By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – ABC World News has given one minute to Bernie Sanders this year (actually, it is just 20 seconds). It has given 81 minutes to Donald Trump. Bernie is taking on corporations, and it is the corporations that are reporting on him, or rather blacking him out. […]
After the COP21 Paris Climate Accord, what we need is an Int’l Climate Court
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The climate pact forged at Paris lacks real teeth and so in and of itself will not solve our carbon dioxide and methane problem. But it is still important, as a clear signal of a sea change in world public opinion. You can’t address a problem […]
Should an al-Qaeda Ally have a seat at the Syrian Table? Al-Assad rejects talks w/ any armed Group
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Riyadh conference of the Syrian opposition this week included political groups but also nine armed bands. One of the nine, the Free Men of Syria or Ahrar al-Sham, has a formal alliance with al-Qaeda in Syria, the Nusra Front. I don’t think the US and […]
Top 10 Signs the US is the Most Corrupt Country in the World
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Revised Those ratings that castigate Afghanistan and some other poor countries as hopelessly “corrupt” always imply that the United States is not corrupt. VOA reports : While it is true that you don’t typically have to bribe your postman to deliver the mail in the US, […]
Russo-Turkish Conflict over Syria & Iraq Boils: “Manifestations of impotent Rage”
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Turkish and Russian government have continued their war of words that followed on the shooting down of an Su-25 bomber on Nov. 24. Issues include a new Turkish accusation that Russian bombing in the north of Latakia province aims at ethnically cleansing the Turkmen populations […]
If Defeating ISIL/ Daesh is so imp’t, why isn’t Ramadi Campaign all we’re talking about?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Given the large number of vehement pronouncements by US presidential candidates about the dire threat from Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), and attacks on President Obama for not doing more, you would think that the American public would be hanging on every word about any progress against the […]
Top 6 Times US government Excluded Millions based on Race or Religion
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and other bigots on the far right are nothing new in American history. Rather, they remind us of the worst and most shameful detours of the American Republic in the past. From the mid-nineteenth century racial theory became prominent in European and […]
Trump vs. the Founding Fathers on Muslims Coming to US
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In his never-ending trolling of the American public, Donald Trump has now come out and urged banning Muslim immigration into or even entrance into the United States. Some of the below is revised from an earlier text Forbidding people from entering the United States on the […]
Obama vs. Daesh/ISIL: Freedom is more powerful than Fear & We Refuse to take the Bait
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – President Obama addressed the nation on Sunday night, in an attempt to calm the public mood after the San Bernardino killers were tied to Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) — though the connection seems to spring merely from common radicalism and murderousness rather than any organizational tie. Obama […]
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