By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Aside from the slow, steady advances being made by the Iraqi army and its allies against Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) in Mosul, the two big stories on Friday and Saturday morning were a diversionary attack on Kirkuk by the fundamentalist organization, and CNN’s discovery that Daesh killed […]
Khizr Khan campaign ad for Hillary Clinton finishes off Trump
Captain Khan | Hillary Clinton – Juan Cole from July 31 at Informed Comment: Donald Trump lashed out on Saturday against Ghazala and Khizr Khan over their speech Thursday night in which they criticized the casino and hotel moghul for his unconstitutional tirades. The Khans said at the Democratic National Convention in a speech they […]
Trump Campaign: The Donald’s 5-Point Plan to Defeat Islam
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald J. Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, went on MSNBC touting the Republican candidate’s “5-point plan to defeat Islam.” She later clarified that she meant “radical Islamic terrorism.” But in fact her candidate has often spoken as Islam in general as his target, as when he […]
The Mosul Campaign and the 3rd Presidential Debate
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Some of the more extended comments on the Mosul campaign were those of Hillary Clinton. Here is Wallace’s question: WALLACE: . . . let’s move on to the subject of foreign hot spots. The Iraqi offensive to take back Mosul has begun. If they are successful […]
ISIL Boasts: America will go down to defeat in the Streets of Mosul
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – AFP is reporting that a news agency linked to Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), “A`maq,” is carrying a video of a Daesh fighter who swears that he and his colleagues will inflict a decisive defeat on the US in Iraq, as the guerrillas spread through the streets of […]
7 Things to Know about Mosul
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Iraqi government has announced that the campaign to take the large northern city of Mosul back from Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) has begun in earnest. The Iraqi Army, the Peshmerga (Kurdistan Regional Government national guard), Sunni Arab tribal levies, and Shiite militiamen from the south are […]
ISIL’s loss of Dabiq: It was never about Armageddon, but Weak States
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Albawaba has an interview with political scientist Khalid Rif`at of the Tayyiba Center for Political Studies, saying that the forced withdrawal of Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) from the town of Dabiq in northern Syria on Sunday under heavy Turkish army bombardment and in the face of advancing […]
The Vanity of the Billionaires: Circuses and no Bread
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Rome was a republic until between 40 and 27 BCE, when the generals overthrew it. Military dictator Gaius Octavius put the nail in the coffin when he made himself Augustus Caesar on the latter date. The later satirist Juvenal, to whom we owe the phrase ‘bread […]
Were Kansas White Terrorists Self-Radicalized? or was it Trumpism?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Tim Potter and Amy Renee Leiker of The Kansas City Star report that 3 southwest Kansas men were arrested Friday after an 8-month FBI investigation of their terrorist cell, the Crusaders. The men had allegedly stockpiled arms and explosives and had considered attacking churches and “city/county […]
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