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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,columbia university,ny,iran president We Don’t Have Homosexuals Like In Your Country
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Reminds me of Comical Ali
Full Transcript of Ahmadinejads visit to Columbia University here
Yes, you do.
Do they let all the folks who speak there, say prayers to Allah, before the main event??
the president of Columbian U, had this to blabber, in his introduction.."It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open the public forum to their voices. To hold otherwise would make vigorous debate impossible." At least the booing members of the audience had a clue...Columbia has made a mistake-
I had noticed, in the past few weeks, quite a bit of pro Ahmadinejad articles out there. I'm not seeing it so much now.
That said - if people think this guy is such a fruitloop - invite him to the party. If you're right, he'll prove it. Everytime.
I thought the introduction by Lee Bollinger, the university president of Columbia was appalling, calling him a "petty and cruel dictator" when the University itself invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak. To which he replied:
"In Iran, tradition requires when you invite a person to be a speaker, we actually respect our students enough to allow them to make their own judgment, and don’t think it’s necessary before the speech is even given to come in with a series of complaints to provide vaccination to the students and faculty."
While we sit and laugh at his lunacy regarding gay people, I am glad we are allowed to make our own judgments rather then sitting here and reading the constant war drumming about a military strike against Iran which sounds so much like the fear mongering and lies fed to us in the run up to Iraq.
The most important thing is that he reiterated that Iran is pursuing peaceful nuclear power acquisition, a point that is supported by the IAEA. Yet in the West we have constant allusion that they are researching nuclear weapons or attacking US forces covertly. The US has branded the Iran Republican guard as a terrorist organization, the fleet is in the Persian gulf. It's like the US Administration is just itching for an excuse to expand the war into Iran.
I mean don't take my word for it. Heres the American Thinker:
"Now for the good news. All the damaging consequences of all the blunders the President has committed to date in Iraq are reversible in 48- to 72-hours - the time it will take to destroy Iran's fragile nuclear supply chain from the air. And since the job gets done using mostly stand-off weapons and stealth bombers, not one American soldier, sailor or airman need suffer as much as a bruised foot.
Let's look downstream the day after and observe how the world has changed.
First and foremost, there's this prospective fait accompli -- and it changes everything. The Iranians are no longer a nuclear threat, and won't be again for at least another decade, and even that assumes the strategic and diplomatic situation reverts to the status quo ante and they'll just be able to pick up and rebuild as they would after an earthquake. Not possible.
Next, the Iranians would do nothing -- bupkes. They don't attack Israel, they don't choke off the world's oil supply, they do not send hit squads to the United States, there is no "war" in the conventional sense of attack counterattack. Iran already has its hands full without inviting more trouble. Its leaders would be reeling from the initial US attack and they would know our forces are in position to strike again if Iran provokes us or our allies. They would stand before mankind with their pants around their ankles, dazed, bleeding, crying, reduced to bloviating from mosques in Teheran and pounding their fists on desks at the UN. The lifelines they throw to the Iraqi insurgents, Hezbollah and Syria would begin to dry up, as would the lifelines the double-dealing Europeans have been throwing to Iran. Maybe the Mullahs would lose control.
Miracles would be seen here at home. Democratic politicians are dumbstruck, silent for a week. With one swing of his mighty bat, the President has hit a dramatic walk-off homerun. He goes from goat to national hero overnight. The elections in November are a formality. Republicans keep the White House and recapture both houses of Congress. Hillary is elected president - of the Chappaqua PTA.
[...]
Am I dreaming? I don't think so. Being too sensible is probably more like it. In any event, I am not creating anything original here. Combine Bush's recent statements with those of the President of France and it's not hard to see where this is heading. Mr. Bush still has time to put America back on the offensive again. But with only a little more than a year left in his term he has no time to lose. Rarely does history provide a failed wartime leader with such a golden opportunity for salvation.
Carpe diem, Mr. President. The chicken pita is on me."
I mean WTF?
And the Holocost thing. All he said was that people should be allowed to question how some of it happened. 6 million dead jews is a very questionable number, but people in Europe can be jailed for questioning it? Jailed?? Does that seem a bit odd to anyone?
You've seen this media demonizing so many times before and fell for it every time, WHY can't you resist? How many more times can you take a mouth full of the corporate media shit sandwich they keep feeding you? They said his approval rating was 20% in Iran, how the hell do they know?? Remember they said Chaves's rating was 20% too, just one year before he won another election in an 80% landslide.
Maybe the neocons are right. Maybe America can't function unless the sheep have a clear enemy with a name and a face, real or imagined.
P.S.
I'm personally adamantly against any government based on religious beliefs, but at least Iran isn't cutting up the genitalia of their women. In case you didn't hear, Iranian women can and do hold political positions.
Yes, this section was taken out of context - but damn, the implied meaning behind that statement should not be trivialized. Try this link on for size.
As far as the gay thing, I'm with you even without clicking that link. It's common sense that he would play down or outright deny the existence of gays in Iran, being that it is so offensive to their way. I think, though, that when he said they didn't have gays like we do, he meant they don't have visible gay communities and gay parades and gay bars and the one gay per sitcom rule etc.
My beef is that this was probably the only thing to take universal offense to in that speech and everyones leeching to it like he didn't say anything else. His entire rant is ignored and one answer in the q/a period gets the headlines. It's a typical hype diversion.
so he can hear what he is really saying, and then change it around according to his agenda?
otherwise he would not have to be a real interpreter at all but could just handle it like in this case with osama
If you want to sell out your intellectual integrity to the likes of Hugo Chavez, then so be it. But keep your hero worship of that thug and his nascent dictatorship to yourself. You'll give the rest of us on the left a bad name.
Enzoblue said: "No, they don't want to hear what he's really saying because the sheep might realize he's reasonable human being. Osama wants to kill us and Ahmadinejad wants to be our greatest ally..."
First of all, I have my doubts that anyone who is a fundamentalist muslim is a reasonable person. That doesn't mean he can't be prudent given what he takes to be the truth, but you shouldn't confuse the two. Second, your comment that he wants to be the "greatest ally" of the US is absurd on its face. I'll await the large amount of credible evidence you need to adduce to justify this extraordinary claim. Finally, quit insisting that the rest of us are "sheep," and that we need to "wake up." Your incredible arrogance notwithstanding, you are no more enlightened than anyone else. This is demonstated by--among other things--your "theory" about the interpreter (I'm waiting for evidence on that one, too).
Enzoblue brought up some good points - I'm curious to hear what Juan Cole has to say about it.
Regarding Hugo Chavez - maybe he's no angel, true, but he's a damned sight better than the crooks and liars they had in there before, the ones who are still there manipulating the media (like here in the USA), the rich who will never be rich enough and who want to privatize everything.
I’m not sure how fluent Cole’s Persian is, but I tend to trust most of his interpretations regarding the Middle East.
Just an FYI.
I do agree that as serious as this charge is, it is important to weigh the whole of what Ahmadinejad was saying, and that is difficult to do when left to the devices of American mainstream media.
I retract the best allies statement, he actually said "one of it's [America's] best friends" - so there's the "large amount of credible evidence" such that it is. Our administration wants us to hate Iran no matter what they do, so extending the hand of friendship like adults is out of the question, especially now that the sheep have taken root against him. Hell, he could solve world hunger and find a cure for cancer and they would still protest if he came to town.
The ultimate thing he could do would be to step aside and let a fresh new face take over. Someone who could win the hearts and minds of sheeple. If he could do that, it would prove he's got nothing but his countries interest in mind and would be beyond reproach in the international scene.
But America won't settle for anyone less than a puppet a la Shah Pahlavi that can subject his nation to the will of corporate interests here. So he presses on like it's us or them.. which it probably is, because he has no way out other than subjugation. America has zero concern for what the Iranian people want because they wanted Ahmadinejad. America wants democracy as long as it benefits them period. They've bombed democracies they didn't like before.
As far as the bad translator thing, I just think I'm right based on what went on. They've tripped him up as much as they could every step of the way, why would they give him the benefit of a pro translator? They suddenly decided to make a kind gesture or something? Nawww
Mychro: They cheered him too, you'd know that if you watched the speech instead of the corporate media's sheep-ready news clips.
He made some salient points in his UN speech; his two bones to pick with the US were how unclear their final goal is in Operation Iraqi Freedom and their obstruction of Iran nuclear power plants. He mentions that the US told the world we were going in for WMD's, to topple a dictator, and to provide open elections,... so why is the US still there. He mentions that because of their shared history and religion millions of Iranians continue to make religious pilgrimage into neighboring Iraq, and many of his people have died in these same blasts that are killing Iraqis.
Anyhow, there are plenty of former and current politicians who grew up in a culture unaccepting of homosexuality and made up their minds on the topic. Ron Paul is clearly no bastion for gay rights, for instance.
"I'd like to introduce you to my military leader now, Major Denial"
-- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad