Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Judith Miller meets Hasan Turabi: or did she?

My friend Mumtaz, president of the International Islamic University in Islamabad, sent me this (I cite with his permission):  "Dear As'ad: I liked your comments on "Being quoted in the Western Press," especially your encounter with Judith Miller. You probably remember she published in the 1990s in the NYT magazine an article on Sudan & political Islam and gave several direct quotes from Hasan Turabi, saying, in effect, "Turabi told me." I was in Khartoum a few weeks after that and Turabi flatly denied that he met her or talked to her. Several months after that she was on NPR and repeated the same quotes from Turabi. I was in my office listening to the NPR. I called and luckily got the line. I told her that she was lying and that she never met Turabi & talked to him. Her only response was that she would not respond to this insult.
Anyway, a few months after that call I received an invitation from Inter-American Defense College in DC to be a part of a panel on the Palestine issue. I asked who was the other panelist. I was told they have asked Judith Miller to be my fellow panelist. I loved it but I was told only a week before the scheduled session that when she was told about my participation in the panel, she declined."