By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – People in Syria’s norther town of Manbij, now entirely liberated from the rule of Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), rejoiced on Saturday. Men shaved their beards (which had been imposed on them by the fundamentalists) and women threw off their burqas (full-face veils) and burned them. The burqa […]
Archives for August 2016
Climate Change Terror as Deserts Bury 2/3s of African Lands
By Baher Kamal | (Inter Press Service) | – – ROME, (IPS) – Two-thirds of the African continent is already desert or dry-lands. But while this vast extension of the second largest continent on Earth after Asia is “vital” for agriculture and food production, nearly three-fourths of it is estimated to be degraded to varying […]
ISIL fighter number falls to 15,000 as Manbij capture Cuts off Route to Europe
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | AP is reporting that Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland maintains that the number of ISIL fighters in Syria and Iraq is in steep decline, having fallen to as little as 15,000, down from 25,000 at the organization’s height. In Iraq the organization has lost Tikrit, Beiji, Mt. Sinjar, Sinjar, […]
Monsters to Destroy: Top 7 Reasons the US could not have forestalled Syrian Civil War
by Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The interventionist temptation, muted since the Iraq imbroglio, is now returning. Sec. Clinton’s team are already talking about taking steps to remove Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad from office as soon as they get into the White House. An excellent and principled NYT columnist called the non-intervention […]
If the Military had Permission to Speak Freely: They might rescue us from the Politicians’ Forever War
By William J. Astore | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – The United States is now engaged in perpetual war with victory nowhere in sight. Iraq is chaotic and scarred. So, too, is Libya. Syria barely exists. After 15 years, “progress” in Afghanistan has proven eminently reversible as efforts to rollback recent Taliban gains continue to […]
How labor’s decline opened door to billionaire Trump as ‘savior’ of American workers
By Raymond Hogler | (The Conversation) | – – Out of the economic maelstrom of the last decade, Donald Trump has emerged as the improbable, and self-proclaimed, champion of American workers. And that’s despite the fact that Trump has failed to articulate substantive policy positions regarding labor issues, other than generic railing against foreign competition […]
No, Obama did not found ISIL, Mr. Trump: That was the GOP
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump in his daily free association exercise accused President Obama of creating Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) in Iraq by withdrawing troops from that country in 2011. It is an accusation he has in past made against Sec. Clinton, but now he is shifting blame to Obama. Obama […]
Trump threatens Sec. Clinton with Gun Nuts, imitates Tinpot 3rd World Regimes
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald Trump said Tuesday there was nothing that his supporters could do if Hillary Clinton won and got “to pick her judges.” Then he “thought” a moment and amended his pessimism: “Though the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.” Former CIA director Michael […]
A Sucker is born Every Minute: Our Election From Hell
By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Yep, it finally happened. In early May, after a long, long run, the elephants of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus were ushered into retirement in Florida where they will finish their days aiding cancer research. The Greatest Show on Earth was done […]
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