By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – After another Stockholm Syndrome performance, on Afghanistan, where he gave the speech National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster wrote for him, Trump on Tuesday returned to form at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona. It was a week and a half after Trump discredited himself with two-thirds […]
Trump flip-flops on Afghanistan, opts for Years-long Quagmire
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The 16-years-long Afghanistan War has bedeviled Washington decision-makers since the US invasion of fall, 2001, which came in response to the attacks of September 11. In his speech on Monday night, Trump was primarily attempting to manipulate American domestic politics. He was trying to look presidential […]
Why no Eclipse Denialists? The Same Science predicts Global Heating
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Eminent physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s tweet pointing out that there are no eclipse denialists the way there are dedicated climate change denialists went viral: Odd. No one is in denial of America’s Aug 21 total solar eclipse. Like Climate Change, methods & tools of science predict […]
Trump Pledged to Carpet Bomb ISIL, but Little Lebanon is Taking them On
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Lebanese Army has mobilized to clean out an ISIL enclave in a mountainous region on the border with Syria, Jurud al-Qaa and Jurud Ra’s Baalbak. Some 600 ISIL terrorists had controlled about 36 square miles in the hills, but already on late Saturday, one day […]
Trump fires Bannon: Who are the Winners & Losers Globally?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Steve Bannon by his own admission promoted the Breitbart webzine as a mouthpiece of white supremacism, in an attempt to create a new, well-educated and well-dressed version of seedy racism. The Republican Party had since the Nixon Strategy of the 1970s played on a soft version […]
Trump on Barcelona: Recalls US War on Spain, Brutal Occupation of Filipino Muslims
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – A vehicular terror attack in Barcelona that left over a dozen people dead and 100 injured has been claimed by ISIL. Another terrorist attack in the small city of Cambrils was thwarted by Spanish police. The terrorist organization has repeatedly threatened Spain for its logistical and […]
German Politicians think Trump is dangerously close to Neo-Nazis, and they Should know
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The nation of Germany gazed with helpless horror at Trump’s disastrous Tuesday press conference, in which he tried to make a false equivalency between the neo-Nazis and the counter-protesters. Even before Trump’s wretched performance this week, only 11 percent of Germans said they trusted him to […]
Fascism in Charlottesville: Why it had a monopoly on violence & Intimidation
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In his unhinged news conference on Tuesday, Trump equated what he called the “alt-Left” (which is not a thing) with the alt-Right. He characterized the latter as good people who were just protesting removing a statue of the traitor Robert E. Lee and wondered if statues […]
Why don’t People think Trump’s Denunciation sincere? B/c he Ran on Racism
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump finally came out, two days late, to denounce explicitly and by name the hate groups who organized an invasion, hundreds-strong, of little Charlottesville, VA (pop. 46,000) on Saturday. While the statement will take some of the political pressure off the president, it will be dismissed […]
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