US Foreign Policy

By Raseef22 | – ( Globalvoices.org ) – Following years of a devastating war that continues to fragment the country, Syria is now exporting professional mercenaries to other hotspots of conflict, including Libya and the Nagorno-Karabakh region, and they are soon expected to arrive in Ukraine. They packed their fighting experience and headed to foreign […]

Natural Gas

Bin Putin? How Russia is increasingly becoming the Saudi Arabia of the North

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – A failed military intervention. The genocidal killing of citizens. Economic isolation by the international community. The arrests of anti-war protestors at home and the shuttering of independent media. Any one of these factors could mark the end of an ordinary political leader. Yet Russian President Vladimir Putin has not […]

Evangelicals

War in Ukraine is testing some American evangelicals’ support for Putin as a leader of conservative values

The Conversation

By Melani McAlister, George Washington University | – In February 2022, evangelical leader Franklin Graham called on his followers to pray for Vladimir Putin. His tweet acknowledged that it might seem a “strange request” given that Russia was clearly about to invade Ukraine. But Graham asked that believers “pray that God would work in his […]

European Union

Ukraine and NATO Expansion

Peter G. Prontzos

Vancouver (Special to Informed Comment) – To be absolutely clear, the attack on Ukraine was a clear violation of international law, and there is absolutely no excuse for this invasion. Putin is a war criminal for initiating this unjustifiable bloodshed. However, NATO in general and the United States in particular followed an unnecessary and dangerous […]

Featured

Zelensky says Russia is the new ISIL: Top 3 Ways he may be Right

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In an address on Tuesday to the United Nations Security Council, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky compared Russia to the ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) terrorist group that took over eastern Syria and northwestern Iraq 2014-2018. His immediate comparison was of the brutality of Russian troops toward the civilian population in Bucha and […]

Bashar al-Assad

Yes, Bucha is a War Crime: Putin Told us who He was in East Aleppo

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Russian withdrawal from the small town of Bucha near the capital of Kyiv left behind a raft of murdered civilians in the streets and bombed buildings the way an ebbing tide leaves behind flotsam and driftwood after a violent tsunami. The Russian government is attempting to escape blame for […]

China

No to WW III: Why Russia Fumbled in Ukraine, China Lost Its Way, and America Should Exercise Restraint

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com) – In Western military circles, it’s common to refer to the “balance of forces” — the lineup of tanks, planes, ships, missiles, and battle formations on the opposing sides of any conflict. If one has twice as many combat assets as its opponent and the leadership abilities on each side are approximately equal, […]

Climate Crisis

Even Oil-Rich UAE admits its Green Energy saved it nearly $200 billion, as it builds World’s Largest Solar Farm

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Even the energy minister of the United Arab Emirates, the world’s eighth largest oil producer, has admitted that the steps so far taken in the small Gulf country toward green energy have saved it $191 billion. The UAE gets about 7% of its electricity from solar panels, saving on the […]

Petroleum

How Not to Cope with Vladimir Putin by Drilling and Pumping

Tomdispatch

By Stan Cox | – ( Tomdispatch.com)- While the Ukrainian people bear the lethal brunt of Russia’s invasion, shockwaves from that war threaten to worsen other crises across the planet. The emergency that loomed largest before Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began — the heating of Earth’s climate — is now looming larger still. The […]