Juan Cole

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 […]

Deliberate Murder of 10-year-old Girl by Israeli Military A tape recording has surfaced showing that Israeli soldiers deliberately killed a frightened 10-year-old little girl in Gaza, who had been identified to them as such. If the tape is as described, this seems a clear case of a crime against humanity.

Intimidation by Israeli-Linked Organization Aimed at US Academic MEMRI tries a SLAPP I just checked my campus mail and found a letter in it from Colonel Yigal Carmon, late of Israeli military intelligence, now an official at the Middle East Media Research Organization, or MEMRI. He threatened me with a lawsuit over blog comments I […]

Massing on Iraq Press Coverage The way in which so much of the US press neglected to exercise their faculties of critical reasoning in the face of Bush administration claims about Iraq has generated remarkably little writing or self-reflection. It is in fact quite striking that talking heads and journalists who were completely wrong about […]

Turkish Role Neighboring Turks take a dim view of the “Iraqi resistance” in the Sunni Arab heartland of Iraq, given that it has slaughtered 64 Turkish truck drivers. The Turkish Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul, is clearly petrified with fear that US tensions with Iran will spin out of control. The region, he says, cannot bear […]

Vote Set for January 30 The interim government of Iyad Allawi set the elections for Jan. 30, on Sunday. Even as the announcement was made, major violence broke out in Ramadi and Latifiyah, strong Sunni Arab areas, leaving some 22 persons dead on Sunday. The next stage is the meeting of the neighboring states plus […]

Large Protests Against Fallujah Campaign, Mosque Killing US Hated From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli In Baghdad itself, AP’s Hamza Hendawi writes, tensions rose to a fever pitch over the US assault on Fallujah, the marine mosque shooting filmed by Kevin Sites (on which he has now commented), and the Friday […]

Fallujah Operation Does not Bring Peace Wire services report dozens of violent deaths in Iraq on Saturday. Guerrillas attacked a police station in Baghdad, killing one American serviceman and wounded 9. Guerrilla attacks elsehwere took some 50 lives altogether.