And may God strike me down were it to be other-- Aaaagh!!
"In the near future, Allah willing, we will put you to trial in courts established by the peoples."
I was struck by the illogic of this remark from the deeply unhinged Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in response to George W. Bush's State of the Union address of Tuesday night. In it, Bush described Iran as "a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people", went on to point out that the Iranian regime sponsors terrorism throughout the Middle East and concluded with a veiled incitement to uprising of the Iranian people. In response, Ahmadinejad dismissed the US Administration as "people whose arms are submerged up to the elbows in the blood of other nations" and went on to prophesy Bush's imminent trial.
OK, first of all, the metaphor could have been stronger. I mean, "up to the elbows" really isn't much blood at all. Surely the Islamic gift for sanguinary imagery can do better than a washing-up bowl of blood? Secondly, given that Ahmadinejad was addressing crowds in a town where the Russians are building Iran a nuclear "power station", the contrast couldn't be clearer: if it comes down to either being up to the elbows in the blood of other nations that systematically yet indiscrimintely murdered their own people, or being up to the elbows in the blood of my own people, then I know whose bloody forearms I'd rather have.
Anyway, to the point. "Allah willing", Bush will soon be put on trial by the Iranian people. Yes, and Allah willing, I will soon be swinging naked on a trapeze with Eliza Dushku on one side and that girl from Waterstone's on the other. The sheer, staggering unlikelihood of Bush ever standing trial before an Iranian peoples' court must surely betray the foolishness of invoking the deity in such remarks. It is presumably the belief of the drooling Ahmadinejad that Allah does indeed will it that Bush stand trial before an Iranian peoples' court. And when, twenty, thirty, forty years from now, Bush dies a rich, free (although not necessarily guilt-free) man, as he inevitably will, what will be Ahmadinejad's conclusions? Will he conclude that evidently Allah did not will it that Bush stand trial before an Iranian peoples' court? Will he take it as a refutation from on high of his rabid fundamentalism? I doubt it, sadly.
I was struck by the illogic of this remark from the deeply unhinged Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in response to George W. Bush's State of the Union address of Tuesday night. In it, Bush described Iran as "a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people", went on to point out that the Iranian regime sponsors terrorism throughout the Middle East and concluded with a veiled incitement to uprising of the Iranian people. In response, Ahmadinejad dismissed the US Administration as "people whose arms are submerged up to the elbows in the blood of other nations" and went on to prophesy Bush's imminent trial.
OK, first of all, the metaphor could have been stronger. I mean, "up to the elbows" really isn't much blood at all. Surely the Islamic gift for sanguinary imagery can do better than a washing-up bowl of blood? Secondly, given that Ahmadinejad was addressing crowds in a town where the Russians are building Iran a nuclear "power station", the contrast couldn't be clearer: if it comes down to either being up to the elbows in the blood of other nations that systematically yet indiscrimintely murdered their own people, or being up to the elbows in the blood of my own people, then I know whose bloody forearms I'd rather have.
Anyway, to the point. "Allah willing", Bush will soon be put on trial by the Iranian people. Yes, and Allah willing, I will soon be swinging naked on a trapeze with Eliza Dushku on one side and that girl from Waterstone's on the other. The sheer, staggering unlikelihood of Bush ever standing trial before an Iranian peoples' court must surely betray the foolishness of invoking the deity in such remarks. It is presumably the belief of the drooling Ahmadinejad that Allah does indeed will it that Bush stand trial before an Iranian peoples' court. And when, twenty, thirty, forty years from now, Bush dies a rich, free (although not necessarily guilt-free) man, as he inevitably will, what will be Ahmadinejad's conclusions? Will he conclude that evidently Allah did not will it that Bush stand trial before an Iranian peoples' court? Will he take it as a refutation from on high of his rabid fundamentalism? I doubt it, sadly.
posted by Novus at 19:31
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