Juan Cole

British Storm Basra Jail with Tanks Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times gives the only account of alarming events in Basra I have yet seen that makes sense. The Guardian seems to me to have left out some key information. Anyway, here’s my timeline for what happened. September 5: The BBC reports that “Fusilier […]

Muqtada Al-Sadr’s Response to Basra Events – Achcar Translation Gilbert Achcar writes: “The office of Muqtada al-Sadr published tonight (Sept 19) the following press release that I have translated from Arabic FYI. It is — of course, one might say — in full contradiction with the official version of the British Ministry of Defence.” Statement […]

Iranian Television on Basra Tensions BBC World Monitoring translated this report on Al-Alam, the Iranian Arabic-language satellite program, on Sept. 14: September 14, 2005, Wednesday Basra residents blame UK troop “violations” for increase in militant attacks SOURCE: Al-Alam TV, Tehran, in Arabic 17:13 GMT, 14 Sep 05 BODY:Text of report by Iranian Arabic language television […]

Evolve TV Evolve TV’s “The Issue” will be a web-based hard-hitting interview program on public and foreign affairs. Now that PBS is being increasingly politicized, and given the dreadful state of corporate media, who often baby sit us with small town murder mysteries instead of giving us real news, this web-based model of journalism may […]

One to Two Billion Dollars Missing at Ministry of Defense Hannah Allam of Knight Ridder broke the story this past summer that a billion dollars was missing at the ministry of defense, according to a government audit. Patrick Cockburn of the Independent now confirms that report based on his own sources, saying that actually between […]

Member of Parliament killed 24 Bodies Found The deputy speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Husain Shahristani, had the final text of the constitution “read” in parliament so as to meet a criterion for the validity of the process in the eyes of the United Nations. The parliament did not vote on the draft, contrary to […]

The Egyptian Elections and Bush’s War My article, “Bush’s war and the Egyptian elections”, which argues that “Mubarak’s rigged victory shows that right-wing predictions of an “Arab spring” were wishful thinking.” – is out at Salon.com. ‘The groundhog did not see its shadow in Egypt last week. Hosni Mubarak’s victory in the Egyptian presidential election […]

Security Situation in Baghdad Sinking like the Titanic An observer in Iraq writes to me: “The situation has deteriorated in Baghdad dramatically today. Five neighborhoods (hay) in Baghdad are controlled by insurgents, and they are Amiraya, Ghazilya, Shurta, Yarmouk and Doura. It is very bad. My guys there report that cars have come into these […]

52 Dead, Dozens Wounded Guerrilla violence, including a massive car bomb, killed 52 Iraqis on Saturday. The biggest incident occurred at a market at Nahrawan, a town just east of Baghdad that is largely Shiite, where a car bomber killed 30 persons and wounded another 38. Another bombing took place at Baqubah, killing at least […]