The US delegation made a very public point of angrily walking out today during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech (PDF) at the United Nations. The speech criticized the occupation of the Palestinian territories, the US occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, and called for a UN fact-finding investigation into the 9/11 attacks.
That, and the condemnations of capitalism and exhortations to embrace religion made the speech a relatively pedestrian one for the Iranian president. But the opportunity to be publicly outraged by him is not one to be missed, no matter the context.
The spokesman for the US delegation Mark Kornblau issued a statement almost immediately after the faux-impromptu walkout, declaring that President Ahmadinejad was spouting “vile conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic slurs” and adding that it was “predictable.”
Ironically President Ahmadinejad seems to have foreseen this condemnation, insisting that everyone opposing the occupation of Palestinian territories is called an anti-Semite and that “all values, even freedom of expression, in Europe and in the United States are being sacrificed at the altar of Zionism.”
So to make a long story short, none of the speech seems to have been a surprise, none of the “outraged response” seems to have been a surprise, and none of the response to the response seems to be a surprise. The speech served as little but an opportunity for everyone to pretend to be riled up once again about issues that they have constantly been railing about.
only if the us government could keep walking… Walking and walking off our planet…
Is the US delegation composed of children or just reactionary cretins?
Hundreds of scientists, engineers, architects, and aviation personnel do not believe "The 9/11 Commission Report" — http://patriotsquestion911.com/, and I challenge any US government official to debate me on this issue.
Read "9/11 Unveiled" — available FREE at http://www.twf.org/Library/911Unveiled.html — and see if you can rebut it. I personally gave this book to President Ahmadinejad at a private dinner on September 20.
Enver Masud
Founder, The Wisdom Fund
What a surprise
There's an easy solution to this problem. All Iran has to do is replace their government with some pliant oligarchs, who will then sell off public assets at fire sale prices to insolvent multinationals, who will then arbitrage Iran's import and export markets until the country is broke. Then Iran can reduce itself to penury by eliminating taxes for the wealthy and foreign businesses, and taking out loans from the World Bank and the IMF, the interest on which to be paid by sucking the blood out of the most vulnerable segments of society.
It's so simple. Why is Iran so intransigent?
He's 100% correct. Until we get to the bottom of 911 the USA is pretty much over as a nation.
Those planes disintegrated, the buildings crumbled to dust, BUT LOOK A PASSPORT!
What a joke.
What's "predictable" is juvenile petulance on display by U.S. diplomats. Boorish. Jeez Kornblau, the world already knows the U.S. has it's national knickers in a knot over Iran. Did you think that President Ahmadinejad expected you to act any differently? "We're walking out and we don't like you or your mommy." Brilliant Kornblau, childishly playgroundishly profoundly unprofessional.
Iran bad, U.S. good. Yup. Hey Kornblau? How many innocent Afghans, Pakistanis, Iraqis, and proPalestinian Americans have been slaughtered on this fine day? Ummm, who's "predictable?"
It's pretty sad when the American people have to depend on foreign leaders to tell them what their government has been up to for the past ten years.
If you listen to the entire speech instead of the one or two lines taken out of context, it actually was not that outrageous and a lot of it could possibly be right on the nose.
I saw a list of countries that joined the US in walking out and if that was the entire list, it was not much of an affirmation of the official US government story. More of a rebuke, really.
Just the loyal house servants who automatically follow under any circumstance.
Lost in translation. If my primary language was not English, I would refuse to speak before the UN committees. I heard the translator translate "some people have said" prior to his statement about the US involvement in 9/11. Not much attention has been given to those words. I would like to know how the Arabic nations heard the speech. His previous statement to the effect that "Israel would not be around for long and may be wiped off the map" has been given legs by the Israelis and the US that it did not originally have. Our problem is maybe in the translation and not in the message. Can you imagine how peaceful the world might be if we paid for better translations.?
It wouldn't disturb me in the least if we walked out of the UN and didn't return. It does us no tangible good and if some member nations had their way, would threaten our soverignity, starting with the ptobability that American troops would be placed under foreign command – as happened in the Sudan when US forces were accountable to an Italian general – and ending with the possibllity that American troops could be tried – not by their own – but by a tribunal made up of foreigners.
Judging from this article, it would seem that Mr. Ahmadinejad's speech was very reasonable – especially his point about calling for a new investigation into the events of 9/11. The original investigation was underfunded and was designed to flush legitimate questions surrounding the events of 9/11 down "the memory hole" as quickly as possible. A virtual mountain of new evidence, and the deaths of millions as a consequence of the Middle Eastern wars that were a direct result of the 9/11 catastrophe, demand a new and honest investigation immediately.
The reason the US delagation walked out is because they have heard it all before by their own citizens.
Many, many many times, and they know it to be true!