The Bush regime’s response to 9/11 and the Obama regime’s validation of this response have destroyed accountable democratic government in the United States. So much unaccountable power has been concentrated in the executive branch that the US Constitution is no longer an operable document.
Peter Schwarz, wsws.org
Eighty years ago, on January 30, 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed the leader of the Nazis, Adolf Hitler, as German chancellor. In the ensuing twelve years, the Hitler regime committed crimes never previously witnessed by mankind. It smashed the organized labor movement, subjected the country to a totalitarian dictatorship, destroyed Europe in an unprovoked war of aggression, and murdered millions of Jews, Roma and other minorities.
January 30, 1933 was a historic turning point. Before then, barbarism and anti-Semitism had been considered traits of economic and cultural backwardness. In 1933, however, the elite of a country that was highly developed both economically and culturally handed over power to a barbaric anti-Semite whose party relied on the dregs of society.
By Bill Van Auken, wsws.org
Wednesday’s bombing of a Syrian military site by Israeli warplanes has ratcheted up the danger that the Western-backed civil war in Syria will spill over into a broader regional conflagration.
Unnamed US officials cited by the New York Times claimed that the target of Wednesday’s dawn air strike was a military convoy carrying arms that were supposedly destined for Hezbollah, the Shia political movement and militia in Lebanon.