More brutality in Iran
If anyone had any lingering doubt about the intentions of Iran’s leaders towards the demonstrators, today’s reports of brutality would certainly resolve them.
Will the cycle of demonstrations and crackdowns continue, or will the protesters be cowed? And either way, is Iran’s administration fatally undermined in some way, perhaps even by internal rifts?
I have no idea, but I welcome the discussion.
Allahpundit has video clips of individual experiences.
In the second video clip, an infuriated and brave young Iraqi woman invites beating and possible death. In so doing, and with help of a cell phone video camera which would expose the actions of the men who would beat her (and w/the unstated threat of other cell phone video cameras capturing the beating), she cows the men who were just beating her. It’s a notable moment in human history: courage and cell phone video used as weaponry.
I’ve toured the weapons in the Tower of London. If there is ever a Tower of Tehran, the cell phone video camera has a rightful place there.
The problem, for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad: their legitimacy generates from their claims to piousness and to true faith. Thus, they cannot justify irreligious actions against the people.
The old and/or current communists: in USSR, in Eastern Europe, in China, in Latin America, were/are not hamstrung by morality. The communists strictly lust for power. Repression and murder was/is justified as part of a larger good which is undertaken on behalf of the masses.
Conversely, Khamenei is restrained by the immorality of murdering his own citizens. He cannot argue “larger good”, as Islam recognizes such an argument is immoral. Khamenei cannot allow his murderous actions to be known to the largest part of Iranian citizenry. Khamenei is forced to do his murdering in secret, mostly at night, and always covered up by propaganda and lies which deny the truth of his murderous actions.
Many older Iranians get all news from state run TV. If these Iranians come to believe the truth of Khamenei’s murders, the Supreme Leader will soon be unsupreme. This is why it is critically important for the President of the United States to speak out strongly, to call murder by it’s name, to call a murdered girl in the street by her name: Neda. All effort must be made to get word to older and rural (computerless) Iranians about the truth of Khamenei’s actions.
The Office of the President of the United States used to automatically have a respected voice, and consequently a loud voice. Much of the world disagreed with President Bush; yet much of the world nevertheless respected his power, and thus listened when he spoke.
Much has changed in six months. When you say nothing, as Barack does; when everything you say is “on the one hand, on the other hand”; when haughtily you place yourself above the fray, and deign to not compromise your perceived heightened stature via taking stands on the pre-eminent moral questions of our day: you thereby lose the respect of listeners who once respected the Office of President of the United States.
A Way Forward for Regime Change in Iran
It’s been reported that Obama has decided to retract his invitation to Iranian diplomats to attend Fourth of July festivities at U.S. embassies around the world. Yesterday, he was directly asked if the invitation was still on in light of the murders in Iran. He did not answer clearly, but he indicated that nothing had changed. One can only guess that he spoke with his teleprompter last night.
The administration decision to float a trial balloon about cancelling the invitation followed this stinging quote by Newt Gingrich by a couple of hours.
“He can’t even bring himself to disinvite the Iranians from the Fourth of July party to celebrate a declaration which said all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
So we’re going to celebrate the declaration of independence on the Fourth of July with Iranian torturers, murderers and the State Department says itself, the leading state sponsor of terrorism on the planet. I just think when you see an administration that is that weak, he may give [former Democratic President] Jimmy Carter a renewed reputation for strength.”
That they shouldn’t have been invited in the first place is a no brainer, shows what a clueless numbskull Obamadinnerjacket is.
Best description I’ve seen is that he’s a 1979 third world Marxist, which goes along with what I’ve seen as him being in the line of the tin pot Marxist dictators who have brought such ruin to so many African countries. And he got to the White House!! Sort of thing for which you’d need more than suspension of disbelief if you read it in a novel.
If the government kills and terrorizes it’s citizens enough it can prevail, as did Myanmar with the Buddhist monks, and China after Tianneman. But the society will be changed beyond recognition.
Iraq will have to become isolated from the world, with no internet or phone service, and with no travel because the leaders cannot risk it’s citizens interacting with anyone outside the border, nor can they risk citizens communicating and interacting with each other.
The vibrant economy and social systems in Iran will have to be abolished, universities shut down, no free trade or participation with other enterprises or countries, symposiums, all the various human interchanges around the globe.
These people are not like the North Koreans, the Burmese, etc, they have been very active, urban, well educated and traveled, prosperous, connected with the world. I can’t imagine these people being shut down overnight and made to live like North Koreans and Myanmarans.
This government will have to purged more than half of their citizens, and half of their ruling elite, including the mullahs. This will have to be ruthless and swift, Stalin like. Not sure if this can be done.
But young Iranians will be learning to to live with hate and fear of their government. What a tragedy.
I meant the Country will have to be purged, not just the government.
I don’t think this genie is going to go back in the bottle, the unrest will grow and grow. If it had gone on for one or two days and died out it would have been over, the fact that it has gone on so long means the govt has lost real respect, how long they can maintain control probably depends on the stomach of those in the military and the influence of their families. Axes were used today on the crowds. The mask is off.
From a thread at Belmont Club about The Won’s negotiations with al Queda to release British soldiers remains in return for live terrorists.
wretchard said: “I think it’s probable that the Administration has been had, or worse, they don’t even know they’ve been had.”
Heh. There is no thing good that can be said about this, is there? Either The 0bamanation is either a dupe or malevolent. Bad outcome either way. Like Hellfish says: “If obama were a muslim what would he do different?” A: No thing. Nothing.
When will we label The Pantywaist pResident a traitor? When?
The slaughter has been and is being done in Tehran. Apparently with The 0bamanation’s blessing.
The 0bamanation is sending an ambassador to Caracas, Venezuela to minister to Hugo Chavez.
The 0bamanation is sending an ambassador to Damascus, Syria to minister to Assad.
When?
When they come for your Jewish neighbor?
When they come for your local priest?
(Remember Larry Grathwohl on Ayers’ plan for American re-education camps?)
When?
The world is testing The 0bamanation and finding him wanting. In fact, they are finding him to be the worst sort of coward.
twitter.com/TehranBureau/status/2256042154
Reports from Tehran, Azadi St., Sanati Sharif University indicate that more that 10 helicopters landed inside the university,
other twitters are coming in about them throwing “chemicals” out the helicopters (grain of salt till confirmed) within the past hour.
Slimes coverage almost usless given its swiss cheeze and opinions…
obama is going to learn (even if his followers do) that the leftists dont tell the truth, they just lie and lie… and that now that he is leader, they will continue to lie as to whats happening. that these things were not truths but were always lies.
obama is ruling from a basis of revisionist history (stalinism). and so he is ruling from a position of a world that never actually existed in a reality that doesnt operate the way it does.
its as simple as raising someone to belive that stop means go and go means stop and then put them on the road
US ‘stirred up Iran’, says Hugo Chavez
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/49549,news,us-stirred-up-iran-unrest-says-hugo-chavez-president-of-venezuela
I think somebody said it already in one of the earlier threads: demonstrators faced only two outcomes of their actions: either they’ll will Mousavi into power, or their revolt will be crushed. So – now they’re being crushed, no surprise.
One thing- to want to oust Ahmadinejad, another – to set their aim at the Grand Mullah. naturally, he wasn’t going to tolerate this any longer.
I think there is a certain amount of mentality misunderstanding going on.
We tend to perceive the events in Western terms: grassroots movement for freedom being suppressed by the government.
Meanwhile, demonstrators behave as if they went on jihad: brazen readiness to die, even inviting death – and what’s even sadder, there is no clearly define answer to a question”what are they ready to die for?”. What are their goals, besides vague “we want democracy, now”? No goals, no program, no leader, no organization, no intent – just a romantic, as it’s understood in Islamic nations, desire to die – to shame their oppressors with their death.
In any case, it looks like the end is near, one way or another.
ligneus says:
. . .
Best description I’ve seen is that he’s a 1979 third world Marxist, which goes along with what I’ve seen as him being in the line of the tin pot Marxist dictators who have brought such ruin to so many African countries. And he got to the White House!! Sort of thing for which you’d need more than suspension of disbelief if you read it in a novel.
The thought has crossed my mind, too.
I did not vote for Obama, but when he nonetheless got elected, my initial reaction was that although this wasn’t the person I would have wanted, perhaps I should still appreciate what a momentous moment this was (the election of the first African American preseident), and perhaps I should give the guy a chance (since he seemed to offer the idea of moving beyond some of the partisan antagonism of recent years). I didnt expect him to be able to fulfill all the expectations people seemed to have of him, since they were so high, but at least part of me wanted to wish him well and wait and see what happened.
But there was another part of me that couldn’t help but compare Obama’s supposedly feelgood pie-in-the-sky rhetoric, his campaign’s supposedly populist pretensions, and his leftist background to that of some of the other leftists in this hemisphere. I didnt want to automatically link Obama with the likes of Hugo Chavez, but I couldn’t help but think that some of the parallels were uncanny. At a time when Latin America had people like Chavez (Venezuela), Morales (Bolivia), and Ortega (Nicaragua) resurrecting a discretied leftism (and filling in the gaps with hazy rhetoric), here we seemed to have our own, American incarnation of the Chavez-Morales-Ortega phenomenon.
I still don’t want to engage in “Obama Derangement Syndrome,” but evidence is adding up. During the early years of the Castro regime in Cuba, a certain gullible American diplomat was called “either a damn fool or a communist.” Applying that notion now, Obama does indeed appear to be either a “1979 third world Marxist”, or someone showing 1979-era Carteresque gullibility. At the very least, he is allowing all the leftist nonsense that he pucked up as a so-called “community organizer” to affect his judgment.
For example, take the situation in Iran. I can understand that any U.S. administration needs to proceed carefully, lest any of its actions or statements make matters worse. But I can’t help but notice that the “care” and “caution” taken by Obama with regard to Iran, and the painstaking effort by Obama to not appear to be meddling in Iran’s internal affairs, is completely absent when he speaks about Israel, and tries to pressure Israel about the settlements on the West Bank.
And then add to that the naive (or willful??) willingness to placate every enemy of the U.S., from receiving Marxist books as gifts from Hugo Chavez, to inviting Iran’s diplomats to July 4th celebrations.
I still don’t wanr to jump the gun on everything Obama does, but the evidence doesnt look good… and now we’ve got 3 1/2 more years of this. If this is going to be another Carter administration (or worse), we better hold on tight.
Neo, you asked,
I think Spot nailed it above with,
The only part I’d differ with, is in saying that the society will be changed beyond all recognition.
The only change is that the mask has slipped off further and denial of the true nature of the regime now becomes more difficult than ever. A problem more for us than for the Iranians who are all too well aware of the true nature of this regime.
Oops! I meant Spoot in my comment above.
Mir-Hossein Mousavi is reported to be under house arrest
70 members of the Islamic Society of University Professors, who were arrested after they met with Mousavi on Wednesday afternoon. Their whereabouts are unknown, according to Kalameh.ir, Mousavi’s website.
The regime seems to be playing catch-up. It’s been decades since I played Chinese checkers (can you still call it that?), but I am thinking of an analogy.
The regime can’t arrest those whom it finds suspect fast enough if it waits for the suspicions to be validated, at least partly. There are always those who haven’t yet come to the attention of the regime.
They will have to get out in front, circle, surround, all the possible resisters long before the resisters actually start. As in Chinese checkers (can you still call it that?) where, iirc, the goal is to surround the opponent’s pieces.
Lousy analogy, I suspect, but playing catch up doesn’t seem to be working here.
This will play out over the next few months. If it was only the young students and the street that was being suppressed I would think the cause is hopeless.
But apparently there is a big split in the power structure there, with Rafsanjani (sp?) and many of the mullahs on one side,and the right wing element with Khamenei and Ahmedinejad and the Revolutionary Guard on the other. Some have said this is a move for the Militarisation of the government, though no one yet knows where the armed forces stand.
Some are saying this was a move by Khamenei to put his son in the line of succesion for the job of Supreme Leader. His son is a behind the scenes operator, in cahoots with the IRG and the Basij thugs. He has no credibility as a religious figure so this would anger the Mulllahs, but it is similar to the rise of the SS in Germany in the thirties. It’s a putsch.
Obviously the street is losing now but we don’t know what is happening underneath the twitters and videos we are getting. A lot of powerful people in Iran must be feeling threatened right now and I wonder how they will react.
I read somewhere that the earlier revolution of Khomenei played out over a year, with many ebbs and flows on the street, but eventually the Shah lost the struggle. So this story isn’t over yet, though the first battle may be lost.
Reza Aslan had a good interview on The Daily Show about the Iranian elections and protests.
“All I can say is thank you God for President Barack Obama. He has played this perfectly. During the election – for four weeks – the word Iran never left his mouth. It really worked to the disadvantage of Ahmadinejad – he couldn’t use his normal arguments about how America was going to attack at any moment.”
“I have a hard time believing Charles Krauthammer and Bill Bennett have the best interest of the Iranians at heart.”
“If you want to put an end to this movement, to this revolution tomorrow, then let’s listen to Bill Bennett. Let’s listen to John McCain.”
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=231561&title=reza-aslan
The Daily Show? The Daily Show?
Please. Would Liebowitz have anyone on that POS who would deviate from the Party line?
Sheesh.
meanwhile, what are we not focusing on? after all, what happens over there does not really affect us all that much in the immediate future… but the laws they are passing real fast, and the recent things in pyongyang should be more worrying thatn whats not going on in iran.
as i said, either person will still be ruling from a position of favor with the soviets, and so this whole fight is not real. its for consumption. you can have any color as long as its black, and the black color you fight for is teh one that you think you want much more than the one you are against. but in truth, its still going to be the same thing
so this is a distraction a diversion from the things that will really affect us.
like obama reconnecting us with chavez, and worse.. the actions going on with the norks.
100,000 people are protesting against the US, and are yelling “í•˜ìž ë‰ê²”순!!!!!”
this is a few days old, but both events kicked off near the same time. and if you wanted to foment your own people back into a war, a war you need, or that serves a purpose (of stopping free trade and knocking the us over financially), you dont want the people of the enemy who have their heads in fish bowls paying attention to whats very different in your actions this time.
ALSO note that similar protests are happening in south korea too.
so you have 100,000 norks cheering well smash! and across the borders you have 100,000 south koreans doing the same, with a huge contingent of veterans of the war marching with flags.
now this is just at the time that obama has extended the sanctions against the norks.
Kim Jong II son has just been appointed head of the spy agency and secret police.
forget that the leader of south korea jumped off a cliff a few days before the recent nuclear test.
a ship we are watching is about to doc with burma, and if you check out there, check out who is going to use those weapons to do what? the point is that we cant stop them because of the nukes. and we cant respond to a nuclear attack because of chinas close proximity!
so they get to fire agasinst a weak president, and he will do what? wake up the asian tiger? they could let millions starve and cut all trade off in one day with the US… hows that for holding us by our family jewels? want to retalliate against stupidity? then lose everythign you have.
at the same time… troops are now moving into georgia and massing on the border so russia can finish taking her back.
russia has just okayed the use of torture (real torture) as a means in the area.
guys… i said this will get hot… and its not even warm yet… everyone is paying attention to the wrong things.
like what is a great way to support so many laid off MEN? remember men are hated, and the liberals want less of them. this economic thing has seen many more men dropped out. when they become a problem it mught be best to throw our men against the 30 million extra chinese males, or the iranian extra males, etc.
while there is so much that is interesting to talk about, its being made more interesting thatn whats important to talk about.
Apparently there are also some growing theological challenges to the Khomeni-ist understanding of Islamic revolution, coming from within and without Iran. Shiia Islam has a strong history of non-participation in worldly government because all Earthy governments are illegitimate. Apparently Ayatollah Sistani has been arguing strongly that mullahs need to be spiritual, not political leaders, and more and more Iranians are sending him their zakat, instead of paying it to the mullahs from Qom.
I don’t think that this round of revolution will succeed. However, people have very, very long memories, especially a people with a tradition of honoring martyrdom and sacrifice. And perhaps the US did instigate the current Iranian crisis, by showing that free, peaceful and legitimate elections can be held and the people can choose their own leaders. Remember the purple-finger salute?
june 25th… 1950… ring any bells?
Yup.
occam… no fair. i knew you would know 🙂
LOL!
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made clear that Russia was not prepared to sign up to a G8 statement condemning Iran’s handling of the election.
“No one is willing to condemn the election process, because it’s an exercise in democracy,” Lavrov told reporters.
sounds like someone else that was here recently… guess they got their angles from the party
Me, too, Art. It’s still not over.
Maybe. And maybe not.
It’s been 20 years since Tiniman (Spelling?) Square and by all accounts the young Chinese are proud of and satisfied with their country and their government. So the clock is not necessarily ticking against the Mullah regime.
I’m not even certain that the sense of liberty is hard-wired into Americans, let alone in people who have never experienced it. Maybe somebody here knows the details of it, but there’s a creepy story coming out of Maine about a Christian Group being slapped with a hefty fine from the state because of its public warnings about domestic Islamic terrorism. 1st Amendment? Whazzat?
I was amazed that it was forgotten again…
with all that is happening in that region, no one thought a good tie in would be that date?
tv news aint worth the paper its printed on. 🙂
and any one paying attention to ALBA?