By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – I used the word “suppressed” in the title quite deliberately. Corporate television media in the United States is colluding in a cover-up of the threat of climate change, and they have specifically blacked out the climate change issue with regard to this election. The guilty parties […]
Turkish Gov’t arrests 15 Opposition MPs in Further Descent into Dictatorship
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Turkish government has detained 11 members of parliament from the leftist, feminist and pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP),including the party’s co-chairs. This step is intended to give Erdogan the majority in parliament he needs to make himself president for life, and to give Turkey (currently […]
Alt-Right Fever Swamp or 1st liberal Supreme Court in a Generation?
By David M. Faris | (Informed Comment) | – – The U.S. presidential election continues to grind agonizingly to its conclusion. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but America has turned into a kind of permanent Halloween for Nazis and white supremacists. This week former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke shared a Louisiana Senate debate […]
Save America from Trump to fix America, or, Did your Mother Drop you on Your Head?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – When I trained as a lifeguard they warned us that you have to be very careful how you approach a drowning victim flailing around. They will be so happy to be rescued that they will grab you and pin your arms and freeze up, and then […]
War within War – Iraqi PM: We don’t want to fight Turkey but we’re Ready
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – AFP Arabic reports that Iraqi PM Haydar al-Abadi said Tuesday that “We do not want a war with Turkey, and do not want a confrontation with Turkey, but if a confrontation takes place, we are ready for it.” He added that if Turkey “attacks Iraq, it […]
Hizbullah’s Candidate becomes Lebanese President after Sunni Compromise
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Lebanon finally has a president, Michel Aoun. In accordance with the country’s national pact, he is a Maronite Christian (a Catholic uniate church), and happens to be a former general. The US and Israel won’t be pleased that he is a strong ally of the Shiite […]
Emails and Groping: Our Halloween Election keeps Scaring us to Death
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – All Hallow’s Eve, contracted now to Halloween, became conflated with the Scottish and Irish pagan Samhain, the harvest festival marking the end of autumn and the beginning of winter. It was an in-between time, when the barrier between this world and the next shimmered and let […]
“The Meaning of Peace in the Quran” – Juan Cole @ PBS
Juan Cole | PBS | Religion and Ethics Newsweekly (Video Interview) | – – Via Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, PBS On my new book, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires, coming out October 9 Available for pre-order at Barnes and Noble And Nicola’s Books in Ann Arbor And Hachette And Amazon “Juan […]
Another Saudi War Crime in Yemen as 43 Prisoners dead in Airstrike
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Saudi airstrikes targeting a judiciary building in al-Hudayda, a port on the western coast of Yemen under Houthi control, have killed some 43 people and wounded dozens of others, most of them prisoners. The strike on the judiciary building, which had a prison attached, could have […]