Iran Canada Business Council

Justice for All
Peyman-Pawn

E-mail: immortalguardofiran@yahoo.com

Freedom, Justice, Honor, Courage
******************************************************************

In The Name of Ahura Mazda
The Fundamental Principle of This Book

Legal Rights:
1) Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Article 19:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”i
2) Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
“Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms
a) freedom of conscience and religion;
b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
d) freedom of association.”ii
Legal Case:
Superior Court. In case of Wyeth-Ayerst Canada Inc., Petitioner v. Louise Phaneuf Respondent. Date: February 21, 2002. The HON. John H. GOMERY, J.S.C. Canada Province of Québec, District of Montreal.
…
“[6] Petitioner's Motion for slander and for the respect of privacy seeks an injunctive order to compel Respondent to cease and refrain from "expressing anything, directly or indirectly, in any manner whatsoever, concerning, naming, involving or in respect of the
Petitioner...its affiliates, subsidiaries, directors, officers, management and employees..." and specifically, to withdraw from her web-site "any declarations, allegations or references, concerning the Petitioner, its affiliates" etc. The Motion also asks the Court to condemn Respondent to pay Petitioner the sum of $100,000.00 for punitive and exemplary damages.
[7] The justification alleged for this massive assault upon Respondent's freedom of expression is the supposedly defamatory nature of the contents of Respondent's website, which, according to Petitioner, invades its privacy and damages its reputation. Petitioner also alleges that the privacy of its senior management is violated by the publication of their e-mail addresses on the web-site
[8] The Court is not seized with the merits of Petitioner's proceedings. The application now being made is for a safeguard order in accordance with article 766(4) C.C.P. which empowers the Court, at the time of presentation of a motion and before it has been heard, to "make all orders necessary to protect the rights of the parties for the time and on the conditions it determines."iii
…...
[14]…"The other value to be balanced in a defamation action is the protection of the reputation of the individual. Although much has very properly been said and written about the importance of freedom of expression, little has been written of the importance of reputation. Yet, to most people, their good reputation is to be cherished above all. A good reputation is closely related to the innate worthiness and dignity of the individual. It is an attribute that must, just as much as freedom of expression, be protected by society's laws. In order to undertake the balancing required by this case, something must be said about the value of reputation. Democracy has always recognized and cherished the fundamental importance of an individual. That importance must, in turn, be based upon the good repute of a person. It is that good repute which enhances an individual's sense of worth and value. False allegations can so very quickly and completely destroy a good reputation. A reputation tarnished by libel can seldom regain its former luster. A democratic society, therefore, has an interest in ensuring that its members can enjoy and protect their good reputation so long as it is merited."iv
….
“[16] The same remarks apply to the respect to be given to private life, a value guaranteed in article 5 of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms R.S.Q. C.C-12. The extent to which the right to privacy may limit the fundamental right to freedom of expression guaranteed in article 3 of the Charter will vary according to the degree of privacy to which each person is entitled. Corporations have a lesser right to privacy than individuals. Furthermore it is far from apparent that publication of the email address of a corporate officer constitutes an invasion of the latter's privacy.
[17] Petitioner cites the decision in Investors Group Inc. v. Hudson (1999) R.J.Q. 599 (C.S.) in support of its application. The judgment rendered in that case is not a useful precedent, since the facts upon which it was based cannot be compared to the present circumstances, for two reasons. First of all, in the Hudson case the safeguard order followed a full hearing of the litigation between the parties and a careful reading of the judgment rendered, reported at J.E. 98-1329, reveals that most of Mr. Hudson's allegations about the treatment he had received at the hands of Investors Group Inc. were held to be unfounded. In other words, the defamatory nature of the statements published on his web-site had already been established. Secondly, the particulars of the statements is not known; possibly they were much more intemperate than those by Respondent in the present case.
[18] Respondent is defending herself in this matter without the assistance of an attorney. She says she does not have the means to engage counsel. This is unfortunate; she finds herself embroiled in litigation where the resources of her opponent are enormous, and its readiness to use all the means at its disposal to intimidate her and to contest her claims is evident. Furthermore, because she is not a member of the Bar, costs in her favor cannot be awarded.
[19] For These Reasons, Petitioner's application for a safeguard order is dismissed without costs.”v
Criminal Code of Canada:
“423.1 (1) No person shall, without lawful authority, engage in conduct referred to in subsection (2) with the intent to provoke a state of fear in
….
(c) a journalist in order to impede him or her in the transmission to the public of information in relation to a criminal organization.
(2) The conduct referred to in subsection (1) consists of
(a) using violence against a justice system participant or a journalist or anyone known to either of them or destroying or causing damage to the property of any of those persons;
(b) threatening to engage in conduct described in paragraph (a) in Canada or elsewhere;
(c) persistently or repeatedly following a justice system participant or a journalist or anyone known to either of them, including following that person in a disorderly manner on a highway;
(d) repeatedly communicating with, either directly or indirectly, a justice system participant or a journalist or anyone known to either of them; and
(e) besetting or watching the place where a justice system participant or a journalist or anyone known to either of them resides, works, attends school, carries on business or happens to be.
(3) Every person who contravenes this section is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than fourteen years. 2001, c. 32, s. 11.”vi
Summing up the above legal framework:
Author, of this book, is allowed to express her/his views on Canada, Canadian politicians, and criminal agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Canada or outside of Canada because Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as, Canadian legal rights has given permission to this author to express her/his views on Canada, Canadian politicians, and terrorist agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Canada or outside of Canada. In case, Canada, Canadian politicians, terrorist agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Canada or any given entity commenced a civil-action against this author with respect to this book or content of this book, or any allege tort law against this author. The civil-action will be constituted as an instrument against this author to cause fear, and to intimidate this author's safety and security. Consequently, this author will seek criminal charge/s against the petitioner/s from a Justice of Peace, and in case the Canadian legal system fails, this matter will be brought before United Nations for violation of Human Rights forthwith.
The author of this book acted in good faith at all times, and all materials were located in public domain, and all materials were presented as evidences to reader’s knowledge, and this author did not misrepresent, slandered, mislead, omitted facts, deformation of character, invasion of privacy, breach of trust or violating any kind of tort laws, or criminal laws. This book, solely, was written for educational purpose. Only reader of this book will interpret disclosed evidences for their own reason, and will read this book with their own common sense. Thus, this author has no control over readers mind.
i Human Rights <http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html> 17 July 2007
ii Justice of Canada <http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/index.html#juridiques> 17 July 2007
iii CANLII<http://www.canlii.org/en/qc/qccs/doc/2002/2002canlii37381/2002canlii37381.pdf> 17 July 2007. PG 2
iv CANLII <http://www.canlii.org/en/qc/qccs/doc/2002/2002canlii37381/2002canlii37381.pdf> 17 July 2007. PG 4-5
v CANLII<http://www.canlii.org/en/qc/qccs/doc/2002/2002canlii37381/2002canlii37381.pdf>17 July 2007
vi CANLII 03August 2007

Unholy Alliance to the South

FrontPageMagazine.com 3/18/2009
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Alejandro Peña-Esclusa, a former Venezuelan presidential candidate who was the pioneer of the mass mobilizations against Chavez’s authoritarian project, which has cost him fierce government persecution. He is a prolific writer, opinion maker and columnist for Venezuelan newspapers. At present, he is the president of UnoAmerica and a prominent leader of the Venezuelan resistance against the Chavez government. Many consider him Chavez’s antithesis. He is the author of The São Paulo Forum: A Threat to Freedom in Latin America.
FP: Alejandro Peña-Esclusa, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Peña-Esclusa: Thank you very much for the invitation. It’s a pleasure and an honor to be in Frontpage.
FP: I would like to talk to you today about the militia that Chavez is putting together, which consists of Cubans and Islamofascists from Iran.
But first let’s begin with a little bit about you. Tell us your background and how you came to oppose Chavez.
Peña-Esclusa: I belong to a task force of Venezuelan professionals who twenty years ago decided to design an economic program to eliminate poverty in Latin America. We thought - and still think- that there is no reason why a continent as rich as ours should have so much poverty. We studied how the United States, Germany and Japan became developed and industrialized countries and, based on that successful experience, wrote several proposals on how to develop Latin America. But in the mean time - that is, ten years ago - governments like Chavez´s came into power, hindering any possibility for growth and development. Therefore, we decided to fight against these new forms of Communism, before returning to our original task. That’s how we created Fuerza Solidaria (Solidarity Force) in Venezuela, and later on UnoAmerica.
FP: What exactly are Fuerza Solidaria and UnoAmerica?
Peña-Esclusa: Fuerza Solidaria (Solidarity Force) is a Venezuelan NGO formally created in 2001, although its founding members have been working in the project for twenty years. It is composed mainly of very courageous middle class professionals, but also students, who fight for freedom and democracy. UnoAmerica is a platform for Latin American NGOs that share the same values and ideals. Its was created in December 2008, in the city of Bogota, with delegations coming from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Uruguay and Venezuela; and written adhesions from Brazil, El Salvador and Perú. UnoAmerica is growing very rapidly and it is considered the ideological antithesis of the Sao Paulo Forum.
FP: What exactly are Chavez's goals?
Peña-Esclusa: In 1990, as a result of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Fidel Castro and (now president of Brazil) Lula da Silva, decided to create a new political Latin American organization, called the Sao Paulo Forum, which groups all the leftist movements of our region, including the Colombian narco-terrorist guerrillas (FARC). Chavez attempted a military coup in 1992, and as a consequence was put in jail. When he came out, he joined the Sao Paulo Forum and asked the Latin American left to help him reach the presidency of Venezuela; in return for such a favor, he would finance their political projects. This is exactly what was has happened. In other words: Chavez is the result of an international project that has not anything to do with the Venezuelan interest.
FP: What obstacles does Chavez face?
Peña-Esclusa: Chavez is trying to impose a political model which destroys democracy and freedom; that is contrary to the national identity and values. The Venezuelan population sooner or later will rebel against such a model. Second, Chavez is unable to solve the economic crisis, because his communist outlook is exactly the opposite of what is needed. Third, the Venezuelan military are against Chavez´s relations with narco-terrorist groups and Islamic fundamentalist. The combination of these factors will make it impossible for him to continue in the government.
FP: So let’s talk about this relationship with Islamic fundamentalists. Tell us about the alliance Chavez is forming with jihadis. What is this about?
Peña-Esclusa: Chavez needs an external enemy to justify his radical project and to blame for his failure in solving problems, like poverty. The enemy he has chosen to blame is the United States. Therefore he has declared his intention to build an international alliance against what he calls the American "Empire", and of course that alliance includes the Islamic fundamentalist groups, particularly those related to Iran. Chavez has opened the doors of at least four countries to his so called "brother" Ahmadinejad: Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
FP: Tell us some more about this unholy alliance on our southern border. Chavez is recruiting Cubans and Islamofascists from Iran for his personal militia.
Peña-Esclusa: Actually, it was the Cubans who recruited Chavez, long before he attempted his first military coup. He made an agreement with Fidel Castro to help each other. Chavez would supply plenty of the Venezuelan petrodollars for the survival of the Cuban regime, and Castro would offer him his long time experience on how to control the society through terror and persecution. Afterward, Chavez went further, seeking alliances with whoever would join him in his self-invented crusade against the United States. The traditional relations of Venezuela with the other OPEC members facilitated the link with the government of Iran and other Islamic fundamentalist groups. Then Chavez went further on, promoting the infiltration of the Iranian government in other Latin American countries, like Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua. Finally, Chavez made it very clear that Israel was a declared enemy of his "revolution", and expelled the Israeli ambassador from Venezuela.
FP: Your thoughts on this unholy alliance? What do you make of Marxists like Chavez allying themselves with Islamic jihadis? And also, what is your view of the threat this unholy alliance poses to the U.S. as well as to the Venezualan people?
Peña-Esclusa: A few weeks ago, I wrote an article titled Chavez, Ahmadinejad and the new "Missile Crisis in which I explained the danger posed to the United States by what you - quite correctly- call the “unholy alliance.” I also warned that Chavez would soon create a crisis similar to the one generated by Fidel Castro in 1962, but instead of using the Soviet threat - like Castro did - he would resort to the new - more modern and dangerous - Iran threat.
The difference is that Khrushchev maintained certain rationality during the Missile Crisis, because he was not willing to sink humanity into a nuclear war. But Ahmadinejad - being an Islamic fundamentalist - will not hesitate to "erase from the face of earth" not only Israel, but the whole Western hemisphere. Indeed, the existence of an alliance between Iran and several Latin American governments poses a serious threat to the security of the United States.
FP: What is the best policy for the American government to pursue toward Chavez?
Peña-Esclusa: Chavez must be removed from power solely by the Venezuelan people, but the United States could contribute by denouncing publicly the danger that Chavez represents for the Western hemisphere, the irregularities in the Venezuelan electoral system, the lack of free and independent media, the absence of adequate check and balances to his power, etc. That would help the Venezuelan opposition to do a better job in recovering freedom and democracy. The Obama administration needs to do this not only for the benefit of the Venezuelan and other Latin American people, but also to guarantee the security of the United States.
FP: Are you optimistic that freedom and democracy and will ultimately take root in Venezuala?
Peña-Esclusa: Yes, I am quite optimistic; but before recovering permanently freedom and democracy in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, there will be a traumatic process. Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa and Daniel Ortega are dictators, and -as such - they will not hand over power peacefully and democratically. However, I feel very confident that afterwards freedom and democracy will prevail for a long time.FP: Alejandro Peña-Esclusa, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.[Editors' note: Jamie Glazov's new book, United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror, provides an analysis of the nature of the unholy alliance discussed in this interview. To order a copy, click here.]
Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union and is the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. His new book is United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.

Construction of Hotels over the Partho-Sasanian Cemetery in Susa to Resume

LONDON, (CAIS) -- The construction of two hotels, Lalaeh and Amirzargar over the archaeological sites in Susa, which ICHHTO was forced to put a stop to, are now to be resumed once again, reported the Persian Service of ISNA on Sunday.

The initial construction resulted in destruction of 10,000 sq.m. of a Partho-Sasanian cemetery in Susa during the excavation for the foundation of two hotels.

Hamid Baqaei, the vice president of Iran’s Cultural, Heritage, Handicraft and Tourism Organisation (ICHHTO) back in September 2008 announced the termination of permits for construction of two Hotels, Laleh by Khuzestan Municipality Office and Amir-Zargar by a private sector.

In same date Mohammad Sadeqi, the director of Khuzestan Province CHHTO (KCHHTO) announced: “the fate of the hotel constructions will be revealed once the demarcation of the ancient site to be completed.”

On Sunday Mohammad Sadeqi finally announced there is no obstacle for the constructors to restart, since there is no ‘demarcation policy’ in place.

The demarcation policy of the ancient city of Susa was issued in a meeting on March 3rd, by a group of experts and heritage executives, including Archaeologists Mehdi Rahbar, Kamyar Abdi, Mirabedin Kaboli and Mansuri along with Siyavash Saberi, the director of Protection and Revitalisation of the Monuments and Historical Sites; Hosseinali Vakil, director of Historical and Heritage Registration Office. Subsequently, the demarcation order was distributed among the departments of the Khuzestan Municipality Office as well as KCCHTO.

Mohammad Sadeqi refused to attend the meeting, but his office was informed the outcome of the meeting, The resumption of the construction therefore is illegal and is the breach of demarcation order.

With regard to the site of the Amirzargar Hotel, Sadeqi issued a statement announcing: “the archaeological and scientific research confirms that the ground of Amirzargar Hotel is a historical [Parthian] site and any construction over or near it is prohibited.”

Later he changed his statement and claimed the discovered potsherds are not Parthian but belong to Pahlavi period and therefore site has no historical value.

However, at a glance the site of any cultural enthusiast is able to establish the site is of a historical value, and therefore no map or demarcation was required as a guide to decide its fate, especially when one claims to be the director of a provincial heritage organisation.

Since 1979 and rise of Islamic Republic to power choosing executives are on the bases of their merits or educations but the level of their devotions to the regime.

Unfortunately heritage sector is not an exemption from this alarming equation. For instance Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei who was appointed to run the organisation responsible for the protection of Iranian heritage (ICHHTO) was an intelligence officer with Revolutionary Guards (IRG). He alongside the current Islamic Republic’s president, Mahmood Ahmadinejad was serving in Kordestan province, were their friendships began.

As the result of serving with IRG, Rahim-Mashaei was given an Electronics Engineering degree with no educational background. He later joined Ahmadinjed in Tehran Municipality Office before becoming his vice.

With regard to Rahim-Mashaei’s knowledge of Iranian culture and heritage, when journalists back in 2008 questioned his participation in the destruction of Partho-Sasanian cemetery, he replied: “I was not aware of Susa’s historical importance.”

Susa was registered on Iran’s national heritage site in 1930s and every elementary school child in Iran knows the historical importance and its special place in Iranian history and civilisation.

Susa was an ancient city in the Elamite, Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanian dynastic empires of Iran, located about 150 miles east of the Tigris River in Iranian province of Khuzestan. It is one of the oldest known settlements in the region, probably founded around 4000 BCE, though the first traces of human habitation dates back to 7000 BCE.

Parthian Nomadic Settlements Discovered in Western Iran

LONDON, (CAIS) -- The first season of archaeological research in Lusteh and Hādi-Ābād concluded with the discovery of Partho-Sasanian architectural and material culture remains, reported the Persian service of the Aryan Heritage News Agency (Aria).

The Lusteh and Hādi-Ābād sites are located near the Āzād Dam, 75 kilometres from the town of Sanandaj, on the way to Marivān, in the Western Iranian province of Kordestān.

Archaeologists have discovered architectural remains and earthenware dating back to Parthian (224 BCE – 224 CE) and Sasanian (224-651 CE) dynasties.

“The archaeological research revealed that there are nomadic settlements during the Parthian and Sasanian dynastic eras in the area near the Āzād Dam”, announced Leila Khosravi, the head of archaeological research team.

She added: “to this date no research has ever carried out about the Iranian nomads in this part of the country during the Partho-Sasanian period.”

“Jelingi ware, an engraved Parthian pottery which is typically produced in the West of Iran was discovered here for the first time.” said Khosravi.

She continued: “Jelingi-ware has never been found in the Kordestan province that was used by nomads during the Middle and Early Parthian eras, since nomads preferred inexpensive and rustic potteries.”

Along with the jelingi-ware archaeologists have also discovered crocksand saucepans with some containing burnt materials, as well as animal bones which were sent to a lab for further examinations.

With regard to the architectural remains she said: “ashlars were used in the foundations and walls were erected on the top using mudbricks. We have also found some sections of walls in both sites.”

“Stratigraphical study shows the population was on the increase in this area during the Parthian dynastic era. This could be explained as the result of the lack of security in the western edges of the empire, especially near the Euphrates – therefore people may have decided to move to safer areas and towards the empire's heartland. We also have identified Parthian settlements in the mountainous and impassable areas of the province”, concluded Khosravi.

Barack Obama’s Newest Spiritual Advisor

By DiscoverTheNetworks.orgFrontPageMagazine.com 3/17/2009
Now that he no longer draws spiritual succor from Jeremiah Wright—the America-hating, racist demagogue who served as his pastor and spiritual mentor for twenty years—Barack Obama has turned elsewhere for guidance in the task of carrying out his political duties while remaining true to his religious values.
The most notable of his spiritual advisors today is his friend of many years, Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of the Sojourners organization. Says Wallis, “We’ve [he and Obama] been talking faith and politics for a long time.” Who is Jim Wallis? According to The New York Times, Wallis “leans left on some issues” but overall is a “centrist, social justice” kind of guy. But a closer look at Wallis’s background reveals him to be nearly as radical, if better at disguising the fact, as Jeremiah Wright.
As a teenager in the 1960s, Wallis joined the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement. His participation in peace protests nearly resulted in his expulsion from the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, a Christian seminary where he was then enrolled. While at Trinity, Wallis founded an anti-capitalism magazine called the Post-American, which identified wealth redistribution and government-managed economies as the keys to achieving “social justice”—a term that, as educator/journalist Barry Loberfeld has pointed out, is essentially “code for communism.”In 1971, the 23-year-old Wallis and his Post-American colleagues changed the name of their publication to Sojourners, and in the mid-1970s they moved their base of operation from Chicago to Washington, DC, where Wallis has served as Sojourners’ editor (and leader of the eponymous organization) ever since. Advocating America’s transformation into a socialist nation, Sojourners’ “statement of faith” exhorted people to “refuse to accept [capitalist] structures and assumptions that normalize poverty and segregate the world by class.” According to Sojourners, “gospel faith transforms our economics, gives us the power to share our bread and resources, welcomes all to the table of God’s provision, and provides a vision for social revolution.”As one of its first acts, Sojourners formed a commune in the Washington, DC neighborhood of Southern Columbia Heights, where members shared their finances and participated in various activist campaigns that centered on attacking U.S. foreign policy, denouncing American “imperialism,” and extolling Marxist revolutionary movements in the Third World. Giving voice to Sojourners’ intense anti-Americanism, Jim Wallis called the U.S. “the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and destroyer of human life, the great master of humanity and history in its totalitarian claims and designs.”In parallel with his magazine’s stridently antiwar position during the Seventies, Wallis championed the cause of communism. Forgiving communism’s brutal standard-bearers in Vietnam and Cambodia the most abominable of atrocities, Wallis was, by contrast, unsparing in his execration of American military efforts. He demanded greater levels of “social justice” in the allegedly oppressive U.S., but was silent on the subject of the murderous rampages of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In fact, several Sojourners editorials attempted to exculpate the Khmer Rouge of the charges of genocide, instead shifting blame squarely onto the United States. Following the 1979 refugee crisis in Vietnam, Wallis lashed out at the desperate masses fleeing North Vietnam’s Communist forces by boat. These refugees, as Wallis saw it, had been “inoculated” by capitalist influences during the war and were absconding “to support their consumer habit in other lands.” Wallis then admonished critics against pointing to the boat people to “discredit” the righteousness of Vietnam’s newly victorious Communist regime.Wallis blamed America alone for the political tensions of the Cold War era. “At each step in the Cold War,” he wrote in November 1982, “the U.S. was presented with a choice between very different but equally plausible interpretations of Soviet intentions, each of which would have led to very different responses. At every turn, U.S. policy-makers have chosen to assume the very worst about their Soviet counterparts.”Actively embracing liberation theology, Wallis and Sojourners in the 1980s rallied to the cause of Communist regimes that had seized power in Latin America with the promise of bringing about the revolutionary restructuring of society. Particularly attractive for the ministry’s religious activists was the Communist Sandinista dictatorship that took power in Nicaragua in 1979. Wallis embarked on an editorial crusade in Sojourners to undercut public support for a confrontational U.S. foreign policy toward the spread of Communism there and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. Moreover, he invited the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) —the public relations arm of the El Salvadoran terrorist group the FMLN—to take part in a number of initiatives with Sojourners.Steadfast advocates of the nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s, Sojourners activists maintained that a U.S. nuclear buildup was “an intolerable evil” irreconcilably at odds with Christian teaching, and that “[t]he Reagan Administration remains the chief obstacle to the first step in stopping the arms race.” While assailing Reagan’s defense buildup, Sojourners downplayed the threat posed by the Soviet Union, chastising U.S. policy-makers for their tendency “to assume the very worst about their Soviet counterparts.”In 1995 Wallis founded Call to Renewal, a coalition of religious groups united in the purpose of advocating, in religious terms, for leftist economic agendas such as tax hikes and wealth redistribution to promote “social justice.”To this day, Wallis remains fiercely opposed to capitalism and the free-market system. “Our systems have failed the poor and they have failed the earth,” Wallis has said. “They have failed the creation.”Wallis continues to lament “all the bad stuff in America—the poverty, the racism, the human rights violations, and always the wars … the arrogance, self-righteousness, materialism, and ignorance [about] the rest of the world, the habitual ignoring of the ones that God says we can’t [ignore], the ones Jesus calls the least of these.”More than a mere religious leader, Wallis, a registered Democrat, is also an adroit political operative, publicly portraying himself as a politically neutral religious figure whose overriding allegiance is to God. Always with the disclaimer that neither major political party can claim authoritatively to represent the values of religious faith, Wallis nevertheless contends that Republican policies tend to be immoral and godless. For example, he and his ministry reviled welfare reform as a “mean-spirited Republican agenda” characterized by “hatred toward the poor.”At the same time, Wallis actively works to promote Democratic causes. According to a March 10, 2007 Los Angeles Times report, Wallis has recently sought to re-brand traditional slogans of the religious right, like “pro-life,” to refer to such leftist agendas as working with AIDS victims in Africa or helping illegal immigrants in America achieve legal status so they can continue to live with their U.S.-born children.But Wallis’s most passionate advocacy concerns Barack Obama. Wallis likens the new president to the Old Testament prophet Nehemiah, someone who “carefully surveyed the broken walls of the temple, called the people together to start the rebuilding and to ‘commit themselves to the common good.’” The activist preacher further gushes that the Bush administration’s allegedly unenlightened national-security strategy will “now be replaced by the wisdom of the prophet Micah—that our security depends upon other people’s security,” thereby setting the stage for America’s “new relationship to the world.”Immediately after Obama’s January 20th inauguration, a rejoicing Wallis told The Washington Times: “My prayers for decades have been answered in this minute.” Subsequently echoing Michelle Obama’s infamous 2008 declaration, Wallis reported that Obama’s electoral victory had enabled him to feel “proud of my country for the first time in a very long time.” The country, meanwhile, may be properly concerned that the president has sought spiritual counsel from a figure as removed from the political mainstream as Jim Wallis.

Morocco accuses Iran of cultural infiltration

RABAT (AFP) — Morocco's foreign minister accused Tehran Sunday of hiding behind cultural, non-governmental organisations in a concerted bid to implant Shiite Muslim ideology in the Sunni-ruled Arab state.
Taieb Fassi Fihri criticised Iranian Shiite "activism" in Morocco, nine days after it severed diplomatic relations with Tehran.
The cut in ties was the outcome of a row triggered by an Iranian official who questioned Gulf neighbour Bahrain's sovereignty. Morocco leapt to Sunni Bahrain's defence.
Fihri told AFP that the activism was being stoked "notably by (Iran's) diplomatic representatives in Rabat," and said Iran had failed to provide an explanation for its actions before and after the March 6 decision to cut ties.
While the minister said Shiite adherents in Morocco could be counted in the hundreds, he warned that "Morocco cannot accept activities of this type, whether ordered directly or indirectly, or via so-called NGOs.
"Supposed cultural activities cannot take this form because they are a restriction of fundamental Moroccan (rights)," Fihri added.
While his ministry had previously said Rabat was singled out for diplomatic reprisals by Tehran over the Bahrain controversy, Fihri said other countries were experiencing similar ideological impositions.
A leading Iranian official said on February 20 that Bahrain -- which hosts the US Navy's Fifth Fleet in the Gulf -- used to be Iran's 14th province and that it had a representative in the Iranian parliament.
Iran moved to try to defuse the spat, which threatened a major bilateral gas deal, by saying it respects Bahrain's sovereignty.
The relationship between Sunni-ruled Arab states in the Gulf and non-Arab Shiite Muslim Iran has long been strained, with the former wary about the Islamic republic's nuclear drive and its close ties with the new Shiite-led government in Iraq.
In 2007, Iran's ambassador angrily demanded that a Moroccan artist withdraw from an art exhibit in Mexico a photograph he deemed offensive to Islam.

What is Difference Between Educated Person and Uneducated Person?

Someone educated like me is thinking critically, but someone like her is thinking about how to deceive people with crying, seeking pity of people, and using her father's name in order to make a few dollars.

I always win, and you always lose.

Israeli chief of staff travels to US

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israeli military chief of staff Lieutenant General Gaby Ashkenazi heads to the United States on Friday evening for a five-day working visit, the military said.
He is scheduled to hold talks with National Security Advisor General James Jones and other officials, and will be the guest of honour at the annual "supporters of the IDF (Israeli army)" convention in New York City.
Israeli media said his talks will focus on Iran's nuclear programme.
Military intelligence chief Major General Amos Yadlin claimed last week that Iran was using trying to use talks with Western powers on its nuclear ambitions to buy time to produce an atomic bomb.
And US intelligence chief Dennis Blair warned on Tuesday that it will be "difficult" to convince Iran to give up its suspected quest for nuclear weapons through diplomatic means.
The five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany announced earlier this month that they were ready for direct talks with Iran to resolve the long-running crisis.
Israel, widely believed to have the Middle East's sole nuclear arsenal, accuses Iran of seeking to develop a bomb but Iran insists its nuclear programme is for purely peaceful purposes.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved

Germany Asked to Boycott UN Racism Conference

The US, Canada and Italy have said they will not attend the United Nations Conference on Racism out of fear that it will be used primarily for attacks on Israel. With states like Iran, Libya and Cuba dictating the agenda, calls are growing for Germany to join the boycott too.
It was one of the low points in the history of the United Nations. In September, 2001, the South African city of Durban was playing host to the UN World Conference against Racism. The aim had been to officially declare slavery and colonialism as crimes.

Israel fears that the United Nations Conference on Racism next month will be taken over by an anti-Israel agenda.However, both in the conference room and outside it, one state repeatedly came in for diatribes: Israel, accused of being the spawn of racism and apartheid. It became clear that the attacks on Israel had been orchestrated by authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world. "The hate contingent has prevailed," wrote German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau at the time. The memory of the meeting was soon eclipsed, however, by the terror attacks of Sept. 11, which took place just four days after the conference ended.
Now this sad spectacle may repeat itself. The UN will hold a follow-up conference to the Durban meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, between April 20 and 24. Not only Jewish organizations fear that states like Iran, Libya or Saudi Arabia might turn the event into an anti-Israeli forum -- Canada, Italy and the United States have said that they will keep away from the event. The Obama administration has said the conference threatens, again, to unfairly single out Israel.
Now the German government is coming under pressure to pull out of the conference, too. The group "Boycott Durban II" -- an alliance of non-profit organizations, journalists and former politicians -- has gathered 1,300 signatures calling for a boycott, including those of well-known figures in Germany such as the writers Peter Schneider and Ralph Giordano, and the lawyer and women's rights activist Seyran Ates. "A boycott should be a matter of course," thinks Alex Feuerhardt, a Berlin journalist who helped set up the group. "One does not speak with anti-Semites," he says.
The call for the boycott has been provoked by a draft of the conference's closing statement. The current 60-page document condemns only one state explicitly: Israel. The paper focuses on one conflict, in the Middle East, and Israel appears as the only aggressor in that dispute. The draft accuses Israel of torture, apartheid and human rights crimes.
"This ties Durban II directly with Durban I," Feuerhardt says.
The draft is "unbelievably one-sided," says German parliamentarian Klaus Faber, a Social Democrat (SPD), who supports the boycott movement. He says it's astounding that other trouble spots and specific human rights abuses aren't on the conference's agenda. "It is hard to believe. No word about the mass murders in Darfur, nothing about genital mutilation, stonings or racist terrorism," he says.
One reason for the boycott movement is that the UN Human Rights Council is organizing the conference. The council emerged in 2006 from the ashes of the UN Commission on Human Rights, which had been accused of providing a platform for totalitarian states. The successor body doesn't seem much better. Some states that sit on the council -- there are 47 in all -- have dubious human rights records, like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Cuba and China.
The meetings of the new body have proved to be just as contentious. In June 2008, when the British human rights activist David Littman wanted to address the council, he was heckled by Egyptian and Pakistani representatives. The council president stepped in to rule that there could be no mention of Sharia law in the context of a debate about human rights. Meanwhile the council seems obsessed with Israel: "It was discussed 120 times there in 2007," says Feuerhardt.
The impetus for the German boycott alliance was provided by the so-called preparatory committee for the April conference. The committee is made up of 20 states who work together to draft the final document. Libya currently chairs the committee, and it includes Iran, Pakistan and Cuba. "It is incomprehensible that Germany is still planning to take part in the conference," says Faber of the SPD.
Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who received a protest letter from the Central Council of Jews in September 2008, is currently still slated to attend, but he may cancel the trip. "The draft at this point is by no means satisfactory," a spokeswoman for the German Foreign Ministry told SPIEGEL ONLINE, adding: "Our aim is to prevent the conference being misused." That is why the draft is being "continuously examined," she explained. Steinmeier has also pushed for the issue to be debated at the European Union's General Affairs and External Relations Council next week. "It is important for us to reach a European consensus," the spokeswoman said.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay cannot understand the uproar. Last Thursday she argued that fears about misuse of the conference by Israel's enemies were unwarranted.
Meanwhile, in Geneva, work has begun on a new closing statement, which is due in the next few days. "We are in the midst of a negotiating process," a spokeswoman for the Human Rights Council told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "We hope that common ground can be reached in the end."

Afghan role hurts Canada's reputation: Iranian vice-president

OTTAWA — Iran's vice-president said that Stephen Harper's characterization of his country as "evil" shows "huge weakness" on the part of the Canadian prime minister.
Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie also said that the Canadian Forces involvement in Afghanistan has damaged Canada's reputation in the volatile region because it is "under the umbrella" of the United States, which is already unpopular. He offered that assessment Thursday on an unofficial visit to Canada's capital — the intent of which was to revive strained relations between the two countries.
"It's good news that Canada is leaving in 2011 and we welcome that," Mashaie said.
Mashaie said he had not read the recent Wall Street Journal interview in which Harper called the Tehran regime "evil" but said such comments show a lack of understanding of Iran.
Last month, Harper told the Wall Street Journal editorial board on his trip to New York: "It concerns me that we have a regime (in Tehran) with . . . an ideology that is obviously evil . . . My government is a very strong supporter of the state of Israel and considers the Iranian threats to be absolutely unacceptable and beyond the pale."
As Mashaie was making his comments at a news conference, Harper decried anti-Semitism as an evil so profound that it is ultimately a threat to all Canadians, during a Parliament Hill ceremony commemorating Jewish victims targeted during the terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
"Anti-Semitism is a pernicious evil that must be exposed, that must be confronted, that must be repudiated, whenever and wherever it appears," said Harper. "Under our government, Canada will remain an unyielding defender of Jewish religious freedom, a forceful opponent of anti-Semitism in all of its forms and a staunch supporter of a secure and democratic state of Israel."
Asked about the Journal interview, Mashaie said he had "not heard that statement made by the honourable Stephen Harper. But whoever makes such a statement anywhere in this world, of course, has no understanding of Iran whatsoever. It is a huge weakness of the person who created that statement."
Mashaie repeatedly called the presence of Canadian troops in Afghanistan "negative."
"This idea that Canada has a military presence in Afghanistan has a very negative impact and effect in the public opinion of hundreds of millions of people in the region," he said.
"The experience of Canada in Afghanistan has not been a good one, a positive one in terms of security," he added.
Mashaie said people in his region have three unanswered questions about Canadian involvement: "Why did they come to Afghanistan? What have they done in Afghanistan? And why are they leaving Afghanistan and under what condition are they leaving Afghanistan?"
Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Canada's presence in Afghanistan is part of the United Nations-mandated, NATO-led international partnership with over 50 nations and international organizations committed to rebuilding the country.
"Our engagement has earned the praise of international partners, most recently from (U.S.) President (Barack) Obama," Cannon told Canwest News Service in an e-mailed statement.
"The people of Iran stand to benefit greatly from a secure and stable Afghanistan. We will continue to encourage the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to play a constructive role in the affairs of neighbouring countries. Canada has urged the government of Iran to take appropriate measures to ensure that no support is provided to any insurgent group in Afghanistan."
Mashaie welcomed U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's invitation to Iran to participate in a special international conference on Afghanistan at the end of the month.
"Any talks related to Afghanistan are important to us and we welcome it," said Mashaie.
Despite his criticism of the deployment of 2,800 Canadian Forces troops to Afghanistan, Mashaie also made a plea to open full diplomatic relations between Tehran and Ottawa, a relationship that has been strained at best since Iranian-born Montreal photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was beaten to death in a Tehran prison in 2003.
Iran expelled Canada's then ambassador to Iran, John Mundy, in December 2007. Since the Kazemi affair, Canada downgraded Iran's diplomatic status and has not allowed Tehran to post an ambassador to Ottawa.
"We have an ambassador ready to be ambassador for Canada," he said.
Afghanistan is Iran's eastern neighbour, so it would be in his country's interest to work with Canada on continuing to stabilize the country "and to help Canada to cope with the aftermath of leaving Afghanistan," he said.
Mashaie's vice-presidential duties include consular affairs. He was on an "unofficial visit" to Canada and was to meet with Iranian diaspora in Ottawa, Montreal and Vancouver. He had no official contacts with Canadian government officials. His only news conference, conducted through an interpreter, was held at the opulent, but unoccupied Rockcliffe Park mansion that is usually home to the Iranian ambassador in Canada.
Mashaie gained some notoriety last year when he gave a speech expressing friendship toward the people of Israel.
Iran's ruling clerics called Mashaie on the carpet and he retracted the statements.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service


Iranian Vice-President Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie made a plea to open full diplomatic relations between Tehran and Ottawa, a relationship that has been strained at best since Iranian-born Montreal photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was beaten to death in a Tehran prison in 2003.
Photograph by: Arturo Mari L'Osservatore, Romano Vatican Pool , Getty Images

An Academic Tragedy

By David HorowitzFrontPageMagazine.com 3/13/2009
[Editor’s note: This is the introduction to the newly published book One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America's Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy by David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin. The introduction was written by David Horowitz.]
To appreciate the radical changes that have taken place in America’s universities over the last few decades one could do worse than start with the University of California, Santa Cruz. Academic courses at Santa Cruz and other California campuses are ostensibly governed by the “Standing Orders” of the university Regents. These state that each school must “remain aloof from politics and never function as an instrument for the advance of partisan interests,” and that professors must never allow the classroom “to be used for political indoctrination.” In the words of the Regents, such indoctrination “constitutes misuse of the University as an institution.”
Unfortunately, this rule and rules like it at academic institutions across the country are increasingly ignored by university professors, and almost never enforced by university administrations. The UC Santa Cruz catalog is itself littered with course descriptions that promise an indoctrination, almost invariably in radical politics and causes. The clear goal of such courses is not to educate their students in the methods of critical thinking but to instill ideologies that are hostile to American society and its values. Contrary to the “Standing Orders” of the university Regents, these courses teach students what to think, not how to think.
The Santa Cruz catalog, for example, describes a seminar offered by its “Community Studies Department” as follows: “The goal of this seminar is to learn how to organize a revolution. We will learn what communities past and present have done and are doing to resist, challenge, and overcome systems of power including (but not limited to) global capitalism, state oppression, and racism.”
This is the outline of a political agenda, not the description of a scholarly inquiry. Moroever, the sectarian character of this course reflects far more than the misguided pedagogy of an aberrant instructor. University faculty are credentialed, hired and promoted by committees composed of faculty peers. To create an academic course requires the approval of the tenured leaders of an academic department who have been hired and then promoted by other senior faculty. To survive and flourish as a department its curriculum must be recognized and approved by professional associations that are national in scope. Consequently, the fact that a course in how to organize a revolution is taught by a tenured professor, that an academic department has signed off on its particulars, and that one of the nation’s distinguished academic institutions is granting degree credits to students who take it, speaks volumes about the contemporary university and what it has come to regard as an appropriate academic course of study.
The Community Studies Department at UC Santa Cruz is by no means alone in its radical departures from scholarly principle. The school also boasts a “Department of the History of Consciousness,” which was created in the 1960s as a platform for political radicals and as a departure from academic tradition. Communist Party stalwart Angela Davis – a onetime federal fugitive featured on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list – has been a faculty icon for decades. Black Panther felon Huey Newton received a Ph.D. degree from the department by submitting a dissertation that was little more than a political tract justifying his organization’s criminal activities, while another prominent radical credentialed in the program and then hired to its faculty is Bettina Aptheker, creator of UCSC’s Department of Feminist Studies.
The daughter of a famous leader of the Communist Party, Professor Aptheker was herself on its central committee for many years. Aptheker finally left the party in 1981 after her superiors rejected a political tract she had submitted for publication to the party publishing house. Her manuscript was considered unacceptable because it argued that women were oppressed because of their gender and not merely their class position.7 In a recent memoir, Aptheker explained that she agreed to pursue an academic career only after another professor and long-time Communist Party member told her, “It’s your revolutionary duty.”
In pursuit of her revolutionary goals, Aptheker devoted herself to revamping the curriculum of the newly created “Introduction to Women’s Studies” course, “making it more overtly political” and turning it into a training program in radical feminism and an adjunct of the women’s movement. “Teaching became a form of political activism for me, replacing the years of dogged meetings and intrepid organizing with the immediacy of a liberatory practice.”
Aptheker was appointed the first Professor of Women’s Studies at Santa Cruz and went on to build an entire academic department based on her political agendas, shaping its course offerings for a quarter of a century. At her instigation, the department was eventually renamed the “Department of Feminist Studies, which finally captured her achievement: the embedding of a political program in an academic curriculum, despite the explicit warning by the UC Regents that this “constitutes a misuse of the university.”
Bettina Aptheker’s academic career is a metaphor for the political trends that have reshaped America’s liberal arts classrooms over the past generation. A lifelong political activist, Aptheker regarded the university first and foremost as a fulcrum for revolutionary change. In furthering her political goals she received extensive support from crucial elements of the university system. This support included first of all the academic department that awarded her a Ph.D. for non-scholarly work. Like Newton’s, her doctoral thesis was not a scholarly dissertation but the political tract she had previously submitted to the Communist Party publishing house. Once credentialed by the History of Consciousness program as a “scholar,” she was hired to the faculty and then promoted by committees dominated by other faculty radicals. These committees then approved the creation of a politically designed Women’s Studies program through which she could spread her doctrines. The central university administration then agreed to the expansion of the program into a full-fledged academic department and to its transformation into the Department of Feminist Studies.
Throughout the entire process, Aptheker’s ideological curriculum received the imprimatur of the national professional association for Women’s Studies, which sets standards of discourse, research and hiring in the field. Its support was entirely predictable since the National Association of Women’s Studies is itself a political organization whose formal constitution lays out its agendas in blunt fashion:
Women’s Studies owes its existence to the movement for the liberation of women; the feminist movement exists because women are oppressed. Women’s Studies, diverse as its components are, has at its best a shared a vision of a world free not only from sexism but also from racism, class-bias, ageism, heterosexual bias -- from all the ideologies and institutions that have consciously or unconsciously oppressed and exploited some for the advantage of others….Women’s Studies, then, is equipping women not only to enter the society as whole, as productive human beings, but to transform the world to one that will be free of all oppression.
In sum, Professor Aptheker’s academic career and her politicized Department of Feminist Studies are made possible by a national movement of academics who share her broad ideological agendas. Over the course of several decades, this movement has succeeded in instituting massive changes in the structure of higher education, creating new courses, new departments and new fields that violate the professional standards of the modern research university and serve to undermine its foundations. These disturbing developments are the subject matter of One Party Classroom.
One Party Classroom analyzes courses at a dozen major universities whose curricula are designed not to educate students in critical thinking but to instill doctrines that are “politically correct.” This is not a claim that professors are “biased.” Bias is another term for “point of view,” which every professor naturally possesses and has a right to express. For the purposes of this study, professors whose courses follow traditional academic standards do not pose a problem regardless of their individual point of view. What concerns us is whether their courses adhere to the principles of scientific method and observe professional standards.
Thus, One Party Classroom does not propose to hold professors responsible for their idiosyncratic opinions on controversial matters but focuses instead whether they understand and observe the academic standards of the modern research university and the principles of a professional education. The concern of this study is the growing number of activist instructors who routinely present their students with only one side of controversial issues in an effort to convert them to a sectarian perspective.
Recent decades have witnessed widespread complaints about the political abuse of university classrooms. But this is the first attempt at a large-scale investigation of what instructors actually say they are teaching. One Party Classroom documents the results of an in-depth, multiyear study of curricula at twelve major universities, including large state colleges such as the universities of California and Texas and elite private institutions such as Duke and Columbia.
In forming our judgments, we have systematically scrutinized course catalogs, syllabi, reading lists, professors’ biographies, scholarly records, and testimonies. The outcome of our research leaves no doubt that the failure to enforce academic standards is a problem endemic to institutions of higher learning. An alarming number of university courses violate existing academic regulations that have been designed to ensure that students receive professional instruction and a modern education. Once the widespread nature of the abuses are appreciated it becomes impossible to argue that the problem is limited to a few aberrant instructors, or to off-hand professorial comments, or to an occasional assignment of materials designed to sway students’ judgments on controversial matters.
The more than 170 college courses documented in these pages do not exhaust the political offerings at the twelve institutions studied; they are merely the most obvious cases among others we could have chosen at these schools. The ideologies presented in these courses often reflect prominent and even dominant schools of thought in their respective academic fields. More importantly, these ideological doctrines often shape the core curriculum most undergraduates are required to take to earn their degrees in liberal arts.
If we were to extrapolate from the materials examined here, taking into account the total number of institutions offering advanced degrees, the result would be as many as 10,000 college classes nationwide whose primary purpose is not to educate students but to train them in left-wing ideologies and political agendas. The students who pass through these courses annually are numbered in the millions. In other words, One Party Classroom demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that the attempt to indoctrinate American college students is more pervasive and extreme than even the harshest critics of academia have previously suggested.
Although the courses examined in this text reflect without exception a left-wing view of the world, the problems exposed would be just as serious if instructors were instilling conservative or right-wing doctrines. The reason for the absence of such courses in this study was our inability to locate them at the schools examined. This is not surprising. As recent surveys have shown, conservatives are an extraordinarily rare presence on contemporary liberal arts faculties. At several of the schools examined we could not locate a single conservative professor on the social science faculty. A 2007 investigation by two liberal academics, Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, reported that liberal professors generally outnumber conservatives in the social sciences and humanities by a factor of 9-1. In fields such as anthropology and sociology, the ratio approaches 30-1. Consequently, in the mainstream university system, which is the focus of our inquiry, conservative professors lack the institutional means to create ideological departments or to design courses for the purpose of training students in right-wing doctrines.
The roots of the present situation lie in the political history of the 1960s and its aftermath. The cultural upheavals of that era saw the accession to academic tenure of a generation of activists who regarded the university as a platform from which to advance their political mission. Drawing on the works of European Marxists such as Antonio Gramsci and Herbert Marcuse, and the educational theorist Paolo Freire, the radicals viewed universities as “means of cultural production” analogous to the “means of production” in Marx’s revolutionary schema. To these professorial activists, the academic classroom offered a potential fulcrum for revolutionary change. Because the university trained journalists and editors, lawyers and judges, future political candidates and operatives, it provided a path to cultural “hegemony” and an opportunity to promote a radical transformation of the society at large.
The efforts of this radical generation soon led to a dramatic shift in educational attitudes. When the modern research university was created a century ago, it signaled an end to the dominance of religious institutions in the field of higher education. Under the new dispensation, teachers were expected to refrain from imposing their religious or ideological prejudices on students in their charge, to teach according to the precepts of scientific method and not according to what the philosopher Charles Pierce referred to as the “method of authority.”
The most important and influential statement associated with this emergence of the modern research university was the “Declaration on the Principles of Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure,” a document issued by the American Association of University Professors. The Declaration stipulated that a university instructor should “set forth justly, without suppression or innuendo, the divergent opinions of other investigators; . . . and he should, above all, remember that his business is not to provide his students with ready-made conclusions, but to train them to think for themselves, and to provide them access to those materials which they need if they are to think intelligently.” This statement, issued in 1915 and has provided the template for the academic freedom policies of most American universities ever since.
Equally explicit on these matters was a 1934 statement by Robert Gordon Sproul, the president of the University of California and the architect of its rise to academic prominence as an exemplar of the values to which a research university should aspire. In the 1934 statement Sproul defined the mission of the university as incompatible with the agendas of sectarian political movements: “The function of the university is to seek and to transmit knowledge and to train students in the processes whereby truth is to be made known. To convert, or to make converts, is alien and hostile to this dispassionate duty. Where it becomes necessary in performing this function of a university, to consider political, social, or sectarian movements, they are dissected and examined, not taught, and the conclusion left, with no tipping of the scales, to the logic of the facts.”
The Sproul statement was integral to the academic freedom policies of the University of California until 2003, when academic radicals succeeded in suppressing it. In that year, the academic senate voted to remove the Sproul statement from its academic freedom template by a majority of 43–3. This removal was engineered by Professor Robert Post, who is currently the principal authority on academic freedom for the AAUP.
The activist mentality behind these moves was aggressively promoted in an article titled “Impassioned Teaching,” which was featured in the Summer 2007 issue of the AAUP’s official journal, Academe. It was timed to coincide with a new statement by the AAUP on academic freedom and was written by Pamela Caughie, a regional president of the AAUP and also a professor of English at Loyola University, Chicago, and its director of Women’s Studies.
“Don’t be afraid of classroom advocacy; it’s not the same as indoctrination,” Caughie advised other academics. But her text demonstrated that this was a distinction without a difference: “Feminism is a mode of analysis, a set of values, and a political movement. In teaching students its history, its forms, and its impact, I am teaching them to think and write as feminists. I want to convince my students of the value of feminist analysis and the importance of feminist praxis.” In other words, Caughie understands her educational mission as one of persuading students to adopt her point of view, not teaching them how to conduct an intellectual examination of feminism and think for themselves. Caughie is even ready to concede the point in a back-handed way: “In twenty years of teaching I have never gone into the classroom hoping to make converts that day. Still, I feel I am doing my job well when students become practitioners of feminist analysis and committed to feminist politics.”
Caughie’s defense of the “praxis” of indoctrination in the official journal of the American Association of University Professors serves to underscore the predicament in which American liberal arts programs find themselves. The radical cohort to which Caughie and Aptheker belong is now a large and influential presence and in some cases an imposing majority on liberal arts faculties and the governing bodies of national academic organizations. As a result, it has been able to transform significant parts of the academy into agencies of political and social change.
These include traditional professional groups such as the American Historical Association (AHA), which now routinely pass formal resolutions on public controversies that have nothing to do with scholarship, and which take positions on issues that only a handful of their thousands of members would be professionally qualified to judge. In 2007, for example, a tiny but determined minority of AHA members passed a resolution condemning the Iraq war. In doing so they exploited the scholarly prestige of AHA members gained in historical fields far removed from the Middle East in order to promulgate a fashionable left-wing position on current events.
The political subordination of scholarship to political agendas is most evident in fields such as Women’s Studies. Almost universally, Women’s Studies programs base their courses of study on the ideological (and unproven) claim that gender is “socially constructed” – that behavioral differences between men and women are socially rather than biologically determined. According to these Women’s Studies programs, gender differences between men and women are artificially created by an entrenched patriarchy for the express purpose of oppressing women. This perspective is presented by Women’s Studies faculties as a settled doctrine even though it is a controversial opinion. Recent advances in modern neuroscience, for example, have identified significant differences in the biological makeup of men and women that affect their relative abilities and behaviors. Yet for Women’s Studies faculties the issue is settled in favor of social determinants.
Ideological developments in the university have also led to the prevalent phenomenon of professors academically trained in one discipline teaching courses and posing as experts in others. Since radical ideologies require their adherents to make global pronouncements, it is not uncommon to find instructors with degrees in English or Comparative Literature teaching courses that focus on the historical development of economic empires, or the complexities of gender and race. This is analogous to a situation where botanists and microbiologists would teach “big bang” physics or macro-economics. It is a serious problem for academic professions which are defined by their specialized knowledge. Entry into these professions is barred to individuals not credentialed as experts in their disciplines, while students pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of being taught by specialists in their fields. Why go through the arduous and expensive process of credentialing experts if anyone is qualified to teach anything?
What we are witnessing in the liberal arts programs of American universities is the collapse of standards on an alarming scale. To describe this problem as one of “liberal bias” or a “lack of balance” is to misrepresent and trivialize it. All faculty, whatever their point of view, have intellectual biases and a right to express them. But the same right comes with an important and long recognized caveat: Professors have an obligation to be professional in their instruction. They are expected to refrain from imposing their personal views on students through the authority they exercise in the classroom, or through the design of the course, or through their power over student grades; and they should not represent mere opinion as scientific fact.
The problem posed by the incorporation of ideological agendas into the academic curriculum is not the opinions of a particular instructor or a particular idea introduced in the course of instruction. The problem arises when the course of instruction is not guided by scientific method; when it is not constructed as a scholarly inquiry within a scholarly discipline; when the instructor fails to present students with divergent views on controversial matters or with access to materials that will enable them to think intelligently and for themselves. The problem facing the university today is that many academic courses are designed to train students in sectarian ideologies and recruit them to sectarian causes.
Even as the abuses of university classrooms documented in this study have reached epidemic proportions, faculty unions and professional associations have become increasingly averse to any accountability for the design of academic instruction. Roger Bowen, who until recently served as general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, has said in so many words that academics should not have to answer to anyone but themselves: “It should be evident that the sufficient condition for securing the academic freedom of our profession is the profession itself.”
But the pages that follow show that left to their own devices faculty and administrators have consistently failed to defend academic freedom or maintain reasonable academic standards when these standards are violated in the name of “social justice” and “social change.” Routine abuses of the university are also made possible by the passivity of other actors -- instructors in the hard sciences who observe traditional professional standards in their own work but choose to remain silent when these standards are traduced by others; non-ideological scholars in the liberal arts who do likewise; education-oriented trustees and alumni; and students abused by the practices described. These academic bystanders constitute a majority of any university community and a majority of faculty as well. But their refusal to speak up has allowed their less scrupulous colleagues to engineer a decline of professional standards, and a consequent debasement of the academic product. If this passivity continues and the university community does not respond to the assault on academic standards, the credibility and authority of the university will continue to decline and the future of liberal arts education in America will then become bleak indeed.To order One-Party Classroom, the new book by David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin, click here.
David Horowitz is the founder of The David Horowitz Freedom Center and author of the new book, One Party Classroom.

Iranian Archaeologists are Banned from Interviewing

Iranian Archaeologists are Banned from Interviewing

13 March 2009



Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, Director of ICHHTO and Vice President of the Islamic Republic

LONDON, (CAIS) -- In an unprecedented move by the Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicraft and Tourism Organisation (ICHHTO), all the active Iranian archaeologists are banned to partake in any interview or reveal any information about the organisation or the status of Iranian archaeology.

Since 1979 Iranian archaeologists not only have carried out their duties as the ‘explorer’ to shed light on Iran’s past through their scientific works, but also voluntarily they have taken the task of protecting Iranian heritage from destruction. As the result of their endeavours today, most of Iranian newspapers, have an archaeological or heritage section dealing with the latest archaeological discoveries in Iran – and by doing so, they succeeded to bring the heritage matters to Iranian homes.

“The heritage matters have been taken seriously by the Iranian media for past few years, and Iranian archaeologists have become the bridge between the ICHHTO and the media – they as the educators have illuminated the significances of “heritage” and “archaeology” in today’s Iran”, according to a report by the Persian service of CHN.

The imposed interview ban has raised the suspicions and swayed the public’s mind that the authorities in charge of the organisation and subsequently the government want to censor and filter the news to cover up their incompetency in doing their jobs. Despite this the ICHHTO’s claim that the news would still be available to the public and media via their public relations office.

The banning of the archaeologists who are considered to be the heralds of the Iranian archaeological news is in contradiction with the Islamic Republic’s constitution and the move is considered to be illegal. Nonetheless, this is not the first time that the Islamic Republic’s ignores its’ own constitution.

By implementing such a ban the regime tries to close the only avenue of obtaining the accurate news about the status of Iranian archaeology.


ICHHTO’ Incompetency & the Censorship

ICHHTO have unsuccessfully tried to silence archaeologists in past, by channelling the news through the public relation office. However, since last year they stepped up their offensive behaviour towards archaeologists who choose to put themselves on the line of fire to protect their nation’s heritage and since then any experts who have criticised or exposed the ICHHTO misconduct have either received warnings or faced harsh reprimands and dismissals.

“Giving an expert view [of the heritage matters] is an absolute right of the archaeologists. Also issuing statements regarding a particular organisation’s internal affairs is the responsibility of their public relation offices, since the individuals including the experts are not fully aware of the protocols – therefore organisations nominate a speaker to execute the task”, said Mohammad-Mehdi Forqāni, lecturer of Media Science at Tabatabai University.

“As the experts cannot fulfil the speakers’ job – the speakers and public relation offices are also incapable of commenting about the culture and heritage matters, as it is the experts’ field”, said Forqāni.

He added “the banning law not only is revoking the archaeologists’ rights in expressing their expertise views, but also it is the abuse of the freedom of speech.”

He concluded “the media generally prefer to obtain the news directly from their sources, by interviewing the experts rather than via a [filtered] liaison office.”

ICHHTO executives in defending the banning decision have issued a number of contradictory statements, starting by: “experts are not aware of the cultural matters, and therefore they are providing wrong information.” This is while the majority of organisation’s executives are non-educated elements, who occupied the posts just because of their legions to the regime, connections or being the relations of the ruling clerics.

Following the above organisation has changed the statement and alleged: “since there is no difference between the experts and non-experts working for ICHHTO, the ban makes sure the prevention of any contradictory news.”

And the statement changed again to: “some news dealing with the Iranian heritage [in trouble] is being politicised and since the experts are not aware of the situation, they influence the process of resolving the problems, therefore the news should not reach the media directly.”

And in the final disdainful statement ICHHTO stated: “this ban is to ensure the job security of the archaeologists!”

The implementation of such censorships and news filtering demonstrates that people in charge of the organisation consider archaeologists as whistleblowers who expose ICHHTO’s incompetency in safeguarding the Iranian heritage.

ICHHTO which is responsible for protection of the Iranian heritage have failed in its’ responsibilities, and even have caused damages beyond salvation to Iranian heritage, in particular pre-Islamic sites.

One of the most devastating examples was issuing a permit to a construction company to build a hotel over a Partho-Sasanian (248 BCE – 651 CE) cemetery, which resulted in destruction 10,000 sq.m of the ancient site. The permit was issued by the head of ICHHTO provincial office, and endorsed by Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei the director of ICHHTO and the vice-president of current government in power. As the result of pressure from public ICHHTO forced to terminate the construction permit and in a public deceiving interview in July 2008, Rahim Mashaei who himself was one of the collaborators in destruction of the heritage site, tried to distant himself from the case by promising an inquiry, and claimed the wrongdoers will be prosecuted. The case was closed and no one brought to justice – including Rahim Mashaei.

Hamid-Rezā Hosseini a veteran Iranian journalist regarding the ban said: “this move in essence is pointless, sine we have well over ten thousand archaeological and historical sites throughout the country, which most are in a devastating and critical status. A significant number of these sites for past three years have suffered immensely and are on the verge of complete destructions, however, by a visiting those sites and simple observation we independently can inform the public about their statues and therefore we don’t require archaeologists to tell us anything.”

He added “this ban is demonstrates that there is a rift between the organisation’s management and their experts. ICHHTO’ management is well aware that the archaeologists do not follow most of the organisation’s [irrelevant and bureaucratic] protocols – and in a way the management want to cover up this partition.”

“ICHHTO management are imagining that their public relation office is capable to dealing with the cultural news bulletins. They want impose and decide for us what news is to be published and who we can talk to”, said Maryam Khorsand, journalist and the chief editor of Persian daily E’temād.

According to her, there is possible connection between the upcoming presidential election in Iran and ICHHTO’s banning of interviews.

Today Iranians journalists in cooperation with archaeologists have reached a level of independency and sophistication that the ICHHTO is incapable of controlling and filtering the news – such action is further damages to public’s trust in ICHHTO.

“Journalists will continue their relationships with the archaeologists – and archaeologists will continue informing us [in clandestine]”, said Monā Qāsemiyān, a cultural journalist with Persian daily E’temād.

This Webloger is Spearheaded

No one is in position to stop this pen from writing. I always defeat my enemy in their own battle ground.

Londonistan Rising

By Ryan MauroFrontPageMagazine.com 3/12/2009
Last month, the British government controversially refused entry to Geert Wilders, enforcing a ban it had placed on the Dutch parliamentarian for his anti-Islam film, Fitna. While Britain works to eliminate the “threat” from the critics of Islam, however, the British government is facing a far greater peril from the spread of radical Islam on its own territory.
The CIA reportedly has warned President Obama that Islamic extremists living in the United Kingdom are now viewed as the greatest threat to the United States. “Around 40 per cent of CIA activity on homeland threats is now in the UK. This is quite unprecedented,” one British official was quoted as saying in The Telegraph.
Further heightening the threat, these extremists are becoming ever more connected with overseas terrorist networks. Dozens of British citizens are believed to have traveled to Somalia, to fight alongside Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic militants seeking to seize the country from the current government. The Somali militants are reportedly receiving funding from the large Somali community in the United Kingdom. British Muslims have also been providing Taliban forces in Afghanistan with bomb parts, while others are thought to have joined the battlefield and fought against the British military.
Britain’s terrorist networks are vast. According to a joint intelligence report by Britain’s Defense Ministry, MI5 and Special Branch, there are thousands of terrorism supporters in the country. These findings echo an earlier warning from the director of MI-5 that there were at least 2,000 people in the country identified as posing a threat to national security. “It is also estimated that there are some 200 terrorist networks functioning in Britain today who are involved in at least 30 plots,” The Telegraph reported in November 2008.
The pool of potential terrorist recruits appears to be growing. In 2008, the non-partisan Center for Social Cohesion released a poll of 1,400 Muslim students in the United Kingdom and found some frightening results. While there was strong support for some moderate beliefs – including the notion that Islam is compatible with democracy and support for gender equality – some 24 percent felt that Allah did not view males and females equally, and 33 percent favored the construction of “a worldwide Caliphate based on Sharia law.”
Sharia law, indeed, already has found purchase on British soil. For example, the British judicial system must now enforce the decisions of Sharia-based courts. Although participation in the Sharia system is voluntary, similar to accommodations made for orthodox Jews, such parallel courts are bound to conflict with the values of the Western system of justice. They also serve as the infrastructure necessary for Islamist leaders to institute Sharia law in Britain’s Muslim communities. Hence there is understandable concern that some Muslim citizens, particularly women, will be forced “voluntarily” to submit to this form of justice, lest they be labeled apostates.
Younger generations of Muslims make up another concern. The websites of some Muslim schools have been found to be promoting extremist thinking and have pushed children to isolate themselves from the surrounding culture and society. Some websites denounced Harry Potter, chess, Monopoly, Ludo, draughts and even cricket as un-Islamic and one even linked to a website that promoted jihad. Another website claimed that women should remain indoors and that rape victims shared partial blame for their attack. This type of teaching contributes to the lack of assimilation that fuels radicalism and leads to creation of “No-Go Zones” – essentially, Muslim states within states shut off from mainstream British society.
The British government’s reaction to the Islamist offensive has largely been to placate the most radical voices in the Islamic community. Thus, the government has gone to great lengths to make sure that “those who want to spread extremism” by criticizing Islam, like Geert Wilders, don’t set foot inside Britain. By refusing entry to Wilders, the British government won the praise of the Muslim Council of Britain, which was co-founded by Muslim Brotherhood member Kamal Helbawy, a supporter of Hamas who said in 1992, “Do not take Jews and Christians as allies, for they are allies to each other.” Ironically, Helbawy himself was denied entry into the United States in 2006.
While standing up to Western “extremists” like Wilders, UK authorities have not been nearly so strident in stopping those who preach hatred in the name of Islam. A Lebanese journalist named Ibrahim Moussawi, who has acted as a spokesperson for Hezbollah and worked for their Al-Manar television station, is now being given permission to visit the United Kingdom – this despite the fact that, in 2002, he was quoted in The New Yorker decrying Jews as “a lesion on the forehead of history.”
In a dark twist, the government’s accommodationist policy has undermined the very Islamic moderates it is intended to empower. The Quilliam Foundation, a moderate Muslim group dedicated to fighting extremism, opposed the decision to ban Wilders, saying that “freedom of speech should be protected” and challenging Wilders to a debate on Islam. Yet these moderate Muslims, whose own lives serve as rebuttals to Wilders’ arguments, have found themselves on the opposite side of the British government. As a result, they were robbed of a chance to air their version of Islam, which might have countered the Islamic extremism espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood and their ilk.
Thanks to its current outreach, the British government has only encouraged the more extreme elements in the Muslim community. The long-term consequences of that approach are likely to be the continued radicalization of the UK’s Muslim population and the rise of sectarian voices who will one day seek far more than the banning of a prominent critic of Islam.
Ryan Mauro is a geopolitical analyst and the author of Death to America: The Unreported Battle of Iraq. He is the founder of WorldThreats.com and was a panelist for the 2006 Intelligence Summit. He can be contacted at TDCAnalyst@aol.com.

Iran's Supreme Leader Says No Change in US Policies

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says the new U.S. administration is not showing any sign of changing its policies abroad or correcting what Tehran views as past mistakes. Official Iranian media (IRNA and Press TV) report that Mr. Khamenei highlighted the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a meeting with visiting Turkish President Abdullah Gul late Tuesday. The supreme leader also pointed to Israel's recent offensive in Gaza as a sign that the U.S. is pursuing old policies. Mr. Khamenei praised ties between Turkey and Iran, and he said he believes this strengthening relationship will irritate the U.S. and Israel. Last week, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said his nation would consider mediating talks between Iran and the United States. U.S. President Barack Obama has said he is looking for opportunities to engage Iran but that Iran should send positive signals as well.Turkey's president also met with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Mr. Gul is in Tehran to attend the regional Economic Cooperation Organization summit.

Afghanistan condemns journalist killing

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) — President Hamid Karzai led condemnation Wednesday of the killing of an Afghan journalist as his colleagues gathered to protest and expressed fear for their own lives.
Unknown attackers shot dead Jawed Ahmad late Tuesday as he drove through the centre of the southern city of Kandahar.
Ahmad, who was in his early 20s, worked for international media including Canadian TV and Iran's Press TV, and hit the headlines when he was arrested by the US military in Kandahar in 2007.
He was accused of being "an unlawful enemy combatant" and spent 11 months in custody before being released without explanation in September.
On Wednesday Ahmad's body was taken to his family in Pakistan's city of Quetta for burial, colleagues said. He had been shot in the head and chest, said one person who saw the body.
In a statement from Iran, where he is on a state visit, Karzai condemned the killing as "barbaric."
He blamed it on the "enemies of Afghanistan" -- a term officials use to refer to the Taliban and other insurgents -- but said it "cannot sabotage the move towards democracy and freedom of press in Afghanistan."
Taliban insurgents have carried out several assassinations in Kandahar but a spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, denied the group was responsible for Ahmad's death.
The government in Kandahar said it had launched an investigation to find the attackers. "At this time we can't say who they were," provincial government spokesman Zalmai Ayobi told AFP.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said it hoped the killing would not go unsolved as had others, a likely reference to the murder in Helmand province in June of Abdul Samad Rohani, a 25-year-old Afghan reporter for the BBC.
The International Federation of Journalists called for a "detailed and forensic" investigation into Ahmad's killing.
About 40 journalists gathered in Kandahar Wednesday to mourn Ahmad and demanded that the government identify the killers.
Ahmad's shocked colleagues said they were worried for their own safety in the city, a heartland for the Taliban which heavily restricted the media while in government between 1996 and 2001.
"If this happens to Jawed, it can happen to any of us. I'm scared," said Aziz Ahmad, a reporter from Afghan television station Hiwad.
"It's a very sad incident," said Ismaiel Samim, who works for international media. "At the same time, it is a signal for all of us that we're not safe."
About 40 journalists also demonstrated at the information ministry in the western city of Herat and called for the killers of Ahmad, Rohani and others to be brought to justice.
"This trend will affect the freedom of speech in Afghanistan," said Ahmad Quraishi, head of the city's Journalists Protection Centre.
Media groups are also worried about the Supreme Court's decision in February to uphold a 20-year jail sentence for an Afghan reporter convicted of blasphemy, and issued statements Wednesday calling on Karzai to pardon him.
Perwiz Kambakhsh, in his early 20s, was arrested in late 2007 for allegedly insulting Islam and was sentenced to death. In October the sentence was commuted to 20 years in jail.
The Supreme Court's decision to uphold the decision had not been made public and his lawyer had found out about it only last week, the media groups' statements said.