We can all breathe a sigh of relief that the impending war with Syria has been at least postponed. It is clear that it was the massive and rising antiwar sentiment that put a check on the Obama administration and its war-loving supporters to back off (at least temporarily) from their threats to bomb Syria and instead accept the offer of Russia to find a diplomatic solution. The Obama administration’s Syria policy was incoherent and based on hypocritical fear-mongering and his speech last night reflected all those things. [Read more…]

One of the hopeful features of the current political climate is that public opinion in the US has not been stampeded into supporting the bombing of Syria, at least not yet. In fact, as the propaganda for the war increases, public opinion is going the other way. Pew reports that just within the last two weeks, opposition to the war has surged from 48% to 63 % with support being stagnant at 28%. [Read more…]

So the case for Congress voting war against Syria is taking the usual turn from the merits of the war itself to how it will affect domestic politics and the elections in 2014 and 2016, and what it means for Israel. These are the topics that our chattering classes really care about. And of course the obligatory comparison with Hitler is brought up because no stampede to war is complete with invoking the latest incarnation of good old Adolph as the enemy. [Read more…]

I can understand why some black people use the n-word though it causes great discomfort to others. They are trying to turn the insult around and reclaim the word, the way that the gay community is trying to do with some words that were used against them in a derogatory way. [Read more…]

President Obama’s claim that he welcomes the debate over the NSA’s activities and planned to have one but that he objects to the fact that Edward Snowden revealed the things that he supposedly wants to discuss was obviously a lie. Does anyone seriously think that in the absence of Snowden, Obama would have one day voluntarily told the public what has been going on? [Read more…]

(Thanks to reader Marcus Ranum)

I found this article that contains comments from Russian president Vladimir Putin that shed an interesting light on the sequence of events that led to Edward Snowden ending up in Russia and his relationship with Putin. The report also says that even though he has little money, Snowden is settling in and learning the language. [Read more…]

In an interview he said this: “You know, Senator Chuck Hagel, when he was senator, Senator Chuck Hagel, now secretary of Defense, and when I was a senator, we opposed the president’s decision to go into Iraq, but we know full well how that evidence was used to persuade all of us that authority ought to be given.” [Read more…]