Let the Man Speak

If you've seen any news media today, I'm sure you've caught a headline, snippet or photo of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I can't help but feel disappointed at the vitriol and hatred that is filling this country over this man.

It's still unclear to me what his claim to infamy is; the worst I can see is that he's a holocaust denier, which, for me, puts him in the same bag as flat earthers. However, Ahmadinejad isn't anti-Jewish - Iran has a sizable Jewish population that lives under perfectly acceptable conditions - so it must be that he's anti-Israel. I know this isn't news; the U.S. has a history of being rabidly pro-Israel, but at the end of the day Israel is not the 51st state and the U.S. has no obligation to make Israel's enemies into the U.S.'s enemies. Furthermore, it's not like Israel is a saintly country that has never done wrong. Yet, this dishonest intertwining of Israel's bogeymen and our own has tainted this country for far too long. Glenn Greenwald asks the right question:

[I]sn't it long past time to have the discussion about the extent to which the U.S. is willing to wage war on behalf of Israel's interests? Do Americans really think that Iranian hostility towards Israel or its support for "terrorists groups" that are hostile to Israel are grounds for declaring Iran to be our Enemy or waging war against them? If so, then let proponents of war with Iran make that case expressly.

All this fear and hatred has contributed to preventing Ahmadinejad to visit Ground Zero and attempting to preventing him from speaking at Columbia University. Last year Columbia canceled an invitation to him after pressure from Jewish groups, but this year he will speak. Columbia usually handles these things horribly, but this time I'm glad they made the right decision and stuck to it (full disclosure: I'm an alum). Like the man or not, Ahmadinejad is a world leader and should have a platform with which to air his views and have them questioned.

I want to know what is so horrible about this man that he shouldn't even be allowed to speak. Has this country become so blinded by lies and weak that we can't bear to listen to the point of view of someone who disagrees with us?