Posted on 09/23/2007 6:13:08 PM PDT by SJackson
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."
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.
“one of America’s foremost institutions of higher learning”
Not in my opinion.
The traitors are amoung us ....
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
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They did invite then un-invite the Minutemen. As long as you are liberal and hateful you’re welcome there.
Didn’t they throw out Gilchrist of the Minutemen?
“Would Columbia host a Grand Wizard of the KKK who called for African nations to be wiped off the map?”
No. Columbia is an instrument of liberal propaganda. Yes, they would invite Hitler, just as they’ve invited Ahmadinejad. But they could care less about the freedom of speech of conservatives, or even of Americans in general.
I drew a cartoon today, of Bollinger saying “Here at Columbia University we don’t allow students to participate in ROTC programs that would allow them to join the military and serve their country...” and in the next panel he goes on to say “However, we do allow terrorist-harboring, al-Qaida-supporting dictators bent on nuking Israel off the map who threaten the US every day to speak to our students!”
The insanity is mind-blowing...
Yes, but unofficially, students stormed the stage. And no one was tasered.
I’m thinking that won’t work tomorrow, secret service and all.
For all this " students will get to ask questions" bs, why didn't they invite appropriate questioners.
Both sides of the aisle.
Dershowitz and Keyes.
Carter, fine, invite Bolton.
Amazing isn't it. I was recently thinking of a friend who worked for me a bit when he was in college 20 or so years ago.
Attended a midwestern school most people would consider at a minimum he equivalent of Columbia. Got a free ride, even a monthly stipend. And has stayed in the reserves 20+ years.
You'd think that might be of interest to a student or two in this age of substantial graduate debt.
Could he speak at Columbia?
NO!
NROTC is a far greater evil.
This schmuck needs to be fired and led away in disgrace. If my son or daughter went to that cesspool, they would be pulled out. If I was a donor to that so-called institution of “no” higher learning, they wouldn’t see anyone penny from me. Our founding fathers are turning in their graves. The victims of the Holocaust are turning in their graves. At least the ones that even have a grave.
What kind of a son is Rabbi Boteach, revealing to the world that his father is now in Isfahan, Iran — why didn’t he include his street address and cellphone number?
Nonetheless, this is a rare occasion on which I agree utterly with what Rabbi Boteach is saying. This is beyind disgrace. President Bollinger is causing great harm to the reputation of a wonderful institution, either for his own self-aggrandizement or because he has been promised substantial donations for doing this.
Lee Bollinger should be removed from his position immediatly-what a disgrace.
>>I drew a cartoon today<<
Post it - please?
bump
Actually, Hitler made his plans quite clear in Mein Kampf. And the enemedia fawned over him almost up until the time he turned on Uncle Joe Stalin. Yes, it diminished a little after Kristallnacht and a more after the invasion of Poland, but up until then our enemedia was awash in stories about how Hitler was a ladies man, with refined manners, dress and taste in music, how he had turned a basket case country into an economic powerhouse and how he was standing up for the injustices imposed on his country by the vengeful victors of World War I.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Actually the demographics of those who fought in Vietnam were little different than the rest of their age cohort. Were they were different was in coming from slightly higher socioeconomic backgrounds and in being slightly more educated.
Oh, and the majority were not drafted either.
You've at least taken a whiff of the Red Kool-Aid.
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