From the cover, above the fold, of this morning’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the bold headline reads:
Is he a threat to world peace, a God-fearing patriot, or a yokel? At home and abroad, people are asking about Iran‘s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad … Who is this man?
By Margaret Coker
Cox International Correspondent
ITEM #1: At the start of the Iranian revolution in 1979, Ahmadinejad (ah-mah-dih-nee-ZHAAD) was a civil engineering student, but he left school to become a street activist for the cause. Several former U.S. hostages have identified Ahmadinejad as one of their most fanatical interrogators after the American Embassy in Tehran was seized on Nov. 4, 1979. He has denied his involvement in the hostage-taking, but other student leaders at the time have said that Ahmadinejad was involved in planning the takeover. Iranian extremists held 52 Americans for 444 days, and U.S.-Iranian diplomatic relations have been severed ever since.
Later, Ahmadinejad became an officer in the elite Revolutionary Guards during the bloody eight-year war with Iraq, serving first in a combat role and then in intelligence during the conflict that left an estimated 300,000 dead and another 1 million wounded.
In October 2005 Ahmadinejad gave a speech that contained antagonistic statements about Israel. According to widely published translations, he agreed with a statement he attributed to Ayatollah Khomeini that the “occupying regime” had to be removed, and referred to Israel as a “disgraceful stain [on] the Islamic world” that would be eliminated.
In June, 2006 Guardian columnist and foreign correspondent Jonathan Steele cited several Farsi speakers and translators who state that the phrase in question is more accurately translated as “eliminated” or “wiped off” or “wiped away” from “the page of time” or “the pages of history”, rather than “wiped off the map”. New York Times deputy foreign editor Ethan Bronner observed that “all official translations” of the comments, including the foreign ministry and president’s office, “refer to wiping Israel away”.
Ahmadinejad repeatedly made controversial statements questioning the Holocaust, and criticized European laws against Holocaust denial. he stated that “they have invented a myth that Jews were massacred”. In an interview with Der Spiegel, he was asked, “Are you still saying that the Holocaust is just ‘a myth’?” Ahmadinejad responded, “I will only accept something as truth if I am actually convinced of it.” In the same interview, he later stated, “We oppose every type of crime against any people. But we want to know whether this crime actually took place or not. [...] If it did not occur, then the Jews have to go back to where they came from”.
A cult of death is forming in the Muslim world — for reasons that are perfectly explicable in terms of the Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad. The truth is that we are not fighting a “war on terror.” We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise. Ahmadinejad desperately desires to lead the Arab world in this jihad.
ITEM #2: The origin of the Jews is traditionally dated to around 1800 BCE with the biblical account of the birth of Judaism. Judaism is the first recorded monotheistic faith and one of the oldest religious traditions still practiced today. Their Hebrew Bible is an account of the Israelites’ relationship with God as reflected in their history from the beginning of time until the building of the Second Temple.
Jews trace their religious lineage to the biblical patriarch Abraham, who established a covenant with God and moved to Canaan with his followers around 1800 BCE according to the Bible, through Isaac and Jacob, and they consider Abraham to be the starter of Judaism.
The Jews have always had a special relationship with God. For a very long time the Jews have been considered to be God’s Chosen People.
ITEM #3: Now that I’ve posted facts about both the man and his words, let’s return to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution headline of the day: “Is he a threat to world peace, a God-fearing patriot, or a yokel?”
If Jews are chosen by God, and if Ahmadinejad wants to wipe Israel off the map, then how can one ask if Ahmadinejad is God-fearing?
Also, the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group is the very definition of genocide. So how can someone be considered God-fearing if they espouse genocide?
With this in mind how in the world can a serious journalist even ask the question “Is he a God-fearing patriot”? How can those words be printed in bold on the cover of a major US newspaper for millions to see? Forget rhetorical – this was offensive.
Ahmadinejad, in his elusive climb to the top as the Voice Of All Things Arab and succeeding where Saddam failed, is stoking the anti-Semitic furnaces found in both the streets of the Middle East as well as the pages of the Quran. The Middle East, once the Cradle Of Civilization, is now relegated to Third World status – and who better to blame for this than Those Evil Jews™. And who better than our own Liberal Media to carry his torch?
Ahmadinejad and the Liberal Media: the only marriage consecrated in Hell.
God, Iran, Ahmadinejad, Israel, Islam, Jew, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
