It must be quite something to concoct a 9/11-truther conspiracy theory so ludicrous that other 9/11-truthers insist it must be a false flag operation meant to discredit the entire 9/11-truther industry. But somebody has managed to hurdle that bar: I know it is preposterous to claim that the WTC was brought down by nukes but … Continue reading Breakthroughs in conspiracy theorizing

I guess if you're an anti-vaxxer, one of the underappreciated benefits of a civil war would be the precipitous drop-off in vaccination rates. Unfortunately, that leads to this: "In addition to 15 polio cases in Deir al-Zor province, Syria, two additional cases have been confirmed, one each in rural Damascus and Aleppo," the organization said … Continue reading ATTN: Jenny McCarthy, this is what happens when people can’t vaccinate their children

Punditry means never having to say you're sorry, or really suffer any consequences for being bad at your job at all. I am not a pundit, though, and so I feel like I need to go back and straighten something up. Back when the Saudis started showing their displeasure with American policy in the Middle … Continue reading Our Saudi allies have different goals than we do

When looking back on how and why this country talked itself into invading Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein, despite the absence of either a justification or a plan for the day after Saddam was overthrown, you have to reckon with two categories of war cheerleaders. There are the folks who just wanted a war with … Continue reading Jeffrey Goldberg explains stuff at you

It's never a good idea to jump to conclusions, particularly about, say, a temporary deal to slow the Iranian nuclear program while negotiations continue on a permanent settlement. But when you see the kinds of folks who instantly lined up against the deal as the ink was drying on the paper, it's hard not to … Continue reading If these are the people opposing the Iran deal…

There's a deal in place for a six-month slowdown of the Iranian nuclear program and what looks like a rollback of the elements of that program that could lead to the development of a weapon. There's going to be a massive amount of complaining about this deal on the part of people who a) don't … Continue reading BREAKING (no, seriously): Short-term Iranian nuke deal reached

The tragic fall of Uzbek First Daughter, and credit to sadistic, kleptocratic princesses everywhere, Gulnara Karimova, continues: But in the space of one month, the once-untouchable Karimova has suffered an astonishingly public fall—which she has chronicled via outraged missives on Twitter—culminating over the last few weeks in what appears to be the methodical seizing of … Continue reading Who among us hasn’t had a Twitter fight with our people-boiling dad?

If the Syrian rebels were half as good at fighting Assad as they are at reorganizing themselves into new combinations, the war would've been over two years ago. My innate cynicism aside, though, this reorganization might be a big deal: A statement posted online said Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam, Suqour al-Sham, Liwa al-Tawhid, Liwa al-Haqq, … Continue reading Judean People’s Front, Judean Popular People’s Front, and Campaign for a Free Galilee unite to form Popular Front of Judea–er, Syria

A day after Syrian government troops captured Qara, a small but strategically important village situated on the main road between Damascus and Homs, the rebels have responded: Four suicide car bombs have struck Syrian regime targets in the Qalamoun region north of Damascus, killing at least seven soldiers, a monitor and state news agency SANA … Continue reading Today in “How we know that Bashar Assad is winning”