LOL, people with 1600 SATs don't get into Yale, yet this guy does. What a great country. I wonder if he put defending the practice of ripping off women's fingernails somewhere in his appliction for admission? :)



Link (http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-yaletaliban0309.artmar09,0,6924049.story?coll=hc-headlines-local)

From Taliban To Yale Man

Enrollment Of Group's Former Ambassador Draws Outrage

By KIM MARTINEAU
And PENELOPE OVERTON Courant Staff Writers

March 9 2006

NEW HAVEN -- As a former ambassador for the Taliban, Rahmatullah Hashemi was a spokesman for a hated regime.

He's now a freshman at Yale University and depending on your politics, he is either a symbol of what Yale is doing right, in trying to build bridges to the Muslim world, or he's proof that the nation's elite universities have taken diversity too far.

Two weeks ago, Rahmatullah appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine, in a long narrative that traced his life from minding his father's shoe store to becoming a Taliban ambassador and then traveling to Yale to better himself with an Ivy League education. The story humanized a man who had been an apologist for the Taliban's mistreatment of women and the destruction of Afghanistan's cultural heritage.

Since Rahmatullah, now 27, was thrust in the national spotlight, political conservatives have been on the attack. Fox News has dubbed Rahmatullah the "Ivy League terrorist," and a columnist for The Wall Street Journal has compared him to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. A group of Yale graduates has taken their alma mater to task. Two have launched a campaign to "Give Yale the Finger," urging alumni to send press-on nails to Yale as a reminder of the fingernails the Taliban tore from women who wore nail polish.

I don't understand how this happens.

bump.

"All this baying seems to me to miss the essential points which are: can people change their views, and learn and develop, and isn't it possible that America would be a lot safer from terrorists if there were thousands of Rahmatullahs being educated in the U.S. instead of the madrassas of Pakistan?" Brown said in an e-mail. "We ought to be competing for young minds, not howling for their deportation like Sean Hannity and his fellow shout-show hosts."

He's 27-being a spokesman isn't quite the same as being an executioner-maybe he's evil-but the above is part of the article too...

bump.

The article states he is a former spokesman. Now here are a couple of passages from the article:

Rahmatullah was admitted to Yale last year as a special student, as journalist Chip Brown laid out in his Times article. Rahmatullah began studying in New Haven last summer and hopes to apply for regular degree status this spring. Though his real passion is astronomy, he intends to go back to Afghanistan and work in education, to better his country.


(my emphasis)

"All this baying seems to me to miss the essential points which are: can people change their views, and learn and develop, and isn't it possible that America would be a lot safer from terrorists if there were thousands of Rahmatullahs being educated in the U.S. instead of the madrassas of Pakistan?" Brown said in an e-mail. "We ought to be competing for young minds, not howling for their deportation like Sean Hannity and his fellow shout-show hosts."

(Again my emphasis)

Do you not think it's possible for people too change? Is it not possible that, having been born into a de-humanising culture, he knew no better? Is it not possible that if we educate this man, and he goes on to educate others, the outcome could be positive?

Mark

The article states he is a former spokesman. Now here are a couple of passages from the article:

Nowhere has he said he was sorry for being a member of the Taliban, nor has he said anything that they did was wrong. He does try to pin some of the actions on a part of the Taliban, but can't even bring himself to criticize that part.



http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/commentary/hc-commentarytaliban0312.artmar12,0,823483.story

Although Yale officials aren't talking, students and alumni are. Two Yale graduates, Clinton Taylor and Debbie Bookstaber, have launched a campaign to get people to mail Yale false nails as a form of protest over the Taliban's treatment of women - which extended to yanking the fingernails out of those who dared to wear nail polish.

Bookstaber, who was a coordinator of the Yale Women's Center for two years, has gone further. She wrote Yale President Richard Levin to complain about Rahmatullah. "Apparently when you combine a sub-par fourth-grade education, a B-plus college average in a special program, and a job history as a spokesperson for a regime that hates America, destroys priceless Buddhas, oppresses women, stones homosexuals and enforces brutal sharia law in violation of U.N. human rights agreements, you have the magic formula for admission to Yale."




Do you not think it's possible for people too change?

Yes, after I see some evidence that they have in fact changed. Provide the evidence that he's changed, and I'll consider revising my opinion. Fair enough? :)

Like, oh, I dunno, maybe point to where he thinks yanking the fingernails off of women is maybe not such a good thing to do.


Is it not possible that, having been born into a de-humanising culture, he knew no better? Is it not possible that if we educate this man, and he goes on to educate others, the outcome could be positive?

Mark

Errm, not every Afghan joined the Taliban. In fact a great many fought them. Why did they, who were born into the same "de-humanising culture", reject the Taliban while this guy embraced them? And why aren't they being admitted to Yale?