Headline in NY Post this morning: THE EVIL HAS LANDED. Subhead: HITLER To Speak At Columbia.
In demonizing Mr. Ahmadinejad, the West has served him well, elevating his status at home and in the region at a time when he is increasingly isolated politically because of his go-it-alone style and ineffective economic policies, according to Iranian politicians, officials and political experts.
So he is the functional equivalent of the President of the U.S. then.
I feel bad that my post is getting all kinds of comments when Labs's was better. Talk about this instead!
This is what happens when two people post at the same time about something...Unfogged prejudice toward the top post dominates.
You'd think our natural sympathy would be with bottoms.
What does Hosni Mubarak joke about?
But it is because of his provocative remarks, like denying the Holocaust and calling for Israel to be wiped off the map
Stupid, stupid NYT writer! Yes, Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier; no, he did not call for Israel to be wiped off the map.
Part of the point is that if he *did* it wouldn't mean that much; it's not as though he's in charge of foreign policy. (Analogy: he's in between being like the US President and being like the Irish or Israeli President, i.e., in a post of little genuine power.)
8: Wasn't the problem with the interpretation of what he said a conflation between a wish/prediction that the government and national identity of the geographical region now constituting Israel would change, and a wish/prediction that the geographical region now constituting Israel be physically obliterated with its inhabitants? If I remember what he said, it did sound to me like the first, but people reacted as if it were the second.
I think I may have known this at some point and then forgotten, but assuming LB is right in 10 then it's a pretty straightforward repetition of changing Khruschev's "We will be present at your funeral" (I'm sure this isn't the literal translation and I'm not checking right now, but it's close) to "We will bury you." Confusion of a statement that the communist USSR will outlast the capitalist U.S. with a statement that it will be the causal agent of the downfall of the U.S.
11: If Ahmedinejad takes off his shoe and bangs the podium, it will be a great day.
Yahoo has Ahmedinejad speaking live at the National Press Club right now.
Coincidentally---or perhaps not!---this is exactly the issue about which I would ask Ahmadinejad if I were going to the forum today. Something along the lines of "if you had your way, in five years what would the balance of power between the President, the Supreme Leader, the Guardian Council and the Parliament look like?"
He's talking about the Holocaust now.
Just said Iran could not recognize Israel so long as it discriminated between people, killed Palestinians, attacked its neighbors, etc.
12: If he bangs the podium or any other inanimate object, it'll be a win for the American public.
16:Or animate appendage, if it can reach that high.
Or maybe a fireplace poker.
I avoided this thread because the post title was too tempting, I had strong urges toward treasonous & seditious remarks. Ich bin ein Berliner, or just a standing scone. Google has no "Bad German to Farsi" option.
Re: 10
Sorry that I misremembered the exact phrase Ahmadinejad had used. He made an analogy to Khomeini's determination and success in getting rid of the Shah's government, which Khomeini had said "must go" (az bain bayad berad). Then Ahmadinejad defined Zionism not as an Arabi-Israeli national struggle but as a Western plot to divide the world of Islam with Israel as the pivot of this plan.
The phrase he then used as I read it is "The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] from the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad)."
Ahmadinejad was not making a threat, he was quoting a saying of Khomeini and urging that pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope-- that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the Shah's government.
Whatever this quotation from a decades-old speech of Khomeini may have meant, Ahmadinejad did not say that "Israel must be wiped off the map" with the implication that phrase has of Nazi-style extermination of a people. He said that the occupation regime over Jerusalem must be erased from the page of time.
Again, Ariel Sharon erased the occupation regime over Gaza from the page of time.
I should again underline that I personally despise everything Ahmadinejad stands for, not to mention the odious Khomeini, who had personal friends of mine killed so thoroughly that we have never recovered their bodies. Nor do I agree that the Israelis have no legitimate claim on any part of Jerusalem. And, I am not exactly a pacifist but have a strong preference for peaceful social activism over violence, so needless to say I condemn the sort of terror attacks against innocent civilians (including Arab Israelis) that we saw last week. I have not seen any credible evidence, however, that such attacks are the doing of Ahmadinejad, and in my view they are mainly the result of the expropriation and displacement of the long-suffering Palestinian people.
It is not realistic for Americans to call for Iran to talk directly to the Israeli government (though in the 1980s the Khomeinists did a lot of business with Israel) when the US government won't talk directly to the Iranians about most bilateral issues. In fact, an American willingness to engage in direct talks might well pave the way to an eventual settlement of these outstanding issues.
cheers
Juan Cole
Mr. Bollinger concluded: "Frankly, and in all candor Mr. President, I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions, but your avoiding them will in itself be meaningful to us. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes what you say and do."
I think this guy is just angling for a New York Post column.
19:
Hell no, but hasty and too lazy to insert an introduction.
Wish we could get that guy to introduce Bush.
25: I do think it would be a lively way to introduce a presidential debate.
They should do entrances to presidential debates like boxing matches, with lights and explosions, theme music, and the candidates coming down in hoodies, throwing punches, and surrounded by their posses. And Michael Buffer can moderate. "LET'S GET READY TO SQUAAAAAAAABLLLLLLLE!"
You forgot the skimpily clad cheerleaders. Just think of the stories about the cheerleaders' grandmothers, the ethnic mix of cheerleaders, etc. "Suzy Haratoonian might well deliver the Armenian vote to Obama. That was a smart, low-cost move that could pay off handsomely in Nevada!"