Site Search:
 
Speak Korean Now!
Teach English Abroad and Get Paid to see the World!
Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

Former Taliban Spokesman Studying at Yale...
Goto page 1, 2, 3  Next
 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Current Events Forum
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Gopher



Joined: 04 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 3:32 pm    Post subject: Former Taliban Spokesman Studying at Yale... Reply with quote

Quote:
I was more than a little puzzled to see the self-satisfied mug of Rahmatullah Hashemi '09 smiling at me from the front of the News on Monday. The last time I saw that Cheshire grin was in Michael Moore's otherwise manipulative "Fahrenheit 9/11," which, for all its demagoguery and factual errors, at least captured the Taliban's odiousness. In a clip lasting 30 seconds, an indignant woman confronts Hashemi -- who no less than five years ago was a chief spokesperson for the Islamist theocracy -- at a public event.

"You have imprisoned the women -- it's a horror," she shouts, tearing off a burka in protest.

"I'm really sorry to your husband," Hashemi answered. "He might have a very difficult time with you."

In the days of the Taliban, a woman who addressed a man in such fashion would have known what she had coming: acid on her face, perhaps; more likely, death.

In 2000, Hashemi, then 21, became a "roving ambassador" for the Taliban -- Angelina Jolie for the Islamofascist set, if you will. He toured the U.S. defending the "achievements" of the Taliban, even visiting Yale. In the months leading up to Sept. 11, Hashemi had a falling out with the Taliban; he became disillusioned with their banning of neckties, chessboards and the Internet because he "wanted something good for Afghanistan." Presumably, Taliban policy prior to its crackdowns in spring 2001, which included public torture and murder of homosexuals, veiling of women and destruction of ancient Buddhist statues, were all "good for Afghanistan." Attempting to show intellectual growth, Hashemi told the News Monday he "really support[s]" free speech, adding, "I did and do believe in women's rights. Yes, women should be able to vote."

How progressive. There is little evidence to show Hashemi's beliefs have changed much; indeed, available information indicates his views on world affairs hardly differ from ignorant conspiracy theories so common today in the Muslim world. In an article posted on the Web site of the organization sponsoring his stay in the U.S., he writes, "Seemingly, like the poor Taliban, common Americans are ignorant of the fact that their franchise state of Israel in the Middle East is serving as an American al-Qaida against the Arab world."

There are certainly students whose beliefs outrage the majority of the student body; some of them even deign to print those beliefs in the campus press on a regular basis. But I have yet to come across a student who seriously supports the sort of abject horrors the Taliban inflicted on the Afghani people, never mind one who worked for a regime that committed such acts.

In a letter to the News, Eric Knibbs GRD '10 wrote, "I was not aware that ideology could disqualify a Yale applicant" ("Students' ideologies should not play role in admissions decisions"). I believe it should not. But an applicant's employment as an agent for a declared enemy of the United States that abetted a terrorist attack that took the lives of some 3,000 civilians is another matter.

The administration believes Yale is lucky to have Hashemi. According to the New York Times, Yale had "another foreigner of Rahmatullah's caliber apply for special-student status." Said former Dean of Admissions Richard Shaw, "We lost him to Harvard. I don't want that to happen again." Who was the applicant? A member of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party? A protege of Robert Mugabe's?

Don't expect a word of protest from our feminist and gay groups, who now have in their midst a live remnant of one of the most misogynistic and homophobic regimes ever. They're busy hunting bogeymen like frat parties and single-sex bathrooms. The answer Hashemi gave five years ago when asked about the lack of women's rights in Afghanistan, "American women don't have the right not to find images of themselves in swimsuits on the side of a bus," is the sort of sophistry likely to curry favor among Yale's feminist activists, who make every effort to paint American society as chauvinistic while refraining from criticizing non-Western cultures. To do so would be "cultural imperialism," and we cannot have that at an enlightened place like Yale.

I personally want to know whether Hashemi supports the flattening of homosexuals via brick walls, which was one of the ways the Taliban dealt with gay men. Having written a newspaper column for nearly my entire time at Yale, I suspect some of my peers would like to see me flattened by a wall, but I doubt any of them served a regime that carried out such a practice as official policy.

Purportedly, Hashemi is here so we can learn from him. Shaw, who gushed that his interview with Hashemi "was one of the most interesting I've ever had," told the Times, "this is a person to be reckoned with and who could educate us about the world." We should welcome Hashemi, in hopes that American pluralism -- eating in a kosher dining hall, taking classes alongside girls and gays -- will help him liberalize his homeland. Rahmatullah Hashemi has much more to learn from Americans and Yale than we do from him.


http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=32110

James Kirchick is a senior in Pierson College. He is an occasional columnist.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Gopher



Joined: 04 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 3:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

[deleted]

Last edited by Gopher on Sun Jun 11, 2006 12:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bulsajo



Joined: 16 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 3:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wierd and disturbing. I doubt he is getting federal aid- I know that's not why you brought it up, but it does raise the question: where is he getting the money to study at Yale?
Hopefully somebody in the US govt is following that trail...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee



Joined: 25 May 2003

PostPosted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maybe he will switch sides, then in the future the US can use him against the Taliban.

The guy speaks Persian , Urdu, English and one other language. How did he get such skills at such a young age? From what I have heard the guy is very smart.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
dulouz



Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Location: Uranus

PostPosted: Thu Mar 02, 2006 6:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm surprised he's just a student. I figured he would be teaching there.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Gopher



Joined: 04 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Thu Mar 02, 2006 7:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
In the spring of 2001, I was one of several writers at The Wall Street Journal who interviewed Mr. Rahmatullah at our offices across the street from the World Trade Center. His official title was second foreign secretary; his mission was to explain the regime's decision to rid the country of two 1,000-year-old towering statues of Buddha carved out of rock 90 miles from the Afghan capital, Kabul. The archeological treasures were considered the greatest remaining examples of third- and fifth-century Greco-Indian art in the world. But Taliban leader Mullah Omar had ordered all statues in the country destroyed, calling them idols of infidels and repugnant to Islam.

Even Muslim nations like Pakistan denounced the move. Mr. Rahmatullah, who at the time claimed to be 24 but now says he was lying about his age and was actually two years younger, cut a curious figure in our office. He wore a traditional Afghan turban and white baggy pants and sported a full beard. His English, while sometimes elliptical, was smooth and colloquial. He made himself very clear when he said the West had no business worrying about the statues, because it had cut off trade and foreign aid to the Taliban. "When the world destroys the future of our children with economic sanctions, they have no right to worry about our past," he told us, according to my notes from the meeting.

He smiled as he informed us that the statues had been blown up with explosive charges only after people living nearby had been removed. He had no comment on reports that Mullah Omar had ordered 100 cows be sacrificed as atonement for the Taliban government's failure to destroy the Buddhas earlier.

As for Osama bin Laden, Mr. Rahmatullah called the Saudi fugitive a "guest" of his government and said it hadn't been proved that bin Laden was linked to any terrorist acts, despite his indictment in the U.S. for planning the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He said that if the embassy bombings were terrorist acts, then so was the Clinton administration's firing cruise missiles into his country in an attempt to kill bin Laden. "You killed 19 innocent people," he told us.

After the meeting I walked him out. I vividly recall our stopping at a window as he stared up at the World Trade Center. We stood there for a minute chatting, but I don't recall what he said. He then left. I next thought about him a few months later, on Sept. 11, as I stood outside our office building covered in dust and debris staring at the remains of the towers that had just collapsed. I occasionally wondered what had happened to Mr. Rahmatullah. I assumed he either had died in the collapse of the Taliban regime, had been jailed, or was living quietly in the new, democratic Afghanistan.

From newspaper clips I knew that his visit to the Journal's offices was part of a PR tour. He visited other newspapers and spoke at universities, and the State Department had granted him a meeting with midlevel officials. None of the meetings went particularly well. At the University of Southern California, Mr. Rahmatullah expressed irritation with a question about statues that at that point hadn't yet been blown up. "You know, really, I am asked so much about these statues that I have a headache now," he moaned. "If I go back to Afghanistan, I will blow them."

...In his interview with the New York Times, Mr. Rahmatullah, said that if he had to do it all over, he would have been less "antagonistic" in his remarks during his U.S. road tour. "I regret the way I spoke sometimes. Now I would try to be softer. A little bit." Just a little?

...During a trip to Germany I once ran into a relative of Hans Fritsche, the top deputy to Josef Goebbels, whom the Guardian, a British newspaper, once described as "the Nazi Propaganda Minister's leading radio spokesman [whose] commentaries were among the main items of German home and foreign broadcasting." After the war he was tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg, but because he had only given hate-filled speeches, he was acquitted of all charges in 1946. In the early 1950s, he applied for a visa to visit the U.S. and explain his regret at having served an evil regime. He was turned down, to the everlasting regret of the relative with whom I spoke. She noted that Albert Speer, Hitler's former architect, was also turned down for a U.S. visa even after he had completed a 20-year prison sentence and had written a best-selling book detailing Hitler's madness.

I don't believe Mr. Rahmatullah had direct knowledge of the 9/11 plot, and I don't think he has ever killed anyone. I can appreciate that he is trying to rebuild his life. But he willingly and cheerfully served an evil regime in a manner that would have made Goebbels proud. That he was 22 at the time is little of an excuse. There are many poor, bright students--American and foreign alike--who would jump at the opportunity to attend Yale. Why should Mr. Rahmatullah go to the line ahead of all of them? That's a question Yale alumni should ask when their alma mater comes looking for contributions.


http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110008020


Last edited by Gopher on Sun Jun 11, 2006 12:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Hollywoodaction



Joined: 02 Jul 2004

PostPosted: Thu Mar 02, 2006 9:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote:
Maybe he will switch sides, then in the future the US can use him against the Taliban.

The guy speaks Persian , Urdu, English and one other language. How did he get such skills at such a young age? From what I have heard the guy is very smart.


It's a matter of education and the milieu in which one is raised. For example, my two-year-old speaks 3 languages. Besides, as someone who's 'smart' enough to speak 4 languages, I don't see how that could excuse the fact he is/was a Taliban.


Last edited by Hollywoodaction on Thu Mar 02, 2006 10:05 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
canuckistan
Mod Team
Mod Team


Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Location: Training future GS competitors.....

PostPosted: Thu Mar 02, 2006 10:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bulsajo wrote:
Where is he getting the money to study at Yale?


His poppy connections back in the old goat country.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
igotthisguitar



Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)

PostPosted: Thu Mar 02, 2006 10:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hmmmmmm ... this reminds me: isn't John Walker Lindh still behind bars in the US?
Maybe he should have been more of a pro-active "SPOKESMAN" as well Rolling Eyes

canuckistan wrote:
Bulsajo wrote:
Where is he getting the money to study at Yale?

His poppy connections back in the old goat country.


Closer to the truth than what most likely realize.

Aren't the economics of PROHIBITION just lovely?

Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote:
Maybe he will switch sides, then in the future the US can use him against the Taliban.
Laughing

Yale eh? Hmmmm ... yes. He's sure to be useful.

My guess is he's likely hanging around here Twisted Evil





All that foreign oil controlling American soil,
Look around you, it's just bound to make you embarrassed.
Sheiks walkin' around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings,
Deciding America's future from Amsterdam, YALE and Paris


Last edited by igotthisguitar on Thu Mar 02, 2006 10:39 pm; edited 4 times in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website Yahoo Messenger
Hollywoodaction



Joined: 02 Jul 2004

PostPosted: Thu Mar 02, 2006 10:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

igotthisguitar wrote:
canuckistan wrote:
Bulsajo wrote:
Where is he getting the money to study at Yale?

His poppy connections back in the old goat country.


Closer to the truth than what most likely realize.

Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote:
Maybe he will switch sides, then in the future the US can use him against the Taliban.
Laughing

Yale eh? Hmmmm ... yes. He's sure to be useful.

My guess is he's likely hanging around here Twisted Evil





You may be on to something.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee



Joined: 25 May 2003

PostPosted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 12:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hollywoodaction wrote:
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote:
Maybe he will switch sides, then in the future the US can use him against the Taliban.

The guy speaks Persian , Urdu, English and one other language. How did he get such skills at such a young age? From what I have heard the guy is very smart.


It's a matter of education and the milieu in which one is raised. For example, my two-year-old speaks 3 languages. Besides, as someone who's 'smart' enough to speak 4 languages, I don't see how that could excuse the fact he is/was a Taliban.


People change , he was very young when he was a Taliban.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Hollywoodaction



Joined: 02 Jul 2004

PostPosted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 9:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote:
Hollywoodaction wrote:
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote:
Maybe he will switch sides, then in the future the US can use him against the Taliban.

The guy speaks Persian , Urdu, English and one other language. How did he get such skills at such a young age? From what I have heard the guy is very smart.


It's a matter of education and the milieu in which one is raised. For example, my two-year-old speaks 3 languages. Besides, as someone who's 'smart' enough to speak 4 languages, I don't see how that could excuse the fact he is/was a Taliban.


People change , he was very young when he was a Taliban.


So was John Walker Lindth, and yet he's still in prison. Ironic, no?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
canuckistan
Mod Team
Mod Team


Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Location: Training future GS competitors.....

PostPosted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 10:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

igotthisguitar wrote:
Hmmmmmm ... this reminds me: isn't John Walker Lindh still behind bars in the US?
Maybe he should have been more of a pro-active "SPOKESMAN" as well Rolling Eyes

canuckistan wrote:
Bulsajo wrote:
Where is he getting the money to study at Yale?

His poppy connections back in the old goat country.


Closer to the truth than what most likely realize.


Poppies always having been the numero uno cash crop of Afghanistan, do you think there were any Taliban that weren't involved?
Oh those rascally Swiss banking laws!!!

While acres-under-cultivation certainly dropped while the Taliban was in power, what was left growing got redirected to different hands to help finance Taliban activites. They just sold it to brokers who would ensure the finished product would end up on the streets of Western Europe.
Now that production is back in full swing, someone's spreading even more money around and I doubt the reformed ex-Taliban-to-New-Capitalist friends of Our Yalie aren't involved at all.

Even more interesting, how does a guy with a work history like his apply to Yale and get in without the approbation and tacit consent of federal higher-ups?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee



Joined: 25 May 2003

PostPosted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 11:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hollywoodaction wrote:
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote:
Hollywoodaction wrote:
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote:
Maybe he will switch sides, then in the future the US can use him against the Taliban.

The guy speaks Persian , Urdu, English and one other language. How did he get such skills at such a young age? From what I have heard the guy is very smart.


It's a matter of education and the milieu in which one is raised. For example, my two-year-old speaks 3 languages. Besides, as someone who's 'smart' enough to speak 4 languages, I don't see how that could excuse the fact he is/was a Taliban.


People change , he was very young when he was a Taliban.


So was John Walker Lindth, and yet he's still in prison. Ironic, no?


there are some differences , but more than that is that this guy that could be useful to the US.

wouldn't his case be similar to that the of a Soviet defector?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Gopher



Joined: 04 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 11:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

[deleted]

Last edited by Gopher on Sun Jun 11, 2006 12:45 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Current Events Forum All times are GMT - 8 Hours
Goto page 1, 2, 3  Next
Page 1 of 3

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling.
Contact Dave's ESL Cafe
Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved.

Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group

TEFL International Supports Dave's ESL Cafe
TEFL Courses, TESOL Course, English Teaching Jobs - TEFL International