Campuses across the country will be participating in Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week from October 22-26, 2007. According to the Terrorism Awareness Project, "[t]he purpose of this protest is as simple as it is crucial: to confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat."
Campus events will feature speakers like David Horowitz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who will discuss oppressive Islamic sharia law. George Washington University's Young America's Foundation (YAF) is sponsoring the week at the D.C. campus, where Horowitz will speak. The events focus on radical Islam, and are in no way advertised as anti-Muslim.
However, seven GW students posted fliers around campus to smear YAF and the event. The phony YAF fliers said:
"Hate Muslims? So do we!!!" Below the statement is a picture of a Muslim man next to a diagram describing a "typical Muslim." Some features mentioned include "venom from mouth," "suicide vest," and "peg-leg for smuggling children and heroin."
The GW Young America's Foundation is named as a contact on the poster, but leaders of the conservative organization said they had no involvement.
The seven culprits include Adam Kokesh, a "graduate student and Iraq war veteran." According to Little Green Footballs, Kokesh "is part of IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War) and is infamous for being prosecuted for wearing his uniform at an anti-war protest." Not to mention, Kokesh may be investigated by Marine Corps officials for participating in the protests.
Clearly, the posters were an attempt to defame a conservative group that is not only against radical Islam, but also supports the war in Iraq. And now, rather than crack down on these seven students, GW is cracking down on...Young America's Foundation.
Via Little Green Footballs, YAF reports:
Leftist administrators at The George Washington University are on a rampage against a conservative group on campus for anti-Muslim fliers posted that the group had nothing to do with. Young America's Foundation chapter at GWU did not disseminate fliers that read "Hate Muslims? So Do We!!" even though the flier purported to have the group's moniker at the bottom. The flier went on to advertise an actual event on radical Islam that the group is sponsoring the end of October.
It's obvious to anyone with a moment's reflection that such fliers were created to fake an incident of hate where none exists, rather than contribute to a robust discussion regarding the threat of radical Islam. The bottom of the flier, for instance, spitefully reads "Brought to you by Students for Conservativo-Fascism Awareness…"
[T]he school is cuddling up with the local Islamic groups to denounce the drummed up incident of hate and force the Young America's Foundation chapter to sign a statement condemning hate speech…
GWU's ire is being directed in the wrong place. The University should be protecting the reputation of its students who were wrongfully maligned, rather than rewarding campus radicals who are always looking to suppress or distort conservative activism.
The Jawa Report concludes:
The University, with predictable disregard for all facts as the administration at Duke was during the non-rape case, rushed to threaten and condemn the Y.A.F. Predictably, the story was picked up on Islamic propaganda wires in order to spread the faux-outrage.
This bears repeating: THE Y.A.F. DIDN'T MAKE THE POSTERS, AND THE UNIVERSITY IS NONETHELESS THREATENING THEM.
Jihad Watch reports that the Muslim Public Affairs Council dubbed the events as "divisive and hateful" and is outraged:
What's divisive and hateful? Apparently, exposing the deeply ingrained oppression that women, Christians, homosexuals and others suffer under Islamic law and in majority-Muslim countries today. But about that oppression, MPAC and its friendly "administrators and student groups" are silent.
Muslim websites like IslamOnline failed to note that YAF wasn't responsible for the posters, too.
Why is it that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was permitted to speak at Columbia, but campuses try to censor conservatives who speak out against radical Islam?
Hot Air notes:
In the past few years we've seen leftists on campuses all over the country try all kinds of ways to shut down conservative speech, whether it's Columbia students rushing the stage to stifle the Minutemen or leftist radicals at Berkeley trying to shout down Michelle. At SFSU, the College Republicans were investigated after they stomped on a Hezbollah flag, Hezbollah being a group that's only second to al Qaeda in killing Americans through terrorism, and the students having done an act that if done to the American flag would be constitutionally protected free speech. And there's the ongoing series of newspaper thefts at Berkeley, whenever its campus paper runs an ad that some leftist doesn't like. And stepping outside college campuses, it's worth noting the left's ongoing campaign to take Rush Limbaugh off the air and marginalize Fox News. It's all part of the same strategy of pushing conservatives out of society by any means necessary.
But luckily, as NRO Phi Beta Cons reports, not all campuses are against the discussions.
More at Gateway Pundit and the Washington Times's blog.
