Excellent post that makes way too much sense in our 6 second sound bite culture. As you suggest, people tend to get carried away with all the spooky ideology, but it's really all about proper policing. The perpetrators are not "terrorists", they are criminal filth. And the way to deal with criminals is to systematically infiltrate their networks and take them down. I just hope the Belgians get their act together. It seems their bureaucracy is far from streamlined and is in fact, quite convoluted, which apparently leads to a sort of rigor mortis when it comes time to act.
Thanks for this Juan. I prefer to call anyone who commits these atrocities as mere criminals. They are simply filthy criminals, nothing more, nothing less. The response has to be a heavy and concerted police operation, not a "war".
Thank you for your clearheaded analysis Professor. Clinton is downright odious and we can all expect plenty more wars should she become president.
I'm waiting for you to write about Trump's speech to Aipac. His first line was something like "I'm not a politician, so I didn't come here to pander to Israel." Then, over the next 30 minutes he proceeded to pander to every talking point of the hard line Israelis. Scary stuff.
We are in deep trouble with these two running for president. I think I'm getting depressed.
Count me in as someone who will NEVER vote for HIllary if she is the nominee. At this point it's Bernie or bust. He is the only sane and honest one left. He has developed a terrific narrative and when people who otherwise weren't paying attention get a chance to listen to one of his full speeches, the threads all start to come together and people begin to understand how the system has been rigged against them for way too long.
If it's Hillary vs. Trump, we are in serious, serious trouble.
Mark, are you saying that if we continued to fund the FSA, they would have gone on to topple Assad, take power, install a friendly regime and Damascus becomes the new French Riviera?
It seems US policy makers never learn. Meddling in another country's internal politics, funneling in arms to strangers and toppling governments is nothing but a recipe for disastrous blow back.
One thing we can all agree on is that anyone who kills in the name of religion is a criminal. And the word 'criminal' translates pretty well in ALL languages throughout history.
Thank you Professor, for consistently beating this drum that the US is actually allying with the very people who killed over 3000 people on 9/11, and would perpetrate much worse if they could today.
Perhaps you can delve into the reasons why and how this is allowed to happen. Our diplomats and policy makers are clearly clueless and/or seriously corrupt. The adults in the room had better take charge soon, or this is not going to go well at all.
Time for a Kurdish State, one that is sure to become a beacon of democratic secularism in the heart of the Middle East. Egalitarian, fierce and brave, secular and where women have equal rights and often run the show. Yeah, sounds a whole lot better to ally with the Kurds than the fascist Daesh scum.
Don't you just love it? The CIA has put the US squarely on the side of Al Qaeda.
I'm all for aligning with and helping the heroic and brave Kurds as they are truly on the side of freedom and secularism. But, like you Juan, it is impossible to stomach the fact that we are literally backing the same people who murdered over 3000 Americans on 9/11. How can this have any other result down the line than more trouble and heart break? How can this even be possible?
Thanks for your excellent analysis Juan, even though it's making me sick to my stomach.
At the G20 summit in Turkey, Putin showed pictures of Syria taken from space of convoys and large swaths of wide open land filled with literally hundreds of Daesh oil trucks. He then proceeded to bomb the living s*&t out of these. How come the Americans can't figure this out? Do they want to figure it out? It seems not.
There is simply no way that the US can fight against Daesh while at the same time fund "friendly rebels". They are all on the same side.
The average American has no idea of the duplicitous game their neocon government is playing.
It is unconscionable that the US, through the CIA, is actually arming and supporting the same ilk of people that were behind 9/11. I'm with you Juan; backing these people is a non-starter. This is a recipe for decades of hell and misery and plenty of blow back. If you are a fundamentalist jihadist fanatic, you are not in any way a friend of the US or anyone who loves true freedom. How is it that our military establishment doesn't see this? Or is it that they do see it and it is a deliberate policy? Are we really on the side of Muslim fanatics? Sad, sad indeed.
At this point, who really cares which way the Daesh goons twist things? We already know these cockroaches will twist any words and situations to fit their sick narrative that anybody but them must die.
Ultimately, it's becoming clear that Daesh is really run by a handful of hard and insane criminals left over from Saddam's regime, who have used this jihadi holy war narrative to lure in thousands of duped young men who will all be used as cannon fodder for their goal of power at all costs. We should be thankful they are still pouring in. Having them all in one place makes them easier to crush. Just like cockroaches.
Thank you professor for another enlightening post. Clearly, Putin has exposed the utterly feckless and irresponsible foreign policy of the US. Training unreliable "friendly rebels" was a pipe dream that could only lead to the current disaster that is Syria. Simply getting rid of a dictator we don't like has sure produced the goods. Saddam? yeah that went well. Muammar Gaddafi? Couldn't have turned out better.
If Syria collapses..as what would happen if the US's useless policy were to succeed--the flood of refugees would be even worse. The fanatical goons would step into the breach, and be a 20 hour drive from Russia. Vladi ain't waiting for that to happen.
Say what you will about these secular despots, but Daesh is the worst thing to arise up since Hitler and they mean business. It's truly scary stuff and no matter what the crimes of the likes of Cheney and Bush and Wolfowitz, somebody needs to step in and take control.
Thankfully it appears Putin is doing just this. At least he has a horse in this race. He will ally himself with the Syrian army and the Iranians. And Daesh will get crushed like the slimy cockroaches they are. The day of reckoning of these criminal fascist jihadis is nigh. The next few months will sure be interesting.
And it definitely appears that Obama has once again been outfoxed by Putin and looks like a very weak leader indeed.
The Kurds brave stance against the Daesh slime has got to be the defining moment of this awful conflict. Civilized and free people of the world need to hitch their wagons to the Kurds, back them big time, and insist they get a state of their own. It's seems our only chance. Thank you Kurds and an even bigger salute.
Enough of this awful, bogus charade already. It's time America and the rest of the world recognize the Kurds as an independent nation, arm them to the teeth and let them sort out the Daesh scum. The Kurds are the only ones who have the will and the ability to crush Daesh. They are tough, secular, they are our friends. Juan, can you please enlighten us as to why this is not happening?
Viceroy Paul Bremmer's unfathomable decision to dismiss the entire Iraqi army and leave 400,000 armed and angry men out of a job could turn out to be the single worst strategic decision in the last 500 years of worldwide military history. What an absolute total debacle!
"Countries where there is a separation of religion and state have much less religious violence, because there is no point in deploying religion for political purposes where religion is barred from attaining them."
Thanks for that Juan. It's the lesson of our time. Secularism in government actually keeps people from killing each other over religion. When will the ignorant flocks in religious based societies finally figure this out? It can't come soon enough.
"Secular government can neutralize religious competition for the state of the sort we have seen in post-Bush Iraq, with all its disasters."... A very concise and vitally important statement Professor.
Secular government is THE only way to ensure that people of different religions don't simply slaughter each other over..well.. religion. That's why any government that says we are an "Islamic government" or we are "Jewish state," etc. is doomed over the long term. "Secularism" should be preached to the ends of the earth and religion kept in private where it belongs.
As some of us predicted, the Daesh goons couldn't withstand a good ole fashioned, long drawn out siege. They are toast in the coming months. This was military 101. And somebody please give the Kurds a homeland. If anyone deserves it, they do...
Paul Bremmer dismissing the entire Iraqi army in 2003 has to be one the single dumbest maneuvers in military history. And the war profiteering you write of Juan is another supremely foul aspect of this never ending nightmare. Daesh clearly aren't the only goons we have to deal with.
Sounds like another chance to get Daesh involved in a quagmire like Kobani. I hope everyone involved against these goons turns it into another graveyard full of dumb-ass Daesh cannon fodder.
"We are defending a democratic, secular society of Kurds, Arabs, Muslims and Christians who all face an imminent massacre."
A quote from a woman commander of the resistance in Kobani, in article she wrote, published in today's New York Times. If Americans can't get behind this, then we're a lost cause... link to nytimes.com
Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga are on the way to Kobani as we speak, Jack. The Kurds of Iraq and Syria seem to be uniting, and the Americans are discovering that we actually do have legitimate allies there with like minded ideals(the Kurds). The Daesh barbarians seem to be going all-in in Kobani, which is good. Yes, they'll have some spectacular successes as they begin to throw hail mary passes of outrageousness. But proper military planning means a good long painful dogfight and Kobani is just the place to implement it. Stay tuned....
Thank you Jack. It's really Military 101. IS have way over extended themselves and it's the perfect situation to just let them have it, to get them bogged down in a vicious, violent and demoralizing slog. Their cynical, criminal leaders, who apparently are not so smart, are throwing the idiotic, deluded cannon fodder at Kobani, and now it's starting to take its toll. Defections, turning on each other, defiant shows of force, moving the money to secret hiding places..yeah, the writing is on the wall for these goons.
And yes, JT, military force sometimes does create the desired outcome. Not always, but sometimes.
This is exactly the question I have been wondering and hopefully Professor Cole can expand on this.
You would think that will all that blood and money we spent over there that we might know a few things about how things work. But it's as we are floundering around in the dark. How come we can't intercept their communications and logistics? Since these goons are fighting right out in the open, why don't we just get them bogged down in different places as their leaders use these fanatics as cannon fodder. It just seems like Military Tactics 101.
This just goes to show that the invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003 was and is one of the greatest military blunders in human history. What a total shambles.
I referring to King and Mandela in terms of being able to rise above petty partisanship and to be a statesman, to be bigger than your opponent, to go for win-win solutions, not win-lose solutions which is what most politicians prefer. You didn't quite get that did you?
Have you ever been to Corregidor? It may be a gnat land-wise, but the stalling of the Japanese for 5 months on this gnat had them bogged down, pouring resources into which they thought they could use elsewhere. I would say that's pretty helpful.
Ultimately, the point I'm trying to make is...Daash is fighting like a regular army so if you find allies that are willing to fight them back for control of clearly exposed cities like Kobane, why not supply these allies...the Kurds.. with weapons and bog the goons down in a long drawn out slog? If Erdogan could only rise above his petty parochial politics and allow this, he'd be a statesman of note.
Here is Erdogan's Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King moment all rolled into one. He should help out the Kurds, at least start funneling them weapons so they can protect themselves. It looks like Daash(Islamic Hate) is throwing everything at this dusty border town, Kobane. So why not at least get them bogged down in a slog lasting months?
Doesn't anyone remember Corregidor in the Philippines in 1942? The Japanese thought they would take the island in five days. Instead it took them 5 months. Yes, the Japanese eventually took Corregidor, and sent hundreds of American and Filipinos to slave labor camps in Formosa and Japan. But the Japanese expended so much blood and treasure trying to capture Corregidor that it stalled their advance to Australia and, some say, was the reason they eventually lost the war three years later.
Come on Erdogan! Rise above your petty prejudices and be a real statesman. Help the Kurds bog down the Daash goons. Perhaps the Kurds will be so grateful for your help that they and your fellow Turks can finally make peace and get on with living. And we’ll all stand up and salute you pal.
Juan, I saw that debate. If anything Affleck came off as totally naive. You, I and everyone else reading this website understands that the majority of Muslims just want to live their lives, same like the majority of humanity the world over. However, these are not really the people that freedom loving folks everywhere need to worry about. It's the fanatics that need to be taken down, disrupted and eliminated because their murderous and vile ideology in the name of Islam is spreading, and they are the ones who will stop at nothing to spread it.
All these friendly down home Muslims that you and Ben like to talk about are no different than ordinary German people who were intimidated into submission by the Nazis, the regular Russian folk who could do nothing while their murderous leaders like Stalin created tyranny for decades, the simple Cambodians who stood by while the psychotic Khmer Rouge slaughtered anyone with an education. They, like this majority of ordinary Muslims, were all cowed into silence while the ones with the weapons and power murdered their way into the Criminal Hall of Fame. Yes, radical, violent Islam is scary stuff, especially now that these goons have the internet to instantly bring their hatred worldwide. And they know their tactics work, because they have cowed people and governments into acquiescence and silence.
People who love freedom, and all its craziness, flaws and beautiful quirks need to stop apologizing for our way of life and start standing up and letting their voices be heard and I think westerners and people who live in progressive countries are starting to realize this now. Radical Wahabbi Muslim lunatics are setting the agenda and drowning out moderate voices in Islam through fear, intimidation and outright murder. Until this sick ideology is confronted and eliminated, by whatever means, and these ordinary folks, the ones Ben loves so much, stand up and confront it as well, then you can’t blame people for thinking that Islam is a violent, twisted and archaic religion.
I've been telling people for years. The US and Iran are natural allies, in so many ways, on so many levels. It will take people with courage, like Professor Cole, to stand up and say it with conviction and make people see the light, that this is the only way forward.
Thanks for the excellent analysis Juan. Yet another example of how Iraq was the biggest military blunder in the history of the US, if not the biggest in the history of warfare anywhere. Despite the US media basically ignoring Iraq now, the entire world is still paying a high price for this outrageous American arrogance and subsequent war crimes. Shameful indeed.
Brilliant and courageous analysis professor. The best I've read on the subject. America and Iran are natural allies, if only people can see it as you just described. I've been thinking this for some while and you have spelled it out clear as day. Thank you for writing this. Keep up the excellent work.
This is just incredible. Here we go again. Nothing good can come of getting involved with these people. It's a complete no-brainer that arming the rebels will come back to haunt us. We are aiding the very kinds of people we claim to abhor, the very mentality we just spent tens of trillions of dollars of borrowed money to try and destroy...and only made worse!
You'd think that all these over-educated people in Washington and London would know this. Which leads me to believe that this is all being done for other reasons that clearly have nothing to do with democracy and human rights. Like massive, criminal war-profiteering, for one.
The Iraq debacle must go down as one of the biggest military blunders in human history. The arrogance of it all is astounding! This disgusting, shameful episode in American history is still reverberating worldwide to this day and will be for years to come. Anyone who profited from this will surely be cursed for generations to come.
Professor, are you absolutely sure that the Neanderthals are extinct?
Excellent post that makes way too much sense in our 6 second sound bite culture. As you suggest, people tend to get carried away with all the spooky ideology, but it's really all about proper policing. The perpetrators are not "terrorists", they are criminal filth. And the way to deal with criminals is to systematically infiltrate their networks and take them down. I just hope the Belgians get their act together. It seems their bureaucracy is far from streamlined and is in fact, quite convoluted, which apparently leads to a sort of rigor mortis when it comes time to act.
Thanks for this Juan. I prefer to call anyone who commits these atrocities as mere criminals. They are simply filthy criminals, nothing more, nothing less. The response has to be a heavy and concerted police operation, not a "war".
Thank you for your clearheaded analysis Professor. Clinton is downright odious and we can all expect plenty more wars should she become president.
I'm waiting for you to write about Trump's speech to Aipac. His first line was something like "I'm not a politician, so I didn't come here to pander to Israel." Then, over the next 30 minutes he proceeded to pander to every talking point of the hard line Israelis. Scary stuff.
We are in deep trouble with these two running for president. I think I'm getting depressed.
Count me in as someone who will NEVER vote for HIllary if she is the nominee. At this point it's Bernie or bust. He is the only sane and honest one left. He has developed a terrific narrative and when people who otherwise weren't paying attention get a chance to listen to one of his full speeches, the threads all start to come together and people begin to understand how the system has been rigged against them for way too long.
If it's Hillary vs. Trump, we are in serious, serious trouble.
Mark, are you saying that if we continued to fund the FSA, they would have gone on to topple Assad, take power, install a friendly regime and Damascus becomes the new French Riviera?
It seems US policy makers never learn. Meddling in another country's internal politics, funneling in arms to strangers and toppling governments is nothing but a recipe for disastrous blow back.
One thing we can all agree on is that anyone who kills in the name of religion is a criminal. And the word 'criminal' translates pretty well in ALL languages throughout history.
Thank you Professor, for consistently beating this drum that the US is actually allying with the very people who killed over 3000 people on 9/11, and would perpetrate much worse if they could today.
Perhaps you can delve into the reasons why and how this is allowed to happen. Our diplomats and policy makers are clearly clueless and/or seriously corrupt. The adults in the room had better take charge soon, or this is not going to go well at all.
Wow. Simply sensational observations Professor. Thank you for writing this. That's a keeper.
Time for a Kurdish State, one that is sure to become a beacon of democratic secularism in the heart of the Middle East. Egalitarian, fierce and brave, secular and where women have equal rights and often run the show. Yeah, sounds a whole lot better to ally with the Kurds than the fascist Daesh scum.
Don't you just love it? The CIA has put the US squarely on the side of Al Qaeda.
I'm all for aligning with and helping the heroic and brave Kurds as they are truly on the side of freedom and secularism. But, like you Juan, it is impossible to stomach the fact that we are literally backing the same people who murdered over 3000 Americans on 9/11. How can this have any other result down the line than more trouble and heart break? How can this even be possible?
Thanks for your excellent analysis Juan, even though it's making me sick to my stomach.
At the G20 summit in Turkey, Putin showed pictures of Syria taken from space of convoys and large swaths of wide open land filled with literally hundreds of Daesh oil trucks. He then proceeded to bomb the living s*&t out of these. How come the Americans can't figure this out? Do they want to figure it out? It seems not.
There is simply no way that the US can fight against Daesh while at the same time fund "friendly rebels". They are all on the same side.
The average American has no idea of the duplicitous game their neocon government is playing.
It is unconscionable that the US, through the CIA, is actually arming and supporting the same ilk of people that were behind 9/11. I'm with you Juan; backing these people is a non-starter. This is a recipe for decades of hell and misery and plenty of blow back. If you are a fundamentalist jihadist fanatic, you are not in any way a friend of the US or anyone who loves true freedom. How is it that our military establishment doesn't see this? Or is it that they do see it and it is a deliberate policy? Are we really on the side of Muslim fanatics? Sad, sad indeed.
At this point, who really cares which way the Daesh goons twist things? We already know these cockroaches will twist any words and situations to fit their sick narrative that anybody but them must die.
Ultimately, it's becoming clear that Daesh is really run by a handful of hard and insane criminals left over from Saddam's regime, who have used this jihadi holy war narrative to lure in thousands of duped young men who will all be used as cannon fodder for their goal of power at all costs. We should be thankful they are still pouring in. Having them all in one place makes them easier to crush. Just like cockroaches.
Thank you professor for another enlightening post. Clearly, Putin has exposed the utterly feckless and irresponsible foreign policy of the US. Training unreliable "friendly rebels" was a pipe dream that could only lead to the current disaster that is Syria. Simply getting rid of a dictator we don't like has sure produced the goods. Saddam? yeah that went well. Muammar Gaddafi? Couldn't have turned out better.
If Syria collapses..as what would happen if the US's useless policy were to succeed--the flood of refugees would be even worse. The fanatical goons would step into the breach, and be a 20 hour drive from Russia. Vladi ain't waiting for that to happen.
Say what you will about these secular despots, but Daesh is the worst thing to arise up since Hitler and they mean business. It's truly scary stuff and no matter what the crimes of the likes of Cheney and Bush and Wolfowitz, somebody needs to step in and take control.
Thankfully it appears Putin is doing just this. At least he has a horse in this race. He will ally himself with the Syrian army and the Iranians. And Daesh will get crushed like the slimy cockroaches they are. The day of reckoning of these criminal fascist jihadis is nigh. The next few months will sure be interesting.
And it definitely appears that Obama has once again been outfoxed by Putin and looks like a very weak leader indeed.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq...the gift that keeps on giving.
Seriously good quality journalism. Thank you for painting this harrowing picture of out and out greed and capitalism run amok. Bravo...
The Kurds brave stance against the Daesh slime has got to be the defining moment of this awful conflict. Civilized and free people of the world need to hitch their wagons to the Kurds, back them big time, and insist they get a state of their own. It's seems our only chance. Thank you Kurds and an even bigger salute.
If you look up the meaning of "cluster f&%K" in the dictionary, you'll see "the American invasion of Iraq" as the very first definition.
Enough of this awful, bogus charade already. It's time America and the rest of the world recognize the Kurds as an independent nation, arm them to the teeth and let them sort out the Daesh scum. The Kurds are the only ones who have the will and the ability to crush Daesh. They are tough, secular, they are our friends. Juan, can you please enlighten us as to why this is not happening?
Viceroy Paul Bremmer's unfathomable decision to dismiss the entire Iraqi army and leave 400,000 armed and angry men out of a job could turn out to be the single worst strategic decision in the last 500 years of worldwide military history. What an absolute total debacle!
Wow, that's some seriously good commentary there Juan. Thank you for that.
"Countries where there is a separation of religion and state have much less religious violence, because there is no point in deploying religion for political purposes where religion is barred from attaining them."
Thanks for that Juan. It's the lesson of our time. Secularism in government actually keeps people from killing each other over religion. When will the ignorant flocks in religious based societies finally figure this out? It can't come soon enough.
"Secular government can neutralize religious competition for the state of the sort we have seen in post-Bush Iraq, with all its disasters."... A very concise and vitally important statement Professor.
Secular government is THE only way to ensure that people of different religions don't simply slaughter each other over..well.. religion. That's why any government that says we are an "Islamic government" or we are "Jewish state," etc. is doomed over the long term. "Secularism" should be preached to the ends of the earth and religion kept in private where it belongs.
As some of us predicted, the Daesh goons couldn't withstand a good ole fashioned, long drawn out siege. They are toast in the coming months. This was military 101. And somebody please give the Kurds a homeland. If anyone deserves it, they do...
Paul Bremmer dismissing the entire Iraqi army in 2003 has to be one the single dumbest maneuvers in military history. And the war profiteering you write of Juan is another supremely foul aspect of this never ending nightmare. Daesh clearly aren't the only goons we have to deal with.
Sounds like another chance to get Daesh involved in a quagmire like Kobani. I hope everyone involved against these goons turns it into another graveyard full of dumb-ass Daesh cannon fodder.
"We are defending a democratic, secular society of Kurds, Arabs, Muslims and Christians who all face an imminent massacre."
A quote from a woman commander of the resistance in Kobani, in article she wrote, published in today's New York Times. If Americans can't get behind this, then we're a lost cause...
link to nytimes.com
Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga are on the way to Kobani as we speak, Jack. The Kurds of Iraq and Syria seem to be uniting, and the Americans are discovering that we actually do have legitimate allies there with like minded ideals(the Kurds). The Daesh barbarians seem to be going all-in in Kobani, which is good. Yes, they'll have some spectacular successes as they begin to throw hail mary passes of outrageousness. But proper military planning means a good long painful dogfight and Kobani is just the place to implement it. Stay tuned....
Thank you Jack. It's really Military 101. IS have way over extended themselves and it's the perfect situation to just let them have it, to get them bogged down in a vicious, violent and demoralizing slog. Their cynical, criminal leaders, who apparently are not so smart, are throwing the idiotic, deluded cannon fodder at Kobani, and now it's starting to take its toll. Defections, turning on each other, defiant shows of force, moving the money to secret hiding places..yeah, the writing is on the wall for these goons.
And yes, JT, military force sometimes does create the desired outcome. Not always, but sometimes.
This is exactly the question I have been wondering and hopefully Professor Cole can expand on this.
You would think that will all that blood and money we spent over there that we might know a few things about how things work. But it's as we are floundering around in the dark. How come we can't intercept their communications and logistics? Since these goons are fighting right out in the open, why don't we just get them bogged down in different places as their leaders use these fanatics as cannon fodder. It just seems like Military Tactics 101.
Can anyone answer these questions?
This just goes to show that the invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003 was and is one of the greatest military blunders in human history. What a total shambles.
I referring to King and Mandela in terms of being able to rise above petty partisanship and to be a statesman, to be bigger than your opponent, to go for win-win solutions, not win-lose solutions which is what most politicians prefer. You didn't quite get that did you?
Have you ever been to Corregidor? It may be a gnat land-wise, but the stalling of the Japanese for 5 months on this gnat had them bogged down, pouring resources into which they thought they could use elsewhere. I would say that's pretty helpful.
Ultimately, the point I'm trying to make is...Daash is fighting like a regular army so if you find allies that are willing to fight them back for control of clearly exposed cities like Kobane, why not supply these allies...the Kurds.. with weapons and bog the goons down in a long drawn out slog? If Erdogan could only rise above his petty parochial politics and allow this, he'd be a statesman of note.
Here is Erdogan's Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King moment all rolled into one. He should help out the Kurds, at least start funneling them weapons so they can protect themselves. It looks like Daash(Islamic Hate) is throwing everything at this dusty border town, Kobane. So why not at least get them bogged down in a slog lasting months?
Doesn't anyone remember Corregidor in the Philippines in 1942? The Japanese thought they would take the island in five days. Instead it took them 5 months. Yes, the Japanese eventually took Corregidor, and sent hundreds of American and Filipinos to slave labor camps in Formosa and Japan. But the Japanese expended so much blood and treasure trying to capture Corregidor that it stalled their advance to Australia and, some say, was the reason they eventually lost the war three years later.
Come on Erdogan! Rise above your petty prejudices and be a real statesman. Help the Kurds bog down the Daash goons. Perhaps the Kurds will be so grateful for your help that they and your fellow Turks can finally make peace and get on with living. And we’ll all stand up and salute you pal.
Juan, I saw that debate. If anything Affleck came off as totally naive. You, I and everyone else reading this website understands that the majority of Muslims just want to live their lives, same like the majority of humanity the world over. However, these are not really the people that freedom loving folks everywhere need to worry about. It's the fanatics that need to be taken down, disrupted and eliminated because their murderous and vile ideology in the name of Islam is spreading, and they are the ones who will stop at nothing to spread it.
All these friendly down home Muslims that you and Ben like to talk about are no different than ordinary German people who were intimidated into submission by the Nazis, the regular Russian folk who could do nothing while their murderous leaders like Stalin created tyranny for decades, the simple Cambodians who stood by while the psychotic Khmer Rouge slaughtered anyone with an education. They, like this majority of ordinary Muslims, were all cowed into silence while the ones with the weapons and power murdered their way into the Criminal Hall of Fame. Yes, radical, violent Islam is scary stuff, especially now that these goons have the internet to instantly bring their hatred worldwide. And they know their tactics work, because they have cowed people and governments into acquiescence and silence.
People who love freedom, and all its craziness, flaws and beautiful quirks need to stop apologizing for our way of life and start standing up and letting their voices be heard and I think westerners and people who live in progressive countries are starting to realize this now. Radical Wahabbi Muslim lunatics are setting the agenda and drowning out moderate voices in Islam through fear, intimidation and outright murder. Until this sick ideology is confronted and eliminated, by whatever means, and these ordinary folks, the ones Ben loves so much, stand up and confront it as well, then you can’t blame people for thinking that Islam is a violent, twisted and archaic religion.
Religion sucks!
I've been telling people for years. The US and Iran are natural allies, in so many ways, on so many levels. It will take people with courage, like Professor Cole, to stand up and say it with conviction and make people see the light, that this is the only way forward.
Bravo, Professor! One of your best...
Brilliant!
More double speak from the Disappointment-in-Chief
Thanks for the excellent analysis Juan. Yet another example of how Iraq was the biggest military blunder in the history of the US, if not the biggest in the history of warfare anywhere. Despite the US media basically ignoring Iraq now, the entire world is still paying a high price for this outrageous American arrogance and subsequent war crimes. Shameful indeed.
Brilliant and courageous analysis professor. The best I've read on the subject. America and Iran are natural allies, if only people can see it as you just described. I've been thinking this for some while and you have spelled it out clear as day. Thank you for writing this. Keep up the excellent work.
Sheer brilliance Juan. One of your best ever. Thank you for writing it. This should be required reading for all Americans.--An alum from UM('81)
This is just incredible. Here we go again. Nothing good can come of getting involved with these people. It's a complete no-brainer that arming the rebels will come back to haunt us. We are aiding the very kinds of people we claim to abhor, the very mentality we just spent tens of trillions of dollars of borrowed money to try and destroy...and only made worse!
You'd think that all these over-educated people in Washington and London would know this. Which leads me to believe that this is all being done for other reasons that clearly have nothing to do with democracy and human rights. Like massive, criminal war-profiteering, for one.
Cynical? How can you not be!
The Iraq debacle must go down as one of the biggest military blunders in human history. The arrogance of it all is astounding! This disgusting, shameful episode in American history is still reverberating worldwide to this day and will be for years to come. Anyone who profited from this will surely be cursed for generations to come.
This is what men tend to do when there are zero women around.