Republican Party

( 48hills.org ) – During the past month, Iran has suffered a half-dozen explosions and fires at military and civilian sites. A bomb blew up near the Parchin missile base outside Tehran, Iran’s capital. Fires broke out at an electric power station and aboard seven ships in a southern port city. Iranian government authorities say […]

Donald Trump

How Trump broke America: Economy plummets historic 33%, Covid Deaths at 1500/ day, and 40 mn could lose Homes

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s refusal last winter to pull out all the stops to mount an effective national coronavirus response has broken the legs of America. On Wednesday, over 1500 coronavirus deaths were reported nationwide, a tally not seen since May. Over 150,000 Americans have died of the disease, and the prospect is […]

Donald Trump

US Bases in Qatar, UAE go on Alert as Iran Fires Ballistic Missiles at Mock-up of US Aircraft Carrier

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sepahnews quotes Brigadier Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Aerospace Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), as saying that his unit was able to launch ballistic missiles from bunkers the depths of the earth for the first time in world history. (He did not explain what he meant […]

Authoritarianism

Colonizing Portland: How Trump’s tactics Recall Worst Excesses of British Empire in places like Hong Kong

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – When Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty in1997, the Western press loudly bemoaned the death of Democracy, but those of us who had lived there knew better. In times of stress colonial rule more closely resembled Trump’s Portland than a citadel of law, with the use of militarized […]

Donald Trump

The Beginning of the U.S.-Iran Hot War?

Sina Toossi

Washington, DC (Special to Informed Comment) – “Americans should not blame others in vain,” Iranian general Esmail Gha’ani has declared, “this is a fire they have lit and today has engulfed them.” Gha’ani, a veteran military commander who heads the Quds Force, the branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) responsible for extraterritorial operations, […]

Donald Trump

Killing Democracy in America: The Military-Industrial Complex and Forever Wars as our other Pandemic

William J. Astore

( Tomdispatch.com) – The phrase “thinking about the unthinkable” has always been associated with the unthinkable cataclysm of a nuclear war, and rightly so. Lately, though, I’ve been pondering another kind of unthinkable scenario, nearly as nightmarish (at least for a democracy) as a thermonuclear Armageddon, but one that’s been rolling out in far slower […]

Donald Trump

The World War in Libya: Russo-Turkish, Turko-Egyptian Conflicts Recall Multi-Polar 19th Century

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Libya has become a multipolar battleground unusual in the era since 1946. The UN-recognized General National Assembly (GNA) government in Tripoli is ranged against the forces of Benghazi-based Gen. Khalifa Haftar. Haftar is supported by the Russian Federation, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and diplomatically, France. The GNA is supported […]

Authoritarianism

Understanding Trump’s game plan in Portland could be the key to preventing a coup in November

Waging Nonviolence

George Lakey | – (Waging Nonviolence ) – While outrage was still growing in Oregon over federal agents’ intervention in Portland, President Trump on July 20 named Chicago, New York, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland, California as possible next targets. Since then Albuquerque was added to the list. Although the agents’ mission was supposedly to protect […]

Bush

First the Nat’l Security State Surged Baghdad, now it is Surging Portland and Seattle

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – USA Today’s headline went, “Mayors see broken trust, political agenda in Trump’s surge of federal officers to US cities.” Surge? For those of us old enough to remember George W. Bush’s Iraq War, the use of the word “surge” to describe Federal agents sent into Democratic cities to break heads […]