Author: Idrees Ahmad
I am a Lecturer in Digital Journalism at the University of Stirling and a former research fellow at the University of Denver’s Center for Middle East Studies. I am the author of The Road to Iraq: The Making of a Neoconservative War (Edinburgh University Press, 2014). I write for The Observer, The Nation, The Daily Beast, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Al Jazeera, Dissent, The National, VICE News, Huffington Post, In These Times, Le Monde Diplomatique, Die Tageszeitung (TAZ), Adbusters, Guernica, London Review of Books (Blog), The New Arab, Bella Caledonia, Asia Times, IPS News, Medium, Political Insight, The Drouth, Canadian Dimension, Tanqeed, Variant, etc. I have appeared as an on-air analyst on Al Jazeera, the BBC, TRT World, RAI TV, Radio Open Source with Christopher Lydon, Alternative Radio with David Barsamian and several Pacifica Radio channels.
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P U L S E 
Sean Penn and Stephen Colbert each have their own category at my blog for their blows against empire.
If anyone comes across a video of Penn speaking at a memorial service for Rachel Corrie, and I don’t think there is one because he was at pains to state he wasn’t there as a celebrity or for celebrity but to speak as a father, try to save it, it was historic. That little speech dissolved me into a puddle on the floor. I’d been trying to take it standing up, but couldn’t hold up against it.
Everyone lauds Obama’s eloquence. Well. If Obama put the kind of content in that eloquence that Penn does, or Colbert does even in his comedy, this would be a much better world right away.