Venezuela and Honduras by leading journalists, activists and media scholars. "Whatever one thinks of the democratic credentials of Chávez's presidency-and we recognize that reasonable people can disagree about it-there is nothing in the record, when compared with that of his Honduran counterparts, to warrant the discrepancies in the Times's coverage of the two governments."

The details of U.S.-North Korean relations are complex, the story is relatively simple. The U.S. government continues to reject possibilities for normalizing relations with North Korea and promoting peace on the Korean peninsula in favor of a dangerous policy of regime change. And, the U.S. media supports this policy choice with a deliberately one sided presentation of events designed to make North Korea appear to be an unwilling and untrustworthy negotiating partner.

Yes, the Iraq War was a war for oil, and it was a war with winners: Big Oil. It has been 10 years since Operation Iraqi Freedom's bombs first landed in Baghdad. And while most of the U.S.-led coalition forces have long since gone, Western oil companies are only getting started.

Iraq itself remains a dangerous and unstable place. And so, happy 10th anniversary, Iraq War! A decade after the invasion, a chaotic and unstable Middle East is the unfinished legacy of our invasion.