The Young Turks: “A Ferguson, Mo. official was having none of Fox News host Sean Hannity’s attempt to “educate” her on police brutality Wednesday night. Hannity kicked off an interview with Democratic committeewoman Patricia Bynes by pointing out that she was not present when black teenager Michael Brown, who was unarmed, was shot by a […]
Archives for August 2014
It’s not Fergustan: Ferguson is what America Looks Like
AJ+ People around the world have watched Ferguson, Missouri in disbelief that what they’re seeing is taking place in the United States. But Ferguson is actually quite American. AJ+ host Dena Takruri explains how the city is a microcosm of the systemic racial inequality that persists in the U.S, from poverty and unemployment to the […]
Gaza needs UN Peacekeepers, Now! How to Break the Israel/Palestine Stalemate
By John V. Whitbeck After the breakdown in the six-day “pause” to permit negotiations on a long-term Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire and the resumption of Israel’s onslaught against the caged people of Gaza, concerned people everywhere are wondering how the conflicting demands of the two sides can possibly be reconciled. Each side feels a compelling need to […]
Obama’s budding Cambodia Policy in Syria
By Juan Cole Former British ambassador to the United States Sir Christoher Meyer is advocating that the US and Western Europe stop advocating the overthrow of the Baath regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and instead coordinate with it to move against the so-called “Islamic State,” which controls some predominantly Sunni Muslim desert towns on […]
Failed US War on Terror resulted from bizarre search for Moderate Jihadis
By Patrick Cockburn via Tomdispatch.com [This essay is excerpted from the first chapter of Patrick Cockburn’s new book, The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising, with special thanks to his publisher, OR Books. The first section is a new introduction written for TomDispatch.] There are extraordinary elements in the present U.S. policy in Iraq and Syria that […]
Can You pass the Iran Quiz?
By Jeffrey Rudolph What can possibly justify the relentless U.S. political and economic aggression against Iran? It cannot be argued that Iran is an aggressive state that is dangerous to its neighbors, as facts do not support this claim. It cannot be relevant that Iran adheres to Islamic fundamentalism, has a flawed democracy and denies […]
Democracy, in India as elsewhere, is not a tyranny of the Majority
It’s Not About The Numbers There is a broader—and deeper—meaning to democracy. Part of that ideal is the idea that every tessera in the mosaic can sparkle. By Gyanendra Pandey Democracy, it is commonly said, is the rule of the majority. Majoritarianism intensifies this belief with the proposition that those constituting the majority should make […]
Iraq: If Terrorists hit Southern Iraq oil fields, $5-$7 a gallon Gas?
By Juan Cole Iraq’s former oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, warned on Thursday that the so-called “Islamic State” terrorist organization could hit the Iraqi oil fields in the south around Basra. Basra is deep in the Shiite south, so IS could not take the city of 2 million as it did largely Sunni Mosul. But […]
How will Obama and the US respond to IS’s murder of James Foley ?
Channel 4 News: “Islamic State releases a video showing the murder of US journalist James Foley, apparently at the hands of a British jihadi fighter. Barack Obama says he will continue to do what he can to protect US citizens.” Channel 4 News: “How will the US respond to James Foley murder?”