<p>Of course she is…everybody and their cousin is touting the bush is a terrorist and bush is hitler line these days. It’s the “cool” thing to do!</p>
<p>I just want to hear it from CGM. No one in their right mind would consider the two to be equivalent. If someone does, then I’d like to understand his or her logic. Or maybe it’s just more of the “hate America” propaganda.</p>
<p>We’re talking about a particularly militant leader who is leading the world to the brink of war. </p>
<p>Someone went a little beyond the brink…</p>
<p>“CGM, are you suggesting that Ahmadinejad and Bush are morally equivalent?”</p>
<p>Of course not. Ahmadinejad talks; Bush acts. Bush is far, FAR worse. (but then so was Clinton.) What 1.7 million dead people does the leader of Iran have on his hands lately?</p>
<p>And I don’t know any world leader who has done more for Al Qaeda - including arming them (through Saudi Arabia) - than George Bush. Notice no one ever comments on the make and model of the arms when the U.S. military claims to uncover an Al Qaeda weapons cache in Iraq?</p>
<p>Heaven help us. Now everybody is buying all the hype about Iran being a big huge threat to the US. Can’t you guys see that this is the same lies that were fed to you about Iraq? Almost to the phrase it’s the same stuff. Geez.</p>
<p>
<a href=“http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/patriotism[/url]”>http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/patriotism</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/treason[/url]”>http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/treason</a></p>
<p>And then people wonder, or take umbrage, when conservatives question the patriotism of some liberals. Comparing Bush to Ahmadinejad is like comparing Churchill to Hitler. Whether you like it or not, we are at war, and this man is providing the means to kill American servicemen.</p>
<p>I don’t have any problem with criticizing our national leaders – that’s our right and duty as Americans. But that criticism should stop at the water’s edge. </p>
<p>If you want to compare Bush to Ahmadinejad, then you are morally obligated to think the same of every member of Congress who voted for the war in Iraq. And if you feel that strongly, that you would support a man who imprisoned and murdered Americans in 1979 and is currently harboring and enabling AQI, then I wonder why you remain in this country?</p>
<p>I’m sure someone will attempt to twist this around to say that the Americans are really the terrorists, or some such “opposite-day” twisted logic. But that’s just like saying that wife beaters really do love their wives, but have a special way of showing it. It’s just wacky.</p>
<p>We aren’t at war with Iran (yet?). Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, people.</p>
<p>I also wonder how people who claim their leaders have killed millions can live in that country. I mean, you’re a hypocrit for staying (and giving tax dollars so said leaders can commit such acts)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/brainwashed[/url]”>http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/brainwashed</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I find myself in the position of someone who has always opposed this war (even before Hillary thought it was the politically safe position), but thinks mini’s ranting gets really old. I spent a half-hour cruising the net and found civilian death toll estimates ranging from ~75,000 (reported deaths with names) to 655,000 (estimated – “projected” from the identified dead). In any event, I couldn’t find any credible estimate anywhere near mini’s 1.7 million, which would be 6.5% of the population of Iraq. In six years of systematic brutality and slaughter the Nazis managed to kill about 11% of Poland’s population (another 3% were killed by the Russians). Iraq is bad, but it’s not as bad as that. In the absence of credible evidence to the contrary, I doubt that the civilian death toll, while horrible and unnecessary, is more than 100,000.</p>
<p>Also, to act as if Iran’s supply of weapons, explosives, training, and personnel to one side in the war has no impact on that death toll is disingenuous. Invading Iraq was stupid, but it does take two sides to make a war. Ahmadinejad, the Syrians, individual Saudis and other assorted supporters of the insurgents/Muslim freedom fighters have their own share of blood accountability. Blowing up marketplaces full of Iraqis is not “fighting the infidel invaders.”</p>
<p>What are you suggesting, weenie? That anyone who takes offense at people who compare Bush to Ahmadinejad has been brainwashed? How does that work? Did I mention that I’ve spent the last 16 years living in Canada, Minnesota and Massachusetts? That I grew up in California? Was I somehow abducted by neocon aliens and brainwashed? Given where I’ve lived, it can’t have been in the water.</p>
<p>I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll repeat it here. I grew up in home so Democratic that we had a portrait of JFK in the living room. My father supported the labor party in the UK. I voted as a registered Democrat in every election from the time I was 18 until the election of 2000. Yet, my intellectual journey is supposed to be the result of brainwashing? </p>
<p>I’m finished with this thread, so don’t bother answering. It just gets too bizarre for me. I feel like Alice in Wonderland.</p>
<p>Let us be the big people here and let the man have his look. Yes, it’s obviosuly a photo op, but if we can’t get some good p.r. out of this for ourselves, we’re just being lazy thinkers.</p>
<p>ldmom: Just to cherrypick here, but at the moment, Iranians don’t have a huge amount of latitude to make any kind of public political statements.</p>
<p>What’s this I heard on the news this a.m. that the editorial board of the NY Times are planning on taking him to LUNCH at the Four Seasons? ?? Why don’t they just roll out the red carpet while they’re at it.</p>
<p>It is farily common for the editorial boards of major newspapers to meet with “newmakers” when they’re in town. Even ones they might not like.</p>
<p>I wonder if this will happen?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://kevinmccullough.townhall.com/g/8befc92e-2c4c-4a1b-b831-30a53c327aa3[/url]”>http://kevinmccullough.townhall.com/g/8befc92e-2c4c-4a1b-b831-30a53c327aa3</a></p>
<p>Senator Clinton, Mayor Giuliani, Governor Romney et al are taking the easy road. Or should I say the lazy man’s road? The fact seems to be that the U.S. government has no idea how to deal with or handle the Iranians. And this is 30 years after Khomeni and the embassy incident!</p>
<p>Well, they tried the “Rumsfeld Handshake” - chemical weapons against the Iranians - killed about a half a million of 'em. Didn’t work real well.</p>
<p>Ahmadinjedad was a college professor while Clinton was killing half a million children, and when the Clinton Tenet Big Lie of 1998 was perpetrated, setting the stage for the bombing of Iraq in December 1998, and for the invasion four years later. He was mayor of Tehran when George Bush sent hostile, occupying forces into the country, with two million people in exile outside of Iraq (including in Iran), and 1.5 million internal refugees created. He won election in Iran after the U.S. began saber-rattling. </p>
<p>Thirty years after the U.S. trained and equipped torturers in Iran were overthrown, you’d think the terrorist nation would have learned a thing or two. I don’t mean Iran; I mean the one that is responsible for the deaths of 1.2-1.7 million people in a little over a decade, and has exported terror to millions more.</p>
<p>Lake Washington - it is 54 years since the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran and installed the Shah. Lovely man he was.</p>
<p>I don’t see HOW this could possibly be a bad idea? Any opportunity of possibly bridging our two nations is one that we need to jump on as fast as humanly possible.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Some people, including those in the current administration - still fail to grasp that our “allies” - Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are the primary sources of radical, Islamic extremism/terrorism.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia - the export of fundamentalist wahhabi Islam + $$ to Pakistan</p>
<p>Pakistan - the building of extremist wahhabi madrasahs and terrorist training camps</p>
<p>As for Ahmadinjedad, his time in the limelight will soon be up (one of his biggest rivals was just elected to possibly the most powerful position in Iran).</p>
<p>And really, we only have ourselves (or more precisely, our govt. to blame for the fact that conservative, religious fundamentalist Iranians have a grip on Iran) - it’s blowback for our previous intervention and meddling.</p>
<p>Ironic how Bush pushes for secularism in the Middle East/Iran and yet, at home has no problem with religion increasingly dictating domestic policy.</p>