fearthereaper said:

I hope they don't tase him for trying to ask any questions.

"Don't tase me, bro"

Oh, yeah and fuck off to anyone who thinks it's wrong to prevent Ahmadinejad from speaking but thinks the university of Florida kid deserved to get tased (or vice versa) because that would make you a hypocrite.

What, aren't you all aware, if he comes to America he is going to bring lots of nuclear weapons with him and bomb us all. He will then insight all the Muslims in America to attack and kill everyone they can. Pay attention.
I mean come on, having someone SPEAK, at a institute of higher learning, that is nothing but the road to war.

As an Iranian-American, thank you for writing an article that is not based on the "fears" and "troubles". The "you are either with us or not" scheme of things.

Your article clearly states an obvious point...we live in a country of "idealism" where everything/one is black and white and there is no grey ground. Compromise? What is that? Progress accomplished from thinking and may I utter the word...compromise? What is that?

Now, go eat your Big Mac, fill up your flexfuel V8 dually truck and go have a few beers with the boys at the local pub. That is America!

I'd be more willing to care what that person had to say if they weren't so goddamned sarcastic. I find it hard to dilineate what they are actually trying to say because it's wrapped in so much sarcasm. I'm sure thay it makes sense, I just can't get through it.

I applaud Columbia for inviting him to speak, it really shows alot about the reminants of our intellectual society being willing to open their debate floor to the leader of their polar opposite. It speaks VOLUMES about the university and their devotion to education of all.

A-Freaking-Men.

Videos won't make it to Iran though, not without some 70's Japanese-style overdubbing going on.

You'd be surprised. Satellite TV is outlawed in Iran but it is very common for a family to have one installed. I don't know about the internet, but I would expect some have hooks ups the government doesn't allow....

Ahmadinejad actually pulled one of his relatively rare smart moves by requesting a chance to lay a wreath at Ground Zero. If we let him, he's a good guy. If we don't let him, he tried to be a good guy but we predictably rebuffed his attempt.

Win-win for him.

I'm totally fine with him speaking at Columbia U because it was quite apparent he would make a complete ass of himself as he always does. He'll succeed in doing the same tomorrow at the U.N. Then when he leaves shoot his plane down because it wasn't permitted in U.S. airspace.

Reading this thread does my heart good. Many of you have expressed inteligent and enlightened viewpoints.

We pride ourselves on being a nation of free thinkers and free speech . . . yet there are some assholes who would challenge even those precious tenents, and blindly support an ignorant Bush-supporting establishment. Ahmadinejad has every inalienable right, to vist the U.N., and to speak at a University that had the honesty and foresight to invite him. To deny him this, is to deny our own freedoms, and the value of all the live lost to protect them.

Whatever happened to government by, for, and of the people? Are the only voices to be heard, the liars and criminals who currently control our government? Is Bush any less a war criminal, than the people he falsly accuses?

We have no foreighn policy. Other nations look at us and our arrogant unilateral acts, and we wonder why they hate us? Look at our ridiculous punishment of Cuba. Is there any fucking sense to continuing this, year after year, with no honest re-evaluation as to why the fuck we're still doing it? How can this administration have so many people buffaloed?

Bush isn't even a fucking texan. His family is from Greenwich Connecticut. Asshole grew up a couple of miles away from me. But doesn't he love to play the country rancher, and pander to the religious right - which is neither.

Its good that your voices are heard . . even here. Every voice raised that seeks the truth, is a vote to eventually get our government back.

Should Ahmadinejad be allow to visit our country and speak? Hell Yeah!

Shhh, don't give our Homophobes-in-charge any ideas!

As far as I am concerned Bush and Ahmadinejad are cut of the same cloth. They use each other to keep their respective countries afraid to do anything against their real problem which is their own governments.

It would not surprise me one bit if in 50 years it comes out that they were working together. Perhaps they are both being directed by Satan!

"Oh, fuck yes. Is there a better way to show we are a free society than by stopping someone from speaking?"

This I agree with FTR. It angers me that some people would suggest we should prevent this dolt from speaking. We should instead welcome it. And bring the original Hitler too. Let them speak their stupid thoughts so we can ridicule them. Now that's what this country's all about. Letting people say what they want, and if it happens to be stupid (and it often is) then they stand the ridicule of their fellow men/women.

And thank you for pointing out Mr. Bush's similar beliefs about Jesus and such. I wish more people realized this about him.

Thanks FTR. Everyone here in NYC is up in arms from the press-Blitz and not thinking, labeling whatever they're told to label. But, then...when ARE people thinking.

The amount of negative press surrounding Ahmadinejad from The Daily News and The New York Post should PROVE that there's a smear campaign going on. After all, it's the News and the Post. Come on.

True, Ahmadinejad was misquoted in wishing Israel to be wiped off the map and that the Holocaust was a myth. Who misquoted him?

Yup.

I'm not saying the guy's a saint, but the Truth is an important matter and it shouldn't be left in the hands of sycophantic miscreants.

And Hunter, yup, discussion is a good thing. Something that is discouraged by our under-fire administration and their underlings. Why?

That's how they work.

It's interesting that Ahmadinejad wanted to place a wreath at the World Trade Center site and was refused. When should gestures of peace ever be refused?

When War is in the offing.

You got it right.

*shakes head and drinks more wine to the inescapable*

These quotes, I think, speak to the real reason why reactionaries, neo-cons and the Bush admin really fear letting Ahmadinejad speak in the US so much: to hear his rhetoric is to realize that he is a flailing and out-of-touch tyrant, and yes, a "petty and cruel dictator" as described astutely by Bollinger - but NOT by any stretch of the imagination a "Little Hitler." Not an uncontrollable destructive force, not a nuclear bogeyman whom we must immediately rally against at any cost, as Bush, Cheney and Company would have us believe. Just another daft and depraved leader with too much power.

You mean other than supporting and funding and training latin-american death squads, engaging in a particularly sexist, oppresive brand of fundamentalist Christiantiy, and being the only nation on earth to have used nuclear weapons in a war and have a stated intent to not keep them "off the table" in future conflicts, including pre-emptively, right?