A noted person is quoted in today’s news saying he “considers it extremely unlikely that the American people consent to the billions of dollars of annual expenditure from

[their] treasury for this [Iraq] military misadventure.” The same man added: “You are witnessing daily that under the pretext of ‘the war on terror,’ civil liberties in the United States are being increasingly curtailed. Even the privacy of individuals is fast losing its meaning.” Sounds to me like someone from the liberal opinion makers from within the U.S. who sees Bush as evil and this Iraq war as ridiculous and immoral. These quotes seem pretty mainstream to me. The same leader further warned the new Democratic majority that “they control an important branch of the U. S. Government . . . [so you] will be held to account by the people and by history.” Yes, this does sound exactly like some of the solutions now on daily offer within the U.S.

There is one problem with such a conclusion. These words are not from the American far left, or even from our most liberal expressions of a free press. These are the words of Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejab, telling the American people today what he thinks about the world situation and the United States, whom he has threatened time and again. This is the same man who represses his people, allows no freedom of expression and threatens Christians daily.

I have to wonder, “Who wants to openly agree with this mad-man in Iraq and admit it?” And now we hear talk about dialogue with Iran and Syria. I admit I am completely baffled by such an approach. A nation’s leaders with no will to face hard times and issues like these, without concluding that people like this are nuts, is in deeper trouble than I thought.

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Comments

  1. Mike Clawson December 1, 2006 at 3:44 pm

    Truth is truth, no matter who speaks it.

  2. Gene Redlin December 1, 2006 at 8:11 pm

    Really Mike?
    If the Devil tells the truth is it truth only if it fits your liberal bent? Can the Devil tell the truth?
    I think you are sadly and pitifully misled and deceived.
    I suggest you consider this:
    http://northerngleaner.blogspot.com/2006/12/i-was-wrong.html

  3. Adam Shields December 2, 2006 at 10:38 am

    So the president of Iran is probably nuts. But Bush started this direct letter thing when he spoke directly to Iranian people from the UN. And while the letter seems strange to western ears, there are some things that are reasonable in it. And before you start thinking he is too strange remember it is our President that has said that Iraq is a model democracy. And both our President and Attorney General in interviews can’t think of a single thing that they have done wrong is the last six years. So people on all sides seem to be ignoring truth. The reality is that all sides pick and choose to make things look good to their argument. What is important is a variety of sources and some work by the listener (reader, viewer, etc) to try to find what is going on underneath.

  4. John H. Armstrong December 2, 2006 at 11:02 am

    President Bush is not a the real issue here. Even if he made lots of mistakes and spoke to the people of Iran a hundred times do you honestly weigh Bush’s words and the president of Iran’s in the same scales of seriousness and credibility? Come on.
    Please read carefully the history of such rhetoric before World War II. Adolf Hitler made “sense” many times, or he could not have raised a following at all, and he often spoke the truth but always for one end, the goal of German conquest and the Nazi ideology.
    Ahmandinejab is openly committed to the conquest of the West with radical Islam. Did anyone read his ranting and raving 14-page letter to President Bush after Bush’s UN speech and see what he really said? I am afraid some of you so despise Bush that you do not listen to what the proponents of radical Isalm are saying and thus see clearly the very real signals they give us about conquering Israel and the West. These guys are not playing games. They mean this stuff and we are foolish to not listen. They warned us for more than decade before 9/11 and then we were “shocked” by the attacks.
    When Bush is gone in two years what then? Assuming his foreign policy is fundamentally flawed, an assumption that I do not share, what is the approach that we then take to this man who denies the holocaust even happened?
    I went to the Holocaust Museum a few weeks ago. Anyone who denies this is real history is nuts and very dangerous. What other logical conclusion can a person draw who takes sin and national defense seriously? (Both of these, sin and national defense, have considerable biblical warrant.)

  5. Mike Clawson December 3, 2006 at 1:09 am

    John, you do realize that you’re using an ad hominem argument, don’t you? And you do realize that ad hominem arguments are considered logical fallacies, don’t you?
    Perhaps it would be worthwhile to actually consider the assertions made by Ahmadinejab on their own merits rather than simply say “they came from a madman so they must be false”. If a madman says that the sky is blue, does that make it not blue?
    You mentioned three things that Ahmadinejab said. Let’s consider them:
    1) “considers it extremely unlikely that the American people consent to the billions of dollars of annual expenditure from [their] treasury for this [Iraq] military misadventure.”
    Considering that support for the Iraq war is at its lowest levels ever right now. I’d say that there’s a good chance that this is true – i.e. it’s factually true that Americans no long approve of all the resources being sunk into the war.
    Personally I can say that I’d much rather see my tax money going towards education, roads, and help for the poor than towards launching unprovoked attacks on other countries.
    2)“You are witnessing daily that under the pretext of ‘the war on terror,’ civil liberties in the United States are being increasingly curtailed. Even the privacy of individuals is fast losing its meaning.”
    This is simply a statement of fact. What else would you call the Patriot Act, illegal wire tapping by our federal government, or the unwarranted incarceration and threatened deportaiton of foreign refugess like my friend Ibrahim Parlak (www.freeibrahim.com)?
    I used to be a conservative back when being conservative meant believing in limited government. I still believe in government, but apparently that must be a liberal position these days since it’s the conservatives that have given us these kind of Big Brother measures in the name of “security”.
    3) warned the new Democratic majority that “they control an important branch of the U. S. Government . . . [so you] will be held to account by the people and by history.”
    I’m not sure who exactly “they” and “you” are supposed to refer to. But regardless, isn’t it just a statement of the obvious that any leaders in our government will (hopefully) be held accountable for their actions? Isn’t that what democracy is all about? How can anyone possibly disagree with that statement?
    Of course, feel free to disagree with me on any of these points. But let’s disagree on the issues, not just on the basis of ad hominem attacks.
    Peace,
    -Mike

  6. Mike Clawson December 3, 2006 at 1:12 am

    Oops… in my “I used to be a conservative” paragraph, the second sentence ought to read “I still believe in limited government…”

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