President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has started the newest and, to my knowledge, most unique of political blogs -- his own. I am not aware of any other blog by a head of state. It even has a poll which would warm the hearts of our own neocons -- is the Israel-Hizbullah conflict a prelude to WWIII:
"Do you think that the US and Israeli intention and goal by attacking Lebanon is pulling the trigger for another world war?"
"No" is ahead as of this writing , 94% to 6% (apparently, Iranians are never unsure, much like our own neocons, so there is no "dunno" option).
His first entry is a rambling autobiographical essay. Among other things, we learn that in the first grade he realized that America was an enemy of the people of Iran:
Nevertheless, even if the Iranian President's story is iconic, it is noteworthy that enmity against America had naught to do with our love of freedom, as much as it did our propping up of a brutal dictator. It was similar inept and immoral foreign policy which caused another revolutionary to develop such a strong hatred for America that he turned from the life of a comfortable middle-class physician to the proponent of people's revolutions against governments more friendly to American benefactors than to their own poor and working class.
The President goes on to tell the story of his tough life in a lower middle-class family, in which he had to work while attending high school. But he was a smart one, he tells us, and scored 132nd out of 400,000 on the exams for college. (Geeze, I was happy ending up about 20th out of 300 in my high school class (I goofed off the first two and a half years).)
He tells the story of the revolt against the Shah and the war with Iraq -- backed by the United ("why do they call us Satan") States. After several thousand words, he apparently tires and promised to be back with shorter entries in the future.
I left a comment, but I guess it must be moderated as it did not appear yet.
(A tip 'o the bowler to The Guardian for the report.)
UPDATE (8/14/06): It seems as if the President's new blog has either been taken down or hacked. After receiving "busy server" messages all morning, now the Iranaprez's blogsite URL pulls up a page called the "National Integrated Services Network", in Arabic or Farsi or something similarly unattainable to me. So much for the experiment. Or maybe he forget that political blogs are illegal in Iran.
UPDATE II: It appears that the Iranaprez may also be a bit of a clumsy oaf -- one site is claiming, with some detailed evidence, that the Iranaprez' website is attempting to send viruses to the computers of visitors originating in Israel. Nice touch. It also appears that the Iranaprez' site was not hacked -- the National Integrated Services Network is the Iranian government web censor/portal. They probably took the site down because after all of the reports this morning, and apparent publicity on Iranian television, half the world was trying to access it.
UPDATE III (8/14/06 3:05 pm ET): The Iranaprez' blog is back, but the English-language version of the site takes forever to load. The Poll is now closer, and has about 25000 more responses than last night. "No" is still ahead, 58-42.
"Do you think that the US and Israeli intention and goal by attacking Lebanon is pulling the trigger for another world war?"
"No" is ahead as of this writing , 94% to 6% (apparently, Iranians are never unsure, much like our own neocons, so there is no "dunno" option).
His first entry is a rambling autobiographical essay. Among other things, we learn that in the first grade he realized that America was an enemy of the people of Iran:
I remember one day, when I was in first grade, by looking through a newspaper - with the help of the adults in our house - I read the news of the capitulation passage by the shah'’s so called "“parliament."” Even though I did not understand the meaning of that issue at that time, . . . I realized that Mohammad Reza attempted to add another page to his vicious case history which was the humiliation and indignity of the Iranian people versus Americans. That was the year that the extinct shah slaughtered many followers of Imam Khomeini.Wow. When I was in first grade, I recall that the Pirates defeated the Yankees in the World Series, despite having been dominated throughout, with the most improbable of home runs in the home ninth . . . .
Nevertheless, even if the Iranian President's story is iconic, it is noteworthy that enmity against America had naught to do with our love of freedom, as much as it did our propping up of a brutal dictator. It was similar inept and immoral foreign policy which caused another revolutionary to develop such a strong hatred for America that he turned from the life of a comfortable middle-class physician to the proponent of people's revolutions against governments more friendly to American benefactors than to their own poor and working class.
The President goes on to tell the story of his tough life in a lower middle-class family, in which he had to work while attending high school. But he was a smart one, he tells us, and scored 132nd out of 400,000 on the exams for college. (Geeze, I was happy ending up about 20th out of 300 in my high school class (I goofed off the first two and a half years).)
He tells the story of the revolt against the Shah and the war with Iraq -- backed by the United ("why do they call us Satan") States. After several thousand words, he apparently tires and promised to be back with shorter entries in the future.
I left a comment, but I guess it must be moderated as it did not appear yet.
(A tip 'o the bowler to The Guardian for the report.)
UPDATE (8/14/06): It seems as if the President's new blog has either been taken down or hacked. After receiving "busy server" messages all morning, now the Iranaprez's blogsite URL pulls up a page called the "National Integrated Services Network", in Arabic or Farsi or something similarly unattainable to me. So much for the experiment. Or maybe he forget that political blogs are illegal in Iran.
UPDATE II: It appears that the Iranaprez may also be a bit of a clumsy oaf -- one site is claiming, with some detailed evidence, that the Iranaprez' website is attempting to send viruses to the computers of visitors originating in Israel. Nice touch. It also appears that the Iranaprez' site was not hacked -- the National Integrated Services Network is the Iranian government web censor/portal. They probably took the site down because after all of the reports this morning, and apparent publicity on Iranian television, half the world was trying to access it.
UPDATE III (8/14/06 3:05 pm ET): The Iranaprez' blog is back, but the English-language version of the site takes forever to load. The Poll is now closer, and has about 25000 more responses than last night. "No" is still ahead, 58-42.
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