Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As I pointed out last week, the most powerful intervention in US politics allowing foreign influence in US elections, which contributed to Trump’s victory in 2016, was the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, (2010) decision. Like Michaelangelo’s God creating Adam with a pointing finger, SCOTUS created out […]
Not Just Ethnicity: Turkey v. Kurds and the Great Divide over Political Islam v. the Secular Left
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Turkey’s incursion into Syria has roiled the Middle East and NATO countries, demonstrating one key polarizing divide on both sides of the Mediterranean. That divide is between supporters of political Islam and its opponents. By political Islam I mean movements like the Muslim Brotherhood that make Islam more than a […]
Is Trump’s Syria Policy about to Loose 12,000 ISIL Terrorists on the World?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Tessa Fox at Al Jazeera writes that Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of U.S. special operations forces from northern Syria in expectation of a Turkish invasion could throw the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia cultivated for the past four years by the US into confusion. Moreover, Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Arab Army may […]
Winners and Losers from Trump throwing Syrian Kurds under the Bus
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The reasons for which the Washington Establishment is appalled at Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of US special operations troops from northern Syria are not necessarily the right ones. Former special presidential envoy for combating ISIL Brett McGurk wrote, “Trump tonight after one call with a foreign leader provided a gift to […]
Trump Talks tough with Journalists but Lets Real Strongmen like Turkey’s Erdogan Walk all over Him
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Last week during the visit of the Finnish president, Trump acted out with a journalist, James Mason of Reuters who asked him a simple question. What exactly did Trump want from Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky during the notorious July telephone call? Trump did a bad de Niro impression, asking him, […]
Iraqi Gov’t Teeters as Protest Death toll Rises to 100, with 4,000 Wounded
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Protests broke out again in Baghdad on Saturday, leaving 15 dead. The government had shut down the internet a few days ago in a bid to quell the widespread rallies, but returned partial service yesterday, which allowed activists to call for further protests. The Neoconservatives and the Bush administration pledged […]
Trump, head of GOP, demands Chinese Communist Party Prosecute Businessman for Crime of Making Money
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A particularly unperceptive and unfeeling wag came up with the bon mot defining a “socialist” as someone kept up at night by the fear that somewhere someone was making money. (Socialists are actually haunted by people working but not making money because the capitalist class is stiffing them). But by […]
US Press Horrified by Trump’s “Shoot Migrants in the Legs” but ignores what Israeli Snipers do to Palestinian Protesters
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Americans were horrified to hear that Trump wanted to have US forces at the US-Mexico border to charge migrants with bayonets or shoot them in the legs. Michael D. Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis at the New York Times reported that Trump wanted US forces to fire on migrants as […]
Trump’s Ukraine Ask was Criminal; but it Was SCOTUS’ Citizens United that Invited Foreign Interference in US Elections
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump is accused of soliciting the help of a foreign government to dig dirt on, essentially to do opposition research for him, on his Democratic rival, Joe Biden. It should be underlined, though, that the possibilities for foreign interference in US elections is a much bigger phenomenon than simply this […]
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