Bluesman

I see they left out of the account the part in which he was applauded - repeatedly and at length. By Columbia students.

So, what message went out to the world? To Iranian dissidents? To the region that fears or wecomes Iranian power, possibly nuclear weapons? Did that blistering attack by Bollinger offset the dignity accorded to this criminal? Did the applause he recieved from an enemy state's youth have an effect on the Iranians' morale, our own, or the rest of the world's?

Bottom line: was it worth it, and was it a good idea to do this?

I already know how I answer these questions; anybody else?

__________________
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

JAD_333

I am going to offer a different view of this whole A-jad flap. We had a good opportunity to show the better qualities of our country to the leader of a hostile country and IMO we blew it. We should have let him speak without protest and we should have let him pay his respects at the WTC memorial. His sincerity or insincerity and the integrity or lack thereof of his words would have stood for themselves for Americans to judge. We didn't have to applaud his actions; we would not have had to praise them; we could have been just as questioning of them. It seems to me that by paying his respects at the WTC memorial (sincere or otherwise) is a commitment in some small way to follow through in his future actions and it could have been taken as the expression of all Iranians. We lost a good opportunity to stand tall and show off our better side.

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To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education. (Plato)

astralis

bluesman,

i figure if the US could survive the USSR's tyrants visiting our shores, we'll survive this tin pot puppet doing so as well.

i for one am not exactly impressed with or scared of the persuasive powers of mr. a-jad. if we can't beat him in sending out "messages to the world", then something's FUBAR and we're in a lot more trouble than him pulling out another tired, propaganda-filled drivel of a speech.

__________________
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Dwarven Pirate

Im with JAD. Having people trucked in to shout someone down makes me ashamed of us. I should hope we are better than that, vainglorious as it seems to be. When I was about 12 the KK came to our town commons in Vermont and all the hippies stood around screaming at them. When we asked them to be quiet, they began screaming at us, lol. This is apparently what passes for American discourse?

I would be ashamed as well to think the people here calling for his murder were in any way near the mainstream. This is how you want us to parley with foreign heads of state? Arrange traffic accidents for them?

(Also, lets assume for a moment that USAUSAUSA wasn't kidding when he made his post about the deaths of Americans. Why is that not proper but calling for the death of Ahmadinejad is? I see this sort of thing on this board. Is it purely for those who believe they are speaking to American interests?)

EDIT: We let him into the country. That makes him our guest. To disrespect him while he is here shows merely that we are brutes.

astralis

well,

in the end he did not quite deny the holocaust, and instead proclaimed that he was trying to defend the freedoms of holocaust-denying scholars.

he questioned (weakly) if AQ was really responsible for 9-11.

he proclaimed that iranian women were the "freest women in the world,"

and he denied that there were homosexuals in iran.

so yeah, he ended up sounding like the total dumbars* that he is. not exactly what i'd call a big win for shi'a domination in the middle east. here's hoping rafsanjani rips him up soon.

Bluesman

Y'all missed the point. He's not dangerous because we're letting him try to make a case, or spread PR for his side. That's a settled question, for anybody with any perception, so that's not the important part.

The part that counts is when we treat him like he's just another head-of-state, on par and exactly the equivalent of OUR President, or the British Prime Minister. He was accorded honors and respect that he simply doesn't deserve; he was treated as if he had a POINT, whether he's able to make it well on a podium or not. The PODIUM is the point, not what he says when he stands at it.

He will return to Iran enhanced and strengthened, with burnished credentials, and for showing he had the balls to beard the lion in his own den. What he said? Meaningless. Where he was and what he did while he was there? EVERYTHING.

You think that he came here to 'sell' something, the Iranian point-of-view or whatever. No; he came here to be a PLAYER, and he WAS. And now he IS.

Big mistake. Unnecessary one, too.

Bluesman

Edited because I went too far. Apologies to the mods and the above poster.

Bluesman

You're focusing on the message's 'internals'. What's FAR more important are the 'externals'. You can't see that.

Bluesman

Do you imagine that he doesn't know everything that you would have shown him? Do you imagine that this enmity that passes between his country and ours is some sort of misunderstanding, something to be cleared up with a 'get-to-know-ya' visit?

To WHOM? Who do you suppose does NOT know what you wanted to showcase? Who do you imagine will be allowed to ponder the nature of America and her People?

Guys, y'all seem to believe that a good ole DEBATE with him, us showing what WE are, him showing what THEY are, will serve to clarify the differences, and then everybody will see The Truth.

It's not ABOUT that. Us showing our better side? USELESS to our cause, except as a living example. Him speaking utter crap and foolishness from a stage provided by us to an absolutely evil man, engaged in a personal mission of world-ending religious zealotry? INVALUABLE to his cause.

BIG MISTAKE.

Dwarven Pirate

And you are an extremist fruitcake.

What the hell do you mean, saying we've allowed him to become "a player"? Is this some hip-hop designation? The man is factually a leader of a member nation of the UN. You want to invade his nation or assassinate him, fine. Until then, I guess he has the right to speak to the assembly. See, we believe in rights in America. Our soldiers have died for them.

Bluesman

I'm not an extremist fruitcake, and neither do I believe a few of the provably-wrong things you believe.

For instance, I do not believe that we're 'brutes' (your chosen word), particularly as compared to THIS creature. But you provide an excellent example of what I've been trying to point out: certain Americans, you among them, when faced with evil, will find fault with their own country FIRST, rarely with a sworn and evil enemy. Oh, I'm sure you'll concede that A-jad is a horrible little piece of villainy, but we've all noticed you're not too crazy about your own countrymen for being ever-so-RUDE to a murderous religious fanatic that is even now killing your country's troops.

Second, no American soldier has ever died for the right of a foreign terrorist to speak in front of the UN assembly. This isn't an American right at all. And for you to invoke the deaths of American servicemembers and claim that they gave their lives so that their killer could be received in their country is about as ridiculous a thing as anybody has ever claimed here on the WAB, and as a long-time member of it, you may take my word for it that this is quite an accomplishment. Because we've had some people on here that are downright insane.

He's no guest of the United States, he's a guest of the UN, benighted and morally retarded as they are, and by treaty obligation, he has to be admitted to the US, as we're the host country of the UN, and this is just one more case of us being sorry about that fact.

But the fact is, he participated in a breach of one of the most sacrosanct of all international compacts: he invaded and sacked an American Embassy, and for him to claim that he has safe passage to the very country he committed that crime against is simply obscene.

Now, I don't expect you to 'get' this, but here's WHY that should be punishable by us: the only way countries could EVER talk, settle differences, make international arrangements or have ANY intercourse at all is through their embassies. As soon as that is no longer true, as soon as diplomats are not safe in their host countries, there is no longer anything but perpetual feud across state boundaries, with no safety nor peace between neighbors.

He should be punished for his part in weakening the only means possible for the allowing of two nations to treat with each other, and to the extent that he is actually HONORED, it is a travesty and a sham.

He is NOT, as you seem to imagine, just another head-of-state. He's a criminal. And we OWE him - and the people he's killed, captured, held hostage, and persecuted - many, many Americans among each one of those groups - JUSTICE.

Instead, you want to us to hold the door open for him and escort him to the podium.

Adux

I am not his fan by a mile, But he is still the leader of an UN recognized country. It is the responsiblity of the US to accord the honors he deserves whatever the differences maybe. Like it or not, Iran is a player in that region,

Bluesman

Let me ask you a question:

Suppose it turns out that IRAN was behind the bombing in Baghdad that killed Sergio De Mello and 21 of his colleagues and all were servants of the UN at the time, and A-jad had ordered it? Would the US and the UN still be obliged to welcome him to New York as the head of a UN-recognized country?

No, they wouldn't. He killed their people, one of their diplomats. That he would be invited to and received by the UN would be grotesque in the extreme. And that's exactly what it IS, too.

He's a CRIMINAL. He's a MURDERER. He's a TERRORIST. He starts wars-by-proxy. He harbors international criminals. He engages in arms trafficking to OTHER terrorists. He has committed just about every single crime he possibly can except DWI. There is NO expectation that as a criminal, he should be accorded safe passage, and NO, it doesn't matter WHAT office he holds.

Why can't you people GET this? It isn't hard. He's NOT just another statesman.

ozjohn39

If a man turns up at US Immigration with a Diplomatic or UN Passport, I doubt they can refuse him entry.

John

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"Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you".

gunnut

Although I agree we should let him speak at Columbia, I disagree that it should be without protests. Protest is a basic right in the west. We protest everything from bad cheese to bad people. However, the protests should be orderly. Trouble makers should be arrested. Violent people should be beaten.

Correction, he's not a guest of the United States of America. He's a guest of the United Nations. We, as the host of the UN, permit him to come to our land to speak at the UN. No more. No less.

__________________
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.