Harvard Gets Even Weirder

There are occasions when it's nice to know that you couldn't get admitted to Harvard. Like last week.

Goofball Harvard prof Mohammed-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou authored a piece in The Boston Globe last week claiming that the time has come for the U.S. to negotiate with al-Qaeda and "acknowledge and address" their demands. According to Mohamedou, "Al Qaeda has been true to its word in announcing and implementing its strategy for over a decade. It is likely to be true to its word in the future and cease hostilities?in return for some degree of satisfaction regarding its grievances." Scholars, he says, "have been too focused on Al Qaeda's 'irrationality,' 'fundamentalism,' and 'hatred.'"

Sure, that's right. Osama bin Laden, a multimillionaire who lives in caves while plotting acts of mass murder and asking for the return of Spain to the Islamic world, isn't spurred by hatred and irrationality. People who like to decapitate young women and then spread videotapes of the acts are honorable gents with whom to cut deals. And this is an especially good idea when the chief killer is someone who calls you a paper tiger and likes to point to past instances of your passivity in response to violence?

Mohamedou argues that his ideas make sense as an answer to a "war" we're in with al-Qaeda. Let's leave aside the fact that few wars with fascists were ever solved by anything except a policy of seeking their unconditional surrender.

Al-Qaeda's members aren't even fighting a "war" that any real army would regard as such. They run no nation and have no government. Their self-proclaimed "glory" and their significance comes from killing defenseless civilians. Which is murder. Should we also open negotiations with the Menendez brothers? Or Scott Petersen? Should we "address" the "grievances" of the Aryan Nations?

Has Mohamedou been corresponding Harvard alumn Ted Kaczynski?

-Jonathan Leaf