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Archives for October 2011

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Grossman:  Call your Congressman and Save International Studies in the US!

Grossman: Call your Congressman and Save International Studies in the US!

Juan Cole

The current House of Representatives don’t hold with Amurkins knowin’ ’bout furriners, and seems determined to defund federal support for international studies in the US. The Neoconservative lobbyists have been gunning for these programs for years and want the money given to rightwing think tanks in Washington instead. And whereas in the old days, senatorial […]

Afghanistan
Islamic Law not a problem in Bush’s Afghanistan & Iraq, but a Problem in Libya?

Islamic Law not a problem in Bush’s Afghanistan & Iraq, but a Problem in Libya?

Juan Cole

George W. Bush said of Iraq and Afghanistan,, “I’d like to be a president [known] as somebody who liberated 50 million people…” The 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan [pdf], drafted and passed under the rule of George W. Bush in that country, makes Islam the religion of state and forbids any law that contravenes the sharia […]

Energy
Namibia: Largest Solar Plant in S. Hemisphere Planned

Namibia: Largest Solar Plant in S. Hemisphere Planned

Juan Cole

US-based SSI Energy Solutions plans to construct the largest solar power plant in the southern hemisphere in the southern African country of Namibia (population 2 million). The plant is expected to cost $1.6 to $2 billion US to construct. Namibia typically has 300 days of sunshine a year. Namibia is heavily dependent on imported coal, […]

Syria
Ambassador Ford’s Departure a Defeat for al-Assad

Ambassador Ford’s Departure a Defeat for al-Assad

Juan Cole

With the departure of the US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, from Damascus and the summoning home of Syrian ambassador Emad Moustafa, President Obama’s original Syria policy has now crashed and burned. There is no immediate danger of Obama going in the direction recommended by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), of military action against Syria. But […]

Tunisia
Surprises of the Tunisian Election

Surprises of the Tunisian Election

Juan Cole

Tunisia kicked off the Arab Spring, with its urban crowds effectively protesting the decades-long dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his nepotistic in-laws, the Trabelsi clan. The Tunisians were the first to demonstrate that flashmobs could, if sufficiently determined, outmaneuver the secret police and send a dictator into exile. Even more remarkable than […]

Afghanistan
Karzai:  Afghanistan would Side With Pakistan in War with US

Karzai: Afghanistan would Side With Pakistan in War with US

Juan Cole

Admiral Mike Mullen, outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently told Congress that the Haqqani Network, a guerrilla group accused of hitting the US embassy in Kabul, is an “arm” of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) immediately suggested that if the US military wanted to attack Pakistan, it would have […]

Iraq
US out of Iraq, but Peace remains Elusive

US out of Iraq, but Peace remains Elusive

Juan Cole

The Iraq War is over except for the packing, President Obama announced on Friday. He held out hope that the US would be at peace for the first time since 2001 in the coming years. The Libya war is ending, and US troops will steadily come out of Afghanistan through 2014. Alas, the peace will […]

Libya
Qaddafi’s People’s Temple

Qaddafi’s People’s Temple

Juan Cole

The final weeks of Muammar Qaddafi’s violent and coercive life reminded me vividly of Jim Jones and the People’s Temple Cult. It was obvious from late last August that Qaddafi had lost. The people in his own capital of Tripoli rose up against him in all but a few small neighborhoods, courageously defying his murderous […]

Iraq
Turkey Goes into Iraq after Kurdish Attack

Turkey Goes into Iraq after Kurdish Attack

Juan Cole

Many catastrophes ensued from George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq (launched in order to, he told an astonished and puzzled Jacques Chirac, then French president, thwart the biblical monsters Gog and Magog in the Middle East ahead of the Judgment Day.) Among them was a revival of the Kurdistan Workers Party guerrilla group (Turkish […]

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