Top all-time · #1756
Juan Cole
Personal blog · juancole.compoliticshistory
Juan Cole writes Informed Comment, a personal blog at juancole.com about politics and history. Since 2009, 44 different Hacker News readers have linked it 49 times, most often “Sharpening Contradictions: Why Al-Qaeda Attacked Satirists in Paris”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Shedding light on how war, globalization and climate change are shaping our world
Most-linked posts?
- /2012/05/how-obama-changed-definition-of-civilian-in-secret-drone-wars-woods.html2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2012-07-17
- Sharpening Contradictions: Why Al-Qaeda Attacked Satirists in Paris2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-01-07
What Hacker News says?
Yea, wtf, why would people live with their families? And why don't they have fancy bomb shelters like Israel! The leaflets are practically taunts. Where are the people of Gaza to go? How are they to get out? http://www.juancole.com/2014/07/numbers-people-there.html
Comment linking /2014/07/numbers-people-there.html
on “Ask HN: Urgent connection to Twitter support”Submitted How the US Government will Smear, Slight Whistleblower Edward Snowden as a story · 233 points
HN discussion"The Obama administration set that threshold pretty high to prevent blowback for our actions and feeding terrorist propaganda." Really??? https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/120703074500-bergen-d... https://www.juancole.com/images-ext/2012/06/graphs-of-death-... https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/120611015028-yemen-ai...
Comment linking /images-ext/2012/06/graphs-of-death-us-drone-strkes-visualized-serle.jpg
on “Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract”Submitted Obama wants all the info in your smart phone without a Warrant as a story · 50 points
HN discussionThe Juan Cole article is easily the best thing I've read so far, but I still don't think HN would produce any useful discussion about it. http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/sharpening-contradictions-sa...
Comment linking /2015/01/sharpening-contradictions-satirists.html
on “Je Suis Charlie”Submitted Ancient Hebrew Slaves Didn't Build the Giza Pyramids as a story · 23 points
HN discussionIf you want a secret tip to exploring a new world, download Papers ( http://www.mekentosj.com/papers/ ), put all the interesting publications you find in one Dropbox folder, and import them. The annotation and note features - as well as the back-up option - makes this a really enjoyable way to publications. It really is something to read papers that define the way we think, and it's a nice alternative to short blog…
Comment linking /
on “What are the most intellectually stimulating websites you know of?”Submitted How Unreasonable Searches of Private Documents Caused the American Revolution as a story · 13 points
HN discussionUrl changed from http://www.juancole.com/2017/02/terrorist-american-engineers... , which points to this.
Comment linking /2017/02/terrorist-american-engineers.html
on “Two Indian engineers at Garmin in Kansas shot, one killed”Submitted Audio Exposes Oil and Gas Execs Laughing with Joy over Access to Trump's EPA as a story · 9 points
HN discussionThey're dropping SSH too, so I'd just assume that they're dropping everything. No block page for you. ^_^ The goal might not be censorship, even. Iran's most prominent recent actions have been provocative trade threats and hacking a US drone -- and US Presidential candidates have been discussing the possibility of eventually invading Iran. Iran has plenty of paranoia to spare: http://www.juancole.com/2011/12/iran-ha…
Comment linking /2011/12/iran-has-us-surrounded-all-right.html
on “Tor project needs volunteers to help Iranian users access the internet”Submitted Pakistan Shows You Don't Need Government Programs to Green the Grid as a story · 6 points
HN discussionIf you can't see the hypocrisy of the media then please ignore my post and move on. Is it a bigger crime to kill civilians or to kill soldiers? Is James the dozen-civilian-killer a terrorist or not? Media calls him a "suspect", why was the Fort Hood shooter not called a suspect while he was being investigated? Can't you see the pattern that if the murderers is a European / white American he is a "suspect" and if it'…
Comment linking /2012/05/how-obama-changed-definition-of-civilian-in-secret-drone-wars-woods.html
on “The Terrifying Background of the Man Who Ran a CIA Assassination Unit”Submitted Sharpening Contradictions: Why Al-Qaeda Attacked Satirists in Paris as a story · 5 points
HN discussionI've read two responses to these events that nicely cover this question from what amount to opposite sides, although the distance between them is small: 1) Ross Douthat in the NYT, saying "In this sense, many of the Western voices criticizing the editors of Hebdo have had things exactly backward: Whether it’s the Obama White House or Time Magazine in the past or the Financial Times and (God help us) the Catholic Lea…
Comment linking /2015/01/sharpening-contradictions-satirists.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_wonk
on “Google Is Donating €250k to Charlie Hebdo”Submitted Top Ten differences between White Terrorists and Others as a story · 5 points
HN discussionPutting aside the completely unsourced FUD in your comment Which of my claims are you questioning? My question was why would you consider a network that is openly financed by Qatar objective, and an organization that is not financed by Israel "Israeli PR"? I think Al Jazeera is relatively objective (compared to other news networks) because they often include people with opposing views on their shows. Beyond that, I…
Comment linking /2004/11/intimidation-by-israeli-linked.html
on “Why can't people in US watch Al Jazeera?”Submitted Saudi Arabia invests almost $40B to become Video Gaming Hub as a story · 4 points
HN discussionweird that this is greyed out, since it seems to match all the source my fb friends and i have found: http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/09/13/libya-attacks-a-wake-up-... http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/romney-jumps-the-shark-libya... http://www.libyaherald.com/?p=14332 http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/0912/Libya-attack-... http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/09/libya-fast-team/
Comment linking /2012/09/romney-jumps-the-shark-libya-egypt-and-the-butterfly-effect.html
on “Google rejects White House request to pull Mohammad film clip”Submitted Steve Jobs: Arab-American, Buddhist, Drug User, and Capitalist World-Changer as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThe right thing would be to convince Assad to offer a truce According to Juan Cole (who IMO has a pretty good feel for the Middle East), Assad has the backing of ~50% of the population. http://www.juancole.com/2013/08/bombing-unlikely-effective.h... this is not a war by an outside force like the Serbs of ethnic cleansing against a neighbor, but rather it is a civil war. The Alawis, Christians and secular-minded Sunn…
Comment linking /2013/08/bombing-unlikely-effective.html
on “Show HN: Help programmers from Syria get jobs elsewhere”Submitted Germany's Electricity 38% Renewable in 2018, More Than Coal for First Time as a story · 3 points
HN discussionAfter having a long conversation with a close friend in Iran, and also reading this post guess post on Juan Cole's blog [ http://www.juancole.com/2012/01/jahanpour-as-us-and-iran-con... ] I'm starting to realize more and more that the way we have treated Iran since Carter (read: 1979 revolution) is completely wrong. Instead of finding ways to pressure the Iranian government we are hurting the Iranian people. The san…
Comment linking /2012/01/jahanpour-as-us-and-iran-confront-each-other-where-is-the-diplomacy.html
on “Iran to Replace "The Internet" with "Halal Intranet"”Submitted Uber Can Be Fixed and Middle Eastern Women Need It as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> Well, why should they curb it? Because ubiquitous surveillance undermines freedoms key to a functioning democracy. For example, freedom of the press: http://www.juancole.com/2013/11/censoring-scrutiny-mccauley.... I also think it undermines freedom of speech. When the Snowden stuff started coming out, I wanted to ask friends in government what they thought. But the only ways I can ask them are at risk from governm…
Comment linking /2013/11/censoring-scrutiny-mccauley.html
on “How Americans Were Deceived About Cell Phone Location Data”Submitted First, the Soviets Collapsed: Is It America’s Turn Now? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionLikud platform of 1999: a. “The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel.” b. “Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel. The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem” c. “The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.” d. "Settlement of the land is…
Comment linking /2014/08/charter-destruction-palestinian.html
on “Marc Benioff joins Valley notables backing Gaza’s first coding academy”Submitted Iranian hardliners want to stop blocking Twitter to fight saudi propaganda as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> Israel has no interest in Gaza, they just want them to stop trying to attack This is false and one-sided. Likud, the ruling party in Israel, has in its platform an explicit denial of the right for a Palestinian state to exist west of the Jordan river.[1] Everything you've heard about Palestinians/Hamas denying Israel the right to exist is actually true about Israel as well towards Palestine. (In fact Hamas has sta…
Comment linking /2014/08/charter-destruction-palestinian.html
on “Marc Benioff joins Valley notables backing Gaza’s first coding academy”Submitted The Critical spirit of Islam against the mass insanity of ISIS as a story · 3 points
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