US politics

Charlie Brooker and a forensic psychiatrist give the television news media tips on how and how not to cover a mass murder. Takeaway: Don’t obsess about the killer or make him a celebrity of sorts, don’t dramatize the violence, and localize the story as a quotidian one.

Islamophobia

CNN Fail: Imaginary “Dark Males,” “Accents,” and “Arrests” Haunt Reporters

Juan Cole

Between about 1:00 pm and 2:40 pm ET on Wednesday, April 17, the CNN news team was at the worst I’ve ever seen them. The afternoon began well, with the exciting revelation that the FBI now had recovered video of a suspect from a security camera at Lord & Taylor Department Store. But things went […]

Iraq

Can the Boston Bombings increase our Sympathy for Iraq and Syria, for all such Victims?

Juan Cole

The horrific bombings of the Boston Marathon produced inspiring images of a spirited, brave Boston refusing to be cowed. Some spectators surged forward toward the danger to apply tourniquets, offer first aid, share blankets, and later to give blood, for the victims. President Obama followed the crisis from its first moments and came out promptly […]

Afghanistan

US Drone Campaign in Pakistan: Amazing Infographic (Serle)

Juan Cole

Jack Serle writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism Pitch Interactive have visualised every CIA drone strike and every casualty in Pakistan. A new interactive graphic, which uses the Bureau’s drone data, has brought a fresh perspective to the CIA’s nine-year drone campaign in Pakistan. A team of developers has pulled together every known drone […]

CIA

‘At least 400 civilians’ killed by US drone strikes: Pakistani Gov’t

Juan Cole

Alice K. Ross writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism: The Pakistani government estimates at least 400 civilians have been killed in drone strikes – a figure close to the Bureau’s own findings. In evidence to Ben Emmerson QC, UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism, the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that CIA drones […]

Drones

Obama & Brennan Brought GOP Filibuster on themselves by Extreme Secrecy on Drones

Juan Cole

John O. Brennan was confirmed as head of the Central Intelligence Agency yesterday, after the confirmation was held up for 13 hours by a filibuster by Rand Paul and other Senate libertarians or tea partiers. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas gave as his reason for the attempt to delay the vote his concerns that the […]

US politics

Did the Man who Tried to buy our Presidential Election Get rich by Bribing Communist China? (Engelberg)

Juan Cole

Stephen Engelberg writes at ProPublica Last week’s admission by Sheldon Adelson’s casino company that it had “likely” violated provisions of the federal law barring U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials raises some intriguing questions. Chief among them: Which transactions by Las Vegas Sands and its far-flung subsidiaries are at issue? Adelson, one of the world’s […]

Iraq

Mission Accomplished: Iraq as America’s biggest Blunder (Van Buren)

Juan Cole

Peter van Buren writes at Tomdispatch.com I was there. And “there” was nowhere. And nowhere was the place to be if you wanted to see the signs of end times for the American Empire up close. It was the place to be if you wanted to see the madness — and oh yes, it was […]

Egypt

Austerity and the threat to Democracy, in the US, Europe and the Middle East

Juan Cole

The “sequester” is actually, of course, the American form of austerity, or cut-backs in government spending during a recession. Austerity, or stingy government in Europe has kept employment extremely depressed compared to what it would have been with government stimulus, as Paul Krugman argues. Saturday, there were massive protests throughout Portugal against Scrooge policies by […]