A striking bit of journalistic malpractice seems to have affected
the mainstream media web sites this morning, as news site after news
site failed to provide their readers with the transcript of Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speech last night to the United Nations.
As of noon at ABC News, it is as if Ahmadinejad never spoke, as their was no reference to his address in front of the United Nations on their Web site’s front page, and is notably absent from the headlines of their political section as well. I had to search Google News to find this report on their site, which did not link to the transcript, nor provide Ahmadinejad's closing remarks.
Likewise, Ahmadinejad’s speech was not easily found on the CBS News site, and when an article was found buried below the fold of their International news section, their story, as well, did not provide a transcript nor a summation of his closing remarks.
The New York Times had Bush's transcript from hours before, but couldn't be troubled to run that of the Iranian President. CNN did likewise.
The Boston Globe, Fox News, MSNBC, and most other news organizations also failed to either discuss the apocalyptic overtones of the Iranian President's remarks, or provide a transcript from easily available wire reports. To their credit, the Washington Post at least provided the transcript far down on their World News page, though they provided precious little commentary otherwise.
What is the reason the world media was apparently so eager to bury the content what was a highly anticipated speech by Iran’s flamboyant President?
It was likely his dark conclusion:
Whether we like it or not, justice, peace and virtue will sooner or later prevail in the world, with the will of the almighty God. It is imperative and also desirable that we, too, contribute to the promotion of justice and virtue.The almighty and merciful God, who is the creator of the universe, is also its lord and ruler. Justice is his command. He commands his creatures to support one another in good, virtue, and piety, and not in decadence and corruption.
He commands his creatures to enjoin one another to righteousness and virtue, and not to sin and transgression. All divine prophets, from the prophet Adam, peace be upon him, to the prophet Moses, to the prophet Jesus Christ, to the prophet Mohammad, have all called humanity to monotheism, justice, brotherhood, love and compassion.
Is it not possible to build a better world based on monotheism, justice, love and respect for the rights of human beings and thereby transform animosities into friendship?
I emphatically declare that today's world, more than ever before, longs for just and righteous people, with love for all humanity, and, above all, longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet.
Oh, almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirst for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and makers among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause.
This same Iranian President spoke in front of the United Nations previously on September 17, 2005, a fact also missing from many news accounts of the last week. Those that did mention Ahmadinejad's September speech uniformly left off the fact that Ahmadinejad claimed that his September speech in Front of the same United Nations chamber was touched by the Divine:
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad says that when he delivered his speech at the UN General Assembly in September, he felt there was a light around him and that the attention of the world leaders in the audience was unblinkingly focused upon him. The claim has caused a stir in Iran, as a transcript and video recording of Ahmadinejad's comments have been published on an Iranian website, baztab.com. There are also reports that a CD showing Ahmadinejad making the comments also has been widely distributed in Iran. Is the Iranian president claiming to be divinely inspired?Prague, 29 November 2005 (RFE/RL) -- According the report by baztab.com, President Ahmadinejad made the comments in a meeting with one of Iran's leading clerics, Ayatollah Javadi Amoli.
Ahmadinejad said that someone present at the UN told him that a light surrounded him while he was delivering his speech to the General Assembly. The Iranian president added that he also sensed it.
"He said when you began with the words 'in the name of God,' I saw that you became surrounded by a light until the end [of the speech]," Ahmadinejad appears to say in the video. "I felt it myself, too. I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there, and for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blink."
Ahmadinejad adds that he is not exaggerating.
"I am not exaggerating when I say they did not blink; it's not an exaggeration, because I was looking," he says. "They were astonished as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic."
During this same speech, Ahmadinejad called for the near-term reappearance of the 12th Imam, who he feels will redeem the world through an apocalypse he feels his sect has the right and responsibility to create. As I noted in August, the mullahcracy that runs Iran belongs to the apocalyptic Hojjatieh sect, a branch of Shia Islam so radical it was banned in 1983 by Ayatollah Khomeini. Their views are, to put it mildly, are startling:
...rooted in the Shiite ideology of martyrdom and violence, the Hojjatieh sect adds messianic and apocalyptic elements to an already volatile theology. They believe that chaos and bloodshed must precede the return of the 12th Imam, called the Mahdi. But unlike the biblical apocalypse, where the return of Jesus is preceded by waves of divinely decreed natural disasters, the summoning of the Mahdi through chaos and violence is wholly in the realm of human action. The Hojjatieh faith puts inordinate stress on the human ability to direct divinely appointed events. By creating the apocalyptic chaos, the Hojjatiehs believe it is entirely in the power of believers to affect the Mahdi’s reappearance, the institution of Islamic government worldwide, and the destruction of all competing faiths.
Ahmadinejad's speech last night echoed his beliefs last night. When he stated, "Whether we like it or not, justice, peace and virtue will sooner or later prevail in the world," sooner is now and later is a point that eerily seems to coincide with when many intelligence experts feel Iran may have the capability to build a functional nuclear weapon, and bring about the man-made Armageddon that the Hojjatieh sect feels is their obligation to Allah.
This leads us back full-circle to ask once more why major U.S. and world media outlets have largely refused to issue transcripts of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech last night to the United Nations, and why they chose to embargo his dramatic closing provided above.
I submit that if the media covered Ahmadinejad's full remarks including the religious references that they clearly and cleverly omitted, then they would have to confront the scope of the clear and present danger that the Iranian regime presents to the rest of the world. Admitting this danger goes against the carefully crafted narrative that they have led themselves to believe, a narrative that they have passed along to their readers and viewers that the United States and Israel are the root causes of problems in the Middle East.
To admit the dangers of the intertwining of Iranian nuclear weapons development with a radical and apocalyptic eschatology is to admit that President George W. Bush is correct in his determination to prevent Iran from developing the ability to effect a religious nuclear war. It is to admit that there are far greater dangers to our freedoms than terrorist surveillance programs and chilled members of al Qaeda.
To admit that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad means precisely what he says, and has said time and again, is to admit to larger dangers that neither the press nor the Democratic party they overwhelming support can admit. To admit to the truth—to show what Iran and its leader represent as a threat to the world—is to shatter a carefully crafted illusion they have formulated that most of the problems of the world originate at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
When faced with revealing a truth that would create cognitive dissonance, the media has made the subconscious decision to simply excise, and then ignore, the facts that undercut their "larger truth." They’d rather risk lives than admit the possibility that President Bush's concerns about a nuclear-armed Iran are precisely on target.
They aren't scared about the possibility of millions of people dying. That are far more fearful that the President is right, and that the world they've created for themselves is all too wrong.
Cross-posted at Confederate Yankee.
