Tuesday, September 25, 2007

America's love fest with Ahmadinejad


Schwarzenegger’s embrace of the dubious scientific evidence for global warming to his intent on revitalizing California’s health care system to a socialized health care system has alienated most of his Republican base in California including me. However, I give Arnold kudos for his latest move on signing a bill which will in his words, “give a powerful blow to terrorism.” This latest move has received little press, but Schwarzenegger has pledged to sign on Monday a bill to require the state’s two giant public pension funds to disinvest billions of dollars in Iran-related investments. This is exactly what needs to be done. Individual investors, Mutual Funds and other states should follow suit. Remember the outcry that brought down apartheid in South Africa? Where is that same outcry when it comes to Iran?

Schwarzenegger’s move came at a time when we seem to be coddling the worst terrorist in the world, a little twerp of a man, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad under the guise of free speech. When Ahmadinejad began speaking at Columbia University, he began with a harangue invoking the return of Mahdi. Mahdi, according to Islam, will return just before the advent of the Day of Judgment, the apocalypse. Mahdi will be the 12th Iman who will bring about the restoration of the Islamic Caliphate and a world in which Islam reigns as the world’s only religion under Sharia law. This can only happen with the violent overthrow of anything non-Muslim. So in Ahmadinejad’s opening statement, he was calling for the violent overthrow of America. Neither the audience nor Bollinger even took notice. The reference to Mahdi just went completely over the heads of the erudite academics or as Lenin coined “useful idiots.” Their $50,000 educations seem to have been for naught. This is because very few people in the West understand Islam. Ahmadinejad continued with an incoherent, puerile and boorish introduction mixed with pseudo-science and other nonsensical information.

Of course, to put things in perspective, Bollinger says he would have invited Hitler too given the chance. Well, Mein Kampf is one of the best selling books in the Middle East. Germany has free speech too but Mein Kamp is banned in that country. There is a limit to free speech. Giving Ahmadinejad a public forum would fall under that category.

In fact, it seemed Ahmadinejad received more deferential treatment when he spoke then when the minutemen spoke at Columbia University. The minutemen have been doing what the president refuses to do, guarding our borders.

Anne Applebaum states in the Washington Post the only time we should give Ahmadinejad a public forum in which to speak:

Instead, the university should have demanded genuine reciprocity. If the president and dean of Columbia truly believed in an open exchange of ideas, they should have presented a debate between Ahmadinejad and an Iranian dissident or human rights activist — someone from his own culture who could argue with him in his own language — instead of allowing him to be filmed on a podium with important-looking Americans. Perhaps Columbia could even have insisted on an appropriate exchange: .... Christopher Hitchens or, better still, Ayaan Hirsi Ali — to Qom, the Shiite holy city, to debate the mullahs on their own ground.

These are people who understand Islam and its culture.

We can now expect the Iranian propaganda machine to go into overdrive. Bollinger began his tough rhetoric with a draconian introduction that some have said even insulted the Iranian leader. But regardless, if Bollinger used this rhetoric under pressure or for some other reason, does it really make any difference? When he posed pointed questions such as questions on the holocaust, Bollinger neglected to drill down to get to the root of the situation like any experienced interviewer would do. Instead Bollinger would just proceed to the next question. Of course, it doesn't really matter one way or the other, because just Ahmadinejad's presence served the Iranian leader's purpose. What do you think the Iranians will hear? They won’t hear the boos or the laughter from the homosexual question, but they will hear the applause from the “useful idiots” that seemed to resonate through the auditorium at various intervals, and the questions and answers the Iranians deem appropriate.

Anyone who thinks Ahmadinejad was here for America's benefit is deluded. He was here for the benefit of his propaganda machine period. Free speech or not Ahmadinejad got what he wanted.

The audience applauded both Ahmadinejad and statements or questions from the audience.

"Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," one person chided. But what will the Iranians hear? They might hear the applause, but it won’t be from a statement the audience says, it will be applause approvingly of Ahmadinejad. The Iranians will walk away believing the Americans are in love with Ahmadinejad, but in reality the audience at the prestigious Columbia University will look like the useful idiots they are.

On Hugh Hewitt's site, he writes:

Iran is smuggling advanced weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, into Iraq to be used by extremists against American troops, the US military charged on Sunday.
US military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox told reporters in Baghdad that Iran was shifting sophisticated arms such as "RPG-29s, explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs), 240 mm rockets and Misagh-1 surface-to-air missiles" across its borders into Iraq.

An EFP is a feared roadside bomb which when it explodes emits a white-hot slug of molten copper that can cut through the armoured skins of US military vehicles.
Fox reiterated that Iranian national Mahmudi Farhadi, detained on Thursday in the northern province of Sulaimaniyah, is one of the kingpins in the bomb smuggling operations.

"He is a member of the Ramazan Corps, the Quds Force department responsible for all operations in Iraq," Fox said.


And we grant this tyrant a podium in which to speak. What appalls me even further is Bush’s apathy on the entire affair. What happened with Bush’s address to the nation on September 20th 2001 when he said,

We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime?

Instead, we let the terrorist walk among us. Who would have thunk?

And now, we have Buah and this little twerp going to the inept United Nations. Bush instead of talking about Iran and Syria, the two greatest threats in the world talks about Burma huh? And then he talks about how the Palestinian people had Democratic elections. Does he forget they elected Hamas, a terrorist organization? In Bush’s zeal to spread Democracy throughout the world, it seems to matter not who is elected. An Islamic Democracy is an oxymoron. It doesn’t exist in Islamic tradition.

A few hours later, it was Ahmadinejad’s turn to speak. His discourse once again included the invocation of Mahdi’s return, and he accused the west of hindering his progress with his nuclear ambitions, of course for peaceful purposes. And we all know Ahmadinejad only wants peace.

Until we learn who our enemy really is, we will all be in danger.

The past couple of days has produced only one good thing I can see – I no longer had to watch anymore of OJ Simpson. Ahmadinejad seems to have taken precedence.

Note: Just because I am down on Bush in this piece in no way makes me lean towards the Democratic isle – The Democrats are worse. The Republicans don't get it, and the Democrats get it even less. There is one party dumber than the Republican party – the Democratic party. When are we going to get someone in the Reagan tradition who works for the good of the country instead of what is politically expedient or politically correct. (it's not Hillary.)

3 comments:

sims said...

I dunno, I think you let people like Ahmadenijad hang themselves with their own words, instead of censoring them. If our society is superior, we should show that our values apply at all times, and we do not fear the words of madmen. Khruschev and Castro didn't wreck us with speeches, and this unshaven man without a tie is a threat? Really?

If we cannot discern the difference on our own, then we probably do not deserve the high self-opinion that we carry.

You know what kind of country keeps dissenting opinions out? IRAN.

Let every single ignorant despot come here and lecture at will. I don't fear their words will harm my country one bit. But then, I don't worry about terrorists trying to kill me any more than I was concerned about commies putting fluoride in the drinking water.

For the record, never had a cavity. Many thanks, comrades!

Mark said...

Sims,

Well, I do agree with you on the fluoride issue. The idea that fluroide helps teeth is a myth, and it was only for children, so why put it in the water supply that everyone drinks. I never believed it prevented cavities.

Castro was never a terrorist. He was just a pain in the butt. I also think the situation was different with Kruschev. Sure there was a cold war, but he wasn't killing Americans, and you could have a dialogue with him too. He was interested in his own survival just like we are.

We have been at war with Iran since the early 70s and he is killing Americans. Why should we give him a forum. He is not going to change anyone's mind here, but he will create fodder for the Iranians.

You are not allowed free speech in the high schools if it is disruptive. You cannot yell fire in an auditorium. Prominent Democrats have want to institute the fairness doctrine because they can't seem to make it on talk radio.

Why did we not let Ahmadinejad go to the WTC, because it would have been an insult. We should not let a tyrant with whom we are at war talking at our most prestigious universities.

Do you think FDR would have allowed Hitler to come and speak. I don't even think it is a matter of free speech. It is a matter of not giving our enenmies a forum in which to speak.

If you don't worry about the terrorists. I want to recommend two books for you

Because they hate by Brigitte Gabriel (an Lebanese-Christian) whose country was taken over by the Muslims.

and

Why we want to kill you by Walid Shoebat, by an ex-Islamic Terrorist

sims said...

Hmm, Castro is just a pain in the butt. Then why don't we start doing business with the island and cut him in on the deal, like we did with the Communist Chinese who still rule autocratically, sell us most of our consumable crap, and not coincidentally, hold obscene amounts of our debt?

And Khruschev? All he did was aim thousands of nuclear missiles at us, and lob Sputnik over our comlacent heads. And there was that little "We will bury you" remark made at the UN. Khruschev is just a rabble-rouser, and the man in Iran with centrifuges is going to bring us down? Perpective, man. It's all about perspective.

And of course Iran is helping kill Americans in Iraq. If China had an occupation force in Mexico, we'd be helping out the Mexicans, even as we remained "neutral."

You want to undermine Ahmadinejad? Start drawing down US forces. As long as we're there, he can play at picking us off, but as we leave, and Sunni/Shia violence escalates, his country, which is on shaky economic footing, will be flooded with millions of Shia refugees, and his armies will be forced to deal with Sunnis in Iraq, and at home. Viva la revolucion!

He doesn't want us to leave. His survival as a politician and perhaps as a breather are utterly dependent on US troops being in Iraq. This guy is nothing without George W Bush.

The examples of areas of prohibited freedom of speech aren't really relevant. Obviously, a crowded theatre being incited to panic should be a crime, whether it is from hearing "FIRE!" screamed, or a gun being fired at the ceiling. People can agree on the logic of that.

Saying that Columbia (and how can a liberal, Ivy League school also be "prestigious?") gives him a forum to inspire his own people is kind of a soft argument. He can appear on national TV in his own country any time he wishes, and can certainly have a world-wide forum on al Jazeera when it suits him. He spoke in the US, and he was exposed for the petty goofball that he is. Maybe there were people that hadn't noticed before, but then again, maybe there are no gays in Iran, either.

When Bush stops making this guy look like a serious threat, Iranians will get bored with him, and continue the slow, inexorable slide toward overthrowing the ayatollahs. Ahmadenijad would never been elected in an increasingly liberalized Iran if we hadn't lumped the country into the axis of evil. Of all the mistakes Bush has made, that was one of the biggest. Hell, Iran was supporting us in Afghanistan in 2002.

Honestly though, there's nothing I can read that is going to make me fearful of terrorists here in the US. They are going to kill more of us eventually, it's only a matter of time. In the interim, I will not live in fear. The terrorists may kill me, but they will not terrorize me.

 
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