Talk:Iranian President Ahmadinejad speaks at Columbia University/Comments

"For those expecting to hear denials of reality, Ahmadinejad did not disappoint."

This is not a neutral persepctive. This implies that the United States is superior in this respect. Although it is impossible to deny the fact that the Iran government has committed great atrocities against its people, it is still important to approach this from a neutral perspective. And if the US truly cared for human rights in the Middle East, why not start with Saudi Arabia or any of the countries in the Gulf where there are already US bases?

Other Considerations:

What is interesting to note is that the Iranians are likely afraid of the United States. One of the effects of the Iraq was was that it gave Iran an incentive to go nuclear (The war in Iraq backfired badly ... that's why North Korea accelerated its plans too for nuclear ambitions after the war, although they've disarmed recently). It demonstrated to Iran, and many other dictatorships that the way to fight the US is to go nuclear. The United States has an overwhelming superiority in conventional arms. That much is clear (although if they are having a hard time pacifiying Iraq at the moment, how will they fare in Iran, a nation 3 times bigger in area?). However, the situation changes with nuclear arms. True, any use of nuclear arms will provoke a devastating response from the US, but it will also deter the United States. The Iranians probably realize that going nuclear will provoke an arms race. However, I believe that they need just the ability to build an a-bomb within a short space of time, which is almost as good as having the bomb. Israel will have a fit over this, and probably try to repeat what it did to Suddam in the 1980's: conduct an airstrike. Another lesson: decentralize your program too much for any strike to do much harm. Iran has scattered much of its facilities underground.

This is reality: the Iranians are afraid of the US, and like other dictators, realize that the only effective way to deter the US is to go nuclear. Unfortunately, the sad thing is, it shouldn't have been like this. Counter-proliferation has replace non-proliferation. If the United States wants to end this, then it means following the treaties that it signed (like the Geneva Convention - should a US soldier ever be captured and tortured, it is possible that many people around the world will say "serves him (or her) right for toturing its POWs"), giving up unrealistic projects like the Ballistic Missile Defense (which will never work), and disarming the majority of it's nukes (it won't lose much firepower anyways, there are about 10000 US nukes today, plus any in the so called Special Access Programs). Ultimately, if America wants to villify Iran and other dictatorships, it must accept that it is not above International law.


 * I have no idea of what is on an Iranian person's mind. If it is 'ohh' these people come over here and mess with my world, which I doubt it is, it is don't tell me what to do. Well do it, may you not live to regret it. -Edbrown05 06:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Which is saying that Iranian people should be able to do what ever the heck they want to do. Not so sure by government leadership positions, you know, the duds that don't count, that they have anything to say. Iran isn't right next door, your neighbor is there. -Edbrown05 06:23, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
 * And the neighbor is saying, "i'd like to bark at the bitch". Ahmadinejad, your gov, will you let them?


 * I don't know what all the whining is about. What are we so afraid of, that we moan about letting him speak?  Do we fear he has 'magic hypnotic POWER!' and can sway our children to put on black turbans and chant 'Death to America!'?  I don't fear Mahmoud Amhadinejad and his lies, let him speak.  Some people may lack confidence in the strength of mind of the American people... Actually, my confidence is dwindling, too, if we're this cowardly about a man simply SPEAKING.  I'd hate to see how we react to something more intimidating than words.  Sticks and stones, you wimps.  This statement, utterly lacking in fear of a petty dictator, was made by Jachra. 209.129.85.4 17:22, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I saw the speech...
For anyone who doesn't know, that guy is full of it. He dodged all the questions, and he is a pathological lier. Most of the stuff the guy from the school said before he talked was based on EVIDENCE and most was fact. I hope that people don't have sympathy for this evil guy because of this speech. He hates all Americans, Israelis and probably others for sure. Contralya 07:28, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I saw it too. And the only question he answered even in the slightest bit of truth (in his mind/culture) was about homosexuals. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 07:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
 * In a way he was probably telling the truth about that, but not in the way he suggested. One, there could be no gay community, with anyone who is gay hiding it. Two, they could of killed most of the gay people driving the rest underground. Contralya 12:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I suggest watching "V for Vendetta" for an idea of what being homosexual within a fascist society would be like. Steven Fry plays a character who is a closet homosexual TV presenter (art imitates life). --Brian McNeil / talk 18:22, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
 * V for Vandetta=most overrated movie ever. Form your own political opinion not what hollywood feeds you. As for this guy theres no doubt that he is scum that the world would be better without but in the end its not our fight. I only hope that we are smarter than our previous actions have made us seem and return home to isolationalism.208.39.169.124 20:07, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

U.S. got opportunity to catch this varmint. Bush prefer to look for him like doing with Bin-Laden
n/c

It may seem like the right thing to do, but in modern politics, that would be an outrage and make everyone hate the U.S. Contralya

Letter from top 10 universities of Iran to Bolinger
If someone has the time, please translate this letter, which has been signed and sent to Bolinger by the presidents of Iran's top 10 universities. In it, they challenge Bolinger with 10 questions, and demand to know why Bolinger was so disrespectful toward a guest of the university.--Zereshk 14:18, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

A little bit of ballance
First Iran is not a normal dictatorship,and even the election is not very democratic, the most of the Iranians might support theire President. Some Minorities are supressed, I call them Zeitgeistminorities like Homosexuals. Nobody realy knows how hight their actual numbers are and if it is a cultural ore a social Phenomen. The west shurly is helping in increasing their number by its own ideology, witch has nothing to do with democracy and is a strange mixture of capitalistic and leftwing legends combined with the pseudoscience soziology. A kind of Trash ideology is leading the west now and I can understand that not every body wants to follow that trash witch they dare to call freedom.

The Zaradustrian beliefe witch is supressed is a rassist ideology and from the Bahai I have not heared good things either. The women are doing worse in Saudi Arabia, witch is an ally of the USA. So where is comming the hate on the Iran witch never attact somebody last 300 years only was attact by the russia nd the british and missused by the US in the fiftys. The jews are living their fine, what is the problem. Iran is independent and does not want to sell its richness to the west and its freemarket trash culture witch is plundering the whole world for the richness of some People in the US and England and the small groups witch are licing their parts in every country. The President of Iran has blood on its hand, witch blood could you define this, It would be so interesting to hear about this because i can imagine in witch direction this is going.

I would like that the West is leading the world but with an idologie witch is thus more of the 19 th century witch is realy longing for values and not for trash. A consumption orientated west will never be superior to any nation with a strong will and its power will only create death, but this can have a sudden end by the forces of nature witch we are ignoring. Johann

I heard that there was a large group of monarchists there.

Monarchists/Pahlavists
I heard that there was a large group of monarchists there.

Death penalty for non-existent citizens?
If homosexuality does not exist in Iran, then why are Iranian citizens still being executed under Islamic law for practising gay sex? According to estimates by exiled Iranian homosexual rights group, Homan, over 4,000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since 1980- Source http://www.iranian.com/Letters/1999/September/gay.html. Amnesty International reports that at least three homosexual men and two lesbians were publicly beheaded in January 1990. The Islamic Penal Law against Homosexuals, approved in July 1991 and ratified in November of that year, is simple. Article 110: “Punishment for sodomy is killing; the Sharia judge decides on how to carry out the killing.” Article 129: “Punishment for lesbianism is one hundred (100) lashes for each party.” Article 131: “If the act of lesbianism is repeated three times and punishment is enforced each time, the death sentence will be issued the fourth time.” Source - http://www.ecpm-us.org/issues_homosexuality.shtml. It is no wonder that there is concern over Iran attaining nuclear power status. People have fought long and hard for the rights we have and currently enjoy. The freedom of consensual sexual expression and individuality is one of the most prized rights we have and it is a right that distinguishes the intellectually developed modern world from those societies that have not evolved and therefore do not allow their citizens to do so either. The way to go is forward, not backwards.MB2007. —NitraM42 21:26, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

There is a difference between homosexuality and homosexual acts. I am a straight male. If I had sex with another man that would be a homosexual act, but I would not be a homosexual.--71.141.118.69 13:09, 26 September 2007 (UTC)


 * This last comment is a non-sequitur. You could be a homosexual and live within Iran. It is the committing of what you call a "homosexual act" that is going to get you in trouble. It is a long and complex debate to decide whether or not forcing suppression of what is essentially "instinct" is acceptable in any circumstance. What is not accepted within Iran is that consent is a major factor. Non-consensual acts are unacceptable, at its mildest that is forcing someone to kiss you - at its worst it is a serial killer and a rapist. Islam, and its scholars and clerics are not "refined and sophisticated" if they cannot make this distinction. Homosexuality is a fact. It exists within the animal kingdom, and - to be blunt - human beings are just animals with big brains. Trying to edit the gene pool to stop this is called Eugenics. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:32, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Applause?
I would hardly call it 'met with protest and applause'. They were just being polite, everyone is always expected to clap after parts of lectures. It doesn't mean they applauded him. Contralya 03:31, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
 * That's applause....... it would be a story if they weren't being polite, and there wasn't applause. There was... enough said. It's not like he said there was a standing ovation and 13 encores. Lyellin 03:34, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Ahmadinejad : "The precious existence of women as the expression of divine beauty and peak of kindness, affection and purity has been the target of heavy exploitation over the past recent decades by the holders of powers and owners of media and wealth. In some societies, this beloved creature has been reduced to mere instruments of publicity and all boundaries and protective shields of chastity, purity and beauty have been trampled."
 * And look at how woman are treated in Iran.

Legend
Ahemdinejad is a f@#king legend!

And I am a Christian and I'm writing this!

Necessary reading for a serious article to be written for Wiki entry on the Columbia affair
I'd like you to bear with me until the very end of this comment. It's all sourced and based on Human Rights Watch reports. I'm Jewish and all for Israel's security and existence. That's why I can't, for the life of me, understand Bollinger's behavior even before his guest, a head of state, could begin his speech: how does it help Israel? Increasing the tension between Iran, Israel and the U.S could likely lead the three countries to a war that'd be a disaster for the whole region, just as the war in Iraq has been. I think people who really want Israel to live in peace should consider why President Musharaf was so well received in Columbia. People in the Middle East would find at least strange that the Iranian President must be subjected to insult and ridicule while Pakistan dictator Musharraf, whose Human Rights record (just as Bush's, for that matter) is far worse than Iran's (Pakistan is, after all, a powerful nuclear state), is treated gently and nicely by the same University President. Bollinger said: ""Rarely do we have an opportunity such as this to greet a figure of such central and global importance. It is with great gratitude and excitement that I welcome President Musharraf…," according to Columbia's Web site records. -(http://media.www.dailyorange.com/media/storage/paper522/news/2007/09/28/Opinion/Columbia.U.Uses.Double.Talk.With.Dictators-2998761.shtml)

I just want you - by you I mean those who care about Israel - to read carefully the following statements taken from Human Rights Watch's reports on Pakistan: Human Rights Watch, let's not forget, has just been charged of being Pro-Israel and Pro-U.S and they had to produce a report to challenge the accusation (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/10/10/lebano17059.htm). Human Rights Watch is as neutral a organization as you can get: they have dreadful reports both on Iran and on Pakistan. Let's just take a look at Pakistan's Human Rights record (I pledge you to read it all and, especially, the last report in its entirity - I'll provide the link):

“General Musharraf has brazenly flouted international law in forcing Sharif back into exile. He has violated Pakistan’s constitution and defied a direct ruling of Pakistan’s Supreme Court,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have colluded in bundling a Pakistani citizen into a plane and forced exile.” -(http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/09/10/pakist16832.htm)

"Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Musharraf's political adversaries have disappeared. Some, as Human Rights Watch has documented, have been sent to secret CIA-controlled detention facilities. But many more, unconnected to the war on terror, remain in the hands of the Pakistani military's feared Inter-Services Intelligence agency." -(http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/06/27/pakist16263.htm)

"Pakistani journalists are regularly threatened, beaten and tortured — and several have been killed. Moderate political parties, which command an overwhelming share of the popular vote, have seen their leaders, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, hounded into exile. Political activists have been harassed and jailed for not accepting Musharraf's supremacy. Such brutal repression has triggered an insurgency in mineral-rich Baluchistan province and helped push the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan into the embrace of the Taliban." -(http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/06/27/pakist16263.htm)

"The Pakistani military has a long and well-documented history of prioritizing its economic empire, estimated to be worth at least $20 billion, over any ideological considerations. Paid by the U.S., it nurtured radical Islam in the 1980s to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan — and then embraced just as quickly the opportunity to be paid to dismantle the same. Of course, putting that genie back in the bottle has proved difficult, but the effort guarantees continued U.S. political engagement and financial aid. Musharraf's successors — military and civilian — are unlikely to want to commit economic and political suicide by adopting radical Islamism." -(http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/06/27/pakist16263.htm)

"It is time for the U.S. to insist on a return to civilian rule through free and fair elections, for which the return and participation of Pakistan's exiled political leaders are a prerequisite. Musharraf must take off his uniform and restore the presidency to its largely ceremonial constitutional role in a parliamentary democracy. Only then can he legitimately run for president by seeking election from a truly representative parliament." (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/06/27/pakist16263.htm)

"If the Bush administration actually believes its high-minded rhetoric about the spread of democracy, there is no better place to start than Pakistan." (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/06/27/pakist16263.htm)

"IS THERE A HUMAN RIGHTS DOUBLE STANDARD: US POLICY TOWARDS SAUDI ARABIA, IRAN, UZBEKISTAN AND PAKISTAN". (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/06/14/usint16481.htm). I pledge you to read this report. -Yara Ginzburg 02:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)