Three Yale students arrested for burning flag
posted at 2:43 pm on April 4, 2007 by Allahpundit
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Anti-Americanism — among college students? Where’s the siren at Drudge?
Two of them are foreign students, the third is an Afghan turned American citizen named Hyder Akbar who palled around with Yale’s “Boola Boola Mullah,” Rahmatullah Hashemi, before they Tali-banned his ass last summer.
Apparently, Akbar’s famous in Afghanistan. Just ask his sweatshirt.
Three Yale University students are charged with burning an American flag hanging from the porch of a Chapel Street home early Tuesday in the Wooster Square neighborhood.
When detained by police a few blocks away, they allegedly acknowledged it was a “dumb thing to do,” according to a police report on the incident.
Hyder Akbar Said, 23, Nikolaos Angelopoulos, 19, and Farhad Anklesaria, also 19, were arrested on a range of charges including two counts of first-degree reckless endangerment, third-degree criminal mischief, second-degree arson, breach of peace, and conspiracy to commit second-degree arson…
The three students admitted igniting the flag, according to the police report, which doesn’t indicate if they gave any reason.
Akbar was wearing a hooded sweatshirt that read in bold letters, “I am Famous in Afghanistan,” according to police.
They appeared at the arraignment in leg irons. Sweet.
Here’s a thumbsucker by Akbar that appeared in Slate in 2005 in which he marvels at his own Third-World dictatorial instincts. Exit question: What is with Yale and guys who are “famous in Afghanistan”?
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Finally got that Slate story, eh?
Well, he’s even more famous now. It’s not just a flag he burned but somebody else’s private US flag that burned on the front lawn.
Kokonut on April 4, 2007 at 2:46 PM
Arson. Charge them with arson.
Bill C on April 4, 2007 at 2:53 PM
This is the reason I stay at Hotair.
amerpundit on April 4, 2007 at 2:55 PM
I agree with Bill, arson should be the charge and not flag burning.
Like it or not there are legitimate arguments for flag burning… so long as the flag belongs to the burner for instance.
dahat on April 4, 2007 at 2:58 PM
Well atleast Yale didn’t try to cover it up as a free speech moment. However, I hope they boot them from school. The two foreign people need to be sent back to their country…ASAP.
Highrise on April 4, 2007 at 2:59 PM
Typical College Hijinx.
Wait for it… free speech lawyers are on their way
Kini on April 4, 2007 at 3:01 PM
Misleading headline….. they were arrested for arson. They set fire to a flag attached to an occupied house, not only did they destroyed private property but could have burned the whole neighborhood down with their stupid stunt. They are probably looking at some jail time for this…. and that’s fitting.
Maxx on April 4, 2007 at 3:03 PM
It’s no more misleading than saying of an arsonist, “Man arrested for burning down house.” I quoted the part of the article that listed the charges, too.
Allahpundit on April 4, 2007 at 3:07 PM
You know, here in Missouri arson (or attempted arson) of an occupied dwelling is considered justification for the use of deadly force.
Yes, I’m saying that around here they might not have gotten arrested for this.
KCSteve on April 4, 2007 at 3:09 PM
Wait. Wait a sec.
They burned SOMEBODY ELSE’S flag? On private property?
Come try that in my yard. Draft your will first, douchebags.
No way in Hell a jury around here convicts me. They’ll probably spend their time sequestered arguing over who gets to buy me the first beer.
Damn. Every time I think I’m done being surprised at what these people will do – they sink a little lower and surprise me yet again.
I’m really not joking, by the way. I’m all for free speech. I actually approve of Texas v. Johnson. If you want to buy a flag and burn it as political speech, go ahead. I can’t promise not to beat you bloody – and I’m sure not going to stand in the way of anybody else who wants to hurt you – but you go ahead.
But if you come on my property and deface my flag and I have a weapon, I’m using it. Period. And I’m aiming at your face. And I’m not likely to miss. I may reload and fire a few more rounds. Just to be sure.
It might get me banned from HotAir for saying it, but like I said, a jury around here isn’t going to be upset about it.
Go ahead, punks. Make my millenium.
Professor Blather on April 4, 2007 at 3:10 PM
Wait for it … uclu lawyers – muslim lawyers from the aclu – are on their way and I guar-on-tee that before this is over, not only will yale et al be sued, but the arresting officers will be sued for doing their job.
~The betting pool is open.
locomotivebreath1901 on April 4, 2007 at 3:11 PM
Those Yale kids are up to their hijinx again?
I’m sure no one will send them back to their stink holes of origins and they’ll be the toast of the campus.
Amazing that someone in CT still shows the US flag??? Isn’t that the blue state where Joe Lieberman is considered a right wing extremist and Keith Richards snorts human ashes with his drugs?
Hening on April 4, 2007 at 3:15 PM
PHOTO of the sewer rats in LEG IRONS PLEEEEEEEASE.
seejanemom on April 4, 2007 at 3:17 PM
How about, attention grabbing disingenuous headline then?
Maxx on April 4, 2007 at 3:21 PM
You know, here in Missouri arson (or attempted arson) of an occupied dwelling is considered justification for the use of deadly force.
Yes, I’m saying that around here they might not have gotten arrested for this.
KCSteve on April 4, 2007 at 3:09 PM
I’m with you all the way on this one. Justifiable Homicide in anyones book.
R D on April 4, 2007 at 3:23 PM
deport them?
Defector01 on April 4, 2007 at 3:26 PM
I was in a particularly nasty argument with a girl I was engaged to. One of the many problems we had were, uh, disagreements over political issues.
One day, to get back at me, she ripped the flag off the front of my house and cut it up. It did more to show her pettiness than anything else. I immediately replaced the flag. Replaced her too :-)
dalewalt on April 4, 2007 at 3:27 PM
I know it’s stupid. I know that the anger I’m feeling is wasted emotion, that the comment I just left will probably (and probably should be) deleted. But for some reason I am more outraged than usual.
It just seems so …. God, I don’t even know the word. I don’t know why anybody defaces a flag, even though I defend thier right to do it. It seems to me like a simple question of respect. That flag isn’t George Bush. It’s not an administration. It stands for our ideals … ideals that liberals used to believe in. It hurts me, causes me physical pain, when someone defaces any flag.
But SOMEBODY ELSE’s flag? Oh no. Why? Maybe it belonged to a WWII vet who’d hung it there for years. Maybe it was just some average schmoe who for some reason is still proud of his country. HELL, here’s an idea: maybe it belonged to some whacked out liberal who’s still got the brains to understand what that flag actually stands for.
Or maybe – and here’s the one that gets me – it belongs to a parent or a spouse of a young man or woman in Baghdad or Kandahar. Maybe it’s their quiet support for their loved one fighting far away.
And these … things … decided to destroy it.
Sigh. Sorry. I’m just rambling. I don’t even know what to say.
I really love that flag. Call me a sap. I don’t care.
Professor Blather on April 4, 2007 at 3:31 PM
Diversity.
Not on private property. However, I’m concerned that the ACLU will be all over how the police got this confession from these guys. The stories on this mention that the cops had already run into these guys prior to the flag burning (something about directions), and then found them soon after the cops came across the burning flag – to which they confessed.
Rick on April 4, 2007 at 3:32 PM
You’re a sap. A sap who’s sadly in short supply. A sap who’s sappiness is necessary, now more than ever. Keep being a sap.
dalewalt on April 4, 2007 at 3:37 PM
Professor Blather, the fact that they burned it while attached to the house is beyond belief. That is not protest, that is attempted murder if anyone was in the house. You should be outraged.
R D on April 4, 2007 at 3:39 PM
Thank God we have the “Castle Doctrine” here in Texas. Yes, Texas. Where guns are legal and Ted Kennedy isn’t.
DAT60A3 on April 4, 2007 at 3:43 PM
This is definitely a “red meat” post because my blood is boiling.
There is no legitimate reasons for burning the American flag, particularly by foreigners whom we have been gracious enough to allow to enter our country.
I have traveled throughout the world, and I can’t imagine anyone being crass enough to burn the flag of the host country they have been allowed to visit.
There needs to be a campaign to revoke the two foreign students’ visas.
januarius on April 4, 2007 at 3:51 PM
There’s a flag I have on the wall of my garage. It’s a little old, not as bright and sharp looking as the one on the flagpole, but I keep it because it’s been with me for a long time. On the wall of my dorm in college. On the wall of my barracks in the USMC. At the bottom of a footlocker for a while, then hanging off the balcony of my apartment, then hanging from the same flagpole I’m looking at right now, before I retired it.
Still servicable. Just a little faded, a little creased. So it hides in the garage by my workbench. 20 years of memories and 230 years of pride.
My favorite (sort of) recent memory with that flag: watching the Women’s Soccer World Cup in 1999. USA vs. China in the finals. I don’t even watch soccer (silly sport). But damn that was a great game. Me and a few buddies on the couch, cheering like schoolkids watching a bunch of women play a dumb game.
But still. A great moment. And at the end, when the game was tied, I stood up on the couch (I was still single and allowed to do things like that) and pulled the flag off the wall of my apartment.
Wrapped around my shoulders and watched the penalties kicks, screaming at the television until I couldn’t talk the next day. When Brandi Chastain took that last shot, a (rather drunk) friend of mine ran around the apartment with that flag for no reason at all, whoopin it up. A classic redneck moment, made funnier since he wasn’t exactly a redneck.
Just a bunch of guys caught up in a patriotic moment. Stupid, I know, but a good memory. Just one of a many. Patriotism I’m so lucky to have. I really am. What I feel most for liberals is pity. I can’t imagine not having that feeling.
I’m looking at the flagpole now. It’s still outside, the Tennessee sky crystalline blue, Old Glory framed by the limbs of an old oak. Shimmering through the tears. I’m lucky to feel that.
I’m getting the hell of the computer now, and going out to the garage, and running the old flag up the pole. And then I’m going to grab a cigar, sit on the front porch, and watch it fly in the breeze.
And I’m going to look at my neighbor’s flag next door. And the giant one the guy across the street flies … a by-God fireman, by the way. And I’m going to sit there, and forget all of this crap, and remember who the real Americans are, and the fact that I’m surrounded by them, and that the people who make me so angry are just so small and meaningless and insignificant.
I love that flag. And I’m blessed to have that. The rest doesn’t matter.
Professor Blather on April 4, 2007 at 3:53 PM
Isn’t this a dog bites man story?
Tantor on April 4, 2007 at 4:24 PM
Thanks for your service Professor!
I think some really clever community service would be in order after jail time. There has to be something out there that would really rub their nose in the traditions and greatness of this country. Oh yes, and pretty please, lets have a pic of this goons in leg irons!
csdeven on April 4, 2007 at 4:25 PM
Well, if loving the flag makes you a sap, then I’ll be proud to stand beside you as a fellow sap. I still get misty during the National Anthem sometimes–and on most issues I’m about as sensitive as granite.
ReubenJCogburn on April 4, 2007 at 4:28 PM
I got one on my t-shirt they can burn if theyre ballsy enough to try.. Im with Prof. Blather.. ready your will first!
Charge em with Arson!
Viper1 on April 4, 2007 at 4:28 PM
It’s just such a shock that somebody named Farhad and Akbar would burn a US flag. I couldn’t be more surprised if their names were Mohammed. Perhaps Akbar was just celebrating his escape from Pakistan to become an American citizen where you can burn the flag freely. Back in Pakistan, your neighbors would kill you and then go rioting in the streets.
Akbar’s friends at school thought he was a moderate, which is probably true. Burning the flag probably is moderate behavior for Muslim Pakistani immigrants, whose patriotism should never be questioned.
Tantor on April 4, 2007 at 4:37 PM
yep…the new Texas home protection law says you don’t have to shoot the SOBs when they try to force entry into your property…you can shoot them when they are running over the hill trying leave too.
Limerick on April 4, 2007 at 4:44 PM
I would like to suggest the proverbial book be thrown.
I’m sure that the legal talent ’round here could write an “amicus brief” suggesting a long list of charges for these “students”. Not that they’ll be held responsible.
But just in case, warn them to stay in large cities, and out of Florida. I’m just sayin’ WE DON’T WANT THEM HERE.
tormod on April 4, 2007 at 4:56 PM
I’ll join you in being a sap, professor. If the same foreign punks came onto my property and lit up Old Glory as it was attached to my home, I’d introduce them to the wonders of the Second Amendment.
Spurius Ligustinus on April 4, 2007 at 4:59 PM
The sad part? They will get a slap on the hands, naught boys.
right2bright on April 4, 2007 at 5:23 PM
Akbar’s father used to be President Karzai’s spokesman. Do you think maybe the MSM would be interested in this story if Ari Fleischer’s kid had burned an Islamic flag?
eeyore on April 4, 2007 at 5:29 PM
gekkobear on April 4, 2007 at 5:30 PM
What is it with our foreign visitors and flags? If they’re not burning ours, they’re waving their’s.
Valiant on April 4, 2007 at 7:15 PM
(can’t add another word….)
PinkyBigglesworth on April 4, 2007 at 9:29 PM
Hekmatyar Gulbuddin is “Famous in Afghanistan” too.
Heck, I’m famous too…on the 2nd floor of the Guard Armory atn North and Kedzie. Heh.
Numbskulls. I hope they get a felony rap for this.
major john on April 4, 2007 at 9:48 PM
Awe, that’s so cute. They think they’re being funny.
budorob on April 5, 2007 at 9:04 AM
Kids…Maybe they forgot where they were. Maybe it was some sort of slip in the time-space-continuum. They thought they were back in their homeland. Nah who am I trying to fool. They’re just ungrateful
college kidspunks doing a job you and I are too lazy to do.By the way did you boys pay for your carbon offsets before setting the fire?
SPIFF1669 on April 5, 2007 at 1:26 PM
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