Iran’s President Treated Rudely; Lieberman Wants War
by James Buchanan
Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was invited to speak at Columbia University, but you’d never know he was a guest based on the way he was treated. Ahmadinejad was badgered and insulted with a long list of neocon lies. The Jewish media has been shamelessly smearing Iran, claiming that the Iranians were supplying the Iraqi rebels with weapons. The truth is that the Iraqis looted arms depots that went unguarded because Bush, Perle and Wolfowitz went into Iraq with too few troops. The Iraqi rebels have been using these weapons to attack our troops ever since.
The neocon accusations include a claim that Iran is making copper hemi-spheres for use in road-side bombs. Considering that there are millions of Iraqis sitting around doing nothing because we ruined their economy, perhaps some Iraqis surfed around the Internet and figured out that copper hemi-spheres might enhance their roadside bombs. Previously, the neocons accused the Iranians of supplying mortar shells to the Iraqis, but the shells they showed the public had Western markings instead of Farsi. The neocon claims always seem to fall apart if they are required to show the public their so-called evidence.
Ahmadinejad patiently responded to the rude treatment and numerous slanders. He pointed out that Iran wanted to pursue peaceful nuclear energy production. (Iran has rich uranium deposits and the US had no objections to Iran building nuclear reactors in the ’70s when the Shah was in power.)
Ahmadinejad responded to questions about the Holocaust by noting: “There are researchers who want to approach the topic from a different perspective. Why are they put into prison? Right now, there are a number of European academics who have been sent to prison because they attempted to write about the Holocaust or research it from a different perspective, questioning certain aspects of it. My question is: Why isn’t it open to all forms of research?”
Given the hostility and accusatory tone of the Inquisition at Columbia, you would never know that Ahmadinejad was the president of a peaceful nation while our government recently lied its way into a war of aggression against Iraq. If anyone should have had a credibility problem, it should be the neocons, not the Iranians.
An impartial host might have asked the following questions:
How much war and how many assassinations has the US sponsored around the world? How much terrorism has Israel and their MOSSAD been guilty of?
How many innocent Iranians “disappeared” while the CIA-sponsored Shah terrorized the population of Iran with his secret police?
How many “terrorist threats” have the neocons made against Iran over the last six months? How many lies have they told to try to provoke a war?
Why do the neocon shills consider it “sponsoring terrorism” when Iran helps the Arabs in Lebanon defend themselves, but it isn’t “terrorism” when Israel invaded Lebanon last year blowing apart one home after another with little -if any- warning to the occupants inside?
The anti-Iranian smear campaign will continue as long as Bush and Cheney occupy the White House. The only sure way to stop the coming war on Iran would be to impeach both Bush and Cheney. Only by putting those two war criminals on the defensive can further crimes be prevented.
If anyone has any delusions about the continuing danger posed by the neocons, consider the fact that Joseph Lieberman –on the very day that Iran’s president was visiting America as part of a good will gesture– proposed legislation that would permit a war against Iran. One website reports:
“Here is the language from the (Lieberman-Kyl) amendment:
(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;
(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.
The policy of the U.S should be to ‘combat’ Iran with ‘all’ ‘military instruments’?!? You can be absolutely certain that those are the ONLY words Dick Cheney and George Bush will see or care about.
We need every warm body we can muster to call and email their senators RIGHT NOW, before they pull another fast one and sneak this one through in the dead of the night. Call them toll free at 800 828-0498, 800 614 2803 or 866 340 9281, and the submit the action form below to make sure your message gets through.”