Juan Cole

Dear Democratic Party: If you bring Gabby Giffords to say the Pledge of Allegiance, you have to bring up the issue of gun control somewhere in your speeches or platform. If you slam Republicans for foreign policy naivete, you have to explain why you just pissed off 1.5 billion Muslims by giving away all of […]

It is breathtaking impudence that Republicans should try to campaign on whether we are better off than were were in the last six months of the Bush administration. I can’t believe we are even arguing about this. Seriously? The country had fallen off a cliff in the last years of Bush, or rather had been […]

h/t The New Syria

Jen Marlowe writes in a guest column for Informed Comment August 28, 2012: Cindy and Craig Corrie and Sarah Corrie Simpson made their way into the Haifa District Court, surrounded by scores of journalists and Israeli activists and friends. They had entered this courthouse on fifteen previous occasions since March 2010, listening to the testimony […]

Nick Turse writes at Tomdispatch: Afghanistan’s Base Bonanza: Total Tops Iraq at That War’s Height Afghanistan may turn out to be one of the great misbegotten “stimulus packages” of the modern era, a construction boom in the middle of nowhere with materials largely shipped in at enormous expense to no lasting purpose whatsoever.  With the […]

Actor Michael Dorn has confirmed that he is trying to develop a new television show, “Star Trek: Captain Worf.” He told Star Trek News, “I had come up with the idea because I love the character and I think he’s a character that hasn’t been fully developed and hasn’t been fully realized…” He said that […]

Armin Azad writes in a guest column for Informed Comment Although it was largely ignored by the Western media, the Teheran Non-Aligned Summit concluded its work last Friday. It approved a statement supporting Iran on the nuclear issue; opposing unilateral economic sanctions (i.e. US-led sanctions against Iran), and; condemning any attack or threat of attack […]