Juan Cole - June 22, 2005

Kos Discussion of UN Option

Many thanks to "Mark in San Francisco," who runs a diary at Daily Kos, for provoking an extensive and often acute discussion of my piece on the "UN Option" there.

Bush's Iraq Incubator of Terror
Syria Deploys 7,000 to Block Infiltrators

The New York Times reports that the CIA is growing increasingly alarmed about Bush's Iraq as an incubator of terrorists, and the probability that at some point they will target the US at home.

War on Terror or War on Each other?

Dawn tells an unedifying little story of a crisis that was not covered by most US corporate media.

So, first the Afghan security services broke up what they said was a plot by three armed Pakistanis to assassinate Zalmay Khalilzad, who had been the US ambassador to Afghanistan and is now in Baghdad as the new envoy to Iraq.

History and Genetics in Madagascar

Genetics and history have joined forces to explain the origins of the people of Madagascar (the world's fourth largest island, off the coast of East Africa). Early Muslim chronicles speak of the peopling of Madagascar from the islands to its far east, i.e., Indonesia. Geneticists have found that about half of the island's people have Y chromosomes or mitochondrial DNA that most resemble that of the people of Borneo. Note that all the people in Madagascar by now have Indonesian ancestors and lots of genes from there. The other half of the markers go to East Africa. There must, however, also be an Arab heritage. Some 7 percent of the inhabitants of Madagascar are Muslim, and Muslim chronicles speak of several waves of immigration from places like Yemen.

Cole on Knowing his Own History; and Isaiah Berlin

I don't usually bother to reply at any length to my Neocon critics. Mostly this is because they are simply insincere, and say what they say maliciously and in knowledge of its falsehood. In some instances they have quite unethically subjected their opponents to harassment of a sort that is illegal in some states. They are purely political beasts, for whom all statements are instrumental, and therefore they can never engage in useful dialogue.