Featured

Fightin’ Joe Biden Wins big, on Jobs, Covid, the Dow and Infrastructure, but Corporate News downplays Successes

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The for-profit press thinks it knows what the story in Washington, D.C., is. Joe Biden is a boring president who struggles to get anything done and the Democratic Party is a hot mess of infighting that paralyzes it. Corporate news is the Eeyore of the news world, spreading pessimism and […]

Climate Crisis

Question for Joe Manchin after COP26: Why isn’t Coal — the New Blood Diamonds– Illegal, Now?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Denise Chow at NBC News reports that on Thursday at the UN climate conference Cop26, some 23 new countries signed on to Britain’s push to phase out coal, the biggest source of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. These included Poland, South Korea, Indonesia, Chile and Vietnam. Poland is the Saudi […]

Afghanistan

“Worse than a Crime”: Pentagon Inspector finds Kabul Drone Strike Killing 10 not a Violation of Law (!)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Paul Handley of AFP reports that the US Air Force Inspector General, Lieutenant General Sami Said, found that a drone strike that mistakenly killed 10 civilian non-combatants, including 7 children, in Afghanistan on August 29 violated no laws, including the law of war. When Napoleon had the royalist Duc d’Enghein […]

Featured

Sheikh Jarrah Palestinian Families Reject Israeli theft of their Homes, turning them into Renters

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that Palestinian East Jerusalem families facing expulsion from their homes by Israeli squatters in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood have rejected the proposal of the Israeli Supreme Court to let them remain in their homes for some years, but without equity or recognition of their […]

Climate Change

COP26: Biden first President to Back Sweeping Measures on Climate, as for-profit Press lets Denialist Republicans off the Hook

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) | – On Monday, President Joe Biden addressed the UN COP26 climate conference, declaring the 2020s the “critical decade.” It was a strong and hopeful speech that showed global leadership that has been sorely lacking. Those carping about Biden’s performance seem not to remember the past four years when the president […]

Climate Crisis

COP26: Climate Disaster Stalks Morocco even as it Strives for Wind, Solar

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Since the UN Conference of Parties (COP) 26 is meeting in Glasgow this week, we will be looking at climate and energy issues in the Middle East. Today I want to make some remarks about Morocco, which has one of the most ambitious green energy programs in the region, but […]

Featured

Top 3 Ways Biden can restore Iran Nuclear Deal if he Really Wants To

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Diplomacy is the art of the possible, and so far the Biden administration isn’t showing a mastery of that art when it comes to Iran and restoring the Joint Plan for Comprehensive Action (JCPOA) or 2015 nuclear deal. President Joe Biden has not made restoring the nuclear deal a top […]

Featured

It is the Israeli Occupation of the Stateless Palestinians that is the settler Colonial State, and, yes, Apartheid

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Apologists for Israeli policy have taken umbrage at the characterization of Israel as a settler colonial state that practices Apartheid. They argue that Israel is unlike the settler colonial societies (the United States, French Algeria, Brazil, Mexico and all of Latin America, Australia, South Africa, Rhodesia) in that it established […]

Climate Crisis

Top 4 Reasons Sen. Manchin will Fail to Stop the Tsunami of Green Energy and Biden will get Climate Progress

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia may succeed in preventing Congress from legislating the quick demise of coal and gas plants, but once President Biden has Manchin’s signature on his two big legislative packages, there are other ways to move against Big Carbon that Manchin can do nothing about. 1. […]