Ahmadinejad at the UN

Wooo-wie! Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held forth in front of the UN General Assembly last night for an excrutiating thirty minutes.

The place was only about half full this time, so some of the delegates probably felt the need to blink. Or figured they'd heard it all before. The US was represented by a single note taker. He must have upset his boss or something.

There were a few interesting riffs, which I'll deal with here. Ahmadinejad, frankly is not only a bigot and a Jew hater, but a liar of the first order.

He started out with an invocation to the Hidden Imam, of course saying that today's world "above all longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples." He asked Allah for return of "the perfect human being promised to all by You", and that Allah "make us among the Hidden Imam's followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause."

Lovely.

He then began his main riff, stating that that the UN is losing its clout and its legitimacy because it has been "taken over" by several major powers who have appointed themselves as "judge, jury and executioner."

He had a good time returning to this theme of injustice and non-democratic nature of the UN Security Council.

Mr. A perhaps didn't consider what we all know to be true...Iran itself is a theocracy controlled by an unelected Supreme Leader and a council of `guardians' that restricts human rights severely and , among other things, tightly controls which candidates are allowed to run in elections - like our friend Ahmadinejad. As a matter of fact, the UN General Assembly itself passed a resolution on this, which we'll get to later on .

His solution? Hand more power to countries from the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) - who, like Iran, are almost all entirely non-democratic themselves. Now there's a recipe for fairness and justice! I'd be willing to agree, provided it meant evicting the UN from New York and severely curtailing if not eliminating our membership.

He then went into Iran's nuclear program, and said "We are under the watchful eyes of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency - the UN atomic watchdog) so what is the problem?"

Gee, Mo....could it be because of the clandestine secret program Iran's been carrying on for a decade? The blatant lying to IAEA inspectors that even your stoodge El Baradi couldn't cover up any longer? The secret sites at places like Neyboushar? The violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Iran signed? Your threatening to wipe another sovereign nation off the map? Ya think?

Ahmadinejad talked about "truth" and referred 33 times in his speech to the word "justice" -- yet his regime was found by the IAEA to have been lying for years about its nuclear program, and has been guilty repeatedly of the most blatant injustice, including phony trials, which have covered up the torture and killings of any one who gets on the wrong side of the Mullahs, like Jews arbitrarily accused of `spying for the Zionists', or like Canadian photo-journalist Zahra Kazemi, who was beaten and tortured to death while in custody in Iran by the regime.

Ahmadinejad referred to U.S. military in Iraq as "invaders who have come from thousands of miles away," and actually had the gall to add that Iraqi security was a concern to "all countries in the region"....when Iran not only allows terrorists to cross its border with impunity, but armed and trained the Shiite militias in Iraq and continues to be the main force behind actively promoting sectarian violence and division to keep Iraq unstable.

Of course, he mentioned Lebanon and the Palestinians, complaining that Israel could only "commit crimes in Lebanon and Palestine" because it is "backed by a major power in the security council."

But Mo didn't care to bring up the little fact that Iran is a major sponsor of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorism, and has been actively involved in trying to undermine every attempt for a peaceful, two-state resolution, from the Oslo agreements to the Road Map.

As for Lebanon, it was Iran's Hezbollah client militia who, as even Kofi Annan said, attacked Israel across the UN-certified blue line in Israeli territory and then unleashed missiles on Israel's civilian population, backed by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, all in clear defiance of a UN resolution passed by the very folks he was speaking to!

And Mr. Ahmadinejad had a whole lot to say about notions of "freedom and human rights." And he did it with a straight face, without breaking out in wild laughter. And once again, the very people he was speaking to, the General Assembly- which, in Ahmadinejad's own words, "as the highest organ of the United Nations, must be respected" - earlier this year condemned Iran as one of the world's greatest violators of human rights. According to GA Resolution 60/171, adopted in March, these include the following systematic violations by the Tehran regime:

"continuing harassment, intimidation and persecution of human rights defenders, non-governmental organizations, political opponents, religious dissenters, political reformists, journalists, parliamentarians, students, clerics, academics and webloggers";


"restrictions on the freedoms of assembly, opinion and expression, the use of arbitrary arrest, targeted at both individuals and their family members, and the unjustified closure of newspapers and blocking of Internet sites";


"the absence of many conditions necessary for free and fair elections, including by the arbitrary disqualification of large numbers of prospective candidates, including all women, during the presidential elections of June 2005" -- indeed, the very ballot that elected Ahmadinejad;

"the persistent failure to comply fully with international standards in the administration of justice and, in particular, the absence of due process of law";

"the refusal to provide fair and public hearings, the denial of the right to counsel and access to counsel by those detained, the use of national security laws to deny human rights, the harassment, intimidation and persecution of defense lawyers and legal defenders";

"the continuing use of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment such as flogging and amputations";

"continuing violence and discrimination against women and girls in law and in practice"; and

"continuing discrimination, and other human rights violations against ethnic and religious minorities," specifically citing Arabs, Kurds, Baluchis, Christians, Jews, Sunni Muslims, and particularly the Bahai.

Whoopsie.

Ahmadinejad's little screed would have made great stand-up comedy...except that he thought he was being serious.

It's high time we stomped on these cockroaches. We'd be doing the world a favor.