Terrorism: Theirs and Ours

At 17:29 ff. of this video, as well as on page 1 of his article at http://web.stanford.edu/class/intnlrel193/readings/week3/geopolrev.pdf, Dr. Eqbal Ahmad claimed that President Ronald Reagan referred to the “Afghan Mujaheen” as the “moral equivalent of America’s founding fathers.” Dr. Eqbal Ahmad uses this as an illustration for building his case that the terrorists of yesterday becomes the hero of today.

It seems however that Reagan did not refer to the “Afghan Mujaheen” as the “moral equivalent of America’s founding fathers”, details of which may be seen at the following link on the Internet or elsewhere in the literature:

https://www.quora.com/Did-Ronald-Reagan-say-about-the-Taliban-These-are-the-moral-equivalent-of-America%E2%80%99s-founding-fathers%E2%80%9D

It’s not to be taken as a mere slip of the tongue or lapse of memory of the great scholar. It is remarkable that it comes from a scholar who has taught generations of researchers the importance of precision and exactitude in research which is the foundation of all academic work. THe aforementioned remark, colored by a preconceived bias of his, has unfortunately placed Dr. Eqbal Ahmad in the companionship of right-wing radicals, as is apparent from the stance taken by one of them at 5:00 at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e335NjG0h2o