TIME: You recently invited President Bush to a televised debate. If he were sitting where I am sitting, what would you say, man to man?Wow! Who knew the president of Iran was such a John Lennon fan? And he's also a student of history... mind you, with a bit of a Stalinist bent.
Ahmadinejad: I gave some recommendations to President Bush in my personal letter, and I hope that he will take note of them. I would ask him, are rationalism, spirituality and humanitarianism and logic; are they bad things for human beings? Why more conflict? Why should we go for hostilities? Why should we develop weapons of mass destruction? Everybody can love one another.
TIME: Have you considered that Iranian Jews are hurt by your comments denying that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust?Oooh, oooh, over here, I know that one! Ok, there's Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau... hey, Mahmoud, where you going?
Ahmadinejad: As to the Holocaust, I just raised a few questions. And I didn’t receive any answers to my questions. I said that during World War II, around 60 million were killed. All were human beings and had their own dignities. Why only 6 million? And if it had happened, then it is a historical event. Then why do they not allow independent research?
TIME: But massive research has been done.
Ahmadinejad: They put in prison those who try to do research. About historical events everybody should be free to conduct research. Let’s assume that it has taken place. Where did it take place? So what is the fault of the Palestinian people? These questions are quite clear. We are waiting for answers.
Ahmadinejad is reputedly a university professor. Is he actually trying to say that the Holocaust, one of the most comprehensively documented events in modern history, is some sort of Zionist conspiracy? Is that what they teach in Iran? There's either some sort of quasi-taoist thing going on here... or this guy is dumber than a bag of hammers.
And this is the guy who's working on getting a nuclear capability?
Great.
h/t to lgf
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