Bay City "Revolutionary Communists" Defeat Military Recruiters

By Andrew Walden
http://www.FrontPageMag.com
November 11, 2005

With Nancy Pelosi’s home-district San Francisco Democratic Party leading the “Yes on I” charge, San Francisco voters, by a 60-40 margin, Tuesday approved Proposition I, the so-called “College Not Combat” initiative. Prop I does not ban military recruiters, a move that would have put campuses at risk of losing their federal funding. San Francisco leftists will continue to subsidize themselves with taxpayer dollars. Prop I instead asks city and school officials in San Francisco to create scholarships and training programs designed to out do benefits offered by the military. However, the sense of the resolution – backed by self-proclaimed "revolutionary Communists," Islamofascists, and even Cindy Sheehan herself – is that military recruiters are pariahs with no business preying on defenseless young people.

The San Francisco vote spreads the type of politics found on many college campuses to an entire city. While the proposition does not formally challenge recruiters’ right to free speech on campus, leaders of College Not Combat are open about their goals. Quoted in the November 9 San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco School Board member Dan Kelly said the voice of the voter on Proposition I will “strengthen the board’s resolve” to make sure recruiters “don’t have free access.” NewsMax quotes Bob Matthews, a College Not Combat activist for the proposition saying, “We now have the moral weight of the city behind us, and it's definitely a valuable asset to have in our corner."

The San Francisco vote is timed to precede the December 6 U.S. Supreme Court hearing on a case, which will determine the constitutionality of tying federal funding to school policy on military recruitment. According to a news release from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, “In 1994, in response to law schools’ growing opposition to military recruiters on campus, Congress passed the Solomon Amendment, which cuts off federal funding to higher education institutions that discriminate against military recruiters. Schools that violate the Solomon Amendment risk losing funding from the Departments of Defense, Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, and related agencies. The amendment does not extend to administrative grants or student financial aid.

“The Solomon Amendment was struck down earlier this year in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals as violating the First Amendment rights of higher education institutions. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on December 6.”

San Francisco schools are not hostile to all recruiters – only U.S. military recruiters. San Francisco State University has for decades been home to a large chapter of the General Union of Palestinian Students, a PLO member organization organized under the PLO’s “Department of Mass Organizations.” Many GUPS members are “recruited” to lead the PLO. These include PLO negotiator Saeb Arakat, a SFSU graduate. Convicted terrorist lawyer Lynne Stewart, was welcomed to speak at San Francisco State University and “recruit” students and faculty to join her cause – aiding Sheik Abdel Rahman to communicate orders and fatwas to his murderous followers in Egypt’s Islamic Group terrorist organization. Stewart, free while awaiting sentencing, spoke at SFSU along with Cindy Sheehan in April. According to an account of the event published on FrontPage Magazine, “Sheehan said then that military recruiters should not be allowed on college campuses, maintaining they trick naïve 18-year-olds with offers of money and scholarships.” At the same event, campus leftists distributed flyers inviting students to debate, “Should we support the Iraqi Resistance?” Dahr Jamail, a supporter of the terrorists in Iraq, and a close associate of Sheehan, spoke at SFSU on April 12. None of the activists complaining about allegedly deceitful tactics by U.S. military recruiters complains that the terrorists deceive children and mentally handicapped persons into carrying remote-controlled “suicide” bombs, nor do they decry the terrorist recruiters’ deceit that 72 virgins will be waiting for the “martyr” who violates Islamic prohibitions of suicide.

On March 9, about 100 anti-American war protesters and members of the International Socialist Organization crowded into a career fair and faced off with five College Republicans military recruiters off SFSU campus. Palestinian protesters are engaged in an ongoing campaign against Jewish students and against College Republicans. SFSU is home to the Islamofascist backbone of Nancy Pelosi’s “liberal” San Francisco.

The so-called “College Not Combat” proposition grew directly from the March 9 attack on SFSU military recruiters. As SF Indymedia explains, “On February 26th, a new group called ‘College not Combat’ formed in San Francisco, drawing in 100 people to its first meeting...On Wednesday, March 9th, the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Navy are coming to San Francisco State University in the hopes of recruiting students to become cannon fodder for the U.S. occupation effort. Student activists with the Campus Anti-War Network (CAN) have a different plan: they have organized a protest to block the recruiters and kick them off their campus.”

In spite of their name, recent events at SFSU show that the activists aren’t against all combat; they are only against the U.S. military engaging in combat against their terrorist allies. They want to continue using an American taxpayer-funded school to train PLO leaders while blocking the U.S. military from even setting foot on campus. Now their campaign has spread beyond SFSU to the entire city.

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