By Steve Clemons

The editors of the Sun Herald, the leading paper for Biloxi-Gulfport and South Mississippi, certainly are able to see good sense through the war hype.

I don’t know if Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry has ever met Daniel Ellsberg or not, but with this statement — which stands in stark contrast to the condemnatory comments from the White House about the WikiLeaks Afghanistan War Logs — Kerry shows he has a respect for Pentagon Papers moments.

I’m sympathetic to the Obama administration’s view that Israel’s blockade of Gaza in order to keep weapons from Hamas does not equate to starving and punishing the Gazan people.

The extraordinary WikiLeaks dump of some 91,000 classified reports into the public sphere on America’s war in Afghanistan may be the game-changer in American support for a war that continues to worsen.

This is a guest note by Al Jazeera correspondent Clayton Swisher who is currently embedded with US troops fighting in Afghanistan. This essay originally ran on Al Jazeera’s “The Asia Blog.” (The photo below is of 82nd Airborne soldiers in Arghandab; Photo by Tom Nicholson; reprinted with permission.

(Arc-en-Ciel, photo credit: Ben Rosengart; click image to make larger) Long-time TWN reader Ben Rosengart sends in three views from three windows. I’m going to post them one at a time during the day today. This is part one, a rainbow, or l’arc-en-ciel. Two are from Brittany and one from Paris. Beautiful shots. Thanks Ben….

One of the best investigative journalists who has been reporting on America’s wars is Seymour Hersh. Hersh has been consistently ahead of the pack — revealing hard-to-believe atrocities far before the political marketplace was often ready or willing to accept his reporting.

One of the strange realities of modern China is that Mao’s image, which hangs over the main gate into the Forbidden City, is still evident in lots of places. The horrors of the Cultural Revolution are part of Mao’s identity — and yet there is still more reverence of him than I’d expect.

This new “forever plane” — not quite like a forever stamp but still very cool — has been designed by UK defense contractor QinetiQ. This craft flew for 14 days, 21 minutes — smashing all previous endurance for unmanned flights.

Best yuan (about 15 cents) a tourist can spend in Beijing (particularly on a very hot muggy day) is on Bus No.