South Asia

( Tomdispatch.com) – Covid-19, an ongoing global human tragedy, may have at least one silver lining. It has led millions of people to question America’s most malignant policies at home and abroad. Regarding Washington’s war policies abroad, there’s been speculation that the coronavirus might, in the end, put a dent in such conflicts, if not […]

Afghanistan

On Memorial Day: How the US Lost its “Battle of Aqaba” to the Coronavirus

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On July 6, 1917, Auda Abu Tayy led his Howeitat tribesmen in a successful attack on the Ottoman port of Aqaba in what is now Jordan but was then the Ottoman Empire. The Arabs of the Hejaz or Western Arabia and the Transjordan had allied with the British to revolt […]

Bangladesh

Double Whammy of Climate-Driven Monster Cyclone and Coronavirus hits Thousands in India, Bangladesh

Juan Cole

Don’t get complacent: North America is also Vulnerable

European Union

Western Powers must Stop Rolling out the Red Carpet for Modi and Hindu Nationalism amid Pandemic: DiEM25

Arturo Desimone

The Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) expresses concern for the role of Kashmir in a dispute between two nuclear powers. We call on all participants to pledge to a process of nuclear disarmament of the subcontinent and of the long running India-Pakistan conflict, in which Kashmir represents one of the more inflammatory points. As […]

Afghanistan

Celebrated to Death: Memorial Day Is Killing Us, says an Afghanistan Vet

Tomdispatch

[Note for TomDispatch Readers: Here’s a way to support TomDispatch in tough times and end up with a good book while you’re stuck at home in this pandemic moment. For a donation of $100 ($125 if you live outside the U.S.), you can get a signed, personalized copy of Erik Edstrom’s striking new work, Un-American: […]

Afghanistan

If only we Had that $6.4 Trillion we wasted on Iraq and Afghanistan to Lift the Economy and Fight Coronavirus

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Wouldn’t it be nice if the richest country in the world had some resources stored up to deal with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and the worst health crisis since the 1918 Influenza Pandemic that killed 600,000 Americans? I mean, we had a $21 trillion a year […]

Epidemics

The Curse of Casteism in a Plague Year: Rightwing Indian Gov’t AWOL as Lockdown devastates Poor, Dalits

contributors

By Sanjana Krishnan and Rahul Jambhulkar | – As we rose to another day of peaceful quarantine in the West, we received a message from India. It was an urgent plea to help 80 families of Dalit (ex-untouchable) daily wage earners in an urban slum in Nagpur city in Central India. The families had run […]

Colonialism

1918 flu pandemic killed 12 million Indians, and British overlords’ indifference strengthened the anti-colonial movement

The Conversation

By Maura Chhun | – In India, during the 1918 influenza pandemic, a staggering 12 to 13 million people died, the vast majority between the months of September and December. According to an eyewitness, “There was none to remove the dead bodies and the jackals made a feast.” At the time of the pandemic, India […]

Afghanistan

Trump boasted he “Obliterated” ISIS in Afghanistan; Then ISIS Massacred a Shiite Wedding Party

Brian Glyn Williams

By Brian Glyn Williams and Javed Rezayee | – Williams, Boston/Bamiyan. On November 13th yet another suicide bombing shredded the lives of people across the globe in a land whose seemingly endless conflict has once again been forgotten by many, if not most Americans. But, as devastating as that blast that took the lives of […]