Letter to the Editor: The Iran Summit

To the Editor:

The conference of non-aligned nations sponsored by Iran and currently under way in Tehran is an international disgrace.

The conference host is a great exporter of worldwide terrorism and author of terroristic threats, yet is being afforded stature and significance by the presence of representatives from countries including Egypt, Afghanistan and India, and perhaps most shamefully, through the appearance of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

What will come out of this unholy gathering? Certainly nothing of value to the civilized world.

This convocation has been called in an effort to defeat sanctions against Iran and to rally world forces against the West, and particularly the United States. Its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, denies the presence of homosexuals in Iran and doubts that the Holocaust occurred, views that are dangerous and which are repugnant to intelligent, reasonable people. Why would purported allies of ours confer respectability on a country which most certainly is developing a nuclear weapon, has clearly and continuously declared its intention to obliterate neighbor Israel, and which denies basic human rights to its people?

If Afghanistan is cozying up to a regime which is our mortal enemy while American troops continue sacrificing life and limb to keep it free, how hostile a posture might it be expected to adopt toward its savior and benefactor if and when our soldiers depart?

Would Adolf Hitler have succeeded in attracting democratic nations to an Axis powers summit of the 1940s?

Oren Spiegler
Upper St. Clair