Get
Hashemi out of Yale
By Clinton W. Taylor
Thu May 11, 7:21 AM ET
USAToday
The only way Yale could have found someone less deserving of an
American education than Taliban propagandist Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi
is if university officials staged a jailbreak at Guantanamo Bay.
Hashemi, identified as a "senior adviser" to the Taliban and a
"personal adviser" to Mullah Mohammed Omar, defended forcing the burqa
on Afghan women.
He defended the assignment of Nazi-style identity badges to religious
minorities. He defended the demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas. He
defended the show trials and likely execution of Afghan apostates and
Christian missionaries. He defended Osama bin Laden as a "good guy" and
continued to defend him on Sept. 12, 2001.
So why is anyone defending Hashemi?
Today, he calls Israel "America's al-Qaeda" and has never renounced nor
apologized for the Taliban's atrocities. Instead, he shifts blame onto
the Ministry of Vice and Virtue and pretends America is no better,
claiming "(t)here were also executions in Texas."
American colleges have an important role in assisting the spread of
democracy in the Islamic world. No one says Yale shouldn't reach out to
educate the next generation of leaders in Afghanistan. But our troops
are still fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan to ensure that generation
won't include them. If there is a shortage of expertise in Afghanistan,
that is all the more reason to educate someone new rather than propping
up yesterday's failed tyrants. Sadly, Yale already turned away a
program to admit qualified Afghani women in 2002.
Yale is no reform school. It is wasting its time trying to "reprogram"
Hashemi - as if such a thing could even be done. He had great power,
and great talent, which he used for evil ends. When Hashemi came to the
USA in early 2001 to sell the Taliban's snake oil, he was older than
would-be 9/11 hijacker Mohand al-Shehri, born in 1979. Hashemi, born in
1978, was an adult and made a reprehensible decision to serve a
nightmarish regime. His choices should have consequences.
The Taliban is losing, but America is still at war. Hashemi has no more
business at Yale today than would Josef Goebbels in 1944. Get him out
of here.
Clinton W. Taylor, a lawyer and Ph.D. candidate at Stanford, is a Yale
alumnus.