Updates at bottom of post.
Via Drudge, the Rocky Mountain News reports that Ward Churchill met with Libyan dictator Col. Moammar Gadhafi back in April, 1983. Many of you will recall, as I do, the August, 1981 incident in which two American F-14 Tomcats shot down two Libyan planes that fired on them. During the time of Churchill's visit, travel to Libya by U.S. citizens was banned because of Libyia's sponsorship of terrorism.
This latest news is hardly surprising, since Churchill's sympathy for terrorists is now well known. In cuddling up to a monster such as Gadhafi, Churchill replicates the radical chic elements of American culture that claim to see virtue in Castro, or who defended Mao's Cultural Revolution as a return to unadulterated Chinese culture.
The RMN writes:
Churchill traveled to Tripoli and Benghazi as a representative of the International Indian Treaty Council and the American Indian Movement. He went with Dace Means, brother of AIM leader Russell Means.
They were seeking recognition from Gadhafi of the U.S. government's breaking of Indian treaties.
"The main thing we sought and received was diplomatic support," Churchill told the Associated Press at the time.
He added, "AIM has not requested arms from the Libyan government."
The meeting took place five years before a bomb exploded on an American passenger jet above the small Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground.
Intelligence sources have long believed Gadhafi ordered the bombing.
The article also reports that Churchill is to speak at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater next month. Jack Miller, the chancellor there, tried to have it both ways by defending Churchill's appearance while claiming that, should CU move against him before his talk at Whitewater, Miller might reconsider the invitation.
Displaying the bullying tactics for which he's known, not to mention his love of filthy lucre created by this capitalist society, Churchill replied that he'll have his money whether or not his invitation stands:
For his part, Churchill wrote the university that he is "entirely unprepared to undergo a personal interrogation at this late date in order to facilitate your deliberations as to my 'worthiness' to deliver a public lecture on an entirely different topic at Whitewater," Churchill wrote.
Churchill's letter to the chancellor added that should the event be cancelled for "any reason whatsoever," the school will still be obligated to pay his honorarium of about $4,000, plus travel and other expenses.
"Please be further advised," Churchill added, that these monies will be used, at least in part, to underwrite my coming to Whitewater at the earliest opportunity for purposes of meeting at some appropriate location, either off campus or on, with the students who originally desired to hear what I have to say with regard to Indian Affairs."
As to his future at CU, a Denver employment lawyer says that Churchill and his lawyer should know things may not fall their way:
Denver lawyer Craig Skinner, whose practice includes employment law, was not so sure.
"If it is a material and intentional misrepresentation, then the university would be justified in terminating his employment," said Skinner. "Within the law, ethnicity is not a subjective determination."
He added, "If you can determine that you have a relative that was an Indian at the time of William the Conqueror, that probably doesn't cut it."
Update: WorldNetDaily says that Churchill "taught the revolutionary group the Weathermen how to make bombs and fire weapons."
Update II: Men's News Daily says that Churchill fabricated stories of his Vietnam War heroism:
DENVER—An exhaustive investigation by Bob Newman of Newsradio 850 KOA (Denver), who is also a frequent guest military & terrorism analyst on the FOX News Channel and a Men's News Daily columnist, into the genuine Vietnam service record of radical University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill, has revealed that Churchill’s claimed combat experience is in direct contradiction to his official military records.
After a confidential source provided Mr. Newman with documents pertaining to Professor Churchill’s military service and his employment at the University of Colorado, Mr. Newman began an investigation into the documents’ authenticity.
Using his own sources and calling upon the investigative skills of FOX News Channel’s Rita Cosby, Mr. Newman was able to verify that Professor Churchill, despite his public claim (in a 1987 Denver Post interview) of having been a paratrooper (Airborne qualified) who conducted long-range reconnaissance patrols (LRRPs; extremely dangerous missions conducted by some of the most elite soldiers in the US Army) hunting North Vietnamese in Vietnam during and after the Tet Offensive of 1968, and despite his claim that he was a point man in an infantry combat unit, was in fact trained only as a jeep driver and projectionist (he was trained to operate film-strip machines and movie projectors), according to official documentation from the National Personnel Records Center, the US repository for military records.
Our macho man drove a Jeep and ran movie projectors! Nothing per se wrong with either assignment, to be sure, but not quite the life of a paratrooper hunting down VC in the dark jungle.
When Mount Holyoke history professor and best-selling author Joseph Ellis was caught in a lie about his Vietnam combat duty (he also claimed to be a paratrooper), which never occurred, he was suspended without pay for one year and stripped of his endowed chair.
This raises an interesting issue because, as some pointed out during Ellis's travails, liberals such as Ellis and Churchill (who, to be sure, have little in common on many levels) employ their stories of combat to deflect criticism of their own liberal views. Who're you to criticize me, you young civilian (or old draft dodger), they may say, when I earned my free speech rights while protecting yours on the battlefield. How many men have you killed, huh?
But as John Kerry learned in November, even for those who did serve in Vietnam, whatever their actions and however much they may embellish their records, respect, once granted, must withstand the righteous indignation of those wronged by subsequent actions. And the surest route to that level of respect is to have a solid record built on truth -- on character and dignity.
That's true of Kerry, whose words and actions against his fellow Vets are well known. And it's particularly true for Ward Churchill, whose hate-filled words were aimed at wounds far more recent than Vietnam. Thus far, his score isn't too good. He appears to have lied about his Indian ancestry, and now it looks as if he's created his military combat record in an effort to inoculate him from criticism over his own anti-military writings and statements. Aside from noting the obvious -- that he's no scholar -- one has to ask: does this guy ever tell the truth?
Update III: Denver Post columnist Jim Spencer in a column titled "For Whom Does Ward Churchill Work?"
Whom does Ward Churchill work for?
Churchill made his position clear in a campus speech to 1,000 mostly adoring students Tuesday night.
Speaking with what my friend Ray Schoch of Loveland likes to call a "junior high sneer," Churchill proclaimed to his faithful, "I do not work for the taxpayers of Colorado. I do not work for Bill Owens. I work for you."
Later in the evening, when a student asked Churchill if he would abide by results of a student vote on his continued employment, he wouldn't agree.
Apparently, he works for CU students only in a metaphorical sense.
That's the way he says he referred to some civilian victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as "little Eichmanns" in an essay that has him in hot water.
Churchill continues to milk his newfound celebrity. On Tuesday, bodyguards from the American Indian Movement of Colorado escorted him. As Churchill spoke, a Native American whomped a drum to punctuate the professor's points.
The atmosphere evoked death threats and rim shots - Malcolm X meets Henny Youngman.
Update IV: Via LGF, the Raelians have made Churchill a high priest. A day earlier, they voiced their support for him. Sounds like a match made in heaven, or whatever they aim for.
| Feb. 11, 2005 | 3:48 PM