An advertisement in Monday’s issue of the Ohio State University (OSU) student newspaper the Lantern touched off a controversy pitting what critics allege was an anti-Muslim bias against the rights of individuals to voice their opinions freely.

The ad’s top line read, in bold letters, “Where Are They Now?” and then listed former members of the national campus group Muslim Student Association (MSA) who’ve faced allegations of ties to terrorism. After the list, the ad carried a picture for a pamphlet called “Muslim Hate Groups On Campus” by Daniel Greenfield, which is on sale for $3 (or $1 a piece in bulk orders) from the David Horowitz Freedom Center. “All 10 individuals listed in the ad appear to have been linked to terrorism by authorities,” reported the Columbus Dispatch, “but they have not all been convicted of a crime.” One OSU student told the Dispatch there may have been some “bad apples” among former members of the MSA, which has been around since 1963 and likely boasts sizable membership alumni rolls.

Greenfield is a fellow at the Freedom Center, which purchased the ad and whose website Frontpage Magazine reproduced the ad in a blogpost. Horowitz and the Freedom Center have faced accusations of Islamophobia in the past, as in the Center for American Progress’s “Fear, Inc.” report.

OSU students and even the paper itself reacted to Monday’s Lantern ad. Jana Al-Akhras, an 18-year-old OSU student and MSA member, told the Columbus Dispatch:

I am offended not only as a Muslim or as a general-body member of the MSA, but as a member of the OSU community. We do not stand for discrimination, hate or intolerance here.

I am extremely disappointed in The Lantern for allowing this ad to run. It was paid for. It is not an op-ed, and they had every right to deny it as hate speech.

A faculty adviser for the Lantern told the dispatch that “the ad did not violate the policy” that ads must not denigrate individuals or groups.

The staff of the Lantern, in an editorial published Tuesday, disavowed responsibility for the ad, saying many staffers were unaware it was in the paper until they picked up their own copies. The editorial went on:

Our staff found the ad to be incredibly offensive and ignorant. We do not agree with the content of the ad and we are not happy that so many of our readers were hurt by its content.

But we, as a staff, also hold the right to free speech near and dear to our hearts. Though we do not endorse or agree with the views in the ad, we do believe that Daniel Greenfield, the author of the pamphlet pictured in the ad, has a right to his opinions.

Another Muslim OSU student wrote Tuesday in a separate opinion piece on the Lantern’s website that “the majority of students overreacted over the ad.” Ayan Sheikh, a former Lantern editor who wrote that the “ad, without a doubt, is controversial and offensive to Muslims,” also cited the separation between the editorial content and the ad sales side of the paper, and said labeling the editorial staff “anti-Islam” was incorrect. Adding that Greenfield should enjoy the freedom of speech and lamenting the publicity for “his irrelevant and highly offensive $3 pamphlet,” Sheikh wrote: “If there’s someone we should all be mad at, it’s Daniel Greenfield who wrote the pamphlet, not The Lantern staff.”

American special forces raided into Somalia early this morning and rescued two aid workers, one American woman and one Danish man, and killed their captors, nine Somali pirates. President Obama reportedly authorized the raid on Monday and said in a statement after the operation: “This is yet another message to the world that the United States of America will stand strongly against any threats to our people.” And last night before his State of the Union address, the president appeared to congratulate Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on the raid’s success. Reuters reports:

Obama was overheard congratulating Panetta on the success of the operation as the president entered the U.S. House of Representatives chamber on Tuesday for his annual State of the Union speech.

Panetta had been at the White House, where he had monitored the progress of the operation, before the speech. The raid was still being wrapped up when the president spoke to him.

“Leon. Good job tonight. Good job tonight,” said Obama.

Watch it:

The American commandos who rescued the two aid workers this morning were, as the New York Times reports, “drawn from the same Navy commando unit that killed Osama bin Laden” — a point that highlights the president’s success in the face of threats to the security of the U.S. and its allies. Here are some examples since January 2009:

– TAKING OUT TERRORISTS: In addition to ordering the raids that killed bin Laden and al Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Alwaki, dozens of high level terrorists have been taken out under President Obama’s watch.

– ISRAEL’S CAIRO EMBASSY: Last September, demonstrators in Cairo, Egypt ransacked the Israeli embassy calling for the Jewish state’s ambassador to be expelled after Israeli security forces killed Egyptian soldiers. President Obama intervened with U.S. assets to assist in evacuating the Israeli embassy staff. “I would like to express my gratitude to the President of the United States, Barack Obama,” Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu said in a subsequent statement. “I asked for his help. This was a decisive and fateful moment. He said, ‘I will do everything I can.’ And so he did.”

– HOSTAGE RESCUE: The president’s first encounter with Somali pirates occurred just months after he took office. Then, Obama ordered Navy SEAL snipers to kill three pirates in order to free an American sea captain who had offered himself as a hostage to save his crew. “I want to be very clear that we are resolved to halt the rise of piracy in that region and to achieve that goal, we’re going to have to continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks,” Obama said after the sea captain had been freed.

Throughout the presidential campaign this year, Republicans regularly charge that Obama appeases America’s adversaries. “President Obama has adopted an appeasement strategy,” Mitt Romney said last month. The Daily Beast’s Andrew Sullivan recently ran through a number of false claims the GOP presidential candidates constantly recycle, including the appeasement charge, and concluded, “None of this is even faintly connected to reality.”

Indeed, as the president himself said last month: “Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22 other out of 30 top al Qaeda leaders who have been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement.”

Bill Gates issued an appeal to policymakers to support foreign aid that tackles public health and poverty challenges in the developing world. Gates, writing in the the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s annual letter today, highlighted the importance of foreign aid in global development and raising living standards in the world’s poorest countries.

The letter acknowledged that the global economic and political climate puts foreign aid expenditures under pressure, but warned that a cut in these funds could have severe implications for populations struggling to pull themselves out of poverty:

The world faces a clear choice. If we invest relatively modest amounts, many more poor farmers will be able to feed their families. If we don’t, one in seven people will continue living needlessly on the edge of starvation. My annual letter this year is an argument for making the choice to keep on helping extremely poor people build self-sufficiency.

Gates argues that investment in poor farmers can “increase their productivity so they can feed themselves and their families,” and “contribute to global food security.” The past fifty years has marked dramatic improvements in poverty reduction — global poverty levels have dropped from 40 percent to 15 percent — but Gates is concerned that the historic improvements could slow if funding for irrigation and agricultural research dry up:

We can be more innovative about delivering solutions that already exist to the farmers who need them. Knowledge about managing soil and tools like drip irrigation can help poor farmers grow more food today. We can also discover new approaches and create new tools to fundamentally transform farmers’ lives. But we won’t advance if we don’t continue to fund agricultural innovation, and I am very worried about where those funds will come from in the current economic and political climate.

The Gates Foundation — which has committed more than $25 billion [PDF] in grants since its inception in 1994 — has been an outspoken supporter of government funding of global public health and poverty reduction programs. Gates’s letter emphasized that development assistance programs “has a significant impact on people’s lives” and “modest investments in the poorest make a huge difference.”

Last night in his State of the Union address, President Obama outlined the successes of his policy against Iran. But an Associated Press “Fact Check” column of Obama’s speech said the president overstated his case of international diplomatic progress against Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. It failed, however, to look beyond the sanctions recently imposed on Iran to Obama’s long record of spearheading international action.

Speaking before the nation last night, Obama said:

And we will safeguard America’s own security against those who threaten our citizens, our friends, and our interests. Look at Iran. Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one. The regime is more isolated than ever before. Its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions. And as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent.

Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.

But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better. And if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.

Watch the video:

The AP highlighted Obama’s line about how the world “now stands as one,” and wrote:

THE FACTS: The world is still divided over how to deal with Iran’s disputed nuclear program, and even over whether the nuclear program is a problem at all.

It is true that the U.S., Europe and other nations have agreed to apply the strictest economic sanctions yet on Iran later this year. But the global sanctions net has holes, because some of Iran’s large oil trading partners won’t go along. China, a major purchaser of Iran’s crude, isn’t part of the new sanctions and, together with Russia, stopped the United Nations from applying similarly tough penalties.

The start of AP’s fact-check is partially accurate. For example, Russia, which opposes further sanctions, denies that there is even “some military component” to Iran’s nuclear program. However, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency concluded in its latest report: “While some of the activities identified…have civilian as well as military applications, others are specific to nuclear weapons.”

But consider China: While China, as the AP notes, opposes more sanctions and trades with Iran, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao said last week that China “adamantly opposes Iran developing and possessing nuclear weapons.”

Furthermore, focusing solely on the latest round of U.S. and European sanctions overlooks U.S.-led efforts in international and bi-lateral diplomacy. While Russia and China have indeed stopped the latest round of U.N. sanctions, in June 2010 the Obama administration spearheaded an effort to pass Security Council sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program that have proven effective in slowing its progress. Another Obama-led initiative created a U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, whose eventual report condemned Iranian rights abuses. Those strides in human rights impacted the nuclear program as well, with the recent cooling of relations between Iran and its sometime nuclear diplomacy interlocutor Brazil.

While the AP’s assertion that the world does not stand perfectly in line against Iran’s nuclear program holds some water, it’s understatement of U.S.-led international pressure and actions against Iran ignores the robust progress that’s been made since Obama took office.

Yesterday during a speech in Fort Myers, Florida, a protester interrupted Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign stump speech to press the now-GOP frontrunner on whether he would start a war with Iran as president:

Q: Are you going to send our children to Iran? … Are you going to send us to war in Iran?

GINGRICH: I hope not. That’s a legitimate question. My goal would be to apply the same strategy that Reagan, Thatcher and Pope John Paul II used to undermine and defeat the Soviet empire without a general war. But my goal would be to do everything we could to replace the Ahmadinejad dictatorship in a peaceful way using all the different tools that we have, tools that were used very effectively against the Soviet empire, which was a lot bigger and a lot more difficult challenge.

On the other hand, I will tell all of you, I think we have a very great reason to not want the Iranians to get nuclear weapons and I think they are a direct threat to our cities if they end up getting nuclear weapons.

Watch it:

While Gingrich says he hopes he doesn’t have to start a war with Iran, he has an odd way of showing it. Back in 2003, the former House speaker argued that the United States should develop and use nuclear bunker busters against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “This would be a weapon designed to be used,” he wrote in a 2003 USA Today op-ed. “It would not simply be a weapon of deterrence, as current nuclear weapons are.”

IAEA director general Yukiya Amano recently issued a warning about Iran’s nuclear program. “What we know suggests the development of nuclear weapons,” he said. And the U.N. nuclear watchdog is heading to Iran at the end of the month to seek answers on its nuclear program’s military dimension.

While Iran’s nuclear program is a serious concern, Republicans on the campaign trail, including Gingrich, focus on war, rather than diplomacy, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. “I agree entirely with Governor Romney,” Gingrich said in a recent debate referring to Romney’s assertion that he’d use military action to stop Iran’s nuclear program. “If in the end, despite all of those things, the dictatorship persists, you have to take whatever steps are necessary to break its capacity to have a nuclear weapon,” he said.