Letter: Al-Arian indictment validates letter's statements

Last February, I wrote a letter to the editor about Sami Al-Arian - the father of former Duke student and Chronicle propaganda writer Abdullah Al-Arian - and his ties to terrorism. Despite the fact that my letter was documented with sources and based on extensive research, I was maligned by students as being ignorant.

Many people stated that they were embarrassed that I had graduated from Duke and that I had based my assertions on nothing but racism - the now all too familiar response to instantly discredit someone they don't agree with. They ignored the evidence I gave to support my statements and claimed that there was no evidence based on some politically correct yet obviously factually incorrect article in Salon magazine, a publication so respected I have never heard of it. The biggest insult came Feb. 15 of last year when Ambika Kumar, then-editor of The Chronicle, stated both that my letter was full of factual errors and that The Chronicle should have never printed the errors. Even worse, Duke invited Al-Arian to speak last year despite knowing that he was a suspected terrorist.

Hopefully, the Justice Department's 50-count indictment against Sami Al-Arian naming him as the head of the North American division of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad should be enough proof for those misguided politically correct students that maybe I actually did deserve my Duke diploma. I'm still waiting for The Chronicle, and more specifically Ambika Kumar, to publish a new apology letter - to me. As I'm sure The Chronicle would never do such a thing, I guess I'll have to take comfort in the fact that the Justice Department's arrest and indictment of Al-Arian apparently corroborates that the government believes my accusations to be factually accurate, even if The Chronicle did not.