LET IRANIANS SHOUT, "DEATH TO AMERICA," BUT DON'T BOMB THEM

Supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ("Ahmadi") marched through the streets of Teheran two days ago supporting their candidate in this Friday's elections and shouting,"DEATH TO AMERICA."

People like John Bolton and Dick Cheney would interpret the chant as a casus belli, as proof that Iranians are evil and irrational. For Cheney and Bolton and people like them, Iran is the "enemy," and should be destroyed.

Just like there are those in Israel and elsewhere who think that Israel must attack Iran because Ahmadi has denied the Holocaust, the Iran demonizers in the U.S. would like nothing better than to bomb Iranian cities and nuclear power plants.

Have any of these people ever heard of freedom of speech? Just because someone insults you or says, "Death to America," that is no reason to kill him. Words, after all, are merely words. Everyone, including the Iranians, should be able to say anything he or she wants, without having to fear physical retaliation. So a kid in grade school can call your mother any number of disparaging names, and you don't have any right to beat him up.

Iran has shown no threat to the world and has invaded no other country in the last 100 years. It hasn't dropped a nuclear device on another country. It hasn't been the aggressor as has been the U.S. in wars every 10 years.

So let Iranians chant anything they want about the U.S. Let them yell, "Death to America." That is their political right. Neither the U.S. nor Israel has any right to say, as a result, that Iran is the "enemy," and therefore they can bomb Iranian cities and towns because of Iranian verbal insults.