Young America’s Foundation smeared at George Washington University Updates: Seven, including Adam Kokesh, confess

posted at 10:25 pm on October 9, 2007 by Bryan
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Someone obviously faked a YAF flier to create a hate incident that would reflect badly on the conservative group, but university administrators are treating the flier like it was actually produced by YAF.

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.” And as if that weren’t enough to tip off University officials that the flier was created with malicious intent, the very last line stating “PS Seriously, do a google video search for ‘The Power of Nightmares’ ” should have ended any doubts. If you’re unaware, “The Power of Nightmares” argues that the threat of radical Islam worldwide is in fact a myth perpetrated by politicians in America who have been hoodwinked by neoconservatives.

GWU officials have glossed over the fact that someone on campus misrepresented a school-sanctioned club. Instead, the 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. Bridgette Behling, the assistant director of the Student Activities Center at GWU, wrote an email to one of the conservative students urging them to disavow hate speech that may originate from any future Foundation events: “due to the inflammatory nature of today’s events [falsified posters], as a good faith effort on behalf of YAF, it is important that YAF drafts a statement which states that you will not allow hate speech to be a part of any of YAF’s events, literature, written or verbal communication planned for Islamofacism Week. This statement should also include your plan for preventing these things from happening as well as the consequences for these things happening. It is important that we have this document should any further incidents occur as we move forward.”

How clueless must the GWU administration have to be to see this as anything other than what it is: A smear of some of its own students by others who want to shut them down? In this case, the student who actually put out the fliers, and who has no connection whatsoever to YAF, just calls his slanderous stunt “satire.”
His satire has had the effect of smearing innocent students and putting a campus on edge.

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.

The incident at GWU is only new in the tactics, but not in its intent. Unfortunately, the GWU administration and student leadership’s response is all too typical. And the price of it’s response will be, among other things, to distract its student body away from the very threat that YAF was hoping to warn them about.

Update: I’ve just learned that 7 people have now confessed to distributing the posters. I’m expecting more information on that within a few minutes. Stand by.

Update: Via the Washington Times, the GW Hatchet reports:

A group of seven GW students sent an e-mail to The Hatchet late Tuesday night admitting to hanging hundreds of controversial posters around campus early Monday morning.

The students – Adam Kokesh, freshman Yong Kwon, senior Brian Tierny, freshman Ned Goodwin, Maxine Nwigwe, Lara Masri and Amal Rammah – said their motives were misinterpreted. . . .
Kokesh, a graduate student and Iraq War veteran, gained celebrity over the past year because of his vocal opposition to the war. Nwigwe and Rammah are also graduate students.

So this was an anti-war group’s ploy to attack patriotic young Americans by smearing them as racists. As a commenter suggests, these 7 ought to be hauled in and made to sign statements disavowing hate speech. They ought to be permanently kicked off campus as well.

Update: As soon as I saw it, the name Adam Kokesh rang a bell. He’s the Marine vet who got in trouble for wearing his uniform to anti-war protests, and who heads up the Iraq Veterans Against the War. They were so careful about who they associate themselves with that they touted phony soldier Jesse MacBeth — until Hot Air and others outed him.

MacBeth is currently in jail for fraud. Kokesh, an actual vet, evidently didn’t notice all the problems with MacBeth’s uniform and outlandish stories, or didn’t care that his organization was propping up a liar.

Update: The involvement of IVAW’s Adam Kokesh tells me that this was more than just satire. This was an intentional slander. The consequences on Kokesh and his cohorts ought to be severe. He’s currently working on his masters at GW. He ought to be disallowed from the campus and tossed out of his academic program imho.

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