By Juan Cole The NATO summit in Wales was supposed to be all about getting out of Afghanistan. Instead, two new issues dominated it– the Ukraine and ISIL in Iraq and Syria. British prime minister David Cameron joined Barack Obama in castigating NATO members for paying ransoms to ISIL and for not stepping up to […]
Would a US/ NATO war in Syria be Legal in International Law?
By Juan Cole Efforts are being made in Congress give to President Barack Obama the formal authority to conduct air strikes in Syria against ISIL. Vice President Joe Biden is now talking, as well, about a concerted and long-term NATO response to the brutal fundamentalist movement, which controls desert territory and some oil resources in […]
What the Hackers did to Celebs? The NSA has been Doing that to All of US instead of Predicting ISIL
By Juan Cole There has been a lot of justifiable outrage about the invasion of privacy of celebrities and the posting of their private, nude photos at 4Chan by hackers who apparently got into their cloud accounts. It seems odd to me that the discussion of this issue has been completely unconnected to the Snowden […]
Can Iraqi forces take back Saddam’s Birthplace from ISIL?
By Juan Cole Joint Iraqi and Kurdish forces began moving into Tikrit on Tuesday night into Wednesday after victories over the so-called Islamic State of Syria and the Levant in villages around Amerli, including Sulaiman Bek. Several previous attempts to take Tikrit this summer have failed. On Monday, allied Iraqi forces cleared the Shiite Turkmen […]
Top 5 Reasons “Labor Day” isn’t for Laborers Anymore
By Juan Cole Calling the bottom of a river a “bed” is a metaphor. Imagine the river restlessly sleeping on its muddy mattress. But when we’ve so internalized a metaphor that we forget it is a figure of speech, as with the phrase “river bed,” it is called a “dead metaphor.” Labor Day is, alas, […]
Iraq: Is the Battle of Amerli a Turning Point?
By Juan Cole The Iraqi military is maintaining that it has successfully relieved the town of Amerli (pop. 15,000) in northern Iraq from a siege by ISIL (the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). If true, this is the first success of the Baghdad military against ISIL since Mosul fell in early June. […]
Israelis Alarmed as al-Qaeda Captures Golan, UN Peacekeepers
By Juan Cole Israel now has a border with al-Qaeda! Israeli observers have been alarmed by the capture of the Quneitra checkpoint between Syria and the Israeli-Occupied Golan Heights by the al-Qaeda affiliate, the Succor Front (Jabhat al-Nusra). The Succor Front has also captured 44 Fijian UN peacekeeping troops and has surrounded some 75 UN […]
US Public Worried about ISIL, Putin– But Climate Change is Real Challenge
By Juan Cole In a new Pew/ USA Today poll, the American public shows itself alarmed by the rise of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in northern Iraq and Syria as a threat to US security, finding it more threatening even than Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who has risen on the villain […]
Mitch McConnell caught Promising Billionaires he’ll Enrich them at our Expense
By Nicole Girard via Liberals Unite Mitch McConnell really does not care about our problems. The way he talks about the needs of average Americans, you’d think we were his sworn, personal enemy. At a Koch Brothers Summit in Dana Point, California this summer, the conscience-less, corporate shill basically promised our country’s head on a […]
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