By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) Summer of 2016 was not only hotter than any summer on record, i.e. since 1880. We have enough proxies for global average temperature to know that it was hotter than any summer since at least 1016, when Genoa launched a campaign against Muslim Sardinia and Norway not only got […]
Number of US Troops in Iraq Heading toward 6,000
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US plans to send another 500 troops to Iraq to help with the massive Mosul campaign, which will involve the Iraqi army and its allies, the Kurdistan paramilitary Peshmerga, hard line Shiite militias, and Sunni Arab tribal levies. US troops will not engage in war-fighting […]
Colonial Slow Genocide: Palestinian Leader Abbas asks Britain for “Balfour” Apology
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Mahmoud Abbas, president of Palestine, is asking Britain for an apology for its having in 1917 issued the infamous “Balfour Declaration.” He won’t get one. The difference between the North Atlantic countries and the rest of the world is that the former are still committed to […]
Why the Boeing & Airbus Sales to Iran are a Big Effing Deal
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the real power center for the American government, has issued licenses to Airbus and Boeing allowing them to sell commercial airliners to Iran. President Obama ordered the licenses, defying the Republican-controlled Congress, which doesn’t want […]
Top Six US Problems worse than Terrorism
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Every time a person of Middle Eastern heritage who ought to have been committed to an insane asylum but wasn’t (because rich people who don’t want to pay taxes successfully lobbied to get rid of insane asylums) commits violence, our press and politicians hit the panic […]
Obama: End terrorism like that in New York by Destroying ISIL in Mosul, Iraq
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – President Obama met yesterday with Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi and discussed the coming campaign to take the northern Iraqi city of Mosul away from Daesh, entirely destroying the terrorist organization’s territorial power in Iraq. Obama expects the campaign to be launched before the end of […]
5 Signs that Wind Power in the US is suddenly going Massive
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Iowa Utility Board has approved a $3 bn. MidAmerica wind farm project which will be the country’s largest, due to come on line in 2019, and which will generate enough electricity to power 800,000 homes! I looked this up, and there are only about 1.2 […]
In Massive Intel Error, US Kills 80 Syrian Troops, Helps ISIL Advance
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In a massive intelligence failure, the US Air Force hit a Syrian military installation in Deir al-Zor that it thought was Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). But it turned out to be the Syrian Arab Army position at Deir al-Zor military airport. The strike killed 80 soldiers and […]
The Green Current: A Superhero
By Juan Cole | Informed Comment | (Graphic Novel) | – – Ali Saleh was an ordinary American teenager at Dearborn High. His father, Dr. Mahmoud Saleh, who had been born in Egypt, was a photovoltaic engineer. He made an epochal discovery that would make solar panels highly efficient and almost free. A coworker in […]
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