By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump is the master of misdirection, the techniques magicians use to get you to look elsewhere while they perform their sleight of hand. This weekend on social media was taken up with his slamming matches with the cast of the play “Hamilton,” who addressed a respectful […]
Is Lt.-Gen. Flynn Right that Islam is not a Religion?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The new National Security Adviser to incoming President Donald J. Trump, Lt.-Gen. Michael Flynn, has called Islam a “cancer” and maintained that it is a “political ideology” masquerading as a religion. He made this generalization about the religion of 1.6 billion people out of the 7.4 […]
Why Internment of Japanese Americans is an outrageous Model for registering Muslim-Americans
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump adviser Carl Higbie told Megyn Kelly on Fox “News” that the new administration wanted to create a registration list of US Muslims, and he compared this step to the interment of the Japanese Americans during WW II: “It is legal. They say it’ll hold constitutional […]
Syria’s al-Assad: Trump “a natural ally”
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In an interview with Portugal television Wednesday, according to al-Hayat, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad said that Donald Trump will be “a natural ally” for Damascus if his administration fights “terrorism.” Asked if he was prepared to work with Trump, al-Assad said, “Naturally, I say that is […]
Will Trump do a deal with Iran or try to Overthrow its Government?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – For all his bluster about renegotiating the Joint Plan for Collective Action regarding Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, which the members of the UN Security Council plus Germany signed off on in summer of 2015, Donald Trump didn’t menace Iran itself during his campaign. He lamented Iranian […]
Neofascist Trump Appointee Bannon: “Anger is a Good thing” “if you’re Fighting to Take this Country Back”
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald Trump named Neofascist Stephen Bannon as his White House strategist, a co-equal with incoming White House chief of staff and former RNC head Reince Priebus. Bannon has espoused large numbers of crackpot conspiracy theories and has talked about how good anger is in the effort […]
A Gwen Ifill Interview with Juan Cole on Iraq & US Withdrawal: In Memoriam
Gwen Ifill/ Juan Cole | (PBS NewsHour) | – – Gwen Ifill, long-time co-anchor of the PBS Newshour, is dead at 61, after a battle with cancer. She was an expert interviewer, and she discussed Iraq with me many times on the NewsHour. I was so lucky to have been on with her. Ifill was […]
Sting & Gandhian anti-Terrorism: Your Paris vacation can help cripple ISIL
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Sting, 65, played a concert at the Bataclan Theater where ISIL terrorists killed 90 innocent people a year ago, in one of the worst attacks in the West in recent years. Although the attackers appear to have told their victims the strike was in revenge for […]
As Der Donald-inspired Hate Crimes grow, US Universities at Risk
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – A tsunami of reports about hate crimes directed at minorities are coming in from all over the country in the wake of Der Donald’s presidential win. African-Americans have also been targeted, as with students at the University of Pennsylvania. As have Latinas/ Latinos. * In Wisconsin, […]
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