Khatami at Harvard is a Disgrace

Recently former Iranian "president" Mohammed Khatami gave a speech at Harvard titled "Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence". As reported by Harvard's Gazette, he did denounce Bin Laden. But he characterized America as imperialist, similar to pre-WWII Europe. This demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of America's intentions and what "imperialist" means. America has no plans or desire to take over any country on the planet, period. We are interested in trade, not in takeovers -- and this is the key distinction -- the trader principle vs. the initiation of force.

The Gazette notes that "Khatami repeatedly praised the international spread of democracy, calling it the 'discourse of our time' and repeatedly condemned violence." Well, 'discourse of our time' is very vague. And emphasis on and promotion of democracy, much to the shame of the Bush Administration, is not what we should be doing. Far more important than democracy, we should be promoting liberty, individual rights, justice, free-trade -- in a word, capitalism. There is a big difference between that and just "democracy".

Quoting a bit more: "He called on the Islamic world and the Middle East to embrace democracy and to modernize, but cautioned that those changes can't just be copied from the West." I suspect that this is exactly the problem: he favors voting for people and policies that are anti-liberty, anti-individual-rights, anti-free-trade, and anti-capitalism. (Hamas, for example, was elected recently via democracy -- thereby proving that "democracy" is not even close to being sufficient.) Further, "modernize" is vague. Terrorists don't mind using modern technologies: cell phones, video cameras, weapons of various kinds, even nuclear technology. What he needs to mean by "modernize" is, again, exactly what I think he means by 'Western-style changes' -- which he is apparently against: being pro-liberty, individual rights, justice, free-trade, capitalism, etc.

I agree with the Ayn Rand Institute's release on this visit and speech: it is outrageous and a disgrace.