Juan Cole

Weblogging Liability The question of whether Weblog owners are legally liable for comments made by readers could be settled by a current lawsuit. A lot of forces in US society are very upset about the emergence of an Information Democracy on the Web, and I think the courts will increasingly be invoked to close down […]

1000 May be Dead in Kadhimiyah Stampede The mortar attack by guerrillas on the Shiite worshippers heading for the shrine of Imam Musa al-Kadhim made the crowd nervous and suggestible. Later on, it appears that someone shouted that there was a suicide bomber in the crowd. A stampede ensued that has killed some 800 persons […]

Zalmay Urges Further Revisions of Constitution Sunnis Accuse Iraqi Government of Massacre US Bombings Kill 56 The BBC is reporting Wednesday morning that guerrillas fired mortar shells at Shiite worshippers in Kadhimiyah who were going to the shrine of the seventh Imam, Musa al-Kadhim, to commemorate his death. Early reports are that they killed seven […]

New Orleans and Iraq Nabil Tikriti writes ‘ This is a posting written by a native New Orleanian and Middle East History professor, Nabil Al-Tikriti: New Orleans is in awful shape, and it frankly resembles Dhaka, Bangladesh after a cyclone (looting, refugees stranded on highway bridges, air rescues, flooded housing, lack of social order). Much […]

Bourbon Street Unscathed Christian Terrorists Proved Wrong Bourbon Street in New Orleans is relatively unscathed. Amid so much death and destruction, that New Orleans did not take the full fury of the storm, and so many lives were spared, is one small consolation. But let us consider what this means in light of the twisted […]

Nussseibeh: Israel Wall Bars Education in Jerusalem URGENT APPEAL by Sari Nusseibeh, East Jerusalem THE “SECURITY” WALL BARS EDUCATION IN JERUSALEM As Arab schools in East Jerusalem prepare to start the new academic year in early September, nearly seven hundred teachers employed by those schools will be unable to reach their classrooms. With the “security” […]

Is the US Still Tinkering with the Iraqi Constitution? A closer observer of the Iraq scene writes in outrage: Filed at 9:43 a.m. ET BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — The U.S. ambassador suggested Tuesday there may be further changes to the draft constitution to win Sunni Arab approval, saying he believed a final edited draft had […]

Sunnis Charge Interior Ministry in Killings 2000 Sunnis Protest More Corpses Found Al-Zaman/ AFP: The Iraqi Islamic Party accused elements in the Iraqi ministry of the interior on Monday of having kidnapped 36 citizens from Hurriyah Township in Baghdad and then throwing them in the Tigris after they were bound and shot in the head. […]

Arab World Concerned about Iraqi Constitution Arab leaders on Monday expressed consternation that the Iraqi constitution does not identify Iraq as part of the Arab world. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa echoed these concerns but also said that the present constitution is a “recipe for chaos.” The diction in the constitution is that Iraq is […]