Ahmadinejad at Columbia University: UPDATE

Have you been following the flap at Columbia University over its decision to stand firm on giving Mahmood Ahmadinejad--a sworn enemy of the USA--a forum in which to speak on Monday, September 24?

This, despite the fact that Iran has had no diplomatic relations with the USA for some years, its shrill pronouncements about the destruction of Israel, the distinct possibility that the Iran government is supporting terrorist operations as well as insurgents in Iraq.

University President Lee Bollinger apparently believes that he is such a mensch that he will successfully be able to challenge Ahmadinejad on these issues. Columbia's web site includes the following statement from Bollinger:

In order to have such a University-wide forum, we have insisted that a number of conditions be met, first and foremost that President Ahmadinejad agree to divide his time evenly between delivering remarks and responding to audience questions. I also wanted to be sure the Iranians understood that I would myself introduce the event with a series of sharp challenges to the president on issues including:

• the Iranian president’s denial of the Holocaust;
• his public call for the destruction of the State of Israel;
• his reported support for international terrorism that targets innocent civilians and American troops;
• Iran's pursuit of nuclear ambitions in opposition to international sanction;
• his government's widely documented suppression of civil society and particularly of women's rights; and
• his government's imprisoning of journalists and scholars, including one of Columbia’s own alumni, Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh (see President Bollinger's prior statement).

In plain language, this paper-pusher has such an ego that he believes he can accomplish something that the combined diplomatic corps of the USA and UK, the United Nations, and God knows who else have been unable to do.

I would not bet you a small coffee from 7-11 that he'll prevail. "Alphabet" is a master of this sort of thing, and will manipulate the event to his disadvantage.

You can also make book that any anti-Iran sentiments expressed at the event will be sharply suppressed, while the entire panoply of moonbat behavior will be on display.

I am of the opinion that such an ill-considered decision ought to have consequences for Columbia, and that those consequences ought to include, at a minimum, the withdrawal of any and all federal support of the university, to include the repayment of any federal funds now on account there.

Predictably, Bollinger's e-mail address seems to be a state secret. So much for the spirit of openness.

However, the university web page does include the telephone and fax numbers of Bollinger's office, which I have repeated below.

May I humbly suggest that you spend the weekend flooding these numbers with voice messages and faxes?

phone: 212.854.9970,  fax: 212.854.9973

UPDATE: Monday September 24--"the day of..."

Those who were following the news over the weekend learned that Dean John Coatsworth remarked, in response to the uproar over Ahmadinejad's impending appearance, that they'd invite Adolf Hitler, if he were still living.

The New York Sun posted an editorial on that subject this morning. It reads, in part:

Jewish students at Columbia who went to their computers after breaking the fast for Yom Kippur were met Saturday evening with a link on the Drudge Report to an interview with the dean of the School of International and Public Affairs saying that he'd have been happy to welcome Hitler to the campus. The interview, aired on Fox News, was with John Coatsworth. He is seen in the Day of Atonement broadcast chuckling like a veritable Mearsheimer or Walt. Could he be oblivious to the impact his words were going to have in a Jewish community already on notice that its sensibilities were of little rank to either the president or the faculty of the university? Columbia, it seems, is bound and determined to honor the president of Iran and provide him with a platform to agitate against our country, and Israel, in midst of a war in which our GIs are facing Iranian backed forces on the field of battle.

Dean Coatsworth seems to be laboring under the illusion that had Columbia actually hosted Hitler in the late 1930s, World War II and the war against the Jews might have been prevented...

I don't think the timing of Coatsworth's stupid remark was specifically intended to offend Jews at Columbia, as the Sun implies. But it is ironic when an academic makes such a foolish statement without heed to the consequences. After all, these guys consider themselves the Conscience of America, microscopically examining everything that passes their noses to discern whether some "minority" may have been offended, intentionally or otherwise.

If only these "college" guys were half as smart as they think they are...

 

Could some New Yorker step forward and

"do the right thing?"

tags: ahmadinejad  iran  columbia  

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