Again, where is the cost/benefit analysis? We're spending millions of dollars a day on munitions alone. Direct threats appear to be non-existent, or minor (for the foreseeable future). If there is an argument to be made about stability of the Middle East, let's have that, instead of this insane fear-mongering.
Occupy Central and the Rising Risk of New Mass Atrocities in China →
Your daily does of political science:
Instead, violent state crackdowns usually push countries onto one of three other pathways before they produce more than 1,000 fatalities: 1) they succeed at breaking the uprising and essentially restore the status quo ante (e.g., China in 1989, Uzbekistan in 2005, Burma in 2007, and Thailand in 2010); 2) they suppress the nonviolent challenge but, in so doing, help to spawn a violent rebellion that may or may not be met with a mass killing of its own (e.g., Syria since 2011); or 3) they catalyze splits in state security forces or civilian rulers that lead to negotiations, reforms, or regime collapse (e.g., Egypt and Tunisia in 2011). In short, nonviolent uprisings usually lose, transform, or win before the attempts to suppress them amount to what we would call a state-led mass killing.
ISIS Isn’t Hamas, or Iran →
Simply warmongering to say otherwise.
For its part, in Gaza, Hamas does not kill Christians; indeed they worship freely, are represented in the government, and share in the bitter and blockaded status of Gaza’s Muslims. Hamas doesn’t aspire to a Muslim caliphate but rather national liberation, and, if you follow the contemporary words of its spokesman, (rather than its generation old, anti-Semitic charter) liberation of a small part of historic Palestine. Hamas doesn’t execute Western journalists but welcomes them. It does execute suspected collaborators (that’s where the gruesome execution photos which Israel-friendly organizations have been using in advertisements come from) but so has every guerrilla movement, including, as Derfner notes, Zionist ones.
Grand jury considering the Ferguson shooting is being investigated for misconduct →
From the outside, I couldn't see a just and fair hearing. Now this:
An account of possible jury misconduct surfaced Wednesday morning on Twitter, when several users sent messages about one juror who may have discussed evidence in the case with a friend.
In one of those messages, a person tweeted that they are friends with a member of the jury who doesn’t believe there is enough evidence to warrant an arrest of the officer, Darren Wilson.
The same person who tweeted about being friends with a member of the jury has also tweeted messages of support for Wilson.
Michael Dunn found guilty of 1st-degree murder in loud-music trial →
Jurors found Michael Dunn guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday in the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Jordan Davis.
...
Dunn, 47, was charged with murder after shooting into an SUV full of teenagers at a Jacksonville, Florida, gas station following a squabble over the music emanating from the teens' vehicle.
To those outside the US, this case may seem to have an odd amount of coverage. It's about the racism in the American justice system:
The victim's father said the verdict made Jacksonville "a shining example that you could have a jury made of mostly white people, white men," that delivers justice in a racially charged case.
Khorasan: Not Quite Out of Nowhere →
In contrast to Greenwald’s claim, the Long War Journal has a series of posts dating back to mid-2013 detailing the existence of the cell now labeled the Khorasan Group, naming its key operative, and describing its ambitions. In fact, everything about the group is there except the name Khorasan.
The Fake Terror Threat Used To Justify Bombing Syria →
After spending weeks depicting ISIS as an unprecedented threat — too radical even for Al Qaeda! — administration officials suddenly began spoon-feeding their favorite media organizations and national security journalists tales of a secret group that was even scarier and more threatening than ISIS, one that posed a direct and immediate threat to the American Homeland. Seemingly out of nowhere, a new terror group was created in media lore.
The unveiling of this new group was performed in a September 13 article by the Associated Press, who cited unnamed U.S. officials to warn of this new shadowy, worse-than-ISIS terror group...
The way "Khorasan" was announced, seemingly out of nowhere, felt dodgy. A bad sleight-of-hand; a clumsy way of nudging the American public to war, with what may be an easily pronounced (and therefore easily repeated on air) name. That may not be the case, though, given simple incentives of the US administration, and a hungry press.
From Jack Goldsmith's piece in Lawfare, On Glenn Greenwald’s Skepticism on Threat Claims About the Khorasan Group:
When one faces terrorist threat information, and is responsible for the consequences of that threat, and for building support for the President, one sometimes over-reads the threat facts. And in the short run, journalists, desperate for access and scoops, sometimes report this information uncritically.
Remain skeptical of everyone's fervor.
Hong Kong's unprecedented protests and police crackdown, explained →
On Wednesday, student groups led peaceful marches to protest China's new plan for Hong Kong's 2017 election, which looked like China reneging on its promise to grant the autonomous region full democracy...
...in August, Beijing announced its plan for Hong Kong's 2017 elections. While citizens would be allowed to vote for the chief executive, the candidates for the election would have to be approved by a special committee just like the pro-Beijing committee that currently appoints the chief executive. This lets Beijing hand-pick candidates for the job, which is anti-democratic in itself, but also feels to many in Hong Kong like a first step toward eroding their promised democratic rights.