Posted on 09/23/2007 5:43:16 PM PDT by camerakid400
The invitation by Columbia University to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran beggars belief and brings one of America's foremost institutions of higher learning into disrepute. Columbia's distinguished president, Lee Bollinger, defended the invitation as being in keeping with "Columbia's long-standing tradition of serving as a major forum of robust debate."
Syrian President Bashar Assad and Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shake hands in Damascus. Photo: AP [file] Of course, that is nonsense. Does anyone seriously believe that Columbia would invite a politician or scholar who denied that American slavery took place, or alleged that its effects on African-Americans was benign or exaggerated? Would Columbia host a Grand Wizard of the KKK who called for African nations to be wiped off the map?
And yet, Ahmadinejad is far worse. Not only has he denied the Holocaust and called repeatedly for Israel's destruction, he has gone beyond words and worked hard to put his plan into action.
Ahmadinejad's Iran is one of the world's foremost sponsors of international terror, especially the Hizbullah posse of killers, and he is now hell-bent on building thermonuclear weapons with which he might just accomplish what Hitler could not: the annihilation of half the world's Jews with the push of a single button.
Ahmadinejad is also directly responsible for the murder of untold numbers of American troops in Iraq, whose killers, according to reams of reports, he is arming and funding.
TWO YEARS ago, Harvard President Lawrence Summers lost his job for insinuating that women were not as intellectually competent in math and science as men. Yet Ahmadinejad presides over a government that brutally suppresses women, inflicting corporal punishment if they so much as go out in the street without a head covering. But none of this has prevented him from being feted by American academia.
When I read about the Holocaust, I often ask myself how the world allowed Hitler to rise to prominence. After all, humanity bore continuous witness to the hatred and venom that spewed from his evil tongue against Jews. Did the nations of the world not isolate him as soon as he began frothing at the mouth?
But in light of Ahmadinejad being invited, on his last visit, to address the Council on Foreign Relations, and to speak at Columbia University on this trip, I now get it. Whatever Hitler said, nobody took him seriously. They treated his rantings as a tasteless form of benign entertainment. They found him darkly amusing. It took the incineration of six million Jews and the destruction of much of Europe to discover that, ultimately, the joke was on us.
IN LIGHT of Columbia's invitation, it is fair to ask what, indeed, Ahmadinejad needs to do in order to be seen in his true colors? Stated differently, what evil must the president of Iran perpetrate in order to incur a much-deserved boycott?
Since calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state is not enough, one would assume that Bollinger would require him to actually kill a few Jews in order for the invitation to be rescinded.
But wait. He's already done that, and not just a few. Via his proxy, Hizbullah, he's killed a whole lot of Jews. So how many is the cutoff before Columbia denies him a platform? Ten thousand dead Jews, 100,000? Six million?
It is time for the world to boldly sound the clarion call of a new generation: No tolerance for intolerance. Any man or woman whose essential message is one of hatred, racism, or anti-Semitism will be isolated, boycotted and closely monitored. The perversion of freedom of speech to allow incitement to violence makes a mockery of all those who laid their lives down to protect this most important of all freedom's principles.
One can only imagine the thinking of America's brave soldiers in Iraq. There they are, dying for the freedom of complete strangers who don't even seem to appreciate their sacrifice. That's bad enough. But then they hear of how their most sworn enemy, the Iranian president who gives guns and explosives to terrorists who blow them up, is going to preach to American university students.
WE ALL remember how, during Vietnam, there was the vast disconnect between pampered students on campus who tried to burn their administration buildings down in protest against a war that poorer Americans who couldn't afford college were forced to fight. It strikes me that this is nearly as bad. Pampered Ivy League students will accord respect to a man who is silently killing American troops, rather than protesting his visit to the UN (which would bring these students real honor).
My father is currently in Iran (yes, you read correctly). He grew up in Isfahan and left in the early 1950s. Now in his seventies, he wanted to see his remaining family and his old boyhood haunts.
As for me, I would love to see the country where my ancestors lived for 2,500 years, from after the destruction of the First Temple. As a lover of antiquity, I would cherish viewing the great sites of one of the world's greatest civilizations.
But not while Ahmadinejad is president. Not while a country once so enlightened is now grown so dark. And not while a people who were once so authentically religious now blaspheme God and their great faith by electing a leader who is an abominable killer.
Devils and demons will graduate from that place.
He will equivocate, and lie like a rug.
great article. so well written...... (applauds author)
So, let's give him a major and robust debate that the world will not soon forget.
Can someone tell me where Ejad is? I keep reading that Ahmad’in’Ejad is traveling. I hear that he is coming to New York and want to arrange a whole hog BBQ and invite him.
If I knew where to find Ejad I could find out what kinds of hors’ deuves to serve. I have pickled pigs feet and those little weenies wrapped in bacon. IF he doesn’t like them, we will just have to THROW THEM I guess.
Help anyone?
Ha ha ha. Is that why the members of his audience were carefully selected, and others excluded? We'll see what sort of "robust" debate takes place.
The only thing that Amanutjob could do to earn a boycott would be to announce his conversion to Evangelical Christianity.
Extend an invitation to David Duke and watch the fur fly. . . . .
I think this just goes to show that Bolinger and Columbia - for all their sophistication - just don’t understand the First Amendment. No one should be deprived of free speech and the expression of his opinions and views - even lunatics!
But that isn’t the issue. It’s not a matter of Ahmadinejad’s views. It’s about his ACTIONS! This is the president of a nation which is a sponsor of international terrorism. It’s been indisputably confirmed that Iran is directly responsible for the killing of American soldiers in Iraq - going on right NOW! They’ve been involved in terrorist attacks against us since 1979.
It’s a very sad day when a once-great university can no longer distinguish between true, demonic EVIL that is at this very moment killing Americans and hates and wishes to destroy Western civilization - and the wishes of a university to stage a “seminar” with a murderous terrorist!
By the way, Columbia banned R.O.T.C. and the Minute Men from their campus. Does this tell us where their true values lie?
The president’s motorcade pulled up to the midtown hotel where he will be staying while he appears at a series of events including the U.N. General Assembly and a forum at Columbia University, where about 40 elected officials and civic leaders decried his visit.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini also appeared dismayed that the request was rejected.
“What kind of damage will the U.S. face (by Ahmadinejad visiting the site)?” Hosseini said at his weekly press conference Sunday.
At the protests, New York state Assemblyman Dov Hikind said Ahmadinejad “should be arrested when he comes to Columbia University, not invited to speak for God’s sake.”
Crush the infamy. Not one dime of taxpayer money to these anti American scum, in any form under any pretext. No matter what they say or do.
Thanks!!! Was actually punning for the protesters. __________________________________________________________
Ahmadinejad told 60 Minutes he would not press the issue but expressed disbelief that the visit would offend Americans.
______________________________________________________
At least he didn’t say “suspend his disbelief”.
“Columbia’s distinguished president, Lee Bollinger...”
What a piece of crap!
Great article. And it was good to see the author bring up the impact that Ahmadinejad’s presence must be having on our military. To have this loser speak at one of our country’s universities is just unthinkable.
But why our State Dept. even let this guy into our country is still a mystery to me.
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