Saja – With "friends" like Juan Cole…
By Saja • Dec 10th, 2009 at 20:44 • Category: Arabian Coffee House, Biography, Counter-terrorism, No thanks!, Newswire, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, War
Juan Cole is an expert on the Middle East. He knows Arabic and Farsi and probably a handful of other languages. He knows more about the Arabic and Islamic world than most Arabs and Muslims can hope to learn in a lifetime. But he supports the empire. I have attended one of his lectures in which he said he was not against the war on Iraq in principle but he only disagreed with the way the Bush administration (at the time) was carrying it out. Here he wishes Israel a happy 60th birthday: http://www.juancole.com/2008/05/happy-60th-to-israel.html Iraq democracy Not Likely to Last, Predicts Middle East Expert Speaking at UM
How fragile is democracy in Iraq?
For one thing, there are no political campaigns because "the candidate would be killed" and no campaign offices because "they would be bombed."
In fact, Juan Cole told an audience of educators and students on Monday afternoon, only the presence of the U.S. military has kept the very brief experiment in Iraqi democracy from turning into a bloodbath.
So Cole, a professor of Middle Eastern history and president of the University of Michigan-based Global Americana Institute, has grave doubts that democracy will become a permanent fixture of Iraqi society.
"I would say that the chances are low of continuing elections" after the American withdrawal, currently slated for 2011, said Cole, a blogger and author of "Engaging the Muslim World."
His presentation at the University of Montana was part of the President's Lecture Series. Titled "Iraqi Politics on the Eve of the Election: Prospects for Obama's Disengagement," it provided a religious and cultural context to Iraq's tumultuous and violent recent history, from the U.S. invasion in 2002 to the present day.
***
Parliamentary elections will take place early next year in Iraq.
President Barack Obama will likely fulfill his promise to have American troops home sometime during his first 16 months in office, but the religious and cultural factions so entrenched in Iraq will ensure that Iraqi democracy will remain tenuous at best, Cole said.
"Iraq will limp along, a somewhat wounded country and fragile for a long time, but the likelihood is there will be no large-scale U.S. presence in the country in as little as two years," he said.
American hubris and cultural ignorance of the realities of Iraq's fractious demographics have scuttled U.S. plans ever since then-President George W. Bush decided to pursue a democratic Iraq, Cole said.
The country's Shiite majority has used every means to be the controlling authority in the 275-member parliament, and has also engaged in "ethnic cleansing" of Iraqi neighborhoods to marginalize and push out religious and secular Sunnis.. [How dare Shiis kill Sunnis? Don't they know only Americans are allowed to do that? Cole supported US Marines shooting of wounded people in Falluja mosque: http://www.juancole.com/2004/11/more-on-marine-mosque-killing-iraqis.html When it's Americans doing the killing, Juan Cole is on board. When it's Iraqis doing the killing, he pours gasoline on the sectarian flames.]
And, he noted, also to kill them.
As many as 3,000 Sunnis were being killed a month after the February 2006 bombing of a Shiite shrine, he said. While the U.S. surge of 30,000 troops likely played a role in lowering the body count, the Shiite success in ethnically cleansing Baghdad was likely more a factor.
Religious Shiites essentially control Iraq, much to the Bush administration's dismay, Cole said. The country's first elections in 2005 were a wake-up call to Bush, who had thought a secular majority would rise up from free elections. Instead, religious Shiites won 60 percent of the seats in the new parliament.
"That outcome," said Cole, "was a huge disaster."
And elections slated for early next year likely won't change that, said Cole.
"The elections are the last ‘gift' of America to Iraq," he said.
JAMIE KELLY
The Missoulian
Saja is Flinging words at the invaders and their house Arabs.
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Right from the horse's mouth, a little reminder of Juan Cole's true allegiance:
Informed Comment
Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion
Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Happy 60th to Israel
Israel is celebrating its 60th anniversary, and let me take this opportunity to wish my Israeli readers a happy anniversary. The Middle East is always viewed through the lens of politics and strife, but having lived and visited a lot over there I'd like to suggest that it is forgotten how few people are actually actively involved in politics. And while there is strife in some times and places, there is also a lot of cooperation and forgiveness and mutual help.
The Israelis have come from mind-boggling adversity to build a country. But more than that, they have helped to build our modern world. Israeli science and technology has played a powerful behind- the- scenes role in the development of pivotal inventions such as computer chips. All human beings benefit from such advances, and we should all be grateful for the contributions the Israelis have made to improving the quality of human life.
For instance, it was reported just a couple of weeks……..
……………
… My warm greetings to my Israeli friends on this auspicious anniversary, and my hopes that before too long a just and equitable peace can be achieved among all the peoples of the region. Israelis, like their neighbors, deserve to live productive lives in conditions of security. Periods of strife, after all, do eventually tend to pass. Europe was in turmoil for much of the first half of the twentieth century, but for some decades now has lived in peace. The same thing can happen in the Middle East.
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/08/2008 06:33:00 PM
http://www.juancole.com/2008/05/happy-60th-to-israel.html
————————————————-
Cole's first claim is already blatanty false! " …they have helped to build our modern world. Israeli science and technology has played a powerful behind- the- scenes role in the development of pivotal inventions such as computer chips" :
Contrary to Juan Cole's claim, the invention and subsequent development of the Integrated Computer chip has strictly NOTHING to do with Israel.
The first conceptualization of the Integrated Circuit Chip was made by a Mr Goeffrey Dummer in the early 1950s, in the UK.
Integrated Computer Chips' invention was first patented in the USA 1959 by Mr Jack Kilby, an engineer from Texas, several months before INTEL's co-founder Robert Noyce made his claim for a similar invention.
It was Kilby's integrated chip, which set of the train of evolution leading to today's Pentium and Athlon chips. Incidentally in the year 2000, Kilby was rewarded with the Nobel Prize. He died in 2005 at age 81.
Neither Geoffrey Dummer, nor Jack Kilby or Robert Noyce are Israelis. Neither are they Jewish for that matter, and none of the three had any connections to Israel.
The Israeli sack of lies thrown over the reality are their "contributions the Israelis have made to improving the quality of human life". This and a a few other sordid things like sadistic torture techniques, organ trafficking etc…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/10/10/nobel_prize_awarded_to_computer/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Dummer
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/102673/Jack_Kilby_integrated_circuit_pioneer_dead_at_81
Thanks Saja and Jamie Kelly for this excellent post.
Recently i have assisted at a conference on "The Cost of War" where Juan Cole was the keynote speaker! It was mind boggling and frustrating to observe how people were unable to see through the manipulations of this sordid little man.
As mentioned, Juan Cole's own blog doesn't even conceal his true allegiance:
Informed Comment
Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion
Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Happy 60th to Israel
Israel is celebrating its 60th anniversary, and let me take this opportunity to wish my Israeli readers a happy anniversary. The Middle East is always viewed through the lens of politics and strife, but having lived and visited a lot over there I'd like to suggest that it is forgotten how few people are actually actively involved in politics. And while there is strife in some times and places, there is also a lot of cooperation and forgiveness and mutual help.
The Israelis have come from mind-boggling adversity to build a country. But more than that, they have helped to build our modern world. Israeli science and technology has played a powerful behind- the- scenes role in the development of pivotal inventions such as computer chips. All human beings benefit from such advances, and we should all be grateful for the contributions the Israelis have made to improving the quality of human life.
For instance, it was reported just a ……
………………………..
………….. My warm greetings to my Israeli friends on this auspicious anniversary, and my hopes that before too long a just and equitable peace can be achieved among all the peoples of the region. Israelis, like their neighbors, deserve to live productive lives in conditions of security. Periods of strife, after all, do eventually tend to pass. Europe was in turmoil for much of the first half of the twentieth century, but for some decades now has lived in peace. The same thing can happen in the Middle East.
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/08/2008 06:33:00 PM
http://www.juancole.com/2008/05/happy-60th-to-israel.html
————————————————-
Cole's first claim is already blatanty false! " …they have helped to build our modern world. Israeli science and technology has played a powerful behind- the- scenes role in the development of pivotal inventions such as computer chips" :
Contrary to Juan Cole's claim, the invention and subsequent development of the Integrated Computer chip has strictly NOTHING to do with Israel.
The first conceptualization of the Integrated Circuit Chip was made by a Mr Goeffrey Dummer in the early 1950s, in the UK.
Integrated Computer Chips' invention was first patented in the USA 1959 by Mr Jack Kilby, an engineer from Texas, several months before INTEL's co-founder Robert Noyce made his claim for a similar invention.
It was Kilby's integrated chip, which set of the train of evolution leading to today's Pentium and Athlon chips. Incidentally in the year 2000, Kilby was rewarded with the Nobel Prize for Physics. He died in 2005 at age 81.
Neither Geoffrey Dummer, nor Jack Kilby or Robert Noyce are Israelis. Neither are they Jewish for that matter, and none of the three had any connections to Israel.
The Israeli sack of lies thrown over the reality, is their "contributions the Israelis have made to improving the quality of human life". This various sadistic torture techniques, human organ trafficking, etc….
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/10/10/nobel_prize_awarded_to_computer/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Dummer
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/102673/Jack_Kilby_integrated_circuit_pioneer_dead_at_81
ooops sorry for the double post
Hello,
I agree with your critical and insightful assesment, but only partly: "… But he supports the empire…"
And I really thank you for having a very critical mind. Truely a rarity among dissent-space most of whos seem, un-apologetically stating it the way I see it, type-2 of Hitler's classification (when genuine). You appear to be type-3. Mr. Juan Cole is clearly type-3 himself, but clearly in the service of empire!
The reason I wrote "partly" above is because I have reached the conclusion that Juan Cole is a manufactured dissent.
If interested, see:
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/04/nuremberg-elephant-in-bedroom.html
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/10/letterto-iranian-expat-by-zahirebrahim.html
And to appreciate the depth of political science statecraft behind it, and to appreciate Hitler's remarkable sociological insights into his people-classification which appears even more pertinent today in the Fourth Reich than it was during the Third, please see:
print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/06/wmd-master-social-science.html
Thank you,
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org