Posted on 09/05/2006 2:22:22 PM PDT by Jeff Fuller
Earlier this morning, Romney came out strong against the upcoming visit of former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami’s upcoming visit to lecture at Harvard. He's taken a strong stand on this one.
The Press Release is here.
ROMNEY DENOUNCES KHATAMI VISIT TO HARVARD Declines to provide escort, or offer state support for trip
Governor Mitt Romney today ordered all Massachusetts state government agencies to decline support, if asked, for former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami’s September 10 visit to the Boston area, where he is scheduled to speak at Harvard University.
“State taxpayers should not be providing special treatment to an individual who supports violent jihad and the destruction of Israel,” said Romney.
Romney’s action means that Khatami will be denied an official police escort and other VIP treatment when he is in town. The federal government provides security through the U.S. State Department.
Romney criticized Harvard for honoring Khatami by inviting him to speak, calling it “a disgrace to the memory of all Americans who have lost their lives at the hands of extremists, especially on the eve of the five-year anniversary of 9/11.”
Said Romney: “The U.S. State Department listed Khatami’s Iran as the number one state sponsor of terrorism. Within his own country, Khatami oversaw the torture and murder of dissidents who spoke out for freedom and democracy. For him to lecture Americans about tolerance and violence is propaganda, pure and simple.”
Romney cited a litany of hateful actions by Khatami, including his support for violent jihadist activities:
During the period of time he was in office, from 1997 to 2005, Khatami presided over Iran’s secret nuclear program. Currently, the Iranian Government under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is snubbing the international community’s request to cease nuclear weapons production.
In the recent conflict along the Israel-Lebanon border, Khatami described the terrorist group Hezbollah as a “shining sun that illuminates and warms the hearts of all Muslims and supporters of freedom in the world.”
Khatami has endorsed Ahmadinejad’s call for the annihilation of Israel.
During Khatami’s presidency, Iran refused to hand over the Iranian intelligence officials who were responsible for the attack on the Khobar Towers that killed 19 U.S. military personnel.
In his own country, Khatami oversaw the torture and murder of Iranian students, journalists, and others who spoke out for freedom and democracy. Khatami relaxed freedom of speech laws giving democracy reformers a false sense of security only to engage in one of the largest crackdowns in the country’s history.
In Khatami’s Iran, there was no religious tolerance. According to the U.S. Office of International Religious Freedom, Iran was one of the worst offenders of religious persecutions. Minorities, such as Evangelicals, Jews, Catholics and others, have suffered. “Khatami pretends to be a moderate, but he is not. My hope is that the United States will find and work with real voices of moderation inside Iran. But we will never make progress in the region if we deal with wolves in sheep’s clothing,” said Romney.
Khatami is a man who has been on the record supporting the violent jihadist movement for over a decade
I must say that someone needed to condemn this. Withdrawing state escorts is a small point, but it puts the liberal left (AKA Harvard in this instance . . . by the way, Romney is a Harvard grad--got his MBA and Law Degree both from there) on the defensive for welcoming such a guest. Romney definitely got this one right in my opinion, we need to find the real moderate Arab leaders and support them, not someone like Khatami.
Harvard has become infested with antisemitism. Things have been getting worse for years.
Good for Romney! I've often cited his too-frequent wimpiness in the past, but he is right on target here!
Harvard is an evil place
Leftists are a members of the Axis Of Evil.
To supporting any Authoritarian murdering thugs as long as there "anti-US"
bump
Leftists never met an anti-American dictator they didn't like. Any enemy of America, is a friend of theirs.
It's a sad state of affairs when the head of an American university stoops to welcome an enemy of our country to lecture to the students and faculty. Shame, Shame. He should be removed along with all the other anti-American faculty members of the university. In fact American parents should not send their money to these universities or their children.
I'm in love.
Romney criticized Harvard for honoring Khatami by inviting him to speak, calling it “a disgrace to the memory of all Americans who have lost their lives at the hands of extremists, especially on the eve of the five-year anniversary of 9/11.”
Well that's the spirit, Romney. That Iranian thug is infecting our land with his uranium enriched feet...
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
GOOD FOR ROMNEY!!!
But his dissertation on the differences between men and women in mathematical acedemics should be enlightening. For instance. How is a proper rock for stoning a women who goes to college chosen in regards to the trade off of weight which won't kill right away vs sharp edges which produce the most pain?
Pong!
Panerai,
Your obviously not impressed with Romney's actions. Why so?
The Bush administration granted him the Visa to be here (So Bush and or Condi must have been involved or approved. http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-08-29-voa79.cfm Romney obviously wouldn't have done that.
Can Romney do anything to impress you? You reveal your obvious, yet mysterious, anti-Romney bias with sarcastic comments like that.
"Your obviously not impressed with Romney's actions. Why so?
" - I live in Massachusetts and I am really familiar with this RINO.
Hard for a toilet like harvard to get worse.
Hey don't knock it. He's the ONLY governor who has
I wrote the President and cc'd Cheney this morning to move to cancel Khatami's visits anywhere outside of NYC and the UN.
I urge all of you to do the same.
president@whitehouse.gov
I agree.
They should have kept their president (Summers) who was run off campus because he spoke the documented and factual truth (behind closed doors in an "off the record" think tank session) that was not politically correct.
He was their last hope for maintaining some credibility. This nut interim president is showing his colors quickly . . . and they're not impressive.
I'm with Romney and Santorum on this . . . keep preachers of hate and jihad away from our students--espeically our left-leaning students!
Will he share a panel with Barbara Streisand at the Kennedy School?
"Romney criticized Harvard for honoring Khatami by inviting him to speak, calling it “a disgrace to the memory of all Americans who have lost their lives at the hands of extremists,"
Ironic isn't it? Harvard would invite Khatami to speak yet the evil Islamic Republic squashes free speech, threatens to oust liberal teachers, bans great works of literature and represses womens freedoms. Strange bedfellows indeed American liberals and muslim extremists. Liberal fools.
Good on you Romney..call it like it is.
I've got a better idea .... put some of those Masshole SWAT teams on sniper duties along his route and take his sorry butt out.
Romney's got more brains and b@!!s than Bush, who's spending YOUR tax dollars to escort and protect a former terrorist-state leader who'd just love to nuke America. Too bad Romney and Bush can't exchange jobs.
Could they take Khatami on a tour of the Big Dig and arrange for one of those concrete ceiling slabs to "accidentally" fall on his limo? It would give the mullahs a glimpse of their future when bunker-busters hit their hiding places.
Romney gets it, and isn't afraid to say so.
Now that's going a little far . . . No need to call out the troops or use state projects . . . there's enough Mafia in Boston to make it look "like an accident"
Romney is borrowing from the Rudy Gulliani playbook, when as mayor of NYC, Gulliani had a security detail physically remove Yassar Arafat from a UN related event that was sponsored by NYC. IIRC, Arafat was already seated at Lincoln Center when Rudy gave him the boot.
Mitt is showing more nads than he did as gov. The lure of 1600.
Harvard wasn't going to be outdone by Yale who has a member of the taliban as a student.
He should have been arrested on kidnapping charges.
He is still governor . . . this act was as governor. Not sure what you mean.
Yep, the leader of this nation can't take the stand to not allow him to enter our country. That's good ole George.
Too little, too late.
Easy shot w/o downside.
Well, good for Romney! It was a disgrace that Khatami was invited and let into the country in the first place.
My daughter-in-law is a Harvard grad and VERY liberal. My husband is convinced that he will convert her to Conservatism... I say....NO WAY! She and my son, who declines to state his affiliation, just went to see Gore's an Inconvenient Truth. Deep down, I think my son is on the right side.
Excellent. This shows that even a moderate Republican in a terrible state can sometimes make a difference by providing good leadership. Sometimes, it's not even that hard. Points for Mitt Romney.
Saudi donates $20m to Harvard
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/12/13/saudi_donates_20m_to_harvard/
Beware Arabs bearing gifts.
Not necessarily, not in Massachusetts, not when Harvard's involved. I can just picture the Globe editorial condemning his close-mindedness.
As a Harvard alum (HBS in the mid-1980's), I find this a disgrace. HBS is a world apart from Harvard College as well as the grad schools (we called it the "Kennedy School of Very Big Government"). There was an on campus election in 1984 and Mondale/Ferraro won in a landslide with the undergraduates and every grad school except for HBS where Reagan/Bush won in a landslide.
Romney, Bush, Sununu and John Lynch (governor of NH, D) are all graduates from HBS. Maybe it is a different kind of leader that has actually worked in the dreaded private sector and has not been a lawyer that is appealing to the American voters...
As HBS does not seem to be able to influence Harvard University to do the right thing, I am suspending my annual alumni donation. It won't mean much to them, but it will to me... I cannot support anything to do with Harvard any more...
I don't know anyone currently with any ties to HBS, but it wouldn't surprise me if now -- about 20 years after your time -- things were a lot worse there.
The cunning hard left depends on money donated from good-hearted folks in hundreds of thousands of everyday sources, college graduate groups included.
You'll undoubtedly get a succession of fundraising-appeal letters in the future. It's hard for anyone to resist calls from an alma mater that enabled a good career. But the survival of our beloved country calls, too.
I hope you heed the most important call.....and hold firm.
Leni
Harvard is the same bastion of free-speech whose open-minded faculty raised hell, ranting and raving like the spoiled little snots they were as children, until Harvard had to disinvite President Ronald Reagan from addressing the community during the University's 350th Anniversary celebration in 1986.
Although it was all covered over at the time (i.e., the President "declined" the invitation because of "schedule conflicts"), there was never any doubt at the University or in the Peoples' Republic of Cambridge as to why Reagan didn't speak.
What hypocritical frauds reign at "Veritas" U - and "Camelot High" - as Herald columnist and WRKO talk show host Howie Carr calls the JFK School.
I was Harvard class of 1957. I haven't given for many, many years, because whatever money they get they misuse.
My profound admiration.
Leni
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