By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Last year this time, Secretary of State John Kerry was trying to put together a huge peace deal between Israel and the Arab world, according to Aron Heller and Matthew Lee of the Associated Press. The proposal built on the 2002 Arab peace plan, which offered […]
Trump invents Sweden Terror Attack, Lies about Immigrant Crime
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump made up another alleged terrorist attack at his rally on Saturday, this one about a figment of his imagination that did not actually take place in Sweden on Friday night. It is clear that Trump and his white supremacist mafia (Steve Bannon et al.) despise […]
Top 8 Signs someone is a White Terrorist, e.g. plotting to Blow up Mosque
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – 1. If you appoint yourself to carry out surveillance of a mosque congregation who have never given any evidence of being violent, you might be a white terrorist. 2. If you don’t know the difference between gentle Sufi mysticism and violent extremism, you might be a […]
Tomorrow, they will say, “Donald Trump rants and raves at the press.”
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – So Trump did rant and rave at the press on Thursday. But not at all the press. He has never attacked Breitbart, the vehicle for white supremacist falsehoods piloted by his Rasputin, Neofascist Steve Bannon (White House chief of strategy and National Security Council eminence grise). […]
Trump plots to keep Palestinians Stateless forever
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Trump-Netanyahu Show on Wednesday was par for the course in American and right wing Israeli discourse about the Palestinians. Nobody brought up that the British colonialists conquered Palestine during World War I and instead of preparing it for statehood, as they promised the League of […]
All of Putin’s / Trump’s Men
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The NYT has broken the story that several Trump associates are under investigation by the FBI for their contacts with Russian intelligence and other officials during the 2016 presidential campaign. These contacts worried the FBI and other intelligence agencies, given that they were seeing Russian hacking […]
Photo of the Day: Sad Girl, Happy Girl, Iran 1900 (Sykes)
British Museum | Sir Percy Sykes | – – Two rural Iranian girls of the Qajar era, 1900, one sad, one mischievous. Via British Museum Museum number: Sykes.453 Description: Lantern slide, showing two young girls posing. Iran. Producer name: Photographed by: Gen Sir Percy Molesworth Sykes KCIE Date: 1900 (circa) Materials: glass
Questions about Judgment: Trump appointed Flynn in the First Place
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The sudden resignation of Trump National Security Adviser Mike Flynn on Monday evening clearly was actually a firing. Flynn was given a pink slip for embarrassing Vice President Mike Pence by assuring him that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, in […]
After Miller’s Mega-Lies, time to rev back up the Reality Based Community
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Stephen Miller, a snot-nosed kid with a bad attitude, advertised as White House senior policy adviser, delivered himself of some stern jeremiads on Sunday on Meet the Press, along with many Big Lies of which Josef Goebbels would be jealous. It is dreary to see a […]