By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – A Boston U. political scientist estimates that as of 2016, The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars have cost the American taxpayers $5 trillion. That number isn’t important when we consider the human cost– Some 7,000 US troops dead, 52,000 wounded in action; hundreds of thousands of Iraqis […]
Archives for September 2016
A Nomad Between Worlds: Badawi
By Erdağ Göknar | (Los Angeles Review of Books) | – – MOHED ALTRAD’S DEBUT NOVEL Badawi begins in the Cold War–era Middle East, where the Bedouin tradition of a nomadic life struggles against modernity. Maïouf, whose mother was cast out of her marriage and later buried in an unmarked grave, finds himself discriminated against […]
Shadows of Plutocracy darken over our Democracy in this Election
By Bill Moyers | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Sixty-six years ago this summer, on my 16th birthday, I went to work for the daily newspaper in the small East Texas town of Marshall where I grew up. It was a good place to be a cub reporter — small enough to navigate but […]
The Millenarian Dimensions of the Attempted Coup in Turkey and implications for Muslim Modernism & Traditionalism
By Mohammed Nuruzzaman | (Informed Comment) | – – The failed July 15 coup in Turkey has generated a whole range of debates on who was really behind the coup, Turkey’s future relations with NATO and the U.S., and President Erdogan’s possible pivot to Russia and Iran. A more serious debate that did not receive […]
Iran and Hizbullah Welcome Kerry-Lavrov Syria Ceasefire
Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Hizbullah, the national guard for South Lebanon, announced Saturday that it supports the agreement on a truce in Syria, where its fighters have been battling on behalf of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Its statement said that “the field commander for operations in Syria has affirmed that […]
15 Years after 9/11, can we Recover our Republic?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Founding Fathers thought keeping a standing army was a danger to democracy. The great wars of the twentieth century appear to have imbued the United States with a permanent standing army, and this institution has been reinforced by the September 11 attacks. Or rather it […]
What’s The Hajj About, Anyway?
AJ+ | (Video Report) | – – “The Hajj: It’s one of the biggest gatherings in the world, with millions of Muslims from everywhere making the pilgrimage to the city of Mecca – but what’s it about, anyway?” AJ+: “What’s The Hajj About, Anyway?”
Can ISIL survive scenes of Sunni Muslims celebrating their Liberation from it?
By James Miller | ( RFE/RL) What a difference a month makes. At the start of August, the extremist group that calls itself Islamic State (IS) [group]controlled a large part of the border between Syria and Turkey, while the U.S.-backed Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), a multiethnic group made up primarily of Kurdish YPG fighters, raced […]
9/11 after 15 years: We’re Still in the Middle of a guerrilla Air War
By Tom Engelhardt | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – On the morning of September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda launched its four-plane air force against the United States. On board were its precision weapons: 19 suicidal hijackers. One of those planes, thanks to the resistance of its passengers, crashed in a Pennsylvania field. The other three hit their […]
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