Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

explained that his refusal to redeploy large numbers of troops to the region was rooted in the grim assumption that the casualties and costs would rival the worst of the Iraq war.

realizes that he was slow to respond to public fears after terrorist attacks in Paris and California, acknowledging that his low-key approach led Americans to worry that he was not doing enough to keep the country safe.

defense of his approach came as Republican presidential candidates have been branding him as weak and competing in their calls for more robust action to combat the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's eastern Shiite heartland prepared to hold a funeral service Thursday night to honor the executed Shiite cleric, Nimr al-Nimr.

However, an Associated Press reporter who reached the site just after the announcement saw no visible damage to the building.

Iranian protesters responded by attacking the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad.

Just 31,000 votes averted the election of western Europe’s first far-right head of state since 1945. How had a man who talks of the “Muslim invasion” of Europe come so close?

Austria’s failure fully to come to terms with its complicity in the Third Reich.

The FPÖ has traded its earlier anti-Semitism for Islamophobia; “Vienna must not become Istanbul” runs one slogan.

With a few exceptions, namely Mr. Trump’s views on immigration, Americans have little recall of reading, hearing or seeing information about the policies of the presidential candidates or their positions on issues. Our research shows instead that in the case of Mr. Trump, Americans monitor his statements, his accusations, his travel and his events, and in the case of Mrs. Clinton they report mainly hearing about her past behavior, her character and, most recently, her health.

The continuing research, conducted by Gallup in conjunction with University of Michigan and Georgetown, found that since early July more than seven in 10 Americans read, saw or heard something about at least one of the presidential candidates in the days before the daily interviews. On some days that number rises to over 80 percent and has never, even on weekends, fallen below 60 percen

Since July we have asked more than 30,000 Americans to say exactly what it was they read, saw or heard about the two major party candidates over the past several days. The type of information getting through to Americans varies significantly depending on whether the candidate in question is Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton

It misunderstands a new media world in which every story, and source, is at risk of being discredited, not by argument but by sheer force.

During the months I spent talking to partisan Facebook page operators for a magazine article this year, it became clear that while the ecosystem contained easily identifiable and intentional fabrication, it contained much, much more of something else.

I recall a conversation with a fact checker about how to describe a story, posted on a pro-Trump website and promoted on a pro-Trump Facebook page — and, incidentally, copied from another pro-Trump site by overseas contractors. It tried to cast suspicion on Khizr Khan, the father of a slain American soldier, who had spoken out against Donald J. Trump.

Political correctness has become a major bugaboo of the right in the past decade, a rallying cry against all that has gone wrong with liberalism and America. Conservative writers fill volumes complaining how political correctness stifles free expression and promotes bunk social theories about “power structures” based on patriarchy, race and mass victimhood. Forbes charged that it “stifles freedom of speech.” The Daily Caller has gone so far as to claim that political correctness “kills Americans.”

But conservatives have their own, nationalist version of PC, their own set of rules regulating speech, behavior and acceptable opinions. I call it “patriotic correctness.” It’s a full-throated, un-nuanced, uncompromising defense of American nationalism, history and cherry-picked ideals. Central to its thesis is the belief that nothing in America can’t be fixed by more patriotism enforced by public shaming, boycotts and policies to cut out foreign and non-American influences.

Insufficient displays of patriotism among the patriotically correct can result in exclusion from public life and ruined careers. It also restricts honest criticism of failed public policies, diverting blame for things like the war in Iraq to those Americans who didn’t support the war effort enough.

He tried to make a handful of minced meat stick to a skewer, and said, sardonically, “See here, true Sharia has finally arrived in Swat.”

2009, the Pakistani Army launched an offensive to drive the Taliban out of Swat—and forced Fazlullah across the border, into Afghanistan. These days, the valley is relatively peaceful, and Pakistani tourists have returned in droves.

Mehsud, who had been “killed” by American drone strikes on at least two previous occasions, was actually killed by another drone strike at the start of November—transforming him overnight, in the eyes of Pakistani politicians and commentators, from a mass murderer into a marty

He proves nothing that he doesn’t simultaneously subvert a little; he makes no over-arching argument about the way humans must live; he has no logician’s architecture or religious doctrine. He slips past all those familiar means of telling other people what’s good for them, and simply explains what has worked for him and others and leaves the reader empowered to forge her own future

You can see its eccentric power by considering the alternative ways of doing what Montaigne was doing. Think of contemporary self-help books – and all the fake certainty and rigid formulae they contain. Or think of a hideous idea like “the purpose-driven life” in which everything must be forced into the box of divine guidance in order to really live at all. Think of the stringency of Christian disciplines – say, the spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola – and marvel at how Montaigne offers an entirely different and less compelling way to live. Think of the rigidity of Muslim practice and notice how much lee-way Montaigne gives to sin

This is a non-philosophical philosophy. It is a theory of practical life as told through one man’s random and yet not-so-random reflections on his time on earth. And it is shot through with doubt. Even the maxims that Montaigne embraces for living are edged with those critical elements of Montaigne’s thought that say “as far as I know”

Myanmar has been rocked by several deadly outbreaks of religious violence in recent years, mainly targeting the Muslim minority.

On March 28, 1786, America’s new Congress of the Confederation received word from John Adams and Thomas Jefferson of their meeting in France with Tripoli’s ambassador regarding Muslim Barbary pirates raiding American ships in the Mediterranean.

Congress directed Jefferson and Adams to borrow $80,000 from Dutch bankers to pay tribute, as Jefferson wrote to John Jay, 1787

The night before the battle, Jones and a Cossack sailor silently rowed out to scout the position of the Turkish fleet. On the side of one Turkish ship, Jones chalked in giant letters: “To be burned. Paul Jones.” In the next day’s battle, that ship was among those destroyed by Jones

an array of new discoveries in psychology and neuroscience has further demonstrated how our preexisting beliefs, far more than any new facts, can skew our thoughts and even color what we consider our most dispassionate and logical conclusions. This tendency toward so-called "motivated reasoning" helps explain why we find groups so polarized over matters where the evidence is so unequivocal: climate change, vaccines, "death panels," the birthplace and religion of the president (PDF), and much else. It would seem that expecting people to be convinced by the facts flies in the face of, you know, the facts.

The theory of motivated reasoning builds on a key insight of modern neuroscience (PDF): Reasoning is actually suffused with emotion (or what researchers often call "affect"). Not only are the two inseparable, but our positive or negative feelings about people, things, and ideas arise much more rapidly than our conscious thoughts, in a matter of milliseconds—fast enough to detect with an EEG device, but long before we're aware of it. That shouldn't be surprising: Evolution required us to react very quickly to stimuli in our environment. It's a "basic human survival skill," explains political scientist Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan. We push threatening information away; we pull friendly information close. We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself.

reasoning comes later, works slower—and even then, it doesn't take place in an emotional vacuum. Rather, our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that's highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about.

As oxytocin comes into sharper focus, its social radius of action turns out to have definite limits. The love and trust it promotes are not toward the world in general, just toward a person’s in-group. Oxytocin turns out to be the hormone of the clan, not of universal brotherhood. Psychologists trying to specify its role have now concluded it is the agent of ethnocentrism.

In Dr. De Dreu’s experiments, the five people who might be saved were nameless, but the sacrificial victim had either a Dutch or a Muslim name. Subjects who had taken oxytocin were far more likely to sacrifice the Muhammads than the Maartens.

Dr. De Dreu plans to investigate whether oxytocin mediates other social behaviors that evolutionary psychologists think evolved in early human groups. Besides loyalty to one’s own group, there would also have been survival advantages in rewarding cooperation and punishing deviants. Oxytocin, if it underlies these behaviors too, would perhaps have helped ancient populations set norms of behavior.

In post-9/11 America, when it comes to momentous matters of national security, democratic tradition and the rule of law, there is precious little disclosure and no justice and accountability. It’s a bipartisan affliction.

mployees of the C.I.A. and the military, as well as private contractors, illegally detained, tortured and abused prisoners — some of them really dangerous men, but also some who should never have been detained. None of them should have been dealt with in such a shameful and evidently unlawful way.

No one was held accountable

the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS; the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL; and, more recently, the Islamic State, or IS. French officials recently declared that that country would stop using any of those names and instead refer to the group as “Daesh.”

how we talk about this group is central to defeating them.

Laurent Fabius said, “This is a terrorist group and not a state. . . the term Islamic State blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims, and Islamists.” President Obama made similar remarks saying, “ISIL is not Islamic . . . and [is] certainly not a state.”

Whoever engraved its enigmatic symbols was apparently depicting the ancient Jewish temples.

The stone is a kind of ancient snapshot.

Experts have raised the tantalizing possibility that Jesus may have taught in the synagogue when he was in Galilee.

do not make the mistake of treating him as a solitary phenomenon, a singular celebrity narcissist who has somehow, all alone, brought his party and its politics to the brink of fascism

The things he says are outrageous, by design, but they were not spawned, nor have they flourished, in isolation.

They have been harshening their campaign speeches and immigration proposals in response to the Trump effect. Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush want to allow only Christian refugees from Syria to enter the country, and Mr. Cruz has introduced legislation to allow states to opt out of refugee resettlement.

The New York Times analyzed every public utterance by Mr. Trump over the past week from rallies, speeches, interviews and news conferences to explore the leading candidate’s hold on the Republican electorate for the past five months.

The transcriptions yielded 95,000 words and several powerful patterns

The most striking hallmark was Mr. Trump’s constant repetition of divisive phrases, harsh words and violent imagery that American presidents rarely use

In an interview with the New Statesman, the rightwing philosopher was unrepentant about his views on George Soros, the Hungarian-American philanthropist, who is frequently cited in antisemitic conspiracy theories and attacked by Hungary’s rightwing prime minister, Viktor Orbán.

“Anybody who doesn’t think that there’s a Soros empire in Hungary has not observed the facts,” Scruton told the magazine

Scruton, who has been a friend of Orbán for more than 30 years, denied that he was antisemitic or Islamophobic. He said Islamophobia had been “invented by the Muslim Brotherhood in order to stop discussion of a major issue”.

It’s not just that 47 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush.

Take a look at Tuesday night’s box score in the baseball game between New York and Toronto. The Yankees won, 11-5. Now look at the weather summary, showing a high of 71 for New York. The score and temperature are not subject to debate. Yet a president’s birthday or whether he was even in the White House on the day TARP was passed are apparently open questions. A growing segment of the party poised to take control of Congress has bought into denial of the basic truths of Barack Obama’s life. What’s more, this astonishing level of willful ignorance has come about largely by design, and has been aided by a press afraid to call out the primary architects of the lies.

It would be nice to dismiss the stupid things that Americans believe as harmless, the price of having such a large, messy democracy.