Shane Bauer, Brainwashed at Berkeley

Two years in the worst prison on earth is for nothing compared with the kind of brainwashing you receive at Berkeley.

Many of us have been railing against what is being taught in America’s finest institutions of higher learning.  At the risk of being accused of having taken our leave from rational thought, some of us have even labeled them indoctrination mills.

To more sensible people, it must seem that we are exaggerating. It cannot possibly be that bad.

From the brief glimpse we have just been granted into the mind of recently released American hiker, Shane Bauer, apparently, our exaggerations are very close to the truth.

Bauer and his hiking companions were, we know, Berkeley trained anti-war activists, monsters of moral equivalence, full of the right kind of politically correct anti-American and anti-Israeli feelings.

Apparently, they thought nothing about hiking on the Iran/Iraq border because they believed in the just cause of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and thus, that they would be greeted as friends, not enemies.

The international left rallied to their cause because, after all, they were sympathetic to the Iranian regime. For leftists it was another occasion to blame America. If Iran was going to take hostages, Noam Chomsky implied, why take people who are sympathetic to the Iranian regime and who hate America?

Think of the injustice. These young people seem to have been motivated by a preternatural fear of terrorism.  They must have thought they could immunize themselves against it by adopting the terrorist mindset.

With the help of their Berkeley enablers, they screwed their minds into an attitude of pure sympathy for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Imagine the indignity they felt when they were treated like plain ordinary Americans.

This morning James Kirchick explained it well in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

To give us a look into the mind of Shane Bauer, Kirchick sets the scene.

He writes: “On July 31, 2009, you're traversing a mountain trail in Iraqi Kurdistan, near the Iranian border. You're with one of your best friends and your girlfriend. Suddenly a group of Iranian border guards capture you, and the next thing you know you're in Tehran's infamous Evin prison accused of ‘illegal entry’ and ‘espionage.’

“Your girlfriend is kept in solitary confinement and you can see her only for an hour each day. The Iranian government prevents you from contacting your family for almost a year, at which point they decide to let your mother visit you for two days at a Tehran hotel.

“While your captors treat you humanely and provide three square meals a day, your Iranian co-prisoners aren't so lucky. Every night you hear their screams. Evin is the world's most notorious torture dungeon, where political dissidents (men and women) are routinely raped, beaten and subjected to all manner of physical and psychological abuse.

“Ahmad Batebi, a student activist who spent 17 months in solitary confinement there, reports that guards kicked him in the teeth, dunked his head into a toilet ‘stopped up with feces,’ and whipped his back and testicles with a cable. When he tried to sleep, they slashed his arms with a knife and rubbed salt in the wounds.”

If you were educated at Berkeley, you are witnessing all of this horror and injustice and thinking that it’s all the fault of George Bush.

The president of Iran’s Holocaust denial does not register. When you hear that the Iranian government routinely executes boys for being homosexual it does not move your moral compass. If you know that the Islamic regime systematically oppresses women it does not affect your judgment.

Your education has disembarrassed you of your capacity to exercise moral judgment. And it has also wiped your mind clean of the virtue of gratitude.

Kirchick explains Bauer’s excursion into moral equivalence: “Following two years of strenuous work on the part of committed American diplomats, you are freed on $500,000 bail, paid by the billionaire Sultan of Oman. And what is the first thing you say upon your release?

"’Two years in prison is too long and we sincerely hope for the freedom of other political prisoners and other unjustly imprisoned people in America and Iran.’”

Kirchick then highlights Bauer’s ingratitude: “While neglecting to thank either President Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for helping secure his freedom, Mr. Bauer expressed gratitude toward Hugo Chávez, Sean Penn, Noam Chomsky and Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens).”

If he has one last ounce of moral judgment, Bauer  should now change his name to Shame Bauer.