By Arlie Russell Hochschild | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – [This essay has been adapted from Arlie Hochschild’s new book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right (The New Press), which will be published on September 6th.] Sometimes you have to go a long, long way to discover truths […]
Archives for August 2016
America’s Shameful Record on Syrian Refugees
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US government played a role in the collapse of Syria. It continually placed sanctions on this little country, including the 2003 Syrian Accountability act. By 2013 the CIA was apparently passing medium weaponry through Saudi Arabia to fundamentalist militias, the ideology of which cannot easily […]
US: Turkish-backed campaign against our Allies in Syria ‘unacceptable’
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – On Sunday evening, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told a rally in Gaziantep, a city near the border with Syria, “We will make any kind of contribution to the work to clear Daesh [ISIL] from Syria.” This pledge should have been music to Washington’s ears, since Turkey […]
In Boon for EVs, Solar Panels, California will roll back CO2 Emissions to 40% Below 1990
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The California legislature worked on a carbon dioxide emissions reduction bill for a year, and is finally sending it to the governor for his signature. It is one of the more ambitious pieces of CO2 legislation by any US state, more resembling policies of the European […]
America’s Syria SNAFU: Pentagon’s Militias fight Turkey & CIA’s Militias
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Turkish incursion into Syria at Jarabulus was advertised as an attack on a Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) stronghold and smuggling station in conjunction with (fundamentalist) remnants of the Free Syrian Army. But the southern outskirts of Jarabulus had already fallen to the Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, […]
The Russian Challenge to U.S. Policy in Africa
Gregory Alonso Pirio and Robert Pittelli | Informed Comment | – – The United States and its Western allies, for the most part, consider the Cold War long over, and with the sanctions levied against Russia in 2014 in response to its confiscation of Crimea from the Ukraine, many in the corridors of Washington tend […]
French Court lifts Municipal Burkini Ban; & Why should you care what other people wear?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Nicolas Cadène, in an interview at L’Express analyzes the French court ruling issued Friday that struck down the ban by the mayor of Villeneuve-Loubet on Muslim women wearing modest clothing at the public beach. The ban was on the burkini, invented by a Lebanese fashion designer […]
ISIL sends families out of Mosul as Kurdish, Iraqi Army Forces advance
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Iraqi military forces have taken the strategic town of al-Qayarah near the major city of Mosul from Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). Mosul is the last major city in the hands of the apocalyptic, brutal cult as it has lost almost all the territory it took in 2014. […]
The Great Mexican Wall Deception
By Todd Miller | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – At the federal courthouse, Ignacio Sarabia asks the magistrate judge, Jacqueline Rateau, if he can explain why he crossed the international boundary between the two countries without authorization. He has already pleaded guilty to the federal misdemeanor commonly known as “illegal entry” and is about to receive […]