Featured

(By Juan Cole) Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has determinedly beaten the drums for war with Iran, though his lack of any actual overt action on that front has suggested to many observers that he uses the Iran issue to distract the international community from the Israel project of annexing the Palestinian West Bank and […]

Climate Change

No Sense of Urgency: Obama’s New Solar Energy Commitments are still Just Baby Steps

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) President Obama has long expressed concern about climate change and its impacts, and was mocked by Mitt Romney for saying he wanted to stop the rising of the seas. But climate change activists have been dismayed that the president nevertheless spoke of an “all of the above” energy policy, urging further oil […]

Featured

Top 10 Reasons GOP Benghazi Witch Hunt is just a Campaign Fundraising Ploy

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Since Obamacare is increasingly a wildly popular success, the GOP is flailing around looking for an issue, any issue to help fundraising for the fall congressional campaigns. In a vote that will live in infamy, the House GOP has decided to create a select committee to investigate the 2012 Benghazi consular attack […]

Arab Spring

Is Fall of Homs a turning point in Regime’s Quest to Retake Syria?

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) The Governor of Homs Province, Talal al-Barazi said Wednesday that 80 percent of the rebel fighters in that city have now been evacuated. It is expected that the rest will leave on Thursday. Around a thousand fighters had been holed up in the old city of Homs and have now left, with […]

Africa

Boko Haram and the Lord’s Resistance Army: Hunted Children & the Problem of Fundamentalism in Africa

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) The horrific story of the kidnapping of nearly 300 girls from their school in Borno Province, northeastern Nigeria, by the Boko Haram terrorist group has again underlined the problem of violent fundamentalism in Africa. Reports say more kidnappings have been undertaken today. Boko Haram, which was founded in 2002, has many resemblances […]

Apartheid

Netanyahu’s Blood and Soil: The Racist-Nationalism of his “Jewish State” Ideal

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Binyamin Netanyahu is again beating the “Israel is a Jewish state” drum, and now wants to have it legislated into Israeli organic law. On Sunday, Netanyahu said, “There are those who do not want Israel to be defined as the national homeland for the Jewish people…” “They want a Palestinian national homeland […]

Featured

Jose Antonio Vargas’ “Documented” on Plight of Undocumented to air on CNN after Theatrical Release

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) I was privileged to see a special screening of Jose Antonio Vargas’s breathlessly awaited documentary, “Documented,” when I was in Los Angeles last week, and honored to meet Vargas himself along with executive producer Janet Wang (“The Joy Luck Club,” “The People vs Larry Flynt”). The film was shown in a class […]

Bush

Condoleezza Rice, Charged with War Crimes at Rutgers, withdraws as Commencement Speaker

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Condoleezza Rice on Saturday pulled out of giving the commencement address at Rutgers University after professor and student protests. Rutgers historian Professor Rudy Bell argued that while it would be appropriate to have Rice on campus as part of an academic debate, she is unsuitable as a commencement speaker because of her […]

Featured

In Deep South where GOP Rejected Obamacare, tens of 1000s die Unnecessarily every Year

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) The Center for Disease Control house found that 900,000 people a year die of five leading causes every year in the US, and that 20% to 40% of these deaths are preventable (i.e. 180,000 to 360,000 needn’t die). The five are heart disease, cancer, lung disease, stroke and unintentional injury. Smoking cigarettes […]