By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Update: Suspected shooter Dylann Roof has been apprehended. He had a gun with him at the time. It is being alleged that he wore Apartheid South Africa flag, complained of African-Americans raping, taking over US. So, then, it was political and indubitably terrorism. Police in Charleston, […]
Juan Cole & Jocylene Cesari: “Europe’s Muslims after Charlie Hebdo: Challenges and Misconceptions”
David Speedie, Juan Cole & Jocylene Cesari | Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs (Video) | – – “Months after the “Charlie Hebdo” attacks, questions remain about Europe’s Islamic communities. How strong is the lure of groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS for Islamic youth in France or the UK? Why do so many Muslims, […]
Can the GOP live down Donald Trump’s Middle East “Policy”?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Comedians, bloggers, and pundits are ecstatic about The Donald throwing his toupee in the ring for the Republican nomination. The stories write themselves. But the Republican Party establishment is appalled, because Trump will create an image for the party that will hurt it in the general […]
The Middle East Policy of President John Ellis “Jeb” Bush: Iraq, Iran Wars?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Jeb Bush announced his run for president on Monday. It is hard to know what his Middle East policy would be from his wibbly wobbly pronouncements, but that it would be imperial and aggressive can be deduced from his foreign policy advisory team, including Neoconservatives such […]
Flash Fiction: “The Office”
N.B. Fiction with mature themes. By Juan Cole | The Office Adib was winning at cards again. Bashir was already out, sitting in a corner with his French novel. Soliman hated losing, even though they didn’t play for much in the way of stakes. They only had their share of the […]
Pres. Erdogan sees Syrian Kurds’ advance against ISIL as “danger” to Turkey
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The leftist Kurdish Protection Forces (YPG) and their Arab allies, the Euphrates Volcano, continued their assault on Sunday on Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) positions in northern Raqqa Province in Syria, taking the village of Salouk on the outskirts of Tel Abyad. Tel Abyad lies on the border […]
5,000 Hanging Skirts: How Women Remember War Rape in Kosova
By Frances Trix | (Informed Comment) | – – On 12 June, 5,000 skirts and dresses were hung on 45 clotheslines in the football stadium in Prishtina, capital of Kosova. “The laundry is washed clean, like the women who are clean and pure—they carry no stain,” asserted artist Alketa Xhafa-Mripa, the Kosovar originator of the […]
Can Leftist Kurdish Militia cut ISIL/ Daesh off from Turkish Supply Routes and Kill the Caliphate?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The intrepid Liz Sly of the Washington Post gets the story of the attempt of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and their Arab allies, the Euphrates Volcano, to cut Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) off and kill it. Sly’s insightful report is buttressed by one from Ahmad […]
Young Middle East Millennials’ Digital Split From Fundamentalism (Cole Interview)
Elliot Hill | (TheLipTV Video Interview) | – – “Millennials in the Middle East are forming a clear generational gap between themselves and their elders, with the digital revolution effecting a sweeping advance of secularization. With majority populations under the age of 30, many countries are seeing a wide gulf between their social media savvy […]
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