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Pipes' ad hominem attacks against Choamsky et. al. are so transparent as to be ridiculous. His article is just another attempt at "you're either with us or against us".
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Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at MIT and far-left luminary, insists that President Bush and his advisers oppose Saddam not because of his many crimes or his reach for nuclear weapons. "We all know . . . what they're aiming at," Chomsky said in a recent interview, "Iraq has the second-largest oil reserves in the world."
Jim Rego, visiting assistant professor of chemistry at Swarthmore College, stated at a panel discussion that, even after Sept. 11, the U.S. government is merely manufacturing another enemy "to have an identity." Rego explained his thinking with an elegance characteristic of the Left: "I think we've run out of people's butts to kick and that we essentially want to keep the butt-kicking going."
Glenda Gilmore, an assistant professor of history of the American South at Yale University, tells her school paper that confrontation with Iraq represents a plot to expand American power. It is nothing less, she asserts, than "the first step in Bush's plan to transform our country into an aggressor nation that cannot tolerate opposition." She concludes by quoting the wisdom of a cartoon character: "We have met the enemy, and it is us."
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Of course, professors have every right to express their opinions, however cranky and mistaken (Pipes' attempt at support for free speech). Yet the relentless opposition to their own government raises some questions:
*Why do American academics so often despise their own country while finding excuses for repressive and dangerous regimes?
Why do American academics continue to find excuses for their government's continued abuse and retraction of civil rights while despising those who point out that the Emperor is wearing no clothes?
* Why have university specialists proven so inept at understanding the great contemporary issues of war and peace, starting with Vietnam, then the Cold War, the Kuwait war and now the War on Terror?
Why have so-called Islam-experts continually denied the roots and causes of extreme and militant Islam, i.e. British and American occupation, oppression, and support of totalitarian regimes in the Middle East?
*Why do professors of linguistics, chemistry, American history, genetics and business present themselves in public as authorities on the Middle East?
Why do actors present themselves as viable political leaders?
*What is the long-term effect of an extremist, intolerant and anti-American environment on university students?
What is the short- and long-term effect of repression of free speech, open dialog and encourging students to think for themselves instead of following the herd?
The time has come for adult supervision of the faculty and administrators at many American campuses. Especially as we are at war, the goal must be for universities to resume their civic responsibilities.
This can be achieved if outsiders (alumni, state legislators, non-university specialists, parents of students and others) take steps to create a politically balanced atmosphere, critique failed scholarship, establish standards for media statements by faculty and broaden the range of campus discourse.
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This man scares the living bejebus out of me. If this man gets his seat on the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace, it will only give the current administration another "academic" to quote who supports their actions.
Krauthammer is equally as clueless. His praise of Pipes smacks of hero worship, bordering on hyperbole. Poor Pipes is another misunderstood prophet, a modern-day Cassandra who should be idolized instead of vilified. His appeal to fear doesn't hide the fact that Daniel Pipes is as extreme in his views as the most militant Muslim.
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