60 Minutes with Ahmadinejad

That’s the impression I got, as well.

Why do you hate Islam? Sorry, couldn’t resist. :slight_smile:

Nice.

I don’t hate them. Yet. I’m reserving that for when my neighborhood mosque starts calls for prayer at dawn. Then I will hate them. For now I will just hate 1) the extremists who kill innocent people in some contorted expression of faith 2) the barbaric anachronisms who believe in sharia law and stone women to death and mutilate ten-year-old girls 3) muslim leaders who have not done enough to wrest the religion back from 1 & 2. (And don’t anyone go asking for cites about 3. The operative word is “enough”.)

In the meantime, since our government hates Islam so much, can you explain to me the hundred, thousand of mosques in the country?

I saw it and I though it was a fascinating show. I thought that Ahmadinejad was a highly charismatic and interesting leader, and that he effectively deflected Wallace’s aggressive questioning on things he simply could not answer in the circumstances.

The thing to remember is that though Ahmadinejad is President, in no way is he the man in charge. Instead the Islamic leadership has pretty much total oversight over the elected government, so ultimately Wallace was interviewing someone who was a high-level functionary who had to answer to his bosses and couldn’t give away anything substantive.

I thought that it was an effective effort to show a human face of Iraq to the American public, but ultimately not particularly revealing.

Can I ask why you’re using this spelling? I see that it’s an acceptable variant, but if it’s intended as a term of respect - like your use of “Mr.” for Ahmadinejad and not Bush - I have to say it’s a little misplaced. :stuck_out_tongue:

And this is a good thing?

Why do you hate America? :smiley:
In the meantime, since our government hates Islam so much, can you explain to me the hundred, thousand of mosques in the country?
[/QUOTE]
Before the theocracy religious freedom and diversity was <cough>somewhat</cough> encouraged.

Wait. I don’t think religious freedom in the western sense was ever encouraged in Iran, even before Khomeini’s theocracy.

Or are you refering to something else?

Herr Bush relinquished any rights to respect otherwise due him or his office when he unjustly committed a criminal war on the sovereign nation of Iraq, as far as I’m concerned.

Yes, yes it is.

Before the theocracy religious freedom and diversity was <cough>somewhat</cough> encouraged.
[/QUOTE]

A good comedian knows when to quit. Which, I guess explains your last post. But can you point to what the current admistration (which I assume you are so cleverly alluding to :rolleyes: ) has done or is doing that is discouraging religious freedom?

I was referring to America. I believe I’ve anticipated your next question, Lemur, but I’ll wait til you ask it. :slight_smile:

And did Ahmadinejad earn your respect by calling for Israel’s destruction, or is that just not a big deal to you? This stance is - and I’m trying to be polite - bewildering. Ahmadinejad is at best a fundamentalist loon; we can only hope he’s a figurehead rather than a powerful fundamentalist loon.

I’m glad when a man is honest about being a bigot and a lunatic, but I don’t think that’s the way you mean this.

Yeah, smile all you want. Here you are apologising for the spokesman for a totalitarian theocracy that has publicly pledged to destroy the United States and Israel. You admire this spokesman.

Words fail me.

What accounts for this syndrome, whereby a presumably liberal (in the original sense) educated cosmopolitan person becomes an apologist for dictatorship? During the 30s we saw it with Hitler, we saw it with Stalin, we saw it with Ho Chi Minh, we saw it with Castro, we saw it with the Sandinistas, and now in the case of Onomatopoeia we see it with Ahmadinejad. It starts with dissatisfaction with the current government of one’s country, but takes a bizarre turn into identification with the enemies of one’s country. Mr Bush is bad, Mr. Ahmadinejad is opposed to Mr. Bush, therefore Mr. Ahmadinejad is good.

I support freedom and liberal democracy. To the extent that Mr. Bush opposes those things, I oppose him. But to pretend that Mr. Ahmadinejad doesn’t oppose those things ten times as strongly as Mr. Bush seems like wilfull blindness of the most masochistic sort.

It’s your opinion that Mr. Ahmadi-nejad is a loon, not mine. And as far as fundamentalism is concerned, I don’t think we have to look much farther than the current US administration.

Mr. Ahmadi-nejad holds a position on Israel I don’t agree with, but I can understand his perspective from a purely intellectual point of view, which is that Israel was created, where it currently is, in contravention with the desires of many of the peoples living there at the time, so why couldn’t it have been placed somewhere else, rather than supplanting Palestine? I’m not arguing this view. I’m stating Mr. Ahmadi-nejad’s position.

My position is Mashiach hasn’t come so that Jewish enclave in the Middle East isn’t Israel anyway.

Several of our Tighty Righty brethren seem to be in full conniption about all the fawning admiration being heaped upon Mr. A by certain villainous posters. One wonders if they might be more specific? What expressions of admiration are objected to? Hard pressed to see any here, thus far.

In all seriousness, Lemur, I understand that you don’t see things from my perspective. I don’t expect you to. I don’t ‘pretend’ to believe that Mr. Ahmadi-nejad doesn’t oppose freedom and democracy any more than Bush. I absolutely believe he doesn’t. I believe George Bush is an evil blight on the world. I don’t wish Mr. Ahmadi-nejad were the president of the US. Of course his views are too radical for our society, but so are Bush’s. If I wanted to live under totalitarian rule I’d move to Iran. But once we, as a nation, begin sliding in that direction, as I believe we have, I believe it behooves all of us to speak out before it becomes inexorable.

Ah this great man Ahmadinejad, to be so misunderstood by vicious “tighty righties”. Ah, this poor Onomatopoeia, to be so slandered!

He slobbed Ahmadinejad’s knob in post number 2. I suggest you reread it.

Duly noted. :rolleyes:

Okay. Given that the American and Iranian governments are guilty of the same crime (even though the US has not, say, banned music), why is the Iranian government more worthy of respect than the American counterpart, which you obviously don’t respect?

I can understand it, too. That doesn’t blunt my ability to decide that it’s reprehensible. He is questioning the truth of the Holocaust - please explain how that’s more respectable than Bush’s equally phony questions about evolution - in order to advocate the position that Israel be moved. He’s not arguing about where it should have been placed, he’s talking about having it replaced, and the idea is rooted in his own bigotry.

How is that relevant? Call it what you want, but the country is still there. Moving the people again, as Ahmadinejad may favor, would be repeating a historical mistake, not repairing it. If we accept that he’s really okay with letting the people in Israel keep existing, that is. Given his “wiped from the map” comment, I think that’s an open question.

That would a nice of putting it. I think we can rule out Wallace as a spitter.

What made me lose it was when Ahmadinejad said it was the US who broke off diplomatic relations. YAH after the Iranian Peace brigade kidnapped our diplomats.

Mike, did you have an out of body experience?

And I suggest you specify. Shouldn’t be a problem if all is as you say.

What is the problem here, elucidator?

[QUOTE=Onomatopoeia]
3) Throughout the interview I kept contrasting Mr. Ahmadi-nejad’s style, control, knowledge of facts, candor, and believability with Bush and concluded that Mr. Ahmadi-nejad would wipe the floor with Bush in a debate, if you can call a one-sided thrashing a debate.

And, of course…

:wink:

Seriously, elucidator, come on. A number of times in this thread, Onomatopoeia has criticized Bush in stronger terms than he is willing to use on Ahmadinejad. Bush is “an evil blight on the world” and gets that subtle comparison to the Nazis [Herr]; Ahmadinejad simply has “views … too radical for our society.”