The Nazi definition of Jews was very different from ours. They recognized four categories depending on the number of your Jewish grandparents. Boys with one or two Jewish grandparents were drafted into the Wehrmacht until late 1941 early 1942 regardless of whether the Jewish community regarded that boy as a Jew. At least the children with one or two Jewish grandparents could be listed in the passport of their non-Jewish parent or-as in my case-even have their own passport. It was very useful when I was stopped in the streets of Amsterdam during the German occupation by a Dutch Nazi who thought that he had caught a Jewish boy who should be in a concentration camp.
It is known what the plans for us were. After Germany had won the war and we were age 21 we would be given the choice of either castration or concentration camp.
It is not true that so-called "Volljuden" (4 Jewish grandparents) could not get German Nazi passports. I know a few cases of Jewish boys and girls who were allowed to travel from Germany to visit family in the Netherlands before the war. They were not rich. One such boy whom I got to know well remained in the Netherlands but went back to Germany at least once to visit his parents. His sister got to England with the last children's transport.
Because of the difficulty and secrecy of the actions we will never get the full story of the German Jews smuggled abroad primarily with the aid of socialist labor unions and communist organizations. One of the preferred countries to go to was the Netherlands.
The fate of the German Jews was probably much more complex than this article describes.
I am puzzled by your opening statement. Nowhere in our constitution do I find the statement "this document is for US citizens only". Yes, foreigners, including immigrants, can be removed from the country. However, when a person is either on US soil or in the custody of a US agency including our armed forces that person is protected by our constitution.
Around 1800 our country badly needed immigrants. The framers of the constitution understood that potential immigrants living in European nations under harsh and arbitrary governments would be more prone to come if the word spread around: "in America there is religious freedom and that government cannot arbitrarily throw you in jail". I am not joking. I firmly believe that this was one of the reasons why this document was so liberal/libertarian for its time. Here are a few of the European rulers Prussia: Friedrich Wilhelm III. Russia: Paul I. No enlightenment there.
Around 1600, converso's suspected of being secretly Jews were tortured and burned by the Spanish Inquisition in Mexico too. I know that it is long-ago history but it is "before WW2".
Not one of these persons was an enemy soldier or a so-called “enemy combatant”. Not one of these persons has entered US territory illegally. Not one of these persons was suspected of having committed or was planning to commit a crime on US soil. Hence the Trump administration must in every individual case demonstrate a legal cause why it restricted the freedom of movement of these persons. I hold that every one of these cases was a false arrest. The moment they are in US custody they are protected by our constitution.
The action of the photo shown with this report is followed by what has become a Trump routine. He will hold up the document and show it to the nation even though we cannot read the text. Trump is thereby re-enacting the scene when Moses has come down from Mount Sinai and shows the tablets of the Ten Commandments to the Jews in the desert. Moses the law giver!
Well, Trump has not yet signed a single law. He has started his governmental daily "Punch and Judy" show named the "Donald and Mike" show. Mike is watching what Donald does.
Trump, you are not Moses.
ISIS is not the first nor will it be the last Islamic movement which claims that all worldly Muslim leaders are Godless apostates. Come to think of it, they are probably close to correct on that one. Mohammad would probably be appalled by the riches horded by the clan of Saud.
The opening sentence should dispel any doubt that President Trump implies a renewed war with Iraq and the committing a war crime. Here is why.
The Geneva Conventions on Warfare do allow an occupying force to take as much of the natural resources of the occupied land as it needs to maintain its occupying forces but not more.
Currently Iraq is an independent country and the US armed forces there are not an occupying force. Hence Trump proposes not only to restart the war with Iraq and occupy it but also to commit a war crime.
Trump is also incapable of producing a coherent analysis.
As the FDR years demonstrate there is nothing wrong with shaking the structure up a bit but this is the replacing of a tottering system (2008/09!) with an even worse one.
As a scientist I do not hesitate to say that climate change is a complex issue but global warming is very simple to understand. If you put another blanket on your bed you will be warmer when you are in bed than before. If you put more greenhouse gases into the upper atmosphere the lower atmosphere where we live will get hotter.
Global warming is by far the greatest danger facing mankind.
Juan, please stop being khitri (Putin knows what that means). Watergate was not an international but a domestic affair so what is its connection here? Zero as far as I am concerned.
Yes most if not all governments of the world try to get information on others by hook or by crook or by both but how often do they pass that information via middlemen on to ratters such as Assange in the middle of a US election campaign? I dare you to give us examples.
Russia and the Soviet Union were repeatedly burned by "close relations with the West". It began with Napoleon and Alexander I at Tilsit after which Napoleon invaded Russia. Prior to WW1 Russia entered a pact with France to contain Germany which ended in disaster for Nicholas II. In 1939 Stalin agreed to a pact with Hitler but was invaded two years later. Of course Putin knows all of this. He is far from jumping into Trump's lap to cuddle with us. He will keep all options open including giving Trump his boot.
Thank you Juan for writing an excellent analysis. As one would expect from a political newcomer such as Trump who also believes that he knows more about the world than anyone else in the world (some of the biblical prophets are worth consulting on this) his pronunciations about the region are all over the map. That is cheap when he is not our President. After January 20 there will be dire payments for such behavior.
Next time please include the issue of weapons sales in the region in your analysis. While the total annual cost of these sales is not very large, the client states of Trump and Putin, the major players in the region, can hardly afford to switch now.
I shall never forget the lecture which the son of Richard Leakey gave at my university in which he masterfully ridiculed the classifications of white and black. On this issue he is the expert. No person is white and no person is black.
The suspect of the Berlin attack was arrested in August of this year in the Southern German town of Friedrichshafen. He had a falsified Italian ID on him.
It may be crucial that he was in Frierichshafen. It is a fairly large town on the Bodensee. There are several fairly safe ways to get into and out of Germany from Friedrichshafen through Austria, France and, albeit less safe, Switzerland. By car. By train. And above all by the numerous ferry services from Friedrichshafen to ports in these countries. You do not have to identify yourself to buy a ferry ticket and it is very easy to pretend that you are a tourist. Since the pact of Schengen there are no longer border controls between Germany, Austria, and France. I am not sure about Switzerland.
He also lived for a while in Emmerich very close to an escape to the Netherlands.
My hunch is that the suspect had contact addresses in Italy, Austria, and Germany where he could hide and find help.
Herzl was disappointed by the Balfour declaration because it was only "half a loaf". He was confident that his Zionists would eventually take the "whole loaf". That process accelerated in 1947 and will not stop until all other nations unite to stop it.
From the point of view of Putin this might well be a "I helped you out of your stupid red line drawing pickle and then you continued to support forces which would try to throw us out of our Latakia naval base if they won. No way man, no way".
Assad fired at rebels. Lincoln did too. That is what government do to rebels. Get real.
The issue is never whether rebels act peacefully. What counts is: are they acting peaceably?
Mr. Cole writes confused. The basic issue is whether there are states in which Islam is the established national religion and the constitution demands that at least their president must be a Muslim. That is the essence of "political Islam" and not what people hold. A better expression is "Islamic theocracy".
Some Islamic theocracies are still a kind of prison for women and some are hell for openly homosexuals. Such states conduct internal, official terrorism in my book.
This is a remarkable piece of news. If Mattis still holds to the views he had in 2013 and if these views prevail in the Trump administration then there might be a 180 degree turnaround of Middle Eastern policies.
This is the best recent analysis I have read on the subject. I still wonder how much of the US policy on this matter is tied up with the anti-colonial revolutions after WW2 which shifted the center of political and economic "gravity" from Europe-America towards Asia which is still the nexus of oil production. An Iran completely free of economic shackles might well add more power to the current "Asian duo" of China, and India with Russia in support. Better to keep Iran limping along based on spurious accusations. Trump seems to be sensitive to the shift of economic power Asia-ward as evidenced by his views on China. Hence he is likely to pursue an Iran policy which keeps Iran hogtied as well as possible. "Make America Great Again". My translation: stop the Asian economic shift and, if possible, reverse it.
The policy which denies Iran to have its own missiles may backfire badly. That kind of policy after WW1 against Germany (no tanks, etc.) was great political fodder for Hitler and other right-wing politicians and much of the German nation. It will empower the anti-Western politicians and groups in Iran...
Does he know that Hitler masterfully conducted his own defense during his 1924 trial for the "Munich Putsch" of 1923 during which his terror gang killed and injured several policemen, a defense which made him suddenly a famous politician in Germany? Roof will not succeed to duplicate that because no one will believe that he is the savior of white America. Trump has already claimed that spot.
This is Erdogan's "Sudetenland". Will there be another Chamberlain? I suspect that other NATO governments will be loath to use their soldiers to drive Erdogan out of Iraq. Hence there will be a foul compromise. Erdogan will get Northwestern Iraq, then take it all. It is again about oil. And a strategic port at Basra.
It has long been asserted that a capitalist, even a semi-capitalist Russia would be more dangerous for the "West" than the Soviet Union.
During the 19320/30's France tried to construct a buffer-alliance against the Soviet Union, named "cordon sanitaire". It failed, among others, because Hitler refused to join.
After the fall of the Warsaw Pact a new attempt was made to surround first the Soviet Union then the Russian Federation with another "cordon sanitaire" of sorts but a much larger one.
Because of the Chinese Revolution it could not be perfect but even the imperfect version was continuously aimed at since the "Iron Curtain" speech of Churchill.
It is in this context that I view the struggles in the Middle East. The anti-Russian "wall" before our massive attempts at regime change there looked as follows. Finland-Sweden. The Baltic States. Poland now backed by Germany. Ukraine. Romania. Bulgaria. Turkey (the last four controlling the Black Sea). Syria. Iraq. Iran (under the Shah). Afghanistan. Pakistan. The unraveling of that "wall" did not begin in Syria but in Iran with the overthrow of the Shah, a major defeat for US policy for the containment of Russia. Hence the permanent economic warfare against Iran which will continue under Trump.
The 9/11 event provided the rationale for preventing additional nasty switches by unreliable regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. The rebellion in Syria was launched to replace unreliable Assad. All without much, if any success.
Our policy vs. Iran and Syria is not containment of the Ayatollah's and Assad but is still regime change.
Meanwhile, as the West was busy trying to isolate Russia, China grew from an economic nothing to an economic giant. The scare is already on and attempts are underway for a new wall consisting of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Indochina, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and, if possible, the traditional enemies of China Kazakhstan and Mongolia. Rest assured that the Trump team will work on that. Difference: the population of the Russian Federation is less than 150 million. China: more than 1 billion.
Just as 16th and 17th Century attempt by Spain to contain the Reformation and the Ottoman Empire by wars ruined Spain financially despite the huge influx of silver into Spain, our attempts to contain the Russian Federation and China will be our financial ruin.
In summary: the current US policy attempts to prevent Russia and China to become the engines for all of Asia becoming the fulcrum of economic activity. It will fail.
Issue #1: How many visa-violators are among the 3 million? They are mainly from Asia and Europe.
Issue #2: Deporting Mexican and Canadian citizens is technically the simplest. How will he deport other nationalities? Mexico and Canada can legally refuse Trump-forced entry of non-Mexicans and non-Canadians.
Issue #3: Trump has suggested an alternative: jailing.
Issue #4: What are the projected costs of deporting and/or jailing?
Issue #5: how many law-enforcing personnel will be required to find, arrest, and deport 2 to 3 million persons?
I mention these issues because I hold that the current bluster is only food for the early supporters. Once Trump is inaugurated and his advisers understand the idiocy of quickly rounding up and deporting 2 to 3 million persons who will include numerous US citizens Trump will tone down and begin to whine about practical and legal problems and non-cooperation of target states. The word "rigged" will undoubtedly be mentioned again.
It is remarkable that Franklin said nothing about the Dutch when one considers that they once had a thriving outpost named New Netherlands with its harbor of New Amsterdam which became New York. Was Franklin that poorly educated?
The murder of the poet deHaan in Jerusalem confirmed that his murderers asserted that he was too successful in defending Arab's land rights in the courts of the British authorities.
As we all came originally from Africa the correct designation is "Homo Africanus". Is there an "other" box available for that to write in?
You can rest assured that "Homo Africanus" was dark skinned because of the exposure to sunlight at high angles of entry. Those of us who are lighter skinned-and are mistakenly named "white"-got that way because our forbears began to live in regions where sunlight enters at lower angles. The difference between idiotic "white" and idiotic "black" is due to evolution. It is not original.
Evolution demands, for example, that "whites" who have settled permanently near the equator should intermarry with "blacks" to protect their skins from damage and become a dark-skinned "Homo Africanus".
Mediterraneans and many Arabs live in intermediate solar zones hence are neither "white" nor "black" but "tan".
It is time to end this nonsense. If you want some real information then offer in a box on a scale from 1 to 5: "how privileged or underprivileged are you"?
P.S. No one can be certain that Qaddafi or his successor could have kept Libya together and have prevented a nasty civil war even without foreign intervention.
When I was young and collected stamps in the 1930's there were stamps from a place named Cyrenaica. I found out that it was the Eastern region of Italian occupied Libya and that its residents greatly disliked if not hated the residents from Tripolitania, the Western region of Syria.
It therefore was no surprise for me that Syria did split again after Qaddafi was murdered. In fact, his move on Benghazi was intended to keep the country together by force.
As early as 1929 the German physician Fritz Lickint presented the first statistical evidence which linked cigarette smoking with lung cancer. In 1939 he published “Tobacco and the Organism” a thousand-page study on diseases associated with every form of tobacco use. He was not alone. In 1939 Hermann Mueller published his results of an improved study which confirmed the conclusions of Lickint. In 1943 Eberhard Schairer and Erich Schroeninger published an even more complex study in which they came to the same conclusion. As early as 1934 the German government banned smoking in many public areas and advertising of cigarettes. Non-smoking carriages were added to trains. Pence is ignorant or his staff does not present him with the overwhelming evidence of the dangers of cigarette smoking.
The fundamental difference between the US and Russia is about who shall determine who will rule Syria if that civil war ever ends. The Russian position is that it is up to the people of Syria. Our position is that it is up to the occupant of the White House.
It is a sound Keynesian principle that businesses must steer as much as possible of their profits to the millions who purchase their goods and services. Donald Trump obviously does not understand this which is why his presidency will not fail to become a huge economic disaster.
The British Mandate of Palestine was in essence a child of The League of Nations. It should therefore have become a ward of the UN, the successor organization of the LoN. The UN did not just "play a Solomon", it executed a Solomon by hacking its ward into pieces because not one of the members of the Security Council wanted to take responsibility for giving asylum to all of the surviving Jews of the Holocaust. If there ever was an act of retching political cowardice that was it.
The unintended consequences include our wars in Iraq and Libya, and against ISIL.
The notion that terrorist attacks will stop when Daesh is defeated at Mosul is a dangerous prediction. The Caliphate is more that one man and a territory. It is an ideology which will not die with the fall of Mosul.
PP. Mosul has long been Syrian. At the Paris Peace Conference after WW1 it was originally slated to be part of the French Area but the Brits insisted that it become a British Area because of the oil wells at Mosul. The haggling over oil almost triggered a French-British war.
A more useful statement would have been "Donald Trump behaves like an alpha-male $$$$ leaving it to me to fill in the blank. That word would not be bonobo.
This problem began when distinctions were drawn between "original" (ha ha ha) Americans, Irish Americans, Greek Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, LGBT Americans and many more.
Government spokespersons have repeatedly told us that Daesh cannot be defeated militarily only. Then what are the plans especially for Syria when the military defeat is achieved?
If a Trump administration will make the issuance of visa to foreign scientists to come here and participate in research more difficult that might have a devastating effect on biological and medical research at our universities.
Wrong too. It was Arabs who founded Al Qaeda and ISIL. Why is it that you must always insist that "we" are so omnipotent that we cause every fart in Asia to happen and its people have nothing to do with it?
In that context I will blame the cause for the existence of ISIL only on the invasion on Egypt by GB and France which President Eisenhower condemned and stopped. Bingo. Bush and Obama off the hook.
You are writing puerile history if you do not mention that invasion among the major contributing causes for the existence of ISIL.
In 2011 it was the leadership of the armed forces which said an emphatic no to the demand by the Government of Iraq that the renegotiated SOFA should allow the arrest and trial by Iraqi law enforcement of US soldiers which committed crimes off base and not on duty. For the Government of Iraq that was non-negotiable. President Obama was therefore between a wall and a hard rock. Either ignore the Pentagon and restart a war with Iraq or accept the Pentagon and take all forces except the Marines at the embassy out of Iraq. He chose the Pentagon. That's all folks. No ISIL founding.
This is yet another example of historic myopia by both Trump and Cole. Attempts to unify a large region of the Levant albeit under much more modern laws predate ISIL by many years. Example: Nasser's attempt of the Unified Arab republic. All of these attempts had Arab nationalism in common. Although Arab nationalism is overwhelmed by religion in ISIL it is there. The potential for ISIL existed long before the Bush invasion of Iraq. Our wars triggered but did not "found" ISIL. Enough of the nonsense of diminishing the role of the Arabic people themselves. Of course WE, the omnipotent WE, had to create ISIL. It could not have been these people in funny dresses. No Sir!
All one has to know is that when Christ is supposed to come back to Earth for the last reckoning it will be in Jerusalem. Some rich people are already buried at or near that projected site in the hope that they will be the first to be resurrected and sent to heaven.
It is interesting that the article mentions al-Raqqa because that is where the ultimate battle between the Caliphate and "Rome" (read the West) is supposed to happen according to the belief of the Caliph and his followers.
Controlling al-Raqqa is fundamental for the Caliphate. If it is lost there can be no final battle there.
It is not clear whether al-Qaeda has the same belief.
Washington and his cohorts were faced with a potential threat for the new nation. Although the Bay Area Colony of Massachusetts had become more lenient towards allowing Catholics and other religious "riff-raff" to live in that state one could never be sure that there would not arise some day a fanatic in the State of Massachusetts who, with a large voting support in the State House, would again forbid Catholics to settle in that State. The amendment on government and religion throttled that threat.
To combat ISIL effectively the nations that fight ISIL must come up with an answer for "what after ISIL is defeated"? I have not heard or read any coherent answer. I am not even sure that we will get one because the interests of those nations are too diverse.
"Freedom and democracy" alone will no longer do.
Separation of state and religion which is really what is absolutely needed first will not happen soon. Can you imagine what King Philip II of Spain would have done with a citizen of Spain who would have demanded that? That person would have been burned alive during auto-da-fe. The Catholic ISIL of that time.
The other side was not any better as shown what happened when the "Watergeuzen" (Water Beggars) captured the town of Den Briel and promptly murdered every Catholic priest there. The Protestant ISIL of that time.
The current world of the ISIL is historically where Europe was at the time of Philip II and the "Watergeuzen"which is why I am pessimistic.
Perhaps that is also a compelling reason to let that region wrestle itself out of that period without external intervention.
The only state or group which deserves any support must fight for 'separation of church and state'.
The governments of Iraq and Libya are thereby disqualified. Syria is a mess but I believe that Assad was a secular ruler. Even so his constitution demanded that the President must be a Muslim.
Around the year 1800 there lived in England a cleric named Malthus who wrote a treatise named “Essay on the Principle of Populations” in which he argued that populations grow exponentially but food production grows linearly. Hence he predicted that a terrible hunger catastrophe would ensue soon. Malthus is essentially a forgotten figure today because his catastrophe has not (yet?) happened. Was Malthus wrong? Not necessarily. The 19th Century saw an exponential growth of death in warfare which was helpful. However, the principal reason may have been the complete breakthrough in “the West” of a new economic order known as capitalism. I would need several pages to argue how capitalism helped avert the Malthusian catastrophe. Just one hint: the birth of modern agricultural science.
I hold that major economic revolutions have always been spawned by Malthus-like situations where population growth overwhelmed existing means of food production and distribution. That is probably why our ancestors stopped hunting-gathering and began agriculture.
I hold that the entire world and not merely “the West” might be at the threshold of a looming Malthusian catastrophe today and that it is this looming disaster which feeds into the observations of the article of Patrick Cockburn.
The power of our genes is infinitely greater than that of all Gods combined but there is no guarantee that another economic revolution will be the “Deus ex Machina” this time around.
It has been written that “Third World” people hate us because of our “freedom”. My hunch is that they hate us because of a fear that we will let them die first when the hunger crunch comes. After all, “we” have far more of the powerful weapons than they.
If I had been asked yesterday: "which country or countries do you think these murderers came from" I would not have answered Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. That is slightly puzzling because I can hardly believe that Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have any desire to join the Calipahte.
Losing territory is deadly for the Caliph because his authority is substantially based on the size of his Caliphate.
Predicting the future of Iraq is voodoo history.
El Alamein was not "the end of the beginning of WW2". That was the check of the Wehrmacht at Moscow in 1941. And the check at Stalingrad preceded El Alamein too.
The loss of territory is lethal for the new Caliph because his authority is largely based on the territory he controls. Moreover the Caliph is expected to enlarge that territory every spring. That has not been greatly successful either this year.
A Caliphate is and will remain attractive as it reminds young people of the region of the glory days of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (not a real Caliph though; wrong family) who scared the bejabbers out of Christendom until he was checked at Vienna.
Our kids are rarely if ever taught who that Sultan was. I am absolutely sure that the great majority of the kids in Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc know who he was and there is the problem for the future no matter how many Fallujahs will fall.
If Brexit succeeds you must do the following to make Britain Great Again. Dump the metric system. No liters. No kilometers. No kilograms. God forbid, no such Napoleontic crap. Go back to pounds, shillings, and pence with their impossible to remember numerical relationships (for visitors, if any will come). Start driving on the left side of the roads again and make cars with the driver seat on the right side. Close the tunnel between you and France. Rule the waves again. Continue to serve awful food at Lyons. Right?
When it is all over (if that will ever happen) much of Syria and some of Iraq will look like Germany in May of 1945. Will there be a new "Marshall Plan" ("Kerry Plan"? "Clinton Plan"? "Sanders Plan"? Trump Plan"?) to help rebuild Syria and Iraq? I doubt it.
No candidate for our Presidency can afford to suggest that we ought to plan the spending hundreds of billions of dollars in a region filled with Muslims. The cowards.
The most likely response will be: let the Saudi's pay for it. Or Saudi's plus Putin. Plus Iran?
Every discussion of the 2002 resolution on Iraq must consider its predecessor S.J.Res. 23 (2001). Although that resolution aimed at the perpetrators of 9/11 it has a not-so-hidden article which authorizes the President to go later after every other country or organization which threatens the security of the USA. Here is that article:
Section 2 – Authorization For Use of United States Armed Forces
(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
The key word is FUTURE. It authorized Bush to attack Iraq in 2002 because he (falsely) accused Saddam Hussein to have weapons of mass destruction aimed at the US.
It is therefore likely that the much debated 2002 resolution was not even necessary and that President Bush could have claimed the 2001 resolution as the justification for his attack on Iraq. A tempest in the teapot of Clinton-Trump-Sanders?
The annual increase of the world's population today lies somewhere between 70 and 100 million. The question arises whether any changeover from carbon to non-carbon energy production can keep up with that increase.
DH. Control of territory is critical for the caliph because his authority is largely based on territory he controls and the number of Muslims who acknowledge his authority. The caliph is expected to increase the territory of the caliphate. That is why the Ottoman rulers (who were not considered to be caliphs) tried to enlarge their territory into Eastern Europe.
alec. Sanders a man of peace? Have you checked his Russia-Ukraine policy? Sending heavy US weapons to Ukraine? Making Ukraine a NATO member. Demanding the return of the Crimea to Russia. Brrrrr.
In a recent article the Houston Chronicle has condemned the Trumpian wall from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. That article points out that some of the strongest Texan opponents to such a wall through Texas actually live near the US border with Mexico. The article also asks "can you imagine that wall sneaking through the Big Bend National Park"?
The immense idiocy of Cruz's demand that "Muslim neighborhoods" of US cities must be patrolled by law enforcement to catch terrorists is demonstrated by Dearborn, Michigan whose Muslim community is Shia. That community is in much greater danger of ISIL terrorism than the Christians in Dearborn.
Mr. Cole. I note that “The Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria.” seems to be essential identical with the state promised to Arab fighters for the Allies during WW1. Is that correct?
Dangerous fringe have popped up from time to time in all religions. The new Khalif avers that the leaders of all Islamic states are godless. In that he is correct but not in much else.
One fact of Hitler's life is that several German officers, retired and active, demanded that he be executed for treason after his failed putsch in Munich.
ISIL is a caliphate. It was founded/created by the caliph and his cronies. To have authority the caliph needs followers and territory to rule. The acquisition of followers and territory was made easier by policies and actions of Presidents Clinton, Bush 1, Bush 2, and Obama.
I hope that everybody understands that the slaves transported to the American colonies included numerous kidnapped English children and numerous inmates from British prisons.
I am puzzled why the oil industry is so adamantly opposed to renewable energy. Crude oil will continue to be used for the production of plastics and pharmaceuticals. The reduction of the use of oil for other purposes means that it can remai n a source for the former much longer.
As I have stated below, the honor is not bestowed by the State of Israel but by "Le people juif reconaissant". Hence Mr. Zanoli is not returning his honor to that state but to the thankful Jewish people.
On the plaque which all honorees receive is written "Le people juif reconnaissant". This implies that the honor is not from the government of Israel, is not from the State of Israel, but is from "Le people juif reconnaissant" among which there must be persons who agree with Mr. Zanoli.
What does "legal protection of US troops" mean? My hunch is: no trial in an Afghan court for crimes committed off-duty. That was the issue which caused the failure of the continuation of "SOFA Iraq 2008" in 2012.
The right for a Palestinian State to exist within the territory of the former Mandate of the League of Nations was established by the UN in 1947. To the best of my knowledge that right has not been revoked. Hence there is no need for asking recognition of that right again.
One of the commonly made errors is that Mr. Suleiman is legally the first in line to become Egypt's President if Mr. Mubarak resigns. If that happens the President of the People's Assembly becomes a temporary President. If the People's Assembly has been dismissed the President of the Supreme Constitutional Court becomes temporary President. Neither can run in the upcoming elections for President. The Vice President cannot become President when the President becomes incapacitated or resigns.
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The Nazi definition of Jews was very different from ours. They recognized four categories depending on the number of your Jewish grandparents. Boys with one or two Jewish grandparents were drafted into the Wehrmacht until late 1941 early 1942 regardless of whether the Jewish community regarded that boy as a Jew. At least the children with one or two Jewish grandparents could be listed in the passport of their non-Jewish parent or-as in my case-even have their own passport. It was very useful when I was stopped in the streets of Amsterdam during the German occupation by a Dutch Nazi who thought that he had caught a Jewish boy who should be in a concentration camp.
It is known what the plans for us were. After Germany had won the war and we were age 21 we would be given the choice of either castration or concentration camp.
It is not true that so-called "Volljuden" (4 Jewish grandparents) could not get German Nazi passports. I know a few cases of Jewish boys and girls who were allowed to travel from Germany to visit family in the Netherlands before the war. They were not rich. One such boy whom I got to know well remained in the Netherlands but went back to Germany at least once to visit his parents. His sister got to England with the last children's transport.
Because of the difficulty and secrecy of the actions we will never get the full story of the German Jews smuggled abroad primarily with the aid of socialist labor unions and communist organizations. One of the preferred countries to go to was the Netherlands.
The fate of the German Jews was probably much more complex than this article describes.
There were two places in the world where Jews could settle without valid papers. Bogota and Shanghai.
I am puzzled by your opening statement. Nowhere in our constitution do I find the statement "this document is for US citizens only". Yes, foreigners, including immigrants, can be removed from the country. However, when a person is either on US soil or in the custody of a US agency including our armed forces that person is protected by our constitution.
Around 1800 our country badly needed immigrants. The framers of the constitution understood that potential immigrants living in European nations under harsh and arbitrary governments would be more prone to come if the word spread around: "in America there is religious freedom and that government cannot arbitrarily throw you in jail". I am not joking. I firmly believe that this was one of the reasons why this document was so liberal/libertarian for its time. Here are a few of the European rulers Prussia: Friedrich Wilhelm III. Russia: Paul I. No enlightenment there.
Around 1600, converso's suspected of being secretly Jews were tortured and burned by the Spanish Inquisition in Mexico too. I know that it is long-ago history but it is "before WW2".
Not one of these persons was an enemy soldier or a so-called “enemy combatant”. Not one of these persons has entered US territory illegally. Not one of these persons was suspected of having committed or was planning to commit a crime on US soil. Hence the Trump administration must in every individual case demonstrate a legal cause why it restricted the freedom of movement of these persons. I hold that every one of these cases was a false arrest. The moment they are in US custody they are protected by our constitution.
Thanks.
Furthermore many Trump voters wanted a bull-president. They got one for all of us. In a China shop.
The action of the photo shown with this report is followed by what has become a Trump routine. He will hold up the document and show it to the nation even though we cannot read the text. Trump is thereby re-enacting the scene when Moses has come down from Mount Sinai and shows the tablets of the Ten Commandments to the Jews in the desert. Moses the law giver!
Well, Trump has not yet signed a single law. He has started his governmental daily "Punch and Judy" show named the "Donald and Mike" show. Mike is watching what Donald does.
Trump, you are not Moses.
This has to be a record. Within the first week of his Presidency Trump has managed to insult and anger three governments: Mexico, Iraq, China.
Why does President Trump do this? Answer: because he can.
ISIS is not the first nor will it be the last Islamic movement which claims that all worldly Muslim leaders are Godless apostates. Come to think of it, they are probably close to correct on that one. Mohammad would probably be appalled by the riches horded by the clan of Saud.
The opening sentence should dispel any doubt that President Trump implies a renewed war with Iraq and the committing a war crime. Here is why.
The Geneva Conventions on Warfare do allow an occupying force to take as much of the natural resources of the occupied land as it needs to maintain its occupying forces but not more.
Currently Iraq is an independent country and the US armed forces there are not an occupying force. Hence Trump proposes not only to restart the war with Iraq and occupy it but also to commit a war crime.
Trump is also incapable of producing a coherent analysis.
As the FDR years demonstrate there is nothing wrong with shaking the structure up a bit but this is the replacing of a tottering system (2008/09!) with an even worse one.
As a scientist I do not hesitate to say that climate change is a complex issue but global warming is very simple to understand. If you put another blanket on your bed you will be warmer when you are in bed than before. If you put more greenhouse gases into the upper atmosphere the lower atmosphere where we live will get hotter.
Global warming is by far the greatest danger facing mankind.
Juan, please stop being khitri (Putin knows what that means). Watergate was not an international but a domestic affair so what is its connection here? Zero as far as I am concerned.
Yes most if not all governments of the world try to get information on others by hook or by crook or by both but how often do they pass that information via middlemen on to ratters such as Assange in the middle of a US election campaign? I dare you to give us examples.
Russia and the Soviet Union were repeatedly burned by "close relations with the West". It began with Napoleon and Alexander I at Tilsit after which Napoleon invaded Russia. Prior to WW1 Russia entered a pact with France to contain Germany which ended in disaster for Nicholas II. In 1939 Stalin agreed to a pact with Hitler but was invaded two years later. Of course Putin knows all of this. He is far from jumping into Trump's lap to cuddle with us. He will keep all options open including giving Trump his boot.
Thank you Juan for writing an excellent analysis. As one would expect from a political newcomer such as Trump who also believes that he knows more about the world than anyone else in the world (some of the biblical prophets are worth consulting on this) his pronunciations about the region are all over the map. That is cheap when he is not our President. After January 20 there will be dire payments for such behavior.
Next time please include the issue of weapons sales in the region in your analysis. While the total annual cost of these sales is not very large, the client states of Trump and Putin, the major players in the region, can hardly afford to switch now.
The Czar and the Sultan are allies. Wow!
I shall never forget the lecture which the son of Richard Leakey gave at my university in which he masterfully ridiculed the classifications of white and black. On this issue he is the expert. No person is white and no person is black.
According to this resolution the very first settlement was already illegal.
The suspect of the Berlin attack was arrested in August of this year in the Southern German town of Friedrichshafen. He had a falsified Italian ID on him.
It may be crucial that he was in Frierichshafen. It is a fairly large town on the Bodensee. There are several fairly safe ways to get into and out of Germany from Friedrichshafen through Austria, France and, albeit less safe, Switzerland. By car. By train. And above all by the numerous ferry services from Friedrichshafen to ports in these countries. You do not have to identify yourself to buy a ferry ticket and it is very easy to pretend that you are a tourist. Since the pact of Schengen there are no longer border controls between Germany, Austria, and France. I am not sure about Switzerland.
He also lived for a while in Emmerich very close to an escape to the Netherlands.
My hunch is that the suspect had contact addresses in Italy, Austria, and Germany where he could hide and find help.
1984 has arrived in GB.
Herzl was disappointed by the Balfour declaration because it was only "half a loaf". He was confident that his Zionists would eventually take the "whole loaf". That process accelerated in 1947 and will not stop until all other nations unite to stop it.
"Would have" is fantasy history. Entertaining but totally unreal because there is no control over the real world.
For the members of the House of Saud Jerusalem is right behind Mecca as a holy city. Will they remain silent?
From the point of view of Putin this might well be a "I helped you out of your stupid red line drawing pickle and then you continued to support forces which would try to throw us out of our Latakia naval base if they won. No way man, no way".
Assad fired at rebels. Lincoln did too. That is what government do to rebels. Get real.
The issue is never whether rebels act peacefully. What counts is: are they acting peaceably?
Mr. Cole writes confused. The basic issue is whether there are states in which Islam is the established national religion and the constitution demands that at least their president must be a Muslim. That is the essence of "political Islam" and not what people hold. A better expression is "Islamic theocracy".
Some Islamic theocracies are still a kind of prison for women and some are hell for openly homosexuals. Such states conduct internal, official terrorism in my book.
This is a remarkable piece of news. If Mattis still holds to the views he had in 2013 and if these views prevail in the Trump administration then there might be a 180 degree turnaround of Middle Eastern policies.
This is the best recent analysis I have read on the subject. I still wonder how much of the US policy on this matter is tied up with the anti-colonial revolutions after WW2 which shifted the center of political and economic "gravity" from Europe-America towards Asia which is still the nexus of oil production. An Iran completely free of economic shackles might well add more power to the current "Asian duo" of China, and India with Russia in support. Better to keep Iran limping along based on spurious accusations. Trump seems to be sensitive to the shift of economic power Asia-ward as evidenced by his views on China. Hence he is likely to pursue an Iran policy which keeps Iran hogtied as well as possible. "Make America Great Again". My translation: stop the Asian economic shift and, if possible, reverse it.
The policy which denies Iran to have its own missiles may backfire badly. That kind of policy after WW1 against Germany (no tanks, etc.) was great political fodder for Hitler and other right-wing politicians and much of the German nation. It will empower the anti-Western politicians and groups in Iran...
Does he know that Hitler masterfully conducted his own defense during his 1924 trial for the "Munich Putsch" of 1923 during which his terror gang killed and injured several policemen, a defense which made him suddenly a famous politician in Germany? Roof will not succeed to duplicate that because no one will believe that he is the savior of white America. Trump has already claimed that spot.
This is Erdogan's "Sudetenland". Will there be another Chamberlain? I suspect that other NATO governments will be loath to use their soldiers to drive Erdogan out of Iraq. Hence there will be a foul compromise. Erdogan will get Northwestern Iraq, then take it all. It is again about oil. And a strategic port at Basra.
It has long been asserted that a capitalist, even a semi-capitalist Russia would be more dangerous for the "West" than the Soviet Union.
During the 19320/30's France tried to construct a buffer-alliance against the Soviet Union, named "cordon sanitaire". It failed, among others, because Hitler refused to join.
After the fall of the Warsaw Pact a new attempt was made to surround first the Soviet Union then the Russian Federation with another "cordon sanitaire" of sorts but a much larger one.
Because of the Chinese Revolution it could not be perfect but even the imperfect version was continuously aimed at since the "Iron Curtain" speech of Churchill.
It is in this context that I view the struggles in the Middle East. The anti-Russian "wall" before our massive attempts at regime change there looked as follows. Finland-Sweden. The Baltic States. Poland now backed by Germany. Ukraine. Romania. Bulgaria. Turkey (the last four controlling the Black Sea). Syria. Iraq. Iran (under the Shah). Afghanistan. Pakistan. The unraveling of that "wall" did not begin in Syria but in Iran with the overthrow of the Shah, a major defeat for US policy for the containment of Russia. Hence the permanent economic warfare against Iran which will continue under Trump.
The 9/11 event provided the rationale for preventing additional nasty switches by unreliable regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. The rebellion in Syria was launched to replace unreliable Assad. All without much, if any success.
Our policy vs. Iran and Syria is not containment of the Ayatollah's and Assad but is still regime change.
Meanwhile, as the West was busy trying to isolate Russia, China grew from an economic nothing to an economic giant. The scare is already on and attempts are underway for a new wall consisting of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Indochina, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and, if possible, the traditional enemies of China Kazakhstan and Mongolia. Rest assured that the Trump team will work on that. Difference: the population of the Russian Federation is less than 150 million. China: more than 1 billion.
Just as 16th and 17th Century attempt by Spain to contain the Reformation and the Ottoman Empire by wars ruined Spain financially despite the huge influx of silver into Spain, our attempts to contain the Russian Federation and China will be our financial ruin.
In summary: the current US policy attempts to prevent Russia and China to become the engines for all of Asia becoming the fulcrum of economic activity. It will fail.
Issue #1: How many visa-violators are among the 3 million? They are mainly from Asia and Europe.
Issue #2: Deporting Mexican and Canadian citizens is technically the simplest. How will he deport other nationalities? Mexico and Canada can legally refuse Trump-forced entry of non-Mexicans and non-Canadians.
Issue #3: Trump has suggested an alternative: jailing.
Issue #4: What are the projected costs of deporting and/or jailing?
Issue #5: how many law-enforcing personnel will be required to find, arrest, and deport 2 to 3 million persons?
I mention these issues because I hold that the current bluster is only food for the early supporters. Once Trump is inaugurated and his advisers understand the idiocy of quickly rounding up and deporting 2 to 3 million persons who will include numerous US citizens Trump will tone down and begin to whine about practical and legal problems and non-cooperation of target states. The word "rigged" will undoubtedly be mentioned again.
Trouble for Tehran will be noticed and counteracted by Moscow.
It is remarkable that Franklin said nothing about the Dutch when one considers that they once had a thriving outpost named New Netherlands with its harbor of New Amsterdam which became New York. Was Franklin that poorly educated?
The murder of the poet deHaan in Jerusalem confirmed that his murderers asserted that he was too successful in defending Arab's land rights in the courts of the British authorities.
As we all came originally from Africa the correct designation is "Homo Africanus". Is there an "other" box available for that to write in?
You can rest assured that "Homo Africanus" was dark skinned because of the exposure to sunlight at high angles of entry. Those of us who are lighter skinned-and are mistakenly named "white"-got that way because our forbears began to live in regions where sunlight enters at lower angles. The difference between idiotic "white" and idiotic "black" is due to evolution. It is not original.
Evolution demands, for example, that "whites" who have settled permanently near the equator should intermarry with "blacks" to protect their skins from damage and become a dark-skinned "Homo Africanus".
Mediterraneans and many Arabs live in intermediate solar zones hence are neither "white" nor "black" but "tan".
It is time to end this nonsense. If you want some real information then offer in a box on a scale from 1 to 5: "how privileged or underprivileged are you"?
Nasser had the right to nationalize the Suez Canal.
Saddam Hussein had the same right as Israel to obtain nuclear arms for the defense of Iraq.
P.S. No one can be certain that Qaddafi or his successor could have kept Libya together and have prevented a nasty civil war even without foreign intervention.
When I was young and collected stamps in the 1930's there were stamps from a place named Cyrenaica. I found out that it was the Eastern region of Italian occupied Libya and that its residents greatly disliked if not hated the residents from Tripolitania, the Western region of Syria.
It therefore was no surprise for me that Syria did split again after Qaddafi was murdered. In fact, his move on Benghazi was intended to keep the country together by force.
Conway's slip is known as a "Freudian slip" because it emerges from the sub-conscious.
Who will pay the carbon tax? The producers or us the consumers?
Another nail in the coffin of the "out with Assad" conglomerate.
But Putin is blamed for preventing that aid gets to the beleaguered part of Aleppo. What again is the word for that?
As early as 1929 the German physician Fritz Lickint presented the first statistical evidence which linked cigarette smoking with lung cancer. In 1939 he published “Tobacco and the Organism” a thousand-page study on diseases associated with every form of tobacco use. He was not alone. In 1939 Hermann Mueller published his results of an improved study which confirmed the conclusions of Lickint. In 1943 Eberhard Schairer and Erich Schroeninger published an even more complex study in which they came to the same conclusion. As early as 1934 the German government banned smoking in many public areas and advertising of cigarettes. Non-smoking carriages were added to trains. Pence is ignorant or his staff does not present him with the overwhelming evidence of the dangers of cigarette smoking.
The fundamental difference between the US and Russia is about who shall determine who will rule Syria if that civil war ever ends. The Russian position is that it is up to the people of Syria. Our position is that it is up to the occupant of the White House.
I have had a long-standing problem with believers.
It is a sound Keynesian principle that businesses must steer as much as possible of their profits to the millions who purchase their goods and services. Donald Trump obviously does not understand this which is why his presidency will not fail to become a huge economic disaster.
The British Mandate of Palestine was in essence a child of The League of Nations. It should therefore have become a ward of the UN, the successor organization of the LoN. The UN did not just "play a Solomon", it executed a Solomon by hacking its ward into pieces because not one of the members of the Security Council wanted to take responsibility for giving asylum to all of the surviving Jews of the Holocaust. If there ever was an act of retching political cowardice that was it.
The unintended consequences include our wars in Iraq and Libya, and against ISIL.
The notion that terrorist attacks will stop when Daesh is defeated at Mosul is a dangerous prediction. The Caliphate is more that one man and a territory. It is an ideology which will not die with the fall of Mosul.
PP. Mosul has long been Syrian. At the Paris Peace Conference after WW1 it was originally slated to be part of the French Area but the Brits insisted that it become a British Area because of the oil wells at Mosul. The haggling over oil almost triggered a French-British war.
A more useful statement would have been "Donald Trump behaves like an alpha-male $$$$ leaving it to me to fill in the blank. That word would not be bonobo.
Almost the entire work of Magritte applies.
This problem began when distinctions were drawn between "original" (ha ha ha) Americans, Irish Americans, Greek Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, LGBT Americans and many more.
The headline is an insult of the squatters of last century.
Government spokespersons have repeatedly told us that Daesh cannot be defeated militarily only. Then what are the plans especially for Syria when the military defeat is achieved?
Of course all troops are on the ground. I suspect that Ms. Clinton meant no division-sized units with tanks and artillery.
Dreyfusian spirit is still alive in France.
If a Trump administration will make the issuance of visa to foreign scientists to come here and participate in research more difficult that might have a devastating effect on biological and medical research at our universities.
Wrong too. It was Arabs who founded Al Qaeda and ISIL. Why is it that you must always insist that "we" are so omnipotent that we cause every fart in Asia to happen and its people have nothing to do with it?
In that context I will blame the cause for the existence of ISIL only on the invasion on Egypt by GB and France which President Eisenhower condemned and stopped. Bingo. Bush and Obama off the hook.
You are writing puerile history if you do not mention that invasion among the major contributing causes for the existence of ISIL.
In 2011 it was the leadership of the armed forces which said an emphatic no to the demand by the Government of Iraq that the renegotiated SOFA should allow the arrest and trial by Iraqi law enforcement of US soldiers which committed crimes off base and not on duty. For the Government of Iraq that was non-negotiable. President Obama was therefore between a wall and a hard rock. Either ignore the Pentagon and restart a war with Iraq or accept the Pentagon and take all forces except the Marines at the embassy out of Iraq. He chose the Pentagon. That's all folks. No ISIL founding.
This is yet another example of historic myopia by both Trump and Cole. Attempts to unify a large region of the Levant albeit under much more modern laws predate ISIL by many years. Example: Nasser's attempt of the Unified Arab republic. All of these attempts had Arab nationalism in common. Although Arab nationalism is overwhelmed by religion in ISIL it is there. The potential for ISIL existed long before the Bush invasion of Iraq. Our wars triggered but did not "found" ISIL. Enough of the nonsense of diminishing the role of the Arabic people themselves. Of course WE, the omnipotent WE, had to create ISIL. It could not have been these people in funny dresses. No Sir!
It is good to remember that in 1776 women and men were not considered to be created equally.
All one has to know is that when Christ is supposed to come back to Earth for the last reckoning it will be in Jerusalem. Some rich people are already buried at or near that projected site in the hope that they will be the first to be resurrected and sent to heaven.
It is interesting that the article mentions al-Raqqa because that is where the ultimate battle between the Caliphate and "Rome" (read the West) is supposed to happen according to the belief of the Caliph and his followers.
Controlling al-Raqqa is fundamental for the Caliphate. If it is lost there can be no final battle there.
It is not clear whether al-Qaeda has the same belief.
As long as a large majority of our nation believes that Jesus will return in Jerusalem this will not resonate among voters.
Washington and his cohorts were faced with a potential threat for the new nation. Although the Bay Area Colony of Massachusetts had become more lenient towards allowing Catholics and other religious "riff-raff" to live in that state one could never be sure that there would not arise some day a fanatic in the State of Massachusetts who, with a large voting support in the State House, would again forbid Catholics to settle in that State. The amendment on government and religion throttled that threat.
To combat ISIL effectively the nations that fight ISIL must come up with an answer for "what after ISIL is defeated"? I have not heard or read any coherent answer. I am not even sure that we will get one because the interests of those nations are too diverse.
"Freedom and democracy" alone will no longer do.
Separation of state and religion which is really what is absolutely needed first will not happen soon. Can you imagine what King Philip II of Spain would have done with a citizen of Spain who would have demanded that? That person would have been burned alive during auto-da-fe. The Catholic ISIL of that time.
The other side was not any better as shown what happened when the "Watergeuzen" (Water Beggars) captured the town of Den Briel and promptly murdered every Catholic priest there. The Protestant ISIL of that time.
The current world of the ISIL is historically where Europe was at the time of Philip II and the "Watergeuzen"which is why I am pessimistic.
Perhaps that is also a compelling reason to let that region wrestle itself out of that period without external intervention.
The only state or group which deserves any support must fight for 'separation of church and state'.
The governments of Iraq and Libya are thereby disqualified. Syria is a mess but I believe that Assad was a secular ruler. Even so his constitution demanded that the President must be a Muslim.
Around the year 1800 there lived in England a cleric named Malthus who wrote a treatise named “Essay on the Principle of Populations” in which he argued that populations grow exponentially but food production grows linearly. Hence he predicted that a terrible hunger catastrophe would ensue soon. Malthus is essentially a forgotten figure today because his catastrophe has not (yet?) happened. Was Malthus wrong? Not necessarily. The 19th Century saw an exponential growth of death in warfare which was helpful. However, the principal reason may have been the complete breakthrough in “the West” of a new economic order known as capitalism. I would need several pages to argue how capitalism helped avert the Malthusian catastrophe. Just one hint: the birth of modern agricultural science.
I hold that major economic revolutions have always been spawned by Malthus-like situations where population growth overwhelmed existing means of food production and distribution. That is probably why our ancestors stopped hunting-gathering and began agriculture.
I hold that the entire world and not merely “the West” might be at the threshold of a looming Malthusian catastrophe today and that it is this looming disaster which feeds into the observations of the article of Patrick Cockburn.
The power of our genes is infinitely greater than that of all Gods combined but there is no guarantee that another economic revolution will be the “Deus ex Machina” this time around.
It has been written that “Third World” people hate us because of our “freedom”. My hunch is that they hate us because of a fear that we will let them die first when the hunger crunch comes. After all, “we” have far more of the powerful weapons than they.
If I had been asked yesterday: "which country or countries do you think these murderers came from" I would not have answered Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. That is slightly puzzling because I can hardly believe that Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have any desire to join the Calipahte.
Losing territory is deadly for the Caliph because his authority is substantially based on the size of his Caliphate.
Predicting the future of Iraq is voodoo history.
El Alamein was not "the end of the beginning of WW2". That was the check of the Wehrmacht at Moscow in 1941. And the check at Stalingrad preceded El Alamein too.
The loss of territory is lethal for the new Caliph because his authority is largely based on the territory he controls. Moreover the Caliph is expected to enlarge that territory every spring. That has not been greatly successful either this year.
A Caliphate is and will remain attractive as it reminds young people of the region of the glory days of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (not a real Caliph though; wrong family) who scared the bejabbers out of Christendom until he was checked at Vienna.
Our kids are rarely if ever taught who that Sultan was. I am absolutely sure that the great majority of the kids in Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc know who he was and there is the problem for the future no matter how many Fallujahs will fall.
Notice that the article was written by anonymous "contributors" with a "related video added by Juan Cole".
If Brexit succeeds you must do the following to make Britain Great Again. Dump the metric system. No liters. No kilometers. No kilograms. God forbid, no such Napoleontic crap. Go back to pounds, shillings, and pence with their impossible to remember numerical relationships (for visitors, if any will come). Start driving on the left side of the roads again and make cars with the driver seat on the right side. Close the tunnel between you and France. Rule the waves again. Continue to serve awful food at Lyons. Right?
Brexit is another falsehood to fool the British Labor class into believing that it can improve its living standard by leaving the EU.
It must never be forgotten either that it was Howard Cosell among the very few who defended Ali when his title was stripped.
When it is all over (if that will ever happen) much of Syria and some of Iraq will look like Germany in May of 1945. Will there be a new "Marshall Plan" ("Kerry Plan"? "Clinton Plan"? "Sanders Plan"? Trump Plan"?) to help rebuild Syria and Iraq? I doubt it.
No candidate for our Presidency can afford to suggest that we ought to plan the spending hundreds of billions of dollars in a region filled with Muslims. The cowards.
The most likely response will be: let the Saudi's pay for it. Or Saudi's plus Putin. Plus Iran?
Both are ethnic cleansers.
Soon, researchers predict, the middle class may no longer be the largest class in the country. Why is that bad?
Every discussion of the 2002 resolution on Iraq must consider its predecessor S.J.Res. 23 (2001). Although that resolution aimed at the perpetrators of 9/11 it has a not-so-hidden article which authorizes the President to go later after every other country or organization which threatens the security of the USA. Here is that article:
Section 2 – Authorization For Use of United States Armed Forces
(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
The key word is FUTURE. It authorized Bush to attack Iraq in 2002 because he (falsely) accused Saddam Hussein to have weapons of mass destruction aimed at the US.
It is therefore likely that the much debated 2002 resolution was not even necessary and that President Bush could have claimed the 2001 resolution as the justification for his attack on Iraq. A tempest in the teapot of Clinton-Trump-Sanders?
The annual increase of the world's population today lies somewhere between 70 and 100 million. The question arises whether any changeover from carbon to non-carbon energy production can keep up with that increase.
DH. Control of territory is critical for the caliph because his authority is largely based on territory he controls and the number of Muslims who acknowledge his authority. The caliph is expected to increase the territory of the caliphate. That is why the Ottoman rulers (who were not considered to be caliphs) tried to enlarge their territory into Eastern Europe.
alec. Sanders a man of peace? Have you checked his Russia-Ukraine policy? Sending heavy US weapons to Ukraine? Making Ukraine a NATO member. Demanding the return of the Crimea to Russia. Brrrrr.
In a recent article the Houston Chronicle has condemned the Trumpian wall from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. That article points out that some of the strongest Texan opponents to such a wall through Texas actually live near the US border with Mexico. The article also asks "can you imagine that wall sneaking through the Big Bend National Park"?
The immense idiocy of Cruz's demand that "Muslim neighborhoods" of US cities must be patrolled by law enforcement to catch terrorists is demonstrated by Dearborn, Michigan whose Muslim community is Shia. That community is in much greater danger of ISIL terrorism than the Christians in Dearborn.
Mr. Cole. I note that “The Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria.” seems to be essential identical with the state promised to Arab fighters for the Allies during WW1. Is that correct?
Daesh considers the House of Saud to be apostate because of its exorbitant life style. I understand that this attracts young Muslims to their caus
Dangerous fringe have popped up from time to time in all religions. The new Khalif avers that the leaders of all Islamic states are godless. In that he is correct but not in much else.
This is a war of the frackers vs. the non-frackers.
One fact of Hitler's life is that several German officers, retired and active, demanded that he be executed for treason after his failed putsch in Munich.
ISIL is a caliphate. It was founded/created by the caliph and his cronies. To have authority the caliph needs followers and territory to rule. The acquisition of followers and territory was made easier by policies and actions of Presidents Clinton, Bush 1, Bush 2, and Obama.
For a long time now I look at a politician's eyes to evaluate them. That has turned out a fairly good guideline.
Sanctions are also expensive for the sanctioners who have to monitor potential violators.
I hope that everybody understands that the slaves transported to the American colonies included numerous kidnapped English children and numerous inmates from British prisons.
Nuclear reactors which use uranium enriched in U235 can be smaller hence safer than reactors which use non-enriched U235.
I am puzzled why the oil industry is so adamantly opposed to renewable energy. Crude oil will continue to be used for the production of plastics and pharmaceuticals. The reduction of the use of oil for other purposes means that it can remai n a source for the former much longer.
As I have stated below, the honor is not bestowed by the State of Israel but by "Le people juif reconaissant". Hence Mr. Zanoli is not returning his honor to that state but to the thankful Jewish people.
On the plaque which all honorees receive is written "Le people juif reconnaissant". This implies that the honor is not from the government of Israel, is not from the State of Israel, but is from "Le people juif reconnaissant" among which there must be persons who agree with Mr. Zanoli.
What does "legal protection of US troops" mean? My hunch is: no trial in an Afghan court for crimes committed off-duty. That was the issue which caused the failure of the continuation of "SOFA Iraq 2008" in 2012.
The right for a Palestinian State to exist within the territory of the former Mandate of the League of Nations was established by the UN in 1947. To the best of my knowledge that right has not been revoked. Hence there is no need for asking recognition of that right again.
It is interesting to notice that the issue of "cotton or food (corn)" contributed to the downfall of the Confederate States of America.
One of the commonly made errors is that Mr. Suleiman is legally the first in line to become Egypt's President if Mr. Mubarak resigns. If that happens the President of the People's Assembly becomes a temporary President. If the People's Assembly has been dismissed the President of the Supreme Constitutional Court becomes temporary President. Neither can run in the upcoming elections for President. The Vice President cannot become President when the President becomes incapacitated or resigns.