Please understand , Ahmadinejad is to Iran as Bush is to the US

Power hungry conservative relgious nutjobs who don't represent the majority of their people.


Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 3rd left, and other dignitaries watch as military jeeps of the Iran Revolutionary Guards carry anti U.S. and anti Israel slogans during large-scale military parades to mark the 27th anniversary of the Iraqi invasion of Iran that sparked the bloody 1980-88 war, in Tehran, Iran on Saturday Sept. 22, 2007. (AP Photo/Hasan Sarbakhshian)

Ahmadinejad loves to play both sides. He will act the innocent and also do everything he can to raise a culture of hate. Just because he hates Bush doesn't mean we have to like him.
They are both cut from the same cloth IMO


Domestically, Ahmadinejad's administration cracked down on dissenters with methods ranging from harassment to arrest and interrogations. Crackdowns that started in the spring of 2007 were characterized as the worst in two decades. In April 2007, authorities started a mass confiscation of satellite dishes. Police patrolled the streets to crack down on "bad hejabi" or improper dress among both men and women, and by the end of April 2007, had stopped or detained 150,000 cases. In June 2007, the Supreme National Security Council released to the media a three page list of forbidden topics. Banned topics include disagreements between Shi'ites and Sunnies, ethnic unrest within Iran, and uneasy relations between Iran and other Muslim countries.

It was reported that in March 2007, 30 women's rights advocates were arrested and sentenced to prison terms. Eight students from Tehran's Amir Kabir University reportedly disappeared into Evin Prison. The March 2007 Teacher's Union protest in search of higher wages resulted in hundreds of arrests. Three Iranian-Americans were also detained in Evin Prison: Haleh Esfandiari, Kian Tajbakhsh, and Kali Shakeri. A fourth, Parnez Azima, was barred from leaving the country.

Quotes from some of his famous letters:

"Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces. And they insist so strongly on this issue that anyone who denies it is condemned and sent to prison...Although we don't accept this claim, if we suppose it is true, our question for the Euorpeans is: is the killing of innocent Jewish people by Hitler the reason for their support to the occupier of Jerusalem? They faced injustice in Europe so why do the repercussions fall on the Palestinians?...it will be good if you give a piece of your own soil, a piece of soil in Europe, the United States, Canada, or Alaska to them so that they can create a country for themselves."

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. This letter is from Muhammad the slave of Allah and his Apostle to ----.Peace be upon him who follows the right path. Furthermore, I invite you to Islam and if you become a Muslim you will be safe, and Allah will double your reward, and if you reject this invitation of Islam you will be committing a sin by misguiding your subjects. And I recite to you Allah's statement:

"O People of the Scriptures! Come to a word common to you and us that we worship none but Allah and that we associate nothing in worship with Him, and that none of us shall take others as Lords beside Allah. Then if they turn away, say: Bear witness that we are Muslims (those who have surrendered to Allah). (Qur’an: Surah 3, Ayah 64)."

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Following the 1979 Islamic revolution, he became a member the ultra-conservative faction of the Office for Strengthening Unity Between Universities and Theological Seminaries. The OSU was established by Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, one of Khomeini’s key collaborators, to organise Islamist students against the rapidly growing Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK). It was reported that when the idea of storming the American embassy in Tehran was raised by the OSU, Ahmadinejad suggested storming the Soviet embassy at the same time. Reports from hostages at the American embassy alleged Ahmadinejad was among their captors, but he and other captors have denied the allegations.

With the start of the Iraq war in 1980, Ahmadinejad rushed to the western fronts to fight against the enemy and voluntarily joined the special forces of the Islamic Revolution's Guards Corps (IRGC) in 1986. He served in the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps intelligence and security apparatus. Little reliable biographical information is avaliable about Ahmadinejad during these years.

Ahmadinejad was reportedly a senior officer in the Special Brigade of the Revolutionary Guards stationed at Ramazan Garrison near Kermanshah in western Iran. This was the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards’ "Extra-territorial Operations" -- mounting attacks beyond Iran’s borders. Reports suggested that his work in the Revolutionary Guards was related to suppression of dissidents in Iran and abroad. Sources associated him with atrocities in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran and alleged he personally participated in covert operations around the Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

With the formation of the elite Qods (Jerusalem; literally 'Holy') Force of the IRGC, Ahmadinejad became one of its senior commanders. It was reported that he directed assassinations in the Middle East and Europe, including the assassination of Iranian Kurdish leader Abdorrahman Qassemlou, who was shot dead by senior officers of the Revolutionary Guards in a Vienna flat in July 1989. According to Revolutionary Guard sources, Ahmadinejad was a key planner of the attack. He was also reported to have been involved in planning an attempt on the life of Salman Rushdie.

He served as governor of Maku and Khoy cities in the northwestern West Azarbaijan province for four years in the 1980s and as an advisor to the governor general of the western province of Kurdestan for two years. While serving as the cultural advisor to the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education in 1993, he was appointed governor general of the newly established northwestern province of Ardebil. He was elected as the exemplary governor general for three consecutive years.

In 1997, the newly-installed, moderate Khatami administration removed Ahmadinejad from his post as Ardebil's governor general. Ahmadinejad returned to Elm-o Sanaat University to teach in 1997 and became a member of the scientific board of the Civil Engineering College of the University of Science and Technology. There, he participated in various scientific, cultural, political and social activities. He also worked with Ansar-i Hizbullah (Followers of the Party of God), the violent Islamic vigilante group.

In April 2003 Ahmadinejad was appointed mayor of Tehran by the capital's municipal council, which was dominated by the hard-line Islamic Iran Developers Coalition (Etelaf-i Abadgaran-i Iran-i Islami). In some of Ahmadinejad's public statements, he appeared to identify himself as a Developer.

Ahmadinejad was also a member of the central council of the hard-line Islamic Revolution Devotees' Society (Jamiyat-i Isargaran-i Inqilab-i Islami). The Devotees publicly endorsed another candidate -- Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf -- in 17 June 2005 during the first round of the presidential election. Both the Developers and the Devotees represented the younger generation of Iranians whose political memory, like that of Ahmadinejad, centered around the Revolutionary Guards and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

As Mayor, he reversed many of the policies adopted by previous moderate and reformist mayors, placing serious religious emphasis on the activites of the cultural centers by turning them into prayer halls during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. He closed fast-food restaurants and required male city employees to have beards and wear long sleeves. He instituted the separation of elevators for men and women in the municiple offices. He also suggested the burial of the martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war in Tehran's major city squares.

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... There's nothing REMOTELY CLOSE to an equivalence. Hence, casting "us" all under the same umbrella "we civilians" is ludicrous.

a simple minded idiot who refuses to look at this diplomatically.

BUT if an American needs his government, he is out of luck. Ask the abandoned in NO.

Also, since there are no longer limits to the executive authority, it will only get worse here.

and our international standing. I would say it's far from ludicrous. Sure, right now, we're not being shelled. But who's to say that Bush's illegal invasion of Iran won't start WW III?

... Armchair solidarity - wonderful.

I oppose these illegal invasions every chance I get. What the hell am I supposed to do? :eyes:

... the threat we face.

he hasn't turned his back on the people in crisis like Junior did during Katrina and he hasn't dragged his country into an illegal war.

That makes as much sense as a US invasion, or attack, on Iran.

If so, I'd really like to see it, because as far as I can see, they do support him. I'd feel a whole lot better if they didn't.

And if support of your people is so important, I'm sure people outside this country will say the same about Bush getting elected twice or his 90% approval rating after 9/11. Both of them are religious wackos btw.

You're very obviously missing my point, so stop with the snippiness.