Hitler Lives
Wherein I Quibble With Pejman
By California Yankee Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (8) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I've been comparing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler for years. It's a well-deserved comparison. So I was delighted to hear Columbia University President Bollinger tell Ahmadinejad that the Hitler wannabee exhibits "all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," and question the Iranian leader's record on human rights and his statements that the Holocaust was a myth.
I also found myself largely in agreement with my esteemed colleague, Pejman Yousefzadeh, who writes that it is good that Ahmadinejad was forced to deal with boos, hisses, denunciations and derisive laughter in response to his propaganda and lies.
Read on.
Nevertheless, Reuters reports the Iranian tyrant got his talking points in:
Ahmadinejad also insisted in a forum at Columbia University Iran's nuclear program was purely peaceful. Challenged over his past comments that Israel should be wiped off the map and questioning the Holocaust, he said his concern was why the Palestinians were suffering.[. . .]
Bollinger asked a string of tough questions, most of which Ahmadinejad ignored in a 30-minute speech which dwelt at length on science as a gift from God and the importance of using knowledge and learning purely and in a pious way.
Answering questions about his views on the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad said there were no absolutes in academia, and "a different perspective" was necessary given the impact on the Middle East of those events.
"I'm not saying that it didn't happen at all," he said. "I said, granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people."
Ahmadinejad also rejected criticism of human rights in his country, notably persecution of homosexuals: "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country," he said, sparking loud laughter from the audience. "In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I do not know who has told you we have it."
Providing the Iranian the Columbia soapbox lends the junior Hitler more legitimacy for his poison and admirers.
Bollinger and John Coatsworth, Columbia's interim dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, defended Columbia's invitation to Ahmadinejad, saying it would provide a forum for free speech and healthy debate. The event did provide a forum for Ahmadinejad, but there was no debate, there was merely an exchange of insults and a recitation of Iranian propaganda. Wherefore, I respectfully disagree with Pejman and submit that it was not a good thing that Columbia provided the evil madman from Iran a now diminished but still valued, at least by Ahmadinejad, platform.
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Hitler Lives 8 Comments (0 topical, 8 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Of course, being contrary is in my nature. ;)
1) He's not a dictator, he's a puppet. The dictators in Iran are the ayatollahs. In reality, the president of Iran has very little actual power. Hitler answered to nobody.
2) The threat of the various strains of jihadism may need some good figureheads like Ahmadinejad or Bin Laden, but it goes so far beyond any one, two, or three well-known people. It's a broad movement and the centerpiece is ideology, not any particular personality.
Of course, the threat of Nazism went beyond "Hitler", too. But, still, it fell completely under his command....whereas we could kill Ahmadinejad or Bin Laden tomorrow and the jihadist movement would march on.
1) Puppet or dictator, he is a human being with free will. He exercises that freewill on behalf of an evil cause, therefore same difference as far as I am concerned. But then, I have a somewhat radical conception of freewill.
2) Hitler's ideas weren't orginal any more than Ahmadinejad or Bin Laden. Both veins of anti-semitism have been around almost as long as the Jews, in point of fact, it may be misleading to say "both." What was original with Hitler was his mastery of new media to energize the crowds to implement his plan. If Hitler had been taken out before we so roundly defeated Germany, another of his ilk would have stepped forward to take his place. This is one of the reasons we keep losing the "ideological" battle. We didn't win the "ideological" battle with Germany: we killed them again and again and again, including civilians in mass bombing campaigns; we outproduced them so that when our tank battalions swarmed them, they ran out of shells before we ran out of Shermans; until finally there was no infrastructure to support even the most basic needs and they finally cried "Uncle." Yes, it's dirty, messy, and uncivilized. It's also ultimately how these sorts of fights are ended. The other side can't be reasoned with because there isn't any reasoning behind their hatred.
The loss of Hitler would have been devastating to the Nazi regime. They were wrapped up in him, he was The Leader. Witness the confusion after his death; there WAS no contingency for life after Hitler. They'd have fallen apart in a mess of infighting.
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The only reason it lasted as long as it did was that Hitler managed to get the entire German army to take a personal loyalty oath to him. Otherwise, they'd have overthrown him at least by '42.
There was no one in Germany who would have prosecuted the war like Hitler, and certainly no one who would have moved into Austria and Czechloslovokia the way he did. I'm not even sure they would have attacked France.
With respect to people who hate without reasoning, there is really only one way to deal with them. Kill them.
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And that's why comparing Ahmadinejad to Hitler can't withstand a whole lot of scrutiny. Surely they do have some similarities -- but they have more differences, and more meaningful ones.
It doesn't matter, though. Just because a guy can't be compared to Hitler doesn't mean he's any better.
But we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that jihadism is something that can be decapitated. Of course Nazism would've fallen apart without Hitler...or, at least, without Hitler and a select few of his inner circle.
The jihad, on the other hand, is a broad-based movement whose real leader, if we must find one, is a warped version of a common deity who cannot be killed or arrested.
Thankfully, it hasn't (yet) perpetrated anywhere near the death and horror that the Nazis perpetrated in a relatively short period of time.
But, heck, if comparing the guy to Hitler makes it easier to muster some will to do what we need to do, go for it.
I would say judging by the clips, a majority of the Columbia kids attending were siding with him. Which proves that they can spend hundreds of thousands on an education, but that they can't buy a clue.
The real dictators in Iran are the Ayatollahs, and the President of Iran is their Goebbels.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/392556/true_message_missed_amon...