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The Asylum

Welcome to the Asylum. This is a site devoted to politics and current events in America, and around the globe. The THREE lunatics posting here are unabashed conservatives that go after the liberal lies and deceit prevalent in the debate of the day. We'd like to add that the views expressed here do not reflect the views of other inmates, nor were any inmates harmed in the creation of this site.

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Thursday, September 21, 2006

Next Up On The Dictator Speaking Tour--Columbia University

According to the Columbian Spectator Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been invited to speak at Columbia University:

(Hat-Tip: Drudge)

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been invited to speak at Columbia this Friday, University officials confirmed Wednesday night.

Ahmadinejad, who has been criticized for promoting Islamic fundamentalist rule in Iran, is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly meeting.

University President Lee Bollinger, who learned of the invitation on Wednesday, said in a statement, "I happen to find many of President Ahmadinejad's stated beliefs to be repugnant, a view that I'm sure is widely shared within our university community."

David Stone, executive vice president of communications, said in an e-mail that he understands the invitation came from Lisa Anderson, dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, "as many such invitations to foreign leaders and government officials to speak at the university often do."

Bollinger said he is not sure whether the University will be able to arrange for the visit in such a short period of time.

The Iranian leader has been sharply criticized for some of his statements. At the Council of Foreign Relations on Wednesday, he said he thought "we should allow more impartial studies to be done on" the validity of the Holocaust.

Bollinger said he believes students and faculty will use the opportunity to engage the controversial leader in debate.

"I have no doubt that Columbia students and faculty would use an open exchange to challenge him sharply and are fully capable of reaching their own conclusions," he said.

Who cares about them resching their own conclusions? I do not wish to see that man on United States soil again. What is it about these people that do not seem able to grasp the idea that our enemies should not be given visas to come over here. We should not be allowing people like President Ahmadinejad into the United States, especially after that spech before the United Nations where all the ills, and the corruption i the world were laid at our feet and Israel's.

Mr. Bollinger believes that the students and faculty will use this opportunity to debate him? Is he nuts, or simply unintelligent? A quick Google search for Lisa Anderson led me to this report from Campus Watch. Mr. Bollinger had best be looking into his professors. This woman is an apologist for terrorist-affiliated individuals.

A faculty member at Columbia since 1986, Lisa Anderson is described in her biography as "one of this country's most eminent scholars of the Middle East and North Africa." But Anderson is the author of one book, The State and Social Transformation in Tunisia and Libya, 1830-1980, and only an editor, co-editor, or contributor of articles to other books. Most recently, she was one of the four co-editors of The Origins of Arab Nationalism, with Rashid Khalidi, Muhammad Muslim, and Reeva S. Simon.

Administration is apparently her forte and primary interest: setting up conferences, fund-raising, putting out fires, and the other hectic vagaries of modern university life, seems to agree with her. She currently serves as the dean of the School of International and Public Affairs; she has been president of the Middle East Studies Association. In addition, she is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Carnegie Council on Ethics, the Social Science Research Council, and is co-chair of Human Rights/Middle East.

Her most recent achievement was in raising money, almost entirely from Arab sources for an "
Edward Said Chair in Middle Eastern Studies." Though Edward Said was neither a scholar or teacher of either Islam, or of the Middle East, but a celebrated polemicist, Anderson found nothing peculiar in naming this chair after him—rather as if one had decided to create the "Noam Chomsky Chair in American Political Theory." Indeed, she managed to raise $4 million, and was instrumental in keeping the sources of that funding secret for as long as possible. Much effort had to be expended to persuade Columbia to reveal those sources, though New York State Law requires such information to be reported when it involves foreign funds.

For those that recognize the name Edward Said, but cannot remember him, his Wikipedia entry is here. He is described a an "outspoken, Pro-Palestinian activist. But in all honesty, should we be surprised? The professors in many of this nations intstitutes of higher learning are almost always Left-leaning radicals. People like Ms. anderson would probably invite Osama bin Laden to speak at Columbia if she thought she could get away with it, in the name of "Middle Eastern studies."

This is pathetic. And I chastise Dean Bollinger for not putting his foot down on Ms. Anderson; namely putting his foot in her backside. Mahmoud Ahamdinejad is a radical religious zealot, and an enemy to the United States. And I know a lot of people might get a little ticked with what I am about to say, but it makes sense.

Allowing him into the country to address the United Nations is one thing. The organization is designed to allow foreign leaders and ministers a place where they can air their grievances. All right, I will buy the line fromt he state Department that his visit here was accepted because he had asked the United Nations if he could speak there. Fine. Whatever. State can spin this any way they wish. But to address Columbia University is a bit different than addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Also, about Ms. Anderson, the person she wanted in the "Edward Said chair" is none other than Rashid Khalidi, a man who has his own spotty record when it concerns Middle Eastern terrorist sympathies. Mr. Khalidi has been accused of plagarism by Alan Dershowitz. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times stated that he headed up the PLO's news service propoganda services. And senior PLO officials back up that claim. (Yes, they called him a "reliable propogandist.") And, he has repeatedly misinterpreted international law when it comes to the Palestinian "resistance" (his word, not mine) proclaiming that they have the right, under international law and the Geneva Convention, to wage war oon Israel.

Fine little group of nut jobs, huh? If I were in Dean President Bollinger's shoes, I would revoke the invitation, and remind Ms. Anderson that if she wants guest lecturers, that they need to be approved of by him. He admits int he article that he was unaware of the invite, and that he dislikes the rhetoric of the man. If this is the case, then why not rescind the invite? President Ahmadinejad is not a United States citizen. He does not have "free speech" in this nation. He is a zealot who despises this nation and Israel, and he will use any forum he is invited to in an attempt to slander both the United States and Israel.

Marcie


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