Before I head out for the weekend, I thought I'd leave you with the news that America has launched its glorious campaign to help destroy Yemen: The U.S. military launched cruise missile strikes on Thursday to knock out three coastal radar sites in areas of Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi forces, retaliating after failed missile … Continue reading In for a penny

I guess Tayyip Erdoğan was feeling especially salty today: Hopes of defusing the escalating crisis between Turkey and Iraq ahead of a critical battle to retake Mosul from the Islamic State (IS) were all but shattered after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to “know his place.” “Iraq had certain requests … Continue reading Talk about neo-Ottomanism

If you'd been disappointed that the US has only been supporting the destruction of Yemen and not directly participating in it, thanks to yesterday's events it looks like you're about to get some good news: The Pentagon is contemplating retaliatory action after missiles were fired at the USS Mason from rebel-held territory inside Yemen on … Continue reading Aaaaaaaand here we go

My fellow Americans, while we were all gasping and laughing at Donald Trump and the Republican Party today--and I'm not knocking anybody, I spent most of the day doing it too--here's what our government was doing: More than 140 people were killed and more than 525 wounded when airstrikes hit a funeral ceremony in Yemen’s … Continue reading Why quit now?

Yesterday, Donald Trump was a bully. Today, Donald Trump is a bully. Tomorrow, Donald Trump will be a bully. Yesterday, Donald Trump was a racist. In 1989, Donald Trump was a racist. In 2014, Donald Trump was a racist. Today, Donald Trump is a racist. Tomorrow, Donald Trump will be a racist. Yesterday, Donald Trump … Continue reading Nothing has changed

When last we checked in, India and Pakistan were lobbing insults at one another from the floor of the United Nations over recent attacks by Pakistani militants on Indian targets in Kashmir. On September 28, two entire battalions of Indian soldiers entered Pakistani Kashmir and destroyed a number of staging areas that militants had been … Continue reading What’s happening in Kashmir and how likely is it to kill us all?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=055wFyO6gag Stop me if you've heard this one before: The Obama administration on Wednesday castigated the Israeli government for approving plans to create a new Jewish settlement on the West Bank, three weeks after it signed a lucrative military aid package with the United States and a week after President Obama traveled to Jerusalem for … Continue reading Nobody could have seen this coming

I watched last night's VP debate despite my deep personal desire to, you know, not do that, and while I don't really think there's much of anything substantive to say about the debate itself (Pence won because, despite lying virtually non-stop from beginning to end, his performance was not as unpleasant to watch as the … Continue reading Fact-free checkers

While Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's decision to stop warring with the Afghan government--for now, at least--should be seen as a positive step toward ending the civil war there, when it comes to the war against the Taliban Kabul is stuck in place and going nowhere fast: The Taliban overran central neighborhoods in the critical Afghan provincial capital … Continue reading One step forward, one step back

The month of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic (Hijri) calendar, is one of four months that, in addition to Ramadan, are explicitly identified as sacred months in the Qurʾan. This is probably an extension of a pre-Islamic Arabian tradition wherein certain months were set aside to be free from violence. The tenth day … Continue reading That time of year