Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a modern Hitler?

[Arcticfox]

This guy rants quite a bit, and seems to speak to his people the way Hitler did in Germany. Does anyone believe his threats are credible? Or is he just a blow hard. After all, Iranians (as a lot) tend to throw tantrums and yell and scream about everything.

Question to ponder:

A) Sit back and be patient? He may not be plotting anything. Think of the lives we save by not sending out troops to yet another front. Does anyone really know for sure that they are going to use those nukes?

B) Strike first and send them back to the stone age. Of course, you know that would incite hatred for the US throughout the Muslim world. World war three for sure, don't you think?

So I ask this: Are all the signs staring us blarringly in the face that this guy is a maniac, and needs to be stopped? Is he REALLY comparable to the evil magnitude of hitler? Or just another little hitler, like Saddam?

 

[hankdatank1362]

I'm guessing this should go into legal and political...

where no sane man dares to tread.

 

[Durruti]

you know that would incite hatred for the US throughout the Muslim world

Imagine that

 

[real_name]

Wow, Godwin's law in post number one!

Are you sure you want to mention Hitler?
Are you sure you want to lose the argument?​

 

[mustanger98]

Before a certain Moderator locks this thread, you might want to take it over to Armed Polite Society. But I agree that he's a modern Hitler type.

 

[thexrayboy]

Yes this thread is not one for this venue.

Is Ahmadinejad a hitler? Only he knows for sure at the moment.
The potential exists but he still lacks the power Hitler acquired.

I for one don't believe his "peaceful intentions". The Muslim clerics
who back him and hold the real power in Iran are fundamentalists.
For them our very existence is an insult to Islam and we must die.
If Iran had the ability to destroy us they would, they are seeking that
ability now. When they acquire it they will try to destroy us. We have
been warned. Unfortunately too many Americans refuse to believe
that the current war on terror is really a fight to the death between
two religious camps. Islam in one camp and all other religions in the other.
You need not believe in any religion, they will gladly kill you for not believing
in Mohammed.

 

[Ivy Mike]

I'll go ahead and play liberal's advocate for just a moment.

Perhaps the reason we've gotten so much static from guys like Ahmadinejad is because of the position our government has taken and pushed via our foreign policy over the past 40 years.

Couldn't it be that they are so upset because we have pissed them off? Maybe 30 years of embargo have done nothing to win us favor with the people of Iran.

 

[Arcticfox]

Sorry I posted this to the wrong venue.

Is there a way to move it? Or would a moderator care to move it to a political thread?

 

[MatthewVanitas]

A little more devil's advocate:

We (the U.S.) overthrew their democratically elected government in 1953. This is a very well-document and undisputed fact.

We then backed up their totalitarian and out-of-touch Shah, no matter what the actual Iranians thought of him. We kept him supplied with modern aircraft, training, and riot control gear for beating protestors. All the way up until Ayatollah Khomeini whipped up the masses and booted out the Shah in '79.

Just a little perspective.

-MV

 

[WolfMansDad]

The Iranian government is massively unpopular among the Iranian people, and by all accounts it is hanging on to power by a thread. Ahmadinejad and his handlers know this. All this talk about Israel, the U.S., and their nuclear program is just a distraction to keep the howling mob at bay. They are hoping that, if they can displace the people's anger away from them and towards a common enemy, they can stay in power.

Is he (and his bosses) dangerous? You bet! They are desperate, and desperate people are very dangerous. But they are desperate to stay in power, not to pick a fight. I doubt very seriously they are as crazy as the columnists are saying.

Is he a "modern Hitler"? Absolutely not. Hitler was both evil and the head of the worlds most powerful country at the time. Germany had an overwhelming military, scientific, and industrial advantage. Iran has nothing like that. Even if Ahmadinejad were as crazy as he sounds, he doesn't have the power to do much of anything about it. He's a lot like Robert Mugabe, just a pi**-ant little dictator trying to stay in power. I don't fear Iran's nukes any more than I fear North Korea's.

 

[Kaylee]

well, he certainly seems intent on seeing if he can best Hitler's body count of Jews.

Bushehr/Isfahan/Natanze/Arak + Shehab + Jihadi mindset == Not Good.

 

[MatthewVanitas]

B) Strike first and send them back to the stone age. Of course, you know that would incite hatred for the US throughout the Muslim world. World war three for sure, don't you think?

Actually, huge portions of the Muslim world would be _thrilled_ to see Iran wiped off the face of the Earth.

Iran is a Shiite country, considered by many Muslims to be vile heretics. At least Christians and Jews follow the One True God, albeit in an incomplete way, whereas the Sunnis view the Shiites as having rejected the true Islamic religion and adopted some perverse mockery of it.

Put it this way: how much do Southern Baptists love Mormons?


Other Muslim nations also fear Iran's political/military/economic power. Overall, our taking out the competition would utterly delight many other nations.

-MV

 

[rangerruck]

hitler believed that the origional Aryians (persia) and germans should rule the world. Also the deal made between the grand mufti during ww2 and hitler directly, was Yassar( that smy baby) Arafat's Uncle, i do believe. even though ther germans and muslims hated each other, they had common goals and common enemies. The 48 war, between the Israelis and the 5 arab states, was planned , warning and op ordered by... that 's right the nazi's that didn't go to S. America, the ones that went to north Africa and the middle east.

 

[real_name]

hitler directly, was Yassar( that smy baby) Arafat's Uncle, i do believe.

No. The Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini was Yasser Arafat's uncle.

http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php

 

[MatthewVanitas]

even though ther germans and muslims hated each other, they had common goals and common enemies.

Ditto the Estonians, Hungarians, Armenians, Finns, British Fascists, etc. Plus a whole smattering of Hindu and Sikh fighters from British Colonial India (fought for both the Nazis and Imperial Japan). Not to mention practically any non-Russian territory owned by the Soviets.

All of the above contributed units to the Waffen SS. Google up the "Wiking" international SS division if curious.

-MV

 

[Cosmoline]

I love his letter to America.

"My Dear American Friends, Death to America."

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0612/S00059.htm

He spends most of it ranting about the Zionists. The man's a complete loon, like most of his cohorts. Eventually we're going to have to fight them.

 

[real_name]

MV, Mein Kampf is still a very popular book in India, I was there in '99 and had long discussions with college educated businessmen who believed Hitler was right.
That might have had something to do with me being an Englishman back then though.

 

[Grump]

Quote:
you know that would incite hatred for the US throughout the Muslim world
Imagine that

The very existence of any "infidel" who refused to "bow to Islam" is an insult to the so-called extremists who happen to take the writings of the Koran for exactly what they say.

I believe that their intolerance and spreading their faith by the sword has already made the atrocities of the apostate "christians" look like a cakewalk run by girlie-scouts.

Don't blame my christianity for what happened after about 200 AD, for their is a strong case in favor of concluding that original Christianity had fallen away by then, and in could not have remained in its true form by 300 AD.

Yeah, he's a Hitler wannabe, right down to his irrational denial of obvious historical facts and racist hatred of the Semites who took Caanan by conquest after Moses, and then BOUGHT a large chunk of its arable land from willing sellers before the UN decided to give 'em a homeland.

He's counting on us to quiver in frozen fear when he has one nuke, then to totally cave in after he uses a half-dozen. Does possession of WMD with scarecely-hidden genocidal intent constitute an immediate enough threat to civilization to warrant targeted interference with WMD capabilities? We should just build a series of reactors on their borders to supply the 'lectric they say they want, but have them all trip-wired with our own nukes to blow if they ever try to seize them. Iran cannot be trusted with even a peaceful nuke program.

There, I got both politics AND religion in the same post...in General Discussion..??

 

[Zundfolge]

The big difference between Ahmadinejad and Hitler is that Ahmadinejad is not in charge of Iran.

He's merely a figurehead, a puppet, a PR guy.

In the Iranian government the position of "President" is much more like the position of "Press Secretary" here in the US.

Ahmadinejad is the mouthpiece for the Ayatollahs that actually run the place (which is why our president talking to him is as much of a waste of time as discussing policy with the waiter in a Persian restaurant).



Now aside from that, the government of Iran is rather Fourth-Reich-ish.

 

[Limeyfellow]

The guy is not even close to Hitler's standard.

I would say he is closer to a muslim version of George Bush if anything. They use religion and makes comments of the endtimes and moral issues to get the base to vote for them. They also seem to both appeal to more rural citizens by claiming social conservatism and improving the poor of the country's living condition, except neither have really done much about it. This is done through appealing to patriotism and fear of change and lots of attack ads and labeling those who think different as traitors and enemies in a very black and white sense

They both seem to have a disturbing lack a knowledge in foreign affairs and diplomatic training. Thats resulted in a hell of alot of conflicts in the world today and greater distrust to both nations through the words of the leaders of each country. It has resulted in national interests and supporters interests taking over rather than whats good for everybody, or the planet.

Then both have ordered the start of investigating new nuclear technology, the US with nuclear bunker busters, pulled out of all the treaties associated with limiting them. Iran assumed to be with weapons and civilian reactor technology.

Compared to Hitler though, Ahmadinejad is a complete amataur without the charismatic power, ability to command and sheer brutalness.

 

[real_name]

He does however present Bush with an exit strategy, of a sort.

 

[Kaylee]

The guy is not even close to Hitler's standard

Hitler wasn't all that scary to a lot of folks in 1938 either.

I would say he is closer to a muslim version of George Bush if anything....

Patently absurd.
Find me one instance where Bush is saying anything like "the Afghans will burn in the fires of our hatred." The American military goes out of its way to try to minimize civilian casualties and accomodate foreign cultural norms, often to its own cost.

Ahmadinejad in contrast is vocally calling for an apocolypse and stating outright he intends genocide.

There's no comparison there.

As for the whole implicit "American Christian fundamentalists are as bad as militant Jihadis" nonsense in the rest of your post, I repeat the challenge:

There's been what.... maybe a dozen folks claiming to follow fundamentalist Christianity in the last twenty years going out to kill abortion doctors and suchlike? Oh, and the one "Militia" Tim McVeigh, who I'll throw in not becase he was a religous nutjob, but just 'cause he's the other favorite child for the moral equivalency crowd (and has the highest body count to pad the numbers a bit). And you know what? Pat Robertson and his ilk didn't go on TV and say "that's great, more people do that." No one rioted in the streets when McVeigh was given the sleepy-shot. No one kidnapped people off the street or held a school hostage demanding Eric Rudolph be freed. And no one's cutting off people's limbs, hanging minors for the sin of "seducing" dirty old men, and certainly not blowing themselves up in the local Chucky Cheese for God.

Again... once the death toll of all the domestic fundamentalist Christian (and McVeigh for good measure) in the last twenty-frickin years comes close to what the Jihadis pull off in your average month or two, you write back and we can talk moral equivalency.

 

[USSR]

The big difference between Ahmadinejad and Hitler is that Ahmadinejad is not in charge of Iran.

Ahmadinejad is the mouthpiece for the Ayatollahs that actually run the place (which is why our president talking to him is as much of a waste of time as discussing policy with the waiter in a Persian restaurant).

+1. Iran is a theocracy, with the mullahs determining the will of their God.

Don

 

[armoredman]

Wasn't there some factual evidence that this extremist version of Islam was actually partially sponsored by Hitler during WWII?

 

[Firehand]

Well, considering the constant 'We will kill all the Jews and unbelievers' from him and the bosses who support him, and the fact that they're working hard to develop nuclear weapons, I think we HAVE to honor the threat and take it seriously.

As to what to do, there are a lot of options, bombing the whole place isn't a good one. If it comes to it, striking the nuke facilities, yes. Aiding domestic resistance, yes. Pick your favorite from the long list.

And come on, there is nothing we can do that won't piss off some of them.