I saw this editorial in the Washington Times on Friday and saved it so I could share it with you.

When Ahmadinejad and President Bush were at the UN last week Mrs. Bush had to take a seat that was somewhere behind Ahmadinejad’s seat.

As she passed his seat he looked up at her in anticipation of her saying something maybe, but instead she put her hand on his desk, looked straight ahead and kept on going, never making eye contact.

The editorial says Ahmadinejad looked down afterward in what appeared to be an embarrassed look.

Good for Mrs. Bush!

Welcome to the Anchoress readers.

John Bolton was one of the most intelligent, honest Ambassadors to the United Nations the United States has ever had.

He proves it once again in his commentary last night on Hannity and Colmes in reference to Ahmadinejad.

HT:Little Green Footballs

Here’s the Iranian News Agency’s account of Ahmadinejad’s address at Columbia University yesterday.

Ahmadinejad-Colombia Varsity-Address
Despite entire US media objections, negative propagation and hue and cry in recent days over IRI President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s scheduled address at Colombia University, he gave his lecture and answered students questions here on Monday afternoon.

On second day of his entry in New York, and amid standing ovation of the audience that had attended the hall where the Iranian President was to give his lecture as of early hours of the day, Ahmadinejad said that Iran is not going to attack any country in the world.

Before President Ahamadinejad’s address, Colombia University Chancellor in a brief address told the audience that they would have the chance to hear Iran’s stands as the Iranian President would put them forth.

He said that the Iranians are a peace loving nation, they hate war, and all types of aggression.

Referring to the technological achievements of the Iranian nation in the course of recent years, the president considered them as a sign for the Iranians’ resolute will for achieving sustainable development and rapid advancement.

The audience on repeated occasion applauded Ahmadinejad when he touched on international crises.

At the end of his address President Ahmadinejad answered the students’ questions on such issues as Israel, Palestine, Iran’s nuclear program, the status of women in Iran and a number of other matters.

Gosh, it sounds like they liked him at Columbia, doesn’t it?

Let me give you a selected quote from Reuters:

NEW YORK, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Vilified as a Holocaust denier, a supporter of terrorism and a backer of Iraqi insurgents, the president of Iran was actually able to make New Yorkers burst into laughter — but not at a joke.

“In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at Columbia University on Monday in response to a question about the recent execution of two gay men there.

“In Iran we do not have this phenomenon,” he continued. “I do not know who has told you we have it.”

Loud laughs and boos broke from the audience of about 700 people, mostly students at the Ivy League school whose garb included “Stop Ahmadinejad’s Evil” T-shirts.

Of course there are no homosexuals in Iran; they kill them all.

Finally there is this quote from WCBS TV in New York:

As many as 25,000 people from around the metro area and the country flocked to the U.N. to protest Ahmadinejad’s visit.

I wonder if his partner in crime, Chavez will receive the same kind of welcome.

I can hope, can’t I?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad probably thought his appearance at Columbia University would be a walk in the park, but he, and I found out differently.

Ahmadinejad portrayed himself as an intellectual and argued that his administration respected reason and science. But the former engineering professor, appearing shaken and irate over he called “insults” from his host, soon found himself drawn into the type of rhetoric that has alienated American audiences in the past.

He provoked derisive laughter by responding to a question about Iran’s execution of homosexuals by saying: “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country … I don’t know who’s told you that we have this.”

Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, set the combative tone in his introduction of Ahmadinejad: “Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator.”

Ahmadinejad retorted that Bollinger’s opening was “an insult to information and the knowledge of the audience here.”

“There were insults and claims that were incorrect, regretfully,” Ahmadinejad said, accusing Bollinger of falling under the influence of the hostile U.S. press and politicians….

…Asked by an audience member if Iran sought the destruction of Israel, Ahmadinejad did not answer directly.

“We are friends of all the nations,” he said. “We are friends with the Jewish people. There are many Jews in Iran living peacefully with security.”

He also said Palestinians must determine their own future.

Ahmadinejad’s past statements about the Holocaust also have raised hackles in the West, and were soundly attacked by Bollinger.

“In a December 2005 state television broadcast, you described the Holocaust as the fabricated legend,” Bollinger told Ahmadinejad said in his opening remarks. “One year later, you held a two-day conference of Holocaust deniers.”

Bollinger said that might fool the illiterate and ignorant.

“When you come to a place like this, it makes you simply ridiculous. The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history,” he said.

Ahmadinejad denied he had questioned whether the Holocaust occurred.

“Granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people?” he said.

If he’s as smart as he thinks he is he will research history and find that every Palestinian in the land now called Israel was given the opportunity to stay in the new country with full rights of citizenship. That they chose to leave and live in squalor in their own Arab brothers’ land is their own fault.

I read somewhere Monday there were about 10,000 protesters to greet the little man from Iran. BTW, someone needs to tell him while in Rome do as the Romans. Here we change our clothes daily and do not appear in public with the same jacket, sweater and shirt on two times in a row.

Here is the text of the advertisement:

Ahmadinejad is a terrorist.

Columbia University is wrong to give him a platform.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens our nation and the freedoms we value. He has supported attacks on our soldiers and our allies.

He should be treated as the terrorist that he is.

Yet, while Columbia gives a terrorist like Ahmadinejad a platform to speak, they refuse to allow the ROTC on campus.

What has happened to this prestigious university?

People who support killing Americans are welcome. But the military that defends them is not.

Columbia should be ashamed of its actions.

Freedom’s Watch knows that America and the forces of freedom are right. We know the threat of terrorism is real.

And we know democracy must prevail.

The terrorists and their appeasers are wrong.

SUPPORT FREEDOM’S WATCH

Stand up for Freedom and those who defend it.

Surrender is not an option. Victory is America’s only choice.

Visit www.freedomswatch.org or call 877-222-8001

Hat Tip: Red State

For a round-up of protest activities go to Sister Toldjah

If you live in or near New York and wish to participate in the demonstrations against this devil go to Atlas Shrugs for the schedules. The rest of us will be with you in spirit.

Let’s show this thug what America really is!

There is no question that individuals like Iranian President Ahmadinejad thrive on all the press they receive in the United States. Let’s face it, his visit to NY has generated more than it’s share of commentary in all the various mediums.

Perhaps when he delivers his speech at the UN, he will explain the role of his country in supplying weapons to terrorists who kill our troops, or his statements concerning Israel, or maybe he will inform us how it is that he comes in “peace” to a place where over 3,000 Americans died at the hands of those he supports.

I doubt it. Until he has a satisfactory answer just for those few questions, (the list could go on forever), I prefer the approach of this former UN Ambassador to all the many headlines which will certainly be forthcoming.

“You should treat this as an off-Broadway production,” former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said, describing the United Nations as a “Twilight Zone” that gives a platform to “tinhorn dictators.” “The General Assembly is the theater in which Ahmadinejad and others perform.”

Works for me.

It’s once again the time of year when the despots of the world gather at the U.N. to denounce the United States and call our president Satan.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled to leave for New York on Sunday for a speech on Thursday, departing our country on Saturday.

I guess he needs the extra time to scope out what he wants to bomb first if given the chance.

But the Jewish community is going to protest his presence, as is their right.

A major drama is shaping up over the planned appearance at the United Nations next week of the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with the Jewish community scheduling a protest rally, Mitt Romney calling on the world body to ban the tyrant, and the U.N. Security Council set to consider whether to increase sanctions against the mullahs for their uranium enrichment program.

In Vienna, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, is emerging as the top defender of Iran, arguing at the IAEA’s annual assembly yesterday that just as no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, Iran does not present a nuclear menace now. He has been raging against any punitive measures, signing secret pacts with Tehran, and directly confronting not only America, Britain, and Germany but also France, where the Quai D’Orsay is warning of war.

But here in New York, the mood at Turtle Bay is less predictable than in the past, in part because, in sharp contrast to a former U.N. chief, Kofi Annan, Secretary-General Ban has signaled he may side with the West this time. And a Jewish community leadership, animated in part by the success Mr. Ahmadinejad has had in finding allies within the political debate in America, has scheduled a rally on Monday in front of the United Nations.

“It’s a message to the world leaders about their responsibility,” a vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Malcolm Hoenlein, said. “This is somebody who violated the United Nations charter and should not be given that platform.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad is scheduled to speak at the U.N. General Assembly next week as the U.N. Security Council considers whether to increase sanctions against Iran for its uranium enrichment program

ElBaradei, defender of all rogue regimes with nuclear capabilities. And with the members on the Security Council we could say that group is as useless as a drone in a beehive.

New York City Police Department officials said yesterday that the city would deploy thousands of its officers to protect Mr. Ahmadinejad, along with the leaders of Iraq and Afghanistan and other countries as they gather for the 62nd session of the General Assembly, which technically opens today. Streets will be blocked off to protect the dignitaries as they move through the city and also to accommodate dozens of protests. …

…The prospect of Mr. Ahmadinejad visiting the city recalled the famous reaction of Theodore Roosevelt to the visit of a German anti-Semite to the city back in the days when Roosevelt was police commissioner. In his autobiography, published in 1913, Roosevelt wrote about how he assigned to the anti-Semite an all-Jewish security detail.

“The proper thing to do was to make him ridiculous,” Roosevelt wrote. “It was the most effective possible answer; and incidentally it was an object lesson to our people, whose greatest need is to learn that there must be no division by class hatred.”

Now that would be sweet revenge indeed!

Next up, the beloved Hugo Chavez, bearer of the torch of communism passed on by the almost late Fidel Castro.

The Iranian government gave its citizens a two hour notice of gas rationing of 100 liters of fuel a month.

I’m no expert in the metric system, but I think a liter is somewhere over a quart. This would translate to about 25 gallons of gas a month.

At least 12 petrol stations have been torched in the Iranian capital, Tehran, after the government announced fuel rationing for private vehicles.
Windows were smashed and stones thrown at the stations, and there was traffic chaos as motorists queued to buy fuel.

Iranians were given only two hours’ notice of the move that limits private drivers to 100 litres of fuel a month.

Despite its huge energy reserves, Iran lacks refining capacity and it imports about 40% of its petrol.

The country has a large budget deficit largely caused by fuel subsidies and the inflation rate is estimated at 20-30%.

The BBC’s Tehran correspondent, Frances Harrison, says Iran is trying to rein in fuel consumption over fears of possible UN sanctions over its nuclear programme.

Iran fears the West could impose sanctions on its petrol imports and cripple its economy.

A country sitting on top of an oil well can’t afford for its citizens to get as much gas as they need.

The above headline is directly from the San Francisco Gate.

Please pay attention to the important words “may be interested”.
It does not say they are interested or they will go.

Rep. Lantos has said he is sponsoring a bill he expects to pass in May that would make available for all nations, including Iran, nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes.

Lantos noted that “with the speaker’s support,” he has co-sponsored legislation in the House that calls for making available to all countries — including Iran — nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes under international oversight by establishing a “nuclear fuel bank.”

“So if the Iranian president says that he is developing (nuclear material) for peaceful purposes, we are assisting him in that process,” said Lantos, who anticipated the legislation could pass as early as May.

I actually think that’s the news in this piece.

Excuse me, please, while I go vomit and have a quiet nervous breakdown.

Feel free to join me in the nervous breakdown and we can all sit around like this and be blissfully ignorant of our world.

We wondered why the British captives confessed so quickly. Now we know and it is what we suspected. Ahmandinejad and the Mad Mullahs of Iran are evil people.

Two of the freed captives shared the reading of a prepared statement at Royal Marines Base at Chivenor, north Devon, where they revealed the first details of their time as hostages.

Lieutenant Felix Carman confirmed the sailors were in Iraqi waters when they were detained by Iran. “We were 1.7 nautical miles from Iranian waters,” he said.

The sailors and marines said they were bound, blindfolded and lined up against a wall while weapons were cocked, making them “fear the worst”.

Apparently responding to criticisms that the sailors and marines surrendered too easily to the Iranians and were too eager to cooperate with their captors, they said that “fighting back was simply not an option”.

“We were aware that many people have questioned why we allowed ourselves to be taken in the first place. From the outset it was very apparent that fighting back was not an option. Had we done that many of us would not be standing here today.

“There would have been a major fight, which we could not have won, and the consequences would have had a major strategic impact. We made a conscious decision not to engage the Iranians.”

The 15 personnel captured by Iran were blindfolded, bound and subjected to “constant psychological pressure”, they said today at a press conference.

They were told if they did not admit they had strayed into Iranian waters they faced seven years in prison. They said they were bound, blindfolded and lined up against a wall while weapons were cocked making them “fear the worst”.

When asked about Faye Turney, who was not at the press conference, the sailors said: “Being an Islamic country Faye was subjected to different rules than we were. She was separated from us as soon as we arrived and isolated. She was told shortly afterwards that we had all been returned home and was under the impression for four days that she was the only one there. Clearly she was subjected to a lot of stress. She coped admirably and maintained a lot of dignity.”

The sailors criticised the propoganda used by Iran. Joe Tindell said: “Obviously we’re not pleased about it. As far as I’m concerned the whole thing was a complete media stunt.”

Lieutenant Carman added that they were kept in solitary confinement for a period before being allowed out in the evenings for a couple of hours to play chess and socialise. “But that was in the full glare of the Iranian media. It was very much a setup, very much a stunt for Iranian propaganda.”

In response Iranian state TV is currently reporting that the crew’s comments were “dictated” by the British Ministry of Defence, Sky News has reported.

The youngest sailor among the 15, Arthur Batchelor, 20, admitted there were points when he was afraid for his life but “like I said I believed this day would come.”

The 15 began their statement by sending their condolences to the families of the four British service personnel and civilian interpreter killed in Iraq yesterday.

They also thanked the staff of the British Embassy in Tehran and the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence for all their work in securing their release.

Lieutenant Carman told how they were taken by the Iranians, on Friday March 23.

He stressed the sailors and marines were on a routine operation when they boarded a merchant vessel in an area south of the Shatt Al Arab waterway.

“I can clearly state we were 1.7 nautical miles from Iranian waters.”

Royal Marine Captain Chris Air, 25, from Altrincham, Cheshire, said they saw two speedboats approaching rapidly about 400 metres away.

“I ordered everyone to make their weapons ready and ordered the boarding party to return to the boats.

“By the time all were back on board, two Iranian boats had come alongside.

“One officer spoke good English and I explained that we were conducting a routine operation, as allowed under a UN mandate.

“But when we tried to leave, they prevented us by blocking us in.

“By now it was becoming increasingly clear that they had arrived with a planned intent.

“Some of the Iranian sailors were becoming deliberately aggressive and unstable. They rammed our boat and trained their heavy machine guns, RPGs and weapons on us.

“Another six boats were closing in on us. We realised that our efforts to reason with these people were not making any headway. Nor were we able to calm some of the individuals down. It was at this point that we realised that had we resisted there would have been a major fight, one we could not have won, with consequences that would have had major strategic impact.”

Marine Joe Tindall revealed how the treatment of the sailors deteriorated within hours of their capture.

He said: “I can’t say i was treated well - for the first 24 hours, yes, but between then and the president’s speech, I wouldn’t say we were treated well.”

When asked whether the captives were able to communicate with Iranian guards, he said: “We never saw them for the first six days because whenever they opened the doors we were handed blindfolds.”

As for the confessions, he said in his opinion they were not confessions. “It was more like, according to this GPS map we’ve been given, then apparently we were in Iranian waters - and if that was the case we apologise.”

They used no code words during their “confessions”.

He revealed that often the hostages would hear the cocking of guns at their heads. “That was the one time in my life I’ve been scared s*******, basically.”

His relieved father, John, was asked what his son’s first words to his family were.

“I think I’m having more trouble coming to terms with some it than he is … within about eight minutes of talking to him I was a jibbering wreck after being relatively normal for two weeks.

“I’m just glad that the truth is coming out.”

Thankfully they are all home and safe now, but it will probably take some time for them to get over the psychological stresses they experienced while captives.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has announced the British sailors and Marines kidnapped by Iran have been pardoned and will go free.

This is wonderful news for the captives, their families and Great Britain.

TEHRAN, Iran — Fifteen British sailors and marines seized by Iranian naval personnel have been pardoned and will be freed, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at a press conference Wednesday, but he vowed his country would not tolerate invasions of its borders by any country.

“I announce that the great people of Iran and the Islamic Republic, even having legal rights to try these military people, in honor of the prophet’s birthday, will be freed as a gift to the people of the United Kingdom,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech to reporters, clerics and civil servants in a small hall in Tehran.

In response to a reporter’s question, Ahmadinejad said the British troops would be freed at the end of the press conference.

Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office said it “welcomes” the news that troops would be freed.

Then he interrupted the news conference to pin medals on the captors.

Anyone who has been reading or watching the news since Friday knows fifteen British sailors and marines (including one woman) have been captured by the Revolutionary Guards of Iran for supposedly being in Iranian waters while on a patrol in Iraqi waters while searching for smugglers.

The Brits claim they were in Iraqi waters and the Iranians claim they were in Iranian waters. At any rate the sailors and marines are now in Tehran on an unexpected detour and Iran is claiming they will charge them with espionage, which carries the death penalty under Iranian Islamic law.

The Times Online reports:

FIFTEEN British sailors and marines arrested by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards off the coast of Iraq may be charged with spying.

A website run by associates of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, reported last night that the Britons would be put before a court and indicted.

Referring to them as “insurgents”, the site concluded: “If it is proven that they deliberately entered Iranian territory, they will be charged with espionage. If that is proven, they can expect a very serious penalty since according to Iranian law, espionage is one of the most serious offences.”

The warning followed claims by Iranian officials that the British navy personnel had been taken to Tehran, the capital, to explain their “aggressive action” in entering Iranian waters. British officials insist the servicemen were in Iraqi waters when they were held.

The penalty for espionage in Iran is death. However, similar accusations of spying were made when eight British servicemen were detained in the same area in 2004. They were paraded blindfolded on television but did not appear in court and were freed after three nights in detention.

Iranian student groups called yesterday for the 15 detainees to be held until US forces released five Revolutionary Guards captured in Iraq earlier this year.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned newspaper based in London, quoted an Iranian military source as saying that the aim was to trade the Royal Marines and sailors for these Guards.

The claim was backed by other sources in Tehran. “As soon as the corps’s five members are released, the Britons can go home,” said one source close to the Guards.

He said the tactic had been approved by Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, who warned last week that Tehran would take “illegal actions” if necessary to maintain its right to develop a nuclear programme.

There are some missing Iranian agents from Iraq, so this demand makes some sense.

At the same time there have been a couple of defections of high-ranking Iranians the Iranians would love to get back and give them a dose of Islamic justice.

Subhi Sadek, the Guards’ weekly newspaper, warned last weekend that the force had “the ability to capture a bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks”.

Safavi is known to be furious about the recent defections to the West of three senior Guards officers, including a general, and the effect of UN sanctions on his own finances.

There are some Iraqi fishermen who have convinced an Iraqi general the Brits were in Iranian waters, but the British deny it, saying the last time this happened GPS devices proved they were in Iraqi waters and he is certain this will be the case also.

Meanwhile, this Fox News report states British Prime Minister is determined to get this situation solved as soon and as diplomatically as possible.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Sunday that the 15 British sailors and marines captured by Iran as they searched for smugglers off the Iraqi coast were not in Iranian waters and warned that Britain viewed their situation as “very serious.”

The group was seized at gunpoint on Friday, and the Foreign Office in London said British officials do not know where Iran is holding them.

Speaking at an EU summit in Berlin, Blair said Iran’s claim that the sailors had crossed into Iranian territorial waters “is simply not true.”

“I want to get [the situation] resolved in as easy and diplomatic a way as possible,” Blair said, but added he hoped the Iranians “understood how fundamental an issue this is for the British government.”

Britain said its diplomats met with Iranian officials in Tehran on Sunday where their demand for access to the group was denied after Iran refused to say where they were being held.

“This is a very serious situation,” Blair said.

We’ll soon see if it’s spies they want or if they really believe these sailors and marines breeched their waters.

Either way I pray for a peaceful solution to this mess.