South Asia

People are blaming the abrupt departure of Keith Olbermann from MSNBC on that company’s merger with Comcast and Olbermann’s loss of the protection and patronage of Jeff Zucker, the former head of NBC programming. MSNBC says that the issue has nothing to do with Comcast. It seems Olbermann is too extreme for US television. But […]

India

Ala. Governor Apologizes to Muslims, Hindus, Jews

Juan Cole

Gov. Robert Bentley, the new governor of Alabama, created a firestorm of controversy on Monday when he said that if you are not a Christian he does not consider you his brother or his sister. He added, “… so anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their saviour, I’m telling you, you’re […]

Afghanistan

Biden: US Could be in Afghanistan Past 2014; Bombing Shakes Capital

Juan Cole

Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday in Kabul that the US might keep troops in Afghanistan after 2014 if asked to do so by the Afghanistan government. He thus reversed his earlier pledge that the US would be out of that country by that date, “come hell or high water.” He has been under pressure […]

Afghanistan

Death Penalty for Blasphemy Rare in Muslim World

Juan Cole

Pakistani campaigners against the country’s blasphemy laws are pointing out that out of 54 Muslim-majority countries in the world, at most 5 permit capital punishment for blasphemy. They are Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and possibly Afghanistan (the new Afghan constitution incorporates human rights norms that could affect statutes treating blasphemy as […]

Pakistan

Death of Pakistani Secularism Much Exaggerated

Juan Cole

There has been a lot of hand-wringing about religious extremism in Pakistan in the wake of the assassination of Punjab governor Salman Taseer. On Sunday the fundamentalist religious parties held a rally some 40,000 strong in the southern port city of Karachi against repealing Pakistan’s blasphemy law, as the Pakistan People’s Party MP Sherry Rahman […]

Pakistan

Wainwright: Taseer’s Assassination Lays Bare Contradictions in Pakistani Islam

Juan Cole

Aadil Wainwright writes from Pakistan in a guest column for Informed Comment: The assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer has laid bare a crucial debate within the Pakistani public over the nature of Islam and the place of Islamic law in national affairs. That it is a debate among Muslims with more than one side […]

Pakistan

Death of Pakistani Progressivism?

Juan Cole

Salman Tasir, the governor of Punjab Province in Pakistan, was assassinated by one of his own guards Tuesday, allegedly for his desire to repeal Pakistan’s blasphemy law, which has been increasingly misused by the religious right to target Christians, Ahmadis and secularists. The guard who killed him was not a Deobandi fundamentalist but an adherent […]

Afghanistan

Wrong Again, Sen. Graham: Cole in Truthdig

Juan Cole

My column is just out in Truthdig, entitled “Wrong Again, Sen. Graham,” on the South Carolina senator’s modest proposal to keep two big American air bases in Afghanistan “permanently.” Graham says the bases would keep Afghanistan from being taken back over by the Taliban. But is that anyway an actual prospect? And wouldn’t the bases […]

Afghanistan

Taliban Getting Stronger, As US Public Support for Afghanistan War Collapses

Juan Cole

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is getting weaker over time, and the Taliban are getting stronger, according to Jessica Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Matthews says that there will be a lull in the winter, but insurgent operations will pick up in the spring. As NATO allies draw down (many have announced […]