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President Ahmadinejad's New York meeting with U.S. activists

Phil Wilayto | 28.09.2010 13:07 | Anti-militarism | Globalisation | Social Struggles | Sheffield | World

The opening week of the United Nations' 65th session was a busy one for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In addition to giving his annual address before the U.N. General Assembly and granting interviews with everyone from ABC's Charlie Rose to Fox News' Eric Shaw, he also found time to meet with groups of Iranian-Americans, Muslim leaders, academics and members of think tanks.

On Sept. 21 – the annual U.N.-declared International Day of Peace, he held a particularly interesting meeting at a midtown hotel with some 130 members of the U.S. peace and social justice movements, including major figures in the Black activist community.

President Ahmadinejad's meeting with US activists in New York, 21 September 2010
President Ahmadinejad's meeting with US activists in New York, 21 September 2010


The opening week of the United Nations' 65th session was a busy one for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In addition to giving his annual address before the U.N. General Assembly and granting interviews with everyone from ABC's Charlie Rose to Fox News' Eric Shaw, he also found time to meet with groups of Iranian-Americans, Muslim leaders, academics and members of think tanks.

On September 21 – the annual U.N.-declared International Day of Peace- he held a particularly interesting meeting at a midtown hotel with some 130 members of the U.S. peace and social justice movements, including major figures in the Black activist community.

The invited guests included leading members of most of the major U.S. anti-war coalitions and organizations, including the International Action Center, A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, National Assembly to End U.S. Wars & Occupations, United National Anti-War Committee, Code Pink, Fellowship of Reconciliation, United for Peace & Justice, Al-Awda-New York and Women Against Military Madness of Minneapolis.

Also, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark; Just Foreign Policy Director Robert Naiman; MRZine.org Editor Yoshie Furuhashi; David Swanson of War Is A Crime.org; and Kenneth Stone of Hamilton, Ontario, representing the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War and the Canadian Peace Alliance.

Organizations that specifically focus on Iran included the Campaign Against Sanctions & Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII), Women for Peace & Justice in Iran, StopWaronIran.org and the American Iranian Friendship Committee.

But while the president had met before, in 2008, with representatives of the peace movement, this was his first real opportunity to meet with longtime leaders in the Black struggle.

Poet/activist Amiri Baraka, a near-legendary figure in the Black liberation movement, was there with his wife Amina. Ramona Africa, a leading supporter of U.S. political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and Minister of Communication in The MOVE Organization, came with two other MOVE members.

Also Cynthia McKinney, the former U.S. Congresswoman and 2008 Green Party presidential candidate; New York civil rights attorney Alton Maddox and his wife; longtime North Carolina community activist Shafia M'Balia; Washington, D.C., minister/activist Rev. Graylan Scott-Hagler; Million Worker March Movement Northeast Region Co-organizer Brenda Stokely; Pan African News Wire Editor Abayomi Azikiwe; and Boston Rosa Parks Human Rights Day Committee leader Anthony Van Der Meer.

After a traditional Persian meal, buffet-style, the guests moved to a conference room where Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Khazaee, welcomed the activists, noting that some had come from as far away as Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Carolina.

Six activists, including three African-American women, were invited to give opening remarks: Cynthia McKinney, who was introduced by the ambassador as “a greatest defender of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination;” Ramsey Clark; Shafeah M'Balia; Brenda Stokely; Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center; and this writer, representing CASMII.

Some 16 other activists then took the podium, offering comments and asking questions of the president.

Finally it was time to hear from President Ahmadinejad. Consistently caricatured in the Western media, the former university professor and mayor of Tehran comes across in person as an intelligent, thoughtful and deeply religious leader trying to find a common ground with his audience, while upholding the right of his country to be treated with respect in the international arena.

“We have a treasure chest full of views,” the president opened, referring to his guests' presentations. “I agree with everything you have said, and therefore you have spoken from my heart also. Now I will speak in my own way.”

The talk the president gave carried the same message he presented the next evening at a dinner with 57 academics, former diplomats, authors and members of various think tanks, and again the following day before the General Assembly.

His argument was that, for hundreds of years, the dominant system of capitalism has wreaked havoc on the earth, resulting in the genocide of indigenous peoples, the enslavement and exploitation of millions of Africans and constant wars and oppression.

At the same time, the present system of what he called “world management,” in which a handful of countries hold veto power over global policies through their permanent positions on the U.N. Security Council, has produced an unequal and undemocratic system in which poorer countries are at the mercy of the more affluent.

As a solution to this system of global economic and political inequality, the president called for a new world order in which profit-driven capitalism would be replaced with a system of mutual respect, cooperation and love for humanity, one in which collective decision-making power would reside in the U.N. General Assembly, with each country having an equal say.

Originally scheduled for two hours, the meeting was extended another 30 minutes. According to one member of the Iranian Mission, President Ahmadinejad and Ambassador Khazaee were “very pleased” to be able to hear directly from people in the peace movement and from a “cross-section” of the U.S. public, rather than just the “political elite.”

Amiri Baraka, one of those who addressed the president, agreed.

“I thought the meeting was a good opportunity to clarify Iran's position in relation to the United States,” he said. “We only hear what the U.S. government thinks about Iran, but it's important for us to hear from Iran. So it was an opportunity to have a meaningful presence in that whole dialogue, that whole clash, so that people who have been fighting against imperialism will have more substantial positions on U.S.-Iranian relations.”

Abayomi Azikiwe of the Pan African News Wire had a similar assessment.

“I thought the significance of the meeting was that the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran had an opportunity to hear directly from people from the oppressed communities, from anti-war activists, about the plight of the people of the United States, and that that wasn't filtered through the corporate media,” he said.

“He heard directly about how they felt not only about conditions here, but about relations between the United States and Iran. Most of the speakers spoke in solidarity with the people of Iran, from the standpoint that they saw the plight of the Iranian people as being similar to the plight of the people of the United States, that the people of Iran had been oppressed by and are still under attack by the U.S., just as African-Americans and other people opposed to U.S. policy are under attack here in the United States.”

On Sept. 24, the president met with recently freed American hiker Sarah Shourd and her mother, Nina Shourd. According to the Reuters news agency, Ms. Shourd described the meeting as a “very human encounter, very personal.”

“I'm very thankful for this and hopeful it will make a difference for Shane and Josh,” she was quoted as saying, referring to her two fellow hikers, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, who remain in prison in Tehran. The three were detained in July 2009 near Iran's border with Iraq, an area that has seen recent military attacks on Iranian forces by the PKK, an anti-Iranian military organization.

Under the Iranian judicial system, the president has no power to interfere in court proceedings. However, President Ahmadinejad has expressed his desire that the three hikers be treated “leniently.”



* Phil Wilayto is a Board Member of the Campaign Against Sanctions & Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) and author of “In Defense of Iran: Notes from a U.S. Peace Delegation's Journey through the Islamic Republic.” He was instrumental in helping to arrange the activists meeting with President Ahmadinejad.
____________________

Phil Wilayto
- Homepage: http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/10844

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Ahmadinejad’s UN 9-11 Speech

28.09.2010 13:13

President Ahmadinejad delivers his speech at UN General Assembly, 23 Sept. 2010
President Ahmadinejad delivers his speech at UN General Assembly, 23 Sept. 2010

Top scientists and intelligence experts dispute the “official US version” of what happened on 9-11 and variously assert that people within the US Government did 9-11 (possibly with Israeli assistance). President Ahmadinejad’s 9-11 speech at the UN merely advances 3 logical, testable, scientific hypotheses about 9-11 but has immediately elicited hysterical, egregiously dishonest, anti-science and anti-truth responses from Western leaders and Mainstream media.

The immediate responses involved a walk-out of US representatives and its lackeys from 30 countries, including Australia, Britain, Sweden and Spain, from the speech itself – they simply didn’t want to hear anything differing from the “official US version” of 9-11.

Western media and politicians immediately started falsely and hysterically reporting Ahmadinejad’s comments on 9-11. President Ahmadinejad’s speech merely offered 3 scientific hypotheses about the cause of 9-11, namely (1) the “official US version” of a “terrorist group”, (2) US responsibility and (3) US complicity in allowing a terrorist operation to proceed.

The UK BBC was an exception and its report was factual:

“23 September 2010. The US and other delegations at the 65th UN General Assembly have walked out in protest at the speech by the Iranian president. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said some saw the 11 September attacks on the US as part of a US conspiracy to protect Israel. He was speaking on the first day of the week-long UN diplomatic marathon.”

Similarly the Australian ABC:

“Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has told the United Nations that most people believe the US government was responsible for the attacks of September 11, 2001.”

Indeed the only arguable part of President Ahmadinejad’s speech was “The majority of the American people as well as other nations and politicians agree with this view [that the US did 9-11]” – he would probably have been correct in stating that a “substantial proportion” rather than “the majority” thought that the US was involved in the 9-11 atrocity. Thus prior Mainstream polls have indicated that about one third of Americans believe that 9-11 was an inside job involving the US Government.

Science is about critically testing potentially falsifiable hypotheses and that is all that President Ahmadinejad has advocated in relation to 9-11:

“It is proposed that the United Nations set up an independent fact-finding group for the event of the II September so that in the future expressing views about it is not forbidden.”

In contrast, the US and US lackey representatives who blocked their ears and walked out of the UN General Assembly and those who then lied about President Ahmadinejad’s speech must be condemned for an anti-science stance that is antithetical to finding out what happened on 9-11 and getting justice for the victims and their relatives.

To read what President Ahmadinejad actually said here is the transcript of President Ahmadinejad’s speech to the UN on 23 September 2010

Having read what President Ahmadinejad actually said, now consider the offensive, anti-science lying by Obama, US lackeys and Western media who – for what ever reasons – are opposed to a scientific approach to 9-11.

Obama's response on Ahmadinejad’s call for scientific investigation of 9-11 (BBC):

“"There were candlelight vigils and I think a natural sense of shared humanity and sympathy was expressed within Iran. It just shows once again the difference between how the Iranian leadership and this regime operates and how I think the vast majority of the Iranian people, who are respectful and thoughtful, think about these issues….It was offensive. It was hateful. And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones. People of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation. For him to make a statement like that was inexcusable."

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon also condemned Ahmadinejad’s call for scientific investigation of 9-11 (Ynet)

"I strongly condemn the comments made yesterday by a leader of a delegation that called into question the cause of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on US soil. It is unacceptable for the platform of the General Assembly of the United Nations to be misused in this way.“

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton has said the following:

"[Ahmadinejad’s suggestion] that the United States was in any way responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks or that the majority of people in the US believe this to be the case, is outrageous and unacceptable. It is for this reason that all representatives of the 27 nations of the EU walked out."

The Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post reported President Ahmadinejad’s speech under the following headline: “A’jad spew-&-shoo. US and world diplos walk out on Iranian’s vile 9/11 rant at UN”.

President Ahmadinejad, like all leaders, can be legitimately criticized for all sorts of things. However on 9-11 he is correct in demanding a proper scientific inquiry into who did 9-11. Those like war criminal Obama who condemn Ahmadinejad’s call for a proper inquiry into 9-11 are in effect calling for an ongoing cover-up and can thus be seen to be witting or unwitting accessories after the fact of the 9-11 atrocity.

Further, the deaths associated with the 9-11 atrocity (3,000) are dwarfed by the 8 million violent deaths and non-violent avoidable deaths in the post-9-11, US-led War on Terror, the breakdown being 2.5 million (Iraq), 4.5 million (Afghanistan) and 0.8 million global opiate drug-related deaths linked to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry (from 6% of world market share in 2001 to over 90% today).

A sensible way to publicly get to the truth about 9-11 as advocated by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be war crimes trials before the International Criminal Court (ICC) of US Alliance leaders associated with the ongoing Muslim Holocaust and with charges including, as appropriate, complicity in 9-11 or being accessories after the fact of 9-11. George Bush, Tony Blair, Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy, Stephen Harper, Angela Merkel, John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, their “we were just obeying orders” subordinates and their Mainstream media collaborators should all be arraigned before the International Criminal Court.

Gideon Polya
- Homepage: http://mwcnews.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5455&Itemid=126


Is Ahmadinejad a sane person in an insane world?

28.09.2010 13:17

President Ahmadinejad at the UN General Assembly, 23 September 2010
President Ahmadinejad at the UN General Assembly, 23 September 2010

Most people today are too young to really recall the 1979 American hostage situation in Iran but if they are they usually also can?t help remember how ineffective the Carter administration was in handling it. I personally remember the news reports of one specific rescue mission ?Operation Eagle Claw? which went awry when a US military helicopter crashed into a refueling plane in the Middle East desert killing 8 service men.

I also remember Ronald Regan during the 1980 election campaign say that if elected, as president the first order of business was to bomb Iran if the hostages weren?t yet released. Regan said this while doing his best John Wayne impersonation, but the result of that raspy threat as history recorded was that all 52 hostages were released within hours of Ronald Regan taking office.

Regardless if you?re old enough to remember that particular period in time, one thing is for sure and that is there seems to have always been a conflict between Iran and the USA as far back as most people can remember. What the original cause of this conflict was can be argued until even the best internet trolls will give up and go home, but one thing is certain, it?s a very real and very political conflict.

Recently I read an op-ed article claiming the USA had strategically invaded Iraq and then Afghanistan and Iran who was now simply in the middle and was next on the US hit list. However before the USA can simply invade a sovereign nation as they did on questionable pretexts as they did in Iraq there stands in the way a Bull Dog who won?t stop biting the USA governments ankles, and that bull dog?s name is Ahmadinejad.

I use the descriptive term ?biting at the ankles? and ?Bull dog? not as an insult to Ahmadinejad but rather as a compliment to his tenacity for his beliefs and standing up for his nation regardless of their positions. Not to mention the description fits because the entire world knows the USA has the military might and the stock piles of nuclear weapons to eradicate any threat let alone the entire nation of Iranian but therein lies the problem, the USA doesn?t want to destroy Iran as in ?wiping them off the map? sense of strategy but rather a slow death by propaganda and sanctions until they are so weak that they crumble from within then invade under some other justified pretense. Again both of these tactics seem to be failing as the bull dog keeps chewing up the CIAs proverbial homework assignment.

What remains of that tattered homework assignment is that tenacious Bull dog continues challenging the US government and openly playing the same propaganda mind games on them that the US government plays on the world.

Why does the USA care so much about Iran or meddling in Middle Eastern affairs when other countries such as Switzerland and New Zealand and a whole host of others countries have no interest is another debate altogether (with oil and natural resources probably at the top of that particular debate list).

One thing is clear though after Ahmadinejad?s recent appearance at the UN this week and then after sitting down for an interview with a Fox News reporter its clear Mr. Ahmadinejad isn?t afraid to call it like he sees it or to face tough criticism over his opinions by a main stream media organization like Fox News who tried to bully him in their interview.

When Ahmadinejad asked in ?general? terms if everyone in the world believed what the US government had told them or suggested that an independent investigation of 9/11 should be considered it raised a firestorm of controversy as if the man had stepped across a sacred line of calling the US government on its integrity. Yet those same incensed Americas and their slanted main stream media can?t seem to stand back far enough to remember how their current President Barak Obama spent million dollars in legal fees having almost all of his past records sealed while proclaiming proudly the new era of transparency in the US government. Of course during all this transparency debate if it wasn?t enough to add insult to injury Obama allowed congress to pass a trillion dollar stimulus package that benefited the banks and Wall Street but yet no investigation of where those funds went, or how they were spent has been properly instigated. This is of course on top of the Federal Reserve which still hasn?t been audited in its almost 100 year history and which would probably make Bernie Madoff look like a cheap dime store thug taking a kids lunch money.

I have to admit I find it amusingly hypocritical that during this most recent US media propaganda campaign against Ahmadinejad (and Iran) is that the media and the White House continuously brings up the Iranian human rights violations and the number of people executed in Iran during the tenure of Ahmadinejad as president, (all of which happens within their borders under their own laws) of which during Ahmadinejad's five-year tenure as the regime's president, 1,860 people have been executed.

The US media however neglects to mention the fact that according to an Opinion Research Business survey that 1,033,000 deaths of Iraqis citizens were a result of the USA led invasion and conflict during this same five year tenure. Even while other surveys estimate the number or Iraqi deaths to be far less (around 600,000 Iraqi deaths) the fact remains it?s a hard sell to demonize Ahmadinejad and Iran when the USA is invading sovereign nations and exacting such death tolls on innocent people who never attacked America and who were in their own country simply minding their own business.

Yet even with these blatant actions of the American government backed by their military, the American propaganda machine demonizes Iran as a world threat because of their simple rhetoric and nuclear ambitions.

So while the Bull dog is biting at the ankles, the true threat under the name of the US Government is today allowing their own FBI to execute search warrants at the homes of several US Citizens who simply happen to be war protesters which is ironic when Iran is called out against its stance over protesters in their own country.

Therefore after actually stepping back and looking at everything in its proper perspective I have to ask myself is Mr. Ahmadinejad really just a sane person in an insane world. One thing is for sure I am glad that Bull dog doesn?t have longer legs or some countries might be singing soprano and rightfully so.

Von Helman
- Homepage: http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2010/09/25/is-ahmadinejad-a-sane-person-in-an-insan


Why talk to him when you could brick him instead?

28.09.2010 13:26

Anyone who associates with that facist dictator should be shot. Lets kill gays, lesbians, unmarried couples, unionised workers, kurds, etc. Fantastic ideology to associate with.

Why is this even on Indymedia?

Anarchist


because

28.09.2010 15:36

"Why is this even on Indymedia?"

Because he hates America - so no questions asked.
Pathetic, really

armel


Perhaps it the right place at the right time

28.09.2010 17:25

As the corporate media obviously misrepresents everything the man says surely Indymedia is exactly the right place to publish information that is at least hopefully closer to the truth.
The corporate media also makes up a lot of stories about the situation in Iran, which is one of the last bastions of freedom in the world. In the sense that it is relatively free from US / NATO control.
The country is certainly under attack from U.S paid mercenaries and is currently being flooded with Heroin fresh from the current Opium War / Merchant Adventure in Afghanistan. The same Opium is being used to destablize the entire region and that is basically what the game is, the U.S will be able to bump more people off with their drones and depleted uranium the whole area will slide into a quagmire of tin pot dictators backed by the CIA and lot's of lovely unending Wars, that will generate billions for the same bunch of criminals.
I am certainly interested, keep publishing.

Unknown


The right to know.

28.09.2010 19:27

"Because he hates America - so no questions asked.
Pathetic, really"

No, because we have a right to know!

Sorry if that isn't "Stasi" enough for you.

You do understand that Indymedia is a news website...right?

Stephen W


No

28.09.2010 19:43

I thought it was a place were I could exchange info about special brew and pictures of dogs with string around their necks.

If I want news, I'll swallow hook line and sinker the zionist shrill info.

Anarchist


to tell the truth

29.09.2010 00:08

"You do understand that Indymedia is a news website...right?"

I don't think Indymedia understands that.

really


Indymedia.

29.09.2010 01:36

"I don't think Indymedia understands that."

If you don't like it, why are you here?

I think this is a good story. If this were not published we would all be completely dependent on the 'mainstream' account. Which, as we all know, isn't up to much at the best of times.

Don't get me wrong, Ahmadinejad is a controversial man at best and we all know about Iran's human rights record. But we also know all about the human rights record if his enemies too.

I support whatever is needed to understand all the antagonists and if that means allowing a 'voice' then so be it.

What are you so worried about anyway?

Stephen W


Sir I salute your indefatigability

30.09.2010 19:50

"an intelligent, thoughtful and deeply religious leader trying to find a common ground with his audience"

Love it - anyone remember Pussycat Galloway's respectful tonguing of that other statesman, Saddam?
Makes it all worthwhile, eh?

armel


The Zionists deleted my last comment!

01.10.2010 13:44

I think there must be Zionists among us. They probably used their sekrit computer skills to hacked into the indymedia computer so they could delete my last comment.


zionists everywhere!

29.09.2010 17:37
You must all be zionists if you think Achmedinejad is a tyrant. He is a great man and a great leader who is DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED unlike some people I could mention. Buty just because he opposes the Zionist version of history and dares to tell the truth about the holocaust, ie, that it didn't happen, you all like to pick on him..Shame on you!

anon

anon