In his speech on the National Security Agency domestic surveillance program on Friday, Obama offered an explanation of its origins: “The program grew out of a desire to address a gap identified after 9/11. One of the 9/11 hijackers – Khalid al-Mihdhar – made a phone call from San Diego to a known al Qaeda […]
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Featured
Pension Managers should divest from Fossil Fuels: UN Official
(By Juan Cole) Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told investors at a conference on Wednesday that they should move pension funds out of fossil fuels. After all, she pointed out, pension funds are for retirement, and future retirees won’t get to enjoy their golden years if the average […]
The Ruling that Endangers the Internet as we Know It
(By Juan Cole) A Washington D.C. federal panel has struck down the Federal Communication Commission position on net neutrality, threatening the corporatization of the internet. The reason readers of Informed Comment can reach it as quickly and conveniently as they can reach a multi-billion dollar corporate web site is the principle of internet neutrality, built […]
3 Years after Democratic Revolution, Egypt Decides it Prefers North Korean Model
(By Juan Cole) The title of this piece is provocative and a little tongue in cheek. Were I in Egypt as I publish it, I’m not sure, though, that the authorities would get the joke. The 2011 revolution, which was in part about dignity and personal autonomy and censorship and police torture, apparently went too […]
False Nostalgia: The Original Fallujah Campaign Destabilized Iraq
(By Juan Cole) We’ve been treated to a rash of articles about how US veterans of the Fallujah campaigns of 2004 are upset about the return of al-Qaeda to that city and the now dominant position of the extremists. Despite my respect for US soldiers who risked their lives, these veterans are making a political […]
Top Ten Ways Ariel Sharon Ruined Israel and the Middle East
(By Juan Cole) Arik Scheinerman, who became Ariel Sharon, was from a Russian family that emigrated to Palestine at a time when Palestinians had been deprived of the right to set immigration policy into their own country. He would go on powerfully to shape the lives of most people in Israel and the Middle East, […]
Did Ariel Sharon get a pass on War Crimes because he was White?
(By Juan Cole) It is shameful that Vice President Joe Biden should be attending the funeral of Ariel Sharon today, given that the former Israeli prime minister was clearly guilty of a host of war crimes. Much Mideast instability must be laid at his feet. Since a pattern of war crimes comes to equate to […]
Ban Coal: Coal Industry Chemical Threatens 300,000 in West Virginia
(By Juan Cole) Some 300,000 West Virginians are at risk from their tap water after a company making MCHM spilled it into the river, turning it a little purple and making it smell like liquorice. MCHM can be fatal if imbibed, and otherwise it can make you vomit your guts out. It is used to […]
Top 5 US Government Decisions that put Troops more at Risk than Snowden Did
(By Juan Cole) The propaganda wars in Washington continue over Edward Snowden’s revelation that the National Security Agency and other Federal government departments have in the past decade quietly abolished the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, without even telling us that is what they were doing. All Americans, once proud, free citizens of a republic […]
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