"Questions For Ahmadinejad"

[achebeautiful]

I'm not sure if any of you saw the Mike Wallace interview on Sunday night with the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This article is a response to just one of the topics brought up during that interview:

Questions for Ahmadinejad (That Mike Wallace Didn’t Ask)
~ Bret Stephens,


"The time of the bomb is in the past. Today is the era of thoughts, dialogue and cultural exchanges."

~ Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on “60 Minutes” with Mike Wallace, Aug. 13, 2006

Q: A follow-up to that, Mr. President: Are you aware of a man named Mansour Ossanloo? He is the leader of the independent trade union representing the workers of the Vahed Bus Company in Tehran. A year ago, your security forces raided one of their meetings and cut out a piece of Mr. Ossanloo’s tongue. Now he speaks with a lisp. Is this how “dialogue” is conducted in the Islamic Republic of Iran?

Q: Let’s talk a bit about your government’s relationship to Iranian political dissidents. A few weeks ago, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a member of the Guardian Council who is reportedly close to your boss, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned in his Friday sermon that Iran will execute en masse all dissidents if the U.N. Security Council votes to sanction Iran for your refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. The sermon was broadcast on Iranian state radio. Does Ayatollah Jannati speak for you, Mr. President? A:

Q: Please be specific about the fate of one man: Ahmad Batebi. Mr. Batebi became the face of Iranian dissent when he appeared on the cover of the Economist during the brutally suppressed Tehran University student uprisings in July 1999. After serving six years of a 15-year sentence, Mr. Batebi was furloughed last year and rearrested on July 29; his whereabouts are unknown, which is of special concern because your government recently tortured to death student leader Akbar Mohammadi (www.iranpressnews.com1). Can you tell us where Mr. Batebi is and give us assurances for his safety? A:

Q: More on thoughts, dialogue and cultural exchanges, Mr. President. You are possibly the first head of government to write your own blog: www.ahmadinejad.ir. Yet your government has shut down hundreds of Web sites and Web logs, including the BBC’s Farsi service, and harassed the lawyers who represent them. An Iranian blogger who goes by the name Iron Shadow accuses you of “pursuing policies that are reminiscent of some of the darkest days of the Islamic Republic.”

Your government also recently arrested and tortured blogger Abed Tavancheh, 23, who reportedly sustained permanent damage to his kidneys. Is this just your idea of beating the competition? A:

Q: Turn to the past. Kevin Hermening, a Marine sergeant at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran during the hostage crisis, tells this newspaper that you interrogated him personally on Nov. 4, 1979, while brandishing a pistol. For the record, he remembers you as a “very mean SOB” and described a sense of “déjà vu” while watching your performance on “60 Minutes.” The U.S. State Department also believes that you were one of a group of five who planned the embassy takeover. Do you deny these charges? A:

Q: Numerous Iranian sources allege that in the 1980s you worked as an interrogator and executioner in Evin Prison in Tehran. They say you earned the nickname Tir Khalas Zan, or “The Terminator,” for your methods there. You are also suspected of involvement in the assassination of Abdurrahman Qassemlou, a leader of Iran’s Kurdish minority, in Vienna in 1989. Do you deny these charges, too? A:

Q: An American federal grand jury has indicted Ahmed Ibrahim al-Mughassil and Abdel Hussein Mohamed al-Nasser as two of the ringleaders in the 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in which 19 U.S. servicemen were killed. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh believes the two are “living comfortably in Iran.” Will you hand over for trial the two to the U.S. or some other international authority, as Moammar Gadhafi did with the planners of the Lockerbie bombing? A:

Q: You are known to be a religious disciple of Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi. Among the Ayatollah’s teachings is the view that slavery is justified. Do you agree with your mentor? A:

Q: Your views about Israel are categorical and well known; your views about whether the Holocaust took place have been ambiguous at best. How about the Jews? Do you agree with the December 2004 statement of Iranian academic Heshmatollah Qanbari on Iranian TV, as quoted by Memri, that “all corrupt traits in humanity originated in this group [i.e., the Jews]”? A:

Q: Another of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi’s disciples, Mohsen Ghorouian, has said it is “only natural” for Iran to have nuclear weapons as a “countermeasure” to the U.S. and Israel. And one of your regime’s hardliners, Hojjat-ol-Islam Baqer Kharraz, was recently quoted as saying that “we are able to produce atomic bombs and we will do that.” Do you disavow these statements, given your repeated insistence that Iran’s nuclear programs are for peaceful purposes only? A:

Q: In your May letter to President Bush, you ask whether the attacks of Sept. 11 could have been “planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services.” Is it your belief that those attacks were orchestrated by the CIA, the Mossad or another Western intelligence service? A:

Q: In the same letter, you discuss the “shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the Liberal democratic systems.” Is this a historical inevitability, and do you intend to hasten that fall? A:

Q: The scholar Bernard Lewis recently made note of your repeated references to the 27th day of Rajab in the Islamic year of 1427. That date corresponds to Aug. 22 — a week from today. Anything special planned for the occasion? Or is it a surprise? A:

[achebeautiful]

Here's another article on the subject:


Mike Wallace: The New Walter Duranty?

~ Joseph Farah

What is it about tyrants that gives media types goose flesh?

The question came to mind while pondering "60 Minutes" thug Mike Wallace's transformation into Barbara Walters in an interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Wallace's reputation is as an ambush interviewer -- the tough guy who's not afraid to ask any question of anyone.

He's the eternal cynic who won't buy anyone's lies. He's the emotionless inquisitor. He's the media's version of Torquemada.

What a match-up! Wallace vs. Ahmadinejad.

How many rounds would a bout like this last?

Would Wallace ever make it out of Tehran alive?

How long would it take Wallace to reduce this maniac to foaming at the mouth?

Well, it didn't turn out that way, as we all know. I'm not surprised, really.

With Ahmadinejad, Wallace had a chance to go after a guy who is being compared by many to Adolf Hitler in 1939 -- with one exception, of course: Hitler did not have nuclear weapons. It could have been a historic opportunity. It could have been the capstone of Wallace's career.

Instead, like others before him in his profession, Wallace was smitten by the little dictator.

Some of Wallace's observations of the Iranian madman who has denied the Holocaust while doing everything in his power to foster a new one:

He called Ahmadinejad a "reasonable" man.

He said the Iranian president is not anti-Jewish -- just anti-Zionist. How does he know? Ahmadinejad told him so.

Ahmadinejad told Wallace there are even Jews in the Iranian Parliament -- many, he said. Of course, he did not name any. Nor was he asked to do so.

Wallace concluded that Ahmadinejad was sincere in his hope for peaceful coexistence between Iran and the West. (Translation: Right after they nuke us, they think we'll get along just fine.)

He found himself "troubled" by comparisons to Hitler.

He marveled at Ahmadinejad's civil-engineering degree, his intellect, his savvy.

He told Americans not to bring "prejudices" to the viewing of the interview Sunday night.

And he said the discussion was sincere and not about propaganda.

Huh?

What planet has this guy been living on? Has he been listening to what Ahmadinejad has been saying to others for the past year? Has he not heard him call for the eradication of the Jewish state? Has he not heard him threaten the United States?

But, if you live long enough, you see history repeat itself. This little episode involving the 88-year-old Wallace reminds me of another "newsman" who fell in love with a dictator -- one with even more blood on his hands than Ahmadinejad.

The "newsman" -- and I use that term loosely -- was Walter Duranty, who would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for The New York Times. The dictator was Josef Stalin.

It's hard for me to refer to either Duranty or Wallace as newsmen. They don't deserve the label. After all, Wallace is a former game-show host. With him it was always about show business, not news business. Duranty, meanwhile, was a propagandist for the most evil and deadly force on the planet -- Soviet totalitarianism under, quite possibly, the ruler who killed more human beings than any other.

While Stalin was killing millions of Ukrainians by mass starvation in the terror famine, Duranty was writing about the bold new achievements of Stalin's Soviet Union.

His fellow Soviet Union correspondent, the estimable Malcolm Muggeridge, called Duranty "the biggest liar I have seen in 50 years as a journalist."

Of course, Muggeridge didn't live to see Sunday night's shameful episode of "60 Minutes."


Mr. Farah is a nationally syndicated columnist.

[lapayin]

I saw the interview and was very disappointed in Mike Wallace. Ahmadinejad seemed to be running the interview. When asked direct questions he many times answered with another question. Mike ended up answering or just never pursued getting a real answer from Ahmadinejad. He did seem very intelligent but very scary. He is one leader that needs to be watched very carefully.

[achebeautiful]

Mel Gibson Is a Jew-Hater, but President of Iran Is Not?!
~ Larry Elder


When is a Jew-hater not a Jew-hater?

Actor Mel Gibson's "Jews cause all the wars" drunk-driving tirade elicited a coast-to-coast butt-whupping. A contrite Mel Gibson apologized -- twice -- entered rehab and asked to speak with prominent Jewish figures to map out a "path for healing." But last Sunday, a puzzled Gibson probably cut off his television, shouting, "Where's CBS's Mike Wallace when I need him?"

You see, Wallace just aired his "60 Minutes" interview with the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an on-the-record, unrepentant Jew-hater and Holocaust-denier.

Ahmadinejad, at the October 2005 "World Without Zionism" conference, said, "The Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem must be wiped off the map." Following denials that Ahmadinejad would never use an English idiom like "wiped off the map," some Persian language specialists translated the sentence as, "This regime that is occupying Jerusalem must be eliminated from the pages of history."

And, oh, about America, Ahmadinejad said, "And God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism." On another occasion, Ahmadinejad said, "They [Europeans] have invented a myth that Jews were massacred. . . . If you have burned the Jews, why don't you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel. . . . f you have committed this huge crime, why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay . . . ?" Only days ago, for good measure, before the Israeli-Hezbollah "ceasefire," Ahmadinejad said, "[T]he main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime."

Therefore, when the pugnacious Wallace sat down with Ahmadinejad, one expected the fit to hit the shan. But, no. For, as Wallace later said, he found Ahmadinejad an "impressive fellow," "attractive," "smart as hell," "savvy" and "rational." Wallace, the intrepid reporter, apparently smitten by what he perceived as Ahmadinejad's charm, poise and carriage, refused to call the president an anti-Semite!

Here's Wallace, after the Ahmadinejad interview, but before it aired, on Sean Hannity's radio show.

Hannity: "So you don't think he's an anti-Semite?"

Wallace: "He himself -- by anti-Semite, anti-Jew? Anti-Jew? . . . No, I don't."

What about Ahmadinejad's assertion that "if" the Holocaust took place, it took place in Europe, so why should Palestine suffer?

Wallace: " . . . He says 'wipe off the map' and of course, I asked him, over and over, about that. He says, in effect, hey . . . it's perfectly sensible if there is a Holocaust -- and let's buy the fact that there was a Holocaust -- where did the Holocaust take place? Did it take place in an Arab neighborhood? Did it take place in Jerusalem? No. It took place in Germany. Then it seems to me, under those circumstances, take Israel, the Zionist entity, he called it, move it to Germany. Move it to Europe, that's where it happened. Move it to the United States."

Hannity: "Do you think that's a legitimate argument?"

Wallace: "It's an argument."

It's an argument? Never mind the over 3-millennia-old Jewish connection to ancient Israel. Or that Jews migrated to and legally acquired land under the Ottoman Empire, under the British Mandate, or by buying land from Arabs in the area long before the United Nations partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab nations. Or that pogroms against Jews occurred both in European and Arab countries before the modern State of Israel.

Is Wallace soft on Jew-hating? Years ago, Wallace arranged for a dinner with himself, Seagram CEO Edgar Bronfman, Nation of Islam's firebrand anti-Semitic, Judaism-is-a-gutter-religion Rev. Louis Farrakhan, and their wives. Wallace, according to The Wall Street Journal, wanted to reach out to Farrakhan, " . . . to take tentative steps toward a rapprochement between blacks and Jews. . . . The dinner party was by all accounts warm and cordial. . . . By the time good-nights were said . . . it was agreed that Farrakhan's son-in-law . . . and someone from Mr. Bronfman's camp would explore opening a hotel in Washington . . . operated by black people and financed in part with money raised by Mr. Bronfman." But a few days after the meeting, Farrakhan resumed his public attack against Jews, and the deal was off.

If Wallace is soft on anti-Semitism, he's positively hard on the U.S. military. Wallace and ABC's Peter Jennings, in 1987, appeared on a PBS panel discussion. The moderator offered a hypothetical. You are covering a war, and you learn of the enemy's plans to attack U.S. soldiers. Do you warn the Americans? An emphatic Wallace said, "No, you don't have the higher duty [as an American citizen]. . . . No, no. You're a reporter . . . ." Jennings ultimately concurred with Wallace.

An outraged co-panelist, a Marine colonel, said, "I feel utter contempt. Two days later they're both walking off my hilltop, they're 200 yards away and they get ambushed. And they're lying there wounded. And they're going to expect I'm going to send Marines up there to get them. They're just journalists, they're not Americans. . . . But I'll do it. And that's what makes me so contemptuous of them. And Marines will die, going to get a couple of journalists."

With all due respect, Mr. Wallace, you are in your 61st minute. It's time.

***Note: in submitting this article I am in no way condoning or excusing the remarks made by Mel Gibson. I am, however, satisfied that he is making an attempt to seek help for his problems, those being alcoholism and anti- Semitism. Whether it is true contrition remains to be seen, but also deserves our support in the event that it is. ***