Arab World

From Eden to Ruin ( Christian Courier) – While living in Jordan, my wife Sally and I fell in love with Syria and its people through many visits stretched over four decades. Our last adventure in 2006 was to Aleppo, when we stayed in a converted khan in the middle of its souq (market), which […]

Bill of Rights

How American cities were Reduced to Esper’s “Battlespace”: From Fallujah to Minneapolis

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Bush administration’s war of aggression on and military occupation of Iraq that began in 2003 shifted the United States to a militaristic society. Some 2.7 million Americans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, an astonishing number. The Bush administration began the practice of sending to civilian police departments military […]

Arab Spring

The Authoritarian Logic of Killing Protesters

David Faris

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – On October 9th, 2011, Egyptian army vehicles plowed into a Coptic Christian protest outside of the Maspero state television building in the capital city of Cairo, killing more than two dozen peaceful demonstrators. Less than a year after the Arab Spring came to Cairo and dislodged the country’s longtime […]

Arab World

Gulf Security in the Age of Covid-19: Webinar, Qatar University

Juan Cole

Gulf Studies Center, Qatar University Panel on Gulf Security in the Age of Covid-19

Epidemics

Amid Yemen Coronavirus Outbreak, Aden Buries its dead while Houthis Bury their Heads

Brian Whitaker

( Al-Bab.com) – There used to be about ten burials a day in the cemeteries of Yemen’s second city, Aden, but since Covid-19 arrived the number has risen to around 80 a day. Although many of these deaths have not been properly investigated, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) which runs the city’s only dedicated Covid-19 treatment […]

Libya

The Turko-Russian War for Oil and Gas in Libya Intensifies

Nikola Mikovic

Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – Frenemies Russia and Turkey have put their conflict in Syria on hold, but they have intensified their rivalry in another proxy conflict. In Libya, clashes between Moscow-backed Libyan National Army (LNA) and Ankara-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) escalated, as the US Africa Command accused Kremlin of deploying military […]

Afghanistan

Will our Post-Pandemic Forever Wars be Fought at a Social Distance?

Danny Sjursen

( Tomdispatch.com) – Covid-19, an ongoing global human tragedy, may have at least one silver lining. It has led millions of people to question America’s most malignant policies at home and abroad. Regarding Washington’s war policies abroad, there’s been speculation that the coronavirus might, in the end, put a dent in such conflicts, if not […]

Epidemics

500,000 Yemenis displaced by Renewed Fighting Face Coronavirus Dangers

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – Civilians fleeing renewed fighting in northern Yemen are particularly vulnerable to the Covid-19 pandemic, Human Rights Watch said today. Fighting in Marib governorate between Houthi forces and the Saudi-led coalition and their Yemeni government allies has moved closer to overcrowded camps for internally displaced people that have inadequate health […]

Afghanistan

On Memorial Day: How the US Lost its “Battle of Aqaba” to the Coronavirus

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On July 6, 1917, Auda Abu Tayy led his Howeitat tribesmen in a successful attack on the Ottoman port of Aqaba in what is now Jordan but was then the Ottoman Empire. The Arabs of the Hejaz or Western Arabia and the Transjordan had allied with the British to revolt […]