History

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The freak-out by the Republican presidential candidates over the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage provokes me to revise and reprise the points below. Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee have formally pledged: “We will not honor any decision by the Supreme Court which will force us […]

African-Americans

1871: First US Anti-Terror Law banned White Racist attacks on Black Officials, Voters

contributors

Dara Lind | (Vox Video Report) | – – “Was the shooting that killed 9 people in Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church on Wednesday terrorism? Vox’s Dara Lind explains.” Vox: “The Charleston shooting is part of a long history of anti-black terrorism”

Colonialism

The Forgotten Costs of War in the Middle East

contributors

By David Vine | (Tomdispatch.com) | – First, they tried to shoot the dogs. Next, they tried to poison them with strychnine. When both failed as efficient killing methods, British government agents and U.S. Navy personnel used raw meat to lure the pets into a sealed shed. Locking them inside, they gassed the howling animals […]

Apartheid

Israeli forces suppress protest over fraudulent purchase of West Bank church

contributors

HEBRON (Ma’an) — Israeli forces on Saturday suppressed a march protesting the recent purchase by Israeli setters of a church compound in the southern West Bank. The 38 dunam compound, known as Beit al-Baraka, is located to the north of al-Arrub refugee camp between Bethlehem and Hebron. It has been in the spotlight since an […]

Apartheid

Israel: Top Outrageous Things Officials of the New Far Right Gov’t have Said

contributors

Ami Kaufman | +972 Magazine | (Video) — “The ministers comprising Israel’s 34th government are the most right wing ever, almost all oppose the two-state solution and have a rich history of legislative attacks on human rights organizations and democratic institutions. Ami Kaufman has a wake-up call for you.” +972 Magazine: ” Wake-up Call: Meet […]

Colonialism

Kaplan’s Fantasies of Empire and the Myth of the Arab Strongman

contributors

By Ari Heistein | (Informed Comment) | – Robert Kaplan explains the current conflicts in the Middle East as the inevitable results of the withdrawal of colonial powers which led to a vacuum of power filled by Arab strongmen who then fell and then left the Middle East back in its natural state– chaos and […]

Colonialism

Kaplan: An Impish Desire for Imperial Déjà Vu

Juan Cole

Daniel Martin Varisco | (MENA Tidningen) | – A recent online commentary by Robert Kaplan for Foreign Policy displays the provocative title: “It’s time to bring imperialism back to the Middle East”. The punch line surfaces in the final paragraph: “Imperialism bestowed order, however retrograde it may have been”. Retrograde? How about brutal? Let’s see: […]

Cold War

After the Cold War, did We all Get the worst of both Capitalist & Communist Worlds?

contributors

By John Feffer | (Tomdispatch.com) | – Imagine an alternative universe in which the two major Cold War superpowers evolved into the United Soviet Socialist States. The conjoined entity, linked perhaps by a new Bering Straits land bridge, combines the optimal features of capitalism and collectivism. From Siberia to Sioux City, we’d all be living […]

al-Qaeda

Washington asks, “Who lost Ramadi?” But Washington never had Ramadi

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | — The inside-the-Beltway debate set off by the fall of the Iraqi city of Ramadi to Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on Sunday is, as usual, Dadaistic in its disconnection from reality. Republican talking points blame Barack Obama for withdrawing US troops from Iraq in 2011, as though Daesh suddenly […]