Juan Cole

Of course, I– like many social critics– am dismayed at the Supreme Court ruling striking down elements of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act, and essentially giving corporations carte blanche to pay for attack videos against candidates they do not like and to release them late in a campaign. But some of the hand-wringing about […]

When a relief plane for the Physicians without Borders isn’t allowed to land by US military authorities at the airport in Port-au-Prince, there is an outcry. But Israeli military authorities will not allow any relief planes at all to land in the Gaza Strip (the Israelis destroyed Gaza’s airport in 2001). We cheer when a […]

Brown Wins, Robs Dems Of Filibuster-Proof Majority – Hotline On Call Juan cannot understand why Scott Brown can be elected with just 52% of the Massachusetts vote, but we can’t pass universal health care with 52% of the Senate vote. End/ (Not Continued)

President Barack Hussein Obama was inaugurated a year ago, and this is a good time to review his major foreign policy success. It is, of course, important that he has repaired the reputation of the US in much of the world and replenished the stock of ‘soft power’ that has been so important a part […]

The new year is not very old, but several recent revelations cast the the US fight against al-Qaeda (a tiny if deadly fraternity of a couple thousand fanatics spread in dozens of countries) in a bad light, if not to say a scandalous one. The entire premise of combating al-Qaeda as though it were an […]

Study Finds Exposure to Chemical Pollutants Increases Fat: Scientific American Then there is the recent University of California study that indicates extra obesity risks from high fructose corn syrup. Contrary to the latter industry’s claims, it isn’t as safe as fruit juice and produces fat around the heart and tendencies to obesity. And American corporations […]

Skynews has video of Monday’s coordinated bombings and attacks in Kabul. End/ (Not Continued)

The Taliban mounted their boldest and most ambitious assault on the capital of Kabul in recent years on Monday, with a series of well-coordinated bombings in the vicinity of the presidential palace and a platoon-sized expeditionary force wreaking havoc. The Afghan Voice Agency reports in Dari Persian that numerous bombs were set off near the […]

We live in an even more regimented society than the 1950s and early 1960s. We live in a society where protests can be confined to ‘protest zones,’ where peaceful protest or critical comment can place activists and journalists on a no-fly list (while the authorities still seem routinely to overlook actual terrorists), where our electronic […]