# Juan Cole: Criticism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 19, 2006, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/juan-cole-criticism/348976 "2006-03-19T06:15:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/juan-cole-criticism/348976/1 "2006-03-19T06:15:52Z")
Juan Cole is a Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He has a special interest in the middle east and speaks Arabic. He maintains a blog; [Informed Comment](http://juancole.com/). The blog is updated regularly and accurately predicted the outcomes, to date, of the Iraq invasion. On the other had he also has a number of strong views that conflict with the general direction of US policy in the middle east. So there is bound to be opposition out there. The questions: - Are there opinion pieces or blogs with similar authority to Cole’s which advance opinions opposing his? - Is there any site that regularly and methodically criticises Informed Comment? - Is Cole a member of an undisclosed organisation which may bias his opinions? Because so far, everything I’ve seen suggests his opinion should be taken as gospel. ---
**Author:** ![Operation\_Ripper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/34f0e0/32.png) [@Operation\_Ripper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Operation_Ripper)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/juan-cole-criticism/348976/2 "2006-03-19T06:21:54Z")
[QUOTE=Sevastopol] The blog is updated regularly and accurately predicted the outcomes, to date, of the Iraq invasion. [/QUOTE] Which was? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/juan-cole-criticism/348976/3 "2006-03-19T06:57:23Z")
Well, there are some experts out there who come up with views that are at odds with Cole. One of them I found right off is Martin Kramer, who is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a senior editor of the _Middle East Quarterly_. Pretty good bona fides, those. He runs a website at [www.martinkramer.org](http://www.martinkramer.org) that regularly critiques Cole. Cole has responded to these criticisms with considerable anger, and counterattacked Kramer in personal terms. He even asked volunteers to dig up dirt on Kramer, which seems to be entirely in keeping with Cole’s overall character as I understand it. So to say that Cole is authoritative would be a mistake, IMHO. Maybe on some things he is, but his writings are controversial for a reason, and that reason is that they are not agreed to by everyone. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/juan-cole-criticism/348976/4 "2006-03-19T11:34:43Z")
For all his bona fides, Cole spends enormous amounts of time announcing or defending how smart he is. He’s certainly a Middle East expert, but he’s not some end-all be-all; his Arabic is not that good – when he appears on Al Jazeera, he speaks English – and he’s never been to Iraq in his life. He virulently attacks people who criticize him, throwing around ad hominems and threats to sue. More of a problem is the fact that he did _not_ orginally oppose the Iraq war, but as his blog started to get popular among liberals, he changed his tune, going so far as to delete old postings as if they never happened. > **[Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos](https://www.yahoo.com/)** > > Latest news coverage, email, free stock quotes, live scores and video are just the beginning. Discover more every day at Yahoo! > **[Campus Watch](https://www.meforum.org/campus-watch)** [QUOTE=Sevastopol] Because so far, everything I’ve seen suggests his opinion should be taken as gospel. [/QUOTE] The fact that you would take anyone’s opinion as gospel about anything is the problem. Bernard Lewis has a resume that makes Cole’s look like chopped liver, and he has been broadly supportive of Bush’s policies. I wouldn’t take his opinions for gospel, either. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/juan-cole-criticism/348976/5 "2006-03-19T14:23:50Z")
Link to Bernard Lewis? I’ve never heard of the guy. I’ve never really noticed Cole to use the ad hominem. Are the accessible examples of that, as **Mr Moto** and **furt** have suggested? [Ad hominem fallacy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem) > [@](#): > > An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin, literally “argument against the person”) or attacking the messenger, is a logical fallacy that involves replying to an argument or assertion by attacking the person presenting the argument or assertion rather than the argument itself. However, not all attacks against the person involve fallacious reasoning. Lastly, I note that so far, there are no claims Cole brings a particular bias to his writing. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/juan-cole-criticism/348976/6 "2006-03-19T17:02:07Z")
[QUOTE=Sevastopol] Link to Bernard Lewis? I’ve never heard of the guy. [/quote] Bernard Lewis is one of the grand old men of Islamic history. I have several of his books ( at least five, I think ), have quoted from a couple of them on these boards and I have a considerable respect for his scholarship. However he is primarily a pre-modern historian and his views of the modern Islamic world is heavily colored by his great admiration for the Kemalist revolution in Turkey ( an event that for historical and cultural reasons isn’t necessarily a great template for anywhere else ). I find his _modern_ commentary rather lacking. He’s as far from ignorant as you can get and I have found some of the criticism heaped on him to be a little over the top, but he does have has his biases. > [@](#): > > Lastly, I note that so far, there are no claims Cole brings a particular bias to his writing. He’s definitely what one might condescendingly refer to as part of the “academic left”, whereas archnemeses like Daniel Pipes is part of the “academic right.” Pipes I can’t stand ( I’m a little less antagonistic towards Kramer - unlike Pipes he seems less threatened by the French experts like Kepel that I rather like ), Cole I just find annoyingly shrill at times. Despite being vaguely leftish myself, I don’t read Cole regularly simply because I find him irritating as all get out when he goes into domestic rant mode ( which he does more often these days it would seem ). He can be informative - but with all such sources I’d take him with a grain of salt. Of course he has biases. Everyone does. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/juan-cole-criticism/348976/7 "2006-03-19T23:51:15Z")
Well yes, there are biases and biases. I suppose my ‘bias’ question was directed to whether Cole is part of any particular movement or organisation. In other words, if there is a particular interest Cole has signed up to, of which his readers should be mindful. As far as I can tell the answer that one is no. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/juan-cole-criticism/348976/8 "2006-03-20T00:00:08Z")
[QUOTE=Sevastopol] Because so far, everything I’ve seen suggests his opinion should be taken as gospel. [/QUOTE] Now heres the thing… Its a “blog”. A ‘blog’ effectively a diary with links attached. If you want fact checked, vaguely unbiased news go to the BBC or CNN. I happend to think alot of what he posts is intresting, and often features some stuff you don’t hear elsewhere (particularly the translations of arabic websites). But if you take anything you read on any blog as gospel then I have a friend in Nigeria who wants to talk to you about some money he needs transfering. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/juan-cole-criticism/348976/9 "2006-03-22T06:36:51Z")
_a friend in Nigeria who wants to talk to you about some money he needs transfering._ hey, that money is just sitting there, in that account, and the guy it really belongs to was shot by a militia, and left no heirs. If we don’t find an accouint to transfer it to , the government will just grab it. If you will just send us your account information, we’ll wire it direct, less a small good faith advance that you should send in small, unmarked U.S. currrency, to a mailbox the address of which will be sent under separate cover… ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/juan-cole-criticism/348976/10 "2006-03-22T08:38:34Z")
[QUOTE=Sevastopol] Well yes, there are biases and biases. I suppose my ‘bias’ question was directed to whether Cole is part of any particular movement or organisation. In other words, if there is a particular interest Cole has signed up to, of which his readers should be mindful. As far as I can tell the answer that one is no. [/QUOTE] Er. You don’t have to be part of a specific organization to have an predictable ax to grind. I read **Tamerlane** ’s post a little differently. Look, I’ve quoted Cole on these boards. And personally, I’d draw a sharp distinction between Pipes and Cole. IM-not-so-HO, Pipes has been shown to be either intellectually dishonest or a total ignoramous. [Here I start exploring the issue](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2164809&postcount=9). The remainder of that thread does not vindicate Pipes. So it would be inappropriate for a nonspecialist to take his material seriously. So though I wouldn’t put Pipes and Cole in the same category, methinks the buyer should always be beware.