Text 21869, 76 rader
Skriven 2006-08-14 05:11:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: speech and website
==========================
This guy sounded like many other the liberals here during his interview 
last night on 60 Minutes.  


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http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-
08-13T162106Z_01_BLA353117_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAN-PRESIDENT-
BLOG.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

Iranian president lambasts US on new blog
Sun Aug 13, 2006 12:21pm ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president has launched a Web log, using his 
first entry to recount his poor upbringing and ask visitors to the site 
if they think the United States and Israel want to start a new world 
war.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose speeches are riddled with anti-U.S. rhetoric, 
also described how he was angered by American meddling in Iran even when 
he was at elementary school.

Ahmadinejad swept to a surprise victory in last year's presidential race 
by promising the country's poor a fairer share of Iran's oil wealth and 
emphasizing his own humble origins that led many to vote for him as an 
"outsider" to Iran's ruling elite.

"During the era that ... living in a city was perfection, I was born in 
a poor family in a remote village," he wrote in a blog dated Friday, 
after opening with Islamic greetings. 

His origins as the son of "a hard-bitten toiler blacksmith" may have 
been humble, but he says he excelled at school where he said he came 
132nd out of 400,000 in exams to enter university.

As well as promising a better life to the poor, Ahmadinejad has sought 
to bolster support by refusing to bow to what he says is Western 
pressure to stop Iran's civilian nuclear program. The West says Iran is 
building an atomic bomb.

His defiance in the stand-off with the West has often played well in the 
Muslim world, where many are angered by U.S. foreign policy in the 
Middle East.

Analyst Saeed Laylaz said the site -- available in Persian, Arabic, 
English and French at www.ahmadinejad.ir -- may be seeking to win 
support from abroad.

"Do you think that the U.S. and Israeli intention and goal by attacking 
Lebanon is pulling the trigger for another world war?" the president 
asks visitors to the site, offering them the choice to vote 'yes' or 
'no'.   

Ahmadinejad describes how in the first grade at school -- for those aged 
about seven -- he read newspapers with the help of adults about how the 
then shah of Iran gave Americans living in Iran immunity from 
prosecution under Iranian laws.

"I realized that Mohammad Reza (Shah) attempted to add another page to 
the vicious case history which was the humiliation and indignity of the 
Iranian people versus Americans," he said.

He describes listening ardently to the speeches of Ayatollah Ruhollah 
Khomeini, the shah's vociferous critic and later leader of the 1979 
Islamic revolution that overthrew the monarchy.

He also discusses Iran's bloody 1980-1988 war with Iraq, in which 
Ahmadinejad fought as a Revolutionary Guard. 


But he admitted his opening blog, which runs to more than 2,300 words in 
the English version, was too long. "From now onwards, I will try to make 
it simpler and shorter," he wrote.

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