Democratic Party

Dear CIA Director Burns: Don’t Listen to the Israelis on Iran– They just want you to fight a war for them

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Jonathan Lis at Haaretz reports that the Israeli government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is lobbying the US to get on a war footing with Iran. The Israelis will try to convince CIA director William Burns of their position on Iran in his meetings there on Wednesday. Lis makes 3 […]

Afghanistan

Taliban Gains pose risk to fragile Legal Protections gained by Afghan Women: HRW

Human Rights Watch

( Human Rights Watch) – (New York) – The Afghan government’s failure to provide accountability for violence against women and girls has undermined progress to protect women’s rights, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Gains by Taliban forces as the United States completes its troop withdrawal leaves the current Afghan state, and […]

Democratic Party

In Bipartisan Infrastructure Package, opportunity to alter fundamental climate and economic priorities is being squandered

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – How to assess the infrastructure package? Lots of big numbers, but budgetary appropriations are moral statements, and this package disappoints. An opportunity to alter fundamental climate and economic priorities is being squandered. Perhaps no aspect of the American political economy is more iconic that the auto. Not […]

Democratic Party

Top Ten Reasons Liberals have the High Moral Ground

James A. Haught

In tumultuous sociopolitical struggles, a frequent pattern is visible: Conservatives often fight to preserve their own wealth or privileges, but liberals battle for causes that don’t enrich or benefit themselves personally. This fact is clear in the long crusade to abolish slavery, and in never-ending attempts to aid the poor. Liberals are less driven by […]

China

On China, Biden is continuing Trump’s Zero-Sum Vision of the World when our Crises demand a Win-Win Approach

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – Regarding China, Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy Team has embraced the zero-sum rhetoric of the Trump administration. That approach could bifurcate the globe politically and technologically along racial lines, but instead of race, the project has been marketed as a contest of values. Zero-sum rhetoric didn’t begin with Trump. […]

al-Qaeda

Imperial Overstretch: Is the American Empire going the way of the Soviet Union?

Tom Engelhardt

By Tom Engelhardt | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – It was all so long ago, in a world seemingly without challengers. Do you even remember when we Americans lived on a planet with a recumbent Russia, a barely rising China, and no obvious foes except what later came to be known as an “axis of […]

Featured

Sleight-of-Hand in Baghdad: The Biden Pull-Out from Iraq that Isn’t

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Mursi Abu Tawq at Al-Zaman (The Times“) in Baghdad reports that President Joe Biden on Monday announced that the US combat mission in Iraq would end by December 31 of this year, beginning a new stage of military cooperation between the US and Iraq. The remarks came after a White […]

Climate Crisis

As Biden backslides, a bigger, better-organized climate movement prepares to seize this ‘now or never’ moment

Waging Nonviolence

by Nick Engelfried | – ( Waging Nonviolence ) – Over 500 activists from the youth-led Sunrise Movement descended on Washington, D.C. last week for one of the largest U.S. climate protests since COVID-related restrictions began easing. The young people rallied in front of the White House on June 28, to hear from a range […]

Afghanistan

Afghanistan: two decades of Nato help leaves a failed and fractured state on the brink of civil war

The Conversation

By Natasha Lindstaedt | – ( The Conversation )- Afghanistan is falling apart. With US and Nato troops leaving the country earlier than planned, experts are warning that the Taliban could take control of the country within six months. Currently the insurgents control the strategically important province of Helmand, and control or contest territory nearly […]