Talk:Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

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Contents 1 Neutrality compromised 2 Good catch 3 Ahmadinejad and UNSC Veto 4 No mention of terrorism support 5 Citations 6 Categories 7 Category:Anti-Semitic people

[edit] Neutrality compromised

The information regarding President Ahmadinejad's recent letter to Americans has clearly been presented in a way that reflects the author's personal opinion. I would like to suggest an edition of this particular information, or else a re-entry.

68.103.160.85 05:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC) Dr. Caffrey

It's very difficult to summarize the whole letter, which touches on many issues, in one nice little paragraph. I think I did this. There were many more things that I had originally written, but I ultimately decided that it was just too long for an encyclopedia entry. If people want that level of detail, they can click on the letter and read it themselves, right?

Anyways, I'm including my first draft text here, in case anyone is interested. This is the stuff that I wrote, but didn't include in the article. Vir4030 17:30, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

About Palestine, he argues "that the US administration has persistently provided blind and blanket support to" Israel, even while Israel "has driven millions of the inhabitants of Palestine out of their homes." About Iraq, claims that "hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, maimed or displaced," that "terrorism in Iraq has grown exponentially," and that "nothing has been done to rebuild the ruins, to restore the infrastructure or to alleviate poverty." He says that he considers it extremely unlikely that the American People "consent to the billions of dollars of annual expenditure from your treasury for this military misadventure." Ahmadinejad also criticizes the "illegal and immoral behavior" of the US administration, not only throughout the world in Guantanamo and Abu-Ghraib, but also inside the United States. He states that "civil liberties in the United States are being increasingly curtailed" under the pretext of "the war on terror." He claims that "private phones are tapped, subjects are arbitrarily arrested, sometimes beaten in the streets, or even shot to death." Ultimately, he concludes that "the American people are not satisfied with this behavior and they showed their discontent in the recent elections." He recommends that "in a demonstration of respect for the American people and for humanity, the right of Palestinians to live in their own homeland should be recognized." He also suggests that it would "be more beneficial to bring the US officers and soldiers home, and to spend the astronomical US military expenditures in Iraq for the welfare and prosperity of the American people." He also had a message to the Democrats who won the 2006 mid-term elections: "The United States has had many administrations; some who have left a positive legacy, and others that are neither remembered fondly by the American people nor by other nations. Now that you control an important branch in the US Government, you will also be held to account by the people and by history."

Why do we need to cite four different references for the summary of the letter? Can't we just cite the text of the letter itself? Vir4030 17:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Ufwuct, I sincerely apologize for not including an edit summary for my wholesale revision of the bit about the letter under US-Iran Relations. I should have. I also made that edit while I was not logged into my account, so it showed up under my IP address. That was a mistake also. I obviously described it above here in the talk page, but you wouldn't know that just from the revision history, especially with not being logged in for the edit, but signing my talk page comments appropriately.

My problem with the way it is now is that, as pointed out by the editor above, it can appear biased because of the parts of the letter that are described in the article. I feel that the best way to handle this is to not go into any specific parts of the letter in the article. This way, people can just read the letter for themselves if they want to see each point that Ahmadinejad made.

You wrote some good stuff, though, in the main article when you replaced my summary. I'm going to make the edits to your text, keeping these pieces, but removing the parts specifically discussing the letter. As you can see above, I tried to write something that would treat each section of the letter fairly, but it became way too long for an article about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

I will leave an edit summary this time, pointing to this section of the talk page. I hope that you consider my edits to be fair. Thanks! Vir4030 19:15, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I also left in the comment about "In the letter, he also claims that Iran condemns all terrorism, though many consider Iran to be the world's leading state supporter of terrorism." It's relevant to the US-Iran relations section, and is well-sourced. I did remove the MSNBC citation, because it's an article about the letter, and we've already cited the letter. I also apologize again for my relative newbieness and not being more clear in the edit summary. Vir4030 19:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good catch

I don't speak Persian, so I won't label it vandalism, but this was a good catch. Without any translation, Persian sources shouldn't count as sources on en.wikipedia.org. Thanks. Ufwuct 04:31, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it was a good catch. The only comment I want to make is that there seem to be a lot of Persian sources which discuss Ahmadinejad's internal policies. I'm not sure there are many of these that are in English. I have been trying to clean this up, but it's difficult when you don't speak Persian. I have been very actively trying to recruit a Persian-speaking editor to verify these sources, and until then we have the {{citecheck}} tag in place that Avi requested. So hopefully we can resolve these issues shortly.

Also, according to Wikipedia:Verifiability, there is no restriction to not use foreign-language sources. It does clearly state that they should not be used when English-language sources are available. If there is a policy that says blanketly we should not use Persian sources, please post a link. Vir4030 19:06, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ahmadinejad and UNSC Veto

The text currently seems to imply that Ahmadinejad has a veto on the UNSC; As best as I can tell, he does not.

Can someone either correct the text or otherwise enlighten me?

update-- you know, I just checked the text again, and it flatly doesn't make sense. It refers to "the same interview," although no interview has been mentioned in that section. HELP!!—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.199.29.178 (talk • contribs) 21:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

It looks like this got mangled on November 4th by 70.28.116.167. I restored the affected text to the 5 Nov 2006 00:13 edition of the page. Thanks for pointing this out! Vir4030 23:48, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No mention of terrorism support

Since Iran supports Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, and Amhdinejad has denied supporting terrorism, why is this omitted?Decato 21:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Probably because conclusive evidence is lacking. MeteorMaker 08:03, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I can quote any number of sources: NY Times,Fox News, BBC etc. Any objections if I put this in the article?Decato 10:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

If you bring reliable and verifiable sources, there should be no problem. -- Avi 15:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this is mentioned in the article under United States-Iran relations: "In the letter, he also claims that Iran condemns all terrorism, though many in the United States consider Iran to be the world's leading state supporter of terrorism." Then there are three cites. This is the section talking about the letter he sent last week to the American People where he denied supporting terrorism. It looks like these same three sources are also cited in the Iran article where it says: "Today Iran is regarded by the US to be the world's leading state supporter of terrorism." There is also a rather large article on United States-Iran relations where this information is presented. I'm not sure it's appropriate to have a whole section on the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad page about Iran's support of terrorism, but I think it would fit on either of the other two pages. Vir4030 15:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Does Iran consider the United States to be a sponsor of terrorism? - Francis Tyers · 15:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Freely admiting my own bias, I think there is a major difference between the U.S and Iran. Iran isa despotic theocracy where women and other religions do not have equal rights. The U.S is one of greatest democracies in the history of the world.71.233.211.201 19:36, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with having your opinions. However, please note that this talk page is only for the discussion of ways in which to improve this article and to resolve disputes regarding article content, not to espouse opinions regarding the subject of the article or other items. --Strothra 19:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I was just responding to user f-m-t comment which seems to put moral equivilency between Iran and the U.S.Decato 21:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Go an add terrorist support to George Bush's page. --Halaqah 19:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

This is not a Bush page and looking at the terrorist orginizations listed on the wikipedia page, The U.S does not support any of them. Why is it so hard to call someone a terrorist supporter on this site? Decato 23:04, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes because the Def of terrorim is a POV, so to call someone a supporter of terrorism is a POV. Since most people in the World see america as a terrorist government. DONT THE USA SUPPORT THE IRA? KKK is another terrorist organization in America, why cant Ethiopia or Ghana invade America to clense America of this terror threat? the debate is about world view and in the eyes of most the Bush Administration is a terrorist system which has destroyed more lives than all of those listed as being terrorist--Halaqah 23:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

flag and anthem dont make u clean of the def of terrorism u know. --Halaqah 23:18, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

The US does not support the IRA. In fact, it has worked for many decades to disarm the IRA. Remember, the US and the UK have had a close and cordial relationship for many many years. Support for the IRA would damage that. Also, that accusation is off-topic; please restrict comments to those which pertain to the content of the article. --Strothra 23:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

so why are you breaking your own rule? Yeah what they do on the surface is one thing, dont be so simplistic in observing global politics. read history of Palestine and see what the British Did. So No one, absolutly no one (no one) in the USA supports the IRA, i'll take your word for it.--Halaqah 23:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

The question when I started this thread was Iran's President support of terrorists groups. Not Britain, not U.S. Most of the world that have access to unbiased news sources may criticize the U.S but no rational personal can say they support terroirsm. As Iran has said Israel should be wiped off the map they do.71.233.211.201 01:22, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

listen can the convo now, okay this is wikipedia add something constructive and move on. didnt the us wipe vietnam off the face of the earth, didnt they wipe iraq off the face of the earth? didnt the wipe Japan off the face of the Earth? So what if he wants to do that with Israel, they are enemies. I am sure Israel would love to "wipe them out 2"--gee wiz. Why is it such a big deal? or cant u say anything bad against good old israel? the issue is about balance, world view and POV, what you think is an opinion "no rational person", go and read the def of terrorism and then go and c what most of the non-align newspapers are saying. again this is wikipedia and it rep a world view not an american view of the world. how many times did John Pilger say the US supported/s IRA terrorism. "no rational person" U must be God speaking.--Halaqah 02:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

"More terrorists are given training and sanctuary in the United States than anywhere on earth. They include mass murderers, torturers, former and future tyrants and assorted international criminals. This is virtually unknown to the American public, thanks to the freest media on earth."[4]-John Pilger

cordial relationship? UK and US or G Bush and T Blair? American been killing British troops and they dont even go to trial, cordial?--Halaqah 02:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citations

I cleaned up a lot of citations on the page. If someone could help with the Cabinet section, that would be great. Also, we still need someone to verify the Farsi links -- I've had no luck finding anyone. If anyone has any Farsi-reading friends they could recruit, that would be fantastic. Vir4030 18:18, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

Is it just me or is there no categories here? Khodavand 04:54, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps is is you, because I see pleanty of categories in the article -- Avi 13:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Anti-Semitic people

Despite the fact that I generally disagree with its existence, with David Duke invited to speak at a conference in Iran questioning the Holocaust I'm beginning to think that the usage of Category:Anti-Semitic people on this article might indeed be warranted. (→Netscott) 04:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The only thing that counters this thinking is the fact that Rabbis from Neturei Karta were also in attendance at this conference. (→Netscott) 05:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

And the fact that he doesn't hate Jews or want to see them exterminated. Thats another thing that might have a bearing on the inclusion. - Francis Tyers · 08:52, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Francis Tyers, in your point of view does a person denying the holocaust not qualify as antisemitic? (→Netscott) 08:58, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

There's an article about this convention now: International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust. (→Netscott) 09:09, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Ahmadinejad is not anti-semitic, he is anti-Zionist. There is a huge difference between being against Israel and being against Jews. There are plenty of Orthodox and Hassidic Jews who hate Israel and Zionism. Infact, Ahmadinejad met alot of them in New York, they wished him luck. There is a huge confusion going on, with people attempting to slam anyone speaking out against Zionism, as "anti-semites". I don't think Ahmadinejad belongs in the anti-semite section simply because he speaks out against Zionism. He never said he wanted Israel wiped off the map either, theres no words in Farsi to say that. He said he wanted Israel 'removed from the pages of history', and not in terms of war which is proven in this section Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel. Haramzadi 09:35, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Haramzadi, in your point of view does a person denying the holocaust not qualify as antisemitic? (→Netscott) 09:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Netscott -- Denying the holocaust can be anti-Semitic, and it may not be anti-Semitic. The two are linked, but not necessarily causative. For example, I can imagine someone who accepts the holocaust and is anti-Semitic, and someone who denies the holocaust and is not anti-Semitic. Going from the available evidence, I think that Ahmadinejad is not anti-Semitic, I have no opinion one way or another on the holocaust denial issue. - Francis Tyers · 10:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Francis Tyers, not even Neturei Karta is denying the holocaust... their contention is that the history of it is being abused in its use as a political tool. (→Netscott) 10:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

You mean you've never heard some fascist anti-Semitic asshole say something like "The problem with the Nazi's is that they didn't finish the job?" — accepting the Holocaust, yet lamenting that more Jews didn't die? - Francis Tyers · 10:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually you're clouding the discussion. I'm specifically talking about the act of denying the Holocaust (I think even going so far as to question the veracity of it even occurring) as being antisemitic. (→Netscott) 10:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

It isn't anti-Semitic any more than it is anti-Roma, anti-Communist, anti-Homosexual, anti-Serb, Polonophobic, anti-Socialist, etc. One might say that it is anti-Human, do we have a category for Anti-Human people? I'm sure he dislikes homosexuals much more than he dislikes Jews, after all, hasn't he ordered homosexuals to be killed? Not so for Jews. Do we have a Category for "anti-Homosexual people"? No. You cannot conflate with such certain ease, anti-Semitism & Holocaust denial. - Francis Tyers · 10:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

(outdenting) That argument may be a little disingenuous, Francis, as most people denying the Holocaust do so in spec ific reference to the Jews. -- Avi 12:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Avi -- there are indeed anti-Semites, and there are indeed people who are really upset about Israel, and sometimes those circles do indeed overlap. But to say that holocaust denial, in and of itself, is inherently anti-Semitic (and not, for instance, anti-gay or anti-Roma), seems deeply problematic to me. Holocaust denial is certainly bullshit, of course, and it is doubtless a tool of anti-Semites. But an encyclopedia does not have the right, I think, to ascribe particular motives to intellectual lapses or even mass delusions.

For instance: It seems clear that the idiots in Iran are convening a debate club meant to undercut the political and moral reasoning behind the creation of the Israeli nation-state. It seems clear to me, too, that some of them hold a fierce prejudice against any and all Jews. Someone within that band of idiots who specifically expresses hatred for Jews as a people could (and should) certainly be described, individually, as anti-Semitic, if we've got a notable source confirming the statements. But to declare the entire band of idiots (or any other band of idiots gathered for a similar purpose) "Anti-Semitic" by definition seems to me unencyclopedic, because doing so would equate a political position (opposition to Zionism) with a religious prejudice against all Jews, even those Jews who oppose Zionism. I don't believe that's what's going on here. BYT 13:42, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Ahmadnejad's comments at the conference is summarized by Yahoo at [1] - including "Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out." I'd say the category is clearly deserved. Simesa 19:09, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

So people who wanted to see the Soviet Union fall hated Communists or Russians? - Francis Tyers · 19:16, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

We've been through this all before. There is consensus that MA is an anti-zionist. There is no consensus that he is anti-semitic, nor is there a consensus that anti-zionism automatically means anti-semitism. The last time we had the discussion, we did get consensus to include the page in the "antisemitism" category, and that is what the page is like now. I doubt that we will get consensus for "Anti-Semitic People" unless MA comes straight out and says "I hate the Jews". The other thing is that this will all be more clear once he's dead and we're able to review his life as a whole. At that point, I think it will be much easier to label him anti-semitic if all of his acts collectively warrant it. In the meantime, we have to follow WP:BOLP, which says that we can't label him an anti-semite unless there's clear-cut evidence, which naturally he's not going to provide, whether he is or not. So it seems like something we're just going to have to live with. Vir4030 19:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree, although the Anti-Semitism category is also inappropriate, it is less inappropriate than the Anti-Semitic people category — I suppose mistakes happen in achieving consensus :) I wholeheartedly agree that, providing he remains notable enough, the situation will become much easier once he is dead. - Francis Tyers · 01:06, 13 December 2006 (UTC)