Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2019 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Member Profile

Total number of comments: 55 (since 2013-11-28 14:43:04)

Dredd

Showing comments 55 - 1
Page: 1

  • How Putin Saved Obama, Congress and the European Union from Further Embarrassing themselves on Syria
    • Dredd 09/10/2013 at 9:34 am

      This shows, among other things, how much we need to revive our diplomatic corps.

      We have more people in military marching bands than in the foreign relations corps dealing with peaceful diplomacy.

  • How US Grand Strategy in Syria led to the idea of Missile Strikes
    • Dredd 09/09/2013 at 11:53 am with 4 replies

      Dr. Jeffrey Sachs this morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe indicated that the U.S. has been involved in Syria for about two years, and it isn't going as well as planned ("what could go wrong"). So there is need for escalation in the name of humanitarianism. Thus, it is being sold as the Goldilocks intervention, not too hard, not too soft, but just right.

  • Syrian and Middle Eastern Christians Condemn US Strike Plans
    • Dredd 09/05/2013 at 11:12 am

      It is difficult to see how a "coalition of the willing" is going to amount to much under current circumstances.

  • The US still Wants to be the Sole Superpower; but it Can't (Engelhardt)
    • Dredd 09/04/2013 at 6:57 pm

      As Mr. Engelhardt points out, running into reality at the wrong speed hurts.

      Power corrupts but absolute power (e.g. sole superpower) corrupts absolutely.

      The delusion Mr. Engelhardt mention is a form of corruption that will increase.

      All bets are off as to where that will end up exactly, but it will not be pretty, academic, or democratic.

  • NSA Spying Abroad isn't OK Either (Kurzman)
    • Dredd 08/29/2013 at 8:53 am

      "As I’ve repeated for several years, terrorism has not turned out to be a leading threat to public safety, despite the recurrence of occasional violence like the Boston Marathon bomb attacks. Americans have been far more likely to fall victim to murder (more than 180,000 since 9/11) and other forms of violence than to terrorist attacks."

      And we are more likely to be struck by lightening than by a terrorist.

      When will we have "the war on lightening"?

  • Kerry signals US Intervention in Syria, but to What End?
    • Dredd 08/27/2013 at 10:44 am

      "To what end?"

      Diversion from the military NSA spying on all Americans, and economic anamolies.

      We have let millions be slaughtered over the past decade without a whimper in the press.

      A scent of Rome it would seem.

  • Not Markets but the People are making the Green Energy Revolution
    • Dredd 08/26/2013 at 10:24 am

      Maybe some of that oil and gas company propaganda has backfired on them.

      Huffington Post has an article here which says the oil and gas industry is the most hated in America.

  • Top 13 Surveillance Secrets the Gov't Doesn't want You to Know About (Quigley)
    • Dredd 08/26/2013 at 8:45 am

      Another reason is that there is a lot of money in it for the commanders of military NSA:

      "The commanders who lead the nation’s military services and those who oversee troops around the world enjoy an array of perquisites befitting a billionaire, including executive jets, palatial homes, drivers, security guards and aides to carry their bags, press their uniforms and track their schedules in 10-minute increments. Their food is prepared by gourmet chefs. If they want music with their dinner parties, their staff can summon a string quartet or a choir.

      The elite regional commanders who preside over large swaths of the planet don’t have to settle for Gulfstream V jets. They each have a C-40, the military equivalent of a Boeing 737 ..."

      link to blogdredd.blogspot.com

  • NSA abuses include Stalking ex-Girlfriends
    • Dredd 08/24/2013 at 11:35 am

      They have become unhinged.

  • Is the US Government the Managing Committee of the Pirate Banks?
    • Dredd 08/23/2013 at 9:58 am with 1 replies

      "This is government as humble man-servant of the least savory sections of big business."

      Well said.

      The power of the progenitor of feudalism should not be "misunderestimated" nor misunderstood.

  • Egypt's Waco
    • Dredd 08/16/2013 at 4:04 pm

      "I am in the horrified camp, and ask myself how in the world people can be indifferent to or even justified what the Egyptian military did." - Juan Cole

      Count me in as horrified as well.

      It is no way to run a country or a civilization.

      The general Middle Eastern coup of about a century ago may be unravelling, and will not end well either.

  • Yep, We're Screwed: Top Ten Recent Climate Change Findings that should Scare You
    • Dredd 08/15/2013 at 8:43 am

      Great post.

      Let's hope denialism dies out before civilization does.

  • Obama's Reassurances about Domestic Surveillance are not Reassuring
    • Dredd 08/10/2013 at 9:38 am

      Agreed.

  • Where is our Amsterdam? Lavabits, Snowden & Wikileaks Censorship recall age of Absolutism
    • Dredd 08/09/2013 at 12:38 pm

      Well said.

      It is difficult for Americans to psychologically admit what is happening.

  • Top Ten Things that don't Make Sense about NSA Surveillance, Drones and al-Qaeda
    • Dredd 08/06/2013 at 2:42 pm

      ACLU vs. Clapper, et. al.

    • Dredd 08/06/2013 at 2:32 pm

      "Obviously, the government wants the telephone records of millions of Americans for some other reason."

      Yep.

      Traditionally it has been used for "blackmail" ... the hoodlum form of "lobbying" ...

      J. Edgar Hoover invented the dynamic and "wrote the book on it" in our country.

      It is so bad and evil it is really not conceivable to the majority of us. Of Americans.

  • The New Neros: The Koch Bros Profit from Burning the World Up (Halperin Infographic)
    • Dredd 08/05/2013 at 5:09 pm

      Great graphics which depict Oil-Qaeda very well.

      The only terrorists that kill millons already.

      Every year.

  • Top 10 reasons to welcome departure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Only the Neocons will miss Him
    • Dredd 08/04/2013 at 10:32 am

      Neocons don't ever seem to stop to think clearly.

  • Top Ten Ways Bradley Manning Changed the World
    • Dredd 08/01/2013 at 6:49 pm

      It makes it easier to see why our founders said some of the things they did. Especially about the military.

  • Kenya turns to Geothermal Green Energy (Video)
    • Dredd 07/30/2013 at 10:10 am

      Smart move by Kenya.

  • Egyptian Backlash against Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi's Call for foreign Intervention in Egypt
    • Dredd 07/29/2013 at 10:01 am

      Yep.

      Not a good idea to spread the conflict.

      Let the homies solve their own problems ... with some fair encouragement from neighbors.

  • Bye, Bye Florida: Scientists find the last time it was this hot, Seas rose 65 feet
    • Dredd 07/23/2013 at 11:55 am

      The amount of sea-level rise in this century, as calculated by various scientists, is all over the place.

      I mean from two feet to 30 feet.

      One of the reasons is that there needs to be more inter-disciplinary sharing of scientific data.

  • Detroit's Bankruptcy and America's Future: Robots, Race, Globalization and the 1%
    • Dredd 07/19/2013 at 10:14 am with 2 replies

      "It seems to me that we need to abandon capitalism as production becomes detached from human labor. I think all robot labor should be nationalized and put in the public sector, and all citizens should receive a basic stipend from it."

      Alaska had a dynamic like that associated with oil industries. It worked well, because after all, resources under the public land should belong to the public.

      Karl Marx predicted that American citizens would rise up when the greedy capitalists began to oppress them by plundering them. He expected too much of U.S. consumers who only went along to get along.

      The common good, the public good, has been left somewhere back in history along with the rusting artifacts of industrialization.

  • Obama Administration Facing Congressional Rebellion, Civil Suits over NSA Surveillance
    • Dredd 07/18/2013 at 11:03 am

      Thanks for covering this.

      I hope the lawsuits and congressional hearings help us make a sorely needed course correction.

      BTW, two or so of the Saudi agent hijacker enablers (15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi Arabians) were being watched in Florida as well as in California.

  • Guna People of Panama's islands Flee rising Seas
    • Dredd 07/17/2013 at 3:14 pm

      Thanks for an very informative post.

  • Pussy Riot Protests Russian Oil Oligarchs and Putin
    • Dredd 07/17/2013 at 10:11 am

      A great band.

  • Obama Explains his NSA Domestic Spying & Why it differs from Bush's (Cartoon satire)
    • Dredd 07/16/2013 at 9:55 am

      A well-done satire that also applies to the main stream media for covering up for tyranny.

  • The Backlash against Political Islam is not a Backlash against Islam: Egypt and Bangladesh
    • Dredd 07/16/2013 at 9:51 am

      Good points.

    • Dredd 07/15/2013 at 9:33 am with 3 replies

      "There is a big difference between being a believing Muslim and being a devotee of political Islam. Political Islam attempts to make the religion a platform for gaining governmental power"

      Indeed, it was a religious tenet that Winston Churchill believed that got Western Powers into the Middle East where we contend with religious tenets of Islam.

      Albeit through political religion on both sides.

      This is American History 901.

  • A Hot Wet Thousand Years and 10 Green Energy Stories to Avert it
    • Dredd 11/03/2011 at 12:15 pm

      One other thing making green green difficult to swallow is the black green booty getting all pumped up near our most bootyfull embassy in Baghdad.

  • Top Ten Myths about the Libya War
    • Dredd 08/23/2011 at 1:30 pm with 1 replies

      The rebels who drove rusted out Toyota pickup trucks began selling oil-tanker loads of oil to the U.S. months ago.

      A full tanker of oil takes hundreds of millions of dollars, involving international business transactions.

      Oh of course they arranged all of that themselves in-between racing down the road in the rusty Toyota trucks while shooting people.

      The most important thing to western civilization as we speak is the control of oil, because peak oil has happened in 2004 or thereabouts. Who controls oil controls civilization's economic and security future.

  • A Story More Important than Debt Limit Kabuki
    • Dredd 07/29/2011 at 11:14 am

      These good graphs are all around, yet the House keeps sucking its thumb for power or pleasure, not sure which.

  • Looking for PETN, Scanning Grandma at the Airport, and the Future of Air Travel
    • Dredd 11/22/2010 at 12:00 pm

      Some forms of psyops require the humiliation of the populace to ascertain their resistance / compliance factor. This particular mission is directed at a particular segment of the populace to see what condition their condition is in. In any case it is a sign we have passed peak sanity, whether you believe in peak oil or not.

  • MSNBC's Phil Griffith the Worst Person in the World, as Olbermann Joins Donahue, Banfield
    • Dredd 11/06/2010 at 7:57 am

      GE / MSNBC is a war profiteer of the first order, closely tied to the Pentagon.

  • On How War with Iran might Destroy the United States
    • Dredd 11/01/2010 at 5:21 pm

      Often the opposite is true of demented statements like Broder's. The dementia of military thinking is obvious when one considers that military thinkers consider health care to be their worst enemy, when actually war is the bigger enemy.

  • Scary Tea Party Compilation
    • Dredd 10/29/2010 at 10:59 am

      Scary indeed, but these types of Halloween scary come from the same place, The Twinkie Party System.

      It is far more insidious that previously thought.

  • Suzuki: Our Global Economy is not Sustainable
    • Dredd 10/26/2010 at 11:18 am

      Wonderful post. Thanks. May I add that some of the projections are based on assumed weather. That means the projections could be even worse because climate is evolving and mutating in ways that are not at all easy to predict.

  • Arab Press: Iraq Wikileaks will Damage US Reputation
    • Dredd 10/24/2010 at 8:41 am

      I think we all know that the behavior that is being exposed is what is doing the damage to the U.S. reputation. The propaganda covering up that behavior is doing damage to the mental well being of the country.

  • Palin Fear-Mongers on Iran, Sharia
    • Dredd 10/13/2010 at 8:11 am

      I am afraid. Afraid that Palin will get by with it like Bush II is preparing to do.

  • Oceans Turning Acid from Carbon Emissions, Point to Biological Breakdown
    • Dredd 10/03/2010 at 10:02 am

      And the fresh, or potable water is doing likewise, taking us in a catastrophic direction.

  • Worst Reporting on Green Energy of the Week
    • Dredd 09/29/2010 at 12:05 pm

      Good post.

      The wind is not just for the birds any more.

  • Will Resumption of Israeli Colonization of West Bank End the Two State Solution?
    • Dredd 09/26/2010 at 9:40 am

      Unless and until they fully consider the crucial ingredient" direction, it is not certain whether the "two state" is a solution or just another problem.

  • Rumsfeld, Bush and the Supreme War Crime
    • Dredd 09/24/2010 at 9:11 am

      Well said.

      We have not only failed to deal with our war criminals in a just manner, we have emulated them in current policy.

  • Makdisi: The Tragedy of Obama's Middle East Policy
    • Dredd 09/22/2010 at 12:43 pm

      The era of the endless wars is a function of the decline in oil production and the peak of the oil wars. How does the geopolitical landscape change if Iraq becomes the world's number one oil producer, as Lloyd's of London projects, and if the Afghanistan oil fields pan out?

  • 50 Dead, 128 wounded in Iraq Attacks
    • Dredd 09/20/2010 at 12:24 pm

      A sad state of affairs indeed. Especially since Lloyd's of London expects Iraq to become the number one oil producer.

  • Dems Reluctant to Allow Taxes on Rich to Rise
    • Dredd 09/05/2010 at 8:10 am

      They have allowed the wars to continue paid for by the middle class and poor, so either they tax the rich or get rid of Social Security if they allow the wars to continue.

      Wars are not free.

  • 59 Dead, 120 Wounded in Iraqi Suicide Bombing;
    Iraqi Parties reject US Power Sharing Proposal
    • Dredd 08/17/2010 at 7:52 pm

      You know how those oily old warlords are, now don't you?

  • Portugal's Green Energy Revolution and the true Cost of Gas, Coal and Oil
    • Dredd 08/11/2010 at 3:10 pm

      Jack an Jill went up the hill
      each had a dollar and a quarter
      Jill came back with two and a half
      do you think they went up for water?

      Now that Iraq will become the number one oil producer in the world soon, do you think the war was not really about oil now?

  • Abedin: The Illusion of a ‘limited war’ against Iran
    • Dredd 08/09/2010 at 5:41 pm

      Once upon a time we solved problems, now we "attack" our problems as if military destruction was a panacea for peace.

      The war profiteers being firmly in control would seem to indicate this is our final chapter as an empire.

  • Dietrich: Energy and the Future of U.S. Diplomacy
    • Dredd 07/30/2010 at 10:13 am

      The food chain is our human source of energy, our food source. If we continue to assassinate the environment, the other energy - oil - will not replace it at any price.

  • Lockerbie Bomber released for Sake of BP Libya Drilling Rights
    • Dredd 07/14/2010 at 12:28 pm

      It will be very difficult for BP to put a cap on this. Even the cap on the well has problems.

    • Dredd 07/13/2010 at 9:17 am

      Wow. On a day when we are all hoping BP caps the Deepwater gusher (HOLD CAP HOLD!) we hear of BP shenanigans once again.

  • 6 US Troops Killed in Afghanistan;
    Mazar Demonstration says 'Yankee Go Home'
    • Dredd 07/11/2010 at 8:49 am with 1 replies

      Yeah, "Yankee go home but leave your money here" is what the corrupt officials are thinking over there.

  • Asadi on Iran: "Today's Internal Affairs, Tomorrow's Global Impact"
    • Dredd 07/10/2010 at 9:34 am

      I think "the world" is a bit of a stretch. The Ruler of Dubai does not consider it to be a big deal. The U.S. and those wanting to invade Iran are not "the world".

  • Walthen: I saw 100 Dolphins in the Oil, some Dying
    • Dredd 06/30/2010 at 3:33 pm

      One outrageous aspect of this debacle is that scientists studied the Gulf of Mexico seabed and found it unstable and dangerous to drilling in many places.

      They foresaw an ecological and economic disaster of great impact if oil rigs drilled into some of the more unstable areas.

      The study by scientists commissioned by the U.S. government goes back a decade.

Showing comments 55 - 1
Page: 1

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.


Support Us

Help keep independent journalism alive and donate online, or make checks payable to:
"Juan Cole"
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
(No parcels, please)
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2019 All Rights Reserved