Reply #524: I'm not asking you to "pretend". Just think.

[txaslftist]

Consider the source of the accusations against him and what they might stand to gain or lose by making them. Consider their objectivity and their motives.

Like: "He's threatened to wipe Israel off the map"

This has been debunked and is simply not true. He has predicted the demise of the "regime" or government in Israel; and he supports a one-state solution in Israel where everyone has the same rights, whether Jewish or not. He also supports the end of Israel as a "Jewish" state; not the end of the Jews in Israel, but the end of their "exceptionalism" among other citizens there.

Who gains by portraying him as a madman who wants to inflict a second holocaust?

Like: "He kills homosexuals" or "he denies the existence of homosexuals".

As to the first, the mullahs and islamic courts kill homosexuals, and there have to be four witnesses to the homosexual act. This is an ass-backwards, regressive society, and that's what you get with fundamentalists. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and the Yemens do the same thing. It's a different culture. As to his comments about "we don't have homosexuals in Iran", what he was saying was that in Iran homosexuality is not openly practiced, not that there are none.

And finally, I didn't say YOU were shilling for war. What I said was that the folks who ARE shilling for war are selling you this crap and you are buying it without critical examination. They don't care about Imadinnerjacket or human rights or any of that crap. What they care about is getting at the oil and strategic positioning, and they don't care how many of your brothers and sisters in uniform die so they can get it. And they don't care about how much money your grandkids have to pay off in debt, either.