Featured

(By Juan Cole) The usual suspects have been slamming President Obama for an alleged lack of leadership. Trolls for the military-industrial complex like Charles Krauthammer, and megalomaniacs from tiny states like Sen. Lindsey Graham have constructed a narrative in which Obama willfully withdrew from Iraq, giving it away to Iran; has been insufficiently slavish in […]

Egypt

The Crimean Crisis and the Middle East: Will Syria & Iran be the Winners?

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) The Russian intervention in the Crimea is more direct and dramatic than the one in Syria, with actual troops deployed. But there are similarities. One of the little-noted rationales for Russian support for the Baath government in Damascus is that it is seen as more favorable, being secular and minority-dominated, toward Syria’s […]

Featured

A New Crimean War? (Update: Stuff’s Getting Real)

Juan Cole

(Juan Cole) Tensions have continued to build in Ukraine’s Crimea since I wrote about it a few days ago. On Saturday, The Russian parliament authorized President Valdimir Putin to send troops into Ukraine to defend Russian Interests. . A pro,-Russian premier has been installed in the Crimean autonomous region, who may call a referendum on […]

Dissent

Peeping Toms of the Intel World: Recording Bulk Private Yahoo Webcam Chats

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) In the same way that pedophiles are attracted to professions where they come into frequent contact with children, peeping Toms surely are attracted into electronic surveillance work. That seems to me the only explanation for the US National Security Agency and British intelligence’s Optic Nerve program, just revealed by The Guardian from […]

Featured

Who Favors Discrimination against Gay Newlyweds? Most Republicans, old People, Southerners, Evangelicals

Juan Cole

A new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute sheds light on the divisions in the US over gay marriage. Over all, acceptance of gay marriage is on an upward trajectory, with a majority of Americans now supporting it compared to only about a third in 2002. What is interesting is who has not joined […]

Barack Obama

Dick Cheney Broke US Military, now blames Obama for Cuts

Juan Cole

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has lambasted the Obama administration for its announcement that it will cut 8% out of the military budget and reduce standing army troop levels to the lowest level since before World War II (from 550,000 at the height of the Iraq War to 440,000). Cheney told CNN he believed that […]

Afghanistan

Obama Plans for complete US Withdrawal from Afghanistan in December

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) America’s longest war may be over by the end of this year, and it is making Afghans and neighbors like Pakistan nervous. On Tuesday President Obama called Afghan president Hamid Karzai for the first time since last summer, saying that since Karzai had declined to sign a Bilateral Security Agreement, he had […]

Crime

4 Darknesses: Internet being Manipulated, Deceived by Western Intel Trolls

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Researchers on online behavior have shown that internet trolls (people who use insincere techniques to disrupt conversations) really are psychopaths, marked by narcisssism, sadism, Machiavellianism. Professors Eric Buckels, Paul Trapnell, and Delroy Paulhus administered surveys to students and found that about 6 percent of them enjoyed messing with other people’s heads on […]

Eastern Europe

Not to Reason Why: A New Crimean “War”?

Juan Cole

(Juan Cole) The Russian-speaking population of the Crimean Peninsula in the Ukraine is upset by the popular movement in the west of the country that has overthrown president Viktor Yanukovych and is said to be forming militias. On some government buildings, Ukrainian flags have been replaced by Russian ones. Sevastopol is an important Black Sea […]