International Politics and Economy

Apple Sues Israeli gov’t-backed NSO Spyware Company: “Notorious Hackers – Amoral 21st C. Mercenaries”

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Apple is suing the NSO group, which produced the spyware that Israel uses to keep under surveillance the 5 million Palestinians it holds in thrall to its Occupation. The NSO group is believed to be close to the Israeli state. They have sold their hacking tools to repressive governments around […]

Authoritarianism

For First Time, US joins Brazil and India as “Backsliding Democracy”: GOP is making US a Third World Country

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sweden’s International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance finds this year that the United States of America has joined the ranks of “backsliding democracies,” joining India, Brazil, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. The IDEA institute notes, “Democratic backsliding, namely the sustained and deliberate process of subversion of basic democratic tenets by […]

Democracy

In Sudan’s new Revolt, Women and Youth will not settle for less than true Democracy

Open Democracy

By Nazik Awad | (OpenDemocracy.net) – Sudan’s coup on 25 October was both highly anticipated and inevitable. For three months, tension between the civilian and military partners that had ruled Sudan since the 2019 powersharing deal had been intensifying. After the 2019 revolution and the fall of former president Omar al-Bashir, political parties and civil […]

Democracy

In the Middle East, the US was Never about Democracy Promotion

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – How much of the blame should U.S. policy take for the decline of democracy in the twenty-first century, with the reversions to dictatorship and the rise of illiberalism in older democracies? In a fine article at the New York Times, Max Fisher discusses how an NYT team mined data at […]

Corruption

All Trump’s Cover-Ups: From Syria Airstrike on Civilians to US COVID Genocide

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The US Founding Fathers had a cynical side. They did not think people in government could be trusted to do the right thing. They thought people often do what they can get away with. The point of James Madison’s checks and balances was not just to guard against tyranny but […]

Nonviolence

November 11 Armistice Day: Honor Peace Day

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – The first Armistice Day was a celebration of the moment – the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918 – that the brutality of that first industrial war, which robbed 40 million soldiers and civilians of life, ended; and peace began. On Veterans Day […]

Displaced and Refugees

Are Putin and Lukashenko trying to Divide Europe by sending over Iraqi, other Muslim Refugees?

Nikola Mikovic

Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – Thousands of migrants from Iraq, Syria, and other Middle Eastern countries, are attempting to breach a razor wire fence at the border between Belarus and Poland. Their final destination is Germany, and possibly other rich member-states of the European Union. But why are they trying to illegally enter the […]

Cybercrime

The Cyberwar between Israel and Iran is Heating Up

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor ) – It is becoming clear that the cyberwar between Israel and Iran is heating up, although neither side has accepted responsibility for recent attacks. Things became even clearer when hundreds of thousands of Iranians found themselves unable to fill the fuel tanks in their vehicles due to a computer glitch […]

Democracy

Feeding the Crocodile: Do Any Republicans Still Support Democracy?

Jill Richardson

( Otherwords) – Republicans should heed Churchill’s warning about appeasing authoritarians: “Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, it will eat him last.” By Jill Richardson | November 3, 2021 Investigative accounts of the Trump administration, like the recent Washington Post feature on the January 6 insurrection, routinely write about three kinds […]