From Informed Comment, Juan Cole, about the release of Abdul Rahman:

The episode underlines the falsehood of the Bush administration's empty boast that it is spreading democracy in the Middle East and that "50 million" persons have been liberated. In fact, Bush has been spreading Muslim fundamentalism. In Afghanistan, he just replaced the Taliban with the Jami`at al-Islam, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was the major element in what the American called the "Northern Alliance." Karzaid did not even bother to change the Taliban chief justice when he came in; no doubt the chief justice was strict enough for the Northern Alliance, which contained this strong fundamentalist tendency. Everywhere Bush has intervened - Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, etc., it has helped the fundamentalists.

He contends that someone else will be tried, eventually, for converting to Christianity, which is what I've been thinking since the Afghanistan government first announced last week that Mr. Rahman was mentally ill and therefore could not stand trial.

The doctrine that apostacy deserves the death penalty comes out of medieval Islamic canon law rather than from the Quran itself. If Islam is to survive into the next century, its adherents need to rethink all those medieval legal doctrines to which modern fundamentalists are so attached. It is monstrous, and is the height of hypocrisy for Saudis and others to fund the conversion of Americans to Islam while threatening Saudi converts to Christianity with death.

Sadly, the hypocrisy never ends. It just changes it's stripes.