Posted on 09/24/2007 12:33:08 PM PDT by Daffynition
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Columbia University President Lee Bollinger excoriated Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday, going through a long list of documented actions and remarks by the firebrand Iranian leader and his government.
"Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," Bollinger said to applause from many of the 600 people in the room for a speech from the Iranian leader.
He cited the Iranian government's "brutal crackdown" on dissidents, public executions, executions of minors and other actions.
And Bollinger assailed Ahmadinejad's "denying" of the Holocaust as "ridiculous" and "dangerous propaganda." He called the Iranian leader either brazenly provocative "or astonishingly uneducated."
"The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history," he said.
He said he doubted Ahmadinejad would show the intellectual courage to answer the questions before him.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
A friend of mine who is a Persian, said he is not a Persian..
He is a Nutjob alright.
We sat and listened together his awful lies. She cried and said many of her relatives are still over there and are scared to death of him and his crazy minded nonsense.
She said she wished we (USA) would kill him and his followers as well as the Nutjob Outlaws of the Muslim bunch.
She said he is from a region in Iran that borders on the desert and that most of the people there are origins of the Arab nomads, anyway in her humble opinion He is not a persian.. He is Iranian.
That’s what I commented on the moment I saw the first image this morning — no way does Columbia (or any major university) normally have such a completely blank background and podium for any speaker at all (never mind a head of state). Normally they want the college name plastered all over every bit of news coverage, both still photos and video, but this time they were too ashamed to have the Columbia name and seal shown everywhere with Ahmawhackjob:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1901303/posts?page=40#40
That’s amazing - usually they have big school a banner behind the podium or at least the university seal on the podium itself. Guess they decided they didn’t want the PR infamy of photos and videos all over the world with the Columbia name juxtaposed with the image of Ahmawhackjob.... yet they didn’t think he was infamous enough not to invite him and give him a nice propaganda event for his home crowd.
Want to see the left’s reaction to this verbal beat-down of one of their heros, the “President” of Iran? It’s quite predictable: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/24/143116/861
Sorry, he has diplomatic immunity, and we had to give him that under the treaty that puts the UN headquarters in NY. Sigh.
Looks like a Photoshop job waiting to happen...
Yes of course the military has contingency plans. I was referring to the White House and the Congress.
Because EVIL always has a black backdrop.
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President Lee C. Bollinger’s Statement About the Release of Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh
Sept. 21, 2007
On behalf of the entire Columbia community, I want to say how relieved we are to hear of Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh’s release from prison in Teheran. Months ago, I joined the chorus of voices calling for the government of Iran to free Dr. Tajbakhsh – an alumnus of Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation working with the Open Society Institute. In recent discussions with the Iranian Mission, I communicated that I would raise his case, among many other issues, directly and publicly if President Ahmadinejad came to speak on our campus. Dr. Tajbakhsh’s belated release on bail should not change our determination to challenge the regime’s record of unjust imprisonment and repression of such scholars, journalists and advocates working for a freer society in Iran – among them one of Columbia’s graduation speakers last year, Nobel Prize-winning human rights advocate Shirin Ebadi.
Thank you so much for the informative article, I appreciate your time. It would indeed give one cause to wonder, because of the timing....however I don’t think he brought the case up as he said he would eh?
Actually, that sounds like a pretty good description of Bollinger.
You may be right. You have a valid point. There’s so much to this situation, interculturally for example, that I just don’t get.
That’s a great point. Strange, this double-standard.
Not true. They have internet access.
But even if it was true, the effect OVER HERE is more what I'm concerned about. His gaffe denying the existence of gays in Iran should be something of a wake-up call for those on the left with a milder strain of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Apparently he isn't quite as media- or audience-savvy as we thought.
Actions speak louder than words.
Bollinger's actions shouted the following ---
At first I was amazed and impressed that Bollinger lit into Ahmawhackjob like that. But then, upon even a moment’s reflection, it was clear that Bollinger’s ass-covering words only explained more clearly than anyone at Columbia had before why the speaking invitation never should have been issued in the first place.
We don’t have to honor the “right to speak” of Nazis and Stalinists advocating genocide by inviting them to distinguished platforms in our leading universities. Ahmawhackjob engages in his “right to speak” all the time and in fact has a much bigger bullhorn than 99.9% of the people in the world. There was no good reason for Columbia to help him stage this propaganda event.
btw, it is clear that back in Iran it was a completely successful propaganda event for the Mullahs, because they simply omitted all hints of any criticism or opposition in the official media accounts, and portrayed Ahmawhackoff as being loudly cheered, standing ovations, etc. (which was true for a limited portion of leftist whackos in the crowd, apparently). They just did an Orwellian excision of all hint of disharmony and criticism.
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