Letters to the Editor
robotempire
Published Letters: 49 Editor's Choice: 9
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Iranian scholarship
[Read the article: Ahmadinejad, big man on campus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, while strictly speaking Ahmadinejad is not a dictator, and by all accounts (read Ray Takeyh's dry-but-readworthy "Hidden Iran") not necessarily a powerful president, the fact remains that he is a head of state, and so the offenses of his state against the people residing therein fall on his shoulders. At least in a public sense.
Any rough handling or "inhospitality" is completely understandable. Beyond the "you have all the hallmarks of a petty and cruel dictator" and "intellectual dishonesty" lines, most of it was a scholarly inquisition. Cogently-stated points with succinct questions. I don't think that's too far off base of the forum.
I say bravo to Columbia. I would welcome such treatment of any head of state, including our own.
Now if they'll just let ROTC back on campus.
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Do you really want to play this game? @UKnoWhoIAm
[Read the article: Ahmadinejad, big man on campus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Regarding the Holocust: I am sure it transpired, however in my opinion the hundreds of years of enslaving and oppressing of the (African and Native)-Americans are far more deseriving historical analsys as they seem to have done far more damage to these cultures than anything effected upon the Jews.
Do you really want to start reaching back into the past to find out who has suffered the most, then base our judgements on that? I mean, we can do that, if you want, but I'm just telling you Jews are going to come out way ahead of Native Americans and Americans of black African heritage.
By the way, isn't Native American a great term? I think so. I hate political correctness in all its forms but Native Americans truly are native Americans, if you catch my meaning.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand.
It does no one any good to start hemming and hawing with moral relativism and "which people had the most massacred" games. The bottom line is that when Mahmoud was denying the Holocaust he wasn't saying, "The holocaust is definitely real but those poor native Americans!" He was saying, "The holocaust is fake" and ergo "Israel is an illegitimate state".
In the Arab/Persian mind Israel was carved out of the Middle East by western colonialism to pay them recompense for the Holocaust. So if the Holocaust weren't real, then that carving would have been illegitimate from the get-go. The point is that Holocaust denial is the predicate upon which people like Mahmoud balance their desire to wipe Israel off the map with their need to maintain international credibility. Whether he really believes in his heart of hearts is immaterial. The fact that a head of state is saying it and then using that to justify strikes against Israel is abhorrent and definitely deserves much denunciation.
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Fallujah, center of Jewish thought
[Read the article: Ahmadinejad, big man on campus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This idea that everything was peachy before Zionism came along is false, while it is also true that Zionists also discriminated against Jews coming from Islamic lands to Israel cannot be denied (the Ashkenazim have a horrible track record in Israel of discrimination as well), lets not paint a totally false history, shall we?
I'm not ten miles from the site of one of the great bastions of Jewish learning in the modern world -- Fallujah. Only in the most modern, post WWII era, was that changed. Nothing to add, just a bit of historical perspective that is pretty cool about being in Iraq.
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The Good Ol' Days
[Read the article: Ahmadinejad, big man on campus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm surprised so many Columbia students are suckers for Bush regime propaganda. Columbia students weren't so dumb during the 'Sixties and our war against Vietnam. We need the draft back to hone their thinking!
We know, Farmer John, kids ain't what they used to be, it seems like it's snowing less in the winter and summers are getting drier, they don't make 'em like they used to and the world generally sucks since the baby boomers hit middle age. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
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No, no, Vick *is* an idiot.
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Let's call a spade a spade. Michael Vick is an idiot.
I've got a career myself. I would love to go back to the "olden days" when I could smoke pot, stay out drinking all night on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, then stagger in to work the next day. I would love for the days of college and my early 20s when I could take my job lightly.
But once you're in a career you have other considerations to make. Mister Defense Attorney above, do you actively avoid doing things that would endanger your practice/firm/career? Probably, am I right? So most normal people do. Or should do. But when they don't, they earn the title "idiot."