International Politics and Economy

After the Jan. 6 Hearings: or How Law Enforcement Ignored White Supremacists While Spying 24/7 on Muslim Americans

This golden oldie column appeared at Tomdispatch.com . I’m bringing it back in the wake of the Jan. 6 Committee’s revelations about Trump’s role in fomenting the Capitol insurrection, ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson excused one of the leaders of the extremist Oath Keepers organization implicated in the January 6th insurrection […]

European Union

As Biden sends more Troops to Eastern Europe, how do US Commitments now Compare to those of the Cold War?

The Conversation

By Christoph Bluth, University of Bradford | – (The Conversation) – US president Joe Biden is beefing up the US military presence in eastern Europe as a reaction to the Ukraine war. Biden plans to redeploy troops from Germany to Poland and Romania and send more destroyers to strengthen Nato’s naval presence on its southern […]

Culture

Why MCU’s Ms. Marvel matters so much to Muslim, South Asian Fans

The Conversation

By Safiyya Hosein, Toronto Metropolitan University | – (The Conversation) – The Disney+ TV show featuring Ms. Marvel, also known as Kamala Khan — the first Muslim superheroine of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), launched June 8 — and the internet has been alight with discussions about the lovable titular character. The comic book series, […]

Arms Sales

Unlike SCOTUS, Iraqi Kurds are Rethinking Lax Gun Laws after Shootings; Will even Iraq be Safer than the US?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Other countries can just adopt rational policies to deal with severe social problems. The United States is locked into various weird metaphysical dogmas that make reasoning about such issues difficult. The second amendment, for instance, has nothing to do with universal gun ownership, whatever ideologues on the Right assert. The […]

Featured

Türkiye gets its Way on Kurdish Groups, agrees to Swedish, Finnish NATO Bids, as Biden weighs F-16 Sales to Ankara

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Türkiye (formerly Turkey) spent this spring vowing that Sweden and Finland would not be admitted to NATO because of their stance on the Syrian Kurdish organization, the YPG. He seemed adamant, but the stance was clearly a bargaining position, whereby he sought to wring as […]

Dissent

Sudan: Voices of Protesters Should Be Heard, Not Sidelined

Human Rights Watch

By Mohamed Darish, resistance committee member | – ( Human Rights Watch ) – Sudan’s tenacious street protesters and other supporters of the social movement have continued to take to the streets and find ways to express their resistance to the country’s October 2021 military coup. They’ve faced the military’s organized repression, including the use […]

military

Ending the War in Ukraine: Three Possible Futures

Rajan Menon

( Tomdispatch.com) – When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th, I was easing my way into a new job and in the throes of the teaching year. But that war quickly hijacked my life. I spend most of my day poring over multiple newspapers, magazines, blogs, and the Twitter feeds of various military mavens, a […]

Buddhism

America’s religious Communities are divided over the issue of Abortion

The Conversation

Interview by Kalpana Jain, The Conversation | – Interviewed: Luis Josué Salés, Scripps College; Rachel Mikva, Chicago Theological Seminary; Samira Meht University of Colorado Boulder; Steven K. Green, Willamette University; Susan M. Shaw; Oregon State University. Since the first indications that the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, following a […]

NATO

Diplomacy, not total Victory, will in the End Settle the Ukraine War

Richard Penaskovic

Russia’s attack on the Ukraine certainly violated international law and Vladimir Putin should be charged as a war criminal for Russia’s indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, schools, apartment buildings and the like, in which innocent civilians were killed or injured for life, both physically, emotionally, and mentally. The decision of the Biden administration to wage total […]