Can you explain the apologetics by people of Mr. Ahmadinejad without any attempt to provide a counter-balance of facts to paint a full (realistic) picture of the man?
Aside from repeating the entire first paragraph of my previous response, it is worth pointing out that
neither messages accusing him of anti-Semitism in public declarations recently or providing contradictory information against those assertions. Point, counterpoint. The truth lies between the two. I have thoughts on this point, counterpoint and misperceptions based on readers of such posting styles
here in which discussion centered on whether or not the DU threads critical of terror alerts really constituted a popular belief at DU that terrorist were really
not a threat to the United States. I covered both the misperceptions of those threads, and the ideologies of the posters responsible for them but also common misperceptions present in the point, counterpoint discussion which exists in regards to the Israeli/Palestinian issue. The same misperception exists on any issue and the Ahmadinejad issue is no different.
I think it is overly critical and a cause for re-evaluation of the data when one begins to believe that some sizable percentage of the DU authorship is motivated by some protective sympathy for the President of Iran. However, it does make more sense to me that Progressives posting on this site are hyper-aware of the propaganda machine responsible for the Hitlerizing of Saddam Hussein and manufacturing consent for another Gulf War. That the next way-point on Bush's infamous Axis of Evil is now also conveniently Hitlerizing himself, or at least appears to be according to the mainstream media, is naturally bound to cause Progressives still well aware of the propaganda machine's influence to question such a serendipity.
Yes there is a misunderstanding of some of what he is saying, but there is also an apparent bias in the scope people are focusing on with regards to Ahmadinejad's politics and philosophy.
My view of Ahmadinejad has always been that his opinions on the Shoah are the
least of our worries with him. I believe he is a very intelligent, creative, manipulative individual who
invites a one dimensional representation of himself in the West, courts it. It is also my belief that his
Chinese and Russian friends and advisers are more than happy in helping him play our and Israel's predictable responses like a fiddle. But I feel, and I've
stated this in previous messages, that the concept that Ahmadinejad is a one-dimensional political character who exists only as an anti-Semite is dangerously dismissive way to view him. His antagonism of the United States and Israel, specifically, to me anyway, indicates a strategy founded, among others, by the Russians and the Chinese who must be fairly shitting them self with hard laughter as they watch our country expensively shadow-boxing its way into financial oblivion and military impotence, buying our debt from us and teaching well a refined version of rhetoric guaranteed to cause a fading empire to hazard one last swipe at a now-taunting world- and stumble to its knees in the process.
And that is just what the Bush and Olmert administrations are willing to do. Ahmadinejad's critical commentary is
juiced -up by the mainstream media something that I've said before, he invites. What the Israelis cannot accept is that any other country in the Middle East would have nuclear weapons and that is just something they're going to have to get used to. The United States cannot accept that Israel would have anything less than superiority in the region. Both countries cannot afford to think like empires, because they are no longer individually empires or collectively one. They are remnants of a short-lived colonial empire, a spin-off of the original British Empire, and very much on the decline. An empire on the decline will make some very dangerous moves to regain control. Russia, China know this well.
Where is the discussion of the audience of Mr. Ahmadinejad, or what he is trying to communicate? Where is the focus of who his audience is? Who else in Iranian politics is agreeing/disagreeing with him?
I've addressed what portions I may of those questions in my comments above. As to your last question, I think some of how this plays internally was reported in an old JPost
story debunking the "Christians, Jews made to wear flair" propaganda:
"Ahmadinejad lives off these kinds of attacks from Israel," he said. In terms of Ahmadinejad's desire to be seen as the leader of the Islamic world, "it helps his image to be seen working up the Israelis."
Truthfully, the net effect appears to be more a desire to defend Mr. Ahmadinejad's Holocaust and anti-Semitic statements rather than any attempt to understand or how polemics plays in Middle Eastern politics.
In short, I can't stop Ahmadinejad from taunting us with criticism easily manipulated to represent the most offensive of insults but I can certainly do my best to stop our own media from masturbating public opinion into a full-scale assault on the nation primarily for
disrespecting the control of our Empire. The United States no longer has the resources to provide for itself in the manner to which it has become accustomed. This is very upsetting to Americans. Either the United States can scale down the Empire to something entirely more manageable and a little less condescending to the rest of the world (i.e. put pressure on Israel to pursue a real peace) or we're going to have to resort to extreme militarism, probably on our North and/or South American neighbors to support our habit.
Because further expansion to continue our Empire at is current consumption levels would require a new round of American Imperialist expansion and acquisition of territory and resources it would spawn defensive acts of retribution against Americans that would make September 11th, the loss of Jewish life (as a sheer number)
and the loss of Russians in WW II necessarily pale via method of application.
I refuse to go that way. I will dig in my heels at every opportunity and do everything I may to fight against that eventuality. I would be surprised if others working to counterspin had modivations entirely different. I am surprised that your interpretation of these actions, collectively, would smack of anything more sinister than an attempt to stop another needless, expensive, damaging, unjust war of agression but I present the above for your consideration as a possible alternative motivation.
PB
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