International Politics and Economy

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – The first Armistice Day was a celebration of the moment – the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918 – that the brutality of that first industrial war, which robbed 40 million soldiers and civilians of life, ended; and peace began. On Veterans Day […]

Displaced and Refugees

Are Putin and Lukashenko trying to Divide Europe by sending over Iraqi, other Muslim Refugees?

Nikola Mikovic

Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – Thousands of migrants from Iraq, Syria, and other Middle Eastern countries, are attempting to breach a razor wire fence at the border between Belarus and Poland. Their final destination is Germany, and possibly other rich member-states of the European Union. But why are they trying to illegally enter the […]

Cybercrime

The Cyberwar between Israel and Iran is Heating Up

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor ) – It is becoming clear that the cyberwar between Israel and Iran is heating up, although neither side has accepted responsibility for recent attacks. Things became even clearer when hundreds of thousands of Iranians found themselves unable to fill the fuel tanks in their vehicles due to a computer glitch […]

Democracy

Feeding the Crocodile: Do Any Republicans Still Support Democracy?

Jill Richardson

( Otherwords) – Republicans should heed Churchill’s warning about appeasing authoritarians: “Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, it will eat him last.” By Jill Richardson | November 3, 2021 Investigative accounts of the Trump administration, like the recent Washington Post feature on the January 6 insurrection, routinely write about three kinds […]

Afghanistan

“Worse than a Crime”: Pentagon Inspector finds Kabul Drone Strike Killing 10 not a Violation of Law (!)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Paul Handley of AFP reports that the US Air Force Inspector General, Lieutenant General Sami Said, found that a drone strike that mistakenly killed 10 civilian non-combatants, including 7 children, in Afghanistan on August 29 violated no laws, including the law of war. When Napoleon had the royalist Duc d’Enghein […]

Democracy

The Sudanese people overthrew dictatorship in 2019; Can the Generals undo the Revolution?

The Conversation

By David E Kiwuwa | – This week the head of Sudan’s Sovereign Council, General Abdel Fattah El Burhan, declared the dissolution of the transitional council, which has been in place since the overthrow of former president Omar el-Bashir in 2019. He also disbanded all the structures that had been set up as part of […]

Democracy

How Billionaires’ Utopias could End American Democracy

Sam Pizzigati

( Inequality.org) – Great wealth can do great damage. Grand personal fortunes, we’ve come to understand, can menace our democracy and distort our economic life. But these fortunes can also wreak a much more hidden havoc: They can mess up the minds of people who hold them. Great fortunes can leave their owners feeling supremely […]

Bill of Rights

Bannon Vote: Republicans once Voted to Hold Hollywood 10 in Contempt for Making Leftist Movies but won’t act on Far-Right Plot to Overthrow Gov’t

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Anyone who knows the history of abuse in the Congress’s prerogative of subpoenaing witnesses and holding people in contempt for declining to testify is a little uneasy about the vote today to refer far-right gadfly Steve Bannon to the Department of Justice on charges of contempt of Congress. Mary Clare […]

Crime

Top Trump Fundraiser Boasted of Raising $3 Million to Support Jan. 6 “Save America” Rally

ProPublica

By Joaquin Sapien and Joshua Kaplan | – The Insurrection The Effort to Overturn the Election ( ProPublica) – As much as $3 million may have been raised to support the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C., that preceded the attack on the Capitol, according to interviews and documents reviewed by ProPublica, with some money […]