If Dr Dabashi were a politician?

Submitted by Romesh Chander (United States), Dec 2, 2004 at 03:46

I read the entire text of Luria's email to Dr. Dabashi. Did Dr Dabashi forward a copy of that email to the provost Alan Brinkley? If he did, then obviously Dr Brinkley was not impressed, but he was extremely diplomatic in his reply. I did not find any threat nor did Dr Brinkley. May be Dr Dabashi is an extremely insecure and paranoid person who is always having nightmares about Israelies.

Does Dr Dabashi feel threatened by other students who may have served in the military, e.g., US Marine Corps or Green Berets or even in prisoner interrogation units? How would he feel, if he met somebody who served at Gitmo or Abu Ghariab?

I wonder if other faculty at Columbia have read this correspondence, especially his peers in his department. I am assuming that he is a tenured professor at Columbia. Are the Provost and his peers going to take another look at his tenure? How do other members of Middle East Association think about it? or are they also of the same mold?

If Dr Dabashi were a politician, he would be a miserable failure in defending his conduct before ordinary people, not to talk of before the press.

How would Dr Dabashi had defended his doctoral dissertation, if he had included similar logic in it?

How can an intellectual like him be so illogical and be so well accepted his faculty and his university and MEA (and other muslim organizations)?

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".