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Juan Cole

Uncategorized
Mr. Olmert, Tear Down this Wall!

Mr. Olmert, Tear Down this Wall!

Juan Cole

The Egyptian government mounted a small demonstration of defiance of the Olmert government in Israel on Thursday. Palestinians destroyed the blast walls that artificially box them in to the tiny, slummy Gaza Strip and cut them off from their natural markets in Egypt. Perhaps a fourth of Gaza’s population then flooded into the nearby Egyptian […]

Iraq
935 False Statements that Led a Nation to War

935 False Statements that Led a Nation to War

Juan Cole

The Center for Public Integrity has published a study finding that ‘President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security […]

Iraq
Barzani charges Michael Rubin with Libel

Barzani charges Michael Rubin with Libel

Juan Cole

The USG Open Source Center translates a letter from Kurdistan Regional Authority leader Massoud Barzani slamming the Hawlati newspaper for having published in Kurdish an article by Neoconservative operative Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, which had accused Barzani and Iraqi president Jalal Talabani of embezzling large sums of money. Barzani offers to give […]

Iraq
2 US Troops Killed; 20 Injured in School Blast; Assassination Attempt Kills 18; Weekend Cult Casualty toll 278

2 US Troops Killed; 20 Injured in School Blast; Assassination Attempt Kills 18; Weekend Cult Casualty toll 278

Juan Cole

On Tuesday morning in Iraq, a suicide bomber walked into a school in downtown Baquba and detonated his payload, killing a guard and wounding 20 students and teachers. Baquba, a city of 200,000, is the capital of the key Diyala Province that lies between Baghdad and Iran. It is a mixed province, some 60% Sunni […]

Iraq
Iraq Dominates Testy Dem Debate

Iraq Dominates Testy Dem Debate

Juan Cole

Iraq as an issue was back front and center in Iraq on Monday in the South Carolina presidential debate among the Democratic candidates. Barack Obama complained that his record of opposing the Iraq War had been distorted by Bill Clinton, who had called the image of steadfast consistency on Obama’s part in that regard a […]

Uncategorized
Israeli Victory over Asthmatics, Newborns in Gaza

Israeli Victory over Asthmatics, Newborns in Gaza

Juan Cole

The humanitarian impact of Israel’s electricity blockade of the Gaza Strip. Raw sewage in the streets, which will soon seep into houses; asthmatics choking; hospitals on the verge of switching off life support. Robert Malley of the International Crisis Group is eloquent in the Boston Globe/ IHT on why this Israeli tactic is self-defeating. But […]

Iraq
King: War Cannot Achieve Even a Negative Good

King: War Cannot Achieve Even a Negative Good

Juan Cole

Martin Luther King will be honored today throughout America as a champion of racial justice and racial harmony. That is a pivotal legacy for the United States of America, which for 87 long years was built on the lawful enslavement of one race by another, and for another century practiced the lawful Apartheid of Jim […]

Uncategorized
Israeli Atrocity on Gaza Civilians

Israeli Atrocity on Gaza Civilians

Juan Cole

It is a perfect time for the Israeli government to commit a war crime on the miserable civilians of the Gaza Strip. The US primary season has created a news blackout on US television about foreign news (apparently the public of the world’s sole superpower is not estimated by corporate news executives to be able […]

Iraq
Iraq is Still a Bad Bargain

Iraq is Still a Bad Bargain

Juan Cole

Andrew Bacevich eviscerates the Iraq War party with this passionate and clear-sighted essay on ‘the Surge to Nowhere’ in WaPo. He points out that the real motivation behind last year’s troop escalation was to avoid popular outrage building in the US electorate to the point where the troops were pulled out. He observes that the […]

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