It looks as though the Pakistan Muslim League (N), led by steel magnate Nawaz Sharif, is going to be the single largest party in Parliament, after Saturday’s landmark elections. It is the first time that Pakistan has seen a regular peaceful, hand-off of power from one civilian government to another. Imran Khan’s Justice Movement has […]
Republican Scandal-Mongering on Benghazi and the Bush Embassy Attacks (plus Daily Show video)
Jon Stewart of the Daily Show makes fun of the Republican obsession with the Benghazi events of last September and their unsupported allegations of some sort of scandal or cover-up there. Then of course there is the hypocrisy factor, since many US embassies were attacked with casualties in the Bush era, as I pointed out […]
The Chinese Diplomatic Pivot to the Middle East and Beijing’s Middle East Studies Establishment (Ma)
by HAIYUN MA writes at ISLAMiCommentary : Haiyun Ma This week China’s new president, Xi Jinping, separately hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas — meetings that some analysts say is indicative of China’s desire for a more pro-active role in Middle East diplomacy. The timing of the visits of Abbas […]
Top Ten Republican Myths on Libya
Reprint edn.; since they don’t change their talking points, why should we change our blog entries? 1. Republican senators keep saying that it should have been “easy” to find out what happened on September 11, 2012, by simply debriefing US personnel who had been there. John McCain, Ron Johnson and the others who make this […]
Is the Government reading your Email without a Warrant?
Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) has demanded that the FBI and other Federal agencies obtain a warrant to read private emails. He said that Americans’ “right to be free from ‘unreasonable searches and seizures’ applies regardless of whether it involves a letter stored in a desk or an email stored online.” He was responding to a […]
Minorities and the Arab Revolutions (Cole Video)
Here is an excerpt from my recent talk on minorities and the Arab Revolutions at Portland State: Here is the video
Has the Obama administration Given into Russia on Syria?
The joint communique issued by Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier this week regarding Syria has in retrospect raised eyebrows in the world press because it seems to adopt Russian, not American, rhetoric on the issue. The document called for an international conference on the crisis jointly sponsored by […]
Obama’s War on Whistleblowers who are trying to out Government Waste, Fraud (Van Buren)
Peter van Buren writes at Tomdispatch.com: What do words mean in a post-9/11 world? Apart from the now clichéd Orwellian twists that turn brutal torture into mere enhanced interrogation, the devil is in the details. Robert MacLean is a former air marshal fired for an act of whistleblowing. He has continued to fight over seven […]
Hawking joins Academic Boycott of Israel
Physicist Stephen Hawking’s decision to boycott the annual President’s Conference in Jerusalem this year has been confirmed by Cambridge University. The university initially attempted to deny a political motive and said Hawkings was not going because of his health. It acknowledged the political motive when the Guardian newspaper provided it with a copy of Hawking’s […]
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