http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/ClintonTaylor/2006/03/23/190918.html
The boola boola mullah
Greasing the Skids to the Gallows for Christians
Mar 23, 2006
by Clinton W. Taylor
Leave Islam, go to the gallows.
That’s still the rule in Afghanistan, as we see in the sad case
of Christian convert Abdul Rahman, on trial for his life there.
(Michelle Malkin laid out his awful predicament in her column
yesterday.) How is this still possible? Debbie Schlussel called the
Afghani Embassy to ask that question and they laid the blame at the
feet of "Mr. Shinwari, the Chief Justice, who is an old man and an
intolerant Taliban remnant."
It’s not the first time the Taliban has threatened Afghan
Christians-or Americans-with execution. In late summer of 2001, as
Al-Qaeda was planning their murderous venture, the Taliban was
spinning their "trial" of eight foreign aid workers, including two
Americans, and sixteen Afghan Christians whom they accused of secretly
proselytizing-and who, it emerged, faced the death penalty.
How could the Taliban possibly justify such a barbaric practice? They
didn’t really even try. According to Canadian Channel CTV, "Their
priority was to propagate Christianity which they were not supposed to
do here," as Sayed Rehmatullah Hashmi, an aide to the Taleban's
foreign minister, told reporters.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! That name sounds familiar. Because the name of
Yale’s prized "freshman" and former Taliban ambassador, Sayed
Rahmatullah Hashemi, is a pretty close match.
But it couldn’t be the same guy. No, Yale’s tame Talib is a
"moderate", a man who regrets the harsh things he’s said in his past
(if not the ideology he embraced), a poor little lamb who "escaped the
wreckage of Afghanistan", an earnest family man starting his life
over. Yale’s Hashemi was no blustering theocrat, but according to
Yale’s then-Dean of Admissions, "a person to be reckoned with and who
could educate us about the world.'' Besides, the spelling is a little
different, right? It could some other Taliban fellow, right?
After all, the spokesman who was justifying the trial and likely
execution of the missionaries wasn’t a sweet, thoughtful fellow like
Yale’s prize catch. That guy at the press conference was one sick
puppy, holding up "evidence" of bloodguiltiness like-gasp-a child’s
Bible! That guy even joked about the prisoners’ crimes as he played a
videotape seized from an NGO that had employed the captives:
"O.K., turn it on," said Rehmatullah Hashmi, a foreign ministry
official. A television set-itself a forbidden thing-brightened into
life. A movie called Jesus appeared, its narrator extolling "the good
news of the Virgin Mother and the Savior's birth." Soon, a young Jesus
was on screen asking precocious questions of startled rabbis. "That's
enough," said Mr. Hashmi, who tried some levity to accompany the grave
accusations. "We have to put it off. Otherwise, we will also be
proselytizing."
Ha, Ha. You might be proselytizing. And then you’d have to be
executed, too! Hilarious.
But it couldn’t be the same guy, because that quote came from The New
York Times. And it was The New York Times Magazine article by Chip
Brown that portrayed Yale’s Hashemi as a moderate, "disillusioned"
with the Taliban. Surely the Times wouldn’t fail to check its own
files on the guy, right, and leave out his justification of the
Taliban’s religious persecution?
Nah, couldn’t be the same guy. There’s no way he would still be
spinning for Osama bin Laden on Sept. 12, 2001 in The New York Times:
In denying that Mr. bin Laden was involved in the attacks in the
United States, Rehmatullah Hashmi, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said,
"Amir-ul-Momineen condemns the attack," using another title for the
Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, one that means the commander of the
faithful. "If we want peace for ourselves, we want peace for others.
But such coordinated attacks cannot be carried out by one man or by
the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan."
Couldn’t be the same guy. No way the Times would have left that
detail out. And besides, Yale’s Rahmatullah Hashemi was taught
English by an international relief organization, the International
Rescue Committee, http://www.theirc.org/about/history.html
which was originally founded to assist German refugees fleeing Hitler.
But this spokesman, in flawless English, is rationalizing the show
trials of international relief workers just like the ones that
sheltered him during the Soviet occupation. No one could be that
viciously ungrateful.
Well, guess what:
His picture:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gallery/image/0,8543,-10504255641,00.html
Taliban official Rehmatullah Hashmi, an official from the Taliban's
foreign ministry, shows a book conficsated from the International
Assistance Mission, IAM. Eight foreign aid workers have been arrested
and are on trial on charges of preaching Christianity.
Photo: BK Bangash, AP
Boola boola, you *****.
Oh, his picture was in The New York Times, too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/19/international/asia/19TALI-WEB.html?ex=1143176400&en=e4f00d8483fc5203&ei=5070
Yale was founded to train Christian ministers in 1701. Since then it
has changed, evolving from a liberal-arts college catering to the WASP
elite, to a world-class research institution catering to the WASP
elite. It’s a good school and I’m glad they let me in. I want it to
prosper. But something has gone dreadfully wrong there. Where the
war-cry used to be "For God, For Country, and For Yale," they have
managed to betray all of these principles in, apparently, some bizarre
rush to compete for trophy admits, good and evil be damned.
Mr. Hashemi is not some pet to be prized for his exotic pedigree. He
is an adult who made moral choices-some pretty awful ones, lying and
spinning to cover the Taliban’s deeds and its relationship to Osama
bin Laden, advising Mullah Omar on how to consolidate his power and
achieve his twisted aims, and justifying the trial and likely
execution of Christian teachers, who tried to snuff out the very Light
and Truth that Yale takes as its motto.
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/ClintonTaylor/2006/03/20/190462.html
He no more deserves a place at Yale than did Josef Goebbels. It frightens
me deeply that Yale, a school that prides itself on educating America’s
leaders, cannot recognize that fact.
Nor is Mr. Hashemi some truant, a wayward boy who needs correction for
his views. That is the Taliban’s view of human nature, as
demonstrated in this account of the missionary trial in Christianity
Today: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2001/133/13.0.html
"According to Pakistan's English daily The News, another 60 or more
Afghan children and youth who allegedly were "taught Christianity" by
the SNI staff were also detained and sent to Darul Tadeeb, a detention
center for minors, to be "re-educated in accordance with the teachings
of Islam." Sixty-five young boys were released on August 11, reported
Reuters, and their fathers were arrested instead for failing to
supervise their children."
It should not be Yale’s view. Yale is not a reform school. It is
not, or ought not to be, some Maoist re-education camp where illiberal
impulses are squeezed out of incorrect minds. I have no sympathy for
the notion that Mr. Rahmatullah deserves a place at Yale to
rehabilitate him. He had great power for one so young, and he used it
irresponsibly, to further evil ends. He does not deserve another
chance.
Abdul Rahman, whose life depends today on the cold mercy of a Taliban
judge, does deserve a chance. He needs your prayers, your phone
calls, and your earnest support. Some ideas to do so are here, and
here. Last time the war suspended the Taliban’s trials, and the
prisoners-the foreign ones, at least-were eventually freed. Mr.
Rahman will not access to that sort of deus ex machina, but the Karzai
government may still be pressured into saving him.
When he’s safe, please consider joining the campaign I’ve started,
along with a few other Yale alumni, to protest Yale’s admission of the
Taliban. Since the misogynist Taliban liked to pull out or chop off
the fingernails of women so bold as to wear nail polish, we are urging
everyone to send Yale’s President and Development Office red, press-on
fingernails to remind them of the Taliban’s brutality. Names and
addresses are here, and our ongoing blog tracking this issue is here.
In the meantime, there has never been a more auspicious occasion for
Yale and for Mr. Rahmatullah to break their media silence. Gentlemen,
speak up on behalf of Abdul Rahman. If you wish to begin formulating
an answer to your critics, here is an excellent opportunity to show us
you know the difference between good and evil, and still care.
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Clint Taylor is a '96 Yale alumnus. Along with three other Yale
alumni, he is tracking the story of the Yale Taliban on Townhall's
Nail Yale blog.
http://www.townhall.com/blogs/nailyale/
He can be reached here.
mailto:nailyale@hotmail.com
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