By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Where people live and how many of them there are constitute basic questions for any social scientist but these basics are often ignored by the writers of headlines in the press. There is a rash of articles about how Syria’s war is heating back up. It […]
Robots, kittens and Netflix: Turkish curbs on the media reach ludicrous levels
By Ozge Ozduzen | (The Conversation) | – – Regulation and censorship mechanisms have recently reached absurd levels in Turkey. Two stark recent examples illustrate the banality of the recent creeping controls. On February 6, a robot was reformatted in Ankara because it warned the Turkish Transport, Maritime and Communications Minister Ahmet Arslan to speak […]
Russia warns Israel on Syria strikes, danger to Russian Troops
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – BBC Monitoring reports on a statement in Russian at the site of its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reacting to the Israeli air attacks on Syria and the shoot-down by the Syrians of one Israeli fighter-jet. The Foreign ministry expressed “serious concern” over the Israeli air strikes, […]
A Crisis of Democracy: Trump’s block of Dem Response to Nunes
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump’s refusal to release the response of the Democratic minority on the House Intelligence Committee to the declassified Nunes memo cherry-picking intelligence reports has been decried as a politicization of intelligence. It has been pointed out by legal scholar Laurence Tribe that Congress could in any […]
Russia-aided Syria shoots down Israeli F-16 after downing of Iranian Drone
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Syrian anti-aircraft batteries scored a rare shoot-down of an Israeli F-16 late Saturday morning local time. It is being alleged by a whole range of analysts that this shoot-down could not have happened without Russian help. It required that the anti-aircraft personnel break Israeli radar jamming. […]
US, having Destroyed Iraq, won’t give a Dime to Reconstruction
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In an exclusive, Reuters reports today that the Trump administration is going into the Iraq reconstruction conference in Kuwait next week with no plans to contribute a dime to the effort. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will attend. Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi estimates that Iraq […]
How Trump’s Erratic Isolationism is Helping China Rise
By Dilip Hiro | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – In his State of the Union address, Donald Trump warned grimly of “rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values.” In response, he demanded that Congress give even more money to “our great military” and fund the growth and modernization […]
Syrian Kurds allied with US stream into Afrin, Rally against Turkish Offensive
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Arabic daily Elaph reports that hundreds of Kurds who came into Afrin from other Kurdish cantons in northern Syria staged a demonstration in the city Tuesday evening against the Turkish invasion. Kurds drove from the northeast, from Qamishli and Hasaka, and from Kobane, through Kurdish-held […]
Top 5 Economic Disappointments of the Trump Regime (so far)
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Since Trump has decided that declining to clap for him is a form of treason, and only dictators in banana republics use that sort of diction, perhaps it is time to start speaking of the Trump regime rather than administration. And that regime rode to power […]
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