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Archives for 2011

al-Qaeda
Top Ten Reasons Radical Jihadis shouldn’t have Threatened David Letterman

Top Ten Reasons Radical Jihadis shouldn’t have Threatened David Letterman

Juan Cole

Top Ten Reasons Radical Jihadis shouldn’t have Threatened David Letterman 10. David is The Man 9. You really don’t want David relentlessly making fun of you in revenge; ask Madonna. 8. David has survived that thing on his head for years, he can survive some fool wearing pajamas using his mother’s computer to threaten comedians […]

Egypt
Campbell: Egypt’s Spring Becomes a Long Hot Summer

Campbell: Egypt’s Spring Becomes a Long Hot Summer

Juan Cole

Dennis Campbell writes in a guest column for Informed Comment : Egypt’s Spring Becomes a Long Hot Summer Democracy is messy. Freedom is contagious. For 18 days in January and February, the world sat on the edge of its seats watching an Egyptian people yearning to breathe free. The overthrow of Hosni Mubarak by a […]

Libya
Qaddafi Explores Routes to Flee Libya as Rebels Advance

Qaddafi Explores Routes to Flee Libya as Rebels Advance

Juan Cole

Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi is ill and is seeking a way to flee the country, according to the Arabic news site Albawaba.com. This report is plausible if only because Qaddafi’s performance on Sunday, in which he released a jumbled and mostly inaudible speech to state media for broadcast, raised questions as to whether he is […]

Uncategorized
Historical Question for Governor Perry

Historical Question for Governor Perry

Juan Cole

Dear Rick Perry: I am a historian and if you will indulge me, I’d just like to ask you a question about historical parallels. So if we were living in Germany’s Weimar Republiic and it was 1930, and a politician warned a central banker that his policies were treasonous to the nation, and threatened to […]

Libya
Tripoli Surrounded, Cut Off

Tripoli Surrounded, Cut Off

Juan Cole

Aljazeera Arabic is reporting directly from Zawiya (to the west of Tripoli along the Mediterranean), where Free Libya forces have liberated some 80 percent of the city, all but the eastern areas and the refinery. People in most of Zawiya look pretty happy about the end of their ordeal. Stories are coming out about arbitrary […]

Uncategorized
President Bachmann as Mideast Prophet: Cole/ Truthdig

President Bachmann as Mideast Prophet: Cole/ Truthdig

Juan Cole

My column in Truthdig is now out, “President Bachmann: Another Mideast Messiah” Excerpt: “Bachmann recently alleged that Iran had been “delivered a nuclear warhead” (this assertion, like many of Bachmann’s bromides, is simply untrue). That Bachmann would be a hawk on Iran, favoring at least covert intervention, probably via the MEK, and perhaps even military […]

Iraq
Iraq Bombings unlikely to Change Minds on US Troop Withdrawal

Iraq Bombings unlikely to Change Minds on US Troop Withdrawal

Juan Cole

Some 80 people were killed and over two hundred wounded on Monday in a clearly coordinated set of bombings and attacks in 17 Iraqi cities. The prime suspect is radicalized Sunni Arabs who are typically called “al-Qaeda” in Iraq even though they likely have little connection to the original. The biggest toll came from two […]

Libya
Rebels Advance, Surround Tripoli, as Qaddafi Totters

Rebels Advance, Surround Tripoli, as Qaddafi Totters

Juan Cole

The long slow slog of the Libyan struggle to throw off the rule of Muammar Qaddafi, accelerated this weekend, possibly decisively, with rebel forces making major advances. Tripoli was said to be ready to embrace the rebel youth when they came into the capital. Free Libya forces made substantial advances over the weekend, coming up […]

Uncategorized
Rick Perry and the Hucksterism of the Rich

Rick Perry and the Hucksterism of the Rich

Juan Cole

Rick Perry’s announcement of his presidential ambitions marks the triumph of fantasy over reality in American politics. Among our more pressing problems are global climate change caused by human production of greenhouse gases; religious fanaticism and interference in governance; and the structural deficit faced by the US government It used to be that political divisions […]

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