By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Bob Dylan would no doubt be as distressed as the American corporate media to see an ideological interpretation of his 1960s anthems that helped win him the Nobel Prize in Literature. Especially after his 1966 motorcycle accident and retreat to Woodstock and domesticity, Dylan turned inward, […]
US Goes to War with Houthis in Yemen (Openly)
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US Navy in the Red Sea fired Tomahawk missiles into Yemen early Thursday morning, taking out three radar stations. Those facilities had allowed the Houthi rebels who control North Yemen to target US destroyers in the Red Sea on several occasions in recent days (they […]
Clinton brings back Gore, talks Green, but still Opposes Carbon Tax
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton campaigned in Miami with Al Gore, attempting both to shore up her credentials with both environmentalists and Millennial youth. Gore, Bill Clinton’s vice president, very narrowly lost the 2000 election to George W. Bush, mainly because of a disputed Florida count. Gore […]
Russia and Turkey Make up: What implications for Syria, Kurds?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Turkey on Monday for direct talks with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, in a bid to further normalize relations between the two countries. Russian-Turkish trade and diplomatic ties were stress late last fall when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet […]
Die-Hard Trump Supporters want to *be* Trump
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Back in the 1960s when the James Bond craze hit the US and even President Jack Kennedy revealed that he liked Ian Fleming’s thrillers, I remember reading an interesting essay on the reason for the character’s popularity. After all, James Bond is not in fact very […]
How Far will Americans take anti-Muslim Hate? Making them wear Green Stars?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The de facto criminalization of being Muslim or speaking Arabic, which is contrary to every core American value and contradicts the First Amendment, is proceeding apace. The number of anti-Muslim attacks in the US is up by 80% since Donald Trump announced his proposed Muslim ban […]
Yemen & Dubai may be at War, but both are going Solar Big Time
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – There is big news on the solar energy front, with the price of panels and installation falling rapidly and popular adoption of it for novel purposes. It occurred to me after I made this list that two of the stories, about Yemen and Dubai, concern countries […]
De Mistura: al-Qaeda must leave E. Aleppo to save it from Destruction
by Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has addressed the Levant Conquest Front, whose leader, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda leader and 9/11 mastermind Ayman al-Zawahiri. De Mistura said that among the 8,000 or so fighters from rebel groups in the East […]
Hurricane Matthew a Herald of Man-Made Climate Change
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – If your tv isn’t telling you the below, turn it off and read more Informed Comment columns instead. Hurricane Matthew is unusually strong, and was for a while there a level 5 tropical storm. Level 5 hurricanes only form when the top layer of the ocean […]
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