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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was treated to a humiliating and public dressing down when he appeared at a top US university Monday, where he was described as a "petty and cruel dictator."The firebrand president's appearance at Columbia University came a day ahead of his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, but his presence here has sparked bitter controversy, notably because of his outspoken stance on Israel.Booed, cheered and strongly challenged on his views on the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad seemed to take the challenges in his stride, but complained of "unfriendly treatment" at the hands of the New York university.He used his appearance to reject his label of a Holocaust denier, to insist the Islamic republic had the right to pursue a civilian nuclear energy program and to deny Tehran was seeking nuclear weapons.But before he even spoke, the Iranian leader, whose appearance had sparked outrage notably among US politicians and the Jewish community, sat through 10 minutes of broadsides from university president Lee Bollinger."Mr President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," Bollinger told Ahmadinejad, accusing him of brutal crackdowns on the country's academics and homosexuals."Why are you so afraid of Iranian citizens expressing their opinions for change?" he asked, challenging the leader of the Islamic republic to explain his comments downplaying the Holocaust."Frankly, in all candor Mr President, I doubt you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions," he added."When you come to a place like this, this makes you quite simply ridiculous. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated," he said.When he did get to his feet, wearing a white open-necked shirt and gray suit, Ahmadinejad accused Bollinger of a "wave of insults and allegations" while largely avoiding any direct answers to any of Bollinger's challenges.After initially seeming a little flustered, Ahmadinejad grew more relaxed as he got into his stride to accuse the United States of trying to block Iran's legitimate desire to achieve scientific progress in its atomic program."We do not believe in nuclear weapons.Period.It goes against the whole grain of humanity," he said.Smiling and occasionally laughing as he explained Iran's culture and outlook on the world, Ahmadinejad drew the biggest jeers from students for stating that his country had no homosexuals."In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country,"he said to howls and boos."In Iran we don't have this phenomenon,I don't know who told you this."When questioned on comments he has made in the past over the mass killing of the Jews during World War II, he said:"I'm not saying that it didn't happen at all... I said 'given that it happened'".Ahmadinejad, who has called for the destruction of Israel and questioned the scale of the Holocaust, earlier said he was open to meeting survivors of the devastating Nazi pogrom.Speaking via satellite to Washington's National Press Club he said Iran was working with UN nuclear inspectors and downplayed talk that the United States and Iran are on a collision course to war."We think that talk of war is a propaganda tool. Why is there a need for a war?" he asked.The UN Security Council has adopted three resolutions against Iran. Two include sanctions because of Iran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment.Asked about Iraq, Ahmadinejad again denied Iran was providing advanced weapons to Shiite extremists to use against US troops."We think, in fact, the (US) military should seek an answer to its defeat in Iraq elsewhere," he said, insisting Tehran wanted a stable Iraq on its border.Outside Columbia, protestors gathered to vent their fury that the Iranian leader had been given a venue to speak out, with one protester chanting: "Stop Ahmadinejad, the Hitler of Iran."The New York Post headlined its story of Ahmadinejad's appearance at Columbia "Madman Guest of Dishonor," after earlier crying "Evil has Landed."The tabloid press led a public outcry over a request by Ahmadinejad to visit the Ground Zero site of New York's World Trade Center, whose twin towers were felled in the September 11 attacks of 2001.His intended visit to what many Americans view as hallowed ground was nixed by New York police for security reasons. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said such a visit would have been a "travesty."http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070924225252.klmczhdo&show_article=1
As in the days of Noah...
