Did anyone watch the Columbia Uni. thing? They INVITED President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to their school for him to speak. It was the most ridiculous thing I have ever, EVER witnessed. It showed three things.

1. Americans are ignorant.
2. Americans are rude.
3. Americans are stubborn.

When Ahmadinejad showed, he was booed from the crowd. Alright, fine. People boo Bush and Clinton all the time. Fine. Then, the president of the university introduced him. It was a fucking fiasco.

Why does your country continue to refuse to adhere to international standards for nuclear weapons verification, in defiance of agreements that you have made with the U.N. nuclear agency? And why have you chosen to make the people of your country vulnerable to the effects of international economic sanctions, and threaten to engulf the world in nuclear annihilation? (Applause.)
Let me close with a comment. Frankly -- I close with this comment frankly and in all candor, Mr. President. I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions. But your avoiding them will in itself be meaningful to us. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do. Fortunately I am told by experts on your country that this only further undermines your position in Iran, with all the many good-hearted, intelligent citizens there.
A year ago, I am reliably told, your preposterous and belligerent statements in this country, as at one of the meetings at the Council on Foreign Relations, so embarrassed sensible Iranian citizens that this led to your party's defeat in the December mayoral elections. May this do that and more.

Who the hell does this jerk think he is? When you are providing a forum for someone to speak, framing the discussion with comments like these is ridiculous. It's intellecutally bankrupt to think that if you don't agree with someone's policy you should degrade and insult them before they begin their speech. I was disgusted.

The questions the "scholars" asked were ridiculously superficial.

"Do you really want to destroy Israel?"

Of course, Ahmadinejad (who is definitely not the backward moron they show him to be) goes into the details of a one-state solution where Palestinian Jews, Muslims and Christians can live happily. You know, reading my history book reminds me so much of the current Palestinian problem- the way the Creek and the Seminole kept being forced further and further west. It seems the same is happening in Palestine. Even as thousands of Palestinians are killed and are forced into refugee camps, no one seems to be worried about their well-being. If it were up to me (and Ahmadinejad, apparently) the Israeli settlers would be told to fuck off. Lucky for them, they've got fundamentalism supporting them.

Again and again, they demanded that Ahmadinejad give a simple yes or no answer. In this situation I don't think a simple yes or no answer is possible. Of course he wants the destruction of "Israel." Israel as an apartheid, just as South Africa was an apartheid. Apartheid always demands destruction.

"Why are women and HOMOSEXUALS persecuted in Iran?"

He of course goes into what most Muslim fundies would say about women. No one bothered to debate this because of course arguing with religion isn't allowed. In any case, he talked about how Iranian women were happier than men blah blah blah. Lots of fundie bullshit. When they asked about queers, he said there were no queers in his country.

Instead of outrage or booing, Ahmadinejad received laughter. HOW FUNNY it is, to say that queers, who are often murdered in Iran, don't exist. What REALLY pisses me off is that conservative pundits (who would gladly side with the Christian reconstructionsists to make being queer a crime) decried Ahmadinejad's position on queer folk. How could he say that? Gays are just people after all. PSH. CNN and FOX both gave the same goddamn bullshit report about the speech. I have lost ALL faith in CNN. All of it, I'm sorry. Both are equally full of shit.

Anyway, the President in Iran doesn't even have that much power. The blame should go to Ayatollah Khomeini, who is the evil mastermind behind all this.

"Why do you deny the Holocaust?"

He replied that he didn't deny it happened. It was a horrible tragedy. He said that certain aspects of it merited further research. The man is a goddamn Physics professor in Iran. He's a fucking scientist. D: The white folk were all "there's been enough research." Of course there hasn't been enough research! There can never be enough scrutiny of any event in the course of history. At any rate, Ahmadinejad seems more interested in the aftermath: How Europe and America, along with displaced Jewish folk created the Israeli state and didn't bother to think about the Palestinian people.

"Why are you building nuclear bombs? Will you stop?"

He wasn't building nuclear bombs, he said. They didn't even have enough material to make them. It was for strictly peaceful reasons. The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) had approved what they had done and Iran was completely honest about its nuclear program. On all the conservopundit (and even CNN-s not-so-conservopundit) shows talked about what a LIAR he was. Ahmadinejad was a LIAR. That's ridiculous. I personally went on the IAEA website and looked up Iran's status. Iran has been totally helpful in terms of its nuclear program. Completely. See it for yourself:

[link]

The only reason Iran is having trouble is because America and Israel refuse to see a Middle Eastern country prosper.

Look at it this way: Iran is a very young democracy. Think back to America's early days as a democracy. Women, black folk, queers, Natives, and laborers had no rights. ZERO rights. If you weren't a white male straight property owner, you were invisible before the law. Most states had laws prohibiting queer sex, women voters, and all sorts of horrible measures to ensure male white supremacy. How horrible and drastic was the genocide of the Native Americans?

Iran is a young democracy. Although its aggresions towards women and queers are inexcusable, it must be allowed to prosper. The only way to a wider, more accepting society is through a) exposure to global ideas, b) education, and c) industry. If there is something to be said for the market, is it's propensity to allow the free flow of ideas. In order for Iran to prosper it must open its doors to the world.

That will never happen if ignorant, selfish, self-righteous Americans stand boldly and stupidly in front of the doors, isolating Iran and the millions of women, queers, and political dissenters that are trapped inside.

To read a full transcript of the speech and interview go here:

[link]

Or check C-SPAN. They've been broadcasting the thing over and over.