BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia

Subject: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 08:20 PM

Opinions? My feelings are that this presents a marvelous opportunity for Columbia to instruct students on proper behaviour. It's fairly simple: Picketing is fine, but you can't keep others from attending. Preventing the speaker from speaking is verboten. Expressions of approval or disapproval are limited to previous rule. Students who violate rules face suspension or expulsion.

And these should apply whether the speaker is Ahmadinejad or Cheney.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 08:56 PM

Here's an extraordinary little snippet of news from today's Yahoo headlines and news stuff:

"Even before leaving Iran, though, Ahmadinejad has already caused a stir in New York. His request to lay a wreath at the World Trade Center site was denied, and protests are planned outside the UN building and at Columbia University."

That is bizarre. How can anyone be denied the gesture of laying a wreath at the 911 site???? Who will protest that?

They are denying it because they cannot bear to allow Mr Ahmandinejad to publicly do anything that would detract from his present image as the USA's official demonic bad guy and threat to the world.

In other words, it would be detrimental to present Bush administration propaganda efforts which are aimed at increasing tension between Iran and the USA, not decreasing it.

God forbid that Ahmadinejad or any other chosen "evil" enemy should ever be allowed to publicly do anything that might cause an improvement in relations...

No, he must be forever depicted as gleefully chuckling over the 3,000 American civilians who died on 911. That's what a bad guy would do, right? He certainly cannot be allowed to lay a wreath!

It wouldn't look right.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 09:04 PM

It's not a matter of right or wrong...It would cause protests and disruptions like have seldom been seen... by those who THINK it's right or wrong.

"Sorry, Mr. Ahmadinejad, but we can't afford to cordon off the entire area and pay 1500 cops ovetime, so you can have a photo-op."

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 09:07 PM

Yes, Bill, I see your point. Existing impressions of good and evil, no matter how knee-jerk they are, must not be tampered with.

But really...I do see your point. And of course Ahmadinejad would be using it for his own purposes...as a photo-op.

There's a lot of cynicism at play on both sides of that equation, I'm afraid.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 09:24 PM

Here's what I would do, Bill, if I were the president of the USA.

I would say, "Mr Ahmadinejad, that is a fine gesture on your part, and one that I and all Americans can appreciate. Therefore, I am going to go WITH you to the 911 site and we will both lay down wreaths together in memory of the innocent people who died on 911. I will ensure that proper security is provided. It is my hope that this will serve as a springboard that can lead to new and substantive negotiations to ease the differences between our nations and defuse the atmosphere of mutual distrust that has existed between us ever since 1979."

Both sides would get their photo-op. Security would be provided. A door would be opened at least a crack toward something positive for a change.

What a revolutionary notion!

I would do that, because I don't want a war with Iran.

But if one does want a war with Iran, then one doesn't consider doing any such thing...right? Enemies must forever remain enemies when one wants a war.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Alba
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 09:45 PM

Little Hawk..... applause
My Best Wishes to you
Jude

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 10:17 PM

I don't think the US wants a war with Iran. We were forced into the mess in Iraq

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 10:19 PM

...by politicians who told the military "do it." The US military is currently stretched so thin that it couldn't support a war with a country as advanced as Iran and continue in Iraq (not to mention Afghanistan). If somebody wants to fight Iran, let France do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 10:20 PM

Let Iraq do it. It worked before!

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: GUEST,Tom
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 11:30 PM

Let that little terd from Iran go to ground zero, on his way there lets blow his convoy up with some of the IED's from Iran, that have killed american troops in Iraq. Maybe if you dont like that, lets storm his building at the UN in New York and take him hostage for over a year. You know, like his college friends did when they stormed our embassy in the 1970's. I'm just kidding I'm sure he can talk some sense to the stoned students and get them to also buy into his anti Jewish bullshit. Nice going GWB letting that Piece of Shit in our country....

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 03:13 AM

Never trust a man who would rather fight than talk first and then maybe fight later...when and IF it's truly necessary. Such men are killers at heart, and killers can't be trusted, no matter what side of the line they stand on.

Those who are afraid to have a dialogue with their temporary enemy...and a study of history will show you that all enemies are temporary...those who are afraid of dialogue with their "enemy" secretly fear that they will lose the chance to continue hating him and lose the chance to one day kill him...that being what they really, really long to do. They guard their hatred like a dragon guards his golden hoard. They detest anyone who speaks for peace or compromise, because it might take away their enjoyment of their hatred. It might take away their chance to kill.

Do you know what the USA did to Iran, starting in the 1950's...long before their 1979 revolution, Tom? Maybe you don't, but they do. Do you know what the USA got Iraq to do to Iran for 8 years in the 80's? Maybe you don't, but they do. The blood of far more than 3,000 Iranians is on USA hands. Figure the blood of at least several hundred thousand Iranians, maybe a million of them, and you're beginning to get the picture. Figure the oppression of an entire society for decades by means of US-provided money and arms under a US-backed dictator and you're beginning to get the picture.

That's why they had that Islamic revolution in 1979, and why they were so angry at the USA. There would have been no such Islamic revolution had the USA not sewn the field for it to occur. There would also be no Al-Queda had the USA not sought out and trained Osama Bin Laden's religious fanatics in the 80's, and formed them into the Mujahedin in order to kill Russians for the USA in Afghanistan. Reagan's people did that. They gave birth to what is now Al-Queda. They gave birth to what is now the Taliban. And they did it to kill Russians and bankrupt the Soviets. They cared not what would happen afterward, although there were sensible people in the Islamic world who warned them that they were creating "a Frankenstein monster" when they trained those Mujahedin.

The USA is entirely the author of its own troubles in regard to the present confrontations with radical Islam...but you need a memory more than 6 or 7 years long to figure that out...

And the more "reality" TV and empty crap like that which you watch, the shorter your memory gets, right?

Have pity on a society (our North American society) in which the young people commonly use the word "history" to describe things which don't matter to anyone anymore. The past matters tremendously. It made the situations we are now faced with, and if you don't understand it or even remember it, you're lost.

The U.N., Tom, is NOT in "your country". The U.N. is international territory, and you cannot stop ANYONE in the world from visiting the U.N. because it is NOT under American jurisdiction or control. You are a guest of the WORLD when you enter the U.N.

(They never should've put it inside the USA in the first place. They should have put it inside Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden or some other relatively small, neutral, and modest country that does not imagine itself to be the Boss and Commander of the entire world and the Sword in the Right Hand of God.)

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 07:46 AM

I suppose it'd be too much to hope for that this might be a way of putting the record straight, and undoing some of the lies and distortions about some of the stuff the man is supposed to have said in the past, and didn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: GUEST,TOM
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 10:32 AM

Thanks for the history lesson chicken hawk. I do know what we did to Iran in order to get oil companies over there to get rich, and cheap oil. Could we have talked down Germany in the the late 30's and early 40's, what about Japan. If you let some guy go around and say crazy shit like Jews lied about dying in ovens in WW2,. Lets leave the middle east alone and pull out everybody thats american. I'm sure with billions and billions dollars from oil for a least the next 50 years that they will not get nukes and not fight wars. To think we can all just bury our heads in the sand and things wont be f**ked up is weak and just a pipe dream..smoke another one bro....

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 10:42 AM

well...Im glad THAT'S clarified!

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: pdq
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 10:44 AM

Little Hawk:

Your last post is one of the worst piles of crap in the history of Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: jacqui.c
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 11:01 AM

Well said Little Hawk.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: pdq
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 11:10 AM

"Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was the shah of Iran from 1941 to 1979, except for a brief period in 1953 when Prime Minister Muhammed Mosaddeq overthrew him. Mosaddeq was in turn overthrown with assistance from the U.S., and the shah was returned to power as a U.S. ally. He greatly modernized Iran and established social reforms, many of which angered fundamentalist religious leaders. In 1979 the religious opposition, lead by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, drove the shah into exile. Khomeini sought the capture of the shah, and when it was learned that he had been admitted into the United States for medical treatment, Iran's response was the start of the hostage crisis at the U.S. embassy in Teheran. After dismissal from the hospital the Shah fled to Panama, then Egypt. He died on July 27, 1980, at the age of 60."

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Jeri
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 11:21 AM

I'm glad he's going to speak. He may be as nasty as has been reported, but the speech is going to be in his own words, not those filtered through an interpreter who possibly spun it, reported by somebody in the media who possibly spun it and reacted to by a government who undoubtedly spun it because they reall seem to be trying very hard to find a reason to go blow something up in Iran.

No, I wouldn't trust what he had to say, but I'd listen because I definitely don't trust the US government. I'm afraid he might not sound like the monster some people keep telling us he is. I think that's what they're really worried about - people hearing him without the proper spin being added.

He might be a truly evil person, I don't know. If he is, it won't be difficult for the students at Colombia to figure it out. A few of them might be smarter than those who want to stop them from hearing Ahmadinejad.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: jacqui.c
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 11:24 AM

It's a bit like inviting your kid's seemingly unsuitable partner round for a family meal. That can end up with opening eyes on both sides and I think that will be the case here.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 11:26 AM

NEVER prevent someone you consider an enemy or a potential enemy a chance to speak. You might learn something that can help you later, should fighting become necessary and unavoidable. If nothing else the hot air will help reduce the heating bill.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 11:27 AM

By the way, the current regime in Iran wouldn't be in there if Bush had kept his mouth shut just before the election. Iran was leaning towards the moderates before that.

And if you doubt me, check it out.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: pdq
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 11:35 AM

"Nice going GWB letting that Piece of Shit in our country..."

As long as the UN building is located in the United States, every piece of crap on the world stage will be welcomed into the US. George W. Bush has done nothing to prevent or encourage his speaking here.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Big Mick
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 11:46 AM

Hey folks, why would you be afraid of letting "that Piece of Shit" in our country? The essence of a free society is the airing of all points of view and letting them stand or fail on their merits. An important aspect of that is trusting the citizenry enough to be able to discern the rightness or wrongness of someone's agenda. My guess is Ahmadinejad will speak, he will present his case slanted in a way that will make it appear legitimate, this will spawn debate and examination, and in the long run the majority of these students will get it right.

Only little people who are unsure of the rightness of their positions would be afraid of "every piece of crap on the world stage" speaking here.

And while he is here, Ahmadinejad should stop by the White House and kiss GWB on the lips. This is because Rapaire is right on, Bush put this man in power by attempting to meddle in the electoral process of Iran.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 12:19 PM

"NEVER prevent someone you consider an enemy or a potential enemy a chance to speak. You might learn something that can help you later..."

Yes, indeed! About 40 years ago, my university had George Lincoln Rockwell as a speaker. I went, curious to hear the spewer or the worst kinds of hate in HIS own words. I was quite appalled....then I was extremely appalled as he got round after round of applause & cheers from a fairly large section of the audience.

What I learned was, be VERY careful of who you speak to and what you say to the people around you everyday until you know them, for if they are the sort that would cheer a Nazi, they might do other things.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 12:58 PM

But if they are the sort that might cheer a Nazi it might be as well to find that out, wouldn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 02:55 PM

Rapaire said it perfectly: "NEVER prevent someone you consider an enemy or a potential enemy a chance to speak. You might learn something that can help you later, should fighting become necessary and unavoidable."

That was my point, my whole point, and nothing but my point.

pdq - Thanks, pal. Your enthusiastic endorsement is what I live for when it comes to political matters. ;-) I do not share your interpretation of the political history of Dr Mossadegh and the Shah...nor do most Iranians. Mossadegh was sacrificed upon the altar of corporate profit...just like Allende and a great many others.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: pdq
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 03:04 PM

At least get one thing right, Birdfeathers: the Pahlavi monarchy was installed in 1925 with Shah Reza Pahlavi who ruled until 1941. His son, the man we usually call Shah, ruled from 1941 to 1979. He was not installed in 1953 by the CIA and evil British oil barrons as you have claimed time after time.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 03:08 PM

TP-AJAX

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 03:56 PM

Re-installed is more the word, if we're being a bit pedantic. Put back in power in a putsch that destroyed a democratic government that was seen as inconvenient for the USA and the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 04:58 PM

He was re-installed, pdq, after a very progressive parliamentary government that was reforming the country got brought down by the CIA, at which point those reforms were ended. The CIA did it on behalf of the international oil industry...as an extension of US-British policy. They did it for money. (and power...but money IS power)

Read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" for the full story of the whole sorry affair by a man who was on the inside at the time.

Another incipient Third World democracy with nationalistic ideals was abruptly crushed by the big hand of corporate commerce, and replaced with the rule of a compliant autocrat.

Your government doesn't really run your society at all, pdq, it serves as a handmaiden to those who do run your society: Mega-Corporations. You live under a gigantic corporate oligarchy...and matter of fact, so do I. It controls Canada too. Its only purpose is to maximize profit. It will use you if you are compliant, it will crush you like a bug if you're not. The best you can hope for is that you don't get in its way.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 05:38 PM

Iran is a developing country, and feeling its oats. A little careful diplomacy and the right kind of aid might do much to increase secularization, which many Iranians want, and at the same time decrease emphasis on militarization.

Shias in Iran are in the majority. Thousands cross over into Iraq to worship at the shrines of their religion. The part of Iraq that is Shia would be more stable under Iranian control.
Syria is mostly Sunni, the Iraqi Sunni area belong with them.

The Kurds could form a legimitate nation, if the Turks (and Russians) would cooperate to mutual advantage and not threaten war.

Oh, well- too much to hope for.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 10:45 PM

Bill D-
The incident you described may not have enlightened you about Mr. Rockwell, but I suspect it provided some worthwhile insights about the people around you. All in all, probably a good learning experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: mg
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 11:13 PM

I would let him go and lay a wreath with very high security and US dignitaries as well, and not a huge amount of publicity. I don't see what it can hurt. He might be compartmentalized and OK in some areas. I don't know. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 12:20 AM

Another cost of free speech:

In an interview with The New York Sun, the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, said lawmakers, outraged over Columbia's insistence on allowing the Iranian president to speak at its World Leaders Forum, would consider reducing capital aid and other financial assistance to the school.

Well, that'll show them, for sure! Nah, nah...we're going to take away your allowance if you talk to him! Jaysus.

Jeri, me, too. Rapaire, well put.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: jacqui.c
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 08:34 AM

Anyone see him on 60 minutes last night? Interesting.

Scary thing was, some of the stuff he was saying we agreed with.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 11:49 AM

"I would say, "Mr Ahmadinejad, that is a fine gesture on your part, and one that I and all Americans can appreciate. Therefore, I am going to go WITH you to the 911 site and we will both lay down wreaths together in memory of the innocent people who died on 911."

          LH - I suspect that's what FDR would have said too. It only goes to point out the degeneration of leadership in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 01:41 PM

Free speech- IF they agree with you---or was that another thread?

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 01:55 PM

One gesture which wouldn't do any harm would be for the USA to formally apologise for the shooting down on July 3rd 1988 of a civilian Iranian passenger jet flying in a commercial air corridor at 17,000 feet, resulting in the death of everyone on board, 290 people.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 02:53 PM

Point of fact, LH:

How many people in Iran were killed by the "evil" shah ( or his secret ploice) during his TOTAL reign?

How many Iranians were killed by the fundamentalists in the first YEAR that they controlled Iran?

When you have those numbers, then talk to me about Iranian lives...

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 03:19 PM

BB-
You don't have to like, approve of or endorse someone in order to allow him to speak.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 03:46 PM

I'm with Dick Greenhaus on this one. Academia should be a bastion of free speech.The real test of free speech is allowing viewpoints that are repugnant to you. Ahmedinejad's views are repugnant to me, but if I was at Columbia, it would be an opportunity to hear him in person, and to possibly pose challenging questions to him (and I hope Columbia is planning Q&A after his talk). Remember, Students and community members in a town in (Utah, I think)) tried to prevent Michael Moore from speaking, arguing that his views were totally repugnant to the community, and that college fees should not go to him for a speaker's fee. Students supporting free speech won the battle, and he gave his speech.

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 03:54 PM

Just remembered the title of the documentary about Michael Moore and the controversy over his invitation to speak at a college: "This Divided State." Well worth seeing! Check your local library. Also available from Amazon.com. It's a lesson in the meanings of free speech and academic freedom.

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 04:15 PM

Reading the press releases, it seems to me like the president of the university came off like an idiot.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 06:42 PM

"Do you know what the USA got Iraq to do to Iran for 8 years in the 80's?" - Little Hawk

Silliest question that I have ever seen posed. The premise that the USA got Iraq to do anything to Iran in the years 1980 to 1988 is historically and factually incorrect. Maybe Little hawk could enlighten us as to what channel of communication was used to achieve what he claimed?

"There would also be no Al-Queda had the USA not sought out and trained Osama Bin Laden's religious fanatics in the 80's, and formed them into the Mujahedin in order to kill Russians for the USA in Afghanistan. Reagan's people did that. They gave birth to what is now Al-Queda. They gave birth to what is now the Taliban. And they did it to kill Russians and bankrupt the Soviets." - Little Hawk

Left wing myth, exploded by the senior officer in the Pakistani ISI who did seek them out, supplied and trained them, oh some of it was done with American cash, as well as more from Saudi Arabia, Republic of China and few other interesting sources including Iran. As previously stated some American cash filtered through Pakistan to the Mujahideen but not to Al-Qaeda, that was the brain child of:

"A wealthy Saudi named Osama bin Laden was a prominent organizer and financier of an all Arab islamist group of foreign volunteers; his Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK) funnelled money, arms, and Muslim fighters from around the world into Afghanistan, with the assistance and support of the Saudi and Pakistani governments. In 1988, bin Laden broke away from the MAK and formed Al-Qaeda."

Mega-Corporations eh? Spend too much of your time with your nose in comic books LH, try actually looking at history and studying it as it should be studied, you only ever view anything from one perspective, coloured by your own biased view.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 06:48 PM

I have no problem with them inviting him to speak- but how about letting ROTC back on campus? Or are you saying that only SOME have freedom to speak???

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: jeffp
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 06:54 PM

Just wondering. Was Ahmadinejad recruiting for the Iranian military?

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 06:56 PM

"you only ever view anything from one perspective, coloured by your own biased view"

Yes indeed! A lovely statement that accurately describes virtually everyone one this site, Teribus, yourself included. Matter of fact, it accurately describes virtually every person that presently inhabits the globe. People are biased. I've never met anyone yet who wasn't. Biased people view things from one perspective, and they only investigate alternative perspectives in order to find some flaws in them that they can gleefully pounce on and fulminate about to anyone willing to listen.

We don't agree about politics, Teribus. We never will. You would know why if you were inclined toward some form of useful introspection and self-criticism instead of merely addicted to verbal attack. Don't get too worked up over the fact that we don't agree, because it can only cause you unnecessary stress. Just enjoy your beliefs, my good man, revel in them, and I shall do the same regarding mine. I know your views aren't gonna change anything. I know mine aren't going to either. The world will keep turning regardless, and presently we'll both be dead, and someone else will be loudly arguing about it in our places.

Bla. Bla. Bla. and more Bla. But what fun, eh? ;-) It beats playing darts and watching telly, in my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 07:44 PM

"You exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," Bollinger declared.

"Frankly, and in all candor, Mr. President, I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions," Bollinger said, as protesters demonstrated outside the hall.

This, m9ind you, was an introductionIn my initial post, I suggested that Columbia could do well to teach its studens some basic good manners. I was premature. Somebody should teach Columbia some basic good manners. And I hold no brief for Ahmadinejad.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 08:12 PM

Evidently Bollinger was doing his utmost to try to ensure that the questions would not be answered.

Very much in the inquisitorial tradition of "Have you stopped beating your wife? Answer Yes or No!"

Incidentally, is he anything to do with the champagne of the same name? (Thread drift, I know...)

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 08:21 PM

Well, I was disgusted by the remarks made by the president of Columbia... He showed no grace, he was rude and he represented all that the rest of the world sees as American arrogance...

He should have have either said nothin' or should have shown more grace...

This was another golden opportuntiy that America thought was a fine time to show its ass...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 08:43 PM

'"Ahmadinejad said more research is needed on the Holocaust, calling it ``a historical event that has become the root, the cause of many heavy catastrophes in the region in this time and age.''

He said his main point was that academics should be allowed to continue their inquiries as they do in other fields.

``I am not saying that it didn't happen at all,'' he said. ``This is not that judgment that I am passing here.

``My first question was if, given that the Holocaust is a present reality of our time, a history that occurred, why is there not sufficient research that can approach the topic from different perspectives?'' Ahmadinejad said.'



Posted without comment (but I reserve the right to return and say a few words when those who post here and agree with Ahmadinejad come on the thread).

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 08:49 PM

Perhaps he feels that the tragic and undeniably awful events of the Holocaust have been used since 1945 as emotional fuel to precipitate further destructive and tragic events in other places. If he does feel so, I would have to agree.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 08:50 PM

Yeah, right!

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 08:51 PM

"``In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country,'' Ahmadinejad said in response to a question about why homosexuals face severe punishments. ``In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it.'' "

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 08:52 PM

"Ahmadinejad said women in Iran ``enjoy the highest levels of freedom,'' when watchdog groups such as New York-based Human Rights Watch have accused Iranian authorities of jailing women's rights activists. "

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 08:57 PM

They probably have a few homosexuals in Iran...but he just hasn't met them yet, that's all. ;-) And I doubt that he will, either...at least not knowingly.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 09:00 PM

It's certainly proper to disagree with him. Or think he's evil. Or agree with hi (if you're sufficiently crazy). My point is that if you stifle his oratory, you have nothing valid to argue or agree with. And I'm thoroughly ashamed (not for the first time) of my old Alma Mater.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 09:05 PM

I agree, Dick.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 09:21 PM

" My point is that if you stifle his oratory, you have nothing valid to argue or agree with. "

You mean, like when the students drove out the representative ( invited!) from the Minutemen ( anti-illegal immigration) or disinvited him the next year???


I still say that

1. They had every right to have Ahmadinejad speak.

2. Columbia should lose all federal and state funding for their failure to allow ROTC and other non-liberal viewpoints to be presented on campus.


"freedom of speech does not protect speech you like, it protects speech you hate."

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 09:25 PM

Let's say that someone wanted to preserve as much fear and hostility as possible in their own public with regards to another party. In that case they would not want to have any public dialogue with that other party. They would want to stifle all possibility of such dialogue...in case the dialogue might lead in some positive direction.

This is why dictators and demagogues the world over don't want an open public dialogue with any of their chosen enemies. It might interfere with their promoting and maintaining a state of fear and crisis at home.

"If you stifle his oratory, you have nothing valid to argue or agree with."

Correct. Of course if someone wants nothing valid to argue or agree with...but just wants an official "bad guy" for people to vent hatred upon...then the obvious solution is: stifle his oratory, refuse to engage in dialogue with him or his underlings, when you report what he says only repeat a fragment of it preferably out of context, whatever fragment can be made to look most evil.

And that, my friends, is standard propaganda technique just about everywhere. The Bush administration does it. I bet Ahmadinejad does it too, back in Iran.

The rule is...repeat nothing the official "bad guy" says, unless it is something that can be made to look evil, sneaky, or duplicitous.

Hmmm. Kind of sounds like what happens on this forum with people who attack and nitpick the statements of their political opponents, doesn't it? ;-) From the halls of power to the peanut gallery, the tactics of ill will are much the same.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 09:31 PM

By the way, I agree wholeheartedly with BB...let's allow ROTC and other non-liberal viewpoints to be presented on campus at Columbia. By all means. Why not? Bring 'em all to Columbia. Bring Dick Cheney too. And Pat Robertson. And Anne Coulter. Should be fun.

Okay? Okay! Justice will be done at Columbia.

Now let's get back to Mr Ahmadinejad, shall we?

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Alba
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 10:11 PM

Thing is a lot of people in this Country already get to hear the views of the ROTC and other non-liberal Folks. Personally I have heard enough from Bush, Cheney and Coulter. There are many outlets available for those people's opinions to be aired in this Country.

I wish that Bollinger hadn't made an ass of himself today though but he did ....

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 10:28 PM

I haven't read this thread yet, I'm just jumping to the bottom to say I'm appalled at the bad manners of the Columbia community. Ahmadinejad stuck it out and spoke, despite the tirade visited upon him. If you invite someone to speak, then listen to what he has to say. All of those preconceived notions were put out on display, notions largely fed by a spotty, biased, U.S. media. The introduction could have been informative and gracious. This one wasn't. It's embarrassing.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 10:43 PM

The Board of Trustees (or whatever the supervisory body of Columbia University is called) should demand the resignation of their president. As Alba says, an ass.
Almadinejad handled himself well, never losing his temper. We may not agree with him, but he is tempering the excesses of the extreme fundamentalists.
A middle class is growing. Not democracy as we know it but more representative than some governments in the area.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 10:52 PM

beardedbruce, I'm not sure if your ROTC question is in reference to my post defending free speech, or someone else's, but in any case, for whatever it's worth, I am opposed to banning ROTC from campuses.

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 05:28 AM

Gay people, even teens, face execution in Iran today.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Mr Happy
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 07:40 AM

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tACSopIZVdk

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: John Hardly
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 08:03 AM

I daily log on here and read the most vile language in the English language regularly used to describe George Bush, both as president and as a person.

...and yet this man who wishes to annihilate Israel and says that the holocaust didn't happen....him you can sympathize with.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Alba
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 08:54 AM

Sympathy for Ahmadinejad?.. I see none here but then that would depends on how one chooses to interpret some of the posts on this thread

Embarrassment at the behavior of an Academic President of a well respected Campus during his pseudo introduction to an 'invited' speaker?... some may be and some may not be. All down to each person's idea of decorum I suppose

Are some people Interested to hear what Ahmadinejad's answers are to the questions asked? ...Speaking strictly for myself, I believe it would be foolish not to want to know what this person had to say..
especially his rhetoric regarding the Holocaust and Israel

I thought that Bollinger would most definetly come out of this with some measure of respect for daring to go against the majority and inviting and allowing Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia this time round. I say again, sadly, Bollinger came away looking like an ass. I do not however believe that Ahmadinejad came away with any sympathy. Academic respect perhaps for handling himself well under pressure ( like a President would when under verbal fire actually) but being seen as a sympathetic figure...hardly!

Today Bush speaks and then Ahmadinejad speaks at the UN.
I will be listening to both of their speeches.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Riginslinger
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 09:03 AM

Alba - I agree completely. It wouldn't be too surprising to hear a politician eager to impress voters to say the things Bollinger said. But for the president of a university with the status of Colombia to say those things was nothing short of embarrassing.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 09:38 AM

What protests? What bad manners? It never happened. There is no proof of protests and I deny it ever occured.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 10:15 AM

His treatment at the hands of Bollinger was deplorable. But once the rhetoric is washed away, Ahmadinejad is the head of a country with which the US might be at war in the future, and not understanding the guy who calls the shots is down-right stupid. He should not have been treated in the manner he was, no matter how disgusting his political views or world views. The unfortunate aspect to it all is that he'll return to Iran a hero, and that means the approach taken by Bollinger was nothing short of stupid. The Rolling Stones did a recording, the title of which rings a few bells: "Sympathy for the Devil." Yeah, right . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Riginslinger
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 10:17 AM

So then one begins to wonder, why is this guy the president of Columbia University?

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 10:23 AM

Better one should wonder why Ahmadinejad is the president of Iran.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: pdq
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 10:44 AM

"...why Ahmadinejad is the president of Iran..."

Jimmy Carter

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Riginslinger
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 10:44 AM

He's addicted to the ancient superstition of Islam. Other addicts elected him. The same reason GWB is the president of the US, only a different elixir.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: John Hardly
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 10:48 AM

Bollinger was an ass for speaking the truth and Ahmadinejad is a hero for lying?

It's a mixed-up, shook-up world here at the mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 10:55 AM

It wouldn't bother me one jot or tittle if Iran's president fell down the stairs and broke his neck. But Bollinger gave him the opportunity to come off looking the wounded set-upon visiting speaker. Bollinger was outsmarted. Next, the General Assembly will be outsmarted. I hope someone can keep Bush shut up. Between the two of them, (A and B), they could fuck up a one-car funeral. Keystone Cops without the humour.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: John Hardly
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 11:07 AM

The only way Ahmadinejad comes off as a hero is if one already believed his view of the world. There are a growing number of people who do agree with his view of the world. Obviously some of them here. But NOT calling them crazy in the name of being polite doesn't stop them or their cause. The world needs to be reminded from time to time that people of the stature of a President of one of our major Universities -- as liberal as his politics might be to the western world -- STILL does not buy into the nonsense that the holocaust did not happen, that women should be treated like shit, that gays should be executed, that......do I really need to go on?

Had Bollinger not made that clear (that he finds those abuses appauling), one would have assumed him to be as tolerant (by virtue of his invitation to Ahmadinejad) of all those abuses as, say, the average mudcatter seems to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 11:10 AM

I didn't say he 'came off a hero', John. I did say he would be received as one at home in Iran.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Wolfgang
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 11:33 AM

Students who violate rules face suspension or expulsion.

When one of Ahmadinejad's predecessors came to Germany in 1967, there was a lot of even violent student protest against him. If all those who had violated rules then would have been suspended the universities would have been half empty. If all those violating university rules in their protests against the war in Vietnam would have been expelled the universities would have been even more empty.

Ahmadinejad has a clever way with words (if one reads the transcript). His intention is to fool others while at the same time feeding his supporters.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 11:43 AM

Free speech does not mean we bend over and grab our ankles while the other person talks. There is a huge difference between allowing someone to talk and supporting it. Bollinger had his opportunity to speak and used it. Ahmadinejad had his. Each of us chooses who we agree with.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 11:43 AM

Bollinger's opening remarks (introduction) were spot on! Where he fell down was in not getting Ahmadinejad to answer the questions that were asked. Just goes to show that an academic shouldn't joust with a politician.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 12:53 PM

What exactly did Ahmadinejad say in his speech at Columbia? Is there a full account of that anywhere? If not, why? And if not, what use is there in us even talking about it, since we don't really know what we're talking about if we don't know what he said (and I mean ALL of it, not just a sound bite or two).

Bollinger's introduction sounds a lot like the kind of introduction that Nazi prosecuters gave at the trials of the Germans accused of plotting to kill Hitler (when his bunker was bombed in 1944). Bollinger's speech was intended to arouse similar emotions in his audience, and I'm sure it succeeded admirably. Too bad we couldn't have just had a nice lynching of the foreign devil right after, and not have had to listen to him talk at all, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 12:55 PM

For once you make exquisite sense.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 12:57 PM

Nothing at all wrong in the way the President of Columbia University introduced the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nor was there anything wrong in the manner in which certain contentious issues were introduced in that introduction, particularly as the University's guest speaker was responsible for arresting and holding without charge former alumni of the self same University, an Iranian-American who is still currently under house arrest in Tehran. It's odd that that hasn't been mentioned on this thread so far, or have the chattering left, as usual, relied on other peoples reports of what was said and by who to form the basis of their second hand opinions.

Now Little Hawk what did the USA get Iraq to do to Iran for 8 years in the 80's? And please enlighten us as to what channel of communication was used by the USA to get the Iraqi's to do it?

Similarly, if the USA gave birth to what is now Al-Queda and gave birth to what is now the Taliban. Little Hawk should have very little trouble in turning up who were the organisations and contacts who supposedly sought them out, supplied them and trained them. That must have taken quite a mass of organisation and a great number of people Little Hawk. Now with the freedom of information Act I can turn up the top secret conversation notes of Rumsfelds meeting with Saddam Hussein, yet I cannot find any reference to the US supply and training efforts that must have been required to give birth to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, how come Little Hawk?

Please note Little Hawk these questions are being asked not because I favour this or that political, or nationalistic, viewpoint, they are being asked because you have stated something as being fact that just does not add up. I am not attacking you personally, I am challenging you to come up with some evidence to support your statements. If you cannot then retract them, or clearly state that they represent only your own opinion and are based upon no concrete fact or form of evidence.

The US did filter cash through to those fighting the Russians in Afghanistan. They did it through Pakistan's ISI and those funds went to the Mujahideen, not to the Taliban, not to Al-Qaeda.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 12:59 PM

Sorry LH. I don't at all feel sorry for the sonuvabitch. He denies the Holocaust, kills homosexuals because they are homosexuals, keeps women subservient, has espoused that Israel be wiped from the map. He's a bastard trying to develop nuclear weapons and he's crazy enough to use them. In a word, "Fuck 'im."

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 01:08 PM

Little Hawk - you are asking for a full account of Ahmadinejad's speech. Could we assume from your remarks that you heard Bollinger's comments in total?

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 01:14 PM

From the NY Post.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 01:21 PM

I may get around to that presently, Teribus, if I find the time to today. Be patient. But remember, I am not engaging in a competition here to "win" any arguments with you or anyone else...that's not my objective, and it wouldn't even matter if I did or didn't. It's of no importance who "wins" these arguments. None whatsoever. It's about as important as whether the sparrow in my yard decides to fly east or west 5 minutes from now.

Now, is there any way I can find out what Ahmadinejad said in his entire speech at Columbia? Anyone know how I can do that? I want to find out not so I can win any arguments here on this forum...but just because I'm curious. Got it? I'm curious about what's going on. I would like to know what he said.

*****

Keep in mind, Peace, that if Ahmadinejad were lynched at Columbia or met some other sudden violent end, that in a very short time our national media would give us some other evil foreign bad guy to get upset about...probably whoever ended up replacing Mr Ahmadinejad. That's how it works. There must always be a new and terribly awful bad guy out there to obsess about. It's what keeps the wheels of the New World Order turning.

in no particular order...

Castro - Noriega - Allende - Osama - Saddam - Khomeini - Gaddafi - Mullah Omar - Mao - that fellow in Venezuela (you know) - whoever it is, he will be foreign, he will probably be swarthy, he will most likely have facial hair, and he won't be cooperating with the US corporate agenda.

There will always be another official bad guy who is regarded as a dire threat to the world as we know it. Ahmadinejad is just temporary. Very temporary. This season's "heavy". He will soon be replaced by another such character. I guarantee it.

The TV shows we have watched all our lives are based on this entertainment principle. There MUST always be an official bad guy or the drama just doesn't draw the viewers' attention. Snidely Whiplash must be there to tie Sweet Nell on the tracks, and cackle in an evil fashion, and preen his pencil-thin mustache. That's marketing, baby.

You simply cannot prepare a public for war without first focusing their attention on such a figure. Hatred is only completely effective when it is personalized.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 01:24 PM

I understand that, LH. My first comment--'exquisite sense'--was tongue in cheek. I can only hope that had Bush been asked to speak at Columbia the address from Bollinger would have contained like phrases. In fact, when I saw the words "petty dictator", I actually thought the article would BE about George Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 01:26 PM

Yes, Ron, I have listened to Bollinger's entire intro on YouTube.

Now I'd like to hear what Ahmadinejad had to say. I think Peace just posted a link, so I'll take a look.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: heric
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 01:29 PM

Dude, you just plug in Ahmadinejad and transcript:

http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0709251843020214.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 01:32 PM

Aww fer Chrissake! The link is the text of Bollinger's speech which I have ALREADY listened to on YouTube.

Hooray.

God forbid that the American public should be exposed to something the "bad guy" said, right?

I bet the Nazis did not expose the German public to the stuff the defendants said at the trial of the would-be assassins of Hitler either. Something embarrassing might have come forth, after all.

A bad guy, to remain a bad guy, must never be heard to say anything that makes any sense or sounds reasonable. He must remain vicious, insane, and incomprehensible. Better, in fact, that he never be heard at all...unless he happens to slip and say something quite, quite damaging.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 01:38 PM

Got it, heric. Thanks! I bet I will be among a very, very tiny minority of North Americans who read it, but that's okay. Should be an interesting glimpse into another mindset.

I often wonder what the people here would be saying if they'd been born Muslims in some Middle Eastern nation and grown up with a whole different set of assumptions all around them.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: pdq
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 01:39 PM

In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful...

The president recites verses from the holy Koran in Arabic.

"Oh, God, hasten the arrival of Imam al-Mahdi and grant him good health and victory and make us his followers and those to attest to his rightfulness."
Distinguished Dean, dear professors and students, ladies and gentlemen, at the outset I would like to extend my greetings to all of you. I am grateful to the almighty God for providing me with the opportunity to be in an academic environment, those seeking truth and striving for the promotion of science and knowledge.

At the outset I want to complain a bit from the person who read this political statement against me. In Iran tradition requires that when we demand a person to invite to be a speaker we actually respect our students and the professors by allowing them to make their own judgment and we don't think it's necessary before this speech is even given to come in with a series of claims and to attempt in a so-called manner to provide vaccination of some sort to our students and our faculty.

I think the text read by the dear gentleman here, more than addressing me, was an insult to information and the knowledge of the audience here. In a university environment we must allow people to speak their mind, to allow everyone to talk so that the truth is eventually revealed by all.

Certainly he took more than all the time I was allocated to speak, and that's fine with me. We'll just leave that to add up with the claims of respect for freedom and the freedom of speech that's given to us in this country.

Many parts of his speech, there were many insults and claims that were incorrect, regretfully.

Of course, I think that he was affected by the press, the media, and the political, sort of, mainstream line that you read here that goes against the very grain of the need for peace and stability in the world around us.

Nonetheless, I should not begin by being affected by this unfriendly treatment. I will tell you what I have to say, and then the questions he can raise and I'll be happy to provide answers. But as for one of the issues that he did raise, I most certainly would need to elaborate further so that we, for ourselves, can see how things fundamentally work.

It was my decision in this valuable forum and meeting to speak with you about the importance of knowledge, of information, of education. Academics and religious scholars are shining torches who shed light in order to remove darkness. And the ambiguities around us in guiding humanity out of ignorance and perplexity.

The key to the understanding of the realities around us rests in the hands of the researchers, those who seek to discover areas that are hidden, the unknown sciences, the windows of realities that they can open is done only through efforts of the scholars and the learned people in this world.

With every effort there is a window that is opened, and one reality is discovered. Whenever the high stature of science and wisdom is preserved and the dignity of scholars and researchers are respected, humans have taken great strides toward their material and spiritual promotion.

In contrast, whenever learned people and knowledge have been neglected, humans have become stranded in the darkness of ignorance and negligence.

If it were not for human instinct, which tends toward continual discovery of truth, humans would have always remained stranded in ignorance and no way would not have discovered how to improve the life that we are given.

The nature of man is, in fact, a gift granted by the Almighty to all. The Almighty led mankind into this world and granted him wisdom and knowledge as his prime gift enabling him to know his God.

In the story of Adam, a conversation occurs between the Almighty and his angels. The angels call human beings an ambitious and merciless creature and protested against his creation.

But the Almighty responded, quote, "I have knowledge of what you are ignorant of," unquote. Then the Almighty told Adam the truth. And on the order of the Almighty, Adam revealed it to the angels.

The angels could not understand the truth as revealed by the human being. The Almighty said to them, quote, " Did not I say that I am aware of what is hidden in heaven and in the universe?" unquote.

In this way the angels prostrated themselves before Adam.

In the mission of all divine prophets, the first sermons were of the words of God, and those words -- piety, faith and wisdom -- have been spread to all mankind.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: heric
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 01:50 PM

(That's from Google News - It takes a while for things to show up on the Google Home Page search)

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 01:51 PM

"God forbid that the American public should be exposed to something the "bad guy" said, right?"

This was a 90 minute speech at a PRIVATE university. There are excerpts all over if you wish to read them. Do your own search. The press was allowed coverage.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Mr Happy
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 03:32 PM

Anyone on here understand Arabic or whatever language is used in Iran?

We can't really know what he said as the translation may've been edited.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 03:34 PM

Mind, I wouldn't be roo inclined to trust the translations into English, going by the cod's arse they've made of this kind of thing on previous occasions.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Alba
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 03:40 PM

Here's a link regarding the subject of Persian or Farsi Language McGrath. The debate
Best of Wishes
Jude

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Riginslinger
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 05:59 PM

The university made if very clear that there were a number of Farsi speaking students and faculty on hand to check up on the interperter.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: GUEST,saulgoldie
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 07:47 PM

Sorry if this thought has been posted already; I didn't read through the whole thread. But has anyone else noticed that Bush and Ahmedinajad are the same cocky, arrogant smirking smartasses with different religions, and that they need each other as counterpoints to keep the fear levels up among their own citizens?

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 07:49 PM

The mistranslations that matter are the ones carried by the media. Th corrections never manage to catch up with these.

Here is a piece about the most famous mistranslation in this context, in which Ahmadinejad was quoted as having called for Israel "to be wiped off the map", where a more accurate translation was "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" - ie "regime change".

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: pdq
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 07:56 PM

THIS POST DEALS WITH WHY AHMADINEJAD IS THE IRANIAN LEADER

"...businessmen told the Shah that Pres. Carter wanted a contract, previously awarded to Brown & Root to build a huge port complex at Bandar Mahshahr, to be cancelled and as a personal favor to him to be awarded to the visiting group at 10 percent above the cost quoted by Brown & Root.

The group would then charge the 10 percent as a management fee and supervise the project for Iran, passing the actual construction work back to Brown & Root for implementation, as previously awarded. They insisted that without their
management the project would face untold difficulties at the US end and that Pres. Carter was "trying to be helpful". They told the Shah that in these perilous political times, he should appreciate the favor which Pres. Carter was doing him."


             you may not like it but you should read it

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: heric
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 08:41 PM

That's an interesting article from Steele. But he starts out saying that his chosen translation is "vanish," but concludes with a stronger argument in favor of "eliminate." Eliminate is a particularly nasty word, especialy, as Steele says, one is looking for the speaker's intent.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Mike Miller
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 12:13 AM

I would have thought that my friend, Mr. Greenhaus, would have been more aware of the realities of protest. In today's atmosphere of antipathy, even the most apathetic will react to personal threat. (That is the real reason The US got into this war and the reason why so many approved. For the first time, we were threatened by acts of terror. We were mad, scared and determined to fight. Say what you will, it was that very real threat that got GWB reelected)
But some of us feel more threatened than others. Jews have recent memories of massacres and freindly indifference. To a Jew, a national leader who rails against Jews, denies or discounts the Nazi Holocost, and openly supports Hammas, is a very real threat. I, personally, don't want anyone silenced but I can, well, understand why many would. It is like Lester Maddox being invited to speak at Grambling. I imagine the students might make their displeasure known to one and all. So, although I agree that everyone has, or shoud have the right to free speech, I find the scolding of those who protested out of realistic fear, have been given a bad rap by this forum.

                   Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Ron Davies
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 12:15 AM

Lehrer Report had quite a bit on Ahmadinejad tonight. I imagine I'm not the only one who heard it. Lehrer had 2 experts on Iran--including one who had dual US-Iranian citizenship.

What I thought was most interesting is how the West has played along with what Mr. A wanted--a very high profile. But in fact he's not the most powerful person in Iran--the top religious leader is. And not only that, he's not popular with much of the intelligentsia--who are embarrassed by his "loose-cannon" statements, such as denial of the Holocaust. And he's not even very popular with "the man in the street" who sees that he has in fact not carried out his election pledge to see that ordinary people reap the benefits of Iran's oil.

The Iranian-American expert predicted that Mr A is not likely at all to win re-election--in, I believe 2009. Made a lot of sense.

So it seems if we can keep Mr Bush and the loose cannons surrounding him from the incredibly stupid move of a strike on Iran--to allegedly "take out" nuclear facilities--and if nobody else does it---the Iranians themselves will remove him---by election-- and primarily for economic reasons.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 03:33 AM

The "wiped off the map" quote has been disputed, but it occurs in the official Iranian translation, and when he has been asked about it he has refused to withdraw it as translated.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4384264.stm

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 05:34 AM

The United Nations Secretary General has a world class team of interpreters at his disposal.
He was sure of what Ahmadinejad said about wiping Israel away.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4384024.stm

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Ron Davies
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 08:39 AM

The measure of how widespread Holocaust denial is in Iran--i.e. not at all--can be seen in the fact that Iranian TV recently had a multi-part docudrama--loosely based on fact, I understand--as to how an Iranian diplomat managed to save quite a few Jews in World War II. The series was a huge hit.

There is a sizable number of Jews in Iran today.

What the regime is trying to do is to draw a contrast between the plight of the Jews in WW II with the behavior of the Israeli government now--which they believe is aggressive.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Mike Miller
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 10:13 AM

As Col. Potter used to say, "Horse hockey". The Arab world has been trying to eradicate the Jewish state since 1948, long before any Israeli government "agression", in fact, long before there was an Israeli government. Their opposition to the state of Israel is based on religious and cultural claims, not moral indignation. (Don't be hoodwinked by talk of "Palestinian rights". The Palestinians have been the cheap labor of the Arab world for centuries. They never owned their land. They worked it for absentee Egyptian and Syrian landlords. The first opportunity the Palestinians had to have their own country was in 1948 and it wasn't provided by their Arab brethren, but by the UN.) I, usually, ignore the convenient amnesia that affects the left where Jews are concerned. I am a lifelong liberal but, sometimes, I feel like my gang has deserted me.
I understand that Jews feel more threatened than most of you guys. It is, after all, our tuchises on the line. But, then again, since the attacks on the Twin Towers, maybe a few more folks have gotten on board the reality train.
You may not equate Ahmadinejad with Hitler, but I do. Well, you know how touchy those Jews are.

                Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 10:15 AM

Mike, IMO, Ron Davies is on the side of the angels.

Shalom

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Amos
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 10:20 AM

JOhn:

As a regular contributor to the store of defamations of Mister Bush here, I am moved to respond to your post.

At least for my own part. I have no sympathy for Ahmadinejad. But I believe in civility to any visitor.

Columbia lowered the bar on that standard.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: pdq
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 10:25 AM

"The Iranian-American expert predicted that Mr A is not likely at all to win re-election--in, I believe 2009. Made a lot of sense."

Problem is, by the time he leaves the office, Iran will have nuclear weapons.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 10:28 AM

And that worries you?

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: pdq
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 11:03 AM

Nah. A little nukie never hurt anybody.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 11:31 AM

I'm going out on a liberal limb here to make this statement. I'm not going to argue about it and I don't care what CarolC wants to clobber on a regular basis. It's just an opinion:

It is the habit and the business of leaders of smaller states at odds with big nations like the U.S. to say things that piss off the leaders of those big nations.

I happen to agree with A. about the Palestinians--they are a colonized people, their land taken by a spontaneous influx of Jews from around the world, and the "nation" of Israel happened with little reference to their preferences. (Whose bright idea was this to begin with, anyway?) The Jewish "natives" had been away for over 2000 years and the current occupants got kind of used to living an autonomous life there. Then the new western-leaning U.N. lets a nation form on top of them. Guess what? It pisses off the Palestinians and their neighbors. Duh. They're still angry.

I'm not saying Israel shouldn't exist, it's there now, but it's too big and too pushy. They are bad neighbors to everyone around the area and remind me of the saying one sees on booklets for new parents in the U.S.--"Children learn what they live." Israel's Jews were mistreated in Europe, so they have turned around and mistreated the Palestinians they encountered in the new land they chose to occupy, creating lots of prisons and ghettos. There is a simple reason why Israel is as solid and prosperous and inflexible as it is --it is the U.S.'s defacto 51st state. They are propped up by the U.S., defended by the U.S., and their currency is the U.S. dollar. What do you think the neighbors are going to see when they look at the relationship, except that this is a huge American colonizing imposition on the Middle East?

It seems that what Israeli Jews learned in Europe is what they're doing now to Palestinians, minus the concentration camps. Their leaders don't seem to see this. Every time things start to calm down, some wag in Israel thinks of some new law or wall or resource restriction or settlement policy to set it all off again. It's like they must continually inspire violence in order to portray themselves as "victims" in the world, to justify their existence (and current behavior of the last 60 years). This isn't anti-Semitic, by the way, this is anti colonization in this context. As a resident of a nation that sits uncomfortably on top of land taken from colonized Indians, I am well aware of the ironic parallels.

Translations are very important, and if carefully nuanced versions of Ahmadinejad's words had been available, perhaps it would be harder for people to uniformly dismiss him as a Persian zealot. I don't agree with a lot of what is going on in Iran, or the Middle East, and there are Arab/Moslem/Persian cultural blinders in place that appear ridiculous to U.S. residents. But hey, look at Bush. His blinders are so huge, this fool would continue to blow Iraq to wee bits, pumping in billions to do it, to support oil and Israel, but he won't pay for health care for American children. He simply doesn't have a grasp on reality, he's totally into this stupid war of his. I wonder if editorials appear in the foreign press that look at this strange habit of expenditure? War first, poor citizens' needs a distant second. I'll probably have to keep wondering, because the American media isn't doing anything to help us understand the viewpoints of the rest of the world. They hardly matter.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 11:38 AM

The best way to get Iran to follow the example of its next door neighbour Pakistan, and its slightly more distant neighbour Israel, and seek to develop nuclear weapons is to threaten it with attack.

And the best way to discourage that would be for the USA (preferably jointly with the EU, and Russia ) to guarantee that there will be no attack on Iran, and that any such attack would be treated as a hostile act by the guarantors. And make that guarantee conditional on Iran not developing nuclear weapons.

And if it really was just a matter of preventing nuclear proliferation that would happen. But its not.
...........................

It's worth pointing out that the Scottish Nationalists hope to bring about a situation in which there will no longer be any United Kingdom.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 12:42 PM

SRS, without any shadow of a doubt the dumbest, most ill-informed load of twaddle I have ever read in my life. It damn near beggars description.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Alba
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 01:38 PM

Some one can only dream to post remarks here that come close to being as interesting as SRS's views on certain topics.
Then again to some, perhaps, it seems easier to quite nastily belittle someone else's post when one cannot find a way to counter their opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 01:45 PM

It's an opinion. What's to counter.

BTW, the Israeli monetary unit--their currency--is the sheqel, not the US dollar.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: pdq
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 01:49 PM

Facts trump opinions every time. Always have and always will.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: John Hardly
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 01:50 PM

depends on whether the Rook is high or low.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 02:07 PM

Facts trump opinions every time.

That should be true. Unfortunately it doesn't always work out like that - for example those Iraqi WMDs were opinion, not fact, but... And there is good reason to believe that the same may well be true of that Iranian nuclear weapon programme.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 02:10 PM

It was cowardly to insult Mock mood Ahm mad at dad at Columbia U.

It would have been better to simply introduce the front man for Iran as the man who was selected by Imans and simply say that in the spirit of free speech we hope that we can give you sufficient rope...

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 02:23 PM

http://www.unitedjerusalem.com/Graphics/Maps/PartitionforTransJordan.asp


The problem is, it was the Allies ( of WW I ) that set up the JEWISH HOMELAND of Palestine. The Arabs of that region were given THEIR homeland (Transjordan), and, incidently, the borders of Turkey, the states of Iraq, Syria, and Lebenon were all defined by the same treaty. So, if we want to get rid of Israel, we can also, with the same justification, remove those states as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 02:27 PM

Look at the San Remo Conference before you start making claims about the Mideast.

It is NOT the fault of the Jews that the Ottoman Empire lost the First World War, no matter how much you want to blame them.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 02:32 PM

San Remo Conference

(April 19–26, 1920), international meeting convened at San Remo, on the Italian Riviera, to decide the future of the former territories of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, one of the defeated Central Powers in World War I; it was attended by the prime ministers of Great Britain, France, and Italy, and representatives of Japan, Greece, and Belgium.

The conference approved the final framework of a peace treaty with Turkey which was later signed at Sèvres, on Aug. 10, 1920. The Treaty of Sèvres abolished the Ottoman Empire, obliged Turkey to renounce all rights over Arab Asia and North Africa, and provided for an independent Armenia, for an autonomous Kurdistan, and for a Greek presence in eastern Thrace and on the Anatolian west coast, as well as Greek control over the Aegean islands commanding the Dardanelles. Rejected by the new Turkish nationalist regime, the Treaty of Sèvres was replaced in 1923 by the Treaty of Lausanne, which voided previous Allied demands for Kurdish autonomy and Armenian independence but did otherwise recognize Turkey's current boundaries.

During the Conference of San Remo, two "A" mandates were created out of the old Ottoman province of Syria: the northern half (Syria and Lebanon) was mandated to France, the southern half (Palestine) to Great Britain. The province of Mesopotamia (Iraq) was also mandated to Great Britain. Under the terms of an "A" mandate the individual countries were deemed independent but subject to a mandatory power until they reached political maturity. When King Faysal of Damascus opposed the French mandate over Syria, he was expelled by the French Army.

An Anglo-French oil agreement was also concluded at the San Remo conference (April 24–25), providing France with a 25 percent share of Iraqi oil and favourable oil transport terms and stipulating in return the inclusion of Mosul in the British mandate of Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 02:51 PM

In case anyone cares...

Treaty of Lausanne

(This was what allowed the genocide of Armenians...)

(1923), final treaty concluding World War I. It was signed by representatives of Turkey (successor to the Ottoman Empire) on one side and by Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Greece, Romania, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Yugoslavia) on the other. The treaty was signed at Lausanne, Switz., on July 24, 1923, after a seven-month conference.

The treaty recognized the boundaries of the modern state of Turkey. Turkey made no claim to its former Arab provinces and recognized British possession of Cyprus and Italian possession of the Dodecanese. The Allies dropped their demands of autonomy for Turkish Kurdistan and Turkish cession of territory to Armenia, abandoned claims to spheres of influence in Turkey, and imposed no controls over Turkey's finances or armed forces. The Turkish straits between the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea were declared open to all shipping.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 03:07 PM

The genocide of the Armenians preceded the Treaty of Lausanne by some years, with 1915 being the most significant date.

That's a bit like blaming the Yalta Conference for the Jewish Holocaust.

It's good to try to get back to the history behind current events, but important to get it right when we do.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 03:17 PM

Yes, but this treaty acknowledged that the rest of the world would do nothing while the Turks continued to control Armenia and the Kurds.


The Holocaust has its roots in the pogroms of the 1880s onward-

1905: A week-long pogrom marking one of the bloodiest periods in Russian Jewish history begins, spreading to dozens of towns and villages throughout Russia. Hundreds of Jews are killed, thousands are wounded and over forty thousand homes and shops are destroyed in the rioting.

three great waves of anti-Jewish rioting in the Russian Empire in 1881-82, 1903-06, and 1919-21

During the Civil War of 1918-1921, 2,000 pogroms left an estimated 100,000 Jews dead and more than half a million homeless.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 03:22 PM

note the comment "The massacre of 1915, which lasted until 1923"...


Abdul Hamid II ruled from 1876 to 1909. The first wave of executions of Armenians came in the 1890's under his rule. In1896, the Turkish government, headed by its bloodthirsty dictator, organized a genocide against Armenians, which resulted in some 300.000 Armenian deaths. Another genocide against Armenians was carried out later in 1908. Although it resulted in less Armenian deaths, Turks were getting their job done by slowly rupturing the Armenian vigor.

       Apparently, being happy with the results of previous genocides, on the April 24th of 1915, taking advantage of the outbreak of World War I, Abdul Hamid's successors -the Young Turkish government headed by Enver Pasha, Cemal Pasha and Talat Pasha-set out to implement the long-planned program of extermination of the Armenian population of Turkey. The massacres began in Constantinople with the arrests of 250 Armenian intellectuals consisting of politicians, journalists, poets, lawyers, doctors etc. They were sent to jail, where, later, they were all killed. Two months later, on June 15, 20 politicians, who were members of a political party called "Hnckak" were publicly hanged on false accusations of planning a revolution and a terrorist attack against the government. For several days thousands of intellectuals, politicians, teachers, priests etc. were killed all over the country. Thus they got rid of the "head" so Armenians wouldn't be able to organize any resistance.

       Throughout the whole country Christians and Muslims were being ordered to hand over any weapons they had. Yet, the authorities were not so demanding to Muslims. When Armenians would take their weapons to the police to hand them over, they were arrested on accusations of planning a revolution and their weapons were seized as proof. Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. ambassador in Turkey at that time, describes in his writings how men, who were taken to prison were tortured. He writes that As a preliminary to the searches everywhere, the strong men of the villages and towns were arrested and taken to prison. Their tormentors here would exercise the most diabolical ingenuity in their attempt to make their victims declare themselves "revolutionists" and to tell the hiding places of their arms. A common practice was to place the prisoner in a room, with two Turks stationed at each end and each side. The examination would then begin with the bastinado. This is a form of torture not uncommon in the Orient; it consists of beating the soles of the feet with a thin rod. At first the pain is not marked; but as the process goes slowly on, it develops into the most terrible agony, the feet swell and burst, and not infrequently, after being submitted to this treatment, they have to be amputated. They would pull out his eyebrows and beard almost hair by hair; they would extract his fingernails and toe nails they would apply red-hot irons to the breast of their victim, tear off his flesh with red-hot pincers, and then pour boiled butter into the wounds. He also writes: "The gendarmes would nail hands and feet to pieces of wood---evidently in imitation of the Crucifixion, and then, while the sufferer writhed in his agony, they would cry: ' Now let your Christ come and help you!'"

       Soon the hatred escalated and became a cause for even bloodier events. A Turkish officer named Lieutenant Sayied Ahmed Moukhtar Baas, who was often being ordered to deport Armenians from different cities, testifies that he was ordered to deport all the Armenians of the city Erzrum, and that being a member of the Court Martial he knew that those deportations meant massacres. In his testimonies he also says that in the city of Trabizond, while being deported, men were separated from their families, and later killed. Women were also killed and many children were stabbed and thrown into the sea near Trabizond and a few days later their bodies were washed up on the shore at Trabizond (Baas).

       In many cities tens of thousands of Armenians were being killed. In the city of Van almost 60.000 Armenians were killed, their belongings were looted and their homes burned. In many cases Armenians would be the ones to be burned along their homes. Tens of thousands of Armenians were also killed in the cities of Erzrum, Kars, Adana, Igdir, Mush, Istanbul, Sari Ghamish, Harpurt, Marash, Sivas, Bitlis and in many other cities. "Killer battalions were organized, and in every significant town and city party functionaries were at work to ensure the execution of directives and to remove weak-hearted and recalcitrant officials" (sscent.ucla.edu). Armenian men, who previously served in the Ottoman army, were turned into road laborers (Morgenthau). They were being sent to various parts of the Empire to construct roads and railways in thousands. Turks would wait until Armenians would get tired to ensure that they wouldn't be able to resist, and then they would either attack or simply shoot them. Many of the victims were ordered to dig their graves before being shot. In many cases Turkish soldiers would cut off their head, put them on a stick and carry them as if they were their trophies.

       Early in July, 2,000 Armenian "amélés"---such is the Turkish word for soldiers who have been reduced to workmen---were sent from Harpoot to build roads. The Armenians in that town understood what this meant and pleaded with the Governor for mercy. But this official insisted that the men were not to be harmed, and he even called upon the German missionary, Mr. Ehemann, to quiet the panic, giving that gentleman his word of honor that the ex-soldiers would be protected. Mr. Ehemann believed the Governor and assuaged the popular fear. Yet practically every man of these 2,000 was massacred, and their bodies thrown into a cave. A few escaped, and it was from these that news of the massacre reached the world.

       Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador in Turkey at that time writes: "Most of us believe that torture has long ceased to be an administrative and judicial measure, yet I do not believe that the darkest ages ever presented scenes more horrible than those which now took place all over Turkey."

       Unlike their predecessor Abdul Hamid II whose agenda was to kill, kill and only kill, the Young Turks, perhaps caused by increasing pressure from outside, now decided to begin the implementations of new tactics, which wouldn't seem so horrible in the eyes of other countries. They thought of a new plan of getting rid of Armenians. They began to deport hundreds of thousands of Armenians, mostly women, children and elderly to the Syrian Desert and the Mesopotamian valley, where Armenians would either starve to death or die from thirst. Though part of this area was once the scene of a flourishing civilization, for the last five centuries it has suffered the blight that becomes the lot of any country that is subjected to Turkish rule; and it is now a dreary, desolate waste, without cities and towns or life of any kind, populated only by a few wild and fanatical Bedouin tribes. Yet for the better part of six months, from April to October 1915, practically all the highways in Asia Minor were crowded with these unearthly bands of exiles. They could be seen winding in and out of every valley and climbing up the sides of nearly every mountain moving on and on, they scarcely knew whither, except that every road led to death. Village after village and town after town was evacuated of its Armenian population, under the distressing circumstances already detailed (Morgenthau)."In these six months, as far as can be ascertained, about 1,200,000 people started on this journey to the Syrian desert "(Morgenthau).

       As the British news agency "The Independent" describes in its September 27, 1915 issue "The Depopulation of Armenia": "Thousands of families have been driven from their homes to starve upon the roads. Towns and villages have been divested of their inhabitants. Many are being put to torture to force them to renounce their Christian faith. Women are interned in the harems and children are sold as slave."

       Often, while on their way to be "executed," they would be attacked by Turkish and Kurdish tribes, who were previously being notified that a caravan was approaching. Sometimes the wives of those tribesmen would join the attacks with butcher's knives in their hands, in order to gain the merit in Allah's eyes, which comes from killing a Christian (Morgenthau).
       The hot sun of the desert burned their scantily clothed bodies, and their bare feet, treading the hot sand of the desert; they became so sore that thousands fell and died or were killed where they lay. Thus, in a few days, who had been normal human beings became a stumbling horde of dust-covered skeletons, looking for scraps of food, eating any offal that came their way, crazed by the hideous sights that filled every hour of their existence, sick with all the diseases that accompany such hardships. When they would reach to a river, Turkish gendarmes, who were "accompanying" the caravans, wouldn't let them drink, or they would tie women and children up and throw them into the river Every caravan had a continuous battle for existence with several classes of enemies---their accompanying gendarmes, the Turkish peasants and villagers, the Kurdish tribes and bands of Chétés or brigands. And we must always keep in mind that the men who might have defended these wayfarers had nearly all been killed or forced into the army as workmen, and that the exiles themselves had been systematically deprived of all weapons before the journey began.

       The massacre of 1915, which lasted until 1923, resulted in more than 1.5 million Armenians killed, a nation driven out of its historic homeland and scattered all around the world. Yet, till this day, despite all the evidences in the U.S and British archives that contain more than 30.000 pages of articles, eyewitness testimonies of foreign officials and survivors, the Turkish government denies that a genocide against Armenians ever occurred. The Turkish government even accuses Armenians of killing innocent Turks.

       ". . . the Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war, and the failure to act against Turkey is to condone it . . . the failure to deal radically with the Turkish horror means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense" (Theodore Roosevelt). Until this day major world powers have failed to hold the Turkish government responsible for the Genocide that was committed against Armenians. But some Armenians took justice into their own hands and took revenge. Talat was killed by an Armenian nationalist-Sogomon Telerian in 1921 in Berlin. Enver Pasha was killed by Soviet forces in 1922 in Tajikistan. As for Cemal Pasha, an Armenian in Tiffs killed him in 1922. Perhaps the failure of major world powers to hold the Turkish government responsible for the Genocide committed against Armenians became a cause for Hitler to say, "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" at the outset of the Jewish Holocaust. Perhaps this failure was a cause for Armenians to be killed in the Azerbaijani cities of Baku, Sumgait and Kirovabad, where women were being stoned, stripped naked, burned publicly; newborns were thrown out of the 6th floor of the hospitals and men's eyes were pulled-out. Perhaps the failure of major world powers to punish the Turkish government was the cause for thousand to be killed in Rwanda, Kosovo, Bosnia and in other places. Perhaps this failure will be the cause for many other sufferings.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 03:28 PM

"Perhaps the failure of major world powers to hold the Turkish government responsible for the Genocide committed against Armenians became a cause for Hitler to say, "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" at the outset of the Jewish Holocaust. "

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 03:31 PM

SRS, I agree. Going farther, I see no hope for a Palestinian nation.

From the outset, the object of the Israeli zionists (read settlers and supporters from the U. S., Canada and Europe) has been to take control of the entire region. Unspoken, but on-going. All that is left is a small piece of land-locked territory on the west bank and possibly the detached Gaza strip. Nothing on which to base a nation.

Nothing is being done to ameliorate the situation of the Palestinian refugees or relieve Palestinian poverty except small amounts of foreign aid. It has fallen to the Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese, and others to host those refugees who already have been forced out of their homeland. In the remaining West Bank, towns like Ramallah have become little more that refugee camps under the occupation.
Lebanon, once a bright light in the Middle East, has been disrupted by Israeli policies; Hamas and others fill the vacuum.

Frustration, hopelessness, impotence and dispair breed terrorism.

A strong nation to counter the Israelis is needed in the region. Iran may be the future hope, if allowed and encouraged to develop.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 03:41 PM

Q,

Try looking at what is posted...

"In 1923 the British "chopped off" 75% of the proposed Jewish Palestinian homeland to form an Arab Palestinian Nation of "Trans-Jordan," meaning "across the Jordan River." The Palestinian Arabs now had THEIR homeland... the remaining 25% of the original Palestinian territory (west of the Jordan River) was to be the Jewish Palestinian homeland."


There is, and has been since 1923 a PALESTINIAN HOMELAND. NO Jews were allowed to settle there- UNLIKE Israel, which has a large Arab population.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: pdq
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 03:51 PM

beardedbruce,

If you keep putting the truth out for people to see, you are doing the best you can.

Some will listen, some will not. Nothing more you can do.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 04:06 PM

Q,

" towns like Ramallah "

My Christian Palestinian friends lived in Ramallah- UNTIL they were driven out by the Moslims... ( 1948- you know, when the Arab League tried to wipe out all the Jews and take over the Jewish Homeland?)

The Moslims quite effectively removed most of the Jews and Christians from the land THEY had control over- It was only the Jewish state that allowed others to live in it.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 04:10 PM

Q,

"Lebanon, once a bright light in the Middle East, has been disrupted by Israeli policies"

I think that perhaps Syria and Hezboallah had something to do with it, if one looks at the facts. Or would you be willing to accept constant mass-bombardment rocket attacks as acceptable ( to other than Jews, of course)?

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 04:20 PM

"The Holocaust has its roots in the pogroms of the 1880s onward-"


The attitude which some folks here echo--may they fart lumps--is older than that.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 04:32 PM

SRS, without any shadow of a doubt the dumbest, most ill-informed load of twaddle I have ever read in my life. It damn near beggars description.

Teribus,

I'm so glad to hear you say so! I'd hate to think I said anything you agreed with. I am vindicated.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 04:39 PM

Deploring the failure of the world to take proper notice of the Armenian holocaust, and to largely collude in a cover-up is perfectly valid, and it is fair to include the events round the Treaty of Lausanne in that - but to say "this was what allowed the genocide of Armenians" is in fact misleading.

It blurs the facts about the genocide, and that tends to help those who would deny it ever took place.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 04:45 PM

Perhaps my wording should have been "This is when the genocide of the Armenians was defined by the British and French as acceptable treatment."

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 04:46 PM

"The conference approved the final framework of a peace treaty with Turkey which was later signed at Sèvres, on Aug. 10, 1920. The Treaty of Sèvres abolished the Ottoman Empire, obliged Turkey to renounce all rights over Arab Asia and North Africa, and provided for an independent Armenia, for an autonomous Kurdistan, and for a Greek presence in eastern Thrace and on the Anatolian west coast, as well as Greek control over the Aegean islands commanding the Dardanelles. Rejected by the new Turkish nationalist regime, the Treaty of Sèvres was replaced in 1923 by the Treaty of Lausanne, which voided previous Allied demands for Kurdish autonomy and Armenian independence but did otherwise recognize Turkey's current boundaries. "

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 05:23 PM

Still, without any shadow of a doubt the dumbest, most ill-informed load of twaddle I have ever read in my life, Stilly River Sage. I know that Stilly River is in Washington State, coming out with that crap the sage part of the name must refer to the plant.

Read through some of BB's posts you might just learn something.

"for example those Iraqi WMDs were opinion, not fact, but... And there is good reason to believe that the same may well be true of that Iranian nuclear weapon programme." - MGOH on facts trumping opinion.

Whether or not Iraq possessed WMD plus all the other things that the UNSCOM Inspectors were concerned with between 1991 and 1998 was subject to analytical evaluation by those inspection teams and their findings were reported to the United Nations Security Council in January 1999. What they suspected that Iraq still had was considered and informed opinion certainly, which most found highly likely. But what was fact Kevin, was that the inspection teams (UNSCOM & UNMOVIC) could not state with any degree of certainty that Iraq had destroyed all its WMD, agents, stockpiles, etc, etc.

It may well be true that Iran is not pursuing a programme to obtain nuclear weapons, that their programme is totally innocent and aimed at the peaceful generation of electricity. One can ignore the questions relating to why they kept their uranium enrichment facilities secret from the IAEA. Why they have gone for the type of centrifuges that enriches uranium to weapons grade as opposed to lower cheaper fuel grade. Having gone for that type of centrifuge why the number of them sufficient for rapid cascade enrichment.

If the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that his country does not seek nuclear weapons that must be totally credible. After all he has stated that women in Iran are the most liberated on earth and that there are no homosexuals in Iran - and we all know that those two statements are gospel truth - don't we Kevin?

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 05:25 PM

One might also wish to research Jews in the USA who were forced from their homes during the Civil War. For many, the treatment was akin to that that Japanese Americans and Canadians got at the hands of their respective governments. The Jews lived with that for many many centuries. Now they have a country. Tough shit for anyone who doesn't like it. Now, nobody will fuck with them. And if that had been the history of your people you'd wanna be the toughest sonuvabitch on the block. Well, they are. AND THAT'S THAT.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: GUEST,Pest
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 05:35 PM

Then Peace clicked his heels three times and kept repeating "There's no place like Home" and the next thing he knew he woke up and THAT WAS THAT.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: bobad
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 05:44 PM

Not brave enough to use your name eh, pest.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 06:24 PM

Re: the currency question. There may be an "official" currency, but I think you'll find that in actuality there are a lot, if not mostly, U.S. dollars in regular use as well.

Read through some of BB's posts you might just learn something.

Now that is a joke! Read BB's stuff and you see shoddy sources and hair-brained conclusions. But I can see why you consider him a good source.

As I said, I expressed an opinion. Israel has been the spoiled child who can do no wrong in the eyes of many U.S. politicians but is, in fact, a troublemaker who gets away with it because it has a big bully to hide behind.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 06:33 PM

BB is also good at moving the discussion way off course to suit his agenda.

He might be interested to know that Paris Hilton has decided to go to Rwanda to call attention to their needs. No one seems to have pointed out to her that she's a dozen years too late. Maybe this year's post DUI trip should be to Darfur.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 06:46 PM

SRS,

"Read BB's stuff and you see shoddy sources and hair-brained conclusions"

That is very interesting, coming from a nasty piece like you who demanded that HER sources be always assumed correct, and ANY source that differed with her opinion was therefore false, without even bothering to look at it.

If uyou think my sources are shoddy, perhaps you need to look at them.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, for the last few. But I guess that would be too difficult for an academic genius to bother with.

My conclusions are based on the facts of record: YOURS seem to be based of whatever you want to believe at the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Mike Miller
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 07:07 PM

I can't believe I got sucked into this chazerai (pig sty) again. I promised myself noy to try to conduct a dialogue with the cadre of closet Jew baiters who infect this forum. There is not, nor will there be, a cogent discussion on matters concerning the Jewish state.
Frankly, I have had true discussions with Palastians and pro-Palastinian Israelis but I have never had a real discussion with a anti-Israeli non Semite. Those people don't understand the situation, at all.
A Palastinian understands. He fights for his land. So, does the Israeli. Neither cares about the objective morality of his position.
It is the home of his fathers and his culture. It identifies him.
The kneejerk antipathy of the Moslem world, toward Israel, is based on culture, history, language and the deepest part of common faith.
The, equaly, knee jerk support, for Israel, from the West, is pretty much the same. It's a family thing.
But, what gets my goat is people, who have never been under the gun, stand a safe distance from involvement and take sides based on their own prejudices. Our home grown Rockwells say that theu are not anti-Jewish, they are anti-Zionists. I suspect they use Zionism the way some folks use "law and order". It never takes long before these Hamens appear. You should have heard them during the gas crunch in the 70's. Forunately, most Jews and Christians feel the affinity for the Jewish homeland with a zeal that matches the Moslem's.
I am not saying that the left is anti-Semitic. A lot of the sympathy that is shown to the Arabs is based on pity. A liberal, almost by definition, sides with the underdog. It doesn'y matter who they are or how they got there. They're downtrodden, we love 'em. Believe me, this hasn't been easy for liberal Jews. Our guts say "survive", our hearts pity the plight of the Palastinian. We have been trying to work out a compromise for sixty years.
Well, I'm never going to reach the hearts of some but, for what it's worth...

                         Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 07:15 PM

Name calling, that's a strong suit of yours also, BB.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: number 6
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 07:53 PM

"Now they have a country. Tough shit for anyone who doesn't like it. Now, nobody will fuck with them. And if that had been the history of your people you'd wanna be the toughest sonuvabitch on the block. Well, they are. AND THAT'S THAT."

Well said Peace.


biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 08:15 PM

SRS,

Well, sheet fire, girl... You got T-zer all lathered up and BB back to SCREAMING, as if that makes him right (???)...

You go, girl...

BTW, as for what you have said being the "dumbest" thing that T has ever read I'd refer him back to his own dumb arguments during the mad-dash-to-Iraq that were so ill thought out that it now has the US and the UK back on its heels in just about every respect...

Yet t will be more than happy to recite his liteny or UN Resolutions, as if they actually have any relevence to a decision that George Bush made even before 9/11???

Go figure???

Dumbest??? LOL, T... Thank Goodness that you dumb stuff is archived... You can run but you cannot hide...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Ron Davies
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 08:33 PM

pdq--


"Facts trump opinions every time". Very observant.

"Problem is, by the time he (Ahmadinejad) leaves the office (sic), Iran will have nuclear weapons." Now, what makes that a fact? Source please.

The next Iranian election is scheduled for June 2009. Less than 2 years from now. Fact.

Unless Ahmadinejad is forced to step down before that, due to Iranian discontent. Unions and students, among others, have already shown unhappiness with him.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 08:51 PM

Facts, Ron???

We ain't gonna get none... What we are gettin' is just more sophisticated propaganda... Had it none been for all the ***lies*** that Bush got caught in in gettin' US into Iraqmire then they wouldn't have to work the PR folks so hard now... Your tax dollars at work, you know...

S.S.D.D....

And the beat goes on...

Right now the PR folks are waiting for anything right to happen within the Bush administration so they can use that as a jumping off point to sell the American people on a new 'n shiney war....

Reminds me of an ol' Jethro Tull song entitled "New Day Yesterday"...

"It was a new war yesterday
it's an old war now..."

Well, my own thoughts are that the Bush asministration will do nuthin' right between now and when he is retreats to Crawford so I think the PR folks have a long row-to-hoe if they think they can sell a 3rd war while the US isn't really doing well in the other two Bush wars but what scares me is that Bush and his cronies have corraled so much power that they might just invade Irabn without any Congressionl authority....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 10:21 PM

GUEST, Pest: You are the reason some mammals eat their young.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: number 6
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 10:53 PM

Back to the subject of this thread ... Ahmadinejad can talk all he wants. So can Bush ... personally, I'm getting tired, and disgusted of their lies, threats and "sophisticated propaganda", PR or whatever you want to call it. I'm not buying any of their rhetoric. Period.

How can anyone justify one over the other?

Anyway ... that's my 2 cents for whatever it's worth.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 11:01 PM

Thanks, Bobert.

Mike Miller wrote I promised myself noy to try to conduct a dialogue with the cadre of closet Jew baiters who infect this forum. There is not, nor will there be, a cogent discussion on matters concerning the Jewish state.
Frankly, I have had true discussions with Palastians and pro-Palastinian Israelis but I have never had a real discussion with a anti-Israeli non Semite.

There's nothing like a good logical fallacy to shut down a political discussion, eh? Poison the well--suggest that a person who says anything negative about Israel must be an anti-Semite, so everything they say about Israel is false or uninformed. Dubya used this trick after Sept. 11. Anyone who opposed his rush to war must not be a patriot, so people who objected to his disastrous response kept their mouths closed so they wouldn't be barred from the conversation later by the rancor of knee-jerk conservatives.

It's time people learned to separate the Jewish faith from the Jewish state. Set aside the corrosive wellspring of collective guilt over somehow not doing enough to prevent the Nazi death camps, set aside the hyperbolic romantic ideals of freedom fighters in the deserts of the Middle East from a Leon Uris novel. Look at the lives being lived in the region--yes, it is a set of politically manufactured states. The British were good at taking places apart and rearranging them. Look at India, Pakistan, Iraq, and Iran. Lumping and sorting that led to massive bloodshed, boundaries established because a minor functionary in London had a handy straight edge when he was drawing the map of new nations for people he didn't understand or never saw.

The Israelis aren't responsible for the great disarray in the Arab world--infighting and factions have taken their toll. The Israelis are, however, guilty of frequently walking into that powder keg with a lighted match.

Edward Said wrote in 2002:

Arabs have for so long been deprived of a sense of participation and citizenship by their rulers that most of us have lost even the capacity of understanding what personal commitment to a cause bigger than ourselves might mean. The Palestinian struggle -- that a people should endure such unremitting cruelty from Israel and still not give up, is a collective miracle -- but why can't the lessons of living (as opposed to suicidal, nihilistic) resistance be made clearer, and more possible to follow? This is the real problem, the absence all over the Arab world and abroad of a leadership that communicates with its people, not via communiqués that express an impersonal, almost disdainful disregard of them as citizens, but through the actual practice of concerted dedication and personal example. Unable to move the US from its illegal support of Israel's crimes, Arab leaders simply throw out one "peace" proposal (the same one) after another, each of which is dismissed derisively by both Israel and the US. Bush and his psychopathic henchman Rumsfeld keep leaking news of their impending invasion for "regime change" in Iraq, and the Arabs have still not communicated a unified deterrent position against this new American insanity. When individuals and organisations like ADC try to do something on behalf of a cause they are gunned down by troublemakers who have little else to do but destroy and disturb.

Surely the time has come to start thinking of ourselves as a people with a common history and goals, and not as a collection of cowardly delinquents. But that is up to each one, and it's no good sitting back blaming "the Arabs" since, after all, we are the Arabs.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Riginslinger
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 11:21 PM

At the end of the day, they'll probably never be an end to it until rational thinking people rise up and stamp out the scourge of religion.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: number 6
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 11:26 PM

Well ... Ahmadinejad's solution to the Middle East crisis is to destroy Israel,.... getting back (in some ways) to the subject of this thread.

If I lived in Israel I would be kinda concerned (whatever stand I take regarding the Palestinians)with statements coming from a guy like him.

And Bush, your president, wants Arabian the oil and is willing to sacrifice the lives of Americans, but also the citizens of of the mideast to get it all under the guize of security.


biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 11:51 PM

Selective facts, like selective statistics, yield the answer one wishes.
This stuff has been gone over before. I am sorry I posted and should have known better. I have bitten before in other threads. I have quoted the usual references, Britannica and Middle Eastern studies, etc., etc.; a waste of my time. There is no way a zionist, or a Hamas supporter, can be persuaded to discuss matters intelligently (particularly the former).

Authors of a new book, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, "The Israel Lobby and U. S. Foreign Policy," contend that the Jewish lobby jeopardizes the national security of the United States. An extensive review by Leslie H. Gelb appears in The New York Times Book Review, September 23, 2007.
Professors at Chicago and Harvard, resp., they say that U. S. policy is so lopsidedly pro-Israel that it fuels Muslim terrorism against the United States.
Named as especially virulent lobbyists are the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, The Anti-Defamation League and the publisher Mortimer Zuckerman.
The book is published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 484 pp.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: mg
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 11:52 PM

I don't think Paris Hilton is too late at all to go to Rhwanda. I am sure there little micropools of misery still left there, and just by going she will have photographers going there too...

And you can wave magic wands and say presto here is a state for some oppressed people, but oh dear, there are already people living there, in houses they consider theirs, tending goats they consider theirs, raising oranges and olives they consider theirs. How inconsiderate of them not to just vacate. I would have sooner given them a large chunk of Austria and Germany..people there too, mostly innocent, but closer to the problem. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Mr Happy
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 07:16 AM

number 6,

Yourself and a significant number of other respondents here seem to be convinced that 'Ahmadinejad's solution to the Middle East crisis is to destroy Israel,.... '

I really can't comprehend why you persist in the belief that the 'translation' promulgated by the New York Times was true.

Here's some more correct information about what Ahmadinejad really said about Israel: [as posted above by McGrath]

Lost in translation.

Experts confirm that Iran's president did not call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'. Reports that he did serve to strengthen western hawks.

Jonathan Steele

June 14, 2006 12:49 PM


My recent comment piece explaining how Iran's president was badly misquoted when he allegedly called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" has caused a welcome little storm. The phrase has been seized on by western and Israeli hawks to re-double suspicions of the Iranian government's intentions, so it is important to get the truth of what he really said.



I took my translation - "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" - from the indefatigable Professor Juan Cole's website where it has been for several weeks.

But it seems to be mainly thanks to the Guardian giving it prominence that the New York Times, which was one of the first papers to misquote Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, came out on Sunday with a defensive piece attempting to justify its reporter's original "wiped off the map" translation. (By the way, for Farsi speakers the original version is available here.)

More here:

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonathan_steele/2006/06/post_155.html

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Wolfgang
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 07:45 AM

you'll find that in actuality there are a lot, if not mostly, U.S. dollars in regular use as well. (Stilly River Sage, emphasis mine)

Why are you defending a wrong statement of fact with new nonsense instead of simply admitting an error in a minor detail?

I recommend a look at a site with travel tips for Israel (U.S. dollars in cash are accepted at a limited number of shops you'll find for instance). And even if the information was true what would it mean? Sites with travel tips for Iran state that US dollar is accepted as cash nearly everywhere in Iran. Do we learn anything from that? No.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 07:56 AM

Mr. Happy,
The official Iranian news agency gave the same quote.
Khofi Anan, with the benefit of the UN translation unit, gave the same quote.
Ahmadinejad has refused to deny or withdraw the quote.
See links in my previous posts.
thread.cfm?threadid=104986&messages=166&page=2&desc=yes#2157575

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: greg stephens
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 08:27 AM

The poor man is getting a lot of stick for saying there aren't any gays in Iran Foir heaven's sake, cut the chap a bit of slack. He's doing his best to achieve this target.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 10:31 AM

Truer words . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 10:37 AM

What I am stating, Wolfgang, is what I was aware of a number of years ago. Perhaps this has changed. Why don't you post more than a snippet by way of correction, you visit the travel site and offer the explanation? I have a friend who travels to Israel every couple of years, and she has no difficulty shopping with U.S. dollars.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 10:51 AM

People can do that in Canada, too. Use American currency at a 'fair' exchange rate that is. The bills seldom stay in circulation long, but there's no problem having the money accepted at most stores. (Large bills are usually refused because of counterfeits, but smallre denominations are taken with no problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 10:58 AM

Good read--I should have clarified "cash" when I posted. Bruce, last time I was in Canada I found some Canadians where more interested in the U.S. coins--those collectible quarters in particular. I ended up going through my coin purse a couple of times for folks who were looking for particular states. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 11:05 AM

We had that with quarters here. They did a 'collection' that had one for each Province and Territory and I think one for Ottawa, making 14 in all. I wasn't aware of the States collection, SRS.

When's the last time you were up?

(Sorry for the thread drift here, but despite my disagreement with SRS's views to do with Israel, she's a smart lady and a nice one, too.)

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: 3refs
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 11:25 AM

He shoots! He scores! Words made famous here in Canada, The United States and Newfoundland by Foster Hewitt during his Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts, translates to, "Il tire ! Il marque!" in French !
Now, translate "Il tire ! Il marque!" back into English and you get "It draws! It marks!
Now most Canadians, who listen to French broadcasts, know that we usually here "Il lance, il count!" which translates to "It launches, it count!". Sometimes we hear "La but!"(le?)which is "The Goal". Of course there are many different versions of scoring a goal in both English and French.
My point being, sometimes things get lost in the translation. I'm not sure just exactly what Ahmadinejad meant with his reference to "Homosexuals". Is it possible that what he intended to say, could he do it in English, was that "yes we have homosexuals, but they don't enjoy the same kind of freedoms as those in western country's!".

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 11:56 AM

"Iran: Two More Executions for Homosexual Conduct
(New York, November 22, 2005) – Iran's execution of two men last week for homosexual conduct highlights a pattern of persecution of gay men that stands in stark violation of the rights to life and privacy, Human Rights Watch said today. "

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 12:22 PM

Bollinger lost all credibility when he called Ahmadinejad a "penis-spud."

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 12:38 PM

I think Ahmadinejad is a stupid man on the order of George Bush stupid. That is, brigher than yer average turnip, but not by much. It's a good thing he has no real power. W'all best get thinking about those who DO call the shots in Iran. And it ain't him.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Peace
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 12:52 PM

So, how long will Iran keep up the 'maskirova' for?

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: bobad
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 12:56 PM

3refs, I believe that should read "Il lance, il compte" - he throws (shoots) the puck, he counts (a point) scores.

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 01:54 PM

Hey SRS have a look at what today is as an anniversary for the great leader of the "Palestinian" people:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/27/newsid_4579000/4579685.stm

Subject: RE: BS: Ahmadinejad at Columbia
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 02:28 PM

"I would have thought that my friend, Mr. Greenhaus, would have been more aware of the realities of protest. In today's atmosphere of antipathy, even the most apathetic will react to personal threat. (That is the real reason The US got into this war and the reason why so many approved. For the first time, we were threatened by acts of terror. We were mad, scared and determined to fight. Say what you will, it was that very real threat that got GWB reelected)
But some of us feel more threatened than others. Jews have recent memories of massacres and freindly indifference. To a Jew, a national leader who rails against Jews, denies or discounts the Nazi Holocost, and openly supports Hammas, is a very real threat. I, personally, don't want anyone silenced but I can, well, understand why many would. It is like Lester Maddox being invited to speak at Grambling. I imagine the students might make their displeasure known to one and all. So, although I agree that everyone has, or shoud have the right to free speech, I find the scolding of those who protested out of realistic fear, have been given a bad rap by this forum."

I have no argument with those who feel threatened, and/or wish to express displeasure or protest or outrage, but those folks have no right to prevent others from hearing that which displeases them. If Columbia thought fit to invite Ahmadinejad to speak, they had a responsibility to make sure that he could speak; having a imbecilic university president attack him before he spoke was not only abysmal manners, but made Ahmadinejad look better than hi might have by comparison.

One function of a University should be to teach students the basics of civilized behavior.