"the Evil Has Landed..."

[Lounge Daddy]

[b]Protests Await in NYC... [/b]
[url="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/09/24/2007-09-24_iranian_madman_mahmoud_ahmadinejad_waks-2.html"]From NY Daily News:[/url][img]http://drudgereport.com/dn.jpg[/img]
[quote]Hatemonger Mahmoud Ahmadinejad landed in a hornet's nest of outrage yesterday as Columbia University prepared to welcome him with open arms today and stuck by a dean's outrageous assertion that it would let Adolf Hitler speak, too.

The Holocaust-denying Iranian tyrant jetted into New York as students, faculty and political leaders protested Columbia's decision to roll out the red carpet.

"It's a stain on the university," said sophomore Elizabeth Friess, 20. "You can't have an open debate with someone who wants to wipe out Israel. There is no reasoning with someone like that."

Columbia threw fuel on the fire of protest by refusing to disavow a dean who said the university would have gladly let the architect of the Holocaust speak.

"It was offensive to hear a dean, of all people, say they would invite Hitler," said senior Lexi Khan, 21. "There aren't too many educational qualities you can draw from a man who sent people to gas chambers."

Ahmadinejad arrived at Kennedy Airport and was whisked away to InterContinental's The Barclay hotel, where a dozen cars pulled up at 5:30 p.m. after cops closed off E. 49th St.

The Iranian despot will speak amid what is expected to be a massive protest today at 1:30 p.m. at Columbia's Alfred Lerner Hall; he'll also speak tomorrow at the UN General Assembly.

The moderator of the event, School of International and Public Affairs Acting Dean John Coatsworth, has sparked a furor by saying he would invite anyone for a little academic give-and-take - even the Fuhrer himself.[/quote]
Entire article [[url="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/09/24/2007-09-24_iranian_madman_mahmoud_ahmadinejad_waks-2.html"]HERE[/url]]

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[url="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/20/60minutes/main3282230.shtml"][b]WE DON'T WANT OUR OWN BOMB... [/b][/url]
[url="http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RPV2AO0&show_article=1"][b]COLUMBIA U won't cancel forum... [/b][/url]
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[url="http://www.nysun.com/article/63232"][b]Legislatures May Act; Cut State Aid... [/b][/url]

[homeschoolmom]

[Anomaly]

I wonder if a university in Tehran would allow George Bush to address the student population?
I wonder if Iran's news media would broadcast that address?
I wonder if Iran's police would keep protestors civil and allow Georoge Bush to be heard?

Does anyone here think that Iran would allow and facilitate George Bush addressing a Tehran university and then visiting the old US Embassy?

[Sojourner]

I'm wondering why he wants to come.

I would go hear him speak if I were at Columbia. One of my friend's kids is there, and he's studying something relating to the Middle East so I'm guessing he'll go if he can.

[T-Bone _]

[quote name='Anomaly' post='1392212' date='Sep 24 2007, 05:58 AM']I wonder if a university in Tehran would allow George Bush to address the student population?
I wonder if Iran's news media would broadcast that address?
I wonder if Iran's police would keep protesters civil and allow George Bush to be heard?

Does anyone here think that Iran would allow and facilitate George Bush addressing a Tehran university and then visiting the old US Embassy?[/quote]

I wonder if Columbia University would allow Bush to speak...

[fides quarens intellectum]

[quote name='T-Bone _' post='1392225' date='Sep 24 2007, 07:39 AM']I wonder if Columbia University would allow Bush to speak...[/quote]

exactly!

i also heard Ahmadinejad asked to visit ground zero, but was denied.

[SarahB]

I'm watching him speak to the Press on CSPAN-2. It's amazing. He speaks like a normal human being when he's in front of anyone other than his people. It almost makes him seem not crazy and he actually makes a couple of decent points. Even crazies get lucky sometimes.

EDIT: While watching that program, the moderator asked him if he was willing to go to war with the West over Iran's nuclear program, and how France and the US have said the world is headed for war with Iran. He pretty much laid the smackdown. He very calmly said, "The US and France aren't the world. Don't try to speak for the world."

I have to agree. Dang it. We too often speak for the world, when we have no idea what we're talking about.

Edited September 24, 2007 by SarahB

[prose]

I saw him before on 60 minutes or something like that. He is a very convincingly sane man. But if you think about it, how else would people follow him?

I think he is very intelligent too.

Scary.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='SarahB' post='1392361' date='Sep 24 2007, 11:50 AM']I'm watching him speak to the Press on CSPAN-2. It's amazing. He speaks like a normal human being when he's in front of anyone other than his people. It almost makes him seem not crazy and he actually makes a couple of decent points. Even crazies get lucky sometimes.

EDIT: While watching that program, the moderator asked him if he was willing to go to war with the West over Iran's nuclear program, and how France and the US have said the world is headed for war with Iran. He pretty much laid the smackdown. He very calmly said, "The US and France aren't the world. Don't try to speak for the world."

I have to agree. Dang it. We too often speak for the world, when we have no idea what we're talking about.[/quote]
I don't think he got lucky ... I think the issues and his personality are far more multifaceted than the impressions we get reading headlines. We like to paint things and people in black and white (calling him "evil" for example) but the reality is that picture is far more nuanced than most people understand it to be.

[SarahB]

[quote name='prose' post='1392363' date='Sep 24 2007, 01:00 PM']I saw him before on 60 minutes or something like that. He is a very convincingly sane man. But if you think about it, how else would people follow him?

I think he is very intelligent too.

Scary.[/quote]


People followed Hitler, and he was completly off his rocker(think of the video of his speeches).

[Sojourner]

[quote name='SarahB' post='1392370' date='Sep 24 2007, 12:07 PM']People followed Hitler, and he was completly off his rocker(think of the video of his speeches).[/quote]
There are a lot of reasons for that, chief among them Germany's economic state following WW1. Sometimes we look for hope in all the wrong places.

[SarahB]

Of course. They thought he was their savior, and would bring Germany back to the big leagues. But my point was that people don't always follow those who are subtle about their craziness, like Iran's president.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='SarahB' post='1392361' date='Sep 24 2007, 01:50 PM']I have to agree. Dang it. We too often speak for the world, when we have no idea what we're talking about.[/quote]What in the heck? What makes the President of Iraq any smarter than the US and France. As opposed as the US and France OFTEN are, don't you think it's significant that we agree on this? What about the United Nations sanctions that are CURRENTLY being imposed against Iran because of their nuclear efforts. That's not 'just the US idiots'. US and France are making it known that there is tooth and muscle behind the UN sanctions and that despite the UN's inablitity to do anything effective militarily (think Sudan and Darfur), two countries that tend to not like each other a whole lot are willing to do something about it.
US and France don't speak for the whole world, but we speak for a huge part of it. Neither of us are calling for the destruction of any Country, just pointing out that the strongest won't stand by while one country is being threatened with 'destruction' because another country thinks it shouldn't exist.
Hitler, Bush, Lincoln, Churchill, Stalin, Ayotolla Kohemeni, Idi Amin, Constantine, Roosevelt (both), Thatcher, Blair, Clinton, and Fidel aren't, or weren't, Evil Embodied at any time. (Well, maybe Idi was.) Like the rest of humanity, there is good and bad, smart and dumb, visible and secretive traits for each of these political leaders. The rest of us are trying to figure out how good, or how bad, each of them are at the moment, and predict how they will be in the future. Nevertheless, we aren't complete idiots either, and we shouldn't be too careful to write off France and the US as typical 'West' and glorify the current president of Iran as a fresh new innocent face. I can just imagine what cain would be raised in any leader of the Western world was calling for the destruction of Syria, because it shouldn't exist. Try to use the [b]same standard [/b]of doubt and applied intelligence to ANY politician speaking.

[SarahB]

I just agree that we shouldn't speak for the world. A good portion of the world doesn't agree with our foreign policy, even those who are helping us.

The guy is a nutcase, don't get me wrong. Hopefully the sanctions will do something, although I have absolutely no faith in the UN. And we'll end up fighting yet another war, or another front in this larger War on Terror, whichever way you look at it. I just don't know that there are enough of our "allies" out there who have the stomach for a large scale war. I worry that we're digging ourselves into a hole.

[kujo]

I'm sorry. But this guy is an ***hole. I just watched his speech at Columbia where he claimed that homosexuality is a "phenomena" which "does not exist in Iran" (which he followed up with "I don't know who told you that."). I'm sorry he's off his rocker. This is the guy who sponsors terrorism and funds it throughout the Middle East. How many US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have been killed by IEDs or other weapons which have been provided to the insurgents by this man?

As for those on this thread extolling his intelligence and "good points," I would remind you that even the devil knows that Jesus is Lord. I have no doubt that this guy is smart and cunning and clever and all that stuff. But make no mistake about it: the blood of THOUSANDS is on his hands.

Edited September 24, 2007 by kujo