United Liberty

Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a speech last Friday at the UN which caused US “diplomats” to pack up their toys and run home.

In his speech to the annual General Assembly, Ahmadinejad said it was mostly U.S. government officials who believed a terrorist group was behind the suicide hijacking attacks that brought down New York’s World Trade Center and hit the Pentagon.

Another theory, he said, was “that some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy, and its grips on the Middle East, in order to save the Zionist regime” — his way of characterizing Israel.

“The majority of the American people as well as most nations and politicians around the world agree with this view,” Ahmadinejad told the 192-nation assembly.

Shortly after walking out of the speech like spoiled little children, the US envoy responded by written statement claiming Iran’s president had offered up “vile conspiracies” and “anti-Semitism”. Even if you accept that the translation of his statements are perfectly correct, it isn’t clear at all that he claimed to believe the conspiracy himself, merely that a large number of people outside US government circles believed them.

Ahmadinijad appears well-informed though his claim that a majority think 9/11 was in inside job is stretching what we know. He’s correct that there is a large number of people who do not accept the government’s claim that it is entirely blameless (either by blunder or covert activities). Several polls have been conducted over the years and according to some, up to 70% of the American people do not accept the official story.

Iran’s President is pointing out the US Government’s horrendous credibility problem, not only among its own people, but also inhabitants of other countries who have watched its Administrations bully defenseless nations in the Middle East for a very long time. What truly upset the US delegation is the fact that Ahmedinejad pointed it out in such a public forum.

The US has been meddling in the Middle East for almost 100 years (since WWI); in countries which pose no threat to Americans (or certainly didn’t before such policies were implemented) but produce the resources that make its economy tick. US policies have created, and used, the very terrorism its representatives claim to abhor.

While there is some satisfaction seeing US diplomats squirm, their response and the aforementioned US actions are an abomination. If you’re a US citizen and have a conscience, the number of innocent people killed as US forces went chasing what the government currently admits is now only about 100 Al Qaeda boogie men, can’t be easily rationalized. Rational adults don’t walk out with such pomp, especially if one is sincere in obtaining common ground.

What Iran’s president said, if the translations is correct, was that the number of people who do not trust this government and do not believe what it says, is far larger than those who accept the word of its representatives. It was certainly a middle finger raised up to the Trotskyites who have taken over US foreign policy. One would expect them to squirm, but they are supposed to be representing ideals far larger than their obviously over-inflated egos would allow them to acknowledge, yet which they drape around them as justification at every opportunity.

Whatever one thinks of Ahmadinejad, it’s hard to dispute that the US has a serious credibility and image problem. It has no business lecturing anyone on its nuclear programs, especially not countries who are signatories to the non-proliferation treaty and which have not violated its provisions.

Friday’s walk-out is further evidence that policy makers and bureaucrats cannot admit that any credibility gap exists, further exacerbating its credibility issues.

To the rational people abroad and in the US, it does not go un-noticed that all of this self-righteous indignation originates amongst officials working for the only nuclear-capable country that has dropped its technology on civilian populations.

Contrary to implications by Bush and Obama administration officials, Iran is nowhere near developing the capability to produce nuclear material suitable for weaponization and have stated they have no intention of doing so. Most lay-people have no idea of the technical realities with regard to the production of nuclear weaponry which works completely in favor of those who wrongly interpret the data, either intentionally or accidentally.

The general belief that Iran is dangerously close to doing this or that it has violated any conditions of its treaty agreements is the result of a relentless campaign of propaganda by US officials and Neoconservative ideologues, aided by an alleged “liberal” media that has yet to seriously analyze erroneous interpretations of US intelligence statements made by journalists and opinion writers alike.

Like the infantile show of faux indignation, the statement issued by US officials was absurd and insulting to the American public it claims to be protecting.

Rather than representing the aspirations and goodwill of the Iranian people, Mr. Ahmadinejad has yet again chosen to spout vile conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic slurs that are as abhorrent and delusional as they are predictable

The correct response would have been to ignore the statement rather than jump down in the mud with Ahmadinejad, if one was sincere in the belief that his statements were totally false and irrelevant. The diplomats assigned to the UN have actually done more to discredit themselves (and the US government) and draw attention to Ahmadinejad’s comments than almost anything they could have otherwise managed.

While it’s probably fair to draw the conclusion that the obviously scripted walk-out, in which several European nations and Israel also participated, was intended to deflect attention away from its own credibility problems and toward Iran’s “kooky” President, it is also fair to conclude that our US envoys and State Department are not staffed by people who show any serious diplomatic qualities. They are like little children who seem to be more interested in mocking the process of diplomacy than engaging in it.

In a perfect world, these diplomats would be fired and replaced with mature adults.

UPDATE: It would seem that Obama tends to agree. Speaking to Rolling Stone Magazine about democrat voters he said:  ”if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren’t serious in the first place.”  — exactly.