Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Some observers are likening Trump’s abrupt departure from Syria and President Barack Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. The two events show no resemblance whatsoever, and the frequently-made charge that Obama could have stayed in Iraq is incorrect. Here’s the difference. 1. Obama did not betray America’s allies in Iraq, […]
Category
- Africa (133)
- Animals (1)
- Asia (735)
- Authoritarianism (130)
- Cats (1)
- Culture (379)
- Dehydration (1)
- Democracy (185)
- Dissent (266)
- Economy (572)
- Education (60)
- Elderly (2)
- Energy (943)
- Environment (1,252)
- Europe (669)
- Featured (2,219)
- fiction (5)
- Food (7)
- Guns (9)
- History (196)
- Human Rights (921)
- Immigration (17)
- International (660)
- Islamophobia (272)
- Juan Cole (265)
- Latin America (59)
- Latinos (3)
- leisure (21)
- media (351)
- Middle East (6,540)
- Arab World (4,326)
- Iran (749)
- Israel (662)
- Israel/ Palestine (1,670)
- Israel/Palestine (8)
- Kurds (252)
- Turkey (393)
- military (103)
- Modernism (1)
- nationalism (98)
- NATO (4)
- Natural Disasters (11)
- nuclear weapons (43)
- Patriarchy (1)
- Peace (66)
- Persian mythology (1)
- Popular Culture (22)
- Poverty (7)
- privacy (19)
- racism (274)
- Rape (5)
- religion (743)
- Rights (124)
- Romance (1)
- science (99)
- Secular (West) (7)
- Secularism (21)
- Sexual Assault (2)
- South Pacific (1)
- Spirituality (20)
- Statelessness (14)
- Surveillance (255)
- Terrorism (1,007)
- Tolerance (4)
- Uncategorized (8,025)
- United Nations (64)
- Urbanization (3)
- US Foreign Policy (458)
- US politics (3,079)
- Anti-War Movement (5)
- Campaign Finance (24)
- Censors (21)
- Central Intelligence Agency (56)
- Civil Rights (76)
- Congress (3)
- Constitution (252)
- crime (3)
- Democratic Party (448)
- Democratic Socialists of America (4)
- Domestic Terrorism (15)
- Drone Warfare (24)
- Espionage (111)
- Ethnicities (221)
- Far Right (157)
- FBI (35)
- Foreign Policy (197)
- Gay Rights (12)
- Guns (63)
- Immigration (163)
- Israel Lobbies (73)
- Marijuana (1)
- Militarization (208)
- National Security State (364)
- Native Americans (20)
- Nuclear arsenal (5)
- penitentiaries (6)
- Pentagon (266)
- Police (19)
- prison reform (3)
- Puerto Rico (25)
- Religious Right (1)
- Reproductive Choice (7)
- Republican Party (1,805)
- Supreme Court (42)
- Voter suppression (18)
- Whistleblowers (4)
- Xenophobia (7)
- Veterans (18)
- Voting Rights (4)
- War (232)
- Western Religion (351)
- White Supremacists (49)
- wikileaks (8)
- women (267)
- workers (118)
- Writing (5)
- Youth (112)
Arab World
Trump Blows it Big Time in Syria: Dumps Kurds as the Empire Crumbles
In less than two weeks, President Donald Trump has managed to create a massive and avoidable crisis in Syria. By greenlighting the Turkish invasion of northern Syria, Trump’s policy forced more than 160,000 Syrians to flee their homes. And guess who emerged as the political and military winners? Russia, Iran, and the Syrian government of […]
Thank You, Tunisia: The only Democracy in the Middle East
By Mohammad Ayesh | – The overwhelming election victory of Tunisia’s new President, Kais Saied, and the statements he made in its aftermath send a very clear message: the counter-revolution in Tunisia has failed; it has been defeated; it has ended. Tunisians have always embraced the saying, “If people fight for life, destiny will listen […]
Dem Leadership brands as “Shameful” Pence’s Agreement for Turkey “Pause” in Kurdish Areas
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Mariam Khan at ABC News reports that yesterday speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority Leader Chuck Schumer lambasted the pause in fighting by Turkey negotiated by vice president Mike Pence “sham ceasefire.” They added, “President Erdogan has given up nothing, and President Trump has given him everything,” […]
Blaming Victims, Trump attacks Syrian Kurds as “Communists,” “No Angels,” PKK as worse than ISIL
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Dispatches from the Great Trump Clown Parade, which would be gut-busting hilarious if it did not involve real-world dark horrors, including the displacement of some 130,000 Kurds along with deaths and woundings, and the escape of over a hundred ISIL detainees. An unprecedented bipartisan congressional resolution was passed Wednesday against […]
Trump’s Endless Wars
(Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Trump’s not bringing the troops home. He’s been haphazardly deploying more troops, drones, and dollars abroad, while waging a shadow foreign policy for his own benefit. Donald Trump loves to talk about ending the endless U.S. wars that he inherited as president. He tweets about it. He endlessly criticizes […]
Syria: why the Kurds had little option but to do a deal with Bashar al-Assad
By Cengiz Gunes | – When the Syrian military withdrew from the Kurdish populated regions of Syria in July 2012, they left the Kurds in charge of their homeland, what they call Rojava. Without a backer and surrounded by many hostile states and militia, few people gave the Kurds any chance of survival. Despite the […]
Russians, Syrian Army take over Manbij and its US Bases, Blocking Turkey
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) took control of the city of Manbij on Tuesday, with Russian gendarmes taking up patrols of the city as US special operations forces abandoned two military bases in the region, which were also taken over by Russians. The SAA and the Russians appear to have […]
Kurdish Women Fighters helped Defeat ISIL, & now are a Target of Turkish Invasion
By Haidar Khezri | – Kurdish fighters under attack by Turkey have described President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria as a “stab in the back.” Since bombing began on Oct. 9, Turkish military operations against the Syrian Democratic Forces in northern Syria, Washington’s staunchest and most effective allies in the […]
© 2019 All Rights Reserved