Ahmadinejad Speaks At Columbia

Posted on September 24, 2007

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University today, but he didn't get a very friendly reception. Columbia's President Bollinger opened things up by blasting Ahmadinejad, calling him a petty dictator.

The president of Iran opened his remarks by objecting to the scolding he got from Columbia University's president.
After sitting through the blistering introduction by Lee Bollinger - in which he was lambasted for calling for the annihilation of Israel, denying the Holocaust and supporting the execution of children - Ahmadinejad said it was insulting to be spoken about that way.
"At the outset, I want to complain a bit about the person who read this political statement made against me," Ahmadinejad said. "In Iran, we don't think it's necessary to come in before the speech has already begun with a series of complaints ... It was an insult to information and the knowledge of the audience here."
In his scathing introduction to the much-anticipated on-campus event, Bollinger told the leader of Iran that he resembled "a petty and cruel dictator."
Bollinger levied repeated criticisms against Ahmadinejad, calling on him to answer a series of challenges about his leadership, blasting his views about the "myth" of the Holocaust "absurd" and saying that he doubted he "will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions."
"Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," Bollinger said, to loud applause.
He said Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust might fool the illiterate and ignorant.
"When you come to a place like this it makes you simply ridiculous," Bollinger said. "The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history."
Ahmadinejad rose, also to applause, and after a religious invocation, said Bollinger's opening was full of "insults and claims that were incorrect, regretfully."
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On the Holocaust - which the Iranian leader has called a "myth" - he said that "if the Holocaust is a reality, why don't we let more research be done on it? ... Where did the Holocaust happen to begin with? It happened in Europe, and given that, why is it that the Palestinian people should be displaced? Why should they give up their land?"

Ahmadinejad has called for the destruction of Israel, which he says can be achieved peacefully. He certainly didn't change any hearts and minds today. But the funniest part of the event came when he was asked about gay rights in Iran.

And the Iranian leader denied that homosexuality exists in his country when asked to explain the execution of homosexuals in Iran.
"In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country," he said, to laughter and boos from the audience. 'In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this."

Ahmadinejad is living in a state of total denial: there was no Holocaust and there certainly aren't any gay Iranians. It must be a sort of freeing philosophy: just believe whatever makes you happy, regardless of the facts. Let's hope he doesn't get any more major U.S. speaking invitations, because I am totally sick of hearing this guy's tired routine.