Nov 3 Juan Cole talk

Professor Juan Cole’s talk was enlightening. His demeanor and humor helped make a talk that could have easily been dry and depressing, very engaging.

The US just uses up too much petroleum products. Really – no mystery there but the historical background and his introduction to the connections between people in the current US government and oil businesses and related interests was very easy to understand and put the light on many things that were previously vague.

His research into napoleons incursion into Egypt is hauntingly familiar to the US approach to Iraq. It is clear that we humans do not learn form past mistakes but this made it even more clear how we can already see it repeating itself in front of our eyes.

Professor Juan Cole is a noted expert on the modern Middle East, and has spent the last 30 years putting the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context. His award-winning blog Informed Comment is a daily must-see for an in-depth and alternative view of the Iraq war and American foreign policy in that
region. Cole is a critic of current American foreign policy, and has been a vocal opponent of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq.

Find our more about him and his talk by visiting his blog: www.juancole.com