There is no doubt that last week's Islamo-fascism Awareness campaign put on by the College Republicans raised awareness, but probably not awareness about actual Islamo-fascism.

Many students seemed to take offense to the CRs' message on "Islamo-fascism," calling it hateful and even racist. While we at The Daily fully support an open political dialogue on campus, we do not support speech that is hateful or racist.

The outstanding question, then is: Was Islamo-fascism Awareness Week actually hateful or racist?

It's hard to say for certain without getting inside the minds of those who put on the event — despite the suspiciously eclectic mix of Islamic imagery used in Suicide Killers, the controversial movie shown by the CRs' in Smith Hall last Wednesday, the CRs' did state repeatedly that they were not intending to demean the whole of Islam.

That's nice, but even if the demonstration was not fundamentally hateful or racist, the majority of students seemed to have perceived it that way. In other words, we appreciate the un-hateful and unbigoted intent the CRs may have had, but cannot overlook the fact that this intent was evidently obscured to most by their message.

The message, if you missed it, was that Islamic terrorists are everywhere, the Iraq War is justifiable and global warming isn't that big of a deal.

The CRs even brought in a real live conservative talk-show host to corroborate the message (Michael Medved) who claims that the War on Terror is "World War IV" (we would have guessed "The United States vs. Islamic Fascists War").

Ultimately, for all their efforts, what the CRs seem to have done is raise awareness about the CRs — they're here (but not queer), and you're either with them or against them.

The awareness week didn't inspire dialogue about terrorism as much as it did inspire reaction to the loaded presentations made by supporters. We wouldn't expect any less from a campaign sponsored by David Horowitz, who claims "college campuses are the weak link in the War on Terrorism."

We would have guessed that "attacking Iraqis instead of real terrorists" was the weak link.