Juan Cole

Karbala Pilgrim attracts Hundreds of Thousands; Muqtada explains Shadow Government Hundreds of thousands if not over a million pilgrims crowded into Karbala on Sunday to commemorate the birth of the Twelfth Imam, who is expected to return as a messiah one day by Shiites. It was the first time in decades they could celebrate the […]

Shaikh al-Nasiri demands seat on Interim Governing Council A conference was held in Nasiriya of religious and tribal leaders on Sunday. They demanded that the drafters of the new Iraqi constitution be elected. Shaikh Muhammad al-Nasiri, an Object of Emulation for some Iraqi Shiites, said that there should be a representative from al-Nasiriya on the […]

Blast Kills 6-7, wounds dozens at Baghdad Hotel Two cars full of explosives raced toward the Baghdad Hotel early Sunday in Baghdad. The hotel, where many Westerners stay, was protected by security barriers, and Iraqi guards fired at the cars, killing the drivers and setting off the explosives some distance from the hotel itself. Between […]

Masoud Barzani confirms that the Interim Governing Council’s Consensus is against Turkish Troops Masoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democracy Party and prominent member of the American-appointed Interim Governing Council in Iraq, told an audience in Kuwait on Saturday that a consensus exists among the Iraqi people that troops from neighboring countries, including Turkey, should […]

Mahdi’s Birthday Celebrated by 1 Million Shiites in Iraq; Muqtada promises shadow government Hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million and a half Shiite worshippers crowded into the shrine city of Karbala on Saturday, to begin commemorating the birth of the Twelfth Imam (in the Western calendar it was 2 August 869 AD). The Polish commander […]

Iraqi Hospitals still not Functional US spokesmen keep insisting that Iraq’s over 200 major hospitals are back to functioning normally. This statement is manifestly not true, given what reporters have revealed of the situation on the ground. For another such report, see the report of the BBC’s Martin Asser: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/ hi/world/middle_east/3184326.stm

US Destroying Orchards of the Uncooperative Patrick Cockburn of the Guardian says that US troops are tearing up orchards belonging to clans that they believe are being uncooperative in the hunt for the Baath remnants. He calls this a form of collective punishment. (Collective punishment is strictly forbidden to Occupying Powers under the Fourth Geneva […]

Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson Both far rightwing commentators Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson have been in the news this weekend. Limbaugh, of course, is going into rehab to try to kick his addiction to prescription painkillers. Robertson agreed with the sentiment that the US State Department should be “nuked.” I think Limbaugh’s addiction problems […]

Veiling and Male Cousins Noted ignoramus Stanley Kurtz, an India anthropologist who wrote his dissertation on a psychoanalytic theory of Hindu mother goddesses and who knows nothing about the Middle East, has delivered himself of the theory that “veiling” protects male cousins of Muslim women from the competition of outsiders seeking their hands in marriage. […]