by Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has addressed the Levant Conquest Front, whose leader, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda leader and 9/11 mastermind Ayman al-Zawahiri. De Mistura said that among the 8,000 or so fighters from rebel groups in the East […]
Hurricane Matthew a Herald of Man-Made Climate Change
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – If your tv isn’t telling you the below, turn it off and read more Informed Comment columns instead. Hurricane Matthew is unusually strong, and was for a while there a level 5 tropical storm. Level 5 hurricanes only form when the top layer of the ocean […]
“Little Trump” Pence: Bomb Syria, confront Russia, smear refugees; & smoking doesn’t cause Cancer
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump running mate Mike Pence continued the unreality of this election season in Tuesday’s debate by denying many things that are true and asserting many things that are not true. For example there was this exchange: “KAINE: [Trump said that] More nations should get nuclear weapons. […]
US breaks off Military Cooperation with Russia in Syria
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Arab press reacted to the announcement on Monday by the US government that it was ending its military cooperation with the Russian Federation in Syria. Masr al-Arabiya noted that the US underlined that that the step did not imply that all sorts of joint activity […]
Whose Fault is Trump? Top 7 Culprits
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign platform has from the beginning been based on racism, religious bigotry, class warfare of the rich on workers, hatred of women, and a whole series of other unacceptable and disgusting planks. Not since David Duke of the Ku Klux Klan ran […]
Syria: Russia warns of Mideast Apocalypse if US attacks al-Assad’s military
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – ABC News reports that Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that a U.S. attack on the Syrian army “will lead to terrible, tectonic consequences not only on the territory of this country but also in the region on the whole.” She maintained that if the regime […]
President Trump’s Extreme Vetting of Immigrants (Satire Skit)
Maz Jobrani | (Video skit) | – – “Donald Trump has said that if he wins he will do EXTREME VETTING of all immigrants. He hasn’t said how that would work, but maybe it would go a little something like this?” Maz Jobrani, “Donald Trump EXTREME VETTING
Syria Quagmire: Has Russia Accomplished anything in a year of Bombing?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Alarabiya says that Russia has killed over 3,000 civilians in its bombing raids of the past year. BBC Monitoring translated an article by Mikhail Khodarenok at the Gazeta.ru site from 23 September that tries to explain why any decisive victory in Syria has eluded Russia during […]
The Shootings you Didn’t Hear Trump Denounce because, not Muslim
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Cable news and social media in the United States don’t go into “OhmyGod there’s only One Story” mode about mass shootings unless they somehow involve Muslims. The downside of this procedure is that Americans think Muslims in the US are way more violent than they actually […]
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