THE MENDACITY OF ROOT CAUSES

In a surprise turnaround, given the usual dhimmitude exhibited by our liberal university power structure, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was repeatedly tested as he questioned the official version of the September 11 attacks and defended the right to cast doubt on the Holocaust in a tense appearance at Columbia University, whose president accused the hard-line leader of behaving like "a petty and cruel dictator."

Ahmadinejad smiled at first but appeared increasingly agitated, decrying the "insults" and "unfriendly treatment." Columbia President Lee Bollinger and audience members took him to task over Iran's human-rights record and foreign policy, as well as Ahmadinejad's statements denying the Holocaust and calling for the disappearance of Israel.

"Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," Bollinger said, to loud applause. He said Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust might fool the illiterate and ignorant.

"When you come to a place like this it makes you simply ridiculous," Bollinger said. "The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history." Ahmadinejad rose, also to applause, and after a religious invocation, said Bollinger's opening was "an insult to information and the knowledge of the audience here."

"There were insults and claims that were incorrect, regretfully," Ahmadinejad said, accusing Bollinger of falling under the influence of the hostile U.S. press and politicians. "I should not begin by being affected by this unfriendly treatment."

During a question and answer session, Ahmadinejad appeared tense and unsmiling, in contrast to more relaxed interviews and appearances earlier in the day. And thus a banner day in American intellectual toughness has been witnessed. May this event at Columbia signal the end of the political correctness era, and the beginning of a true intellectual analysis on our campuses and in our think thanks. But don't count on it.There are still many who realize that the propaganda war is always a surgical composure. Columbia students did applaud this man. This clip will be used by our enemies.

And you can bet the tone of both the guest speaker Ahmadeinejad and his audience wiil be skewed in his favor today when the Iranian president speaks at the "Islamic" United Nations.

Moving along, here's another sweet plum from the mindful tree of Hugh Fitzgerald:

Qur'an, passim. Hadith, passim. Sira, passim. Take them seriously, take them to heart, do not ignore what they tell you, and the duty of Jihad becomes clear. Follow the logic of Jihad, and the instruments available to Muslims at this moment in history: qitaal as terrorism, the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa, demographic conquest. Now choose one or more. Al Qaeda chose the first, but is also delighted with those who employ the second, and the third, and the fourth methods for spreading Islam, and removing all obstacles to Islam, whether this is accomplished by terrorizing, or buying off, or misleading, or simply outbreeding, the Infidel enemy.

That is the answer to "why did this happen." No one would have sought to find the "root causes" of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in anything other than Kodo, the blend of emperor-worship and extreme Japanese militarism that all through the 1920s began spreading throughout the ruling class, both military and civilian, in Japan. No one would think to find the "root causes" for Hitler's attack on Poland that led Britain and France to finally declare war, in anything other than the doctrine promulgated by Hitler that the "Aryans" of Germany needed, and were entitled to, Lebensraum by seizing lands belonging to all non-Aryan and therefore inferior peoples.

No one should seek to find the "root causes" of Muslim terrorism, carried out entirely by Muslims, for reasons clearly articulated by the most truthful terrorists (including Bin Laden and many of his aides), that constantly relate back to the doctrines of Islam, to passages to be found in Qur'an and Hadith, and in the details of Muhammad's life found in the Sira.

The "root cause" of Muslim terrorism at Ground Zero, as of Muslim terrorism directed at civilians in southern Thailand, or in India, or in Israel, or in the southern Sudan, or in Amsterdam, Madrid, London, and a thousand other places, is Islam. The "root cause" of Muslim terrorism is Islam.