Let’s listen to Iran’s president
Eleanor Roosevelt: “We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk.”
Every generation, it becomes clear, has to relearn the old lessons: war diminishes us, destroys hundreds of thousands of potentials and even when some form of victory is declared it is a rare conclusion that exceeds what has been lost.
Politicians and pundits often state that war is a last resort for them, but it soon becomes apparent which ones have never carried a suitcase into any other resort. Fox News and the Daily News well understand how to harness the power of hate because it is an animal built for the yoke. But the yoked plow fields that can never feed a single soul, save for the gunsmith and the mortician, who measure their well being in blood.
It is easy to be for hate, easy to lose the distinction between the hateful and the hated, easy to avoid any chance for dialogue and with it, the chance for peaceful compromise. It is too hard for them, too great a task, too much to ask one ounce of real effort to forge the steel of peace. That burden can only be borne by the hardy, the strong and the wise, not those conditioned to always take the easy way out, the path to war, the journey they will demand others to march from their safe and easy chairs.
Great majorities of the Iranian citizenry have no quarrel with our citizens. Most admire and emulate the fruits of our culture and civilization. But they have politicians and pundits, too, some just as eager to promote the easy way, the lazy way, the ways that risk war. Iran’s citizens often feel helpless to stop their leaders’ provocations. Just as many of us often feel as helpless about the endless threats emanating from ours.
“… and if we are to live together we have to talk.” And listen. And think. And create from that the only foundations that can ever support real peace.
I join the call of the Columbia Coalition and join the majorities in both lands eager and ready to pour those foundations and do the heavy lifting. Let us not yield to the war promoters. The results of their folly is too fresh in the mind and leaves too many lost loved ones less than fully mourned.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:27 am
Firstly, I find it slightly offensive to genuine liberals that you would link off to that nonsense from the Columbia “progressives” by quoting the great Eleanor Roosevelt.
I support letting him speak at Columbia. Universities should be an open forum of ideas and opinions, and more importantly, they are a private institution. If it bothers the alums and the major donors so much, let them address it with their check books.
However, it would be nice if the extremists at Columbia could be consistent on this front. They have shouted down Minute men, members of Jihad Watch, and others with a more conservative perspective. They have never concerned themselves with the kind of message that indeed sent. But, a totalitarian religious fanatic comes to speak on their campus, and the “progressives” propose silence? Liberalism is truly dead.
The neo-progressives are concerned about the message a demonstration might send. Where is this concern when they march with Stalinist apologists in the ANSWER Coalition? Where is this concern when their “peace” marches revert to chants of “long live the intifada”? I’ve marched in them, I’ve heard it and seen it all.
So the message is pretty clear–it’s ok to endorse a protest when you’re obstructing business at the World Bank, or blocking the VP’s motorcade. However, when a truly disturbed world leader, one who leads a regime responsible for over a decade of global terror, comes to Columbia–we go silent.
Who cares what tacit endorsement comes from a protest? Nobody cares what a small group of radicals on a college campus think anyway. The bolder gesture would be to speak out, be consistent and stand by the principles they claim to espouse.
But that would make sense. That would be the right thing to do. Far be it for the well educated students at Columbia to know the difference.
Lenin once referred to the “useful idiots” of the West. I fear he is once again being proven correct.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:09 am
I agree: Let Ahmadinejad speak - his rants will only serve to show how little of peace he truly seeks. He’ll continue to deny the Holocaust, and he’ll needle against Israel’s right to exist.
The benefit of him speaking is that he’ll bolster the West’s case for firm resolve against the Iranian threat. More free speech? Absolutely.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:17 am
I’m glad that, as a conservative, you support his speaking at Columbia. Yet you speak of the ‘extremists’ at Columbia as if it’s a group of people permanently stuck attending there, instead of constantly changing groups of students. So if one group chooses to deny one speaker a podium and another group denies another speaker, they are one and the same, guilty of some anti-nonliberal conspiracy.
They’re alike only in that they are students. I’d expect them to hold world views that will evolve over time, as is common.
Where is this concern when they march with Stalinist apologists in the ANSWER Coalition? I certainly recall liberals raising and debating this as a very real concern, particularly in the protests that preceded Bush’s attack on Iraq. Many spoke quite eloquently against the views of Answer members and disassociated themselves from their views, but considered it important to participate in the principal event on the pressing issue du jour.
Where is this concern when their “peace” marches revert to chants of “long live the intifada”? Just as Republicans break bread and vote with nutballs who express all manner of theocratic, or anti-science or rapture-seeking war-addicted inanities, liberals, or Democrats or Libertarians or Independents accept the reality that advocacy can’t be strained through a filter to purify its participants.
And that’s one of the two biggest objections I have towards your comments. You lump all liberals together as neo-progressives, as if we openly embrace every expression of any in our proximity, and only separate us from former progressives by adding ‘neo’.
The leader of a government hostile to ours possesses a role in the determination of whether ours will choose to go to war with Iran. That’s a much larger role impacting tens of millions in life or death questions than the role of the Minutemen, Jihad Watch members or Answer Coalition leaders. And personally, going back to my college days, this ‘neo’ progressive has always argued that conservative extremists should be invited to speak.
On either side, if the result is students drowning out the speakers, that’s what happens spontaneously in college arenas.
The Columbia Coalition did not call for silence. They challenged progressives to fully consider that the protest will be used as a pro-war propaganda tool and asked that they avoid being used unwittingly that way. They said they consider many of Ahmadinejad’s views to be ‘inexcusable’ and reminded them that there’s other valid ways to express that without being used by war-mongering propagandists.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:27 am
I also find Ahmadinejad’s holocaust denial absurd. That deserves ridicule. It does not, however, represent a casus belli to go to war against a country that might produce a nuclear weapon or two in a decade.
The conjecture that they’d then immediately hand off decades of work to a suicide bomber is patently absurd, because that bomber could choose to use it against Iran or could, by using it against a nuclear power, insure Iran’s destruction in a much larger retaliatory strike.
And lest any doubt what your intents are, Donald, I quote from your blog today:
(My bolding)
Why do I feel less than ‘compelled’ ?
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Just as Republicans break bread and vote with nutballs who express all manner of theocratic, or anti-science or rapture-seeking war-addicted inanities, liberals, or Democrats or Libertarians or Independents accept the reality that advocacy can’t be strained through a filter to purify its participants.
Well-said, Kevin.
September 23rd, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Kevin H.: I’ve had so many go ’rounds with lefties on this issue, it’s gotten old.
The international community has had sanctions on Iran for its atomic develpments for at least four years. A recent IAEA report found only mixed evidence of Iran’s compliance with Security Council resolutions. There’s essentially no diplomatic solution to the crisis, although many advocate tougher sanctions.
Here’s a balanced post on the issue, citing two political scientists, if you’re really interested in how I feel about the matter:
http://burkeanreflections.blogspot.com/2007/07/facing-irans-nuclear-challenge.html
September 23rd, 2007 at 6:41 pm
From your site: Tehran’s state leaders see the current correlation of forces as opportune for establishing a great Shiite arch of power across the Middle East.
And why is this presumed to be a negative? After all, nearly all attacks on American civilians or military have come at the hands of Al Qaida, which is Sunni. Shia leaders tend to be all mouth towards Americans. Sunnis - except Saddam - have been quieter and deadlier.
Second, some have indicated his remarks about Israerl have been mistranslated. Yes, his Holocaust denial is warped. Yes, Hezbollah has been funded by Iran and targets Israel. But Iran won’t ever reach nuclear parity with Israel, never mind the US. Wanting to deter a US attack or an Israeli attack may indeed be a legitimate effort at building a defense. Or is building a defense now an act of aggression?
Finally, if Russia and China are blocking economic sanctions, why would they support a massive air strike? That could have massive repercussions, particularly on China’s economy, which could cause massive retaliatory economic turmoil to ours.
Diplomacy is about negotiating the interests of each and, since most estimates place Iran’s nuclear capacity a decade away, I maintain that diplomacy should remain the preferred course over the ethically dubious preventive warfare doctrine, which has a 100% record of failing its stated goals.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Let’s not forget that being “president of Iran” does not connote the same level of influence, control, or political power as bring “president of the United States of America.” We are becoming such a nation of cowards.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:47 am
[…] Yesterday afternoon, the Gathering of Eagles people did that thing they do, and deleted the page as if it had never existed. That was bad news for the commenter, Snooper, who also thought the photo was real, and believed it proved something about the “idiot hate spawner personified” Kevin Hayden, who — well, Kevin, if you’re around, please explain about the hatred and the spawning? We sure can’t figure it out. […]