Naming The Enemy: The Denial of Self Preservation

Despite the sturm und drang in the world, I haven't gotten truly outraged about much of anything in awhile. Some concentrated prayer time early last month helped with that. It's hard to put into words how centering it can be to eliminate all distractions and really apply one's energies in that direction for more than a cursory few minutes here and there. You could almost have called me Mr. Serenity... until yesterday afternoon...

An impending conflict with the forces of evil that had seemed safely abstract to write about suddenly became all too immediate when I heard this news about an event just a few miles from my home. As the late House Speaker and Massachusetts political machine operator Tip O'Neil used to say: "all politics is local". It's qualitatively different to ponder what color magic marker one should use on one's own picket sign versus seeing pictures of protests 7000 miles away.

Yes, Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami will be speaking at Harvard on the eve of the anniversary of 9-11. His topic? Sit down 'cause you might have missed this one if you were only reading the MSM: "The Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence". A search on Google News nets only seven hits on the actual title of his talk. And no, it's not some larger thought-provoking umbrella title for a conference he's merely participating in. Just to be clear in case the incredulity has rendered you senseless as it did me: he will be lecturing us on ethics, tolerance and violence. Read that again if you didn't get it the first time.

For a man who stood firm on holding the U.S. embassy hostages, who explicitly endorsed Ahmadinejad's now infamous call to genocide (that would be "the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group")--his (repeated) statement of Iran's most singular goal: that Israel be "wiped off the map", and who has... well, we'll get to the rest of that in a moment. If you haven't looked carefully into who Mr. Khatami is, what he's said and most importantly what he's done, you need to.

The date is of obvious significance--without doubt deliberate on Mr. Khatami's part. I can scarcely imagine the hurt of those grieving loved ones lost in the terrorist attacks five years ago on hearing not only of this, but of Mr. Khatami's speech at the National Cathedral. Would the Islamists mind then if Billy Graham decides to speak at the mosque in Mecca? Oh, I forgot... Christians and Jews aren't allowed in the region, much less invited to speak their mind in public.

Does this make us more tolerant? Well, yes. And if tolerance of anything and anyone and any action is your holiest of holies then keep on walking down that road and see where it leads. To my knowledge, Josef Goebbels was not invited to speak in Washington in the late 1930's--an analogy I could have guessed would not be original.

Equally clear is that the visit is not Khatami's doing alone. It required collaboration by our enemies both here and in Iran. Yes, I used the term "enemy"--and without hesitation. I'll elaborate on that in a moment as well. The Boston Herald noted yesterday ("Harvard off the Rails"):

With former President Larry Summers driven from office, Harvard University is without adult supervision... Like Professor Stephen Walt, academic dean at the Kennedy School until this summer, Khatemi believes that U.S. foreign policy is made in Israel. He calls Israel a "criminal Zionist regime."

Unlike our former presidents--some of whom have a thing for running off to visit dictators and thugs to show how enlightened they are--this kind of visit must have entailed careful planning by and with the mullahs and by the current president Ahmadinejad. In Iran, one does not just flit on over to the U.S. on a whim, collect a speaking fee and mention it to the rest of the mullahs in passing on one's return.

Instead, this is part of a long-term strategy of explicitly working at winning over the useful idiots. We've begun to see it unfolding in recent days with the American Al Qaeda video ("come on over to the dark side") and the too-little, too-late and for-all-the-wrong-reasons dissing within Islam of 9-11 as being too brash and too early (i.e., backfiring) in the larger plan for Islamofascist world domination... this latter idea buried somewhere on NPR's site from a broadcast I heard late yesterday afternoon but cannot locate at the moment.

Those less familiar with the man's record may be tempted--as several callers to Hugh Hewitt's radio show were yesterday evening--to turn themselves into pretzels making excuses for him, thinking that there's something brave and bold and noble in hearing out anyone for any reason at any time no matter what the implications of doing so. I paraphrase those callers:

He's a 'moderate'. He's a friend of the U.S.. We have to work with him. He's all we've got. He's only the former president. He's a reformer. We have to forgive the past. He's boxed in by what he can say in Iran right now. We can't demonize him; we have to understand. We have to be tolerant. We should listen to what he has to say. Who are we not to provide him with security?

All of which misses the point that our time and attention on this earth are limited and that--like it or not--listening is a public act of implicit acceptance and endorsement. In listening to a man like Khatami, one is choosing not to spend time listening to someone else, reading something else or otherwise focusing one's attention on seeking truth. Pondering the lies that pass for nuance, opinion and 'half truth', particularly in academia is not the road to enlightenment. It's a grand idea to think that Khatami is just speaking and we're just listening and what's the harm in that? But at some point judgment must enter in.

At some point, all of those listening ears and minds must make a judgment--a choice--and say either "get behind me Satan" or "peace in our time". I made mine some time ago. There really is no other choice except not making one... which is effectively the latter. Grey is a temporary state and a key blind spot of Democratic policy on topics such as Iran is when to stop talking. When to draw the line? When to admit that talking and listening have failed and move on to something different? The choice to go on listening without making such a judgment is the choice to continue watching the intoxicating dance of the cobra as its fangs leap towards your jugular.

Fortunately the foul stench of such flimsy excuses yesterday was alleviated by a breath of fresh air in the form of straight-talking, clear-headed Republican Governor Mitt Romney telling Hewitt why he was not going to spend my (MA taxpayer) money providing security for Khatami's visit. In a nutshell, according to Romney (and I wish I'd said it myself) Khatami is a known, unrepentant terrorist enemy of the United States.

Hewitt's blog post on the exchange can be found here. (As a side note: I hope that Gov. Romney can get voters to see through the Mormon thing in two years. As another caller put it: Romney is the quintessentially competent executive. He's the antithesis of Jimmy Carter with a gift for off-the-cuff speech that--let's all admit it--we've all missed since Reagan went home.)

Why get so worked up over a little speech? Romney elaborated further. (See link on Hewitt.)

* During the period of time he was in office, from 1997 to 2005, Khatami presided over Iran’s secret nuclear program. Currently, the Iranian Government under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is snubbing the international community’s request to cease nuclear weapons production.

* In the recent conflict along the Israel-Lebanon border, Khatami described the terrorist group Hezbollah as a “shining sun that illuminates and warms the hearts of all Muslims and supporters of freedom in the world.”

* Khatami has endorsed Ahmadinejad’s call for the annihilation of Israel.

* During Khatami’s presidency, Iran refused to hand over the Iranian intelligence officials who were responsible for the attack on the Khobar Towers that killed 19 U.S. military personnel.

* In his own country, Khatami oversaw the torture and murder of Iranian students, journalists, and others who spoke out for freedom and democracy. Khatami relaxed freedom of speech laws giving democracy reformers a false sense of security only to engage in one of the largest crackdowns in the country’s history.

* In Khatami’s Iran, there was no religious tolerance. According to the U.S. Office of International Religious Freedom, Iran was one of the worst offenders of religious persecutions. Minorities, such as Evangelicals, Jews, Catholics and others, have suffered.

The typical protestor in Harvard Square doesn't need even a fraction of such a list in order to get worked into a froth over say, George Bush coming to speak. Hewitt sums up: "Khatami pretends to be a moderate, but he is not."

The sneering Boston Globe headline spins the story predictably this morning: "Romney bars state security for Iranian's Harvard visit--Cites unacceptable use of funds on 'a terrorist'" Note that the Globe insists on putting 'a terrorist' in quotes and placing the blame on Romney... which brings me to my final point.

Doing research for a novel I'm working on, I've been pawing back through newspapers from the early 1970's. Yesterday I was reviewing NYT front pages from the weeks surrounding the Kent State massacre, hard on the heels of Nixon's first incursion into Cambodia and the resumption of bombing North Vietnam after an 18-month hiatus. I.e., May, 1970.

It was arguably a more divided time than today. Comparisons could fill a week's worth of posts. The relevant point here is that, in virtually every article, North Vietnam is referred to as "the enemy" by the news story writers and editors themselves. Oh, there was plenty of liberal bias. Nearly half of one NYT front page story quoted Radio Hanoi verbatim.

Yet it was clear that despite their reservations about the war and how it was being conducted, the journalists did not dispute that we were in one. How different that is from today when--in some halcyon liberal circles--there is no enemy but George Bush, there is no war but the ones he has invented to juice his oil stock portfolio, and words such as 'enemy' are held at arms length lest they offend the representatives of foreign nations whose clearly stated, long-held and nearly realized goal is the destruction of our civilization.

One final thought: if we play by Khatami's own rules, not only should he not have been allowed in the country, but--once here--he ought to be fair game for kidnapping. I'm not advocating that, just pointing out the absurdity of allowing him to play by our rules whenever it suits him.

UPDATE I: Hewitt has more this morning (Wed.) including a podcast of his interview with Mitt Romney and speculation about who asked Khatami to come here and speak.

UPDATE II: If anyone knows of an organized rally to protest Khatami's visit to Harvard, please let me know. It's been a long time since I was this motivated to take to the streets. So long in fact, that I might have just imagined doing so. Which means I probably was there. Hmm... Maybe I'm just remembing the lyrics to my (curiously apropos of the topic) favorite Who song.

UPDATE III (12Noon EDT): Welcome Hewitt readers! You'll get a kick out of this. Just days after the announcement of a TV 'drama' portraying the wacko-left's wet dream--an imagined assassination of President Bush--someone over on Kos is asking: "My question to Mitt Romney is this: What kind of message would it send if, God forbid, Khatami got assasinated while in Boston? What kind of backlash would come from something like that?" I don't recall anyone on the left asking that about the movie. Amazing.

UPDATE IV: Other notable tidbits:

Darleen asks "Don't you love the chutzpah of Harvard holding forth on "open dialogue" when they still ban ROTC...? Where the few conservative speakers brought to campus are interrupted and harassed..."

The improbably named FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog has pictures of Mr. Khatami's tour, complete with an ever-present s%#t-eating grin. Does this not look like a man enjoying his symbolic propaganda coup to the absolute fullest?

Meanwhile Khatami's buddies back in Tehran picked today to shift into high gear--from merely pedestrian lies (no nukes here!) to lies so grotesque one wonders why they bother... until one realizes that they find an eager audience in the Islamic world and some parts of the West.

The Supreme Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps accused the Bush Administration and the Israeli security service Mossad of ordering the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, DC.

“The events of September 11 were ordered by U.S. [officials] and Mossad so that they could carry out their strategy of pre-emption and warmongering and unipolarisation in order to dominate the Middle East”, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi told military commanders on Tuesday. His comments were reported by the state-run news agency ISNA. [emphasis added]

Question for Mr. Khatami: do you repudiate the remarks of the Supreme Commander?