There is an utter fatuousness about the statements given by Columbia University students and professors on the propriety of inviting one of the world’s certified thugs, Mahmoud “Armageddon” Ahmadinejad, to speak at a prestigious lecture series on campus.
Back in 1959, a prescient William F. Buckley Jr. took Eleanor Roosevelt to task in Up From Liberalism when she was asked if she felt it would have been right to shake hands with Adolf Hitler. To which Mrs. Roosevelt answered, “In Adolf Hitler’s early days I might have considered it, but after he had begun his mass killings I don’t think I could have borne it.”
Her response, as Buckley so well pointed out, revealed the moral and intellectual incoherence that lay at the heart of liberalism, as typified by Mrs. Roosevelt’s tergiversations.
The exact sort of equivocations are now being used by the left to justify the invitation of Ahmadinejad to address Columbia students and faculty, ranging from wholly fictitious claims that he has a “right to speak,” or that at least he will appear in a forum of learning where he can be placed at bay by robust debate and “hardball” questions from the audience.
Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, who tried his best a while back to have ROTC removed from campus, now declares that he will personally challenge the president of Iran on his views and statements about the Holocaust, the state of Israel, support for terrorism, suppression of women’s rights, etc.
One wonders, mutatis mutandis, whether Bollinger would have similarly engaged Goebbels or Himmler on their views of genocide back in 1939, and to what purpose?
Even though he sports the demeanor of a New York City cab driver, Ahmadinejad is a master at prevarication, dissembling and the non sequitur response, as could be witnessed in the recent "60 Minutes" interview with Scott Pelley.
If Pelley, and the Western democracies as a whole, were more knowledgeable about Islam, they would instantly recognize the age-old, Quran-sanctioned practices of taqiyya and kitman deception being used on them — nervously smiling as he masks his true intentions.
So Ahmadinejad’s performance at Columbia will be more of the same — slip-sliding, misdirection, and toothy prevarications to lull the gullible and paint a sympathetic face on Iran’s leadership, currently one of the most repressive in the world.
If what he has already has done at Iranian universities is prologue, Ahmadinejad’s predilections would be to imprison or kill students and faculty that displeased him, starting, of course, with the Jews, and then other non-Muslim infidels.
It is a curious and pathological irony that Jewish students and faculty at Columbia would even want to hear this guy. Would they be as eager to invite David Duke or a KKK Kleagle to hear their opinions? Where is New York City’s Jewish Defense League?
The real answer why this travesty is being allowed to happen is symbolized by one of the signs carried by a supporter of the event. It read, “Ahmadinejad = Bad; Bush = Worse.”
Giving additional meaning to the old saw, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” the leftists that run Columbia University have countenanced this charade simply to embarrass George W. Bush. Their hatred of him burns so intense, that they are willing to dignify one of the world’s truly ignorant and evil men — a madman, really — with a courteous invitation to address their august group, to be followed, I presume, by a private audience where tea and scones will be served.
Instead, one would like to see buckets of tar and large bags of feathers hoisted upon this man, if not by the faculty, then by raucous protesters. Don’t forget the rough treatment that Minuteman Civil Defense Corps border watch spokesman received at the hands of Columbia students earlier this year — after which President Bollinger merely shrugged his shoulders.
Our nation is at war with people the likes of Ahmadinejad, a terrorist who is actively taking part in the killing of our soldiers and who clearly has declared his intention to destabilize the entire Middle East to bring about his apocalyptic visions.
Just as with the Gen. Petraeus ad, the far left — the MoveOn.org/George Soros crowd — have tacitly made an uneasy pact with our enemies as one more way to discredit the administration’s policies and to bring about massive socialist change in the U.S. they seek.
If they can further their cause by providing Ahmadinejad a convenient forum to spew his lies, then the left will by all means do it. Unfortunately, it demonstrates not only moral cowardice, but it is intellectually bankrupt.
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Barrett Kalellis is a Michigan-based columnist and writer whose articles appear regularly in various local and national print and online publications. He may be reached at kalellis@hotmail.com.
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