By Juan Cole | — Pakistan politics has been mired in stagnation for some time now. In September of 2013, Pakistan undertook the first successful civilian hand-off of power in its entire history. Then-president Asaf Ali Zardari was succeeded by the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Despite this milestone, Pakistan’s politics have been full […]
Desperate Pakistani Taliban, on the ropes, attack Army School in Peshawar: Large scale Casualties
By Juan Cole | — On Tuesday, six members of the Movement of Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan or TTP) invaded a school for children run by the Pakistani army in Peshawar The Pakistani military counter-attacked, with early reports of dozens killed and wounded in the cross fire. Some of the Taliban were wearing suicide […]
The Banality of Terrorism: Sydney’s other Hostage Crisis, of 1984
By Juan Cole | — IC doesn’t usually cover hostage-taking, since it is an artificial and manipulative criminal act. Any two-bit thug can grab someone off the street and push them into a car, and subsequently kill them. It doesn’t take intelligence or any other admirable quality, just brutishness. One’s heart goes out to the […]
Enter the Dragon: China offers Iraq Aerial Strikes on ISIL/ Daesh
By Juan Cole | — The list of powers eager to see Daesh (what Arabs call ISIS or ISIL) defeated grew larger this weekend with a report in the Financial Times that Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim Jaafari received a pledge from his counterpart Wang Yi that China would intervene against Daesh from the air. It […]
6 Reasons Lower Oil Prices won’t Stop Solar, Wind and Electric Cars
By Juan Cole | — Some observers have alleged that lower oil prices will slow down the green energy revolution. This allegation is unlikely to be true even in the short term, and it is laughable in the medium to long term. 1. Solar and wind power are for electricity generation. For the most part, […]
Top 5 Planks of 2016 GOP Platform? Torture, War, Bank Corruption, Paid-For Elections
By Juan Cole | — This week, the release by the Senate of a report on torture as practiced in the zeroes by the CIA, along with Thursday night’s dramatic vote on an omnibus spending bill, laid bare the shape of the GOP platform in 2016. (Some Democrats were dragooned into voting for the spending […]
The Trial of Richard Bruce Cheney
By Juan Cole | — Satire alert : The hall at the International Criminal Court in the Hague was packed today as the trial began of former US Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney [they always give all three names of suspected felons in the newspaper.] The ICC justices begin with the first charge, that Mr. […]
Israel, Egypt Implicated in Torture: Middle East Reactions to Senate Report lament own Involvement
By Juan Cole | — That the release in Washington of a dense 450 page report on CIA torture conducted a decade ago would provoke massive demonstrations in the Middle East all along struck me as unlikely. It could perhaps provoke small terrorist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, but those groups are already plotting out attacks […]
Why the Founding Fathers thought banning Torture Foundational to the US Constitution
By Juan Cole | — I have argued on many occasions that the language of patriotism and appeal to the Founding Fathers and the constitution must not be allowed to be appropriated by the political right wing in contemporary America, since for the most part right wing principles (privileging religion, exaltation of ‘whiteness’ over universal […]
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