Just heard an excellent discussion on the MSM demonising of the Iranian "leader" on The Current.

Unless one cuts and pastes a separate document, I find it difficult to provide a link to an article while providing excerpts from it.

Excerpt from Ian Williams article:

quote:

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...As the born-again atheist author of Rum, and a not infrequent imbiber, I am no great fan of Ahmadinejad. But he was elected by a much clearer majority, with a much bigger turnout, than his equally religious, teetotalling colleague President Bush. And for those impressed by that sort of thing, the Iranian president volunteered for the front in the war against Saddam Hussein - in contrast to Bush, who dodged the draft, and most of the present White House team, who were then enthusiastic backers of Saddam.

Iran has not invaded any other country since the Islamic revolution. The Shah, who had his own nuclear programme, was a close friend and strategic ally not only of the US but of Israel, and apartheid South Africa. But we forgave him his part in maintaining apartheid, just as we forgave ourselves, and indeed Israel, for arming, financing and supporting a pernicious, evil and racist regime.

So, of what is Ahmadinejad guilty? He supports the death penalty? Anyone would think he was a Texas governor. Is the president of China ostracized for threatening to rain missiles on Taiwan, for not having elections, or for executing thousands of people a year? No, we give him the Olympics, and all the TV channels will be there.

The Iranian president does seem very obtuse about gays, denying that Iran had any. But homosexual acts still carry a 15-year prison sentence in many Caribbean islands that the more innocent cruise to so insouciantly. And only a few decades ago the US, UK and other European countries had similar penalties.

Ahmadinejad has been totally insensitive about the Holocaust, though at last in his speech, he certainly seemed to accept that it happened. But then he asked the very legitimate question of why the Palestinians should have to pay the price for European anti-semitism. It is a question that no one has, or can, answer satisfactorily without invoking divine sanction...

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