Our Unwinnable Middle East Wars? A talk By Elan Journo

Come see Elan Journo Discuss America's war policy in the Middle East. The talk is entitled "Our Unnwinnible Middle East Wars?"

Elan Journo is a fellow at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights focusing on foreign policy issues. He is the editor of and chief contributor to Winning the Unwinnable War: America's Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism. His articles have appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Houston Chronicle, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chicago Sun-Times, and Orange County Register. Mr. Journo's articles have also been published in major newspapers abroad, including Australia's Herald Sun, Canberra Times and Canada's Globe and Mail. Mr. Journo is also a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics. Mr. Journo has lectured in college campuses and has given numerous radio interviews on foreign policy and the threat of Islamic totalitarianism. Specialties: Foreign Policy, Foreign Aid, Islamic Terrorism, National Security, Individual Rights

WHEN: Monday, April 26th From 6:00pm - 8:00pm

WHERE: North Classroom (NC) Room 1539 on the Downtown Auraria Campus.



RSVP on our Facebook Event Page

Click HERE for a map of the Auraria Campus and all the parking lots. The Lecture will be in the North Classroom, which on the map is building 3.

WHAT: Below is a description of the event.

The regrouped Taliban and their Islamist allies are waging a fierce comeback in Afghanistan--the launching pad for 9/11--and are actively hatching plots against us. The Islamist regime in Iran--which began an anti-American holy war decades prior to 9/11--appears poised to acquire its own nuclear weapon. Pakistan struggles to fend off Islamist forces seeking to dominate the nuclear-armed state. Many now believe that America's military operation in Afghanistan is unwinnable--even as new threats, from Iran and Pakistan, loom large.

Is there a way out of this seemingly hopeless and worsening mire?

Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Institute explains that a key problem in U.S. policy since 9/11 has been Washington’s failure to clearly identify the enemy. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian regime are not separate problems to be dealt with piecemeal. They are part of the Islamist movement, the state-supported, ideological enemies whose members share the goal of imposing totalitarian Islamist rule worldwide, and they regard America as a prime enemy. To protect ourselves from the Islamist movement, Mr. Journo argues, requires a thorough understanding of this foe and the willingness to defeat its state supporters. Had we done that after 9/11, we could have ended the Islamist threat years ago--and we still could today. Q&A follows.

Next Meeting: Tuesday March 30th from 6:00pm - 8:00pm

We will be covering Ayn Rand's Essay "Collectivized Rights." Click HERE for the text.


The Preamble of the UN Charter claims to derive its authority from the “the sovereign equality of all its Members.” Article 51 also speaks of the right to “collective self-defense” of each of its members, as Article 55 speaks of the importance of “respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.”

Can every nation or people be said to have rights, in the same way that every individual can be said to have rights? Is there a basis for the claim that economic, racial, ethnic, sexual groups enjoy special rights? This week we will discuss Ayn Rand’s essay, “Collectivized Rights,” in which she claims that there are no such rights independent of the rights of individuals.

. . .

“The notion of ‘collective rights’ (that notion that rights belong to groups, not to individuals) mean that ‘rights’ belong to some men, but not to others—that some men have the ‘right’ to dispose of others in any manner they please—and that the criterion of such privileged position consists of numerical superiority.”
—Ayn Rand, “Collectivized Rights.”

Material to be discussed:
• “Collectivized Rights,” pp. 439-45 in *The Ayn Rand Reader*

o Full text online: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand_collectivized_rights

Also, for future meetings you will need to order the book "The Ayn Rand Reader" Which is where many of our future discussions will come from.

click HERE for the link to order the book.

Next Meeting: Tuesday March 16th from 6:00pm - 8:00pm

This week we will be covering Ayn Rand's essay entitled: Man's Rights.
Below is a description.
Click HERE to download a free copy of the essay.
And HERE Is a supplemental audio file to listen to.

The Declaration of Independence says that “men . . . are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human rights declares that “freedom from fear and want” have been “proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people.”

Are rights really God-given, or merely social proclamations? Or is there another source? This week we will discuss Ayn Rand’s essay, “Man’s Rights,” which describes a third possible source. Her view has the distinctive implication that the rights to life, liberty and property are only the rights of an individual to take action in pursuit of one’s interests—not the rights to demand the resources of others.

. . .

“The concept of individual rights is so new in human history that most men have not grasped it fully to this day. In accordance with the two theories of ethics, the mystical or the social, some men assert that rights are a gift of God—others, that rights are a gift of society. But, in fact, the source of rights is man’s nature.”
—Ayn Rand , “Man’s Rights.

Next Meeting: Tuesday March 9th from 6:00pm - 8:00pm

Our next topic will be on Free Speech. We will watch a one hour panel discussion entitled: Free Speech and the Danish Cartoons. Then we'll have a one hour discussion on it.

The Panelists are:
Dr. Yaron Brook, Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute
Dr. Daniel Pipes, Director of Middle East Forum

The Moderator is Dr. Edwin A Locke, Deans Professor Emeritus of Leadership and Motivation. (This is the speaker that was on our campus last wednesday discussing "Christianity vs. Objectivism"

Here is the synopsis of the discussion:

The Danish Cartoons depicting muhammad have sparked worldwide controversy. Death threats and violent protests have sent the cartoonists into hiding and have had the intended effect of stiffling freedom of expression. The reaction to these cartoons raises urgent questions whose significance goes far beyond a set of drawings.

1. What is freedom of speech? Does it include the right to offend?
2. What is the significance of the worldwide Islamic reaction to the cartoons?
3. How should Western governments have responded to this incident?
4. How should the western media have responded?

After the hour panel discussion we will spend an hour discussing the idea of free speech and where it derives it's power from. As well as many of the issues that are raised in this fascinating dissection of an event in our recent history.