Featured

By Juan Cole That didn’t take long. The Georgia GOP rushed into law an ‘open carry’ provision in April allowing people to tote around guns in bars and churches (apparently these are felt to be complementary institutions in Georgia) and schools (these are apparently felt to be full of expendable if short people in Georgia). […]

Africa

On D-Day: Remembering the Muslim Troops who Fought the Axis

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole One of the frustrations for a world historian is the unyieldingly parochial vision of the North Atlantic common among journalists and even many historians, and consequently among the public. The 17 world leaders gathering for the D-Day commemoration should by all rights include Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Indian Prime Minister Narendra […]

Featured

Facial Hair, Patriotism and the Enemy in American History

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Media Matters for America put together a collage of Fox Cable News commentators smearing the father of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl as having a Taliban-like beard and maybe even being a Taliban sympathizer. Thanks to MM4A for the Laura Ingram clip in which she says that if he weren’t so light-skinned he could […]

Barack Obama

Is the Prisoner Swap Hysteria a sign of GOP War withdrawal Symptoms?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The United States has been continually at war since October of 2001. In many of the succeeding years, until Dec. 31 2011, The US was at war in both Iraq and and in Afghanistan. Wars fulfill multiple functions for the US elite. They justify vast expenditures that benefit the political clients of […]

Barack Obama

Faced w/ Global Warming Threat, Obama fudges EPA Carbon Reduction

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole President Obama’s decision to unleash the Environmental Protection Agency on US carbon dioxide emitters is a sea change in environmental policy and is extremely welcome to any who care about the planet. But its real significance does not lie in the targets for carbon dioxide reduction Obama has set. Those are way […]

Afghanistan

Dear GOP: The US has negotiated with Terrorists and Amnestied Them all through History

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The GOP talking points in response to the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in a trade for five former officials of the 1990s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) focused on a few basic premises. !. You don’t negotiate with terrorists; 2. such a swap would encourage terrorists to capture Americans; 3. these […]

Afghanistan

What Does Sgt. Bergdahl’s Release tell us about Afghanistan, Pakistan & the Taliban today?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The surprise announcement by President Obama on Saturday of the negotiated release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, captured in 2009, is wonderful news for him, his family, and America. But what does it tell us about the Taliban, Afghanistan and Pakistan? Qatar was the country that successfully acted as mediator, and what does […]

Climate Change

Solar Power for the Global Masses: The Next Revolution

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole As the price of solar panels drops, they increasingly are being spontaneously bought and installed by villagers throughout the world, who are often ill-served, or not served at all, by the central power grid in their countries. Some remain off the grid once they have gone solar. Just as many countries in […]

Bill of Rights

Mr. Kerry: Why Snowden can’t “Make his Case” in “Our System of Justice”

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Secretary of State John Kerry said that Edward Snowden should “return home and come back here and stand in our system of justice and make his case.” Kerry seems to have a high opinion of the Department of Justice and the US courts when it comes to national security issues. I can’t […]