Ankara (AFP) – Turkey’s deal to buy Russian S-400 missile defence systems had “nothing to do” with the security of the US, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday after a Pentagon warning. He was speaking a day after Washington warned Ankara of “grave consequences” should the deal go ahead. “It is very clear why Turkey […]
What does the World look like from Somalia? Explaining why Ilhan Omar Scares the Horses in DC
By Juan Cole | – Few Americans remember that the United States colonized the Philippines and virtually no one but the more historically conscious Filipinos remember how destructive the initial military occupation was, with thousands killed by US troops and hundreds of thousands killed by disease and exposure as a result of the brutality with […]
For Int’l Women’s Day: An Arabian Woman of Late Antiquity Prays to Goddesses for Peace
For Int’l Women’s Day, via OCIANA a Safaitic Arabic inscription [c. 1-400 AD], by a wealthy woman calling on two goddesses for peace: “By Shamat daughter of Sar is the mule [owned] and O {Shahqam} —-m—- [and] Allat, [grant] {security} [for] the people of al-Ḍaf.” This inscription from the first centuries after Christ in Arabia […]
Millionaire “Justice”: 5 Petty Shoplifting Charges sentenced more harshly than Manafort’s Hiding Millions
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was given 47 months in prison for his crimes on Thursday, in a jaw-dropping ruling that treated him as a good family man without priors. He only didn’t have priors because white collar criminals are so coddled in an American firmly under the thumb of […]
Irony: as Pelosi backs down on ‘anti-Hate’ Resolution, Israel’s Politics Goes Peak Racist
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A revolt of the Democratic Party grassroots has forestalled Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s plan to hold a vote on a resolution implicitly slamming Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for her Tweets complaining about being pressured to pledge allegiance to Israel or else be considered unpatriotic. Although Rep. Omar has been unfairly […]
Corbyn Calls for Britain to Freeze Arms Sales to Israel after UN charges War Crimes
LONDON (Ma’an) — Jeremy Corbyn, head of the British Labor Party, over the weekend, called for the British government to freeze arms sales to Israel and to condemn it for the killing of Palestinians. Corbyn’s remarks came after a United Nations report, which found that Israeli security forces may have committed war crimes killing scores […]
New Historicism: A Manifesto for Writing the History of the Qur’an
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In borrowing the term “the New Historicism” from literary studies, I do not mean to take over all its theses. Rather, I am making an analogy. Just as Stephen Greenblatt came to require a historical context for studies of Shakespeare, rebelling against the contextless New Criticism at Yale in the […]
Spain’s Socialists aim for 75% Renewables in Ten Years (at 40% Today)
Spain is already getting 40% of its electricity from renewables, but its Socialist government hopes to nearly double that proportion in a little over a decade. Spain’s Socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez and his cabinet have approved a draft proposal to get t 74% of the country’s electricity from renewables by 2030, a little over […]
As News of Khashoggi “Kebab” at Saudi Consulate Emerges, GOP Senators Condemn Trump Admin Briefing as Substanceless
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Patricia Zengerle of Reuters reports that even Republican members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee came away deeply disappointed with the briefing on the Khashoggi murder by low-level Trump administration officials from the Treasury Department and the State Department. The murder on October 2 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul […]
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