Originally Posted by
casseia
Regarding the "Israel should be wiped off the map" remark: I've heard that the translation here was pretty damn biased, and what he really said was something along the lines of "Wouldn't it be better if a state like Israel did not exist?" That works for people who think Israel as it is presently constituted is an apartheid state like South Africa used to be, but who don't agree that Israel should be "pushed into the sea."
Regarding the hanging of gays: I'm convinced that Iran has a terrible record vis-a-vis human rights for gay people and, obviously, women. However, what I learned from the build-up to the Iraq war is that the US propaganda machine will shamelessly take advantage of progressive sympathy for gay rights and women's rights. Remember how many times we were told that Saddam's sons just raped any woman they wanted to with impunity? They probably did, but from what I've heard, Iraqi women in general are now much, much less safe from sexual violence than they were when Saddam was running the show. My point is that war is definitely not going to fix these human rights abuses, but the abuses are always used to get people psyched for war.
My own personal jury is still out on Ahmadinejad. My major concern is that for some nefarious reason he's in cahoots with powers in the US that want war -- just a suspicion that creeps up on me from time to time. I do like the fact that both he and the Syrian ambassador have both made a point of addressing the American people directly.