CBS Producer And The Taliban

It looks like the jig is up for Rahmatullah Hashemi, the Yale Talibani. That's fine, but don't be confused. Yale (and academia in general) have learned nothing from the affair.

Witness Yale's announcement that it is thinking about bringing U of Mich. prof Juan Cole on board, to be a professor of contemporary Middle East studies. CS-M readers may remember Cole, who I recently headlined under "Wishful (Stupid) Liberal Thinking," for writing things like this:

Iran is a good ten years away from having a bomb, and since its leaders, including Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei, say they do not want an atomic bomb because it is Islamically immoral, you have to wonder if they will ever have a bomb.

What a fool! Is he too busy hating Israel and apologizing for terrorists to even bother to read what the leaders of Iran are saying about their desire to have a bomb?

But I digress. What I really want to write about is Mike Hoover and the International Education Foundation -- the bunch that brought Hashemi to Yale in the first place.

IEF is the ultimate kumbayah. If we only knew each other better, we would love each other. If America understood the terrorist bloodsuckers, we would love them; and they us. No, really:

Borders are effectively gone. (I heard an illegal immigrant apologist say that the other day -- see how united the Left is?) The computer and its world-wide-web have replaced the nation-state with the ‘market-state’.

The world has become one neighborhood because:
- economic growth and capital investment ignore borders.
- disease-famine-environmental-population problems ignore borders.
- human rights is now a world-norm that crosses all borders.
- mass-destruction weapons make the protection of borders ineffectual.
- global communications and mass marketing penetrate borders and threaten national languages, customs and cultures – like it or not….

This is an enormous structural change. The market-state has arrived and America is the prophetic nation. And, because America is the leader and the inventor of this new state – we are going to be blamed for this rough and dangerous radical change. America is the world’s image of this www-WTO-monoculture future. We are the epicenter of change – like it or not.

America has created a world where markets both build and destroy lives, and deliver freedom and exploitation together. Traditions evaporate and become volatile convictions with us as the target of any reaction. But now, without any effective borderbarriers, we are too slowly beginning to appreciate the need for a shift in security analyses. Borders as barriers are worthless and a failed trillion-dollar defense system is proof that our “security” methods need to be re-thought. Our front door is unlocked and we don’t have a secure relationship with the world community.

In fact, much of the world both admires us – and – hates us.

So since it's a given that dollars spent on defense are wasted and our borders are just, well, evaporated, they have a plan. Here it is:

OUR PLAN
...is to create a learning bridge between the people who “blame us” and the people “we blame”. Learning about them as they learn about us – international education. The first phase is modest: to take one former Taliban government official from Afghanistan and get him into a top university in the United States and support his education – and understanding.

And, while at that university, this Afghan will teach about the perspective and logic that led up to the Taliban playing a part in the action against us. Behind every action is a unique perspective and rationale. When this person returns to the political world in Afghanistan – he will be changed – those who met and listened to him – they will be changed.

Break out the guitars and the s'mores! This is great!

Update: There are errors in the next two paragraphs. See correction here.

What's unbelievable is that they accomplished their goal. Who exactly accomplished the goal? IEF director Mike Hoover led the charge, and he is ... get this ... a producer for CBS who works in a little LA development called ... I can't stand it ... The Garden of Allah.

No, he's not a news producer, but rather has been involved in production of everything from "Category 6: Day of Destruction," "Shark Attack" and "Vampire Journals" to "Spiderman 2," working primarily in computer graphic effects.

So this guy, who's apparently made millions by scaring the bejezus out of us, thinks the truly scary reality of our world is just misunderstanding, and is forcing Taliban officials on us because, while they subjugated women, destroyed the religious icons of others, murdered to stay in power, gave haven to al Qaeda and killed our troops ... it's just because we have a mutual misunderstanding.

More later ... have to run catch a plane.

Tags: Taliban, Yale, Hashemi, Mike Hoover, International education foundation