[Washington Post] Dana Milbank - "For hundreds of years, we've lived in friendship and brotherhood with the people of Iraq," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the National Press Club Monday. That's true - as long as you don't count the little unpleasantness of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, when a million people died, some by poison gas. "Our people are the freest people in the world," said the man whose government executes dissidents, jails academics and stones people to death. "The freest women in the world are women in Iran," he continued, neglecting to mention that Iranian law treats a woman as half of a man. "In our country," judged the man who shuts down newspapers and imprisons journalists, "freedom is flowing at its highest level." And if you believe that, he has a peaceful civilian nuclear program he wants to sell you. Without listening to Ahmadinejad, how can the world appreciate how truly nutty he is? Ahmadinejad lost his audience at the press club almost immediately. After only one sentence of his speech, the translator stopped translating. "The president is reciting verses from the holy Koran in Arabic," she explained.
2007-09-25 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive