Ahmadinejad gave his speech to the UN General Assembly yesterday and has conducted a number of interviews. He didn’t say anything new really – basically his usual same old same old on everything from the nuclear issue, Israel and of course homosexuality.
‘Homosexuality is very ugly behaviour’ and ‘this kind of support of homosexuality is only engrained in the thoughts of hard-core capitalists and those who support the growth of capital only, rather than human values’, said the man who came with an entourage of over 140.
An Iranian ‘journalist’ tweeted that Ahmadinejad’s views on homosexuality is not very different from Romney or Santorum – err, except for the little fact that he heads a state that hangs people for homosexuality.
In response to a question about an Iranian institute raising the bounty on the head of Salman Rushdie, Ahmadinejad responded with a veiled threat: ‘Salman Rushdie, where is he now? … There is no news of him. Is he in the United States? If he is in the US, you shouldn’t broadcast that, for his own safety.’
So much for ‘human values’…
The good news is that we need not worry about all the woes in the world which he recounted in his speech. The Al-Mahdi (you know the imam who disappeared who is going to return – the ‘ultimate saviour’) will bring an end to it all:
‘God Almighty has promised us a man of kindness, a man who loves people and loves absolute justice, a man who is a perfect human being and is named Imam Al-Mahdi, a man who will come in the company of Jesus Christ, peace be upon Him, and the righteous’ and whose arrival on earth ‘will mark a new beginning, a rebirth and a resurrection. It will be the beginning of peace, lasting security and genuine life,’ he said.
Of course Iranians can’t – and won’t – wait that long. One of Ahmadinejad’s entourage, Ramin Mehmanparast, deputy foreign ministry spokesperson, had to secure the help of none other than the NYPD to save him from angry protesters.
And not even their dear old al-Mahdi will be able to save their regime from the wrath of the Iranian people.
As an aside, that’s not to say that the anti-imperialist post-modernist Left aren’t trying hard to defend the regime any chance they get. The disgusting Communist Party of Canada and Canadian Peace Alliance have called for an International Day of Anti-War Action on 6 October to denounce, among other things, the severance of ties between Canada and Iran. It’s like ‘progressives’ siding with the apartheid regime of South Africa when it was being boycotted by various states.
Any sane person should be against a war on Iran but that doesn’t mean they have to do the regime’s bidding now does it? But try and explain it to this lot.
The al-Mahdi will be here before they get it.
Some people say that what bothers them about the Twelfth Imam of Shi’a Islam’s “Coming Again” is the idea that he will come accompanied by Jesus.
Combine this with what they perceive as the fact that Israel is trying to drive other religions out of Jerusalem (in their opinion), and this then sets up a fight to the finish between the three major Abrahamic religions, or off-shoots thereof.
It is odd that such doctrines of antiquity should coalesce again in the present time.
So…if Ahmadinejad is waiting for the Al-Mahdi…does that mean there are giant sandworms in Iran?
I find Ahmadinejad’s comments to be offensive and entirely against my beliefs on homosexuality. How does that balance with the stanbce of many that comments against Islam, Christianity, and other religions must be censored?
“man of kindness, a man who loves people and loves absolute justice,”
Why does ‘kindness’ always seem to be in the same breath as ‘ultimate justice’ with these things? Do people really not realize that they are opposite concepts?
But please remember – the fact that neocons are against the Iranian tyranny makes them wicked and evil. Everyone who is against the Iranian theocracy is a howwid waayyycist. Right? Isn’t that the line?
Question: how, exactly, would you stop it getting nuclear weapons then? And once it has those, what are you going to do?
Never mind, I forgot – “the people will rise up”. Yes, I’m sure. Oh wait, they already did, and that’s how we ended up with the current theocracy.
And now for the first tedious:
Really? In which alternate universe is that true? The left has always been for the most ghastly tyrannies abroad, and has been in favour of throwing everyone who speaks up to the wolves. Ask the intellectuals in Cambodia, or the Tutsis in Rwanda, or the Jem (anti-Janjaweed) militia in Darfur, or the fighters in the Spanish civil war, or…. well, you get the idea.
And at home they are always in favour of increased state power.
None of you know anything about Iran. I am just going to assume you are all Americans and believe everything you read in your schools and hear on your western propaganda machines. No useful dialogue is possible with Americans like that.
Actually, I’m not an American, and I have a great deal of contempt for know-nothing Americans. What I fail to see is what, exactly, I have gotten wrong in my post. You do not list anything.
Did you just repeat the same talking points from 2002/2003 and change Iraq to Iran? We already made this mistake. Tell you what: YOU go to Iran and stop them. And pay for it out of your own pocket. The rest of us have had enough of senseless pre-emptive wars.
Oh, right – only soldiers are fit to make military decisions. No more civilian control of the military, no sireee. Wouldn’t want that.
In point of actual fact, I am in the process of joining so you’re twice wrong.
What sickens me about little twerps like you is that, if nuclear war erupts, you don’t care, you only care about keeping your hands clean.
Your spoutings are just ridiculous. What does expecting to you go over to Iran on your own resources to fight a war you obviously want imply about civilian control of the military? If the US Govt doesn’t pay for it, it’s hardly a US Military action. Perhaps you should ponder that.
Some of us would prefer not to see an entire region at war, which would very likely happen with any attack on Iran. We also don’t want a repeat of the Iraq debacle, which was very real and still in my memory, just not in yours.
TYPO CORRECTION
Spot on. Yes those who defend Iran are disgusting. But that is how many liberals think. Can’t wait to see Iran and Saudi Arabia ‘liberated’.
Spot on. Yes those who defend Iran are disgusting. But that is how many liberals think, or rather don’t. Can’t wait to see Iran and Saudi Arabia ‘liberated’.
One key point – ‘liberal’ and ‘left-wing’ are not the same thing. It would take too long to properly explain the differences, but briefly, ‘liberalism’ tends to imply support for universal principles like freedom and human rights, while ‘left-wing’ politics tends to imply opposition to the established power structure and support for those who challenge it. Those may sometimes coincide, but frequently they don’t, as in the case of Iran. Leftwingers consider liberals to be fantasists at best, and ignorant tools of power at worst; while liberals consider leftwingers to be unprincipled hypocrites and ‘useful idiots’ of evil regimes.
Basically, I can’t imagine the Communist Party of Canada ever in a million years describing themselves as ‘liberal’.
“The disgusting Communist Party of Canada?” You say ugly things about what you do not understand. You speak before you think, and need to study more.
Yes, by all means, let us study Communism some more just on the off chance that this piece of garbage system has been misunderstood.
“The disgusting Communist Party of Canada and Canadian Peace Alliance have called for an International Day of Anti-War Action on 6 October to denounce, among other things, the severance of ties between Canada and Iran. It’s like ‘progressives’ siding with the apartheid regime of South Africa when it was being boycotted by various states.”
To be fair, there’s a difference between opposing the government of Iran, and supporting going to war against it. It’s not contradictory to hate Ahmadinejad’s government, while also thinking Western bombs are not the best way to deal with it. There’s a British organisation, Hands Off the People of Iran, that takes that exact position – against the Iranian government and against going to war with them.
But it is also true that many leftwing groups don’t make that distinction, and are happy to support any foreign regime, however unpleasant, as long as it is opposed to the United States and its allies. I hadn’t heard of ‘progressives supporting the apartheid regime’, though… I always thought it was the other way around, that the leftists in the 1980s supported boycotts against apartheid South Africa, while rightwingers supported it as an ally against communism. Both sides have been willing to ignore human rights and democratic principles in order to support regimes that are ‘on the right side’.
I think the bit about progressives supporting the apartheid regime was a hypothetical situation – one that didn’t actually happen, but would have been no more absurd if it had than progressive supporting Ahmadinejad’s regime.