Like I said, interesting day. I saw protesters scream at each other all day, took orders from the Secret Service to close the window I was looking out of in Hogan (which had an amazing view of where Ahmadinejad's convoy came into Lerner) via an NYPD sergeant (who was nice about it) and an NYPD captain (who was kind of a dick about it) who kindly knocked on our door and told us that they did not want to have to send the feds in, because in the words of the captain, "They do things differently." The speech itself was disappointing because the translator for Mr. Ahmadinejad was pretty awful, granted that Farsi is a difficult language to translate into English. Because of the translating issue I've yet to watch the entire speech start to finish but have heard a majority of it. As I'm sure most people are saying, the best line was Mr. Ahmadinejad's assertion that Iran has escaped the
Additionally, the hypocrisy and/or ignorance of many of the people who were against him coming was overwhelming. First, many commenters on the Spectator's website and other websites concerning the visit denounced Columbia as a whole institution, attacking the students and anyone affiliated with the school. The invitation was sent out by President Bollinger after Ahmadinejad contacted Richard Bulliet, a professor within the university, asking for a renewal of last year's invitation, which was canceled by PresBo. Which brings me to hypocrisy point number 2. Many people have been crying foul over Ahmadinejad's invitation and the rescinded invitation to Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist, including this kid. Many people said that Gilchrist was being censored and that if Gilchrist could not speak then Ahmadinejad should not be allowed to speak and that Bollinger was being an ass. This is why that argument is bullshit: Gilchrist came last year and had a chance to speak but Public Safety bungled it by not protecting
Another point made by those opposed to Ahmadinejad's speaking was that the man (through Iran) sells Iraqi insurgents weapons that are used to kill American soldiers (this is per Bush and company, so I'm not exactly sold on it given their history of information gathering, oh, and this), but if this is true it certainly is wrong. However, let's look at America's history and their dealings with Iran and Iraq. To make a long story short the American government, under Ronald Reagan, sold arms to both Iraq and Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. To quote a former senior State Department official: "We wanted to avoid victory by both sides." In other words, the United States wanted the two countries to be in a perpetual war. And now we've invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and we're licking our lips looking at Iran. Just saying. So it does not make Iran's alleged arms sales to Iraq right if we did the same thing not two decades ago, but to say that Ahmadinejad should not speak because he forfeited his right when he did these alleged arms sales might not be completely accurate, because Reagan was honored as a national hero when he died and I doubt the same would be given to Ahmadinejad (nor should it be).
These are just some of the arguments that many people used to say that Ahmadinejad should not be allowed to speak here. Some pointed to the fact that he's a foreigner (no mention of citizenship requirements in the first amendment), some said he is so anti-American he should not be
Photos - Top Left: President Bollinger introducing the President of Iran (edition.cnn.com), Top Left: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia (www.signonsandiego.com), Middle Left: Columbia students/faculty/staff watching the speech on South Lawn (www.bwog.net), Middle Right: Protesters outside of the Columbia gates (abcnews.go.com), Bottom: As bwog puts it, the "Aftermath" on South Lawn (www.bwog.net)
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