---------------quote----------------------------
After winning office in 2005, Mr Ahmadinejad conducted a purge of Teheran University, sacking liberal reformers on the academic staff. The president infuriated many students by installing a hardline cleric, Ayatollah Amid Zanjani, as the university's chancellor.
---------------end quote------------------------

Ahmadnutjob said to the students at Columbia U. that he believed in Academic Freedom. The funny thing is that they believed him!
--
Bob in CT

Posted by: CTYankee at October 9, 2007 8:50 AM

Could it be a sign of things to come when the Iranians get fed up with this form of facists government?

Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at October 9, 2007 8:52 AM

"At Columbia University, students applauded him. In Tehran, they protested against him."

.....the Columbia University students do not follow current events, read past history, do no in depth studies into Islam, fail to read any of Ahmadinejads past speeches, fail to comprehend the sinister aspects of Islam rule....

Tehrans students do....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at October 9, 2007 8:54 AM

The only way the Columbia debacle could would worked out would have been to show video of Mahmoud's previous statements as the introduction. It would have stunned the audience, and nobody would then have cheered during his speech.

Bollinger thought he was playing the heavy, but instead, it was he who was being played.

Is there anybody out there more susceptible to double-speak than the left?

Posted by: JSobieski at October 9, 2007 9:29 AM

"Is there anybody out there more susceptible to double-speak than the left?

Posted by: JSobieski "

....the far left?.....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at October 9, 2007 9:37 AM

How 'brave' are our paranoid egoists who scream and shout down Minuteman or David Horowitz compared to these mere boys in a theocratic fascist state who stand up at great cost and danger to themselves when no one else will.

Posted by: poetcomic1 at October 9, 2007 9:40 AM

Who's going to break it to the Columbia students?

The students in Mahmoud's university name him as a dictator, while they at Columbia cheered his "free speech rights".

(And how many of the Tehran students are now on their way to jail? Or worse?)

Posted by: profitsbeard at October 9, 2007 11:12 AM

"(And how many of the Tehran students are now on their way to jail? Or worse?)

Posted by: profitsbeard "

...hundreds have been jailed.....imagine if we jailed the students of Columbia if they participated in an anti-war rally....the students of Columbia fail to realize just how good it is to be American....and a free one at that....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at October 9, 2007 11:27 AM

We've seen this many times before in Iran: Student demonstrations....followed by the insistence among Western opponents of military action against the mullahs that the regime is teetering on collapse and that conflict with America would only succeed in solidifying public support for it.

In the end, the demonstrations are repressed or run out of steam...and the regime remains as embedded as ever.

It's almost become a good-cop, bad-cop routine. The regime thumbs its nose at the world and, just as the temperature starts rising, they allow some small expression of opposition by isolated student groups to remind us all that an attack might be counter-productive for us.

When Iranian workers start joining the students in mass demonstrations involving tens of thousands, then we can start getting excited. Yesterday's demonstration on the other hand means little or nothing.

Posted by: Cornelius at October 9, 2007 11:29 AM

Agreed, Cornelius. I suppose there is nothing righteous people in the states can do to help or promote these 'disidents' to succeed. It is something. At least the world knows the Iranian regime is not 100% supported.

Posted by: countywolf at October 9, 2007 11:37 AM

"Others were opponents of Mr Ahmadinejad, who shouted "death to the dictator" and "fascist president, the university is no place for you"....from headline.

Knowing Ahmadinejad, he will attach blame to the US & Israel for these cryptic comments.

Posted by: champ at October 9, 2007 11:59 AM

I think the easiest thing for those on the far Left to do, is simply igonre this troublesome issue and condemn Israel about something instead.

Posted by: Celsius at October 9, 2007 12:40 PM

I remember the last time Iranians revolted and look what we got.

I think we have held our collective breath for change long enough.

Posted by: flowerknife_us at October 9, 2007 3:06 PM

"At Columbia University, students applauded him. In Tehran, they protested against him. Maybe those Columbia students should consider a transfer to an Iranian university; I'm sure the Iranian government would welcome them."

Imagine how quickly those students would be on the phone to Mommy and Daddy, begging to come home.

Posted by: Josephine at October 9, 2007 3:44 PM

Just one of MANY examples to show all is NOT well in his land of oz after all...not by a longshot.
lol

Posted by: jcom972 at October 9, 2007 6:39 PM

Reformists Protests Against Ahmadinejad

We must be careful to discern staged protests instigated (and most likely financed) by the "Reformist" faction within the Islamist Regime with genuine peoples protest with the intention to end the Islamic regime.Unfortunately even the analysts on the right, are avoiding or ignoring the fact that Euro-mullah 'Reformists' inside the regime, led by Rafsanjani and Khatami, have been and are preparing themselves for a sort of a Coup to pounce back into power by ousting Ahmadinejad, and hence save the regime from being destroyed.

These student 'protests' should be looked upon more in that light rather than a call for ending the regime by the protestors. The protests and slogans are mainly against Ahmadinejad and indirectly aganist Khamenei who lead the faction of the Hardliners in the regime. This is just infighting between the 'Reformists' and 'Hardliners' over which one will continue to lead the regime.

And as such, analysts should take care not to fall into the notion that the cause of these small, anemic, scattered, and isolated protests have anything to do with ending the regime as a whole.

This coming "change" is actually not a "change", but just a reversion to what the form of the regime was before Ahmadinejad came into power in June 2006 under Khatami, Europe's darling mullah.And as such, this is exactly what is coming for Iran if US continues to sit on its hands and not do something drastic to change the situation around soon. Unless, of course, we like to see an Islamic Republic pig albeit decorated with European lipstick come into power in Iran in the near future.

For more articles and blogs on Iran, please go to:
http://mor2com.blogspot.com/

Posted by: Ira Zad at October 10, 2007 1:42 AM

Hmmm, perhaps a good point...

the best way to tell if they're staged or not...
the ones that are NOT are confronted with thugs...errr, I mean "troops" with LIVE ammo...and they don't fire warning shots.

Posted by: jcom972 at October 10, 2007 3:31 AM

This is too funny! You can't make this stuff up!

-----------quote---------------------------
President misquoted over gays in Iran: aide
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071010/wl_nm/iran_gays_dc_1

Homosexuality is punishable by death in the Islamic Republic.

"What Ahmadinejad said was not a political answer. He said that, compared to American society, we don't have many homosexuals," presidential media adviser Mohammad Kalhor said.

Kalhor told Reuters that because of historical, religious and cultural differences homosexuality was less common in Iran and the Islamic world than in the West.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said in May the last person known "with reasonable certainty" to have been sentenced to execution in Iran for consensual homosexual conduct was in 2005. But it did not know if the sentence had been carried out.
-----------end quote--------------------------

Posted by: CTYankee at October 10, 2007 12:49 PM

You guys are morons. Clearly, you have absolutely no idea what's flying at Columbia University. Ahmeddinijad faced near-unanimous opposition on the part of ALL student groups--left, right, center. The only object of debate was how fanatically pro-war the opposition was to be. Generally, the "Far Left" fell more in line with Iranian dissidents, who felt that Bollinger's speech was an insult to Iranians.
Speaking of going to Iran, the best thing that came out of this whole "debacle" was Ahmeddinijad's promise to welcome Columbia students to Tehran. I plan on going, and "talking to dictators." If there is another student protest, I look forward to participating, just as I did two weeks ago on my campus.

Posted by: Shlomo_Michael at October 11, 2007 2:29 AM

LOL...uh HUH!

Kool-Aid Alert!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MvAChuF4i8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz-mx9LMj04

Posted by: jcom972 at October 11, 2007 3:36 AM

I agree with Cornelius and Shlomo (except the morons part). There was never thundering applause for nut job in that auditorium. I watched the entire thing live on TV. The most clapping, at the end, was automatic politeness for the guest speaker. Nothing else.

And screw the Iranian students. I'll never buy into their "demonstrations" until they're dragging mullahs through the streets. They have to do it themselves, and their meager efforts shouldn't preclude us dropping a neutron bomb on all of them in the meantime. I hate Iranians.

Posted by: Bingo at October 11, 2007 7:16 AM

Sending our anti-US Islamofascist students now attending Columbia University to Iran--what a wonderful idea!

Hopefully, it will be a one-way trip for them. They don't REALLY want to come back to America, now DO they?

And we certainly don't want them back either.

Posted by: pythagoras at October 11, 2007 3:20 PM

BULL...
I had friends who were there...the comment made was "near-unanimous opposition" to the munchkin, which wasn't even close to accurate (based on same persons account-he laughed when I told him that).

I'm sure some WAS done out of politeness, but that was it...it was a lot more than just "politeness".
It was all a big show, and reeked of politics...and for some punk kid to go off calling anyone a moron, knowing what those of us with vastly more experience in the matter is beyond aburd, beyond rational, and a pathetic act of malignantly narcissistic projection...PERIOD.

I reiterate my
KOOL-AID ALERT!

Posted by: jcom972 at October 11, 2007 11:18 PM