Ahmadinejad repeats Holocaust is a 'myth'

[bemildred]

My 2c for those interested: we have a serious struggle going on here over the "terms of the debate". Ahm-am-idjit seems to me to be a formidable contender, at least in the Muslim world. It would be folly to think that his message will be dismissed in the Muslim world, and with Pooty-Poot sticking his oar in the water vis-a-vis Hamas, there is a good chance that Ahm-an-idjit will succeed in finding a wider audience with his non-Euro-centric take on the meaning of the Holocaust. He is pursuing not a denial of the Holocaust, that would be easier to deal with, he wants to sell a re-interpretation of it. It is probably worth keeping in mind that all of what he says is being translated for us, and translation allows considerable room for "interpretation". I think without being able to prove it that he probably comes across much more reasonably before translation.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeated his view that the Holocaust of Jews under Nazi Germany was a "myth" and argued that Palestinians and Iraqis were suffering from "the real Holocaust".

"Questioning the myth of the Holocaust and the creation of the phoney regime of Zionism has haunted them," the president said in a speech marking the 27th anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution.

"For more than 60 years, this myth has enabled the Zionists to blackmail the Western countries, justify the killing of women and children and make them refugees in occupied land," he said.

"The real Holocaust is happening today in Palestine and Iraq. If you are looking for the real Holocaust, look at the poor Iraqi people," he said in the speech to huge crowds gathered in central Tehran Saturday.

Turkish Press

[bluestateguy]

1. This guy is such an asshole

Is he trying to make it easier for the neo-con think tank keyboard peckers to get us into a war with Iran?

Sometimes I think this fucker wants a war just as much as they do.

[madrchsod]

3. the iranian political system

has many layers. the latest that i have read is that either "party" ,the reformists or the conservatives,are not going to back away from the iranian nuclear stance. we certainly need adults in charge of our policy with the persians and unfortunately we don`t.

[catmother]

2. what can be said of this guy? the holocaust was a myth. when

i lived in new york i saw many holocaust survivors with their numbers tatooed on their arms.

[barb162]

6. I had a next door neighbor who spent his teens in Auschwicz

This Iranian is not nuts. I think he's a product of the virulent anti-semitism in the Mideast plus he's an extremist in just about anyone's (Westerner's) estimation. The denial of historical record is common in the Mideast. I believe he means what he says...he's not just speechifying. There is an element of really sick showboating, though, with this clown... his Holocaust Conference, for example. If he's so damned interested, why doesn't he quietly contact some major universities in Europe and talk to their History Dept. people, check the documents of the Nurenburg Trials, check the newspaper records, etc.

There's an element in this man of the people who deny man has been on the moon or the people who insist the earth is flat.

[roguevalley]

4. he's such an asshole. he doesn't get it that he's giving our asshole

ammo to blast him.

[progdonkey]

5. oh, he gets it...

Nothing would please Ahmadnejad more than to be reviled in the West and have Bush use our already strained military and try to invade Iran or some such shit, since that would just give them cause to not only repel an American invasion, but to then continue on into Iraq and take control of the Shiite areas, which they already practically control anyway.

Bush wants war; Iran may not neccessarily want full on war, but with every passing day that results in Iraq becoming more and more of a disaster for the US military, the prospect of going to war with the US becomes less and less frightening.

[barb162]

7. can you make sense of this one?

We suggested to them that we will send an unbiased group to look at your documents in Europe and inform the nation, but you will not even allow your own scholars to invesigate the Holocaust," Ahmadinejad said.

[bemildred]

8. IMHO Roughly:

A rhetorical ploy to enforce the notion that Westerners do not deal fairly with Muslims, and also pointing at the taboo on discussion about the Holocaust in European culture. I can't really say whether he thinks it did not occur, that would be a bit bizarre, but people believe whatever they want to in my experience. He does have a valid point in that Muslims had little to do with WWII and the Holocaust and should not be made to pay the price for them, and he is particularly pointing to the way the Holocaust is mythologized to justify the creation of Israel, made into a sort of special and unique genocide, and he is saying: "But this has nothing to do with us, it was not our doing", and that is an idea that will resonate well in Muslim culture. I mean, there are the facts of who was killed and how and how many of them and where and by whom and the general Nazi or Hitlerian lunacy about Jews and race and the perfection of "Aryans" and so on, which are historical and quite well documented; and then there is all the mythology and propaganda and opinion that surrounds that. For instance, you will get in trouble with some for comparing the Nazi genocide to other genocides, of which there are many, and they will try to tell you it is some sort of unique event, which I think is an argument that does not stand up, although there are a few unique features to it, but the racism and dehumanization and avarice and violence are the warp and weft of human history and human government, the numbers are large but far from the largest, and the same sort of thing continues as we speak in various places about the planet.

My original attitude towards him was to dismiss him as a loon, but I am reconsidering that. And this has gone on long enough that one may assume that he is not a loose cannon and that he has the support of his government. It does seem clear at this point that the Iranian ruling elites intend to assert themselves and their sovereignty and influence in their neighborhood, and the Bushites and their cronies have played such a pitiful hand that that assertion is credible, and that makes this a very dangerous situation. When you have two sides that will not and cannot back down, it is a recipe for a fight, even though it is absolutely ludicrous for the US to pick a fight with Iran at present. I am also coming to the idea that he is in pursuit of a well planned propaganda strategy and not just running his mouth in random outbursts, and that he is getting traction with that effort. I think it was a mistake to underestimate him, and I won't make that mistake again.