Author Archives: Janice Jayes

The Scramble for Libya: The New Normal in 21st Century War

Posted on 03/18/2020 by Janice Jayes

In 2011, then-Vice President Joe Biden gloated to the press that US/NATO actions in Libya had modeled the new normal in warfare: an overpowering air and sea operation that accomplished the overthrow of an enemy government (Muammar Gaddafi’s) without sustaining … Continue reading →

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Homewrecker: Trump, the Kurds, and the Grand Strategy We Have Been Waiting For

Posted on 12/24/2019 by Janice Jayes

Donald Trump’s October decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria took his own advisors by surprise, not to mention the Kurdish military units that were U.S. partners in the war on ISIS during the past five years. Perhaps the only … Continue reading →

Posted in International, International, Middle East, Syria | Comments Off on Homewrecker: Trump, the Kurds, and the Grand Strategy We Have Been Waiting For

Opposition to the Proposed ICE Dwight Detention Center Continues.

Posted on 06/13/2019 by Janice Jayes

Efforts to halt the construction of a 1200-bed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Dwight, Illinois continue at both the state and local level. The proposed facility would be built and operated by the Virginia-based, for-profit prison company … Continue reading →

Posted in Economy, Human Rights, incarceration, Refugees | Comments Off on Opposition to the Proposed ICE Dwight Detention Center Continues.

It’s Not an Immigration Crisis, It’s a Global Labor Tragedy

Posted on 05/09/2019 by Janice Jayes

An underclass of “undocumented” workers in the U.S., sweatshops in Asia, child miners in Africa, contract ironworkers in Dubai … we live in a world of globalized labor exploitation. This doesn’t just mean a world where workers in many countries … Continue reading →

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Securitization in the Heartland: For-Profit Immigration Detention

Posted on 04/12/2019 by Janice Jayes

Dwight, IL, Population 4200. On March 11 the Dwight Village Board voted to move forward with the construction of a privately owned $20 million ICE detention facility on the edge of the town, which is 75 miles north of Champaign-Urbana. … Continue reading →

Posted in Immigration, incarceration | Comments Off on Securitization in the Heartland: For-Profit Immigration Detention

Contextual Engineering and the Politics of Project Design

Posted on 03/12/2019 by Janice Jayes

How do you teach a group of college students to think outside their own experience when creating infrastructure designs for rural, alternatively developed societies? You take them to the community to live, work, eat, and learn from their clients. The … Continue reading →

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Making a Profit off of the Crisis in Affordable Housing

Posted on 12/12/2018 by Janice Jayes

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Frank Rolfe and Dave Reynolds discovered a lucrative new area of real estate investment, manufactured home communities (MHCs), and made millions by buying out older mom-and-pop operations and putting new profit-oriented practices … Continue reading →

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1968 – Not Really So Long Ago or Far Away

Posted on 11/14/2018 by Janice Jayes

“I want kids to see that it wasn’t just Martin Luther King making things happen in the 1960s, it was local folks here as well. Just as it is today.” Katie Snyder, Education Program Specialist, Museum of the Grand Prairie … Continue reading →

Posted in 1968, African Americans, African Americans, Environment, University of Illinois, Vietnam War, Youth | Comments Off on 1968 – Not Really So Long Ago or Far Away

The Real War in Egypt: the Labor Struggle

Posted on 05/04/2018 by Janice Jayes

By Janice Jayes If you missed the exciting Presidential election news out of Egypt this past March, don’t be too hard on yourself: also missing it were 96 million Egyptians. Yes, a few Egyptians showed up at the polls for … Continue reading →

Posted in Arab Spring, Egypt, labor | Comments Off on The Real War in Egypt: the Labor Struggle

The Honduran Crisis: Not Quite Your Father’s Oligarchy…

Posted on 01/24/2018 by Janice Jayes

By Janice Jayes At first glance the political crisis in Honduras seems depressingly familiar: a military coup against a left-leaning President in 2009, continued repression of opposition groups, and now a Presidential election so full of irregularities that demonstrators refuse … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Environment, Honduran Election 2017, Human Rights, International, Land, military | Comments Off on The Honduran Crisis: Not Quite Your Father’s Oligarchy…

The U.S. Military in Africa: a Workshop for the Militarization of Foreign Policy

Posted on 12/07/2017 by Janice Jayes

By Janice Jayes After four American servicemen were killed in in Niger in October, social media discussion fixated on President Trump’s insensitive remarks to the widow of one of the slain soldiers and questions about the logistics surrounding the unlucky … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Foreign Policy, International, military | Comments Off on The U.S. Military in Africa: a Workshop for the Militarization of Foreign Policy

The Politics of Looking at Women’s Rights in the Middle East

Posted on 04/01/2017 by Janice Jayes

As someone who has lived in and studies the Middle East I am often asked my opinion on the situation of women in that region. Of course it’s impossible to comment on “women” anywhere, even in Champaign or Urbana, without … Continue reading →

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Foreign Relations, Domestic Security, and the Trump Era

Posted on 01/19/2017 by Janice Jayes

The foreign policy outlook for the near future is bleak, but not just because of the incoming Trump administration’s proposals. Trump’s public statements about rolling back U.S. investments in “soft” issues like human rights or economic development, abandoning multilateral obligations … Continue reading →

Posted in 2016 election, International, military, Trump | Comments Off on Foreign Relations, Domestic Security, and the Trump Era

Battling ISIS and Other Distractions from the Bigger Picture

Posted on 11/18/2016 by Janice Jayes

Current operations to scrub out Islamic State (ISIS) bases have restored American confidence in state-of-the-art military solutions for complex problems, but unfortunately these battles (and the undefined relationship with Russia, Turkey or the Assad regime in the post-ISIS era) also … Continue reading →

Posted in Middle East, Syria | Comments Off on Battling ISIS and Other Distractions from the Bigger Picture

The Syrian Refugee Crisis and the Problem of Categories

Posted on 08/17/2016 by Janice Jayes

The Syrian refugee crisis is ultimately a problem about categories, not numbers. Yes, the numbers are overwhelming. But, unfortunately, after years of tragic stories about the 11 million displaced by the Syrian war, international sympathy is waning even as the … Continue reading →

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The Syrian Stage: The Globalization of the Syrian War

Posted on 07/13/2016 by Janice Jayes

Just as the Arab Spring showcased the political possibilities of new forms of communication—empowering political dissenters by allowing them to rapidly share developments and warnings with each other and the world, and breaking the dominance the state had enjoyed over … Continue reading →

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From the Arab Spring to the Syrian Civil War: Looking Again at the Modern Middle East

Posted on 05/27/2016 by Janice Jayes

It’s tempting to put the Arab Spring and the Syrian Civil War in separate boxes, but like other forms of compartmentalization, that only hides but doesn’t resolve the underlying problems. The dynamics that helped the Syrian War erupt into one … Continue reading →

Posted in Arab Spring, International, Politics, Syria | Comments Off on From the Arab Spring to the Syrian Civil War: Looking Again at the Modern Middle East