Republican Party

Cenk Uygur at Young Turks makes the point that the National Security Agency and other US intelligence (services who are ending up with massive amounts of electronic surveillance information on Americans –whether that is what they were mainly going for or not) keep saying we should trust them with the information. They maintain that they […]

Christianity

GOP: No Climate Change because, Bible

Juan Cole

Opposing views points to the scary ignorance and bible-thumping to which GOP representatives in Congress are appealing in their genocidal stand against quick action on climate change. If you have to have a biblical theology about these things, it should be the old-fashioned one that human beings are stewards of the earth and have a […]

Bush

US tries to Censor British Report on Secret Bush-Blair Push for Iraq War (Lazare)

Juan Cole

Sarah Lazare writes at Commondreams.org If the U.S. gets its way, the world will never know the details of top-level discussions between George W. Bush and Tony Blair that paved the way for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. An exclusive report released Thursday by The Independent reveals that the White House and U.S. State […]

al-Qaeda

Why the 9/11 Argument for NSA Spying Fails: They Tracked, Lost their Suspect (Elliott)

Juan Cole

Justin Elliott writes at ProPublica In defending the NSA’s sweeping collection of Americans’ phone call records, Obama administration officials have repeatedly pointed out how it could have helped thwart the 9/11 attacks: If only the surveillance program been in place before Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. authorities would have been able to identify one of the […]

al-Qaeda

Why there Were no CIA Torture Black Sites in Latin America (Grandin)

Juan Cole

Greg Grandin writes at Tomdispatch.com: The map tells the story. To illustrate a damning new report, “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detentions and Extraordinary Rendition,” recently published by the Open Society Institute, the Washington Post put together an equally damning graphic: it’s soaked in red, as if with blood, showing that in the years after 9/11, […]

Bush

Libbys Lies Bushs Lies Irv Lewis Libby

Juan Cole

Libby’s Lies, Cheney’s Lies Irv Lewis Libby is a convicted liar and perjurer, guilty of obstruction of justice. Unfortunately, he was not convicted of revealing to the public the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert operative at the CIA, who was working against Iranian development of nuclear weapons. It is time for the […]

Republican Party

Schiavo Case And Islamization of the Republican Party

Juan Cole

The Schiavo Case and the Islamization of the Republican Party The cynical use by the US Republican Party of the Terri Schiavo case repeats, whether deliberately or accidentally, the tactics of Muslim fundamentalists and theocrats in places like Egypt and Pakistan. These tactics involve a disturbing tendency to make private, intimate decisions matters of public […]