By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald Trump’s blatantly racist attacks on immigrants have all along had as their subtext the implication that there is something wrong with those brown-skinned people and maybe it is unwise to let them in. Trump even said “‘it’s time’ for the UK to depart the European […]
The Palmer Raids: When Trump’s Grandfather and Wives could have been Profiled
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Marx said that every great event in history happens twice, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. In this regard, the Red Scare of the late teens and early 20s of the last century, promoted by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, was […]
Pyrrhic Victory? As Iraq rolls back Daesh, can it stay together as a Country?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – From all accounts, most people in Fallujah are very happy about being out from under the murderous and puritanical rule of Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). But Daesh took the city in January of 2014 for a reason. Locals did not put up much of a fight to […]
The end of the Beginning: The Fall of ISIL in Fallujah
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – After Montgomery and his troops defeated the Germans and Italians at El Alamain in northern Egypt in 1942, Winston Churchill was relieved finally to have some good news after a string of defeats. He said, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the […]
Despite Terrorism fears, 59% of Americans Welcome Syrian, Iraqi Refugees
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | “American attitudes on refugees from the Middle East”: A Public Opinion Poll by Shibley Telhami is just out. Despite the raft of Republican mayors who have pledged to keep Syrian refugees out of their states (that isn’t actually a thing) and the sewage that has spilled from the […]
Obama: Hating on Muslim-Americans makes you an ally of ISIL, & Unamerican
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – President Obama is clearly concerned about the direction of the country and the mainstreaming of anti-Muslim hate speech, especially in the context of impossible-to-prevent lone wolf attacks like that at Orlando. He launched his fiercest attack yet on Donald Trump and warned of a repeat of […]
Omar Mateen and Rightwing Homophobia: Hate Crime or Domestic Terrorism?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – US law enforcement is at least initially categorizing the horrific Orlando shootings as “domestic terrorism.” I don’t think it probably was terrorism in any useful sense of the term. I used to know what domestic terrorism was, before the term became politicized in the past decade. […]
Is Tel Aviv Mayor Right that Israel is unique in Occupation & denying Civil Rights?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Ron Huldai, the mayor of Tel Aviv, reacted with enormous sadness to Thursday’s terrorist attack on the Sarona Market restaurant district in Tel Aviv, which left 4 dead, committed by a teenagers from the Occupied Palestinian West Bank. But he then went on to put the […]
America’s First Communal Muslim Funeral: Muhammad Ali
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The funeral of Muhammad Ali, attended by a throng of 20,000, was the first national funeral for a national hero of the United States that was also a Muslim ceremony or janazah. Muhammad Ali crafted it as a interfaith event, but obviously Islam was central. The […]
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