Ahmadinejad, the toast of the Big Apple

by Larry Chin
Sep. 29, 2007

That’s toast, as in burned to a crisp.

It's clear from the way in which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was treated on his visit to New York that not only will he remain the target of massive scapegoating as a "terrorist," but the US fully intends to attack Iran, and the American public will enthusiastically support it, if and when it happens.

Ahmadinejad, whose visit was “decried” by scores of US politicians and “civic leaders," has spent the length of Monday, September 24, being sandbagged and openly blasted and baited endlessly at both Columbia University, and at the National Press Club, where the questions from so-called reporters and journalists consisted of nothing but waves of attacks, character assassinations, and accusations. The US media is clearly, openly, and aggressively serving as the propaganda weapon of the CIA and Bush/Cheney and hawkish neoliberals.

The Iranian president was in the ultimate no-win situation, the ultimate Orwellian trap. When he attempted to answer impossible questions reasonably, he was attacked. When he stated (correctly) that anti-Iran reporting was the result of US government distortions, he was attacked, and made to sound like a nutcase.

The centerpiece of the propaganda campaign against the current number one strawman, Ahmadinejad, was authorities refusing to allow him to visit Ground Zero. This proved, once again, that the original mass propaganda effect of 9/11 remains fully in effect. Iran had nothing to do with 9/11. No connection whatsoever, even if one completely accepts the Bush administration’s official story. Yet in the minds of so many brain-addled Americans, Iran is the ultimate "terrorist."

Of course, only those watching this unfold minute-by-minute on C-SPAN will ever know how rudely Ahmadinejad was treated. Corporate media sound bites will certainly frame him the way Dick Cheney wants him framed.

Whichever figure the White House chooses as its boogeyman is accepted as such, without question. Criminality on the part of the US government never enters the thought process.

The Iranian president, of course, knows that his visit will be seen differently, everywhere outside the fiercely protected bubble of the United States. But that won’t matter.

At the same time Ahmadinejad was defending himself, Senator Joe Lieberman was on the floor of Congress demanding action against Iran, spewing lies, pushing legislation that paves the way for military action against Iran .

Is it any wonder that as America tunes in to PBS to get patriotic and riled up about Ken Burns’ corporate-financed World War II documentary, The War, the US government is systematically setting up another atrocity right under their noses?