By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The surprise announcement Sunday by the Army Corps of Engineers that they will not permit the Dakota Access Pipeline to go under the Missouri River, thus ending the threat to Standing Rock Sioux land and lives, marked a signal success for the environmental protest movement and […]
Why Trump & his Cabinet’s Jihad against “Political Islam” will Fail
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Several members of Donald Trump’s new team, including National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and proposed Secretary of Defense Mike Mattis have expressed themselves troubled about “political Islam” (or in Flynn’s case, just “Islam”). Mattis seems to have confused Daesh’s (ISIS, ISIL) idea of a neo-Caliphate (bringing […]
Russian Pundit: Fall of East Aleppo a Geopolitical Turning Point toward Multi-polar World
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – By Friday evening outside observers like Rami Abdelrahman of the Syria Observatory in the UK were saying that even more of the East Aleppo pocket had fallen to the Syrian Arab Army, Hizbullah and Iraqi militias and that the government forces had consolidated their control over […]
Now that SecDef thinks Israeli Occupation is Apartheid, will the Lobby Blackballing Fail?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The interview of Gen. James Mattis by Wolf Blitzer at Aspen in 2013, in which the recently-retired former CENTCOM commander spoke freely on Middle East policy, has come back to haunt him now that Donald Trump has put him forward as the next Secretary of Defense. […]
Pakistanis Baffled, Buoyant over Trump’s Fantastical Praise
By Frud Bezhan | ( RFE/RL) | – – The office of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has cited a phone conversation with Donald Trump in which it says the U.S. president-elect described nuclear-armed Pakistan as a "fantastic country" and its embattled prime minister as a "terrific guy." The exchange, as described by Sharif’s side, […]
How Rupert Murdoch & Fox Created the Fake News Industry
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The concern about “fake news” now sweeping the inside-the-beltway crowd is a little hilarious, since all corporate news (i.e. news for profit) has elements of fakeness. For instance, cable television news channels almost never cover climate change, and when they do they tend to give equal […]
Why Russia and Regime want all of Aleppo before Trump is sworn in
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In the past two days, the Syrian Arab Army and its Shiite militia allies (Hizbullah from Lebanon and others from Iraq) has taken a third to forty percent of the Eastern Aleppo pocket. The northeast zone of the pocket has collapsed, with rebel fights apparently declining […]
Is Jimmy Carter right that Obama should Recognize Palestine?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Jimmy Carter wrote and NYT op-ed yesterday in which he called on Barack Obama to arrange for the UN Security Council to recognize Palestine and pass resolutions reaffirming the illegality of Israeli squatting on Palestinian land in the West Bank. Carter points out that there are […]
Conspiracy Theorist in Chief: Trump’s falsehood about 2 mn. illegal votes only tip of Melting Iceberg
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Americans have given the nuclear codes to that crazy uncle you have to sit through Thanksgiving with who watches nut cases like Alex Jones and red-facedly proclaims that FEMA is keeping Americans in concentration camps. Donald Trump still has his Twitter account and obsessed over the […]
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