Juan Cole

25,000 US Casualties in Iraq; 9% of Troops Put in Hospital or Killed Over 2000 Iraqis Killed in Fallujah CBS has elicited from the Pentagon the real figure of US casualties in Iraq, which is more like 25,000. That number includes the 1230 or so killed and the 9300 classified as “wounded in battle,” but […]

Bloggers Respond The weblogging community responds to Colonel Yigal Carmon’s outrageous threat to sue me over my characterization of MEMRI as a well-funded organization dedicated to cherry-picking Arab news reports to make them look bad: Brad DeLong says “MEMRI Needs to Be Moved to “Unreliable”: Ah. Clearly it’s time to stop reading (and citing) MEMRI.” […]

Fall-Out of Fallujah Keeps Falling Sunni Arabs in Iraq are blaming Shiites for conspicuously failing to come to the defense of Fallujah during the recent American assault. Dhiya Rasan and Steve Negus of the Financial Times write, “Those of the black turbans” Iraq’s Shia clergy “are but traitors and agents of America. It is they […]

More on MEMRI On Torture: “Everyone Experiences Pain” Further to the frivolous threat of a lawsuit directed at me by Colonel Yigal Carmon, director of MEMRI and formerly of Israeli Military Intelligence , an informed reader writes: You asked a few questions about MEMRI in your most recent posting including why Brian Whitaker found that […]

Boycott Statement of Iraqi National Constituent Assembly The intrepid Alissa Rubin of the LA Times reported last week on the meeting of political organizations in Iraq calling for a boycott of the forthcoming election. Their formal statement has just become available to me in English, and I’m reprinting below. “In the name of God, the […]

MEMRI Funding I have received several emails from people who looked up the funding for MEMRI in the internet guide to charitable organizations, and found that it reported income of a little less than $2 million a year. But that is only the United States. MEMRI is an international organization. It has, for instance, a […]

Another campaign against Sunnis A major military campaign was launched by US and British troops in Iraq on Tuesday, targetting Babil province or what is called “the triangle of death.” This is the area south of Baghdad where cities such as Mahmudiyah, Latifiyah and Iskandariyah lie.

MEMRI and Bias Many thanks to all the readers who have written in response to my posting about the attempt of the Israel-linked MEMRI “translation service” to intimidate me with the threat of a lawsuit. Many of the letters have been eye-opening, and I give an example, which seems to me especially instructive, below. Dear […]

Persian Gulf Flap As if we did not have enough life and death issues to deal with, the Iranian state is now keeping National Geographic out because it identifies the Persian Gulf as also the Arab Gulf. As with most disputes about what to call something, this argument is silly. The Persian Gulf was called […]