Just a few days ago, the president of Columbia University hosted an appearance by the highly educated but controversial president of Iran, Armadinejad. While introducing him to his audience, Lee Bollinger said the most insulting, jingoistic, nonsense about his invited guest, who is the democratically elected president of a sovereign nation.
The academician's self-important, self-righteous histrionics was not just simple arrogance, but the poisoned fruit of malicious propaganda foisted upon an ignorant American public. Who is really the petty dictator, the invader, the uneducated C- student who avoided the Vietnam draft, and who has caused the deaths of over 1 million people in a country that did nothing to us and was virtually defenseless? That person should be loudly condemned by Bollinger, instead of Armadinejad. To his credit, the disrespected guest, ignored the "petty dictator" label and other insults hurled by Bollinger in his introduction, and proceeded to deliver a credible, dignified address to his audience in spite of the insults.
So why did Bollinger unleash this attack, even before Armadinejad started speaking? Because he, along with Geo. Bush, Dick Chaney, John Hagee and many others allied with the BuchCo administration, are Zionists, who believe that Iran is a threat to Israel, and whatever is bad for Israel is also bad for the United States. This theory conflates Israel's interests with those of the US, and makes it impossible for a rational diplomatic American discourse with Iran. Instead Iran is now being demonized, much like Iraq was prior to their being attacked and occupied. Any country that has a valuable resource like oil that America and Israel covets, and is perceived to be a threat to their interests, is turned into an object of contempt and ridicule, in an attempt to make an attack on them more palatable to the voters.
Iran is one of four countries in the middle east who elects their president democratically. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Pakistan and Egypt do not, and yet they are allies in good standing with the US - so it's clear that it's not about having a democratic government, but is instead about empire and who will control that part of the world and it's resources.
Whatever has happened in Iran over the last 60 years, has been a direct result of US intervention. The people of Iran chose the way they are governed and the way they live, and the laws they live by is their choice and is just as valid as the laws under which Americans live. Also in Iran, about 25-35,000 religious Jews comprise the largest Jewish community in the middle east outside of Israel, and has resided there peacefully and protected by the Iranian government for centuries. They are apparently so happy there, that they have consistently refused to emigrate to Israel, as many Israelis would have them do.
Is it a coincidence that Bollinger invited Ahmadinejad, called him petty and cruel....all he left out was the "axis of evil" part....and that this week's Newsweek asks "How far will Israel go to keep Iran from getting the bomb?" Do those calling him a tyrant, dictator, murderer, and worse, realize that he has far less power in Iran, than Bush and Chaney have here. This bogeyman has no control whatever over the Iranian military, cannot even appoint the members of his own cabinet, and must defer to the Ayatollahs in every important decision - how does this make him a dictator or tyrant?
We don't need more knee-jerk, anti-free speech jerks like Bollinger. Ahmadinejad has not attacked another sovereign country - George W. Bush has. Who is closer to being a "petty and cruel dictator?" See Abu Ghraib and Guantanomo and loss of habeas corpus and civil liberties in the United States. Ahmadinejad may be anti-Israel and a speechifying figurehead, but ask yourself - who has caused more actual, real, bloody death and destruction in this world - George W. Bush or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
It was a stunningly-synchronized campaign against Ahmadinejad, and I'd say many were pretty much on board for it. Which is timely, because this time we can ALL get behind Bush (as opposed to the last time), and feel all weepy and warm and patriotic when he drops bombs on Iran, and incinerates the flesh off their little children, and turns a functioning economy into a desolate hell of fire and sewage and death, as he has done in Iraq.
I think the Iranian President was SET UP!
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