By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The headlines Friday about the GOP debate in Miami stressed how relatively civil it was, with less name-calling and pissing matches among the remaining candidates. Those editors have a weird definition of civility. So here is Marco Rubio: “Let me give you an example of a […]
Top 6 Signs Trump is wrong & Islam doesn’t ‘Hate us’
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Republican presidential candidate and billionaire bigot Donald J. Trump said in a CNN interview on Wednesday that “Islam hates us.” “I think Islam hates us” . . . deploring the “tremendous hatred” that he said partly defined the religion. He maintained the war was against radical […]
Nearly Half of Israeli Jews want to Expel Palestinian-Israelis from Country
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Nearly half of the over 6 million Israeli Jews want to expel from the country the 1.6 million citizens of Palestinian heritage, most of them Muslims, according to a just-released Pew Forum poll This is a startling statistic. It would be as though half of Flemish […]
Netanyahu GOP Policy in Tatters, he snubs White House Invitation
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – A year ago, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu intervened in US politics in a big way, addressing a Republican-dominated Congress and lobbying it against the UN Security Council deal with Iran forestalling that country’s civilian nuclear research program from ever becoming militarized. Netanyahu’s startling direct intervention […]
As Bomb Kills 60, is Iraq Army Preparing for Armageddon with ISIL?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – A truck bombing in the largely Shiite city of Hilla killed 60 on Sunday, one of the worst terrorist attacks in that city. Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attack. The bombing, which killed and injured policemen at a checkpoint (though 3 dozen of the […]
The Middle East reacts to Trump: ‘Strange Candidates’ with ‘Weird Beliefs’ & anti-Muslim Pogroms
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The meltdown of the US Republican Party is an unlovely sight inside the country, but what do people abroad think about the outlandish assertions of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump? Last week the Mufti of Egypt Shawqi Allam (maybe analogous to the president of the US Conference […]
Top 5 Crazy things Ben Carson said about Middle East and Islam
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Ben Carson is withdrawing from the GOP primary fight. Since he has emerged as the front runner, the focus of the press and politicians has been on Donald Trump and his erratic and often bizarre pronouncements. But back last fall, Trump was running neck and neck […]
GOP Candidates up ante, Promise 4 Major Ground Wars, murder of Innocents, Large Genitalia
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – At yet another GOP debate, there was a foreign policy section, which Fox News predictably put under the heading of “terrorism.” Brett Baier asked Marco Rubio about Daesh (ISIL, ISIS), noting that Rubio has proposed “sending a larger number of American ground troops to help defeat […]
As Coasts Flood, why isn’t the Corporate Press asking Candidates about Climate Change?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US corporate press is letting the presidential candidates set the agenda. Occasionally someone will step out of line, as Fox’s Megyn Kelly did when she pressed Donald Trump on his misogyny and general disrespect of women. But virtually no one in the mass media has […]