Total number of comments: 1542 (since 2013-04-13 18:28:29)
Juan Cole
is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page
Website: http://juancole.com
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US reporting all but ignores al-Qaeda/ Nusra
Tanks a million for such an informed comment!
The Germans lost France and the French lost Algeria. Practically speaking, the torture did not work in the sense of providing intelligence you could win with.
Carter was the first president since Roosevelt to attempt to begin the work of unseating the military dictatorships. That they went, in the 80s, was certainly in part his doing and not Reagan's
Yes, I think the Egyptian elite would be sensitive to US pressure. Jimmy Carter started the process of moving out those Latin American colonels decades ago.
thanks so much for the informed comment, Glenn!
Yes but Putin has not brandished nukes at any of them.
You don't have a sense of proportion if you think any of that adds up to anywhere near invading a country of 26 million with 160,000 troops, occupying it for 8.5 years, killing tens of thousands, wounding millions and displacing 4 million. Bill Clinton has his flaws, but making war was not one of them
The bombing of Iraq in 1998 was because Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries locked on to US planes with hostile intent, which violated the no-fly zone. Republicans got up the phony impeachment and then accused him of wagging the dog; sorry to see you repeat their tactics.
I consider warmongering to be, like, actually launching a war, sending troops in, armored convoys, etc. etc. Can't see that he did any of that; his two military actions were to save the Kosovars from murderous ultra-nationalist Serbs and to try to kill Bin Laden. Both were very worthwhile.
Bill Clinton was many things but not by any means a war monger.
I don't usually allow pure propaganda as comments because it encourages paid-for comment and trolling.
Your picture of Yemen bears no relationship to reality. Iran is virtually absent, the Houthis are Yemenis, and SA is a foreign power that has bombed civilian infrastructure, ports and markets to smithereens leaving over a million people homeless and most Yemenis food insecure.
As for negativity, if you think simple economic and social analysis that doesn't reproduce your national ideology is negativity, then you aren't ready for these pages. Many are not.
You're mixing up several distinct questions. Is Prince Md. correct that Saudia needs to transition from petroleum? Yes. Should he be applauded for urging it? Yes.
Did his speech or interview give any indication of how exactly that could be accomplished or how the oil income could be replaced?
No.
doesn't bring in nearly as much money in that form.
oops; corrected
Germany hasn't tried any of those.
Germany gets 7% of its electricity from solar; if it can do that, we don't need to cart the stuff around. & the panels are getting cheaper and more efficient. Plus you can feed in wind, hydro, geothermal when they are not producing as much. And affordable batteries are around the corner.
Oops - fixed & thx
When Modi came they inaugurated a Hindu temple, which isn't exactly an instance of repression.
nowadays, yes.
I go there time to time. I was talking about UAE citizens, not about the resident population. You're seeing Lebanese & etc.
Shiites don't accept the caliphate. Imamate.
They are saying that there is a danger their assets in US could be seized by the courts in preparation of awards and settlements, so they would be crazy to keep the assets in the US.
Well he says "all men." Seems to me to have a universal intent.
Since his north comments concern Canada -- a foreign country-- it is logical to think that his East and West also stretch beyond the US borders.
I'm not wrong. The French under Bonaparte estimated the Jewish population in Palestine in 1800 at 3,000.
In the course of the 19th century Jewish charities allowed Jews to retire to Jerusalem from Russia and Eastern Europe. Those are the people you're counting. They weren't mostly permanent residents. And there weren't many of them given the total population.
Zionism was a small and controversial movement in the Jewish community before 1930 and roundly rejected by American Jews.
Siege should be lifted on both sides.
However FSA units in SW Aleppo launched major campaign in alliance w/ al-Qaeda and took several villages. That was pro-active on their part.
Marx disagrees with you
"“We know that heed must be paid to the institutions, customs and traditions of the various countries, and we do not deny that there are countries, such as America and England and if I was familiar with its institutions, I might include Holland, where the workers may attain their goal by peaceful means."
link to socialist-courier.blogspot.com
you can't have meaningful elections in a police state where criticizing the president leads to torture
of course it can! It is a relatively minor increase of 1%, and getting more than 1% ahead of fossil fuels is already child's play. Global carbon emissions have leveled off mainly because of new wind, solar, hydro and the cratering of coal.
Fixed & thx!
Breitbart?
Bremer says at least that he dissolved the army because the Kurds and Shiites threatened him with fatal noncooperation if he wouldn't. They drove this thing and went on doing it for years after the Americans no longer believed in it (Petraeus was actively opposed), all the way through 2014.
All successful transitions from revolutions have depended on the establishment of a new postrevolutionary military, and this is true for postcolonial states, as well.
The US ambassador to Libya was not running guns to ISIL; it is a conspiracy theory.
Oh for heaven's sake. The Shiites the US brought to power have a Debaathification Commission which targeted Sunnis
Delaware
al-Qaeda did not sign on to ceasefire but some of its tactical allies in FSA did.
Your Leaf was a great pioneer but its range was 80 miles. The Bolt, due in December, will get 200. Likewise Tesla 3 due in 2017; and Tesla has quick charge stations all around the country. So arguing from a 2013 Leaf is a mistake. And, the tax rebates are per buyer federally, not per company.
Edelman is not a reliable narrator on Erdogan! Neocons never liked or trusted him. So what?
People change.
What Trump means by security is not the same as ordinary state provision of a relatively safe environment to citizens. It involves massive domestic surveillance and racially and religiously discriminatory population movements of a sort in which Stalin indulged. That some regimes within ordinary states have occasionally resorted to such policies is not the same as saying that they are intrinsic to the state. The US Bill of Rights and the 14th amendment were enacted by state actors to forestall such practices.
There isn't any evidence of terrorism threatening American civilization. In the past ten years it hasn't had any measurable effect at all. Why spend billions on it?
No, the British promise Sharif Husayn the entire Arab world east of Suez, but then promised greater Syria to France and Jerusalem to Russia. Daesh erased the border between "British" Iraq and "French" Syria, but that division was made after the war and the Ottomans had been defeated with Arab help.
There is a difference in propaganda effect when US reporters say that "the Islamic State" did X compared to if they said "Daesh did X." The general public then associates with Islam tout court. By the way, I, uh, do know Arabic.
not agreeable to al-Assad
I didn't say all. I said those groups come to his rallies and are encouraged by his rhetoric, and he dances around denouncing them. Look at the video from Chicago and it is clear who is being violent.
The regime brought tanks into Deraa and opened fire on peaceful youth protesters there. Maher al-Assad was behind this. It also stationed snipers on rooftops and shot into peacefully protesting crowds. The regime militarized this movement quite deliberately. It is a horrible group of people, responsible for gulags and torturing large numbers of helpless prisoners to death.
proportion or number? they are 1/3 in SC.
leftists versus feudalist?
Yes but fracking has potential for further big methane leaks.
The west is still minority Alawite
If a Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan announced a GOP run, the Republican National Committee would kick him out immediately.
Thx!
Turkey is supporting some Salafi jihadi groups allied with the northern Turkmen in Syria. I don't know of firm evidence of them supporting ISIL.
No, I meant Trump supporters are outliers. They are more bigotted, more Islamophobic and more authoritarian than Republicans in general. Some ordinary Republicans did vote for him but I am arguing that the 10% that gave him his victory are peculiar.
There are people in the midde of those two positions.
Obama called Erdogan today and remonstrated with him.
Nusra is only one of the groups in East Aleppo and not demographically by any means the largest. The article also points to massacres of opposition populations by pro-Government militias.
They are Shiites and were surrounded by al-Qaeda. Of course they were happy to be rescued.
Tell me about it. That's the one I supported, not regime change.
Last October, Turkish and Saudi-backed militias and al-Qaeda cut West Aleppo off and began starving it, which was just as horrible as what is being done now on the other side. There was no outcry in the world press and you didn't write me then to denounce it.
I didn't choose; the article is about the winners in NH. If she had won it would have been about her.
Oh, the evidence is that the NSA etc. wait a couple of years to tell the president what they are actually up to.
I don't think Turkey supports Daesh. Jaysh al-Fateh (which includes al-Qaeda), probably yes. But Turkey is also apparently not terribly determined to do anything about Daesh.
The only 'troops' are guarding the port and airport at Latakia; they won't be in the Golan.
No. Vlad has excellent relations with Israel and like a million Israels are Russians and so are a ghost constituency for him. Syria, even if it comes back together, will be weak for a long time and in no position to champion Palestinians.
it is on YouTube
excellent points and thanks!
Yes, slip of the keyboard. fixed & thanks
Nusra led the forces into Idlib city; and the reason given by the other Salafis for actively *allying* with them (this is not just de facto) is that they are so effective and without them they can't win. Sorry, but an alliance with a group reporting to Ayman al-Zawahiri, who almost managed to kill two of my cousins, is something up with which I will not put. We saw this movie with the Taliban in Afghanistan and it ended up with us getting blown up.
Hamtramck has a very large Bangladeshi population and a Muslim-majority city council.
The typical estimate by social scientists for US evangelicals is 20% or so
link to gallup.com
There actually is very little 7th-8th century about it. It is 21st century power politics played by regional elites. Sectarianism is just window dressing.
Chechen insurrection 1 under Yeltsin was nationalist. Chechen insurrection 2 under Putin was jihadi.
My understanding is that the conception of 'natural born' was an 18th century British one, referring to subjects of the Crown born outside the borders of the British Empire, and affirming that they were British if their parents were.
Paragraph 3 says that the Saudi Wahhabis have traditionally called themselves unitarians.
The rest of the article is a summary of a Daesh article that maintains that Daesh is the real unitarians and the Saudi claim is phony.
It is not economically feasible.
Not to mention from Florida.
Nuclear plants would be fine as a temporary transition but the public doesn't want them, they take years and billions to build, and given how quickly and efficiently solar and wind installations can be put, up, I think the nuclear plants are just a distraction in the US. Ain't gonna happen.
A lot of it lies in finance. If people could roll solar panels into their mortgage everybody in sunny states would get them.
fixed & thanks so much! Was traveling.
A carbon tax that forced producers to abandon polluting and expensive fossil fuels and sped up R&D could be sold on security grounds.
fusion doesn't yet exist as a reliable energy source.
thanks! & Happy New Year
The Middle East was what you had to go through from Britain to get to the East, i.e. India. British ships went right past Morocco.
ISIL and al-Qaeda are not known for providing security to the quarters they kidnap. I don't know how often I have to denounce the Baath regime to get permission to attack the former.
except the area they took over is more like Wyoming than Texas.
`Abd al-Ilah is a not infrequent name in Muslim societies.
Then the Christians concerned are themselves using inexact language. If they are saying that the Muslims do not worship a god at all, but only think they do, and are worshiping a fantasy, then they should say that. They are not using that diction. They are saying that Muslims are worshiping "a different God."
Glad you liked it, Terry! My degrees are actually in religious studies.
It isn't relevant to a historical examination of these issues, it is just a kind of ahistorical theology.
The Qur'an isn't from the time of the Hebrew Bible, but post-dates the NT; it represents itself as a restatement of all previous scripture.
It wouldn't work, Trip. Muslims mostly accept the Bible, and there isn't really anything in it that would scandalize them.
Only 20 percent of insurgencies are decisively defeated on the battleground, a la Sri Lanka. Mostly negotiated peace is outcome.
Tahrir Square.
The major driver of jobs overseas has been late capitalist rewarding of corporations for leaving. Contrast Germany & Sweden.
Bernie could stop the hemorrhaging by cutting tax breaks
Well I'm a historian too and I say there's a family resemblance between Trumpism and Fascism.
link to washingtonpost.com
Transparency International does not count the wealth transfers of 2008 to the rich as corruption. Nor does it consider the monetary scale of corruption as opposed to frequency of petty bribe-taking. It is all in the criteria.
if you destroy the oil infrastructure you harm e.g. Iraq when it takes that territory back-- Baghdad won't get that revenue. So you're harming an ally in the future to accelerate victory now.
Please read the chapter on Wahhabism in my *Engaging the Muslim World.* The 20 million Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia are not terrorists. The Salafis in Egypt are not terrorists. Narrow-minded maybe, though not all. Terrorism is a commitment to violence that these movements often lack or even oppose.
100,000 troops require pay, say $300 a month. That would be $30 mn. a month in salaries alone. It is highly unlikely ISIL has that kind of money. Then, they drive vehicles, get weaponry, etc. Who pays for the fuel? The ammunition?
Actually the evidence is that Farook was subjected to considerable workplace bullying. If this were something primarily beyond workplace rage, why not hit a target with security implications?