TheAgitator.com
Iran
Saturday, June 20th, 2009Andrew Sullivan has some pretty amazing coverage of the last 24 hours.
I just watched the video on YouTube of the female protester who was shot in the heart. Crushing. Terrifying. Brought tears to my eyes. But thank goodness it was captured and posted.
We may never know with 100 percent certainty whether the election was fixed, though it sure seems that way. But one thing we sure as hell know now, the Iranian government’s reaction to those protesting the results has shown it to be wholly and morally illegitimate.
Government has been murdering its own citizens for as long as we’ve had government, particularly when the people begin to pose a threat to those in power. The difference is that now, the entire world is watching. Iran’s brutality is on display for everyone to see, archived for history, in a way that we didn’t have even in Tiananmen, and haven’t had for most of human history. That, at least, is progress.
Thank god it can’t happen here.
I find it particularly interesting that CNN, and mainstream media in general, are largely just reporting what is coming out of Iran over the internet. So much for idea that internet sources just repeat what they get from the mainstream news outlets.
The entire world has the opportunity to view the information coming out of Iran first hand. CNN is reporting the news second hand. After all, they were scolded by the Iranian government that they couldn’t report news from within Iran anymore and they’re not about to violate that edict and jeopardize the cooperation they normally get from the Iranian government. Did I say cooperation? Maybe I should have said partnership….
I might point out that this particular video was censored on CNN presumably to hide the identity of the woman. The internet, of course, provides no such consideration.
I think it’s worth mentioning that the internet has, for the first time in history, provided a means for people to get their news without anyone sanitizing it for them. As a milestone in world history, that is almost like being around when man first learned to control fire or when the wheel was invented.
It will be interesting to see how governments try to put that Genie back in the bottle.
I’ve been glued to the tv watching CNN coverage of this today.
The U.S and Israel really don’t want a pro-western or modernized Iran, they want it destabilized. Mossaddeq was european educated and wore nice Italian suits like Saddam Hussein. The game is control, US-Brit-Zionist controllers will not stand for any independent power in the Muslim world, in part because we don’t want Russia or China to get a foothold in the region.
The false flag terror attack on 9-11 worked great, and chocolate Jesus has everyone conned for now. Funny how we boycotted the Olympics in Russia, because they were in Afghanistan in 1980, now we’re there(7 years and counting). More fun in the new world
That video has been flagged. Any other links? Thanks.
Gonzo – you should still be able to view it. You just need to confirm your birth date. It’s marked as “not suitable for minors”.
After I read this article a few days ago, I had serious doubts as to whether or not this election was rigged.
It really doesn’t matter if the election was fraudulent or not. It seems to me that a large segment of the Iranian population has withdrawn it’s consent to be governed by the current regime. The election fraud, whether real or perceived, was perhaps the last straw. Or perhaps it was just something that happened at the right time…
Terrible as this video is, it does help put things into perspective. As bad as the government can be in the US, there are places where it is a lot worse and a lot scarier.
One can only hope some good will eventually come out of this, like Iranians realizing that theocracy isn’t all that it is cracked up to be and establish a legitimate government.
Gonzo, use this url if you don’t have a youtube account. http://www.youtube.com/v/bbdEf0QRsLM
it always seems worse to me when it’s a woman or a child. there’s no limit to the evil a thug will do…
I wonder how sympathetic Western media would have been had McCain supporters rioted, destroyed property and attacked police.
SP4LG: They might have been very sympathetic if McCain supporters actually had a reason to riot. Besides, McCainiacs believe first and foremost in the rule of law (depending on who’s ruling, of course).
Assume for the sake of argument that the election was NOT rigged.
What does it then say about the government of Iran that a large fraction of the people they rule refuses to believe them and rises up against them?
Our own governments might well ponder the consequences of cheating and lying to the people they rule.
When will this Obama stand up and support the people of Iran?
What’s he waiting for? Someones permission?
How is wanting to replace one politician with another “freedom fighting”?
This whole thing is pretty hyped up to begin with. However, at least when people in Iran get pissed they do something about it. If we tried to do similar acts here we’d be beaten down MORE than they are! How hypocritical of Sullivan to put down the Iran gov’ts actions while staying quiet about the same things in the U.S. and Britain.
Terrible as this video is, it does help put things into perspective. As bad as the government can be in the US, there are places where it is a lot worse and a lot scarier.
It’s important to remember that the U.S. tends to do these things more to the citizens of other countries, than it does to its own citizens. That heart-breaking footage of the young Iranian woman dying has been played out time and time again in Iraq and Afghanistan, via our own government. True, it’s not always intentional, but it’s sloppy and careless enough to be compared to drunk driving. Whether someone I knew and loved was killed with a bullet in the heart from the government or on the roads by a drunk driver, the loss is the same, and thoroughly avoidable.
That’s exactly why we don’t want the military attempting to do the job of police. They’re not being “sloppy and careless”. They’re being military. The primary job of the military is to kill.
But, in the sense that a lot of civilians died because of our being there, I agree completely.
That’s a good point, Dave. “Sloppy and careless” is me trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, which isn’t always appropriate, obviously.
I’m starting to think that cell phone cameras are either the greatest weapon against tyrannical governments ever invented, or a close second after an armed population.
I must admit to a certain admiration for these “rebels.”
Obama has said that the election is their “internal affairs”, and that we “shouldn’t interfere”.
Damn shame he doesn’t openly declare that the universal foreign policy for the U.S.
I support these rebels, and I hope they succeed, especially if they succeed without violence. But I do *not* support sending U.S. taxpayer resources to their aid, any more than I supported overthrowing Sadam Hussein on the 9/11 coattails.
RB, I don’t understand your position here. Let’s assume the election was not fixed, which you admit is a possibility. Then there is now a mob in the street, with the stated intent and obvious capability, if not stopped, of overthrowing the government. Your command is that the government give in, and let the mob form its own government.
If it does so, there will almost certainly be another mob, immediately opposing the new regime. Under precisely what circumstances is a government to be permitted to defend itself?
Well said, KBCraig.
And the non-interventionist leftwing “libertarians” like Ron Paul and the Paleos still say, “stay out, don’t even express support for the demonstrators…”
The blood of hundreds of Iranian Youth, including this Iranian girl, will be on the hands of the non-interventionist wing of the libertarian movement and their allies on the Left.
The people wishing for more US intervention or “support” for the demonstrators are obviously ignorant of history. The other side is praying we’ll do exactly that so they can then say, “Look they are puppets of the Great Satan America, and diminish the credibility of the resistance with the people who really can make a difference, the Iranians in Iran.
Sometimes the BEST thing you can do to help is STFU.
Connect the dots.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh
I found this analysis pretty convincing.
Now maybe only in the same sense we will never know with 100 percent certainty there isn’t a china teapot orbiting the sun between earth and mars.
And the non-interventionist leftwing “libertarians” like Ron Paul and the Paleos still say, “stay out, don’t even express support for the demonstrators…”
Donderooo! I suppose you’d say that the blood of innocent Iraqi civilians killed by U.S. troops is on Saddam’s hands for not giving in to U.S. demands.
I’d like to see you go fight something….ever. You have the gay little moustache, but need a badge or a medal or something to go with it.
#26
The U.S. is going to get the blame regardless. Obama stayed silent for almost a week and we still got blamed. At a bare minimum I would think that Americans should be able to come together to denounce totalitarian governments and the use of overwhelming force to subdue those marching for even just a minuscule amount of freedom. If liberty loving people can’t stand up for liberty then wtf can we stand up for? Someone should ask the people of the soviet union, poland, czechoslovakia, or romania (that list could go on) about the need for the U.S. to sit on its hands and keep its mouth shut. I know they have a much different view than the “realists” like Buchanan, Brzezinski (who’s functionally retarded), and Holbrook. I guess the tens of millions who died while we played footsies with dictators that we felt were the lesser of two evils isn’t enough for them to realize the errors of their ways.
Somehow a lot of people think when they hear someone say “obama should be out front denouncing the iranian mullahs” that that means, somehow, we should invade. Obama’s handling of this has been horrendous, he’s in over his head. It’s sad that Biden (Biden for christ sakes!) makes more sense in this. Maybe Obama should look to france for leadership.
Lastly, this election WAS rigged and rigged badly. I’m unsure if the Ayatollah thought it was going to be too close so they just went all out or if Mahmouds power has grown to the point where he’s able to do this on his own. If his base of power has grown to that point, then this is scarier than a lot of people want to think about.
Obviously this is something that gets me riled up.
Here is something else that pisses me off, the idea that because we may not have always played above the board in our dealings with Iran means that we now have to throw the demonstrators under the bus. “we fucked your grandparents, so to make up for it we have to fuck you too”. Does that really make sense? We were bad before so we can’t be good now? By that logic the rash of “puppycides” has to continue, it’s only fair. “I shot your folks dog by mistake, so now I have to shoot yours to make it even”
#3rd post in a row, I figure I may as well get all the down karma dings I can today I guess….
I’m waiting for someone to make the connection between having a fledgling democracy next door to Iran and the current upheaval. I know the Iranian discontent has been boiling for awhile now but eventually someone has to notice that the people of Iraq have a more representative government than they do. I wonder who would have ever thought that Iraq might just be the linchpin that completely remakes the M.E. ? Irony, it’s not just for breakfast anymore.
All the sudden it feels like 2002-3 all over again. Sullivan’s agitating for some kind of action in the M.E. I wonder how long before Matt Welch dusts off his warblogger’s keyboard.
I don’t agree with Dave Krueger’s view on the news sources. The fact is internet sources are often repetitive, often lack credibility for good reason, and are not a good substitute for good journalism.
The news from Iran is not actually coming from blogs or “pajama’s media” of self appointed highly point of view amateurs, but direct from Iranian citizens
If you look at the segment Pajamas media that are neocon outlets you see abject ignorance, simplistic metaphors. The fact is the worst thing that could happen would be overt US cheerleaders — the Iranian bloggers say so themselves.
#3 Dave,
Great point. In the past totalitarian governments were able to control every bit on info obtained by the masses. Once people get easy access to outside info and influences, that’s the beginning of the end for that form of government. I’m a believer that the governments of both Iran and China are eventually going to just go away, either non-violently like the USSR or ugly like we’re seeing now in Iran. The anti-government demonstrations have been getting bigger and bigger over the last decade+ in Iran, everyone has to see where this is heading.
Yeah, I’m sure the Iranians are so jealous of all the bombings and murders their neighbors in Iraq have year round. LOL.
from Luis Granados’ God Experts blog-
On the Iranian election- ‘When we are also told that the counting of 35 million paper ballots took only a couple of hours to complete, and that the nationwide total for the principal reformist candidate other than Mir Hossein Mousavi was less than 1%, we see an attempted swindle that is downright clumsy.’
“….35 million paper ballots took only a couple of hours to complete…”
Machines couldn’t even count that fast. We’ve spoken on this blog before about people believing their own bullshit. This asshat takes it one step further and believes the citizens will fall for it too.
After some of the videos and images I’ve seen, I think these people are gonna wack this bastard.
Interesting you should mention the USSR. Support of the Second Amendment as a protection against government oppression seems to be a lot more vocal and popular than First Amendment support. I am, of course, a fervent advocate both, but I think it’s quite telling that the population of the Soviet Union ultimately facilitated the collapse of their system using speech, not arms.
I don’t believe any government can feel safe as long as free speech exists on the internet. It only remains to be seen what measures they will take to suppress it.
The internet is to revolution, what nuclear missiles are to strategic bombers. They both shrink reaction time down to the point where any response is very likely to be born of panic.
Actually, I should have more clearly differentiated between information and news. I think of news as the organization and presentation of information. My post is mostly about the availability of the raw information especially as related to current events in Iran.
Many people like to have their news pre-digested and condensed into nice , bite-sized, sanitized, family-safe installments, so mainstream media is the way to go. But that news organization is doing some of their thinking for them. It’s selective in what it presents, it bleeps out offensive language, it edits out violence and nudity, it disguises people’s identities, and they are influenced by commercial and political interests.
If you want to see the raw unedited information and assess it for yourself, then the internet is a great source. The key point my post tried to make is that, for the first time ever, we have a choice.
I don’t really know what to make of your comment about internet news being repetitive. Mainstream media is most certainly repetitive, not only across outlets, but even within the same outlet.
DONDERROOOOOOOOO
Come on, somebody had to.
[...] Radley Balko: Government has been murdering its own citizens for as long as we’ve had government, particularly when the people begin to pose a threat to those in power. The difference is that now, the entire world is watching. Iran’s brutality is on display for everyone to see, archived for history, in a way that we didn’t have even in Tiananmen, and haven’t had for most of human history. That, at least, is progress. [...]
“we fucked your grandparents, so to make up for it we have to fuck you too”.
How are we fucking the Iranian protesters? What, exactly, are we supposed to do?
“How are we fucking the Iranian protesters? What, exactly, are we supposed to do?”
Exactly!
Tokin42: We’re not going to help them overtly (militarily), and you know we’re already helping them covertly (CIA) but you don’t expect Obama to tell the world about that, do you? So what does it accomplish for Obama to throw on a green tie and declare for Moussavi other than to make us feel better about ourselves? The Iranians are not rising up against their leaders to give us an opportunity to stroke our egos about how we always defend freedom and justice blahblahblah. THIS IS NOT ABOUT US. Do you think that MOUSSAVI wants Obama to come out and support him? He’d be arrested before Obama’s speech ended! Taking an even wider perspective, can you name one other example of an American president publicly telling another country what the outcome of their election should be??
Obama: “We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people.”
How can he more explicitly criticize the Iranian government’s response than that, I wonder?
Obama: “We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost… The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and **the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights**.”
How can he more explicitly support the rights of Iranian citizens to protest?
Stop blindly and reflexively criticizing and give us some alternative ideas. What… exactly… would you do?
Basij. Is that the Iranian word for SWAT?
The penultimate oxymoron from Hamburglar007: “legitimate government”.
That murdered woman was Neda: http://tinyurl.com/mkwjaj
[...] And there’s no authority for any of this – no confirmation, just the video. But Radley Balko at least adds perspective: [...]
#43 & #44
What I wanted him to do was give the same speech he gave saturday, only he should have done it 4 days earlier. It shouldn’t have taken him a week to figure out that people marching in the streets of an enemy for freedom is a good thing. Merckel, Havel, Sarkozy figured it out pretty quick. At this stage we’d be better off if he’d just do whatever sarkozy says.
#44
I’ve been saying this for a freakin week. I pointed out we elected a guy based almost entirely on the fact he’s a good public speaker and maybe he should be using that ability. There aren’t a whole lot of options here but the leader of the free world should be out front in allying with the people of Iran in their struggle against the mullahs. The only reason he hasn’t is not because he doesn’t want to make us a distraction, that’s complete bullshit. Like I said, he went a week without saying anything and WE STILL got blamed for the insurrection. The reason he’s put off saying anything is because he really doesn’t give a shit about the people of Iran, he just wants this over so he knows who he gets to go grovel to, like it matters. He’s in over his head, he should abdicate his foreign policy to Clinton.
Read this.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22875.htm
“Are the Iranian Election Protests Another US Orchestrated ‘Color Revolution’?
By Paul Craig Roberts
June 20, 2009 “Information Clearing House” — -A number of commentators have expressed their idealistic belief in the purity of Mousavi, Montazeri, and the westernized youth of Terhan. The CIA destabilization plan, announced two years ago (see below) has somehow not contaminated unfolding events.
The claim is made that Ahmadinejad stole the election, because the outcome was declared too soon after the polls closed for all the votes to have been counted. However, Mousavi declared his victory several hours before the polls closed. This is classic CIA destabilization designed to discredit a contrary outcome. It forces an early declaration of the vote. The longer the time interval between the preemptive declaration of victory and the announcement of the vote tally, the longer Mousavi has to create the impression that the authorities are using the time to fix the vote. It is amazing that people don’t see through this trick.
As for the grand ayatollah Montazeri’s charge that the election was stolen, he was the initial choice to succeed Khomeini, but lost out to the current Supreme Leader. He sees in the protests an opportunity to settle the score with Khamenei. Montazeri has the incentive to challenge the election whether or not he is being manipulated by the CIA, which has a successful history of manipulating disgruntled politicians.
There is a power struggle among the ayatollahs. Many are aligned against Ahmadinejad because he accuses them of corruption, thus playing to the Iranian countryside where Iranians believe the ayatollahs’ lifestyles indicate an excess of power and money. In my opinion, Ahmadinejad’s attack on the ayatollahs is opportunistic. However, it does make it odd for his American detractors to say he is a conservative reactionary lined up with the ayatollahs.
Commentators are “explaining” the Iran elections based on their own illusions, delusions, emotions, and vested interests. Whether or not the poll results predicting Ahmadinejad’s win are sound, there is, so far, no evidence beyond surmise that the election was stolen. However, there are credible reports that the CIA has been working for two years to destabilize the Iranian government.
On May 23, 2007, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito reported on ABC News: “The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell ABC News.”
On May 27, 2007, the London Telegraph independently reported: “Mr. Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”
A few days previously, the Telegraph reported on May 16, 2007, that Bush administration neocon warmonger John Bolton told the Telegraph that a US military attack on Iran would “be a ‘last option’ after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed.”
On June 29, 2008, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker: “Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.”
The protests in Tehran no doubt have many sincere participants. The protests also have the hallmarks of the CIA orchestrated protests in Georgia and Ukraine.
It requires total blindness not to see this.”
When the U.S govt murders people we like to show it at a distance like blowing up apartment buildings in Iraq full of women and children. Shock and awe is way cooler, gets americans feeling powerful about killing civilians in a fireworks display fashion.
Tonkin, how is waiting several days to give a speech condemning the Iranian government “fucking” the Iranian people? Why is it so important to condemn the Iranian government for doing what the, say, Saudi government (one example of many) has been doing for decades, without a peep of protest from a U.S. President?
“#25 | Eric Dondero | June 21st, 2009 at 7:07 am
And the non-interventionist leftwing “libertarians” like Ron Paul and the Paleos still say, “stay out, don’t even express support for the demonstrators…”
The blood of hundreds of Iranian Youth, including this Iranian girl, will be on the hands of the non-interventionist wing of the libertarian movement and their allies on the Left.”
That’s funny, you didn’t express the same concern for those Iranian Youth when your boys were chanting “bomb bomb bomb iran”
Who did you think those bombs were going to be dropping on, jackass?