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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.
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