Juan Cole

Bali Nightclub Bombing The death toll keeps rising in the bombing on Saturday of two nightclubs on the Indonesian island of Bali. Today I saw 187 given as the number of dead, with over 300 wounded. After September 11, any such scenes of a burning blast site just tear me up inside. I think of […]

Pakistan Election Results The Pakistan People’s Party, led by Makhdoom Amin Fahim, seems set to attempt to form a government in coalition with the Muslim League (QA) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. All three have a more or less secular orientation. PPP and ML (QA) are the two largest parties in parliament. The European Union […]

The Failure of Reagan’s Afghanistan Policy The Reagan administration policy in Afghanistan was not a “most successful departure” but, in my opinion, an absolute disaster that led in many ways directly to September 11. The Soviet Union was already on its last legs economically in the 1980s. As the empire collapsed, a Soviet-dominated Afghanistan would […]

Opposition to Musharraf wins Big in Pakistan Early returns available in the Pakistani elections held October 10 reveal a strong anti-Musharraf tendency among those few who could be bothered to go to the polls (turnout was reportedly light, presumably in response to Musharraf’s having made it clear that the army would continue to retain ultimate […]

Bin Laden and Pakistan’s Elections A letter is being distributed in Peshawar allegedly from Usama Bin Laden, urging Pakistanis to vote for the enemies of Gen. Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan’s elections, which are being held October 10. Thousands of copies of the letter in Arabic and Urdu are circulating in the Northwest Frontier Province, where […]

History News Network 10-07-02: Fact & Fiction Jerry Falwell on Muhammad By Juan Cole Mr. Cole is professor of Middle East and South Asian history at the University of Michigan and author of Sacred Space and Holy War (I. B. Tauris, 2002). His web site is www.juancole.com. Jerry Falwell, the fundamentalist televangelist, has said, “I […]

Saddam Hussein says he refuses to resign and will remain in power, attempting to dampen down the rumors flying in Europe that he might step down in order to avoid a war with the United States. This is not a big surprise, since Saddam’s whole purpose in life is to be a dictator. Besides, if […]

Falwell on Muhammad Jerry Falwell’s absurd charge on CBS’s Sixty Minutes on Oct. 6 that the Prophet Muhammad was a terrorist was leaked late last week and has attracted some reaction in the Gulf region and farther afield. According to Agence France Presse, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi responded by saying, “This insult of the […]

The Real Reasons for the Iraq War Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (9/29/02) argued that the Iraq war is actually aimed at securing an empire for the United States, and that the other reasons given are a cover: http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/sunday/issue_d369495ba6c610e900c3.html I agree with Bookman that the reasons the Bush administration has been giving for going […]