Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a bad and dangerous man, but it seems that Columbia was quite right to have him speak there as part of its World Leaders Forum. Columbia students can benefit from hearing bad world leaders as well as good ones; I'm pretty confident that most of the students in the audience will be able to tell one from the other — and if they're not, then the event offers a great opportunity for them to do so.
If the event were some special honor for the person — as endowed lectures, "visiting public interest mentor" positions, graduation speeches, and the like often are — I would take a different view: A university should not honor the dishonorable. But my sense is that the World Leaders Forum does not carry the university's endorsement of the speaker's moral character, only of his significance on the world stage (which Ahmadinejad regrettably has plenty of).
Incidentally, the blog reports about Ahmadinejad's talk — which I read after I decided to post this — reinforce my view on the subject. It looks like Columbia President Bollinger has forcefully expressed his disagreement with Ahmadinejad, thus reminding people that the invitation didn't constitute endorsement of Ahmadinejad's beliefs.
This may be one of the I realize my friend and coblogger David Bernstein might disagree with me on this, but experienced Volokh Conspiracy readers know that such amicable inter-blogger disagreements happen on occasion.
UPDATE: Stop the ACLU faults a Columbia dean (John Coatsworth) for saying that they'd have invited Hitler, too. The dean said:
If Hitler were in the United States and he wanted a platform from which to speak he would have plenty of platforms to speak from in the United States. If he were willing to engage in a debate and a discussion, to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him.
That seems to me to be an entirely correct attitude. Presumably the discussion here is of the pre-Dec. 1941 Hitler (I take it that he wouldn't have been in the U.S. after war between Germany and the U.S. had been declared). Americans were trying to figure out what to do about Nazi Germany. Hitler indeed would have had lots of opportunities to give propaganda speeches. But if Columbia had an opportunity to help its students see and hear Hitler in person, and hear how he dealt with probing and hostile questions -- such as the questions that Bollinger seems to have addressed to Ahmadinejad -- it seems to me that this would have been a valuable service to Columbia students, and perhaps to the American public more broadly.
Related Posts (on one page):
"Iran is the friend of the Jews."
"Iranian women are the freest in the world".
Sunshine kills viruses. The question is now that we have heard, will we actually LISTEN?
Given what most of the students have been writing on their posters, their blogs and Spectator op-ed columns, I think you give them too much credit.
Then, why are so many students clapping his idiotic statements?
Instead of visiting liberal New York City, maybe he'd be more comfortable swapping stories with this guy.
Can't tell, at work.
I doubt that is what he meant. I believe his point was that his country doesn't have a gay issue because there are none period ... hidden or otherwise.
... they've executed them all?
I'm very proud that America is the kind of country where a leading university gives its students the chance to pose questions to an Ahmadinejad. As Prof. Kerr noted in his own post on the topic, that's one of the things that distinguishes us from Iran.
Matt
If so, why did the US. Govt. even allow him to step foot in this country.
It is odd, to say the least, that people think he is so awful that he should not be invited to Columbia but they seem not to have any problem with this awful person walking around in Manhattan.
It wouldn't. If we were at war with Iran, then we would likely have cause to arrest him so your hypo is rather silly and completely off point. If Bin Ladin was to speak at Columbia, he would be arrested -- if Columbia tried to help him evade capture when he was at the university then it would likely be treason, but that situation is completely and utterly different from what is going on here. MA had a right to be in New York and as long as we play host to the UN, people like him are going to be legally allowed into this country.
Wouldn't offering a forum to speak like this constitute an in-kind donation?
Just offering a forum to speak is not treason -- we are at war with al-Qaeda. Yet when Bin Laden is given fora to speak on Fox News, CNN, etc., when he releases tapes, we do not charge those news organizations with treason (nor should we).
That makes Ahmadinejad an enemy of the United States.
Really? I had thought the Congress had some sort of say in these things.
When the U.S. was providing weapons for Afghans to kill Soviet troops with, did that make us an enemy of the Soviet Union? In what sense of the word?
And did that stop us from interacting with the Soviet leadership? Would it have been wrong for a Soviet leader to come to Columbia for some q &a?
I think there are only two ways to interpret his statement:
1) No gay people are born in Iran or the Iran society doesn't produce gay people
2) Iran killed all the gay people
Maybe the 1947 UN Headquarters Agreement requires us to let him speak at the UN but we have the authority to limit him otherwise. JFK to his hotel, hotel to UN, UN back to hotel, hotel to JKF. That is what should have been done.
General ignorance appears to reign on this topic. Before the Kristallnacht in Nov. 1938, Hitler was regarded with much more ambivalence in America than people like to believe today. We didn't, for instance, boycott the Berlin Olympics in 1936.
Had Hitler visited the U.S. before Nov. 1938, he would surely have been allowed to speak at any of a dozen distinguished institutions (and maybe given an honorary degree, so lucky for them they dodged *that* bullet).
I assume Bernstein did not have comments so the discussion would continue here rather than on separate posts.
When the U.S. was providing weapons for Afghans to kill Soviet troops with, did that make us an enemy of the Soviet Union? In what sense of the word?
That was called the Cold War.
Check your link.
Serious question. Don't answer it with a different question. Use whatever factual and historical resources you think are relevant.
Bush has thousands of nuclear warheads he isn't even thinking of using. Ahmadinejad is dying to get just a few that he would immediately launch at Israel's major cities, possibly touching off the next world war. The answer is obvious.
If you want to stand for freedom of speech, you have to let people speak when you don't like what they're saying.
If we don't let Ahmadinejad speak, we simply prove the point of the Islamic fundamentalists: that we do not really stand for freedom. We would, instead, stand only for what we want when we want it. We would stand for decadence and self-importance and willful ignorance.
Don't get me wrong, I'm with Le Messurier. But we have to look beyond that, and stand for what we say we do. Otherwise, we may as well just shoot ourselves.
Of course its a silly hypothetical. I'm not trying to make a point, just asking a question about the law. I do appreciate your answer though, it is very enlightening.My question was more about what would constitute aid and comfort to the enemy, not so much about MA morally(my perspective is that if he wants to broadcast his ignorance let him, then mock and ridicule him as he rightly deserves). Sorry if the question was poised poorly.
Matt
Ah, comments weren't open originally, but the good DB has reconsidered. Glasnost!
MA has announced his desire to wipe a nation off the face of the earth, preferably by nuclear power
Come on, ejo, I *dare* you to find a link where Ahmadinijad said that he would like to wipe Israel off the map, preferably by nuclear attack. Don't keep us all waiting.
I think the real reason for the World Leaders Forum is to make the institution and the people attending feel important.
1- The vast majority of the student populace echoed the 'let him speak, it'll expose the fact he's a moronic threat' attitude that I think Eugene and Orin have put forth
2- You can check bwog.net (the school's gossip rag) or columbiaspectator.com (the school newspaper) for the best coverage and updates--you'll see that the vast majority of Columbians, particularly undergraduates, hate the guy and were definitely not the guys applauding
3. The school of international and public affairs received half the seat at the events. The 3 undergraduate schools and all the other schools received the other half. I imagine the applause came from those twenty something sipa students who don't exactly harbor the most pro-america sentiments---in fact Richard Bulliet (History professor who somewhat defended ahmnadinejad in the spectator today), Lisa Anderson (SIPA dean) and the temporary assistant dean were most responsible for bringing him here--and are all associated with SIPA. There are currently still massive protests at Columbia of Ahmadinejad and what he represents. I think that outside of SIPA you would find that about less than 15-20% of all Columbians would show any type of of support whatsoever for the Iranian president.
The biggest benefit of his speaking at Columbia is to confirm the impression of Columbia students as confused airheads who think being against America makes them superior to the rest of us. We always knew it, but getting them together in one place, putting temptation to do the right thing conveniently in front of them and recording them resolutely doing the wrong thing is valuable.
I recall somebody asking--P.J.O'Rourke would have said it if he'd thought of it--who has done more damage to the US, Ivy League grads who go into academics or politics, or community college grads who end up owning a string of tire stores? Clearly the former and we see their replacements taking the vile nourishment in the PC creche.
MA explained that he thinks Israel's borders should be eliminated, i.e., that there would be no such country as Israel. Cf. his Columbia speech, where he suggests that giving Palestinians the vote in Israel would accomplish that.
--Mind you, I think it's a bad and silly idea, but it's not quite the same as nuking Israel (which would be kinda difficult to do without killing a great many Muslims, btw).
As for the curious notion that MA would have any more control over his country's prospective nuclear arsenal than you or I would, well, as you say, Google knows all.
You really don't know? The Beatles were banned not only from visiting but their music itself. Nearly everything was banned-- from blue jeans to music to books to - yes - visitors. Gorbachev changed some of that under Perestroika, and yes, that was the first time that a president was allowed to speak freely. Before that, the government would allow in a few carefully selected artists and propagandists who were pro-Soviet. That's it.
You can read Reagan's speech here.
ejo at 4:14:
Bush's term expires January 19, 2009. Ahmadinejad's term expires in August 2009, and few expect him to win a second term.
This is a campus with a significant ISO group (international socialist organization), that's hosted the restarting of the SDS (with a decent membership) and which has communist/socialist groups that espouse the views of everyone from Mao to Trotskii. Maybe 15-20% is kind of high, but at least those many support his anti american rhetoric and his views on jews/israel/palestine. Among the faculty the percentage is probably even higher.
In terms of his wholistic philosophy which probably includes women as second class citizens and murdering homosexuals, I doubt even 1% support that.
I don't doubt that the Russians were too scared to ask Nixon anything meaningful, but then, that's another instance of our society's superiority to theirs.
-volokh groupie
And what about all that religious stuff in his speech? It all kind of goes in one ear and out the other for me (I wasn't raised religiously)? Hard to imagine all these lefties eating that up.
Anderson,
True. I do think that the whole visit was tightly controlled. The speech was prepared ahead of time and presumably was viewed by authorities before he was given permission to read it. Was it censored? Well, it may have been accepted without changes, but he was not free to say whatever he wanted. And, I am sure that would not have been able to take questions either-- although, as you point out, the censorship of the Soviet citizens is the real censorship-- they would not have been able to ask him the questions without fear of exile to the gulag.
Bush is the executive of a functioning constitutional republic. Even if he had the most evil motives imaginable, his ability to exercise them are, in fact, constrained by numerous institutional checks, including (but not limited to): a free press, an independent judiciary, congressional war-declaration powers, congressional power of the purse, and, ultimately, the most independent-minded (and volunteer) military in the world, which I am very confident would put a damper on any president's truly catacalysmic decisions.
Amadinejad, by contrast, has quasi-dictatorial powers in a barely functioning state. His fundamentalist fantasies are therefore much more likely to be enacted. While I agree that his appearance at Columbia will help sane Americans "spot the idiot", this ignores the impact it will have on the home front, after the government censors have cleaned up the copy: his stature will be (slightly) enhanced, and this will be to all of our detriment.
Mr. Zimmerman, what are you talking about? MA is not even close to running the show in Iran. You really think the mullahs are letting him call their shots?
If you don't think that's an enemy, how do you treat your friends exactly?
So you are saying that the United States is obligated to allow any foreign enemy to enter the US provided s/he is invited by the UN?
I don't think so.
You really don't think we were an enemy of the Soviets during Afghanistan? How about Vietnam and Korea? Being an enemny doesn't mean you can't have some degree of diplomatic contact, but the Soviets would have been well within standard diplomatic norms to have rejected reciprocal visits. The fact thatr they didn't doesn't prove that we weren't enemies, only that they felt allowing those visits was in their best interests.
Anderson,
He has not only said he will wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, he has said that if a few million Palestinians die in a nuclear attack, no big deal as there are a billion Muslems in the world so he can spare a few milion. These quotes should be very easy to find.
Applause ocurred most when he criticized the US in Iraq, now and in the past during Iran's war with Iraq. No one asked him why he wasn't grateful to us now for righting that wrong (in his mind) and getting rid of Saddam.
And, to all of you who support the freedom of speach thing, answer why ROTC can't be on campus? Do they even allow the US Military to show their face there?
Why did the Prez (of Columbia) do nothing to the students who forced the Minutemen off the stage.? I believe they came back a second time and could not speak, either, but I might be wrong about that. However, Columbia is doing nothing to ensure that Conservatives can speak there safely and in an atmophere that would allow them to be heard.
Their Prez is a hypocrit in my humble opinion.
While there are some who claim the Iranian statements do not call for the destruction of Israel, the practical result of listening to their advice is reminiscent of Gandhi's advice to the Jews.
Louis Fisher, Gandhi’s biographer asked him: “You mean that the Jews should have committed collective suicide?”
Gandhi responded, “Yes, that would have been heroic.
Iran wants Israel to remove itself to Europe or have a mutual referendum with all the Palestinians on combined rule. Given the history of the Jews, no matter how convincing you find that argument you can safely say they will do neither.
Why, yes, yes the U.S. obligated itself to do so. See Article IV, Sections 11 and 12 of the 1947 U.N. Headquarters Agreement:
Establishment of Permanent Headquarters in New York; Agreement Between United Nations and United States
Joint Res. Aug. 4, 1947, ch. 482, 61 Stat. 756, provided that:
“Whereas the Charter of the United Nations was signed on behalf of the United States on June 26, 1945, and was ratified on August 8, 1945, by the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and the instrument of ratification of the said Charter was deposited on August 8, 1945;
...
The agreement follows:
“AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA REGARDING THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE UNITED NATIONS
...
“Article IV—Communications and Transit
section 11
The federal, state or local authorities of the United States shall not impose any impediments to transit to or from the headquarters district of (1) representatives of Members or officials of the United Nations, or of specialized agencies as defined in Article 57, paragraph 2, of the Charter, or the families of such representatives or officials, (2) experts performing missions for the United Nations or for such specialized agencies, (3) representatives of the press, or of radio, film or other information agencies, who have been accredited by the United Nations (or by such a specialized agency) in its discretion after consultation with the United States, (4) representatives of nongovernmental organizations recognized by the United Nations for the purpose of consultation under Article 71 of the Charter, or (5) other persons invited to the headquarters district by the United Nations or by such specialized agency on official business. The appropriate American authorities shall afford any necessary protection to such persons while in transit to or from the headquarters district. This section does not apply to general interruptions of transportation which are to be dealt with as provided in Section 17, and does not impair the effectiveness of generally applicable laws and regulations as to the operation of means of transportation.
section 12
The provisions of Section 11 shall be applicable irrespective of the relations existing between the Governments of the persons referred to in that section and the Government of the United States.
Surely the wrong word. He's more of a psychopath. But a sincere one. Would that he had such loyalty to some virtue.
Tony,
Among many, many others, you have just provided another good reason to get the UN the hell out of this country.
1)
Ahmedinejad has never attacked a single country since in power
GW Bush has openly attacked 2 and was involved in others
2)
Ahmedinejad reiterated the words of Khomeini from '79 where he said the regime of jerusalem will vanish from the pages of time. He could never have said Israel as the government is still not recognised.
Israel has openly warned Iran that it WILL use tactical nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive strike against which, surprise surprise, they have or will buy from the US. Who is more beligerent?
3)
Iranian interference in Iraq? How about American inerference in Iraq. WTF ARE YOU DOING THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE? It is identical to Iran being in Mexico, and being shocked that the US is worried about it. You guys get your heads straightened out.
4)
Iran will attack Israel and the US. Heard this one before, but I think it was Iraq the last time I read that statement. Dont be as ignorant as Columbia's president and repeat to everyone who wants to listen what General Petraeus said, what the council on foreign relations reports, what Fox news spins, and CNN shows IF you consider yourselves to be educated people. I suggest you take a deep look at the real hard facts and see that all of it is coming from the same sources that have lied to you before, and killed over 3000 of your soldiers...How on earth can you believe that they are now telling you the truth?
5)
''Not to give anyone ideas, but if some fanatic had killed Hitler in 1939, millions of lives would have been spared...'' a post by Lonely Capitalist a bit higher up.
You are entertaining the idea that MA is the most dangerous man on the planet and he wants to kill everybody? I thought that was Bin Laden? Or was it Sadam? YOU ARE A F'KING IDIOT regardless of freedom of speech rules to respect. I believe solemnly that anybody as stupid as you should be sent to die alongside all the other idiots that think the war on terror is for real. Why dont you take up arms and join the army, you warmongering hater? You like seeing people die, then continue spreading the crap that you do, and you might see even more american coffins coming back from your fronts.
Dont call on war when you have no idea what it entails. The people who will make the final decision wont even ask your opinion. They'll only ask you to pay for it, and to sacrifice your security. The fight is not for you. If you still bellieve it is, god bless you for your ignorance, but F*CK YOU for spreading lies about other peoples.
2)
Ahmedinejad reiterated the words of Khomeini from '79 where he said the regime of jerusalem will vanish from the pages of time. He could never have said Israel as the government is still not recognised.
Israel has openly warned Iran that it WILL use tactical nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive strike against the which, surprise surprise, they have bought or will buy from the Unted States. Who is more beligerent?