Posted on 03/01/2006 9:40:40 AM PST by nickcarraway
WASHINGTON -- A former spokesman for the Taliban, Rahmatullah Hashemi, has enrolled as a student at America's prestigious Yale University where he has taken a class on terrorism, The New York Times Magazine reported on Sunday.
The ex-Taliban spin doctor and "roving ambassador", who has spent time in the presence of Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, is now a Yale "freshman" improving his English through a special nondegree program.
Hashemi, who once publicly defended the Taliban, told the magazine, however, that he started having serious doubts about its harsh moral codes as early as 1998 when women were being lashed with leather strips and executions were occurring in Kabul's football stadium.
He said that he fled Afghanistan for Pakistan in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington fearing a US bombing campaign.
Hashemi, 27, said that a former Taliban minister persuaded him to return to Kabul in early 2004 to clear his name with the Americans, despite his fears that he would be whisked to the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Following several interviews with two Americans, one of whom only identified herself to him as "Michelle", Hashemi said that he was told: "You can go."
An American friend suggested that he apply to study at the renowned Yale University, so he obtained a student visa from the US embassy in Islamabad and caught a flight to the United States.
Months later, the dark-haired, bearded Hashemi is trying to adapt to his new academic surroundings, attending Harvard-Yale football games and keeping in touch with his wife and son back in Pakistan, the report added.
"In some ways I'm the luckiest person in the world," he was quoted as saying in the The New York Times Magazine. "I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale."
Do they serve orange-glazed chicken and pilaf at Yale?
No, but they use the Constitution as toilet paper.
Yale, just like Havard and Princeton have become politically correct liberal propaganda indoctriation centers.
Not suprised in the least Yale tripped over themselves to make him a student.
I'm sure all the college kids getting their liberal brain-washing will elect him to the student government.
I bet he is one of the phone taps that the Dems are screaming about too...
That might make me doubt the virtues of the Taliban regime, too.
"I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale."
Either way. The mindset is the same at both.
I think he'll get an 'A'.
If there was any justice in Connecticut, family of 9-11 victims would drag this scumbag out to the New Haven Green and hand him his head!!
Gee, ain't that special./sarcasm on!
This just highlights the fact that Muslims are human beings - just like us - who are caught up in a murderous, mind-control cult.
We are no better than them in the sense that we too would fall victim to the evil of Islam if it was the only thing we had ever known.
Whether by the Bible or by the gun, may God help us free our fellow men of this horrible evil.
Does tha tmean Yale supports his views? I'm sure many professors do -- except, perhaps, for the religion part.
Probably more terrorists at Yale than Gitmo..........
Ah, you beat me to it.
is never too late,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I wonder if he will go to the Freshman mixer?
I think he'll get an 'A'.
Yeah. His paper will be entitled "IED technology and traffic patterns on I-95: A Field Study."
I'm wondering..how the subject of the article seemingly just applied and was accepted at Yale, and who his wealthy patrons are?
Surprisingly, he did not. The incredibly long, but very interesting NYT article didn't give his grade in that class, but did say it was one of his lowest grades, and his average was a B or B+.
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