Articles by Juan Cole, Informed Comment

We found 10 results.


How Not to Talk about Muslims after a Fringe Terrorist Group Attacks
Juan Cole, Informed Comment – TRANSCEND Media Service, 28 Mar 2016

2. Call the terrorists “Muslim” if you have to characterize them, not “Islamic” or even worse, “Islamics.” There is no such thing as “Islamic” terrorism. The word “Islamic” has to do with the ideals and verities of the religion of Islam, and is analogous to “Judaic.”

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Paris at Midnight: Attempt to Push France Out of Anti-ISIL Coalition in Syria?
Juan Cole, Informed Comment – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Nov 2015

Paris was hit by at least two well-trained and -equipped terrorist cells in a coordinated attack on 6 or 7 soft targets on Friday [13 Nov 2015] night. Some fear that these strikes will spell the end of Schengen open borders and will negatively affect the refugees that have come to Europe in the thousands recently. The terrorists may have been attempting to replicate the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which also aimed at soft targets, and which convinced Spain to withdraw its troops from Iraq.

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Wind Supplied 98% of Scotland’s Household Power in 2014 and Other Amazing Green Energy Stories
Juan Cole, Informed Comment – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jan 2015

Scotland is well on its way to getting 100% of its energy from renewable sources by 2022. Germany is rapidly replacing nuclear and coal with wind and solar, so much so that coal use was down 11% last year.

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Does the Road to Mideast Peace Run through Tehran?
Juan Cole, Informed Comment – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Dec 2013

It is not too soon to begin considering what the Middle East would look like if relations between Iran and the West (the United States and Europe) were to improve.

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Top Ten Ways Bradley Manning Changed the World
Juan Cole, Informed Comment – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

Whatever one thinks of Manning’s actions, that we deserved to know some of what he revealed and that his revelations changed the world are undeniable.

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Argentina’s President Kirchner: US Industrial Espionage Gave Me Chills down My Spine
Juan Cole, Informed Comment – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jul 2013

The relationship between the United States and Latin America may have just plunged to its lowest level since the 1910s and 1920s, the height of US imperialism in the area, when United Fruit and the Marines imposed themselves on the region.

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Should Memorial Day Include Commemoration of Thoreau?
Juan Cole, Informed Comment – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Jun 2013

Thoreau was saying that in times of an unjust law and an unjust war, honorable persons will likely be in jail. Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” went on to influence Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King (which is how we got the Civil Rights movement and an end to Jim Crow segregation.)

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Congress Obsessed with American Muslims, Neglects Real Threat of White Supremacists
Juan Cole, Informed Comment – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Apr 2013

It is not allowed to say this in the corporate media, but some Republican representatives and their constituents are, if not implicated in white supremacist sentiments, at least a little smelly in that regard.

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Why Egypt 2011 is not Iran 1979
Prof. Juan Cole, Informed Comment – TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 Feb 2011

Egypt is, unlike Iran, not primarily an oil state. Its sources of revenue are tourism, Suez Canal tolls, manufactured and agricultural exports, and strategic rent (the $1.5 bn. or so in aid from the US comes under this heading). Egypt depends on the rest of the world for grain imports. Were it to adopt a radical and defiant ideology like that of Iran, all its major sources of income would suddenly evaporate, and it might have trouble even just getting enough imported food. Moreover, the social forces making the revolution in Egypt have a significantly different profile and different dynamics than in Iran. Let us just go through the same list.

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WikiLeaks: Israel Plans Total War on Lebanon, Gaza
Juan Cole, Informed Comment – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Jan 2011

The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has summarized an Israeli military briefing by Israeli Chief of Staff Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi of a US congressional delegation a little over a year ago and concludes that: The memo on the talks between Ashkenazi and [Congressman Ike] Skelton, as well as numerous other documents from the same period of time, to which Aftenposten has gained access, leave a clear message: The Israeli military is forging ahead at full speed with preparations for a new war in the Middle East. Note: This war preparation is serious and specific, according to the paper, and clearly is not just a matter of vague contingency planning.

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