Ahmadinejad Causes Stir in New York
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York city has stirred up a storm of controversy.
The Iranian president’s speech to an overflowing crowd at Columbia University and protests that greeted him overshadowed the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly and even the UN chief’s push for action on climate change on Monday.
Ahmadinejad was subjected to blistering criticism of his country’s human rights record and foreign policy during his Columbia visit and was given a frosty reception by Lee Bollinger, the university’s president.
“Mr President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,” he said.
He also challenged Ahmadinejad’s reported denial of the Holocaust.”When you come to a place like this it makes you simply ridiculous. The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history.”
Ahmadinejad rose to applause, and after a religious invocation said Bollinger’s opening was “an insult to information and the knowledge of the audience here”.
He blamed the university president’s “unfriendly treatment” on the influence of the US media and politicians ahead of his visit.
“Many parts of his speech were insults,” he said. “We actually respect our students and the professors by allowing them to make their own judgments.”
‘Evil has landed’
Before his trip and during his Columbia speech and comments to the media on Monday, Ahmadinejad appeared to be reaching out to the American public, giving a much more balanced view than the US media has often portrayed.
But even before his appearance at Columbia, the front page of New York’s Daily News already ran the headline “The evil has landed” while The New York Post called Ahmadinejad the “Madman Iran Prez”.
Thousands of people gathered outside the United Nations headquarters on Monday to protest against Ahmadinejad’s visit.
The speakers, most of them politicians and officials from Jewish organisations, proclaimed their support for Israel and criticised the Iranian leader over remarks questioning the Holocaust.
“We’re here today to send a message that there is never a reason to give a hatemonger an open stage,” Christine Quinn, speaker of New York City’s council, said.
Outside the university lecture hall where Ahmadinejad was to speak, several hundred protesters raised their objections to the event. Some linked arms and sang traditional Jewish folk songs about peace and brotherhood.
Inside, many students were wearing T-shirts with the message “Stop Ahmadinejad’s Evil”.
Holocaust denial
Ahmadinejad rejected accusations that he has denied the Holocaust actually happened, but argued for more research to be conducted on the subject.
“I’m not saying that it didn’t happen at all,” he said. “I said, granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people?”
He used his 30-minute speech to repeat Tehran’s insistence that its nuclear programme was focused on meeting the country’s electricity needs.
Washington says Iran is seeking to produce nuclear weapons.
“We do not believe in nuclear weapons. Period. This goes against the whole grain of humanity,” Ahmadinejad said.
During the question-and-answer session he denied that homosexuals were persecuted in Iran.
“In Iran we do don’t have homosexuals like in your country. In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I do not know who has told you we have it,” he said, sparking laughter from the audience.
Some, however, were not amused.
“This is a sick joke,” said Scott Long of Human Rights Watch, saying Iran tortures gays under a penal code that punishes homosexuality between men with the death penalty.
US targets Iran force
Separately, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, ratcheted up the pressure on Tehran, telling the Reuters news agency that the US was considering sanctions against the entire al-Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
Such a designation would enable Washington to target the force’s financing.
The US accuses the Quds force of inciting violence in Iraq and of training and equipping fighters who have attacked US troops.
Iran has repeatedly denied this.
The US is increasing diplomatic pressure on Iran to stop uranium enrichment, which can produce nuclear weapons, and targeting the al-Quds force would be part of that strategy.
“Remember that the problem with the Quds force is that it has a network of activities in support of terrorism but it also, we believe, has a network of activities in support of proliferation,” Rice said.
‘Occupation and racism’
On Monday morning, Ahmadinejad met leaders of a movement called Neturei Karta International.
The Orthodox Jewish group believes that Jews are forbidden to have their own state until the coming of the Messiah and are therefore opposed to the existence of the state of Israel.
Afterwards, in a video conference with reporters in Washington, Ahmadinejad accused Israel of occupation and racism.
“It constantly attacks its neighbours,” he said. “It kills people. It drives people from their homes.”
Ahmadinejad is due to address the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.
© 2003-2007 Aljazeera.net
To tell you the truth, I’m more inclined to believe Ahmadinejad than I am George Bush.
Why does the press never mention Isreals several hundred nuclear bombs with no international inspection at all. They don’t even admit they exist.
The facts are that Iran has never attacked us but we have a long history of meddleing in their affairs. They do have a right to defend themselves.
Iran is weening itself from the US dollar and that is one of the reason’s our oiligarchy is upset. They also want to control Irans resources.
You never hear any of this stuff from our media but has to be ferreted out on the internet.
Iran is on the climate change good list with nuclear but it still is controversial. We shouldn’t have it for energy either but all the scientists agree I could be a help. We could have a lot less waste if it was reprocessed all the way. Which we don’t here in the US, leading to a lot of waste in the DU.
I feel for this guy. If someone tried to trump me that way I would ask if they think they are civilized or not. Do these people think yellin’ and screamin’ is gonna win friends or what? If we need to work together we need to create a decent atmosphere to work in. I’m not all for this dude, I think we need to do the same thing for Bush and co. Sit them down and explain how things work out side of their box. I wonder how these people where taught in school, what were their parents like. How to bridge the gap. The right question needs no answer. Why are people so dumb?
If there is an evil in all this, I think it is nuclear energy. There is no such thing as peacefull use, the waste is harmfull to all living things. If that isn’t bad enough, we make it more harmfull and weaponize it.
If Iran wanted to change the status quo it could develope a viable solar energy system.
Ah, but then that would be a peacefull enterprise.
Isn’t it amazing how this silly little man could roil so many Americans. That really says much about Americans and “free speech”. Why not take Amadinejad’s speech and dissect it… accept what is acceptable and reject that which is not. If he really did say that the Jewish holocaust didn’t happen, then he should be roundly condemned. Interestingly enough, Pat Buchanan (a person that I do not like or admire) had a very interesting column in Antiwar today called “Infantile Nation”. Iran does not invade it’s neighbours. Iran (as far as we know does not (yet) have nuclear weapons. Iran is not occupying any other’s land, stealing resources, buldozing peoples houses and doling out collective punishment. Israel does all of the above. Israel disregards numersous U.N. resolutions, with unlimited U.S support. Israel’s leaders (some of whom had real terrorist histories) are welcomed to the U.S and allowed to speek freely. One never hears a peep of protest.
One accurate comment that Amadinejad made is this: Why should Palestinians pay the price for a crime that they did not commit. The Jewish holocaust happened in Christian Europe, not in the Muslim Middle East. Why do people NOT discuss that point.
I agree with Mahmoud on things except Islam’s treatment of homosexuals and women. Just more anti-science theocracy, as bad as their Xtian and Likudnik counterparts whose crusaders and moneyed conservatives are leading us into WWIII and MAD. His adherence to nuclear power could be a “necessary lie”. He knows Bush won’t attack a nuclear power as we saw with his other axis of evil country, N.Korea and with whom he is now making nice after they got the bomb.
This guy needs a PR firm bad. He’s his own worst enemy.
Ya know? Seriously! The whole country needs a PR firm… I mean, taking into account the fact that they actually helped us out fighting terrorists in Afghanistan… the man’s rhetoric is no worse to this homosexual than the pope or Falwell - yet oooooh, they’re Evil. Very few people are evil - just about everyone has an interest in some common good… He’s just a fundamentalist - a totally different affliction.
I mean, I get that the Jews really, really don’t like him, or pretty much anyone from Iran for that matter, but seriously, they don’t make themselves easy to get along with either. How would the Jewish people like it if massive protests of American Muslims followed around their leaders when they’re at the UN? Besides, what good will it do? Isn’t it better to have open dialogue, to actually fix the problem? Hmm? At least the man delivers words, not bombs.
We should hold our heads high when we come in contact with those we find below us - not sink to their level, this was just disgraceful from all sides…
Jove,
“mean, I get that the Jews really, really don’t like him, or pretty much anyone from Iran for that matter”
Well he wasnt the president 2 years ago, and he was elected in. I dont know how it is that you know they dont like him now, but he was definitely liked two years ago.
“We should hold our heads high when we come in contact with those we find below us - not sink to their level”
If Iran sunk to our level, they would be invading their neighbors for oil, using depleted uranium to do it, slaughtering millions, overturning any government that they did not like, expoliting their invaded and occupied conquests, and justify the doing so with with huge slabs of invented propaganda.
What do u expect from the zionist state of jew York, when they are in their cozy safeland of shitzrael filled with nuclear bombs and the guys that use and trade them there they can provoke war cause hey all middleasterners are eating out of their hand via the mother bomb also known as amerika. But the real question is if the us gov is warming up to exterminate iran
We have hugged the tar-baby and this model comes with razor blades built in, going to chew us up good. The Dems won’t ever leave Iraq no matter how many reps they have in congress or even if one of theirs is in the shit house on pennysylvania ave and we will support the oppressions of Israel until the entire region is made uninhabitable for anyone - and all because of the flat-earth Absolute Patriarchal genocidal blood god Jahweh.
Xrstian, Moslem, Jew. Flat earth Aryan killer nomads, flat earth Arab killer nomads, and flat earth Habiru killer nomads (except the Persians are Aryans not Arabs). Arrested infantile development has been inflated to cosmic proportions.
These people can only function in a pre-scientific, 10th century, pre-literate, authoritarian, feudal society. So that’s what they are trying to make. Like Richard Harris sang so long ago, “…someone left the cake out in the rain, and I don’t think that I can take it, cause it took so long to bake it, and I’ll never have that recipe again, oh, oh.” We kill homosexuals here too.
While you’re at it, get your own nuke, that way Bush or Hillary won’t send the Army to impose martial law in your community.
Peace
“We’re here today to send a message that there is never a reason to give a hatemonger an open stage,” Christine Quinn, speaker of New York City’s council, said.
The speaker of New York City’s council went out of her way to say this about a guy who’s here to be friendly, while all the world keeps an open stage for her president’s eight-year hate-and-fear spectacular.
Pretty cute.
I am ashamed and embarrassed at the way supposedly educated members of my country treated this man. We had a great opportunity to show him and his country that George Bush and his rape-publicans do not represent the rest of us. We had the chance to help cool down the saber-rattling, but instead chose to be ignorant goons for the Junta. What a nation of blood-thirsty idiots.
I curiously wait to see if commondreams.org will have the courage to inform its readership regarding what was said by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his visit to New York. It is sometimes easy to believe that the United States of America as a collective (people, media, government, churches, etc.) would rather believe a person evil knowing nothing about that other, than trouble themselves enough to find out where the heart of that other lies.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6107339
I don’t understand why American right-wingers don’t love this guy, since he’s saying all the “right” things.
For example:
1) Nuclear energy is the most cost-effective, sensible way to deal with climate change.
2) Homosexuality is a “lifestyle choice”, and Iran has found a way to “cure” it.
“We should hold our heads high when we come in contact with those we find below us - not sink to their level”
If you’re American, it’s rise to their level, you could not sink any further.
“We’re here today to send a message that there is never a reason to give a hatemonger an open stage,” Christine Quinn, speaker of New York City’s council, said.
Then shut the F*** up!!
I heard something for the first time and don’t know if it is really true. It was one of the Sunday shows, maybe McLoughlin group–when Iraq was using WMDS on Iran during the war they refused to use them in retailiation because it was against their religion. Not to glorify Iran, but it is useful to know one’s enemy’s mindset is it not?
I love this man. If not so much for what he stands for, but what he stands against.
Hummm, science has had quite a few years to fix things and hasn’t despite the fact that it wants to totally define and control everything. It had 40 years to figure out that DDT doesn’t control mosquitos because it also kills thier natural predators. It also forces evolution in un-natural paths. Now it wants to genetically tamper with everything. Maybe it is time to rethink this.