Iranian leader tells off CBS reporter

[Kanada Kev]

It really goes to show how the media are the biggest perpetrators of false information and fear mongering. This reporter bastardizes the journalistic profession and should be fired, IMHO.

Much to the chagrin of the Bush gov't, this is the kind of dialogue from Ahmadinejad that they don't want the public to hear. The demonizing of the Iranian people is tragic. The gov't is quick to tell everyone how evil Iran is, rather than educating the public on what Iran is really like and its people.

http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Iranian_leader_tells_off_CBS_reporter_0921.html

Iranian leader tells off CBS reporter: 'You don't represent 300 million people'

RAW STORY

Published: Friday September 21, 2007

In an interview with an 'objective' CBS reporter who continued to express opinions about his his visit to Ground Zero, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad returned fire. The interview is scheduled to air on 60 Minutes. Excerpts:

Asked if he intends to press his request to visit the World Trade Center site, Ahmadinejad tells 60 Minutes Scott Pelley, "Well, it was included in my program. If we have the time and the conditions are conducive, I will try to do that."

"But the New York Police Department and others do not appear to want you there. Do you intend to go there anyway?" Pelley asks.

"Well, over there, local officials need to make the necessary coordinations. If they can't do that, I won't insist," the president replies.

"Sir, what were you thinking? The World Trade Center site is the most sensitive place in the American heart, and you must have known that visiting there would be insulting to many, many Americans," Pelley says.

"Why should it be insulting?" Ahmadinejad asks.

"Well, sir, you're the head of government of an Islamist state that the United States government says is a major exporter of terrorism around the world," Pelley says.

"Well, I wouldn't say that what American government says is is the prerequisite here. Something happened there which led to other events. Many innocent people were killed there. Some of those people were American citizens obviously. We obviously are very much against any terrorist action and any killing. And also we are very much against any plots to sow the seeds of discord among nations," Ahmadinejad replies. "Usually you go to these sites to pay your respects. And also to perhaps to air your views about the root causes of such incidents. I think that when I do that, I will be paying, as I said earlier, my respect to the American nation."

"But the American people, sir, believe that your country is a terrorist nation, exporting terrorism in the world," Pelley says. "You must have known that visiting the World Trade Center site would infuriate many Americans."

"Well, I'm amazed. How can you speak for the whole of the American nation?" Ahmadinejad says. "You are representing a media and you're a reporter. The American nation is made up of 300 million people. There are different points of view over there."

Edited September 22, 2007 by Guest

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Geez, Reagan went to Bitburg cemetery in 1985. What respect was being paid to whom then? Anyway, 9/11 was carried out by Sunnis (Wahhabis, more precisely), not Shi'ites. Why do reporters seem to be so stubborn about not recognising these differences? (Yes, Hizbollah is a troubling bunch of people, and that needs to be addressed.)

And it's a pity the reporter was too focussed on his agenda to point out that Ahmadinejad doesn't speak or act for all Iranians, either.

I think you're spot on, though, KK; the US standard-issue media and the gov't go very much into this kind of thing not wanting people to learn about anything of what real Iran is like.

Hell, I bet at this very moment there's a bunch of sketched-out pharmie kids going into a discrete little club in Tehran getting ready to dance themselves silly and somehow get home without being busted by the cops for anything. I can relate to those values on some level.

Those are among the real people who would be hurt by any US assault. Them, and the Zoroastrians, and the Baha'is, and the Ahmadiyyas, and the Christians (the Bushes have made it such that there are pretty much no more living indigenous Christians in Iraq anymore), and the moderate Shi'a, and, well, everybody, and that's the majority, who aren't the extremists-in-need-of-dealing-with.

Crazy-making.