posted September 24, 2007 08:47 AM              

The arrival of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University Monday, sparked a rally Sunday afternoon by students, faculty, and community members.

Ahmadinejad arrived in New York Sunday for the United Nations General Assembly.

Elected officials were joined by Columbia students and alumni who were angry about the university’s decision to invited Ahmadinejad to speak at the World Leaders Forum on campus. The president will give a speech, followed by a question and answer session with students and faculty.

Protesters asked the University President Lee Bollinger to rescind the invitation.

“I don’t mind giving a platform to people with different views, but when someone has consistently made a mockery of free speech in the way that Ahmadinejad has, it’s difficult for me to rationalize giving him a platform here at a great institution like Columbia,” said one student. “I’ve come out to protest that."

“I think the man is immoral. I think he’s a criminal,” said a community member. “It’s outrageous for Columbia to give him a forum. A man who is sponsoring terrorism and killing our soldiers in Iraq; I think it’s insane.”

Ahmadinejad has drawn criticism for his comments that the Holocaust was a myth and that Israel should be, "wiped off the map." Protesters also say he has American blood on his hands, and that Iran is funding insurgents in Iraq.

One Iranian who came to watch the rally took issues with those claims.

“It’s a myth they create, just like the myth they created against Saddam to overthrow him,” he said. “It’s the interest of Iran that Iraq be quiet, have a stable government there.”

There were some very heated verbal confrontations both during the rally and afterwards. In one case, police had to escort a protester away.

Campus security will be working with the NYPD and the secret service to try to keep the campus as safe as possible during what is expected to be a very intense day.

Ahmadinejad held a military parade in Tehran Saturday to commemorate the anniversary of the Iraq invasion of Iran in 1980. He also unveiled a new long-range missile system that is capable of reaching Israel.

Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad's visit sparked calls for financial action from a pair of local lawmakers.

Congressman Anthony Weiner and State Senator Jeffrey Klein announced Sunday that they want the city and state pension funds to divest of all investments in Iran. They released a list today of 22 international companies investing in Iran's energy sector.

Klein says, in total, the state is investing around $10.4 billion, or 14 percent of the state pension, into businesses that support Iran. Weiner and Klein say taking that money away is the best way for New Yorkers to put a stop to Iran's exporting of terror.

"We're sending our men and women overseas to fight a war on terror, yet we are not using the most important weapon in our arsenal, our financial resources, visa-vie our New York State Pension Fund,” said Klein. “This would be akin to us investing in Nazi Germany or imperial Japan before World War II."

"A government that is unstable, that is run by a tyrant, the subject of international pressure, it's not a good place to be investing our money,” said Weiner.

Florida, Illinois, and Louisiana have all passed legislation to begin divesting in Iran. California legislators have passed it and are waiting for the governor to sign it into law.

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=73900

I don't get it. if he's a terrorist then why do they let him come here? Just like the time Fidel Castro and President Bush were in NYC at the same time. Everyone went to see Fidel instead of Bush.

Iranian students protest president

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- About 100 students staged a rare protest Monday against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling him a "dictator" as he gave a speech at Tehran University marking the beginning of the academic year.
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Anti-riot police confront students during a protest at Tehran University on Monday.

While the demonstrators and hard-line students loyal to Ahmadinejad scuffled in the auditorium, the president ignored chants of "Death to the dictator" and gave his speech on the merits of science and the pitfalls of Western-style democracy, witnesses said.

The hard-line students chanted "Thank you, president" as police looked on from outside the university's gates without intervening. The protesters dispersed after Ahmadinejad left the campus.

Students were once the main power base of Iran's reform movement but have faced intense pressure in recent years from Ahmadinejad's hard-line government, making anti-government protests rare.

The president faced a similar outburst during a speech last December when students at Amir Kabir Technical University called him a dictator and burned his picture.

Organizers hoped to avoid a similar disturbance Monday with tightened security measures. They checked the identity papers of everyone entering the campus and allowed only selected students into the hall for the speech, but the protesters were somehow able to gain entrance. Video Watch the students protest »

Iran's reform movement peaked in the late 1990s after reformist Mohammad Khatami was elected president and his supporters swept parliament. But their efforts to ease social and political restrictions were stymied by hard-liners who control the judiciary, security forces and powerful unelected bodies in the government.

Reformists, who also favor better relations with the United States, were further demoralized and divided after Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005 elections.

In recent months, dissenters have witnessed an increasing crackdown, with hundreds detained on accusations of threatening the Iranian system. Numerous pro-reform newspapers have been shut down and those that remain have muted their criticism.

At universities, pro-government student groups have gained strength and reformist students have been marginalized, left to hold only low-level meetings and occasional demonstrations, usually to demand better school facilities or the release of detained colleagues.

Some dissenters blame the crackdown on the regime's fear of a U.S. effort to undermine it as tensions over Iran's nuclear program intensify. Others say the intent is simply to contain discontent fueled by a faltering economy.

Ahmadinejad's popularity at home has fallen since he was elected, with critics saying he has failed to fix the economy and has hurt Iran's image internationally.

Elected on a populist agenda, Ahmadinejad has not kept campaign promises to share oil revenues with every family, eradicate poverty and reduce unemployment. Instead, housing prices in Tehran have tripled, and prices for fruit, vegetables or other commodities have more than doubled over the past year. Inflation worsened after a 25 percent hike in fuel prices in May.
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Last December, Ahmadinejad's allies were humiliated in municipal elections, with some reformists gaining seats. He was dealt another blow when a rival, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, was chosen as chairman of the Assembly of Experts, a powerful clerical body, over a close Ahmadinejad ally.

Conservatives who once supported the president have increasingly joined in the criticism, saying that he needs to pay more attention to domestic issues and that his inflammatory rhetoric has needlessly stoked tensions with the West. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

Iranian students taunt Ahmadinejad.

Video:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2007/10/08/verjee.iran.ahmadinejad.protests.cnn]http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2007/10/08/verjee.iran.ahmadinejad.protests.cnn

posted September 27, 2007 01:51 PM            

What else was to be expected when friends get together to screech, whine and shriek against their common enemy, the United States?

It seems like only yesterday I was remarking on the similiarity between what terrorists leaders were saying and what leftist moron congressional members were shrieking. Getting harder to tell them apart since they seem to have the same goals..hand America a defeat in Iraq. Surrender Now.

Now, we find another radical terrorist funder, supporter and enemy of America and he's pontificating against America and getting wildly cheered in the process...by leftist dem-o-scat nuts. Funny how nutty leftist rhetoric and terrorist propaganda seem to merge into one message.

Perhaps Coulter is right and dem-o-scats should run Aberdinernut for president of the United States. He was a big hit with the dem-o-scat party base..which is the far left radical fringe of America haters. Hell, they even threw Aberdinernut a nice Washington DC party with all the leftist nuts from Washington society and the leftist American press. What a party eh? Of course Aberdinernut doesn't dring alcholic beverages but I'm sure everyone enjoyed the warm camel milk substitute.

TASE HIM, BRO!
September 26, 2007

Ann Coulter

Democrats should run Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for president. He's more coherent than Dennis Kucinich, he dresses like their base, he's more macho than John Edwards, and he's willing to show up at a forum where he might get one hostile question -- unlike the current Democratic candidates for president who won't debate on Fox News Channel. He's not married to an impeached president, and the name "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad" is surely no more frightening than "B. Hussein Obama."

And liberals agree with Ahmadinejad on the issues! We know that because he was invited by an American university to speak on campus.

Contrary to all the blather about "free speech" surrounding Ahmadinejad's appearance at Columbia, universities in America do not invite speakers who do not perfectly mirror the political views of their America-hating faculties. Rather, they aggressively censor differing viewpoints and permit only a narrow category of speech on their campuses. Ask Larry Summers.

If a university invites someone to speak, you know the faculty agrees with the speaker. Maybe not the entire faculty. Some Columbia professors probably consider Ahmadinejad too moderate on Israel.

Columbia president Lee Bollinger claimed the Ahmadinejad invitation is in keeping with "Columbia's long-standing tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate."

Except Columbia doesn't have that tradition. This is worse than saying "the dog ate my homework." It's like saying "the dog ate my homework" when you're Michael Vick and everyone knows you've killed your dog.

Columbia's "tradition" is to shut down any speakers who fall outside the teeny, tiny seditious perspective of its professors.

When Minutemen leader Jim Gilchrist and his black colleague Marvin Stewart were invited by the College Republicans to speak at Columbia last year, the tolerant, free-speech-loving Columbia students violently attacked them, shutting down the speech.

Imbued with Bollinger's commitment to free speech, Columbia junior Ryan Fukumori said of the Minutemen: "They have no right to be able to speak here."

Needless to say -- unlike Ahmadinejad -- the university had not invited the Minutemen. Most colleges and universities wouldn't buy a cup of coffee for a conservative speaker.

Fees for speakers who do not hate America are raised from College Republican fundraisers and contributions from patriotic alumni and locals who think students ought to hear at least one alternative viewpoint in four years of college.

And then college administrators turn a blind eye when liberal apple-polishers and suck-ups shut down the speech or physically attack the speaker.

Bollinger refused to punish the students who stormed the stage and violently ended the Minutemen's speech.

So the one thing we know absolutely is that Bollinger did not allow Ahmadinejad to speak out of respect for "free speech" because Bollinger does not respect free speech.

Only because normal, patriotic Americans were appalled by Columbia's invitation of Ahmadinejad to speak was Bollinger forced into the ridiculous position of denouncing Ahmadinejad when introducing him.

Then why did you invite him?

And by the way, I'll take a denunciation if college presidents would show up at my speeches and drone on for 10 minutes about "free speech" before I begin.

At Syracuse University last year, when liberal hecklers tried to shut down a speech by a popular conservative author of (almost!) six books, College Republicans began to remove the hecklers. But Dean of Students Roy Baker blocked them from removing students disrupting the speech on the grounds that removing students screaming during a speech would violate the hecklers' "free speech." They had a "free speech" right to prevent anyone from hearing a conservative's free speech.

That's what colleges mean by "free speech." (And by the way, my fingers are getting exhausted from making air quotes every time I use the expression "free speech" in relation to a college campus.)

"Tolerance of opposing views" means we have to listen to their anti-American views, but they don't have to hear our pro-American views. (In Washington, they call this "the Fairness Doctrine.")

Liberals are never called upon to tolerate anything they don't already adore, such as treason, pornography and heresy. In fact, those will often get you course credit.

At Ahmadinejad's speech, every vicious anti-Western civilization remark was cheered wildly. It was like watching an episode of HBO'S "Real Time With Bill Maher."

Ahmadinejad complained that the U.S. and a few other "monopolistic powers, selfish powers" were trying to deny Iranians their "right" to develop nukes.

Wild applause.

Ahmadinejad repeatedly refused to answer whether he seeks the destruction of the state of Israel.

Wild applause.

He accused the U.S. of supporting terrorism.

Wild applause.

Only when Ahmadinejad failed to endorse sodomy did he receive the single incident of booing throughout his speech.

Responding to a question about Iran's execution of homosexuals, Ahmadinejad said there are no homosexuals in Iran: "In Iran we don't have homosexuals, like in your country. In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it."