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"Tradition?? The only good traditions are food traditions. The rest are repressive."

"There are two ways to think. The first is to trust to your ancestors, your religious leaders, or your charismatic professors. The second is to question, to challenge, to explore history for meanings, and to analyze issues. This latter is called Critical Thinking, and it is this that is the mission of my web site. "

Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman  

April 2023

The History of Lying

Lying has been with us since we learned to talk. It has had a bad reputation from the beginning of civilization and has often been punished under the law. Humanity is going through a resurgence of lying, particularly in our own country, where it is endangering public grasp of reality.

This danger started when Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to newly elected President Trump, declared that there were "alternative facts" during a Meet the Press interview on January 22, 2017. She defend more...

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June 2022

The Russian Way of War

Russia carries its history on its back. From the beginnings of the country identifiable as Russia, it has endured trauma. The jockeying for power among powerful barons was the norm. It is understood that civil conflict continues until one baron prevails and becomes chief leader: king, king of kings (Persia), and emperor in China, after a century of wars among chiefs, eliminating all but one.

Russia also had that experience, barons jockeying for power. But one other problem particu more...

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Weaponizing Lies



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Putin: A Genius or Unhinged?

Russia specialists (historians, former ambassadors, intelligence operatives) seem to have some disagreement on the mental state of Vladimir Putin. In his two decades of leadership after the fall of the Soviet Union, he has slowly morphed Russia from a new liberal democracy to a dangerous illiberal democracy.

Liberal democracy is governed by rule of law, (separation of powers, independent press, independent courts, and honest elections). Such democracies are only as good as the peo more...

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Weaponizing Lies

An ancient prophet, Persia?s Zoroaster, gave the world some powerful concepts: life after death in Heaven or Hell (depending upon one?s conduct in life); a single god of the universe, and god?s shadow, an evil spirit who used the lie as his weapon. Ancient Persia?s code of conduct for men was: ride well, shoot your arrows straight, and tell the truth.

While Zoroaster?s religion faded, these concepts passed into Judaism when the Jews lived in captivity in Babylon. It was during thi more...

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June 2021

Afghanistan Dilemma

The United States is just one more great power to leave Afghanistan after twenty years of trying to fix it. Unfortunately, Afghanistan has never been fixable, even before it became an actual country. It has a problem that was perfectly illustrated in a political cartoon on the Santa Cruz Sentinel: a map of Afghanistan divided equally into two parts: the west in the 21st century, the east in the 15th. It is two countries, and a third country, Pakistan, helping the 15th century part. How can we f more...

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September 2018

Could Iran Collapse?


Iran has proven a complex and difficult country for the US to have a coherent foreign policy. It is not just in the Middle East, but also (before the Soviet collapse) has historically shared borders with Russia, Turkey, and India (prior to Pakistan), propelling it into South Asian politics. It is a Muslim country, but for 1300 years, not part of the Arab-Muslim world, even following a dissident sect (Shi?a) hostile to mainstream Sunni Islam.

Iran (formerly Persia) has a 2 more...

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The Kurds Are Transforming Islam


The Syrian city of Raqqa, recently cleared of its ISIS fanatics, is being rebuilt after nearly total destruction. Meanwhile, the residents are being housed in refugee camps in the wind-swept desert. Even these camps are better than living under ISIS rule, a government so fanatical that even the already pious population chaffed. Women were forced to cover up every square inch of skin under black sacks lest they "tempt" men from righteousness. Any deviation was punished by flogging, one of more...

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September 2017

Nation Building in Afghanistan?

Afghanistan has been a problem since Alexander the Great tramped through on his way to India. It became a bigger problem when the Russian Empire (Afghanistan?s neighbor) and the British Empire (recent colonizer of India) kept Afghanistan unstable between 1839-1919. Almost all of their interference ended in defeat for the attackers.

Afghanistan did not exist until the mid 19th century. It was the "wild-east" of the Persian Empire (a wild place with a few silk-route cities surround more...

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Destroying Sacred Icons Is Not New.


A political cartoon in the Santa Cruz Sentinel showed two Islamist Muslims cheering on the dismantling of a Civil War statue. The cartoonist evidently agrees with President Trump that the destruction of these statues was no different than ISIS destroying the ancient treasures in Palmyra, or the Buddha statue in Afghanistan. Neither the cartoonist nor the President has much of a grip on history.

Winners throughout history destroy the artifacts of the losers. How strange th more...

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Is There Democracy in Iran's Future?


I was in and out of Iran the year (1978) just before the country fell to an Islamic Revolution. As an observer, it was clear that a revolt was brewing; young demonstrators were marching daily, howling for the Shah to step down (actually, the chant was "death to the Shah"). This sort of turmoil had roiled the country before: in the 1920s when the new shah, Reza Pahlavi, outlawed the veiling of women; in 1952, when a populist prime minister wanted to nationalize the oil company run by Brit more...

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Islam: One Size Does Not Fit All!


Both extreme ends of the political spectrum have a problem with their assessment of Islam, the religion, and Muslims as a global community of people. They are talking over each other, and the most serious consequence was the hasty, ill-considered initiative of President Trump to ban entry of people from seven Muslim-majority countries. Unless Americans of all political stripes understand the real nature of militant Islam, which by its own admission has declared war on the world, even aga more...

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August 2015

What if the 30-Year Religious Wars Prediction Is Wrong?

Yemen, once a backwater that nobody much cared about, is now a failed state that has inflamed an entire region. The Saudis, who have spent obscene fortunes on defense toys that they have never used are now tentatively using them and are rallying other Sunni Arabs to join them. For all their decades of bluster about Israel, they were never this serious before. This time, they are really frightened and their fear is directed at a rag-tag terrorist group that has taken over the government of Yemen. more...

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