The Appeal of Intervention: New Iraqi Premier, Libyan Parliament ask for Int’l Troops
By Juan Cole According to a spokesman for his Da’wa Party (Islamic Call or Islamic Mission),…
By Juan Cole According to a spokesman for his Da’wa Party (Islamic Call or Islamic Mission),…
By Juan Cole Huffington Post Live Highlight: Juan Cole, “The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation…
By Juan Cole Middle Eastern regional powers joined the US in welcoming the appointment of Haydar…
Two SJMC faculty, Kate MacMillin and Juliet Pinto, explore the narrative of a South Florida community under threat from sea level rise in this half-hour documentary. WPBT2: “South Florida’s Rising Seas –…
AJ+: “From Michael Brown to Renisha McBride to Jordan Davis: how black people who are killed get portrayed in the media — and the courtroom — has often led to outrage. And…
By Mindy Fischer via Liberals Unite There’s no doubt that Robin Williams could make us laugh, but he did a whole more than that. He made us think and dream. Because he…
via “Layla Raymanova” “here’re Lauren Bacall’s (1924-2014) best lines from the movie TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT.” Little-known fact: Lauren Bacall and former Israeli president Shimon Peres are first cousins, both with…
“A Life Overseas”: Robin Williams (1951-2014) was one of the acts for the 2007 USO show here on Kandahar AirField. Alert: Profanity. Robin Williams At Kandahar AirField May Mr. Williams rest in…
Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks: “”A large majority of the public (76%) and nearly all scientists (97%) say that it is appropriate for scientists to become actively involved in political debates…
By Climate State “According to Murdoch we just have to move a bit inland and the worst is a temperature rise of 3 degree and a modest sea level rise of six…
PBS News Hour: “Conversation with Richard Stumpf of NOAA on the science behind the algal bloom.” Stumpf points out that the algae like war water and so this problem will get worse…
By Juan Cole Liberal politics in the broad sense, in the tradition of Locke, Voltaire, Madison, Jefferson and John Stuart Mill, is rooted in a conviction that vigorous debate clarifies issues and…
By Noam Chomsky via Tomdispatch.com If some extraterrestrial species were compiling a history of Homo sapiens, they might well break their calendar into two eras: BNW (before nuclear weapons) and NWE (the…
By John Oliver “The line between editorial content and advertising in news media is blurrier and blurrier. That’s not bullshit. It’s repurposed bovine waste.” HBO: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Native…
By Tom Engelhardt via Tomdispatch.com The Fourth Branch The Rise to Power of the National Security State By Tom Engelhardt As every schoolchild knows, there are three check-and-balance branches of the U.S.…
By Cathy Stripe Lester On August 5, Michigan taxpayers will be asked to vote on Proposition 1, which is being presented in commercials as a way to “help small businesses and create…
By Hanni Fakhoury via EFF The Fourth Amendment protects us from “unreasonable” government searches of our persons, houses, papers and effects. How courts should determine what is and isn’t reasonable in our…
CNN points out that President Obama’s forthright condemnation of Bush administration-era CIA torture could cause legal problems for Agency employees, and that the Congressional report he was talking about avoided that diction.…
By Jon Queally, Commondreams Yes, Admits CIA Chief, We Spied on Senate Panel Investigating Torture The findings of an internal investigation at the Central Intelligence Agency made available to the public on…
RT Redacted Tonight: “House Speaker John Boehner is suing President Obama. Is it for drone bombing or NSA surveillance? Of course not!” RT America: “You Won’t Believe The Latest Constitutional Crisis”
Colbert Report: “Rising Calls for Obama’s Impeachment” The Colbert ReportGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Colbert Report on Facebook ——
By Cenk Uygur “Just one day after international watchdogs said Iran was complying with demands to scale back its nuclear program, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) called for the country to be bombed…
By Naomi Oreskes via Tomdispatch.com Albert Einstein is rumored to have said that one cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that led to it. Yet this is precisely what we…
Foreign Policy
Only Mideast Democracy? In Midst of War, Israel Clamps Down on Dissent
By Sarah Lazare As a tenuous ceasefire takes hold, the besieged Gaza strip must contend with the path of death and destruction left by Israel’s month-long military assault, including 1,939 Palestinian lives…
Families of Afghan Civilians Killed by US/NATO Cannot get Justice
By Bruce Pannier via RFE/RL Amnesty International has released a report documenting the inability of the families of Afghan civilians killed in attacks by U.S. and other foreign forces to obtain justice.…
The Politics of Energy and the Destabilization of Palestine
By Tareq Ramadan The latest Israeli military campaign directed towards the 139-square mile, densely-populated Palestinian Gaza Strip has already led to the deaths of more than 1,900 Palestinians[i] (more than 80% are…
The Appeal of Intervention: New Iraqi Premier, Libyan Parliament ask for Int’l Troops
By Juan Cole According to a spokesman for his Da’wa Party (Islamic Call or Islamic Mission), Iraq’s prime minister-designate Haydar al-Abadi is preparing a platform on the basis of which he will…
Arab Youth and the Changing Middle East (HuffPo Cole Interview)
By Juan Cole Huffington Post Live Highlight: Juan Cole, “The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East” Related book: The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing…
Iraq Intervention? More like Ceaseless Escalation
By Elliott Colla, author of Baghdad Central While visiting Baghdad last year, I was struck by what Iraqis said every time I tried to apologize for the 2003 invasion: “Don’t apologize for…
Need for Tough Love: Defending the Gaza Assault Hurts Israeli, American Interests
By Gregory Harms Almost two-thirds of Americans feel Israel’s operations in Gaza were justified. When given sufficient information, and when thinking outside ideological parameters, Americans commonly draw reasonable conclusions and are in…
Blown Chances in Gaza Israel and the U.S. Miss Many Chances to Avoid War
By Sandy Tolan via Tomdispatch.com Alongside the toll of death and broken lives, perhaps the saddest reality of the latest Gaza war, like the Gaza wars before it, is how easy it…
Iraq: Al-Abadi garners Iranian, US, Saudi Support: But can He Unite Iraq?
By Juan Cole Middle Eastern regional powers joined the US in welcoming the appointment of Haydar al-Abadi as Iraq’s next Prime Minister, creating a dorm full of strange bedfellows. The chairman of…
Hundreds, if not Thousands will Die: Film Crew finds Iraqi Yezidis still Trapped on Mountain
Channel 4 News “Dramatic footage as our Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Rugman helps drag dehydrated children to the back of a military helicopter who have fled Islamic State forces in northern Iraq.…
Israel Drones Gaza Human Rights Worker to Death
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A rights group Monday condemned an Israeli drone attack on Gaza that killed a Palestinian worker for a human rights organization the day before, a statement said. The Palestinian…
Gaza and the Palestine Crisis in History: World War II
By William R. Polk At the outbreak of World War II, both Palestinians and Zionists enlisted in large numbers — 21,000 Jews and 8,000 Palestinians — to help the British in their…
The Long Knives Come out in Baghdad
By Juan Cole The coup-like atmosphere created by Nouri al-Maliki’s stationing of his troops at the Green Zone, checkpoints and bridges in Baghdad on late Sunday backfired on him with Iraq’s parliamentarians.…
Nightmare in Iraq
Joe Stork via Human Rights Watch Fearing for their lives, more than 150,000 Yezidis fled Sinjar and surrounding villages to mountains north of the city on August 3, 2014 when the Islamic…
Gaza and the struggle for Palestine: the 1930s
By William R. Polk Annoyed but not deterred, the British Colonial Office decided in the 1930s, as it was then also doing in India, to crack down hard on the “troublemakers.” It…
Palestinian Education: another victim of Israel’s Gaza War
By Aimee Shalan and Samer Abdelnour Al-Shabaka is an independent non-profit organization whose mission is to educate and foster public debate on Palestinian human rights and self-determination within the framework of international…
Iraq: Is al-Maliki Preparing to Make a Coup?
Nouri al-Maliki, who is seeking a third term as prime minister of Iraq in the teeth of widespread opposition, abruptly began acting like a strongman on Sunday night. He went on television…
Israel can’t Afford to Lose Jews Like Me
by DAVID H. SCHANZER for ISLAMiCommentary David Schanzer Writing in the New York Times . . . , columnist Shmuel Rosner labeled non-Israeli liberal Jews that are becoming more estranged from modern…
The Israeli assault has caused $150 million damage to Gaza food industry
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — The Israeli offensive on Gaza has caused “huge losses” for the already-struggling food industry in the coastal enclave, a national industry association said . . . [last week].…
The US intervened again in Iraq in Part to Save the Yazidis: Who are They?
By Petr Kubalek via RFE/RL Islamic militants this week encircled thousands of members of the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq, prompting the Obama administration to carry out humanitarian air drops to the…