1. Last Wednesday Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki angrily lashed out at the Kurds, accusing them of harboring the terrorists of the so-called ‘Islamic State.’ Since the Kurds have in fact fought the IS radicals, al-Maliki’s charge is hard to take seriously. Rather, it appears to be a sign of how angry he is that Kurdistan […]
Israel’s Groundhog Day: Reverse Snowballs and the Horror of Lawn-Mowing
by Juan Cole A horrible video is circulating on social media, of a Palestinian father in Gaza who is bringing a toy to his four year old son, only to find once he enters his home that his son’s head has been crushed by Israeli shrapnel. That is the face of Israel’s current military operation […]
Stop Saying ‘If X fired Rockets at U.S.’: It’s Racist, & assumes we’re Colonial
By Juan Cole Is anyone else disgusted by the propaganda trick of trying to get Americans to sympathize with Israel’s massive attack on the civilian habitations of Gaza by saying “if the US was subjected to rocket fire by X [usually Mexicans], what would it do?” This hope that Americans are racists and that their […]
The Fall of the New Year Throne (Complete Sword & Sorcery Novel of ancient Persia)
By Juan Cole The Fall of the New Year Throne Many, many thanks to everyone who followed the serialized sword and sorcery novel I have posted here since last January. I had written a version of it in the early 1990s. I wasn’t satisfied with it and ultimately got drawn into other projects. The book […]
ABC News’ Diane Sawyer Mistakes Stricken Palestinians for Israelis
By Juan Cole In the current round of fighting between mighty Israel and the little Gaza Strip, Israeli airstrikes have killed 53 Palestinians. The supposedly deadly little rockets fired from the Gaza Strip have killed or injured no Israelis, though they have done some property damage. In fact, those rockets have no guidance systems and […]
Bush Trifecta lands on Obama: Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan Imploding
By Juan Cole President Barack Obama of Hawaii had fondly dreamed of bidding turbulent and unrewarding West Asia farewell and turning the attentions of American diplomacy to East and South East Asia. From his point of view, the Bush administration had unwisely entangled the US too deeply in the Middle East, where no good deed […]
Not Serious re: Terrorism: GOP House Cut out funding for al-Qaeda, Iraq Records & Research
Representatives on the Hill talk a good game about going back into Iraq or pursuing a global war on terror, but they aren’t actually very interested in all that. Exhibit A: they’ve applied the same austerity to the Conflict Records Research Center as they did to the working poor and Veterans on food stamps. This […]
Gaza by the Numbers: Who the People are, how They got There
By Juan Cole Population of Palestinians of Gaza: 1.7 million Number of Palestinians in Gaza whose families were expelled as refugees from their homes in what is now southern Israel: 1.2 million Number of Palestinians in Gaza still living in the 8 recognized refugee camps, “which have one of the highest population densities in the […]
5 Most alarming Developments in Iraq
By Juan Cole 1. Airstrikes killed 7 and wounded 30 in Mosul on Sunday. But it isn’t clear who was flying the planes! The US denies it was Americans, and the spokesman for the Baghdad government said he did not know anything about it. The Syrian and Iranian air forces are other possibilities. It is […]
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