US politics

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Last week during the visit of the Finnish president, Trump acted out with a journalist, James Mason of Reuters who asked him a simple question. What exactly did Trump want from Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky during the notorious July telephone call? Trump did a bad de Niro impression, asking him, […]

Foreign Policy

How the Saudi Oil Field Attack Overturned America’s Apple Cart

Conn M. Hallinan

(Foreign Policy in Focus) – For all their overwhelming firepower, the U.S. and its allies can cause a lot of misery in the Middle East, but still can’t govern the course of events. In many ways it doesn’t really matter who — Houthis in Yemen? Iranians? Shiites in Iraq? — launched those missiles and drones […]

Constitution

Why Trump’s bad Nixon imitation may cost him the presidency

The Conversation

By Ken Hughes | – Whatever Donald Trump does, Richard Nixon usually did it first and better. Nixon got a foreign government’s help to win a presidential election over 50 years ago. Trump’s imitation of the master has proven far from perfect, and that may cost him the presidency. Trump’s first mistake was soliciting foreign […]

Displaced and Refugees

Trail of Tears: Refugees at Our Southern Border

H. Patricia Hynes

“There were many trails of tears all over North America of indigenous peoples who were forcibly removed by government forces. The indigenous peoples who are making their way up from the southern hemisphere are a continuation of the Trail of Tears.” – Joy Harjo (Informed Comment) – Children, families and caravans of brown-skinned people arriving […]

China

Trump, head of GOP, demands Chinese Communist Party Prosecute Businessman for Crime of Making Money

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A particularly unperceptive and unfeeling wag came up with the bon mot defining a “socialist” as someone kept up at night by the fear that somewhere someone was making money. (Socialists are actually haunted by people working but not making money because the capitalist class is stiffing them). But by […]

Donald Trump

Is Turkey planning an attack on Syrian Kurds?

Reese Erlich

ISTANBUL —The Turkish government plans to use Syrian refugees to displace the local Kurdish population in northern Syria. But so far, the scheme isn’t working so well. Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayep Erdoğan announced his intention to settle up to two million refugees now living in Turkey into northern Syria. “We aim to accelerate […]

Authoritarianism

Duke U. Faculty reply to Trump Dept of Ed. demand for Negative Teaching on Islam and Palestinians

contributors

Letter: 62 Duke faculty respond to Department of Education directive letter to the editor By Concerned Faculty October 3, 2019 | ( The Duke Chronicle) – We appreciate the recent statement on academic freedom from President Price and Provost Kornbluth following the US Department of Education’s investigation of the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East studies. […]

Pentagon

America now solves problems with troops, not diplomats

The Conversation

By Monica Duffy Toft | – Is America a bully? As a scholar, under the auspices of the Military Intervention Project, I have been studying every episode of U.S. military intervention from 1776 to 2017. Historically, the U.S. advanced from a position of isolationism to one of reluctant intervenor, to global policeman. Based on my […]

Constitution

How the impeachment inquiry might affect Trump’s 2020 re-election chances

The Conversation

By Dennis Altman | – The next 13 months will see American politics completely dominated by the fate of Donald Trump. As the House of Representatives moves towards impeaching him, leading to a hearing which then moves to the Senate, the Democrats will be engaged in an increasingly bitter contest for the nomination to run […]