Juan Cole

Former VP Richard Bruce Cheney says he will air his dissatisfactions with George W. Bush’s policies, especially in the second term when Cheney feels he yielded to politics as usual. Cheney believes in elective dictatorship. He thinks democracy and elections are just the way a ruler gets in power. After he is elected, he may […]

Four NATO troops, including one American and three Britons, were killed in Afghanistan on Thursday. The American was killed by small arms fire. The three British soldiers fell victim to a roadside bomb. Nearly 200 British troops have been killed in Afghanistan, and 706 Americans. Pashtun guerrillas attempted to kill former president Burhanuddin Rabbani in […]

Pakistani Taliban loyal to slain leader Baitullah Mahsud attacked the forces of Baitullah’s former supporter turned enemy, Turkistan Bhittani in the frontier region of Jandola. Some 70 fighters perished in the battles, and 33 homes were torched by the Baitullah faction, which had earlier been expelled from Jandola and the city of Tank. Bhittani, who […]

The Real News Network asks and answers the question of who, exactly, benefits economically from the Israeli colonization of the West Bank. See also Lamia Khatib’s account of life in the Occupied West Bank. End/ (Not Continued)

10 Iraqis were killed in political violence on Wednesday, including Brig. Gen. Abdulhameed Khalaf Asfoor of troubled Ninevah Province. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that that January 15 will probably be the day on which Iraqi voters decide the shape of Iraq’s next parliament and decide on two national referendum questions. They are approval of the […]

Bombings killed 8 and wounded 50 in Iraq on Tuesday. There were two bombings in eastern Shiite neighborhoods in the capital. A boy and two soldiers were wounded near Baqubah. These attacks are likely to go on for a while. But despite what a lot of commentators imply, the recent bombings have almost nothing to […]

500 Afghan troops and US Marines on Wednesday morning launched an assault on the long-time Taliban stronghold of Dahaneh in the southern Helmand province. They faced heavy resistance, though mostly from light arms, and appear to have taken the city center. They discovered some 60 lbs. of heroin, a chief means whereby the Taliban fund […]

Shabakah-‘i Ittila-Rasani-yi Afghanistan reports in Persian that on Monday, a squad of Taliban briefly took over the main government buildings in Pul-i Alam, the capital of Logar Province just south of Kabul (about 31 miles away). They began with a suicide bombing. Then they fired rocket propelled grenades and rushed the offices of the mayor, […]

Iraq woke up to a bloody Monday morning, with three major bombings that left more than 40 dead according to Middle East Online writing in Arabic. The biggest attack was on the village of Khazna north of Mosul, where two truck bombs killed 25 persons, wounded 70, and leveled 35 houses! This attack was not […]