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Politics : The Truth About Islam -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (1273)	9/21/2006 12:58:12 PM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Respond to of 20106

Columbia To Welcome Ahmadinejad By JACOB GERSHMAN - Staff Reporter of the Sun September 21, 2006 updated 12:28 pm EDT nysun.com Columbia University has invited the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to give a speech tomorrow at the Morningside campus, Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger, announced late last night. Mr. Bollinger in a statement said he did not invite the president himself but learned yesterday that his university had extended the invitation to Mr. Ahmadinejad, who is in New York City for the U.N. General Assembly. It's not certain, however, that the president will attend a world leaders academic summit that is taking place at the school. Because of the short notice, Mr. Bollinger said he couldn't be sure that high-level security arrangements would be put in place in time. Columbia's offer to the president, a Holocaust denier with nuclear ambitions who was labeled by Israel's foreign minister yesterday as the greatest threat to the world's values, is sure to re-ignite protest at a campus that was rocked by a controversy over its anti-Israel professors less than two years ago. Columbia's last-minute offer to Mr. Ahmadinejad was evidently made under secrecy and confusion. Last night, Columbia's vice president for public affairs, Susan Brown, denied that the invitation had been extended, saying it was "rumors, rumors, rumors." Mr. Bollinger released a statement about it just before midnight. Although he said he strongly disagreed with Mr. Ahmadinejad's views, Mr. Bollinger said he would not stop him from speaking at the university's world leaders forum, which began this week and whose top-billed speakers had been the prime ministers of Croatia and Papua New Guinea. "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," Mr. Bollinger said. "So whether or not all of the special arrangements needed for such a visit can be made in this unusually short period of time, 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." The invitation comes a day after Mr. Ahmadinejad told the General Assembly that Israel's creation was "a great tragedy with hardly a precedent in history" and that the Jewish nation "has been a constant source of threat and insecurity in the Middle East region, waging war and spilling blood and impeding the progress of regional countries, and has also been used by some powers as an instrument of division, coercion, and pressure on the people of the region." Yesterday, the foreign minister of Israel, Tzipi Livni, called on the international community to "stand against" the threat of Iran, whose suspect nuclear program has become a top security concern for President Bush and Israel. "They speak proudly and openly of their desire to wipe Israel off the map. And now, by their actions, they pursue the weapons to achieve this objective, to imperil the region and to threaten the world," she said. Asked about the possibility of Mr. Ahmadinejad coming to their campus, Jewish students yesterday said they didn't believe the university would permit it. One student, Shirin Soufian, said she had heard from an Iranian student in the School of International and Public Affairs that Mr. Ahmadinejad would be speaking. Ms. Soufian said she was organizing a protest against the president. Mr. Bollinger's decision to welcome the president of Iran could once again put the university's president in the hot seat. In 2005, Mr. Bollinger came under significant criticism from some Jewish students and professors for his handling of allegations by several students against professors in the university's Middle Eastern studies program. After students made complaints that anti-Israel professors in the department forbade opposing viewpoints in the classroom and were using their teaching position as a platform to preach hatred against Israel, Mr. Bollinger appointed a special committee to investigate the matter. Many faculty members were opposed to the committee and accused the president of squelching their academic freedom. After interviewing students and faculty members, the committee dismissed most of the complaints but found that one professor, Joseph Massad, had probably acted inappropriately. He was accused of threatening to expel a student from his class because he thought she was defending Israeli conduct of military strikes at the West Bank and Gaza Strip Mr. Massad has since been promoted to associate professor.

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (1273)	9/21/2006 1:02:07 PM
From: Ichy Smith	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20106

are in a terrible world of woe when we allow these animal adherents to this hideous, barbarous religion to come to our most 'respected' institutions like the un and harvard and given any semblance whatsoever of credibility Do you have any idea what the letters UN stand for? Ahmadinejad had as much right as George Bush to stand on that platform, and just as much credibility. Remember it is the United nations, and Ahmadinejad is in title at least the leader and spokesperson for a nation. OTOH had he been greeted by thousands of protestors screaming for women's rights in Iran, and accusing him of being a Murderer it might have been better...... But the left is far too busy calling him a Hero to actually respond to women being stoned to death, or the almost complete lack of freedom in his country.

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (1273)	9/21/2006 2:11:07 PM
From: Cage Rattler	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20106

I question the legitimacy of using "respected" (even in just) within the following connotation: "…come to our most 'respected' institutions like the UN and Harvard…" You should probably add Columbia to that queasy list. :^)

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (1273)	9/21/2006 3:04:06 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 20106

Hezbollah Adopts Chavez As Hero Khaleej Times ^ \| 9/21/06 khaleejtimes.ae BEIRUT - Venezuela’s outspoken President Hugo Chavez, who lashed out at his US counterpart George W. Bush from the podium of the UN General Assembly, has scored a big hit with Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah. “Gracias Chavez,” proclaimed large posters hurriedly put up on Thursday by Hezbollah activists in their Shia stronghold of Beirut’s southern suburbs on the eve of a “victory” rally following the group’s war with Israel. The portrait, showing Chavez in a red shirt and punching the air with a fist, also calls for Israel “to be taken to court for its crimes” during the 34-day war which ended in mid-August after more than 1,200 people were killed in Lebanon alone. Caracas pulled the Venezuelan charge d’affaires out of Israel in early August to protest its operations inside Lebanon, with Chavez charging that Israel “had lost its mind”. Another poster, next to a road bridge destroyed in an Israeli air raid, shows Chavez and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and announces the launch of a petition of thanks for the Venezuelan leader. It also hails “our coalition from Gaza to Beirut, to Damascus, to Tehran, and with our brother Chavez”, quoting Nasrallah. Chavez stunned the General Assembly in New York on Wednesday with a speech which branded Bush “the devil” who acted like he ”owned the world”, a day after the US leader spoke from the same podium. The left-wing Venezuelan president, a frequent critic of the US administration, then crossed himself, brought his hands together as if in prayer and looked up to the ceiling of the assembly chamber. Earlier this week, Chavez hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and renewed his support for Tehran’s disputed uranium enrichment programme, which the United States and other Western countries fear would be used for the development of a nuclear bomb.