Ahmadinejad Week

Whoa, it has been a long, long while. I have been keeping up with current events pretty well, I'm glad to say, but I haven't written in this thing. It's a shame, because that devil of a GRE is approaching and doing a little writing every day would probably do me some good.

The Meters - Cissy Strut

So it seems we, these United States, have quite a gnarly guest hanging out this week. You might have heard of him. He's known for saying crazy things he didn't actually say.

During Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's latest visit to the Belly of the Beast, he has been making the rounds with various media clowns to share his...thoughts, or at least the parts that the networks will air. Instead of asking him questions to which he might actually give real answers, they have chosen to ask him astoundingly stupid questions which he can easily turn around, such as, "Why do you call for the destruction of a nation?" Seeing as I often ask that question of my own government, it seems like a plain ol' waste of time to ask it from someone who never really answers questions anyway. The owners of Guantanamo Bay criticizing the owners of Evin Prison is equally inane, as are the media who all but ignore the former while assuming some kind of righteous indignation at the latter. Since the job of US media is to relax us all into a physical confrontation in Iran, none of this is a real surprise to me, but it doesn't make it any less disappointing.

What's nice (or infuriating) about a week like this is that it gives each issue a chance to be brought out and beaten half to death. One story that's been picking up a lot of interest lately is that of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman originally sentenced to death by stoning for adultery but whose sentence was suspended following lots of international brouhaha (but Iran would prefer you not look at it that way). The story has been making fewer and fewer waves lately, but US leaders haven't noticed because they were too busy executing a borderline mentally retarded woman in Virginia. The two remaining hikers in Iran have also come up, as well as Iran's supposed attempt to build nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad has even been baited to say something crazy about the Cordoba Initiative (although he didn't; see below). Pointless, absolutely counter-productive, childlike antagonism from both sides abounds, but at least Ahmadinejad calls out the US on things it seldom, if ever, seems to call itself out on. Even when he does call us out rightly, we display the amazing ability to trick ourselves into believing he's wrong. Take this Time Magazine Newsfeed article, for example, on how Ahmadinejad called out the double standard over the Sakineh case. Here's my very favorite part:

It may be hard to see where the Iranian leader is coming from. After all, Iran was going to execute a woman for allegedly cheating on her husband in a reportedly lopsided case where Ashtiani may not have even understood the charges against her because of the dialect she speaks. On the other hand, Lewis was convicted of arranging the killing of her husband and stepson, a capital crime in Virginia.

Yes, it may be hard to see where the Iranian leader is coming from if your head is quite far up your ass. And if, in the case of this writer, the execution of a borderline mentally retarded woman as long as there is a good enough reason (read between the lines of the above quote), something the Iranian prosecution clearly hasn't been able to scrape together in their case, seems like a perfectly logical conclusion to you. For crying out loud, Iran even suspended the sentence; we actually look worse here. Even despite an appeal from the European Union, Lewis was put to death.

To see an example of Ahmadinejad running circles around reporters, check out his interview with Larry King the other night:

I gotta say, the man has a way with words. Or rather, he has a way around words. Don't get me wrong, I'm not rooting for anyone here; the people on both sides of these interviews are either lying through their teeth or so deluded it makes me uncomfortable.

I mean, really: Can you, as a voice from the only nation to use an atomic bomb and as an active enabler and supplier of arms (nuclear or otherwise) to radical/unstable/autocratic regimes in the region (see: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan), actually criticize someone else for maybe seeking to build a nuclear weapon? Can you? Where is the outrage at our own hypocrisy? Why can't we turn this anger into positive change at home first, before going out and swatting at beehives like we do?

Oh, and like the cherry on top of today, the US delegation marched out in a huff during Ahmadinejad's speech at the UN. Ah, how I love it when the grownups tasked with representing me on the world stage behave like children.

And thus, the good times continue to roll. The censors accuse the censors of censorship, the murderers accuse the murderers of murder, the distorters accuse the distorters of distortion, the arms dealer accuses the arms dealer of arms dealing, and the public is none the wiser.

Tomorrow, Shepard Smith is scheduled to interview Ahmadinejad on FOX News. In the immortal words of Ron Weasley: Murder me, Harry.