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Blogging in Iran Takes Courage
netbuzz writes "This morning's Boston Globe has a thought-provoking profile of Iranian bloggers who are risking everything, quite literally, to bring a modicum of openness and truth to a society where the former is not tolerated and the latter strictly defined by government/religious authorities."
The USA has problems, but comparing it to Iran with a smirk and a shrug is the opposite of helpful.
Oh least we forget who put the Shah in power. So indirectly, our Government... Which is supposedly in the hands of the US people... Installed a dictator who was terrible enough for a people to wish a revolution that replaced him with a theocratic leadership.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution
So yeah. At home we aren't as bad as Iran, but we had a great big hand in causing them to turn into the country they are today. I suppose I could get into the issue of the Iran/Iraq war which we tried to fix our mistake by arming another which we had to fix ourselves 20 years later.
And now we are paying for it on a daily basis.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Bzzt. "Since 1990 Amnesty International has documented 47 executions of child offenders in eight countries: China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the USA and Yemen."
Read about it here
"The USA and Iran have each executed more child offenders than the other six countries combined and Iran has now matched the USA's total since 1990 of 19 child executions."
That's right folks, Iran has caught up with the USA. CAUGHT UP!
codegolf.com - smaller *is* better.
Invisiblog took submissions by Mixmaster email and used gpg signing as the authentication mechanism. They seem to be defunct as of about a year ago. The eelbash anonymous remailer announced a replacement, but the page for that is 404 now.
You're right. In Iran, people aren't herded into free speech zones. Instead, they are beaten to a pulp. This is just one case. There are several more. I invite you to just dig through the results of "iran student protests", or to find out what happened to prominent politicians who got a little too close to the West.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
The cost of the Iraq war is a pimple on the behind of either the American economy, or the US Government budget. The annual costs of the Iraq war are on the order of $100-150 billion. The US Government budget is $2 trillion. The US economy is on the order of $12 trillion. From an economic perspective, the cost of Iraq is an annoyance, nothing more. The US Army during the Vietnam war was 3x its current size. During WW2, it was 16x larger while the country was half its current size. Militarily the Iraq war is uncomfortable for the current size of the Army and the policies they want to keep, but that is about all.
Iran isn't simply provoking Israel, its President is making statements suggesting a threat of genocide that even various Arab governments condemn. Maybe you can understand why the Jewish state might be sensitive to that? Or, maybe not. I can't imagine you advocate them accepting annihilation just to keep the peace.
Europe has been taking the lead on the Iran problem*, and is failing. Is that because Europeans want oil priced in Euros, a nuclear armed Iran (soon) with missiles capable of reaching Europe (now), they are simply feckless, or maybe the Iranian government is run by fanatics who have an agenda of their own that they value above Europe's carrots & sticks?
Wars tend to start when one country attacks another. Iran has been sponsoring terrorism across the region, providing arms to Iraqi insurgents, and is making threats against other countries. That isn't a recipe for peace.
By the way, how does suicide bombing work into this? Since we "know" that religion isn't involved, but oil is, how do they convince suicide bombers to do it? Do they offer to bury the bomber's remains in pure kerosene or something?
* Yet more evidence of US unilateralism.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
What most people think of as the Abu Ghraib scandal was a small group of bored, stupid soldiers engaging in some sick thrills which mostly occurred over a period of a few days. They have been punished for it. What they did was for "fun" not policy.
So that law Bush signed wasn't policy either?
There have been asphyxiations during CIA interrogations, and many allegations of torture and abuse outside of the specific incidents of Abu Ghraib. If at this point you think that those things which you can find pictures of on Google Images are the most that has occured, and a law authorizing the President to decide what is and is not torture when they were known to already have an extremely liberal definition is just hot air and not indicative of policy, then I have to say you're very naive.
Japan, Italy, and Germany are presently peaceful democracies after suffering severe violence and occupation for up to seven years. Germany did have a short lived but violent insurgency (the Werewolves) that was put down. Germany seems to have come through it OK, the Nazi pagans didn't take over. The coup attempt by the Japanese Army didn't have legs either.
Thank you. Referring to the time 60 years ago when the U.S. new how to actually accomplish something and reconstruct a nation really puts the current failure in Iraq in sharper relief.
Do you think Japan would have done as well if MacArthur had gone in with absolutely no plan on what to do, no understanding of the culture, and no intention of trying to fix things that were blatantly broken? Rumsfeld said he "doesn't do nation building". Well, nation building is the job he got, but he "didn't do" it in the sense that he didn't have a plan for it.
The coup, by the way, occured before the Emperor surrendered and was an attempt to stop him from doing so. The reason peace prevailed there was because the people were loyal to the Emperor and he told them to lay down arms, and MacArthur was wise enough to retain a ceremonial position for the Emperor, saving face and not giving the people a reason to revolt to protect him. Those poor soldiers stuck on Pacific atols still fighting the war twenty years later? That would have been every Japanese had things been slightly different.
If the current Admin. understood the differences beteen WWII and Iraq II better than you do, maybe Iraq would be going better. Sadly, they think "it worked before, therefore it will work now even if we have no idea what makes now different than then" is sound logic.
Iraq has just reached its one-year election anniversary, the Iraqi economy is strong and growing, the Iraqi security forces are leading increasing numbers of operations, and Iraqi tribes are turning on Al Qaeda in Iraq which has lost at least 7,000 terrorists killed or captured. If the Iraqi people, government, and the Coalition Forces can start getting a handle on the surging sectarian violence, much of which seems to be emanating from Al Sadr's militia which may be spinning out of his control, Iraq could do well.
And a year later, those elections, which were supposed to solve everything, have proven to be largely irrelevent. The current government is as widely held as corrupt and incompetent as the U.S. appointed one before it. If all you wanted was an election irrespective of the situation surrounding it then Saddam held elections too that were also useless outside of appearances.
Did you read your article on the economy? Yay, economic indicators are going up due to the influx of foreign money and oil money. Is it being felt by the average person? No, unemployment is at 30 to 50 percent, and Iraqis are burning through their savings. That might make the economy look good because there is more money churning, but it does not make the prospects of the average Iraqi look good. Still I'm glad that even if they can't walk in the street without fear of being abducted and tortured for wearing the wrong clothes in the wrong neighborhood, at least we've ma
The enemies of Democracy are