I Saw America Win a Great PR Battle at Columbia University

I'm certainly no fan of the Iranian President, Mahmoud Amhadinejad, but I'm pleased he was allowed to speak at Columbia University earlier this week.

In my view, denying him the chance to speak would have been handing him a huge propaganda coup. The Arab press would have gleefully reported that the 'land of the free' is full of hypocrites for censoring him. But, by letting the man say what he wanted - in the tradition of free speech that I think most of us subscribe to as a right worth fighting for - we allowed him to say things that will better educate and inform Americans and the rest of the world about him and his ideology.

For example, what did the audience do when he claimed there were no gays in Iran? They rightly laughed AT him. That was priceless TV seen the whole world over and HE looked an absolute fool in my eyes and anyone else with any intelligence I hope. I'm genuinely pleased that wasn't censored. That one statement should make everyone question the honesty or intelligence behind everything else he said on that platform.

In my view, the arguments caused by Columbia University allowing Amhadinejad to speak are a negative and unnecessary spin off from what was otherwise a successful, winning PR battle for the US.

While it is now some years since my military service, I still think my values then apply today. My war was principally the Cold War. Then it was the Soviet Union we watched and prepared for. While I volunteered and passionately believed in my job and was prepared to fight and die if Soviet expansionism threatened, I didn't particularly hate the Russian people. I spoke a little of their language, talked with many Russians and learned a lot from the experience. But I hated and would have willingly fought against their political system and the corrupt abuses their then ruling classes imposed.

So now we see many people trying to demonize Muslims. Totally wrong in my view. Having regularly visited Malaysia - a Muslim country - I can say the people are very well educated, extremely polite, incredibly friendly and their society feels very much safer than my own most of the time. A couple of years ago I can recall my wife and I being virtually the only non-Muslims eating in a packed Planet Hollywood while a rock band played! A shrine to everything American with classic American music playing and the veils were swaying!

So if we are stupid enough to let shallow minds try to make this a Christian v Muslim world and start banning Muslim Heads of State from airing their views (no matter how repulsive or ignorant they may be) we will inevitably provide the excuses they need for extreme views to win influence in currently moderate countries like Malaysia and the problems we now see could get even worse.

As a general rule of thumb I'd say all extreme political opinions are bad. I find the calls to 'wipe Israel off the map' abhorrent, sick and ignorant. I'm pleased I heard that view expressed so I could form my own opinion of the man. But I also find calls to 'wipe Iran off the map' equally abhorrent and ignorant.

This is rapidly becoming one very small world - not in a political sense - but in a commercial, personal and climatic sense. Just as a case of bird flu in the far east can cause an outbreak in Canada within 12 hours courtesy of a Boeing 747, the sub-prime problems in the US have just about killed a British Bank that borrowed too heavily from the international money markets and regardless of where any CO2 comes from, we all need to worry about rising sea levels and the more extreme weather affecting most of the world now.

My point is that problems need to be addressed in the knowledge that we are part of this one inter-dependent world. President Bush quite rightly rounded on the Burmese leadership this week and has my absolute support on that issue. But I am saddened to see other messages from some US politicians and commentators that appear to believe the world is America and the rest of the globe is of little interest.

So, while I probably dislike the current leader of Iran and his opinions as much as anyone, I'm very grateful to the US for enabling the free world to see how foolish the man actually is and how ignorant, blinkered and bigoted his opinions are. I believe Columbia University did more in that hour for world peace by letting the man speak uncensored than any of us will probably ever know.

Now, just to qualify my point, should this Iranian regime actually get a nuclear weapon I do worry they are stupid enough to use it and I will fully support the required military measures to stop it. It seems something like this may have already happened in Syria earlier this month. If that's true then no complaint from me. It was apparently swiftly dealt with, largely uncommented on and there are no mass invasions taking place or long term occupations looming for another generation to deal with.

Like it or not, the price of free speech means hearing both sides and I'm pleased to say "Congratulations USA" because I think America at last won a propaganda battle by proving their society to be tolerant and free.

A visit to the war graves in Normandy, Flanders, Pearl Harbor or virtually any populated country illustrates the tragic waste of lives in WW1 and WW2. Likewise I can imagine Ground Zero is a humbling sight for any right thinking visitor. All of these tragic events have happened and can only be mourned now. But it also makes me acutely aware that, while none of us can change the past, we can still change the future by what we think, say and do today.

None of this means I think the allies were wrong to fight Hitler. It doesn't in any way justify the disgusting and cowardly acts of those sick monsters on 9/11. If the US/Israel did take out a nuclear threat in Syria earlier this month then I'm very pleased. So I'm certainly not a pacifist, far from it, but I think I am a realist. With my son now approaching what could be considered conscription age and my son-in-law currently serving in our Air Force and off to Iraq shortly, it does make me believe that we must always properly explore and exhaust every option before using a military solution to our problems.

This is too small a world that's too well connected now to simply shoot first and ask questions later or rely, like we did in generations past, on events in far off lands to go unreported or have little or no consequences on our comfortable lives at home. I am very aware that many Americans, Canadians, Australians, Brits etc. gave their lives for me to be able to write this today. Almost every day at the height of WW1 the casualty numbers of 9/11 were dwarfed and at the time that generation called that carnage "the war to end all wars". What happened 20 years down the line? WW2.

So with all that in mind, I now think how Nelson Mandela was not so long ago considered a terrorist in the UK. So too was Anwar Sadat - who was later the assassinated Egyptian president hailed in the West for being the first Arab Head of State to agree a peace with Israel. Both were branded terrorists by politicians in their day.

Then I think how some of the darker aspects of my own country's colonial days cannot be completely disguised by rose tinted hindsight. We have to live with the fact we actively profited from the slave trade for instance. We also thought little about displacing millions and partitioning India at the time of it's independence to form Pakistan as an instant solution to the religious divide between Sikh and Muslim. Today such actions are quickly branded "ethnic cleansing". A little further back even the Americans had to stand up and take their chance to chuck my forefathers out of their country! The very same Americans who conquered much of their land by the use of, or threat of, violence.

I'm not looking to open any old wounds or cause argument by these remarks. I'm simply making the point that the actions we take today will only be properly judged when they are placed in the context of history. And sadly, while I am pleased to celebrate the many magnificent achievements our nations can recount, I have to temper this by acknowledging we have also made our fair share of blunders and, worse still, done our fair share of deliberate human vandalism. My dislike of some of these actions is tempered by understanding, an acknowledgement of different cultures, different standards, less education or technology etc. etc. So I'm not looking to condemn our forefathers, I simply want to learn lessons from them now we have the benefit of hindsight.

Will our current actions be viewed the same way by future generations? Will they look to forgive or understand our ignorance for any mistakes history will judge us to have made? Will they celebrate our incredible achievements? Will they be issuing postage stamps to celebrate the life of someone we currently brand a 'terrorist'? Will they have to suffer violence justified in the name of religion or race? Will they have to mourn the casualties of sickening cowardly acts of indiscriminate violence on the scale that New York sadly experienced just a few years ago?

I will probably never know the answer to most of those questions but I do know that every single one will eventually get answered and what those answers are will largely depend on us, what we think and the Governments we elect.

So, returning to the original topic, I will certainly not waste a tear if the current leader of Iran meets an untimely demise. But I do hope it comes as a result of his own peoples choice rather than a US/UK military intervention similar to Iraq recently. I can only envisage supporting such an action if it is to stop Iranian expansion by military means or the actual threat of a nuclear weapon being used on any other country. Then my realism tells me to choose the lesser of two evils on the grounds of self defense.

But until then why do we not look to keep setting an example to the wider Iranian population instead? Invest in the technology and means necessary to get the message out to the typical Iranian that we are neighbors on a planet in climatic trouble. We have shared problems we can address together. We can respect each other for our differences as well as our similarities. Show off our good deeds and properly accept criticism when it's due. Acknowledge our past mistakes and apologize if we should. Seek to build partnerships and find joint goals. If the Iranian masses see the American way and European way as a better alternative to the current 'fundamentalist' lifestyle what happened to the Shah might just happen again.