Slashdot Mirror
Iran Moves To End "Facebook Revolution"
We've had a few readers send in updates on the chaotic post-election situation in Iran. Twitter is providing better coverage than CNN at the moment. There are both tech and humanitarian angles to the story, as the two samples below illustrate. First, Hugh Pickens writes with a report from The Times (UK) that "the Iranian government is mounting a campaign to disrupt independent media organizations and Web sites that air doubts about the validity of the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the nation's president. Reports from Tehran say that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter were taken down after Mr Ahmadinejad claimed victory. SMS text messaging, a preferred medium of communication for young Iranians, has also been disabled. 'The blocking of access to foreign news media has been stepped up, according to Reporters Without Borders. 'The Internet is now very slow, like the mobile phone network. YouTube and Facebook are hard to access and pro-reform sites... are completely inaccessible.'" And reader momen abdullah sends in one of the more disturbing Ask Slashdots you are likely to see. "People, we need your urgent help in Iran. We are under attack by the government. They stole the election. And now are arresting everybody. They also filtered every sensitive Web page. But our problem is that they also block the SMS network and are scrambling satellite TVs. Please, can you help us to set up some sort of network using our home wireless access points? Can anybody show us a link on how to install small TV/radio stations? Any suggestion for setting up a network? Please tell us what to do or we are going to die in the a nuclear war between Iran and US." Update: 06/14 18:32 GMT by KD : Jim Cowie contributes a blog post from Renesys taking a closer look at the state of Iranian Internet transit, as seen in the aggregated global routing tables, and concluding that the story may not be as clear-cut as has been reported.
On one hand, we have the freedom and lives of millions of people. On the other hand we can help bring Twitter down. Tough choice...
I wonder what's really going on in Iran. Because this wreaks of propaganda.
seriously, wah...nuclear war, pollution, oppressive rule is all enabled by...guess who? GEEKS! You wanted gadgets and toys, and the spin offs have destroyed our planet and politics. Plastic wouldn't exist without you. Bombs wouldn't. Islamo-fascism wouldn't have the pull it does. Own it and weep.
Sometimes in some situations the only real answer is unyielding violence. Sure you can hedge on the bet that eventually enough old people will die off that Iran could become a free country but at the rate they can find new help... sometimes a peaceful revolution just isn't a realistic expectation.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Leave. Now. While you still can.
Anybody want my mod points?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio HAM Radio.
you are not smart politics-wise are you ? hardliners stole the election - they got 55%+ vote even in places that never voted for anyone except their ethnic candidates. election fraud has been committed. and now the government of ahmedinajad is trying to suppress discussion. thats it.
Read radical news here
That's right Mr. theocratic dictator. Go ahead and keep pushing down the relatively minor calls for reform and watch in horror as the demands for freedom and civil discourse grow more and more demanding, and more and more "extreme". This is how true democracies begin.
We got rid of our idiot leadership, now Iran looks to be doing the same.
(Bush was terrible by just about any measure - I'm an independent voter and have voted for Dems and Repubs)
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
I heard at a talk that if the internet falls, the United States' military could not be mobilized. The situation in Iran sounds similar, but with the citizens. While the more liberal citizens are crying foul, the majority of the populace still supports the state. Religion has a disgusting influence on people.
Regardless of your political leanings, this is an opportunity to help out some folks in a country that is crying for help!
Computer to phone line. Dial up to a north american ISP. They'll have a hard time filtering web content through what shows up as a phone conversation. I'd be willing to pitch in for the bill, though I doubt many companies would charge for that. Someone set up a netzero account for these people or something, I only have $6.75 in my checking account (and no credit card). Either that, or http://www.i2p2.de/ for an encrypted tor-like connection.
http://osvideo.constantvzw.org/your-own-private-pirate-tv-station/
There are many documents available by torrent (check piratebay) on conducting insurgency. Sabotage, bombmaking, organizational structure to reduce infiltration, etc. A government that rules illegitimately does not deserve the acquiescence of its citizens. I understand there are already active insurgencies in Iran, and I'll bet an insurgency could get assistance from forces located in nations immediately to Iran's west and east. Tweets are great, but the government isn't going to change course until things start blowing up.
Does he really set policy?
Aren't all the presidential choices pre approved?
Will a different choice change any meaningful policies that might make a difference in Iran getting nuked?
Seems Iran needs another revolution, not just another figurehead.
Dey too eur jawbs!!
The extent of the fraud perpetrated is clearly intended to send a message. If the powers that be in Iran just wanted Ahmadinejad reelected, they could have done so subtly. Give him 45% or so in round 1, to Mousavi's 39%, and then have him win round 2 with 52% or so. People wouldn't like it, but it'd at least be believable.
No, by giving Ahmadinejad ~67% of the vote, even in Mousavi's hometown, they are very clearly sending a message to the people that their votes do not count. After such a high turnout, after so much enthusiasm, this is a clear move to disenfranchise the Iranian people, so that they don't even try to vote against the entrenched powers in the future.
I bought into this whole idea of helping out the dissident Iraqis who were trying to establish a democracy under Saddam. I supported President Bush's invasion of Iraq even though I knew the WMD was a crock because I thought the idea of kicking out a dictatorship and allowing a democracy to flourish was a good idea.
It turned out, after the invasion, that these people had little native support of their own and many people either liked Saddam or liked the Mullahs.
Having heard a bunch of leftists cry about how much better Saddam was for Iraq, and how wrong it was to actually try and get rid of a dictatorship, and seeing that the people on the ground really kinda liked their dictatorship, my ears for Iran are pretty deaf right now.
If the people of Iran want to get rid of their government, they can do it themselves. If the left wants to lament the death of democracy in Iraq, they can spare me the tears. They had no problem advocating tyranny in Iraq.
This is my sig.
Iranians are not organized (the people), you cannot expect to achieve anything until you get organized. Start building groups, decentralized cells that operate on their own without a centralized leadership. Read and learn! Most of the Iranian supporters of Mousavi are intelligent, that is your weapon. Learn about tactics, sabotage, etc., and gather supplies you will need. You cannot gather in groups and attack the police using the police's own tactics of large-scale street battles. You need insurgency, and sabotage. You are intelligent Iranians, you can get into employment and infiltrate agencies that no other Iranian can. The only way a government can be brought down is with an insurgency from within. Look at the Soviet collapse for an idea of how this is done. Most importantly, build international support, you cannot do this on your own. There are many organizations that would support a move towards democracy with supplies and money. Without the above, you cannot achieve anything except suffering for those who would most likely be wanting to help the cause.
Huh? [devShell.org]
If what is disrupted are specific sites, and not the whole internet, you can use it to get anonymous/encrypted communication with wherever you want.
In the other hand, tor sounds too much like Thor, and if Iranian government things you are of another religion you could be screwed.
Is it an attempt to silence rightful opposition to a fixed election or is it riot control to restore the peace after a democratic election? I mean, are there reports of election fraud or are we just unhappy with the result?
Surely there's other /.'ers out there willing to set up a proxy with Squid or something?
Let me know if this would be helpful and I will.
-- "...I'm a bad guy because I, well, I sing some rock-and-roll songs." M. Manson
From the Article:
"I'd say that there are probably a lot more people around the world pulling local content from Iran's providers right now, and that surge of demand is probably contributing to increased congestion and (perhaps) some of the route instability we see."
We've really outdone ourselves this time!
Yeah, building a bomb from instructions found on the Internet sounds like the start of a great Myth Busters episode. One in which Buster gets blown to hell again.
Remember kids, don't try this at home.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
I think that what momen abdullah is asking can be achieved using ham radio. Look for PSK31 for low-bandwith digital communications. Maybe "truckers" in Iran are using CB radio? You can use that as well, maybe hack it a bit. Anyway, building a simple 80-100MHz FM band transmitter is very easy to build, just hook it into a power amplifier for better coverage.
Look at the first search result on google for "fm transmitter", this is what i found. seems easy enough to build with easily attainable components.
4Z5TX
On the third hand, it is time we start looking at opening up governance; getting rid of the systems which allow this sort of bullshit to happen. You can't steal an election if there are no elections and no leaders: http://metagovernment.org/wiki/Main_Page
I might suggest surrogate ssh tunneling. Have some volunteers with ssh servers in other countries to allow encrypted tunneling. The only thing is you want to arrange this setup discreetly and probably not on the normal ssh port. If this is too slow of an option to load the pages I would suggest using a text only browser that doesn't bother downloading images unless you specifically want to.
so facebook = erasebook?
I'm afraid if you want change, it has to come from within. The Iranian people will have to rise up and displace their government, by force if necessary. Chatting about it on the net won't help, and the US is not going to at all be interested in forcing change at this point. As with pretty much any real change in life, at has to come from within. If this really matters to the people of Iran, then they have the power to change it. You CAN overthrow a government, history has plenty of examples.
As for nuclear war, I wouldn't worry too much about that. The US isn't going to strike first, and Iran lacks the technology to deliver nuclear payloads to the US. Also, as a practical matter while Iranian leadership seems to be oppressive and such, they aren't insane. I'm sure they full and well understand what the US response to a nuclear attack would be, and nobody wants to be the ruler of a glass parking lot.
So I wouldn't worry about nuclear war, but I would worry about Iran becoming a whole lot more oppressive. If you are Iranian, the only real solution to that is to displace your government. Sorry, but that just seems to be the fact. They've made it quite clear they aren't interested in democratic change, and the president of the US isn't interested in starting another war that the military can't sustain, nor would the US population go along with it.
So if change matters, you'll have to do it yourselves, and yes it may be bloody. That or get out of the country, which is probably what I'd opt for. I'd like to think I could stand up and fight but realistically I'd just run away, I don't have the guts to be a revolutionary I think.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
--Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States.
From the Topic "We've had a few readers send in updates on the chaotic post-election situation in Iran. Twitter is providing better coverage than CNN at the moment"
Fox News this morning and last night was talking about the same thing. They commented on how most other US news sources had little or nothing on the Iran election.
CNN, and MSNBC has the lowest ratings of any Cable/Network News channel in the US. They provide almost no news which is truthful or accurate. The print media, like the New York Times hide real news stories from the public.
Where I work, MSNBC, CNN and the New York Times are blocked.
When will the good citizens of the US follow Texas and just pull the plug on CNN, MSNBC, and the New York times.
Seriously? If this election is stolen, it will be the same as any other stolen election. If the US went in with Nukes every time a dictator faked Democracy, there wouldn't be any life left on Earth.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
Maybe it's time to do something over there. If you don't like the government's deciding what you can and can't do, you have the option to change it. But you won't be able to do that on Twitter or any other on-line option. Physical action may be your only choice. As you have seen, the ones in power will stay there by any means necessary. It's your country, you solve the problem. That's what we did in America. If you don't want to act, you deserve what you get.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimized_Link_State_Routing_Protocol
http://www.olsr.org/
We should send David Lettermen to Iran. If sending him there, does not resolve the world's problems with Iran, it will resolve the US problem of David Lettermen.
Mr Ahmadinejad credits his win to democratic methods perfected by George W. Bush. "We fully understand the international community's desires to see that Iran's democracy transparently works to the highest standards found in other nations. Mr Bush's work has been exemplary."
The "hanging chad" technique has been particularly effective. "Rounding up opposition voters, politicians and journalists named Chad and hanging them. In those cases where the opposition insurgent was not named Chad, we of course took care to change their names to Chad posthumously. Democratic procedures must not only be observed, they must be seen to be observed."
"I stand one hundred per cent behind my brother Mahmoud," said Supreme Leader Ali Khameini Rove of the Project for a New Iranian Century. "Occasionally with his mouth moving in time with the movements of my hand. Clever, isn't it?"
Mr Ahmadinejad has been condemned by some as a "lunatic redneck" and "a gibbering madman perilously close to the nuclear button." "These charges are most unfair. When I declaimed the necessity of obliterating and deleting the unnameable Zionist entity with cleansing atomic fire, it was implicit in these statements that we would need to reach a resolution to undertake such action through proper procedures of international diplomacy. Mr Bush's excellent work in decapitating Saddam Hussein's odious regime shows the way forward in this regard."
"We stand in solidarity with the Iranian people," said President-in-Exile Al Gore from his cave high in the mountains of Afghanistan. "For my own part, I will never give up the fight to take back America and Iran from the Republican counterrevolutionaries and will not rest until all Americans and Iranians breathe the free air of socialism ... what? Democrats elected? Huh, next you'll try telling me the President's black. You can't fool me! Back where you came from!"
http://rocknerd.co.uk
That is one option, it is however that of a completly mad dictator. A more human answer is that the goverment is afraid. Afraid that a closer more realistic faked result would spark revolution. Its soldiers might be willing to shoot on citizens if they think they represent a minority. If the are a majority, then things could be different. Think China vs Russia. The russian soldiers sided with the people recently, the chinese soldiers with their leaders. The reason? Simple, the russian soldiers knew the truth of who was winning the popularity contest.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Some ways to subvert the censorship.
1) anonymous web proxies that only accept inbound connections from Iran IP space.
2) TOR servers.
3) Ad-Hoc WiFi networks could be used to create a Mesh networks.
4) Multicast information, documents, video over the Mesh.
When did the left advocate Military non-intervention?
I see little support for non-interventionism from any part of the American political spectrum aside from Ron Paul and a few other voices than remain mostly unheard.
Read the article titled "The Ugly Side of Truth".
Please tell us what to do or we are going to die in the a nuclear war between Iran and US.
Look on the bright side, at least your 'net connections will automatically re-route around any local ground zeros.
I'm sorry to say to you, but you are f****d :-( Simply put - your government & religion leaders has hard control over military (both official and semi-official IRGC) and you don't have total-majority (80-90%) of population on your side, not speaking about military leaders. Your only chance to do bloody revolution, but how history teaches us, there is only a little chance that it will lead in long-term peaceful solution.
The Chaos Computer Club made a "FreedomStick" for journalists traveling to China to cover the Olympics. It includes software that automatically uses firefox+tor etc.. More Info Here: http://chinesewall.ccc.de/index-en.html
Hard time filtering a constantly on connection to the big satan when any mechanic can just plugin a headset and hear nothing but the noises modems make and no voices.
Iran is a dictatorship, it doesn't have to obey laws or niceties. Anyone who follows your advice is risking death if the iran goverment is really doing what people here are claiming it is doing.
The first victim of dictatorship is plausible deniability.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In the absence of an external interfering force (e. g., the army of the Soviet Union), the fate of a nation is determined by its people. Period.
I didn't know you could win an argument by appending a "Period." after your thesis.
...they take the clerics out of the system. The secular president is just a puppet of the clerics, even if he is a "reformer". What would politics be like in this country if all the candidates were hand-picked by televangelists? That's Iran. Until you fix that, it's pointless.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
... The Iranians created this horrible society. It is none of our business unless they attempt to develop nuclear weapons. We in the West are morally justified in destroying the nuclear-weapons facilities ..... Cultures are different. Vietnamese culture and Iranian culture are different. The Iranians bear 100% of the blame for the existence of a tyrannical government in Iran. We should condemn Iranian culture and its people.
You seem to be missing out the part when the US helped overthrow the democratically elected government in 1953 and installed a brutal despot. Nope, nothing to do with how that changed Iranian society at all.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Right now, the overwhelming majority clearly oppose the creation of a liberal Western democracy. The Iranians love a brutal Islamic theocracy.
While it's (probably) true that a lot of Iranians support the current government, I don't think you can say the "overwhelming majority" support it. The current situation proves this -- the people are pissed. They tried to do it the right way and they still got screwed by, what seems to be, a rigged election.
I carefully read your post before responding, just to be sure. One element you didn't mention: FEAR. Sure, I'll buy that the Iranian people facilitated the mess they're living in now -- much in the same way that the German people facilitated the Nazi movement. However, remember that power seeks to perpetuate itself; now that this extremist regime has both feet firmly planted, it isn't going to go away simply because the populace doesn't like it. It'll threaten them with imprisonment, torture, death, and threaten the friends and family, even children, of dissidents. It'll threaten with people disappearing in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again. Stories will circulate about someone merely speaking out against the government in casual conversation, yet that person and his whole family will disappear in the middle of the night, never to be seen or heard from again. Some people may have such strength of their convictions as to take up arms and fight against this, but MOST WILL NOT! I'm sure many (most?) Iranian citizens regret the regime they're living under now, but they don't want to see everyone they care about brutally murdered before their very eyes before being murdered themselves!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
What the fuck is wrong with you people? The person asked for a serious request on how to setup a AdHoc network, and you spout relatively petty bullshit?! Can anyone answer the person's question, or are you just going to use this is a soap box?
And there I was thinking that various apparatchiks, military governors and bandits took advantage of the power vacuum to set up their own little Warlordistans.
Lying BBC/CNN bastards!
At the bottom of the
The topic was posted by kdawson. 'nough said.
Even a stopped watch is right twice a day.
If the overwhelming majority of Iranians (like the overwhelming majority of Poles) truly support democracy, human rights, and peace with Israel, then a liberal Western democracy will arise -- without any violence.
The purpose of all governments, is to fool or force the majority into helping the leaders, to the detriment of the majority. No different here or there or anywhere, ever. Sometimes the government does something that unintentionally makes something nice happens to the majority, but thats just a pleasant side effect or accident. We've been lucky that way. Them, not so much.
That fact of life does not seem to fit in with your worldview. Therefore your worldview is suspect.
We in the West are morally justified in destroying the nuclear-weapons facilities.
Don't keep me on the edge of my seat... why? You're confusing rationalization with morality. Some subset of the radical neocon west would love more war in the middle east, after all we clearly don't have enough war in the middle east, and war is good, so more war is more good, being moral is good, unsurprisingly by our own definition we are good, therefore war is good, QED. But that logic somehow seems faulty.
I don't argue that there are strong national interests in blowing up their buildings and killing their people, I'm just intellectually honest enough to declare it as a lesser of two evils, and militarily convenient to do it sooner rather than later, not using some tarted up "moral justification" that merely doublespeaks what "morally justified" actually means.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I actually found this line very intriguing. Is it really possible to set up an autonomous network using any sort of commodity wireless routers? It might be a not bad idea at all in a densely populated metropolis. Probably none come with the firmware allowing to do that, but there might be open firmware alternatives. So, 3 questions:
1. Is it technically possible to connect two wireless routers together to form a network?
2. Is there readily-available software needed to set up a centralized/hierarchical network in this way?
3. P2P?
Yes, by revolting against the Shah, who was a puppet of the USA.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Except with the fact that the Iranians did actually overthrow the brutal despot that the US helped establish, and replaced him with what we see today?
AFAIK, the Iranians already had their chance to end tyranny and establish a democracy... but instead, they chose tyranny by different hands.
Nonsense.
The white minority in South Africa was able to hold power for decades. Why? They had the guns.
I don't know what percentage of the population supports the Iranian dictatorship. But so long as its supporters are armed and its opponents are not, it doesn't matter how many of them there are.
Building a nuke has nothing to do with "revenge". Since the U.S. has demonstrated its willingness to engage in wars of aggression, any state not closely allied with a nuclear power can only secure itself by obtaining a nuclear deterrent.
Ah, ignorance of history is bliss, ain't it?
Iran was a becoming a modern, secular state. But it's elected prime minister has the temerity to nationalize its oil reserves, which didn't sit well with the U.S. and U.K., so we backed the Shah.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Do you realize how offensive it is to lump all the Iranian people under one label when ascribing motivations or actions to them? If you want to make the state sovereignty argument, fine, but leave it at that. Don't be all, like, "Those damned brown people."
This is extremely uninformed and offensive. You obviously know very little of Iranian culture.
To rule, you need a majority of power. People aren't equally powerful, so you do not necessarily need a majority of people to rule.
Minorities can and do keep majorities hostage. When some classes, like veterans, priests, businessmen or people of inherited wealth command more raw power than regular people, and differ significantly from regular people in their political preferences, this is the rule rather than the exception.
This is true even in democracies, because although voting power may be equal, it's far from the only power there is, or even the most important. If the Iranians rise up against this disenfranchisement, there will be bloodshed, because while the clerics and the revolutionary guard are in a minority, they have more than enough power to match the majority.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
He also refers to "the Iranians" as if they think in unison, like some giant borg-like collective. It is this exact mindset that aids government in their endless quest for not only more revenue, but more power over the people. This is exactly how every government around the world wants you to think.
Come on, this is 2009. If you still can't wrap your head around the truth that people are unique, thinking individuals, each with a unique perspective on life, liberty, and happiness, than you're part of the problem, not the solution.
Unfortunately, setting up large-scale adhoc networks with 802.11b/g hardware is kind of difficult. What you'll want to look at is what's called "wireless mesh networking". Mesh networking is basically the peer-to-peer of networks. The difficulty with using 802.11b/g for mesh networking is that 802.11 standard doesn't really include any concept of a mesh. There are two types of devices: access points and clients. Access points cannot communicate with other access points. It is however, possible for clients to communicate with other clients by switching to ad hoc networking mode. So your options are thus:
1) get a lot of people with 802.11g-capable computers to switch into ad hoc networking mode. This will allow them to connect to each other if the density is high enough (that is if there are enough people close enough). Unfortunately, the range is on the small side, so, unfortunately, this may not work that well. Part of the problem is that clients often have a lower broadcast strength than access points.
2) set up a specifically designed mesh network. To do mesh networking in infrastructure mode, there are going to be four different types of nodes which can be used. 1) AP nodes 2) Client-Client nodes 3) AP-Client nodes 4) Client nodes
AP nodes:
An ordinary wireless access point can act as a hub node.
Client-Client nodes:
There have to be two radios for each client-client node. Both will act as clients to other networks. You'll either need one computer with two wireless cards or two computers which are connected together using some other means (or, if you happen to have an access point which can be switched to client mode (which very few can) then you could use that as a client). You can connect the two computers using an ethernet hub, ethernet cross-over cable, null modem cable, or possibly firewire (although I've never done that). The computers should each by set to bridging mode. Basically, each client will connect to a different access point and they'll then serve to connect the two access points to each-other, bridging the networks. Generally these should be on different frequencies. Although there may be some circumstances where the same frequency can be used.
AP-Client nodes:
There have to be two radios for each AP-client node. One will work as a client to another access point and one will act as an access point for other nodes. Generally, this will mean one computer and one access point connected together by ethernet, but there are a few other ways to do it. The computer should be set into some form of bridging mode which differs some based on operating system. The two radios will always use different frequencies unless there's a long cable-run between them (opposite sides of a building or some such).
Now, you need to figure out how to put this together. You need at least an initial group of people to help build the network. And then you'll lay out a basic topology. You'll plot out the nodes you have available on a graph and then try to connect them together. Client-Client nodes can connect to two nodes, either AP nodes or AP-Client nodes using infrastructure mode or to other Client-Client nodes in ad hoc mode. AP nodes can have multiple Client-Client or AP-Client nodes connected to them. AP nodes cannot connect to other AP nodes unless both AP nodes have wireless bridging modes (very rare) and you can get them to work (even rarer). AP-Client nodes can connect to one AP node (infrastructure) or one Client-Client node (ad hoc) and can have multiple AP-Client or Client-Client nodes connected to them The Client nodes can be used only as stepping stones in an ad hoc connection. I.e. if two client-client nodes want to connect, but are two far from each other, you can put a Client node in between in ad hoc mode and it'll help them connect. This can be done with a string of client nodes.
You'll want to draw all this out on a map, and possibly rearrange equipment as needed to fill in the gaps. You'll also need to decide frequencies so
If you can't change the government; the public should join forces and wage war on the government to avoid such dicatorships.
Actually, the line between a "genuine democracy and a free market" on the one side, resp. "bandits take advantage and set up their warlordistans" on the other sometimes IS a rather thin one.
Especially regarding the "free market" issue.
The Iranian people will have to rise up and displace their government, by force if necessary.
Been there, done that. That's how we got the present situation. In 1979, Islamic militants overthrew the 2500 year old monarchy. Before, they had an oppressive right-wing monarchy. Now, they have an oppressive Islamic theocracy.
But we both know they're all noise to cover the same ol' non-stop war for power between two kinds of creep, who keep reappearing in Mexican history under different names: the "charismatic guerrilla" leader like Villa and Zapata, who always turn into sleazy dictators once they get power, and the plain old rich landlord elite, who start out as sleazy dictators and so don't have to pretend they're anything else from the get-go. If you live anywhere in the tropics, let's face it: those are your choices, always have been and always will be. Don't blame me, I just work here. - "Gary Bretcher", the "War Nerd".
The Iranians created this horrible society. It is none of our business unless they attempt to develop nuclear weapons. We in the West are morally justified in destroying the nuclear-weapons facilities.
But if human rights are a universal thing and not merely something granted by the state or agreed upon by society, we do have the right, possibily even the duty to intervene and make sure everyone can enjoy them.
(+1, Disagree)
im another fucking expert. i live next to iran, in a country which has the risk of becoming another iran itself. so, if you do not have a similar situation, either research first, or shut up and listen.
Read radical news here
You are either unbelievably ignorant or a troll. 1) the vietnamese kept POWs for decades after the war, and 2) they are still suing for monetary compensation to clean up the ecological mess left by agent orange. America put the despot in power in Iran. Most Iranians in the past have actually been very pro-American. This is still true of most of the younger Iranians in spite of the fact that we've fucked them pretty hard in the past.
Reporter, I strongly suggest you learn A LOT more about history. If you want to talk about the difference of cultures, you need to actually learn about them. For starters, you need to learn that Americans have the most violent culture of any first world country. Start there, life is not black and white, wake the fuck up, and grow up. Oh, and I'm American.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
they are saying election is stolen, because in azerbaijani parts of iran, ahmedinajad got 55%+ vote. never in iran's history ANYone other than an ethnic azerbaijani got that kind of vote there.
let me put it in american context - ahmedinajad getting 55% vote in azerbaijani parts of iran means barack obama getting 55%+ vote in any part of redneck midwest with little black population.
Read radical news here
This is ignoring the history of Iran since the 1950s. Iran had a democratically elected prime minister, Dr Mossadegh in 1951. He nationalised the oil field. As a result, he was overthrown during a West-supported coup. The western-friendly Shah came to power, installed an autocratic dictatorship, which was overthrown by the theocrats in 1979, who were the most vocal opponents of the Shah. Ayatollah Khomeny came to power, installed an even more brutal and repressive, West-unfriendly theocracy. The West tried to overthrow it by staging a war by cutting a deal with Saddam Hussein in Iraq (remember him?), who lusted after Iran's oil fields. After many years of war and nearly a million deaths, a stalemate was reached in 1988. Since then there is an election system in Iran but it is closely controlled by the theocrats. Even though reforms were made, the most progressist of elected leader, Mohamed Katami, did not succeed in freeing the press and installing a real democracy.
Given all the above I would not say the problems of the Iranians are purely their own fault. The West including the US have been meddling in Iranian policies for a long time.
In ideal world maybe - but let's not forget that it was Eisenhower administration and the brits that conspired and overthrew democratically elected government of Iran in the fifties, after the said government was determined to nationalize oil industry of Iran, which sounds too familiar to what's going on in the Middle East today.
Then Iran had endured twenty or so year of brutal dictatorship imposed by the west, until every extremist and not so extremist group was up in arms against it, finally, when the revolution was over religious fundies managed to marginalize everyone else and thus we have Iran of today.
So you're saying that West has nothing to do with it is kind of self-serving, dumb and naive.
Oh don't tell me about genuine democracy in eastern Europe after the fall of Soviet Union, what they had for about a decade was a truly free market, and please don't confuse any kind of democracy especially genuine democracy with free market. For your reference: democracy - Switzerland, free market - Somalia.
Also, please google "1953 Iranian coup d'état" and "Iranian revolution of 1979" so the people around here would stop getting impression as if you're talking out of your ass.
What difference do you perceive between the government of Iran now and that following the Islamic revolution in 1979? The same people are in power, with a few public-facing figureheads being changed out. It is the mullash, Imams and clerics that are running things there and have been since 1979.
A good part of the people of Iran put these folks into power back in 1979. We had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen back then and, gosh, it has happened. The people that didn't agree with the direction then didn't do much to stop it. The people still aren't doing anything. Our ability from the outside to distinguish between the majority wanting this type of Islamic government and the majority being intimidated into accepting it is approximately zero.
So we have a choice. You apparently would like to believe the majority are intimidated into accepting things. I'd say the majority is pretty happy about their government. Maybe they would like some different mullah in charge but would still like some mullah. About the same difference as wanting Obama vs. McCain when people outside would prefer someone more like Buddha or Hitler. Sorry, I do not agree that the Iranian people would even be interested in anything other than a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy. And our ability to understand their desires in this area are extremely limited.
What does it take to understand that not all people yearn for freedom?
The US installed one brutal despot who beast the shit out of the populace. The only respite they had was in the Mosques, which guaranteed that any movement against the government was going to be theocratic and violent with a large amount of anit-west thrown in for good measure. And Iran has had to suffer that ignominy continually for the last 50 years.
The West cleared the land, tilled the fields and planted the seeds of a theocratic and violent society. To then claim that the Iranians are responsible for their predicament today is plain out disingenuous.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Your points are well taken, but don't we owe some support to the minority of Iranians who are oppressed by the majority? It's one thing for a society to make decisions that we think unwise but that don't violate fundamental rights. It is another thing when the majority choose to oppress women, Jews, Baha'is, Christians, atheists, homosexuals, and others. Of course, how to support them is not a trivial question, but we shouldn't simply write off sick societies like that of Iran and ignore them except when their actions affect others.
I hope this article on DIY networking equipment/setup might be of help.
http://www.computerpoweruser.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2Farchive%2Fc0204%2F48c04%2F48c04.asp
and here's one on setting up an encrypted phone network using asterisk and soft phones
http://chiralsoftware.com/asterisk-article/voip-sip-asterisk-configuration-part-1.jsp
good luck.
Tell me in what way the shah would have been worse than the Iranian theocracy.
The war, if it comes (with Ahmadinejad, it is more *when* it comes) will be Israel taking out Iran's nuclear sites. Then Iran retaliates and it escalates. US could be pulled in.
So, US will not start a war, but it may just end up finishing it.
AFAIK, the Iranians already had their chance to end tyranny and establish a democracy... but instead, they chose tyranny by different hands.
Tomorrow is another day.
If we truly believe that democracy is desirable, then we ought to help them, or just STFU. The shape that help takes is another issue, but this is not a cry for military aid, only for some information.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
>> n the absence of an external interfering force (e. g., the army of the Soviet Union), the fate of a nation is determined by its people.
Wrong. An internal interfering force is even more able to determine a nation's fate. That's the nature of totalitarianism. It is naive in the extreme, and ethically deficient, to blithely assume that unarmed civilians can bring down a regime willing to slaughter its citizens to retain power.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
What democracy? Have you ever looked at the Iranian constitution?
Never start a fight you can't win. That means two things - if you aren't stronger than your opponent, regroup, build support, and give yourself a fighting chance. Also - if you're still not stronger than your opponent, change the rules so you have the advantage. The British army outnumbered the Americans in the American Revolution, but the American's still won because they used unorthodox tactics.
That was only because the only opening allowed to them was a bunch of strongly theocratic radicals hell bent on purging out the previous regime. Not a recipe for happy families. In this case you can't rely on the elephants freezing to death in the winter.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
"Cultures are different. Vietnamese culture and Iranian culture are different. The Iranians bear 100% of the blame for the existence of a tyrannical government in Iran. We should condemn Iranian culture and its people."
Perhaps we'd be in better shape if Iran had a history of experience with a democratic governing process. It's a shame that we in the USA overthrew their last democratically elected leader, and installed a tyrant who agreed to give oil-drilling rights to US companies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
It's not that they revolted, the problem is that they brought in that Khomeini. I guess Jack Welch & Lee Iacocca weren't interested, the Pope was in a binding contract and so on, but there must have been other options for the top seat.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"The folks running the government are Iranian. The president is Iranian. The secret police are Iranian. The thugs who will torture and kill democracy advocates are Iranian."
There is no "Iranian" Iran is a hegemony like the United States. From Wikipedia - The main ethnic groups are Persians (51%), Azeris (24%), Gilaki and Mazandarani (8%), Kurds (7%), Arabs (3%), Baluchi (2%), Lurs (2%), Turkmens (2%), Laks, Qashqai, Armenians, Persian Jews, Georgians, Assyrians, Circassians, Tats, Mandaeans, Gypsies, Brahuis, Hazara, Kazakhs and others (1%).
Languages - Persian and Persian dialects 58%, Turkic and Turkic dialects 26%, Kurdish 9%, Luri 2%, Balochi 1%, Arabic 1%, Turkish 1%, other 2% - https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/IR.html
So its hard to compare what is or isn't happening in Iran to what happened in the Warsaw Pact states, they are not cultural melting pots. Its also not proper to call Iran a "failed state", Pakistan, Zimbabwe, and it looks like Mexico are going down the road to "failed state" while Somalia is one and Afghanistan was one until NATO showed up.
Write your government asking them to not recognize Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President of Iran. If they are on the UNSC, ask them to try to pass a resolution condemning Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and referring his actions to the ICC. Actually, just ask your country to condemn his actions in general and to try and get a UNGA resolution to do the same... And then see if they can get the UNGA do declare that his delegates to the UN are not able to represent his country, because he isn't the President of Iran...
Just because we're not in Iran, doesn't mean we can't cause problems for him...
They did end tyranny by replacing the shah and they did establish a democracy when they voted for Mossadegh - only when that didn't work (i.e. the CIA undid all that and restored the shah) did they resort to more radical means.
So, what you're saying is:
The Iranians wanted a good, stable OS but the Dell threw Windows XP onto their box. So they nuked the partition and installed Vista.
The Iranians can't blame Dell, err, the American anymore if it's unstable.
Except with cars.
MOD PARENT UP - he links relevant info.
By nationalise, you in fact mean steal.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What does it take to understand that not all people yearn for freedom?
This alone makes the parent post insightful, highly insightful.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
Sorry to be so straight but your argument is bullshit and you look racist and pretty ignorant.
Iran had a dictatorship, supported by the United States, who killed everybody against the Sha, the US-fellow friend.
After the Islamists and Communists got sick of fucking US fucking their country (as most world does), they killed the Sha.
In this Kaos time, the Islamists took the control.
It's nothing about "their culture" it's about how the United States keeps on failing into making this world a safer place.
It's not only about culture, just read some history book before saying so stupid things.
Spain became a Socialist Republic in a democratic election, we had female vote, abort, and loads of other social benefits.After 3 years of war against Spanish, Italian and German fascists, we lost. We had 2 million volunteer soldiers, but we lost, because we had no external help at all against the fascists. UK and France said "oh, this is an internal affair, we can't do anything", that is translated into: we are so fucking terrified by the nazis that none of us is valiant enough to help you, guys.
We had 36 years of dictatorship without "external powers" after the Spanish Civil War finished, how did the fascists stand for so long?
Easy, jailing and killing people and not having External Pressure against it.
5% of population died in that war, 10% of population escaped from the country and another 5% was jailed for up to 20 years (most died in jail), just for being part of a union or simply for not going to the church.
Please, don't be so simplistic, the only dumb state I see around in the western world is the US, the only "democracy" where a president can stole an election (remember year 2000) and people just keeps on eating burgers.
At least Iranians strike on streets.
Who is more culturally democratic, then?
Learn a bit from the Iranians and try to help them, don't just say "the people has the government they deserve", or I'll keep on talking about Bushes.
This is ignoring the history of Iran since the 1950s. Iran had a democratically elected prime minister, Dr Mossadegh in 1951. He nationalised the oil field. As a result, he was overthrown during a West-supported coup. The western-friendly Shah came to power, installed an autocratic dictatorship, which was overthrown by the theocrats in 1979, who were the most vocal opponents of the Shah. Ayatollah Khomeny came to power, installed an even more brutal and repressive, West-unfriendly theocracy. The West tried to overthrow it by staging a war by cutting a deal with Saddam Hussein in Iraq (remember him?), who lusted after Iran's oil fields. After many years of war and nearly a million deaths, a stalemate was reached in 1988. Since then there is an election system in Iran but it is closely controlled by the theocrats. Even though reforms were made, the most progressist of elected leader, Mohamed Katami, did not succeed in freeing the press and installing a real democracy.
Given all the above I would not say the problems of the Iranians are purely their own fault. The West including the US have been meddling in Iranian policies for a long time.
Does that mean we can go in and fix it then? Please say yes, we could stop by on our way back from Iraq. I'm tired of tolerance. "Lawful good" alignment is suicide for the rest of the world. We need to be actively involved in the affairs of the world. WW1 and WW2 just called and want us to promote democracy across the world. Look at how nice Germany and Japan are now, they are 1st world nations. This is where Iraq will be in 70 years, too.
Lets go ahead and seal the deal on the rest of the radical Islamic middle east.
The truth is we had to meddle to prevent WW3 with the Soviets. Using the middle east to wear down Russia was necessary. Yes, it created problems. But we do what we must and which we deem best, and are forced to worry about the consequences later. Given this country brought an end to both World Wars and prevented the 3rd, don't you think it's a little time we were cut some slack? We're not malicious about it. If we were we would taken all the oil fields for ourselves. Which we could have done. You forget history, my friend; among all the "dictators" of history, the USA is a teddy bear. Stop fussing, you have no idea how horrible life can be under a REAL superpower that isn't afraid to rampantly abuse their authority.
- Lets say that both Canada and Mexico were recently annexed by Russia, how would the USA react? any chances that a russian-basher would be elected there? What if most modern medias were also owned by russia and were behind an information warfare to get the pro-russian candidate to win? Dont forget that in this scenario, Russia also was behind he overthrow of the only democratically-elected president USA ever had and installed a bloody tyran in the white house for 26 years who was himself overthrown by the current ruling party.
I am not saying that the iranian peoples are pure good, or that they made the best choice by staying pissed (the vietnam example says all) I am saying that they have good reasons to like the guy who defies USA and is on the way to modernise their country more than the guy whose main agenda is to align their country with the 'Great satan'. This said, why would it be so unbelievable that the guy actually won the election? His electoral base is the poor and rural folks, to whom he distributes oil money, and a lot of them are illiterate or do not have a phone line to answer for polls. Maybe the polls were just wrong - it has been known to happen.
If there really was electoral fraud, odds are we will see proofs at some point, then we will be justified to act. I was amused to see heads of states with dubious democratic record in their own country declare with certainty that there was fraud in Iran hours after their guy lost. I wish they were as reactive to global warming or recessions....
Still, i do think that media censorship is wrong and that as the geek crowd we should be concerned more with assisting the tech request to allow unblockable communications both for this event and the future ones. There will be plenty of time to argue about the politics later. I am personally much more interested in facts than opinions and with the communication blackout we are deprived of the facts. How about the creation of a geek task group aimed at preventing further media blackouts?
Cartman?
My post took a rather hostile approach, this was not so much directed at you I apologize (your post was simply making a point, not seeking to start an argument), more against the average European citizen that condemns the US's involvement in Iraq.
- Edmund Burke
Seemingly, that would include you, some Iranians, and perhaps people who modded you insightful. This is not as one-sided as you would portray it. The nature of dictatorships is that the few can control the many through lies, deception, intimidation, and violence. It probably is not far to say that a "large percentage of the population supports the brutal government."
Not sure he did.
But in any case, you could say "the British people elected Tony Blair as P.M.". Is it true? Well not in the sense that everybody voted for him, or even that most did. And nobody with whatever the SI unit of common sense happens to be would interpret it that way. Get this. It's convenient shorthand for "Under the yada yada ... Westmister ... yadda yadda system yadda yadda yadda ... he was called to the Palace and invited to form a government", and only a pedantic cretin with no sense of context would prefer to use the 200 word expression when the main thrust of the topic is something entirely different.
Get over it and go sing Kumbayaa and knit some yoghurt or something.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Vietnamese leaders have not held the belief that their country has a shot at becoming a regional great power. Iranian leaders do hold that belief, however. This explains a lot.
While the US and West backed Iraq during parts of the Iran-Iraq War, the US was trying very hard to come to arrangements with the Islamic government following the fall of the Shah, all the work that was in play came apart when the student groups attacked the US embassy and held it. Desert One's failure further threw things down the drain.
Hezbollah's attack on the Americans and French in Lebanon made it even worse, but things were recovering enough that the US, Saudis and Israelis worked out the Iran-Contra deals with Iran.
This is the best that could have happened to Iran. You see, if Mousavi won, he would have not been able to reform. There has been already a reformist as president. And nothing changed. There are few things to change Iran into a democracy. Or at least what we think of democracy in the western world, which is the best, but still far from being perfect. The things to change are mainly the control who can be candidate for elections. If more liberal candidate can be elected as expert, including non-clerics, then the guardians also will change, then there might be an opening for other reforms to get into a real democracy. But as long as the guardians control the candidates, nothing will change.
Let's see, if Mousavi was elected, would he change that? No the president does not have this power.
Now, what can make the things to change?
I believe in the latter point. And this is what is happening. There might be no more censorship than usual on Internet or SMS, and it would be due to just congestions. There might have been no fraud in the election... But Iranians are understanding they do not have to obey all the time the authority. And it has been like the even the days before the elections.
Despotism is when the people fear the government. Democracy is when the government fears the people.
I completely accept the use of that phrasing when describing a national action. But if you're going to present the formula, "Iranians wanted this, so it doesn't make sense to get involved," you're clearly abusing the simplicity of the semantics to artificially inflate your point. In this case, it happens to be done in a particularly offensive way.
We in the West are morally justified in destroying the nuclear-weapons facilities
OT, but are they in the East the also morally justified in destroying the nuclear-weapons facilities (in the West)?
You seem to be missing out the part when the US helped overthrow the democratically elected government in 1953 and installed a brutal despot. Nope, nothing to do with how that changed Iranian society at all.
As an american who went to american public schools, I have to point out that we probably did it to stop Hitler from getting the rocket pack.
The outcome of this current situation is not yet certain, at least in the short term (in the long term, revolutions are inevitable - remember what happened in Iran the last time).
But one thing is clear: If the USA or Israel had attacked Iran, as we have basically been anticipating for the past three to four years, then this would mever have happened. An external, immediate threat would have magnetized the country and unified it behind its nationalist leader. Remember Bush's approval rating the week after 9/11?
Contrast this with Iraq, whose oppressive regime has been eliminated by military force, and whose citizens are still engaged in a guerilla war with their "liberators".
Sometimes, things work out only if left alone.
Leave Ahmedinejad alone! Leave him alone! Pleeeaaase! His wife just left him, he's got two fucking kids! Bastards! Leave Ahmedinejad aloooone!
most people on here seem to knock twitter but as has been mentioned it is pretty much the only source for news right now. Follow updates on the #IranElection hashtag here: http://hashtags.org/tag/iranelection/messages For what it's worth I don't even use twitter, but it's times like this that I realise it kicks the ass of TV news for real-time coverage.
nt
So seriously, all you noob Iranians who want to resist but don't know how, stfu and get your head down. Petition for U.N. observers, or whatever else you need to do, but don't go Hollywood Hacker on anyone or you will be out in the cold for good.
if you dont want to help liberty loving, suppressed people around the world, SHUT THE FUCK UP and keep YOUR voice down. we didnt win modern social rights and values with the likes of you. if you wont help, get the fuck out of society to whatever mountain top you see fit.
Read radical news here
Stealing back their own natural resources, when the Anglo-Iranian company refused to split the profits with them. What did they expect would happen?
It's understandable you'd need to re-organize your fight, gather people to fight back and such.
In my view, if what you want is to set a communication means to *everyone* (Iranian) you can reach (organize), i'd say you can always get a few people and in a blink of eyes take over a transmitter for a National Radio or TV. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_signal_intrusion),but hope those would have balls of steel (and i don't know but for sure there's a "government controlled" TV).
Second, i bet more into doing their game and get a few geek techs and disrupt *their own* communications, you know, you can't be the boss if you can't issue orders.
Dictatorship needs to be able to establish a chain of command or will disrupt its hierarchy.
It seems you're playing chess now...
You are either unbelievably ignorant or a troll.
Now now, why can't he be both?
election votes do not 'often surprise and disappoint' in places there is ethnic nationalism. ethnically nationalist populations vote, ETHNICALLY. thats what they have been doing in azerbaijani iran in the last 29 years. they AGAIN did the same. yet, somehow, ahmedinajad got 55%+ vote there too, JUST LIKE EVERYWHERE ELSE.
if you still cant realize what's going on, ask yourself how it is possible that a candidate can get consistently and UNIFORMLY 55% vote everywhere in a country. EVEN in hatemi backing tehran districts.
its also clear you have no idea of how middle east politics is. this is not america.
Read radical news here
If a "western democracy" overthrew your nation's government and put in a despot, would your first thought be "hey kids, let's overthrow it and install a western democracy!!"
This poor guy asks for help setting up an underground network, and all I see is a self-absorbed discussion about US and Iranian politics/history.
Mods- save your points for the technical discussions. I know I am.
2) they are still suing for monetary compensation to clean up the ecological mess left by agent orange.
Yeah, I think that is exactly his point: Vietnam is suing. That's a much different course than the Iranians are engaging in.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
This thread contains lots of great perspectives on Ahmandinejad, election fraud, and the Iranian presidency. Unfortunately most of the world is missing the point.
I'd like to point that Ali Khamenei has been the supreme leader (dictator) of Iran for 20 years. During an EconTalk podcast on August 11 2008, expert Bruce Bueno de Mesquita comments that after interviewing over a dozen Iranian political specialists, his research concludes that Ahmandinejad is the 18th most powerful person in Iran.
The Iranian president is an important and powerful person in absolute terms. In relative terms it's a public relations office. So yes, election fraud was committed. Yes, their disinterest in concealing the fraud conveys the extent to which they believe it makes a difference.
However, everyone just take a deep breath, and understand that the electoral system and eligibility of candidates is up to the complete discretion of Ali Khamenei.
> WW1 and WW2 just called and want us to promote democracy across the world. Look at how nice Germany and Japan are now, they are 1st world nations. This is where Iraq will be in 70 years, too.
Theres a difference, Germany was a 1st world nation before it was bombed to stoneage and it took them 70 years to rebuild.
To respond to all of Iran's long-term goals would take up too much room and time. I would like to address the most obdurate ones, though. Before I start, however, I should state that to understand what Iran's particularly violent form of expansionism has encompassed as a movement and as a system of rule, we have to look at its historical context and development as a form of counter-productive politics that first arose in early twentieth-century Europe in response to rapid social upheaval, the devastation of World War I, and the Bolshevik Revolution. The underlying message is that there is no place in this country where we are safe from Iran's cronies, no place where we are not targeted for hatred and attack. Mercantalism and irreligionism are not synonymous. In fact, they are so frequently in opposition and so universally irreconcilable that there's something wrong with this picture. Too many emotions to count raced through my mind when I first realized that Iran's scribblings remain opaque to many observers who dismiss Iran on the basis of its treasonous accusations and general lunacy.
No matter how close it's come to making me lose all self-control, Iran won't be satisfied until it finds a way to plague our minds. Let me just say that I'm not a psychiatrist. Sometimes, though, I wish I were, so that I could better understand what makes organizations like Iran want to offer hatred with an intellectual gloss. Of course, no one of any intelligence believes that we should avoid personal responsibility. Iran doesn't care about accountability in our public systems -- sincerely an instructive warning for the future.
One argument Iran makes is that it is a martyr for freedom and a victim of deconstructionism. That's just plain nonsense. The truth is that it somehow manages to get away with spreading lies (it would sooner give up money, fame, power, and happiness than perform an unruly act), distortions (people don't mind having their communities turned into war zones), and misplaced idealism (racism is a noble goal). However, when I try to respond in kind, I get censored faster than you can say "uncontrovertibleness". It should be readily apparent that if the public perception is that in my speaking engagements, I have found in audience questions an alarming increase in concern about lame-brained licentious simpletons, then the time has come to drive off and disperse the delusional scum who trick academics into abandoning the principles of scientific inquiry. All that we have achieved may now be lost, if not in the bright flames of interdenominationalism, then in the dense smoke of the unscrupulous abominable stratagems promoted by slaphappy spivs. Let's just ignore Iran and see what it does. In the end, experience shows that it would be grossly premature for Iran to claim final victory.
Except with the fact that the Iranians did actually overthrow the brutal despot that the US helped establish, and replaced him with what we see today?
AFAIK, the Iranians already had their chance to end tyranny and establish a democracy... but instead, they chose tyranny by different hands.
Of course that is a VAST over simplification.
If we include a little more detail it becomes far less clear-cut. For example, what happened was that the democratic reformers joined forces with the religious radicals because as separate groups they did not have enough power to overthrow the brutal despot. By now, through our own experiences, we (the US) ought to know that the philosophy of "Mine enemy's enemy is my friend" rarely works out in the long run. The democratic reformers in Iran, those of whom are still left alive, have learned that lesson too.
So after the revolution, the literally cut-throat religious radicals get the better of the democratic reformers and the country ends up trading one brutal regime for another. That's far from the country choosing tyranny in any sort of representation of the people's will.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
To then claim that the Iranians are responsible for their predicament today is plain out disingenuous.
The US is responsible for what intervention we have engaged in, in Iran. But, the Iranians are responsible for how they have responded to it.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
You forgot to mention Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields a significant amount of power.
Cultures are different. Vietnamese culture and Iranian culture are different. The Iranians bear 100% of the blame for the existence of a tyrannical government in Iran. We should condemn Iranian culture and its people.
Cultures are different, but every person within a culture is the same? They all have equal power? When you vote for the losing candidate in a presidential election are you responsible for the actions of the winner? You don't think that the billions of dollars in oil money that goes into the pockets of those in charge doesn't have anything to do with their ability to remain in charge despite popular discontent?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Hello. My name is Junis. And I'm tweeting from my Commodore 64 that I brought with me from the neighbor country, my homeland, Afghanistan. Iran is a lovely place but I miss my chicken coop. There are not many videos here of Baywatch, so I download them. Tell Mr. Katz I miss his emails.
> In the absence of an external interfering force (e. g., the army of the Soviet Union), the fate of a nation is determined by its people
Does the CIA overthrow of democratically elected Mosadeq in '53 count? Does the US sponsoring of Iraq in the 8 year long Iran-Iraq war (costing close to 800K deaths and $0.5 trillion economic loss) count? Does the US imposition of a classically cruel, despot count?
> If the democracy advocates attempt to establish a genuine democracy in Iran, violence will occur. Why? A large percentage of the population supports the brutal government and will kill the democracy advocates.
Firstly, all reports indicate massive election fraud (incumbent winning cities, opposition losing their home regions etc). This would tend to indicate that a large percentage of the population do NOT support the government. THIS is why violence will occur - because the government is existentially afraid.
> Let us not merely condemn the Iranian government. We must condemn Iranian culture. Its product is the authoritarian state.
What about the large number of states where there is a causal relationship of authoritarian governments to US intervention and support? Does this imply authoritarianism is the product of American culture too?
> We should not intervene in the current crisis in Iran.
Agreed. Furthermore, we should not intervene in ANYBODY else's crisis.
> If the overwhelming majority of Iranians (like the overwhelming majority of Poles) truly support democracy, human rights, and peace with Israel, then a liberal Western democracy will arise -- without any violence.
Thank you for revealing your true colours. Although your last part "without any violence" is wrong. There aren't too many countries where real democracy (not thinly veiled oligarchy - which is what we predominantly see in Eastern Europe) has arisen without any violence.
> The Iranians created this horrible society.
A. Horrible to whom?
B. See my very first point above.
> It is none of our business unless they attempt to develop nuclear weapons. We in the West are morally justified in destroying the nuclear-weapons facilities.
Spoken like a true Likudnik. What happened to "We should not intervene?" Your (I'm assuming your American here) interventions over the last X years (go back as far as you like) have worked out wonderfully so far. Why stop now? Although I'd love to see you "intervene" and destroy North Korea's REAL nukes before you attempt to destroy Iran's virtual nukes. Consistency would make such a lovely change to hypocrisy.
> Note that, 40 years ago, Vietnam suffered a worse fate (than the Iranians) at the hands of the Americans.
Agreed.
> Yet, the Vietnamese do not channel their energies into seeking revenge (by, e. g., building a nuclear bomb) against the West.
Dude. Over 4 MILLION Vietnamese and Cambodians died as a result of that war. They have been channeling their energies into just surviving and they are still recovering from the aftermath of that foreign imposed disaster.
> Rather, the Vietnamese are diligently modernizing their society.
If by modernising their society you mean they are still rebuilding what was so abjectly destroyed then yes, I agree. They are very diligent in that.
> They will reach 1st-world status long before the Iranians.
Who can tell?
> Cultures are different. Vietnamese culture and Iranian culture are different.
Agreed.
> The Iranians bear 100% of the blame for the existence of a tyrannical government in Iran. We should condemn Iranian culture and its people.
See every point I've made above.
The saddest part about your post is that it was modded +5,Insightful.
Can't we do something to help? Maybe set-up a server for them to communicate, have some extra ips at hand if anything gets blocked? I feel bad for these people, surely we should be doing something?
This is ignoring the history of Iran since the 1950s. Iran had a democratically elected prime minister, Dr Mossadegh in 1951. He nationalised the oil field. As a result, he was overthrown during a West-supported coup. The western-friendly Shah came to power, installed an autocratic dictatorship, which was overthrown by the theocrats in 1979, who were the most vocal opponents of the Shah. Ayatollah Khomeny came to power, installed an even more brutal and repressive, West-unfriendly theocracy. The West tried to overthrow it by staging a war by cutting a deal with Saddam Hussein in Iraq (remember him?), who lusted after Iran's oil fields. After many years of war and nearly a million deaths, a stalemate was reached in 1988. Since then there is an election system in Iran but it is closely controlled by the theocrats. Even though reforms were made, the most progressist of elected leader, Mohamed Katami, did not succeed in freeing the press and installing a real democracy.
Given all the above I would not say the problems of the Iranians are purely their own fault. The West including the US have been meddling in Iranian policies for a long time.
Does that mean we can go in and fix it then? Please say yes, we could stop by on our way back from Iraq. I'm tired of tolerance. "Lawful good" alignment is suicide for the rest of the world. We need to be actively involved in the affairs of the world. WW1 and WW2 just called and want us to promote democracy across the world. Look at how nice Germany and Japan are now, they are 1st world nations. This is where Iraq will be in 70 years, too.
Lets go ahead and seal the deal on the rest of the radical Islamic middle east.
The truth is we had to meddle to prevent WW3 with the Soviets. Using the middle east to wear down Russia was necessary. Yes, it created problems. But we do what we must and which we deem best, and are forced to worry about the consequences later. Given this country brought an end to both World Wars and prevented the 3rd, don't you think it's a little time we were cut some slack? We're not malicious about it. If we were we would taken all the oil fields for ourselves. Which we could have done. You forget history, my friend; among all the "dictators" of history, the USA is a teddy bear. Stop fussing, you have no idea how horrible life can be under a REAL superpower that isn't afraid to rampantly abuse their authority.
I know this is thrown around a lot, and Godwin's Law, etc. but Adolf Hitler was elected democratically. Democracy guarantees nothing.
Germany is only nice now because they were beat into submission TWICE, with catastrophic damage done to them and the entire western world. Are we willing to go through the same thing with the Middle East?
The current administration in Iran is a democracy. A fixed democracy (or so it's reported), but a democracy nonetheless. Are we going to keep on poking in whenever someone's elected that we don't like? Is http://ask.slashdot.org/story/09/06/14/183200/Iran-Moves-To-End-Facebook-Revolution?art_pos=2#Iran not a sovereign nation?
It would seem so, wouldn't it? Perhaps you should at least try to see how this tragic situation could arise?
It began of course with decades of tyranny that fueled fundamentalist and Soviet-friendly views. But the revolution itself did not rest upon the different socialist fractions or the different religious fractions, neither was it the work of any ethnic group in particular. The revolution happened out of a desire to stop the tyranny, but a lot of people had not really contemplated what should be in its place.
That is why after the revolution the strongest established movement, the fundamentalist shia muslim fractions, could claim power. They had national networks in place to organize on a national scale. They got rid of the most important competition, the communists (thousands are believed to have been executed in front of their co-workers). They organized an election which looked democratic enough that gave them complete power.
What should the common Iranian do at this point? You have already risked your life to get rid of the pest of an oppressive regime with the support of the strongest army in the world. What is the point of trying to overthrow another oppressive regime without any form of organization of how the Iranian society should develop after another revolution?
You know, there may very well be a damn good point to continue the resistance, and Iranians do so in their own subtle ways every day. But you can't blame them for being cynical. I, however, can blame you for being cynical. These are people that need your moral support, not your ignorant judgments. Keep that in mind.
I guess you never read George Orwell's "Animal Farm" have you?
Errr, yes, very insightful, and your post deserves the modding it has received.
But, you don't address the factor of time when considering the effects of outside influences. In Europe, the outside influences were extremely distasteful to an overwhelming majority of the population. Hence, revolutions happened almost overnight.
In Iran, outside influence was overthrown decades ago when the shah was ousted. A reactionary deist government was installed, pretty much according to the will of the people. Today, that reactionary deist government is becoming more and more intolerable to the people, and pressure is being put on that government.
But, the government still enjoys the support of the older generation, as well as the impoverished people who have benefited from the government.
Yes, Iran's government is going out - perhaps this month, if enough people feel strongly enough, perhaps in the next election, if today's protests fail. But, it takes time.
Ultimately, Iran is most likely to return to a true democratically elected government similar to what they enjoyed BEFORE the US and UK installed their puppet shah. Always remember, the US and UK were the outside influence that interfered in Iranian politics, to the detriment of most Iranian people. While average Iranians don't "hate" us, they certainly have no reason to trust us. At least not those Iranians who study history. They know that western capitalists will sell their own mothers into slavery if there's a profit.
Doubt me? Look to Wall Street. How's our economy doing these days?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
By "nationalise", you in fact mean "steal back".
TFTFY.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Haha wow. You talk so much. Let's see, the Shah was a brutal despot? Wow. Interesting. How exactly was he a brutal despot? The fact that he made the people of Iran smarter? Built roads, electric installations, water dams? Provided food for the people? Donated his own land to farmers to end feudalism. He made Iran's economy of the the best, he built the 5th strongest non-nuclear army. http://www.thenewamerican.com/history/world/1111 Read and learn. The Shah was not a despot, he was a patriot that loved his nation and wanted to stop YOU WESTERN PEOPLE from exploiting Iran's natural resources and it's people. He said he will NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES renew the 25 year old oil contract with the British in 1979, thus - you can see how he was overthrown by western powers. US did not help anything. US hated the Shah.
While I kinda sorta can go along with your general thoughts, you have plenty of details wrong:
WW1 was not about democracy. It was about getting-even and my-fleet-is-bigger-than-yours among European rulers.
A great motivations for the Germans leading up to WW2 was again getting-even. That aside, Germany had been a democracy since 1871, albeit with flaws and limitations.
Also, as far as WW2 is concerned. It was the Soviets, and primarily the Russians, who took down Nazi Germany. The US military did not play a significant role in Europe.
Meddling in the Middle East to keep the Soviets at bay is just too simple a view. Iraq (Kassem) and Iran (Mossadeq) had reasonably pro-western governments, before the US decided to topple them and put the Baath party and the Shah into power. This was mostly about oil, as is well documented now.
And, yes, as far as oil goes: does it not surprise you that of the 4 counties in the Middle East with the largest oil reserves, the US tightly controls 3 now (Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia) and is hostile toward Iran?
If they don't like the way he runs his gov't, why did they all vote for him?
You forget history, my friend; among all the "dictators" of history, the USA is a teddy bear.
A nuclear, glow-in-the-dark teddy bear?
Again, read my post above to learn. The only tyranny here is your nation leaders who have lied to their people that "democracy" exist, yeah right! Democracy? What? Mossadegh wanted democracy? I am sorry, are you just dumb or are you trying to ignore the fact that Mossadegh attempted to close the Iranian parliament and wanted to have six months of dictatorial powers? Please let me know! The CIA did not help the Shah - in fact the Shah was NEVER restored. He had always been the Shah, this time whoever he went on vacation to avoid a bloodbath, as always because he loved his people.
Let us not merely condemn the Iranian government. We must condemn Iranian culture. Its product is the authoritarian state.
Except, the Iranian progressives who are demonstrating/rioting over the likely rigged election result are themselves Iranians and the product of Iranian culture. I can guarantee you they strongly identify with numerous aspects of Iranian culture, and certainly aspects of the broader middle-eastern culture. Do you think all those demonstrating are Harvard educated Iranians who were largely brought up in Western countries, assimilating purely Western ideals, values and culture? Don't be absurd.
It's blanket statements like yours that not only reveal an enormous ignorance of foreign cultures, but were also a trademark of Bush era foreign policy; stupid and ignorant statements that simplify entire countries into nothing more than an undeniable "Axis of Evil". I wonder, how much do you know about Iranian culture? Could you write a brief essay on Iranian culture? A page? A post-it note?
I understand that I'm coming off as aggressive here, but these kinds of statements just give me the shits. You wonder why the West has so much trouble constructively engaging with Arab nations and getting concrete results? Well, look no further than the quote above. Not all countries need to share Western ideals and culture to be decent, moral and prosperous, and countries like Iran have millennia long rich histories of cultural and spiritual development. It's ironic that in many ways where the Western world has progressed, the Muslim would has declined, but it is worth remembering that while what is now the West was going through its medieval dark ages with the Church having complete control of the state, many of these countries were highly inclusive and even academically oriented nations that were in their prime. Much of what enabled them to do so is still thoroughly embedded in their culture, and it's these beliefs that have arguably empowered the demonstrators to rise up against their present government.
Perhaps the ultimate irony is that your statement is exactly what empowers those like Ahmadinejad to continue their anti-Western tirade, and further, exactly what compels Iranians and other Arabs to vote for such political candidates and ideologies.
By nationalise, you in fact mean steal.
You, my friend, are sound asleep.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
I agree with your basic premise- that is, that people create government. But I would also put forward the theory that there is an immense ontological inertia present in any state of government. It takes a huge amount of hatred for people to actually decide to significantly change their government. It's not something that happens even if everyone is just a little bit unhappy, or even if everyone is reasonably unhappy. They have to be extremely unhappy and extremely motivated to change it for it to change significantly.
The majority of people in Iran could very well care about democracy, freedom, human rights, whatever. However, unless they are also incredibly unhappy with their current government, nothing will change. A lot of Iranians are unhappy with their government. Some of those are very unhappy. That's not enough to create change.
Look at the United States, for example, back in 2006/2007, the percentage of people who approved of George W. Bush's policies had dropped to less than 40%- in some cases as low as 30-35%. And yet there was not even a (reasonable) attempt made to remove him from office. The majority, by a significant margin, disapproved of what he was doing- and yet they did not disapprove enough to demand a change in regime.
As for condemning Iranian culture and your whole tangent in that respect, all I can say is you need to get a life. Iranian society is not 'horrible'. Their quest for nuclear weapons is no more an attempt to 'seek revenge' than any society does. It never ceases to amaze me how many people believe nuclear weapons are some kind of 'moral' issue and that the 'bad' people should never be allowed to get them. Not necessarily because of any well-reasoned security analysis, but just because those people are "BAD" and bad people should not be allowed dangerous weapons.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
Another uneducated american who will hopefully prove to me how he was a puppet of USA? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCMftp2bdJA It's ok. I can wait, leave a comment on my profile. I don't request evidence, just tell me how he was a puppet. What exactly did he do to become a puppet of USA. Perhaps by not giving Carter private property in Iran? http://aryamehr.org/eng/carter/carter.htm
They are monitoring phone calls, that is scary
As in heavy breathing on the other side of the line; now they have to take all communications and do them in person.
Videos stopped leaking out to the media sites after about a dozen or so got out showing the huge crowds chasing the police. Mankind should be grateful for video/camera cellphones, it will be the tool that will expose the next Tianeman Square.
You severly limit your understanding of the situation by tying all of your argument to the Iranian people. This is one of the few non-Western nations with a diverse populace. Many Iranians do not want a Theocracy, and a great many do not want a fundamentalist Theocracy. Sure we can only speculate on the numbers, but there is enough information out there about the thoughts of many Iranian peoples to know what many of them want. It may be easy to be ignorant, but why are you fighting for it?
Your last sentence is spot on, but it has nothing to do with the rest of your post and just panders to psuedo-intellectualism.
Note to modders: this post should obviously be +5, FUNNY not +5, Insightful. It is clearly sarcasm.
Oh, you mean its not sarcasm?
> Given this country brought an end to both World Wars and prevented the 3rd
You mean like in the 2nd world war where the Soviets crushed 3/4 of the Wermacht on the Eastern front before a single boat landed on Normandy's beaches?
> We're not malicious about it.
See modders? +5,Funny right there.
> If we were we would taken all the oil fields for ourselves. Which we could have done.
And in fact have done: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html
> You forget history, my friend; among all the "dictators" of history, the USA is a teddy bear.
Among all the dictators of modern history, the US has installed or propped up at least half (with the Soviets accounting for most of the rest).
> Stop fussing, you have no idea how horrible life can be under a REAL superpower that isn't afraid to rampantly abuse their authority.
No my (clearly) American friend. It is YOU who have no idea what that life is like. The majority of the rest of the world is very well aware of what the US fist inside the IMF glove really feels like.
I didn't know you could win an argument by appending a "Period." after your thesis.
Actually the correct steps are:
* Present your thesis.
* Exclaim PERIOD!
* Clamp your hands to your ears and run away shouting "lalalalalalala cant hear you!", before any counter-argument can be made.
And there you go, argument won.
The Long Now Foundation
Iran WAS a modern secular state. IRAN could compete with many European nations back then! We had a strong industry, we have great education system. The national currency was stable for 15 years, inspiring French economist André Piettre to call Iran a country of âoegrowth without inflation.". Our military was the 5th strongest and our airforce was the 3rd strongest. Iran was an awesome nation!. Mossadegh was not a "democracy lover". He wanted to close the parliament, he printed bills with his own face on it thus breaking the Iranian currency, he forced women to wear hijab again (this was during February) and he left the Iranian treasury empty forcing the Shah to build Iran again from beginning! You didn't back the Shah in any way (PS: I can later go into how awesome your nation is, maybe we should go into all the torture you do yourself and then attack the Shah for). Operation Ajax did not happen. And guess what, the Shah of Iran said that he is not going to RENEW the British oil contract in 1979 - and see what happened - "revolution" (If you don't get it, British and Americans overthrew him for making Iran independent). Either way, the Shah even refused to renew oil contracts in 1973 and 1976, pissing your nation off. So please, next time you write - don't go on wikipedia where a bunch of uneducated americans hang out together writing stuff to make them feel like journalists. Regards
"Given this country brought an end to both World Wars and prevented the 3rd, don't you think it's a little time we were cut some slack?"
No.
The problem is, whenever the USA starts it's own wars, rather than joining the tail ends of other countries wars, it screws it up.
Cambodia, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq have all been disastrous, both economically and in terms of international opinion.
"Lets go ahead and seal the deal on the rest of the radical Islamic middle east."
Oh god, please don't. It's this kind of attitude that caused 9/11.
The following is reproduced from the Stratfor website (http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20090613_iran_text_mousavi_letter).
----------
Editor's Note: The text that follows is a translation of a letter by Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi on June 13, reported by TehranBureau.com. STRATFOR cannot confirm the authenticity of the letter.
"The reported results of the 10th Iranian presidential election are appalling. The people who witnessed the mixture of votes in long lineups know who they have voted for and observe the wizardry of I.R.I.B. (state-run TV and radio) and election officials. Now more than ever before they want to know how and by which officials this game plan has been designed. I object fully to the current procedures and obvious and abundant deviations from law on the day of election and alert people to not surrender to this dangerous plot. Dishonesty and corruption of officials as we have seen will only result in weakening the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran and empowers lies and dictatorships.
"I am obliged, due to my religious and national duties, to expose this dangerous plot and to explain its devastating effects on the future of Iran. I am concerned that the continuation of the current situation will transform all key members of this regime into fabulists in confrontation with the nation and seriously jeopardize them in this world and the next.
"I advise all officials to halt this agenda at once before it is too late, return to the rule of law and protect the nation's vote and know that deviation from law renders them illegitimate. They are aware better than anyone else that this country has been through a grand Islamic revolution and the least message of this revolution is that our nation is alert and will oppose anyone who aims to seize the power against the law.
"I use this chance to honor the emotions of the nation of Iran and remind them that Iran, this sacred being, belongs to them and not to the fraudulent. It is you who should stay alert. The traitors to the nation's vote have no fear if this house of Persians burns in flames. We will continue with our green wave of rationality that is inspired by our religious learnings and our love for prophet Mohammad and will confront the rampage of lies that has appeared and marked the image of our nation. However we will not allow our movement to become blind one.
"I thank every citizen who took part in spreading this green message by becoming a campaigner and all official and self organized campaigns, I insist that their presence is essential until we achieve results deserving of our country."
It's amazing how much lies you write, but I don't blame you as you seem like yet another uneducated western kid who probably get all your source from CNN and BBC without looking up yourself. "Dr" Mossadegh was a bad politican, a dictator and a traitor who ruined Iran. Now you may ask, how? Well. First of all, Mossadegh wanted to close the parliament (he never got enough time). He forced women in Iran to wear Hijab again (So much for "democracy & freedom"). He nationalised the oil field? Guess what happened - Iran had zero money left, ZERO. I guess that's why you support "Mossadegh" because you wanted him to destroy Iran and you probably being a greedy western kid who want Iran to be a weak nation, it's not completely way off. Now, western friendly Shah - I don't know what you are trying to say, but the Shah was friendly with everyone. Of course, he was a little bit more FRIENDLY (read FRIENDLY, not puppet) because of the communism threat. And no, he was Mossadegh was not "overthrown by a west-supported coup". Operation Ajax failed. (Once you give source for who says it happened, besides the CIA themselves - we can talk about my proof). The Shah, loving his nation and his people - worked hard for Iran to progress and Iran progressed so much it spread fear in western nations. the Shah of Iran said that he is not going to RENEW the British oil contract in 1979 - and see what happened - "revolution" (If you don't get it, British and Americans overthrew him for making Iran independent). Either way, the Shah even refused to renew oil contracts in 1973 and 1976, pissing your nation off. He built dams, electric installations, roads, schools, industries etc for the nation to progress. The Shah was then overthrown by the WESTERN NATIONS. So I am going to stop there. Oh and, why did Iraq attack Iran? USA gave them the green light in order to: 1) Make Iran weak, Iran during Shah was very strong and 2) Unite people and make them forgot about all the secret stuff happening in Iran such as setting up the government, passing laws etc.
Dude, yeah, you're right. I mean, I remember learning about how the formation of a democracy in the U.S. was all peaceful and such. ~
Oh, and maybe you don't include "former Yugoslavia" among eastern/soviet influenced countries, but I do seem to remember some violence occurring there... And I'm guessing that you never received a frantic phone call from a friend in Moscow when the tanks rolled through the streets. You really don't seem to know what you're talking about. I'd normally welcome debate on the issue, but right now I have to write STFU if you can't help out. These people are fighting the battle that they need to for themselves.
PASS IT AROUND accessing twitter from 148.233.239.24 Port:80 in tehran. you can avoid gov filters from here. spread to others
Having re-read the entirety of your post, I realise it'd take me several pages to correct the absurdity of everything you say, so instead, I'll just recommend a book for you and anyone else who is interested:
People Like Us: How Arrogance Is Dividing Islam and the West (Paperback) by Waleed Aly.
Perhaps "we" should not intervene, if by "we" you mean the governments of the US, UK....
But if you mean we should not help the Iranians to build network and communications connectivity, which is one of the things requested, I think you're mistaken. We should help everyone we can with whatever expertise we have to establish communications amoung the people in Iran and between them and the rest of the world. One of the first things repressive governments try to do is clamp down on communications and the more we can help people communicate the harder it is for such governments to gain and maintain power. Of course, this is not the only factor, but it is a big one.
One thing intrigues me: How do you know there's this widespread popularity of "brutal governments" in Iran?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Does that mean we can go in and fix it then? Please say yes, we could stop by on our way back from Iraq
Good question, can we? Can we do better than Vietnam? Can we afford it? Can we do it without torture, supporting dictators who DO torture, giving up halfway because we lack the political will? Can we find a justification for 'fixing' one country while leaving many others that are in a worse state (Sudan, for example)?
Can we do it without having the populace come back in 20 years, more determined than ever to destroy us (Afghanistan, Germany after WWI)? Can we do it without convincing many other countries around the world that they'd better get one of those nuclear bombs BEFORE they become the target of US aggression (Iran didn't get it fast enough, but maybe they can; or buy some from North Korea)?
Can we sleep at night knowing that the deaths of millions of Iranians are on our hands (not to mention American deaths), when there might have been another way?
If the answer to all of these is not YES, then we probably better not invade. It's ugly business.
Qxe4
Actually, turn Tienanmen, the U.S. government and world intel agencies realized that if you really wanted to destabilize a government, you made sure the unkempt, disaffected masses HAD communications. Remember all the faxes coming out of China back then? I'd be willing to bet that British, American, Israelis and other interested countries are busting their humps making sure comms stay open so they can get the information out and allow Iranians the ability to organize.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
When the suffering is unbearable, you will support anyone who offers to rid you off it. It's not the first time that a tyrannic regime was replaced, after a revolution, by a regime that's in no way better. The French Revolution led to the tyranny of Robbespiere and his cronies. The Russian Revolution led to the Soviet regime. Likewise, the Iranian Revolution led to the "islam democracy" they got today.
What these revolutions have in common, btw, is that the military didn't want to prop up the old regime anymore. Just a hint where to put the lever...
Then again, the revolution history shows that you rarely get anything from a revolution that's worth getting.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Does that mean we can go in and fix it then? Please say yes, we could stop by on our way back from Iraq. I'm tired of tolerance. "Lawful good"
You could start by going after North Korea; oh wait; they have no oil and nuclear weapons.
Given this country brought an end to both World Wars and prevented the 3rd, don't you think it's a little time we were cut some slack?
Oh I am sure the about 10 million Red Army soldiers that died on the Eastern Front played a role in ending WW2, not to mention the partisans, the British, and dare I say the French, Holland, Danish, Norwegian (and many more) resistance movements. Of course the American contribution to the war both in direct military aid and the amount of supplies and technology delivered to the allies (including Uncle Joe) was not insignificant.
We need to be actively involved in the affairs of the world. WW1 and WW2 just called and want us to promote democracy across the world. Look at how nice Germany and Japan are now, they are 1st world nations.
Lets not forget that the National Socialist German Workers' Party was democratically elected by the Weimar Republic; a democratic state established by the Allies after The Great War (WW1).
The Long Now Foundation
Duh. What did you expect?
US: Creates a dictatorship that oppresses me.
Response: Ok, we got rid of the dictator, what could we do to ensure our new government doesn't get into bed with the US?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
As with humor, proper trolling requires insight and subtlety. This is what allows a troll to divert the flow of conversation and raise the temperature of a thread.
If reporter is ignorant, then the trollish aspect of the post is unintended - there is no premeditation to diversion, the poster is simply misinformed and should be modded overrated.
Those GNAA guys are not proper trolls either, BTW. They are a shock crew - the equivalent of a tagging or 'bombing' crew.
Could you please reiterate these insightful thoughts in a manner that would involve the subtle use of an automotive analogy?
It would undoubtedly ease my comprehension of the more refined details of your argument and would be gratefully appreciated.
WTFkly yours.
Me.
I would like to point to this as a fine example of why the rest of the world think America is quite frankly a bunch of pissy douche bags who like to pet their ego by bombing the fuck out of people whos weapons dates back to the 50s.
America. Fuck Yeah.
How about you stay the fuck out of everyone elses country, sort your own problems, and grow the fuck up.
(And yes I know not all americans are the same, but the few that are like it do a good job at tarnishing americas whole reputation)
I will say that the British government in the 18th Century did seemingly piss off some of the worst kinds of people (from a public relations viewpoint): Taverns, Tea Houses, and Newspaper Publishers. When referring to tea houses, think of your local Starbucks and you get a kind of idea of how common they were in the 18th Century American Colonies of Brittan.
Still, I'd have to agree with you on calling the above AC poster on his B.S. There certainly was much more involved than a few tea merchants... and the involvement fiscally (and militarily) by the French certainly had a much stronger impact than anything the tea merchants of Venice may have had on American society.
When you vote for the losing candidate in a presidential election are you responsible for the actions of the winner?
Of course. Your vote is an implicit approval of the democratic process, and an acceptance of whatever results follow from the election. By voting, you are responsible for sanctioning the system which elected the winning candidate. That's the concept which separates functioning from non-functioning democracies.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
Dunno about your country, but stealing something from someone who stole it from me is legal here, as long as I don't steal anything else. It's called "repossessing".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You would tell these protestors, many of whom were not alive during the revolution of '79, that they do not deserve to have their voiced heard because of choices their parents made?
If a "western democracy" overthrew your nation's government and put in a despot, would your first thought be "hey kids, let's overthrow it and install a western democracy!!"
There are no "western" and "non-western" democracies. There are just democracies, and tyrannies.
If a western democracy overthrew my nation's government, I'd assume that it was a national democracy acting in its own interests. A reasonable response to that is to establish your own national democracy which will act in your interests.
Response: Ok, we got rid of the dictator, what could we do to ensure our new government doesn't get into bed with the US?
I think what the guy, who originally started this thread, was trying to say that the answer to that question depends upon the culture of the people in that country. A theocratic regime is not the only answer. That's what the Iranians chose, but not the Vietnamese, Filipinos, Cubans, many former Soviet-bloc nations, or a host of others.
Why not? The cultural differences of the people who live in those countries.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
The English learned the hard way, the US were much wiser to learn from their mistake: Imperialism is cheaper when you let countries govern themselves. You still retain control over their resources, but you don't have to deal with unrest and people are generally happier if they think they rule themselves. Actually, you can benefit from a rebellion, since you can first supply the weapons for the new dictator (especially useful if the old one got cocky after a while), and you have a new buddy in control there after everything's settled. Plus, your industry does not suffer simply because you just "buy" (ok, given the price it's stealing, but hey, that's international trade!) the goods, how they mine and produce them ain't your problem.
Instead, keep an army large enough that none of your colonies step out of line, out of fear that they would get the axe. That Iranian Prez wants to control our oil (yes, our, too precious to leave it to those aborigines!), so out with him, we install a dictator and put enough firepower in his hands to give him the largest army (outside of the western world + the Soviets). Then something really stupid happened: Those soldiers refused to mow down a few thousand protesters. Ok, that could've been easier if we had our army there, but back then we had to keep face as the good guys, so ... no option. And since we can't simply bust in there (right next to Iran the Soviets.... uhoh, they'd come for sure and then those Reds have our oil, no good!), let's arm another friendly guy in the region. He didn't get far, but that wasn't the point, he managed to cripple the Iranian army (and we got a lot of oil for our old weapons that we'd have had to scuttle anyway).
Then that cocky little bastard thought he could sell his oil for Euros instead of Dollars! What cheek! And, well, since we had the "war on terror" spin up already anyway, we just tacked a note onto him saying "terrorist" (note: The Iraq was maybe the ONLY country in that whole region that was secular to the bone, the ONLY country where Al Quaida couldn't get a food on the ground!). That sure taught him to sell our oil for money that's not ours! Imagine what happened if we let that happen and others follow suit, the Dollar goes into free fall.
This is how the foreign policy of the US works. It's not about being the "nice guy". Do you think the US cares about whether some people are living "free"? If so, why no engagement in southeast asia, why no aid in central Africa?
Simple: No necessary resources, no influence, no power, nothing to gain. Simple as that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We should not intervene in the current crisis in Iran. If the overwhelming majority of Iranians (like the overwhelming majority of Poles) truly support democracy, human rights, and peace with Israel, then a liberal Western democracy will arise -- without any violence.
Nonviolent resistance/civil disobedience/etc only works against enemies which see themselves as "civilized". Gandi succeeded against the British because they had an image to keep. The Iranian government, however, has no trouble with murder, rape and torturing people to death (as long as it's done by the state at least), so your great civil disobedience won't help you there.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
As of yesterday, BBC reported that it looked like the election was being reported as a 60/40 win. It would have to be very rigged to give that result. Then again, they could just use electronic voting machines, like we have.
This is a bit off-topic, but it irks me how often he is brought forward as an example.
Gandhi succeeded because he survived long enough to gain attention in the public life in England. The English public and politicians, having an interesting mix of acceptance for imperialism and notions of freedom, started rooting for Gandhi and applied pressure to pull the army back.
This means that Gandhi would NOT have lived if ANY of the following had taken place:
- England had a religious view that Indians were either somehow dirty, or cursed, or without value. In this case they wouldn't have bothered about the killing of anyone.
- English soldiers were regularly either a) drugged, b) undisciplined, c) disorganised. In each of these cases it's beyond likely that a local sergeant would have gotten fed up with his antics and killed him.
- He started blockading trains before he became too well-known to be killed
Of course. Your vote is an implicit approval of the democratic process, and an acceptance of whatever results follow from the election. By voting, you are responsible for sanctioning the system which elected the winning candidate. That's the concept which separates functioning from non-functioning democracies.
And if you don't vote and just merely reside in the country?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
What if he won fairly?
Face it, we need a reason to hate the Iran so we can step on it when it goes out of line. What if the whole outcry is staged? I mean, why was there none in 2005 when he won the first time?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"I'm tired of tolerance. "Lawful good" alignment is suicide for the rest of the world."
Mmm, chaotic evil. The breakfast of superpowers.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
The US doesn't care whether Iran is weak or strong. What they care about are their business interests, their profits.
Now I ask you this - when was Iran more profitable for the US? Was it during the Shah's rule or afterwards? I think the answer is clear, so your assertion that the 1979 overthrow was orchestrated by the US because it was in their best interests is not plausible to me.
The Shah was a cash cow for western nations and even you don't dispute that. Instead, you say that he intended to not renew the contracts - that may or may not have been true - but given that it was the word of a politician whose lavish lifestyle depended on remaining in office and who was was feeling the rug getting pulled from under his feet I doubt that his intentions were genuine.
It's clear that you favor the shah but I have to tell you that he was not a good man because he ultimately sold out his people for selfish reasons and any attempt to justify that or things like SAVAK is just cognitive dissonance talking.
Good day to you sir.
AFAIK, the Iranians already had their chance to end tyranny and establish a democracy... but instead, they chose tyranny by different hands.
Since when do "The People" have a choice?
The one who graps the power after an overthrow or revolution is the one "ruling" and "The People" are the one that get either ruled or extinguished. Democracy does not come over night. All democracies (or more correctly republics as most nations are not a democracy) we have in our days evolved over decades if not over centuries.
Since when may women vote in the USA, since when in Switzerland? Since when may black people vote in USA?
You really want to blame "The People" if a dictator with a suppression machine is gaining the power and suppresses "The People"? Rofl ... you are not very insightful.
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Ignore him, he's a retarded troll who fancies himself a gadfly.
"Sorry, I do not agree that the Iranian people would even be interested in anything other than a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy."
And what do you base that conclusion on? The very vocal, extremist, current leadership? I worked with a sys admin who came from Iran, and according to him, the vast majority of the population is in favor of a western style republic.
The current problem is that those currently entrenched in power, are far more passionate, vocal, and willing to justify (possibly) rigging an election to stay in power.
This is very similar to, but of course a more extreme example of, what happened to American politics during the last 8 years. The ultra-conservative fundamentalist, right wing, bordering on facist, religious nuts, managed to convince America that they had somehow become 50% of the population.
This was very evident in most news shows, who gave nearly equal weight to these far right wing views, always portraying an issue as left side, or right side, and somehow the right side had been shifted far far to the right.
Without any actual data to back myself up:), based on knowing a few Iranians, I would hazard a guess that 2/3rds of the population, those under the age of 40, are much more liberal and want a true democracy (or republic). The problem is the 1/3rd of the older generation who are lead by conservative clerics, and are willing to justify any means to achieve their end goals.
If Bush and company hadn't been quite so extreme with their world and local actions (wiretapping, side-stepping the constitution, etc..) I bet this last election would have been a lot closer. We are seeing a similar outcry for change in Iran right now. The current established power has gone too far, and that bottom 2/3rds of the population is starting to react.
The Iranians bear 100% of the blame for the existence of a tyrannical government in Iran. We should condemn Iranian culture and its people.
Why should we follow your advice if you clearly don't know anything about iranian / persian culture?
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
This is exactly what it was created for.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The ex-Soviet countries have no reason to reject the US. Actually, the US are held in great esteem in a lot of former east bloc countries. It was pretty much the promised land. After all, the US were depicted as the land of the imperialist, capitalist thugs that oppress the working people, and if the average east bloc resident knew one thing, then that whatever the "official" channels tell him is a lie.
What many didn't know is that the opposite of a lie ain't necessarily the truth.
I wouldn't say that Iranians are hellbent on being islamist fanatics who want to live in a sharia state. Not every muslim is an islamist. Saying that is like claiming that every Christian believes in Young Earth Creationism or similar rubbish.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Thanks for cherry picking my most and losing my point. But since you bring it up, the Vietnamese did all kinds of evil shit during the war including using children to detonate grenades by US soldiers. But sure, their culture is so much more peaceful. Given the right circumstances, ANY culture will do evil things.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
You seem to be missing out the part when the US helped overthrow the democratically elected government in 1953 and installed a brutal despot. Nope, nothing to do with how that changed Iranian society at all.
You should probably read a bit on wikipedia ... hm, however it is often very inaccurate ... who knows probably your claims come from there ;D
The Shah left Iran 1953, because if a kind of civil war with the party of the prime minister. Some years later the Shah came back to Iran (due a military lead revolution) and governed it (AFAIK without a prime minister, or democracy). The Shah is the one person who established western standards in law and education, opened the country to the west, performing land reforms etc. while still maintaining the countries control on its oil.
The Shah was overthrown for 2 fundamental reasons:
* internal the old ruling classes (aristocrates, industry barons, the rich) did not like the opening to the western countries, the slowly emerging democracy and the higher education standards and the coming industrialization (before WW II Iran was on a "tech level" of the society in europe around the year 1100), google for "Iran White Revolution"
* external the USA wanted to have a better grip on the oil, so they supported groups to get rid of the Shah, in the end they supported the wrong groups and helped establishing the Ayatholla regime
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
You are either with us or against us.
What does it take to understand that not all people yearn for freedom?
False. So wrong.
The desire for freedom is a natural human instinct that cannot be rationalized away.
I join you in frustration that the more things change... the more they stay the same. Look at all the countries in East Europe after the "fall" of the USSR. /ALL/ the leaders are the same, they just traded the Communist party for another one with more money and power.
However, Iran has chosen to ignore one fundamental truth: that ALL people desire freedom, especially the freedom of speech, expression, and religion. Once Iran realizes that, then we can take steps toward peace.
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
Win an "argument?" Sorry. This is abuse...
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.
By taking out Saddam he destabilized the entire balance of power between Iraq and Iran. Saddam actually kept Iran in check and vice versa. The second Saddam was out of the picture Iran raised its head in defiance and started to chase them atoms... Saddam would not have let this happen. Bush Jr., aspiring to Bush Sr., thought it would be a good idea to do as Dad did and invade Iraq. And while we're at it, lets one up ol' Dad, and actually get rid of Saddam. Talk about family feuds...
They did end tyranny by replacing the shah
The Shah was not more a tyran as the queen of UK is a tyran.
Probably you should read up a bit about Iranian post WW II history. Iran had a parliament, a prime minister was about to introduce election rights for women etc.
They tyranny was AFTER the Shah when the Chomeinis established their religious regime.
angel'o'sphere
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
You sir, appear to know nothing about Iran. Your ignorance is insulting to us educated Americans/Europeans.
Don't be all, like, "Those damned brown people."
Interesting choice of cliche. I thought Iranians thought themselves the only true "white" people? Iran = Aryan?
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
In the words of a US Embassy dispatch "The Shah's picture is everywhere. The beginning of all film showings in public theaters presents the Shah in various regal poses accompanied by the strains of the National anthem... The monarch also actively extends his influence to all phases of social affairs...there is hardly any activity or vocation which the Shah or members of his family or his closest friends do not have a direct or at least a symbolic involvement. In the past' he had claimed to take a two party-system seriously and declared "If I were a dictator rather than a constitutional monarch' then I might be tempted to sponsor a single dominant party such as Hitler organized".
However by 1975 he abolished the multi-party system of government so that he could rule through a one-party state under the Rastakhiz (Resurrection) Party in autocratic fashion. All Iranians were pressured to join in. The Shah's own words on its justification was; "We must straighten out Iranians' ranks. To do so' we divide them into two categories: those who believe in Monarchy' the constitution and the Six Bahman Revolution and those who don't.... A person who does not enter the new political party and does not believe in the three cardinal principles will have only two choices. He is either an individual who belongs to an illegal organization' or is related to the outlawed Tudeh Party' or in other words a traitor. Such an individual belongs to an Iranian prison' or if he desires he can leave the country tomorrow' without even paying exit fees; he can go anywhere he likes' because he is not Iranian' he has no nation' and his activities are illegal and punishable according to the law".[25] In addition' the Shah had decreed that all Iranian citizens and the few remaining political parties must become part of Rastakhiz.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi
This is how the foreign policy of the US works. It's not about being the "nice guy". Do you think the US cares about whether some people are living "free"? If so, why no engagement in southeast asia, why no aid in central Africa?
Simple: No necessary resources, no influence, no power, nothing to gain. Simple as that.
No, it isn't. Sudan has plenty of oil. Why do you think the northern part gives a damn about the southern part? Because that (Darfur and points south) is where the oil is. China is heavily invested in the Sudan.
Burma (Myanmar) has lots of natural gas, gems, timber and minerals. Central Africa (the region, not specifically the CAR) is loaded with lovely things like bauxite, diamonds, uranium and all that wonderful timber. Amazingly enough, China is also heavily invested in Burma and many places in Africa as well.
North Korea is within spitting distance (literally!) of South Korea, and a short lob to Japan. Not to mention they share borders with both China AND Russia. I'm sure THOSE countries would like us to deploy a few hundred thousand troops on their border.
Is "freedom" and "democracy" the overriding principle of American foreign policy? Hell no. But it is a consideration. Democracy and Republics are much more stable forms of government. Stability means safe trade. That is, we can buy their stuff and they can buy ours. Notice all the money in the world that MEANS anything comes from stable democracies? The dollar (U.S., Canadian or Australian), the Euro, Pound and Yen.
Iran is complicated. The Soviet Union under Stalin had serious ambitions in expanding their burgeoning empire. Just ask the Eastern European nations about that one. They showed their intent after WW2 when all three powers were withdrawing from Iran -- the U.K., U.S. and U.S.S.R. -- and the Soviets sort of lingered in the norther oil fields of Iran, refusing to withdraw and demanding oil concessions. They had a history of that, with Tsarist Russia taking sizable chunks of Azerbaijan from Iran back in the late 1700s and early 1800s. It was the U.S. that forced them to fully leave.
From Wikipedia:
Following their defeat by Russia, Qajar Persia was forced to sign the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, which acknowledged the loss of the territory to Russia. Local khanates were either abolished (like in Baku or Ganja) or accepted Russian patronage. Another Russo-Persian war in 1826-28 resulted in another crushing defeat for the Iranian army. The Russians dictated another final settlement as per the Treaty of Turkmenchay, which resulted in the Qajars of Persia ceding Caucasian territories in 1828. The treaty established the current borders of Azerbaijan and Iran as the rule of local khans ended.
The U.S.S.R. with access thru a friendly nation (Mossadeq's Iran) to both vast oil reserves and a warm-water port was by far and away an unacceptable risk. I'm fairly certain Iran S.S.R. would have been a hell of a lot worse.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The Slashdot crowd are so stupid with Regards to this Event.
I never imagined that you could be so stupid to believe the Zionist / US / British Propaganda about Iran.
Well maybe I am of a Older generation kind.
Time to stop reading Slashdot, it's only trash nowadays.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'd say the majority is pretty happy about their government.
Happy enough to get the internet effectively shut down because of online revolts, sure.
Your weak ground is no better than the parent; you're both guessing in a fairly random fashion. You guys (and this entire Ask Slashdot discussion group) could use a great big [citation needed] over it. I wonder why you got Insightful, because I'm at an utter loss as to why such a claim that has no real basis in fact was considered better than yet another claim with at least the story to back its ideas up.
Then, after the Kremlin exited Eastern Europe in 1989, the peoples of each nation in Eastern Europe rapidly established a genuine democracy and a free market. Except for Romania (where its people killed their dictator), there was no violence.
That is how people act when they want freedom and free markets.
In 1979, after the Iranian people overthrow the despot whom the Americans supported, the Iranians immediately established a brutal, authoritarian theocracy.
That is how people act when they reject both freedom and free markets.
Cultures are different. Eastern-European culture and Iranian culture are different. The Iranians bear 100% of the blame for the existence of a tyrannical government in Iran. We should condemn Iranian culture and its people.
Pick a side! We're at war!
Pick a side! We're at war!
This didn't pick up my [colbert] tags...damn Slashcode...
According to Wikipedia, the Weimar Republic grew out of the November Revolution of 1918, not through any allied imposition.
Wow, you're a belligerent little punk, aren't you? You know you won't have to die, so you figure that you're safe from your bloodlust.
Ignorant child.
If we truly believe that democracy is desirable, then we ought to help them, or just STFU.
No, we shouldn't. We should meddle if they cry for help, or if their non-democrat government decides it is time to poke us with a sharp stick; otherwise, we should let the people decide what is best for them and not what we think it may be.
I don't think the post was hostile. Any hostility would have been assumed by the reader. Unfortunately, telling facts in a factual method without including sympathetic prostration is not politically acceptable these days. Don't apologize
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
For starters, you need to learn that Americans have the most violent culture of any first world country.
Japan isn't a first world country? Just saying, your claim is hardly a clear cut fact. But then again you're American, in your mind America is always the most X or the least Y.
You just got troll'd!
You seem to be missing out the part when the US helped overthrow the democratically elected government in 1953 and installed a brutal despot. Nope, nothing to do with how that changed Iranian society at all.
That is such a tired old meme, usually repeated by people who've never read Iranian history. "The US helped overthrow a democratically elected government"...nonsense. The Soviets occupied parts of Iran until 1946. The "democratically elected" (in the crudest sense of the world) Mossadegh was the result of six failed governments, was appointed by the Shah. In return, he deported the Shah, who returned in 1953 with Anglo-American help.
The idea that there was some kind of strong Jeffersonian government in Iran is ridiculous.
Many parts of the world just are not ready for self-government. Iran is one of them.
Advice: on VPS providers
Thank you for your post. People seem to forget that the world would be a much different place if not for US involvement.
Sure, some there have been some bad decisions over time, but largely the US has been a great influence on the world.
For all the haters out there- it may be popular to bash the US, but look at the ratio of good things we have brought about in our short history as a nation. If you judge us, judge us on our entire history, not just the recent years (which history may tell a totally different story once all the information is released).
Posted AC due to the fact that I will be modded to oblivion.
By the way, you can be a prosperous 1st world country without being a liberal Western democracy. In fact, Iran in many ways is more prosperous than many other countries you would consider as heading towards 1st-world. Iran is a much cleaner and better developed country than India, China, and I would think Vietnam. In fact, based on the UN's Human Development Index, Iran (84th) is indeed more highly developed than Vietnam (114th). The world's largest democracy, India, comes in further down the list (132th). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index
The purpose of all governments, is to fool or force the majority into helping the leaders, to the detriment of the majority.
Yawn. Wake me up when the Pretentious Pseudophilosopher's Wanking Club meeting is over.
Advice: on VPS providers
My dear neocon friend, please, stop. Ends never justify the means, of course the side which perpetrates a crime, will always justify, that it's doing it for the greater good, be that Soviets, Nazi Germany, Vietcong, Jonson or Bush administration. Isn't what the torture debate is really about: everyone is equal under the law vs. we're doing it for the greater good? So please, stop that.
www.freenetproject.org
- a decentralized, anonymous, censorship resistant peer-to-peer software, designed for situations EXACTLY like the one you are expieriencing: Freenet is designed in a way which makes it impossible to block if used properly: In darknet mode, each connection between the peers is FULLY encrypted and therefore cannot be blocked by internet traffic analysis. You should read the description of "Darknet" on the website to understand it more.
It provides much of the functionality of the normal internet: The ability to post websites, so called freesites, the ability to write mail, "freemail", and anonymous forums, FMS.
The core feature of Freenet is it's censorship resistance: Content is distributed on all computers which participate. Once you have uploaded something, it is IMPOSSIBLE to delete it, it will still be available to everyone even if your computer is offline.
"Troll" does not mean "I disagree," mods. Fix this post's modding post-haste.
Our military was the 5th strongest and our airforce was the 3rd strongest. Iran was an awesome nation!.
Sorry, kid, there was no time when the Iranian airforce was the "3rd strongest". The USA and USSR were always #1 and #2, with Britain, France, China, Canada, perhaps Israel vying for #3. There were also a whole mess of Eastern European countries. Iran was never in the running.
Advice: on VPS providers
I am bewildered and gob smacked at the ignorance of people. Seriously.
Stating that the Iranian people are responsible for the government's actions is like stating that the American people are responsible for:
1) Killing hundreds and thousands of innocent people in Japan in WW2
2) Killing hundreds and thousands of innocent people in Vietnam
3) Killing hundreds and thousands of innocent people in Iraq
Not to mention all the future problems that the "American people" have created by breaking apart governments that needed to organically grow and change (after all, we didn't go from slavery to democracy overnight).
There needs to be a clear distinction between "the people" and the power-driven politicans (i.e. Bush or any other poltician, be it Stalin, Pol Pot or Ahmadinejad).
The people are always going to need to rebel and create civil wars (which in turn create revolutions). But its always very difficult and in some states very costly (depending on the military power of that country). A civil war in Iran would be a catastrophe like never seen before.
They definitely need help from the UN and the rest of the Western world or it could create even more tensions between the West and Middle East.
"There are no "western" and "non-western" democracies. There are just democracies, and tyrannies."
There are no shades of gray, just black and white.
"If a western democracy overthrew my nation's government, I'd assume that it was a national democracy acting in its own interests. A reasonable response to that is to establish your own national democracy which will act in your interests."
How are you supposed to do that if the enemy has just overthrown your nation's goverment? The Iranian people did act in their self-interest and helped a goverment to do what was the goal, eliminate US(and other nation's) interference in their private affairs and rightly so. The fact that you make a democracy sound like all-curing snake oil is what causes the rift in understanding between the west and the east. We need to stop treating western concepts like snake oil and maybe the world will become a better place.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Everyone understands what an "American" is though. Nobody thinks the word "American" applies to some specific ethnicity/religious grouping. The word "Iranian" is the same. This is just how the English language works.
Your point is of course very valid though. The OP is foolish to assume there is not some group subjugating another group through force.
The ugly side of truth as viewed through a distorted window? I wonder, given the current government's control of information leaving Iran, how anyone can say what the majority of the people there think. The people in power are surely slanting things in their favor. I believe that given enough time and opportunity that a people can overthrow a dictator. It takes more than just the will to change. Just try telling the guys who are pointing their guns at you that they must submit to your superior intellect and willpower. ;)
Be as you would have the world become.
Absolutely not. The real context of my comment is that parent said the iranians had no say over the kind of government they are being subjected to, as an answer to "The Iranians bear 100% of the blame for the existence of a tyrannical government in Iran" by grandparent (which I guess has been modded down as a flamebait).
What I can see from most answers to my post is that I've been misinterpreted when I said that they already had a chance. What I really mean isn't that they "already had their one chance and must now suffer the consequences until the end of times", but that they actually did have a chance to end tyranny without anyone else's help and installed their own government, their choice being what we see today.
This new generation is free to fix what their parents did and have their voices heard (and they should), but it doesn't automatically mean that by helping them (or not) we are admitting (or not) guilt to something that did not actually happen in this specific case - a regime installed by the western world.
You mean like in the 2nd world war where the Soviets crushed 3/4 of the Wermacht on the Eastern front before a single boat landed on Normandy's beaches?
I think he meant like in the 2nd world war where the Soviets carved up Poland and the Baltic states in cahoots with Hitler, then came running to the USA for supplies once the Germans invaded.
Or maybe he meant our invasion of North Africa. Or our invasion of Italy. Or all those tens of thousands of bombing runs over Germany. Or the way we propped up the Soviet economy. Or the British, for that matter. All of which happened before June 6, 1944.
No doubt, the Russians took the biggest hit and did the most lifting in their theater. But you make it sound like we sort of got in only around the edges.
And by the way, comrade, you seem to be forgetting about this whole other theater of war in the Pacific...
Advice: on VPS providers
According to Wikipedia, the Weimar Republic grew out of the November Revolution of 1918, not through any allied imposition.
Just so someone doesn't think this is untrue because you said "According to Wikipedia"...this actually is true.
Advice: on VPS providers
We should condemn Iranian culture and its people.
Maybe it's not "Iranian culture" as much as "Islamic culture".
I suspect as much, given that there is not a country on the planet with an Islamic majority and functioning democracy (and no, Turkey does not qualify).
Advice: on VPS providers
In the absence of an external interfering force (e. g., the army of the Soviet Union), the fate of a nation is determined by its people. Period.
I see your people and raise you one mass media. Give them talk shows with retarded people and a vote every now and then, and they'll think they're free.
For starters, you need to learn that Americans have the most violent culture of any first world country.
sorry, while i don't disagree with most of what you said, comparing america's psuedo- (support-lacking, factually-questionable, extremist-spouting, media-driven) imperialist agenda with recent cultures like russia/ussr, britain any time in the 19th and 20th centuries (until possibly around the 50s), and a few others (china, many nations in western and central africa) won't cut it without any proof.
i too am an american, and i think our nation has done some horrible things (which includes you, me, and every individual like us). but to compare the united states to countries (or even actual empires) that will massacre for the crown/motherland seems ludicrous.
get a grip and try again.
not only is time travel possible, it's irrelevant.
Iran was a modern, secular state with the Shah.
Thirty years have passed and Iran has never been so prosperous as it was in the 70s. I think blaming the Shah is just because of the foolish hatred the iranians have for the old monarchy.
If the guy who asked for your help in setting up makeshift networks in Iran, is also able to read your replies, then it automatically follows that the government could, too.
That means, that while to some extent you might be helping the OP, it also means you're potentially providing the government with very critical pieces of information:-
a) What any would-be revolutionaries are possibly specifically doing, as far as setting up network infrastructure is concerned, and
b) By extension, how to snoop/counter it.
c) Potentially information (even if only email addresses) about the Iranian individuals who want to deploy the technology, and then use it for subversive purposes.
The other thing to consider is, whether or not getting rid of a new dictatorship there is worth it, even if you could. The most revolutions ever do is buy time, (yes, including the American one) and in the end, all you're really doing is making the world safe for corporations, since in any scenario where government doesn't hold power, they invariably do instead...and generally they do even where you have a national government.
The majority never end up permanently retaining power, for the simple reason that they don't want it. As long as said dictator doesn't start randomly killing people, and is also able to do a sufficiently competent administrative job, leave him where he is. Fewer people will probably end up dying, and in a part of the world like the Middle East, having a firmer than usual hand at the wheel isn't a bad thing anywayz.
Sadaam might have been a monster in a lot of ways, but he held Iraq together, and as someone else said, managed to keep Iran in check as well. The Arab states aren't places where behaving like a member of Amnesty International is good for either keeping a country together, or retaining office.
Take a wider view of history is my suggestion to you, or some people might consider you an ignorant racist. European nations lived under tyrannical theocracy for many centuries as well until the enlightened few gradually recently managed to wrestle control away from the church and the hereditary nobility and sort of into the hands of the people (btw a process which is not easy and can easily reverse itself if we are not careful). Did European "culture" or it's "people" change so dramatically in the second half of the 20th century (compared to previous 19) or are there other forces that determine how history works itself out differently in different parts of the world? If you take a look at the entire history of human race, democracy is something that has never been known before 20th century (apart from a brief flicker in ancient Greece and the USA of course which started from scratch so it's a different problem). With that perspective it seems ignorant to say that European culture in some way more receptive to democracy than Iranian, it just so happened that Europeans got there in the 20th century and hopefully Iranians will get there in the 21st. People all over the world basically want the same things. I don't know exactly what is keeping them from making it happen, but I suspect it's the same things that kept Europe in the even worse darkness until recently.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
This is why I think there was no fraud during this election. The Iranians are anti-secular people who never had an enlightenment, of course theyre going to continue to vote in the conservative candidate. Not to mention the president's role is almost purely ceremonial in Iran. The clerical councils and supreme leader have the real power. Its something akin to a dictatorship, but until the economy when sour on them, they didnt seem to mind. I hate the idea of the "common good of the average person." The average person in Iran hates your western values. Dont be naive.
>Given all the above I would not say the problems of the Iranians are purely their own fault.
Acutally, its 100% their fault. They put theorcrats into power. They love Islam more than love the rights of man. They chose religion or sanity, and this is the price they pay. Why should the US rescue them from their own madness? Perhaps the kids growing up there now will help run a revolution later, in the meantime its Allah and his nutter clerics 24/7. Beware religion in politics kids. Dont blame the US if the Iranians are wullfully ignorant of this. Religion is the worst influence possible for government. Learn that, stop blaming the US for their stupidity.
The white South Africans held power because they had the money. That's all. It's not about guns. They had the money, which let them buy enough support from necessary people (both in the country and outside) to prop them up. That is, obviously, a simplification, but saying it was guns that kept them there is ridiculous.
Please, can you help us to set up some sort of network using our home wireless access points? Can anybody show us a link on how to install small TV/radio stations? Any suggestion for setting up a network? Please tell us what to do or we are going to die in the a nuclear war between Iran and US.
Here's a great guide from an African organization:
http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php/DIY_Mesh_Guide
Good luck!
And, JM2C: I don't think either Barack or Mahmoud will fire the first nuke. Scary as it is, MAD is pretty stable. Think about how it would play out:
America strikes first:
1. Iran destroyed. (sorry to be so blunt, but it is a fact)
2. Global backlash against America.
3. America rapidly destabilizes economically (ie: much worse than now).
4. North Korea senses weakness and takes out Seoul (probably conventional, not nuclear).
And that's not considering anything else that would happen in the Middle East. For example, there's a good chance Israel would be destroyed. Barack understands that whole chain of events - it's not rocket science.
As for Mahmoud? Love him or hate him, think he's good, evil, or has his back against the wall -- regardless of any of that, he's fairly smart. You don't get to his position without having a fair bit of desire for power, and the mental capacity to figure out how to get it. If he strikes first, he loses everything he has built. He knows that.
So, build your mesh network, let's get to know each other through global social networks, and work together to stop the hatred and fear on both sides.
But don't sweat the nukes. It won't happen.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
In the absence of an external interfering force (e. g., the army of the Soviet Union), the fate of a nation is determined by its people. Period. I didn't know you could win an argument by appending a "Period." after your thesis.
What you really mean is you mean is:
tl;dr
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
>The Shah was then overthrown by the WESTERN NATIONS.
The US put the shah in power, you moron. You know the one you just wrote a love letter for.
Your people put the theocrats into power with your Islamic revolution. Those werent CIA agents, but Islamic people wanting a hateful theocracy to be their government. You chose religion over secularism. Now you are paying the price.
Also, no one fears Iran. Your military is one of the worst in the world and your airforce is a joke of f-11's that are falling apart. Our fear is that you want to become like North Korea. A poor, ignorant dictatorship weilding nukes around for aid. Thats your destiny right there.
>but I don't blame you as you seem like yet another uneducated western kid who probably get all your source from CNN and BBC without looking up yourself.
Are you have been brainwashed by your Iranian masters.
And then the Iranian's overthrew that brutal despot and replaced him with a conclave of religious brutal despots. They bear the shame for having the chance to correct their society and failing miserably.
Steal? From *whom?*
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
I see that Acorn has set up offices in Iran.
Japan isn't a first world country?
Japan is violent? Really??
Hmmm... now I have to figure what incredibly peaceful and safe country I was living in between 2001 and 2006. Or, maybe I can just assume that you've never been there and have NO idea what you are talking about, and are probably basing your impressions of a country on the content of its cartoons.
:-/
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
This is what Tyranny looks like, not whether or not Ron Paul gets laughed at or if your movement is heckled because you guys chose, "Teabagging" as your rallying cry.
This is real tyranny. Not being mocked endlessly because your candidate of choice is hopelessly and helplessly trapped in the 1880's.
Grow up and stop polluting the Internet.
As for what we, the typical freedom loving west should do? If you've got the means, set up proxies. Make sure that Iranian dissidents can get their word out to the world. If you don't, pressure the Obama administration to look into the Iranian crackdown. The real story here isn't whether or not the election was dirty, the real story is the cover up.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Yeah...Good luck on that "2nd NRA Patriot Revolution" armed with Glocks and a few AK-47 against Apache gunships and Predator drones.
That's gonna go real well. Where do you want your bloody smear buried after your remains have been squeegeed up?
You're mixing the issues quite a bit here. While I'm sure that most Iranians are fine with having a Supreme Leader mixed in the parliamentary system, most Iranians aren't happy with their current administration, and what Hamadinedjad out really badly, and move on to progressivism and democratic reform.
Look at the polls, see how Mousavi was consistently reported as carrying the majority by several sources, then how both sides claimed to get 60% of the vote, and how Mousavi claimed the votes were swapped. The seeminly more likely explanation is that Mousavi's claims are true, which means 62% of the Iranian electorate wanted to show Ahmadinedjad the door, and explains the riots.
But no, sure, you're right, not all people yearn for freedom, these people over there in those mysterious civilisations actually like dictatorship and oppression. They totally don't yearn for democratic reform.
You just got troll'd!
Japan isn't a first world country?
Japan is violent? Really??
Hmmm... now I have to figure what incredibly peaceful and safe country I was living in between 2001 and 2006.
Are you a moron? We're talking about culture. You're not even addressing that. By what objective metric can you say that the American culture is clearly more violent than Japanese culture? Is guro more violent than Rambo? Is one much more relevant to the national culture it belongs to as a whole than the other? See, that's my point, it's hard to even tell. You saying that Japan is a safe country to live in is just off-topic.
You just got troll'd!
...rebroadcasting the BBC & CNN over the Iranian jamming? If not, they should be.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
first, i'm very disappointed, angry, saddened, and frustrated by what has happened and what is now happening. i'd very much like to help, but besides setting up rogue dns servers, or distributing pre-filled hosts.txt files (both of which could easily be stopped, if they're not already), i have no clue what sort of advice to offer besides don't trust anyone, encrypt everything, and speak in whispers (online and off) until you're ready to pay for what you have to say.
second, should we really be offering advice in such a public place? if an iranian national can get to slashdot, so can iranian intelligence, or whoever it is that's actually imposing this oppression. there's not even any way to verify this person's identity, it could be some young iranian, supportive of the police state, trying to do his part to silence the dissenters.
no, i'm sorry, i think i'd have to say that we shouldn't be saying anything of any real value, besides "i'm sorry". i hope you are able to figure this out on your own. my only advice is to move slowly, quietly, and deliberately. and good luck.
not only is time travel possible, it's irrelevant.
Blame is irrelevant. Oppressed people are asking for help.
Tools and Information on fighting censorship:
http://www.internetfreedom.org/
http://www.pgp.com/
http://www.dl4all.com/internet/22383-5-best-tools-to-fight-internet-censorship.html
Also explore alternative means of communication.
They are not asking for tanks and missiles, only the means to express themselves. We know what the right thing to do is, the only question is whether we're up to it.
I am not in any sense a technical expert nor a master of cyber securty. Please, if anyone can offer further service, you know how much this can mean.
I will not post about the GP, but parent post is a load of idiocy.
The second world war saw America's vast wealth fighting for the allies for years. America's power was almost wholly responsible for ending the Pacific war as well.
The IMF offers loans. Is your bank ruling you with an iron fist if you sign a loan agreement with it?
Iraq's oil was partially exploited by handing the contracts to American companies. This is in no way similar to the wholesale theft you imagine.
And compare modern day Japan to modern day Mongolia if you want to compare treatments of once-puppet governments
You know, it really is bad to see all this violence, however it warms my heart to see these young people fight for what is right. I'm not saying that the election was rigged or was not, but what I see are people who care, young people....
People who will stand up and fight for what is right and what they believe in. It's a lot more than I would expect to see out of anyone here in America.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
posh. A tiny vocal minority does not a majority make.
How we know is more important than what we know.
They have been referred to as part of the "axis of evil" by that insane cowboy the US used to call president. The US has a lot of nukes and the ability to deliver them and while the current president seems peaceful enough, they know that the US system is inherently unstable and another hawkish nutjob could be in the white house in 4 to 8 years.
They also are on bad terms with Isreal, along with every other country in the region. Isreal has more than enough nukes to wipe them out. There is no nuclear power in the region on their side and they feel threatened. Understandably too.
Isreal currently massacres Palestinians, has started wars with it's neighbours and has no problem launching attacks across borders when ever they want, for example into Lebanon. Basically, Iran has a nuclear power in their region which has shown time and again it has little respect for international law or vborders of other countries, who is allied with a super power which thinks it is international law and immune from prosecution and has little respect for other countries soverignty. No wonder they are frightened and angry.
So they figure that if they have nukes, they can hopefully make Isreal think twice before commit the next installment in the genocide and territory building they appear to be attempting. They can't take on the US, but they can put Isreal in check, or at least make themselves heard and taken seriously.
They know full well that nukes are only useful as a deterent. They also seem to think that the Middle East needs a balance of power. I would actually have more concern about some right wing Isreali nutjob starting a nuclear war than Iran.
This is an unpopular view among many in the west, I know, but attempting to understand their fears can lead to peace, which is what most of us want on both sides.
I don't therefore I'm not.
Uhm, not quite, not quite... This is oft-asserted by anti-Americans, but is not quite true. First of all, the man (Mohammad Mossadegh) was "elected" by the Iranian parliament (Majlis) — not "democratically" (by the people).
Yes, he was quite popular (yet another item in support of the GP's idea — about Iranians deserving of their government), but was a loon — giving media interviews in bed, for example. (Khm, was that why "300" pictured Persian ruler the way they did? Most unfair to the ancient king, BTW, but...)
And third, the CIA's action has, in all likelihood, prevented the appearance of the Soviet Army on the stage — which was exactly the point of the GP, who was now moderated down to oblivion by the same anti-Americans and victims of their propaganda. Even Iran's current and past misfortunes are better than the political repressions and economic degradation of becoming the 16th Soviet Socialist Republic would've entailed... Even without USSR appearing, Mossadegh's claiming "temporary" emergency powers foretold, what he had in mind for his country. One only needs to look at Syria and Egypt to realize, what fate did the British (and the CIA) helped Iran to avoid.
This was all obvious to most Americans at the time, BTW — when Socialism was still bad and Communism was still evil, and before the generations of victims of our education system worked their way through America-haters like that infamous "professor" from Chicago...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It's called "self help", and is discouraged in civilized societies like the United States.
According to Wikipedia, Iran has a quirky democratic system. I guess we could call it democratic or non-democratic, depending on whether we like the government or not.
Ironically, the US has a quirky democratic system as well.
I like to think that the way we feel about their 2009 election result is how they felt about our 2000 election result. Or something.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
You're right. It clearly has nothing to do with their repeated extremist rhetoric about nuking Israel. You know it's REALLY bad when they refer to their enemy as "the Zionist regime".
Actually its not clear at all that the election was rigged - despite the claims of the reformist loser. See this Guardian article for more details: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/13/iranian-election/
Yep....it's called a "Republic".
Quirky indeed...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Is it still "self help" if you're the country, i.e. if you have, essentially, the executive power?
A country made a decision. Another country didn't agree with this decision, and in response it overthrew the government. I don't want to decide what's "more wrong".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Why not? Works for women. Not that I'd know...
"American" is different because the United States is specifically a diverse nation, thirty-one ancestry groups have more than a million members with a ton of religions and a system where one group doesn't generally subjugate another, well not since the end of the Indian Wars at least.
In the 1800s, yea we'd have the Crow fighting with the Federal forces against the Sioux and Cheyenne. But the Federal Government never used the German-Americans to keep the Irish-Americans down.
ROFL...on our TV we can have all forms of violence that is outlawed or at least looked down upon in most other first world nations but god forbid you show a tit. But hey, Fuck cartoons and TV. We simply kill more and it's not just because we have guns. Look at Canada. They have just as a high a percentage of gun ownership as we do, yet we kill many many times more people than they do (17000 vs. 578). We invade countries that haven't even attacked us. I could go on and on. What kind of fucking evidence do you need? You'd have to be completely delusional to think we aren't the most violent.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
> And by the way, comrade, you seem to be forgetting about this whole other theater of war in the Pacific...
"Comrade", I am not forgetting at all. Not at all. Most of the planet is familiar with America's actions for good or ill. Americans however seem to be (on the whole) remarkably ignorant of both the rest of the world's good actions and their own country's ill actions.
And what's with the automatic "if you're not with us you're against us" attitude? You lot are so bloody fond of pointing out what a beacon you are and how shabby everyone else is but seem to have a bit of a glass jaw when criticism is pointed at you. Do not equate criticism with communism or "islamo-fascism". For the record, I am probably the world's greatest fan of the American Republic and your early history is one of my favourite subjects.
I'm not talking about ancient history. I'm talking about TODAY's America and TODAY's world. Yes, we can go back in history and look at the Nazi's in Germany, and Stalin, etc. I'm talking about today. The bottom line is we're the worst. Btw, Russia is second world -- not first world. Anyway, look at my reply to 4D6963 for more evidence.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
> And compare modern day Japan to modern day Mongolia if you want to compare treatments of once-puppet governments
Fair enough. Mongolia - economic backwater for years. Japan - artificially propping up the US economy for years.
By what objective metric can you say that the American culture is clearly more violent than Japanese culture?
Violent crime statistics?
Take a look at the Assault, Rape, and Murder statistics.
But, no, let's go with what passes for entertainment in those countries. Because that is much more representative of culture than, you know, how people actually act.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
http://www.arrl.net
Unless that is blocked as well, everything they need to know to setup radio equipment, slow scan TV stations, etc. Integrating with home wireless is the easy part, although not at all necessary for communications. Handful of components and a string of wire and they are good to go.
The 2000 and 2004 elections were hacked (although it wouldn't have mattered much who got in really). Slashdot is full of references to all of this and the blackbox voting stuff. Many threads on it. The US is in the same boat as Iran, we haven't had a legitimate election in who knows how long, but we have way too many order followers with guns and badges and authority who will shoot to kill anyone their superiors point them at, they don't give a shit. Not for one moment. They just don't care, just a job to them, mercenaries wrapped in flags shouting hoorah, getting all the urban insurrection warfare skills they need to come back home and do some more order following when the time is ripe.
Historically, police and military are the LAST ones to give up on a dictatorship, or decide to follow their conscious and fight against it and really be "for the people", that's the only way dictatorships stay in power, willing, armed and violent order followers. Usually they are the last to even admit they are part of it. Cognizant dissonance is a major part of that. They don't want to believe they are doing wrong, so they fail to see it, even when it is way past obvious to everyone else, and by then, inertia sets in, they fall back on "us versus them" and will still fight against the people. Then their organizational structure collapses, and most of them go rogue and predatory, because that's what they know, using violence to achieve goals. Right or wrong. This is by far and away the most common historical timeline with past empires and with all peoples.
Everyone knows this (who stops to think about it a little), that's why congress has been a paper tiger (they don't control any troops or weaponry, they have no real power anymore, we have executive orders and findings and directives and subagency bureaucratic edicts for the important things now) and we have an ongoing transition to a full bore big brother styled society that keeps getting solidified under the axis of the executive branch and wall street moneymen, who are the real power in the US today. They are using the "war on terror" bullshit to bring about "change", just like the last set of controlled puppets that brought us homeland security and the patriot act. Notice none of that has been repealed or scaled back. Notice the wars haven't ended. Notice it is the same amount of security theater as before..well, no, there's more of it now, not less. More cameras, more datamining, more all that stuff. Notice everyone is getting robbed blind to make wall street richer, we are now "in debt" to them for some reason. To the tune of trillions and counting.
We are paying those people to rip us off, plus to build the US into one large prison camp. No need for specialized camps much once the entire population is cowed enough and they have enough armed order followers spread around to keep everyone nervous and "pacified".
It certainly isn't the vote that is important, that is just political theater meant to keep up the illusion of some sort of representative democracy, along with that utterly phony left versus right political "party" charade. We have one political party, the globalist fascist party, the D and R constitute the two wings of that party. And the current tool is part of the controlled Chicago machine, crooks through and through, just with a good actor for their spokesman. Better than the last puppet actor in his TV soundbite skills, but still a tool and controlled. Who knows what they have on him for blackmail.
a long, tired version of "it's worse over there, so what I did over here is justified."
And how does a minority hold on to the money? Guns.
And those "necessary people" for maintaining political power, are those who can bring guns to bear.
Mao was a murderous bastard, but he sure got one thing right: power comes out of the barrel of a gun.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
You are joking, right? Either that, or you don't know your history. Yes, the Soviets fielded a larger army than the Western Allies did, but they would have taken years more than they did to beat off the Germans if it weren't for the US. Why do you think Stalin kept pushing for a Second Front?
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Darknets guys
http://msl1.mit.edu/ESD10/docs/darknet5.pdf
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/the-new-version-of-p2p.ars
http://msl1.mit.edu/ESD10/docs/darknet5.pdf
They are cheap, easy to roll out and use existing infrastructure. Roll one out to pro-democracy reformers, get a collection of people's actual votes, if possible on a signed petition (e-sig should be fine) then get that to the UN. While you may not trust us, the UN is watching this situation and good luck.
Love, Australia
Wait! Whats a sig?
What does it take to understand that not all people yearn for freedom?
That has got to be the most patently absurd thing anyone has said to me lately.
What do most people want, all over the world? They want to be left the hell alone by their government, and live their lives in peace!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
> It is none of our business unless they attempt to develop nuclear weapons. We in the West are morally justified in destroying the nuclear-weapons facilities.
Spoken like a true Likudnik. What happened to "We should not intervene?" Your (I'm assuming your American here) interventions over the last X years (go back as far as you like) have worked out wonderfully so far. Why stop now? Although I'd love to see you "intervene" and destroy North Korea's REAL nukes before you attempt to destroy Iran's virtual nukes. Consistency would make such a lovely change to hypocrisy.
While I frequently vacillate between trying to fix messes we (the US) have caused and being isolationist (the next time country X invades Y, let Y's neighbors deal with it).. I think the main argument for intervention is that the leaders of Iran have demonstrated hostility through words and actions towards Israel. A direct full-blown nuclear war with Israel would de-stabilize the region and has the potential to plunge us into World War 3. At that point the choice of should we have stopped them before they went nuclear vs how many cities will be destroyed in retaliation for the nuclear attack on an ally becomes quite clear. The hindsight issue is that we don't know the probability that Iran would use nuclear weapons offensively.
I think in the end Iran will become a nuclear power. North Korea is currently one and how they behave in the future will indirectly dictate Iran's fate. I don't really fear North Korea right now, as they only have a handful of nukes. Enough to cause havoc, but not enough to bring down society. What happens if they increase their arsenal from 6-10 warheads to 5000 and improve their ICBM technology to be able to hit anybody. What do you do then?
No, it was because the Canadians and British landed with the USA on D-Day in Normandy and the Australians fought with the USA in the Pacific, and all three countries ever since.
If South Korea actually did something with the USA, or Japan, I'd be more receptive to them, but I think overall they have been shitty and ungrateful allies.
Finally, what is wrong with having an alliance with nations that have similar values? Why the fuck are we supposed to like people that aren't like us?
This is my sig.
lol are you kidding? You get all the same violence on French television plus naked people at any time of the day for no reason.
You kill more people because you have tens of millions of people in poverty and have the poor turned into organised gangs made of people who'll do anything from killing people to selling heroin to kids to mackin' hos to make ends meet or feed their crack addictions. That doesn't have a fucking thing to do with culture. You think that crack-headed negroes in Detroit kill each other over gas money just because they've watched too many action movies? You invade countries that haven't even attacked you? Big fucking whoop, that's nothing, we spent most of the 20th century occupying Africa and south-east Asia just for the sake of having the biggest fucking colonial empire, and we genocided the Armenians for no fucking reason.
You're not only delusional about America being all that, you're ignorant. Even Americans who think they have a clue don't know shit about the rest of the world. Americans no matter how educated always hold the belief that the USA are special in so many fucking ways. Well they're not that fucking special, sorry to burst your bubble.
You just got troll'd!
"The shah's air force had more than 450 modern combat aircraft, including top-of-the-line F-14 Tomcat fighters and about 5,000 well-trained pilots. By 1979 the air force, numbering close to 100,000 personnel, was by far the most advanced of the three services and among the most impressive air forces in the developing world. Reliable information on the air force after the Revolution was difficult to obtain, but it seems that by 1987 a fairly large number of aircraft had been cannibalized for spare parts. "
"Throughout the 1970s, Iran purchased sophisticated aircraft for the air force. The acquisition of 77 F-14A Tomcat fighters added to 166 F-5 fighters and 190 F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers, gave Iran a strong defensive and a potential offensive capability. Before the end of his reign, the shah placed orders for F-16 fighters and even contemplated the sharing of development costs for the United States Navy's new F-18 fighter. Both of these combat aircraft have been dropped from the revolutionary regime's military acquisitions list, however. "
Not as ramshackle as your post would indicate.
Hardly a super power either as the GP feverishly states.
You're decidedly a moron. We're talking about culture, you triple puzzlewit. You're just assuming that crime stats correlate with violence in culture. Too bad for your point, the thing is that in the USA you have tens of millions of people in poverty, many of which join gangs, do all sorts of crimes and get addicted to drugs. If you have a huge lower class who lives in ghettos maybe, just maybe, it's not cultural. Goddamn, it's like having a debate with a youtuber.
You just got troll'd!
So, what you're saying is:
The Iranians wanted a good, stable OS but the Dell threw Windows XP onto their box. So they nuked the partition and installed Vista.
The Iranians can't blame Dell, err, the American anymore if it's unstable.
Except with cars.
While odd, I think this pretty much sums up the feelings of people like myself (and some of the others here).
Did Iran get a raw deal from the west some half century ago? Probably (I'm an American, I can admit out mistakes).
HOWEVER, that in know way justifies our being lumped into every problem they *now* have.
*THEY* have the government *THEY* wanted. If they no longer like it, then *THEY* are going to have to do something about it.
Sitting back bitching (blaming the United States, Great Britain, Israel, the West in general, or any other *strawman* argument) isn't going to accomplish anything.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
You're the idiot shitstain of a monkey's bastard offspring. Castrate yourself and save the species.
then i think you and i are going to end up arguing over how far back to look in what we consider relevant historical context. you did fail to address china, though if 2 decades is too old, then i see why. also, have a look at this. it's easy to see, it's impossible for russia to be considered anything but second world, as the classification was come up with in the cold war to differentiate between us/allies and russia/allies and everyone else. if you look at the differentiater being the IMF's classification, then i would likely disagree with you, but that's likely a whole different little debate. anyway, i'm sure that you have the typical slashdot belief that i'm a naive, asleep american, since i won't jump immediately on board the america-is-the-worst bandwagon, which is too bad.
not only is time travel possible, it's irrelevant.
And what's with the automatic "if you're not with us you're against us" attitude?
You make a post with a flagrant, sarcastic tone (almost mocking), refuting each and every point made in the original post as if to claim it complete faleshood...and you're not expecting someone to fire back a response defending their position (their COUNTRY of all things) in which it is clear the author feels backed against a wall?
To say (yeah, I'm paraphrasing here) "You're homeland is psychotic and tyranical and you're either stupid to believe otherwise or lying because you're part of the problem" and wonder why someone feels the need to be "defensive" is just plain ignorant, either due to ego or poor writing skill. Doesn't matter what country you're talking about, or even if you're right or not.
That's what is called "trolling"; posting to get a reaction from someone. I'm willing to bet you're not doing it on purpose, which is why I'm willing to feed it. Like I said, no commentary here on who is right or what country is better, etc. All I'm saying is, if you want people to listen, speak softly. And for God's sake, don't bash their ears in first with the big stick.
(Yes, governments on all sides of the world could do well to learn this lesson sooner, rather than later, as well.)
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Lawful good??
LAWFUL FUCKING GOOD??
This is what "you" the "Lawful Good" US created in Iran you meddling bastards:
The U.S. was directly and deeply involved in SAVAKs operations. By the 1970s, an average of 400 SAVAK agents were trained in the U.S. every year. A former CIA analyst on Iran admitted the agency instructed SAVAK in torture techniques.
To keep the lid on, the Shah increasingly turned to his dreaded secret policeâ"SAVAK. Founded in 1957 under the CIAs direction (and later with assistance from Israelâ(TM)s intelligence police, Mossad), SAVAKâ(TM)s mission was finding and stamping out any and all opposition. It had the authority to arrest and detain suspects indefinitely and ran its own prisons. Torture was routine: electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, and the extraction of teeth and nails. 1975, the London Times reported that prisoners were forced to watch their children savagely mistreated. One man reported, I found it so unbearable, that that I wished I had a knife so that I could kill my son myself, rather than see him suffer like that.â
Unfortunately for you the murdering, torturous monster known as the CIA that the "Lawful Good" US has created is looking closer and closer at it's masters nowdays. Desperately wanting to be unleashed inside the US and it's made some serious headway in the last 5 years and in another decade and it will be running in full swing inside the US borders against US citizens and then you'll change your tune. Once you get a taste of what you've exported to *so many* countries.
Kinda coincidental that wherever the CIA goes, US trained - murdering, torturing secret police spring up like weeds. Does it not deeply concern you that there's an arm of your government that trains men how enact murderous, torturing tryannies and they do so ON US SOIL IN YOUR NAME??
Does it not concern you that these same men are arguing that they should be allowed to operate inside the United States and are making significant headway because of useful idiots such as yourself?
There is only one thing to do at a point like this (where the election was so overtly stollen - as if Bush had one a 3rd term), and it does not (directly) involve SMS or re-establishing connections to popular communication/news sites.
I mean, seriously. Your country was just taken over, and you're up in arms about communications? You should be, literally, up in arms. AKA, "Revolution". Given Ahmadinejad history with such things as revolution, it's only natural that he'd take steps to shut out the most readily available communication methods for orchestrating one.
"Social networks" and SMS? Please. That is DANGEROUS. Using such things when the network si known to be dangerous - ie, in a "Krystal Knaght" type situation would likely occur after extended monitoring of said networks.
You are now "behind enemy lines", the enemy being your own government. Your networks need to be small and personal - composed of people you know and trust, and who are equally frearful as you. You need to use encryption pads and other mechanisms for passing communication; nothing that stands out or or anything traceable to its source, such as a wifi mesh or packet radio.
And most importantly, you need to take active action against your government. If public protests don't do the job, then consider a popular violent revolution, if there is support for such things. It either happens soon or it doesn't happen at all: the coup leaders will be quick to squash down on un-friendly sentiment and people will acclimate to the atmosphere of fear, becoming comfortable with their new malevolent dictatoriat.
In short, what you need is guns, lots of guns. They should be in fairly ready supply on your southern border; your fellow countrymen have been deporting them to Iraq for some time, and maybe some Kurds or Iraqis would be benevolent to reciprocate (albiet, in a more kind manner).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Good question (and thanks for the thoughtful post).
I think the best way to "deal" with Iran and future states that may be considering nuclear weapons (as opposed to nuclear power) is as follows:
1. Get China to bring NK to heel. A transition from the cult-of-Kim to a dictatorship-by-committee (like in Myanmar) maybe just enough of a change to make the regime's external stance less volatile. How much leverage we have with China to force this is questionable. The alternative that China faces is surgical strikes on their neighbour, which they definitely do NOT want. This must happen before NK get delivery capability.
2. At the same time, get the 1st world nuclear powers to establish a "civilian nuclear power" board (perhaps under IAEA aegis) to guarantee delivery of tech, advice, construction and low-interest loans for proliferation-resistant nuclear power plants. No country would be refused. This could even be linked to any global climate-change agreements.
3. Get serious with nuclear disarmament. Western powers just cannot claim the moral high-ground while adding to their stockpiles.
4. Raise the stakes with respect to sanctions for proliferation. Enable automatic sanctions if a country refuses 2 (above) and begins a weapons capable nuclear power cycle.
All of these must be done together as part of a package - a kind of global, nuclear "new deal".
You're mixing the issues quite a bit here. While I'm sure that most Iranians are fine with having a Supreme Leader mixed in the parliamentary system, most Iranians aren't happy with their current administration
Uh, yeah. That's the parents point... they don't like this bunch of mullahs, but some other mullahs would be just fine.
Iran was led to revolution through anti-US propaganda and trumped up anger over the Shaw and his crystal dinner service. Iran use to have a strong, growing economy, the respect of western peoples and a reasonably liberal culture. Iran threw it all away for a bearded priest and his religious "values".
If your twitter revolution works and you manage to enthrone acceptable mullahs, try to remember were twitter comes from. It's not Satan, no matter what your mullahs say.
Are you honestly arguing that a culture is not defined by the actions of its people?
Too bad for your point, the thing is that in the USA you have tens of millions of people in poverty, many of which join gangs, do all sorts of crimes and get addicted to drugs.
All of which are parts of American culture.
it's not cultural
If how people live and act is "not cultural", then what the fuck is culture?
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Please spare me the "I'm the wise and more worldly European" bullshit. When did I ever say the US was "special" or "all that"? What I love about Europeans is that even when an American is willing to be critical about his own country you attack him for it and somehow construe it into the person having an ignorant myopic view of the world. In other words, from your perspective we're fucking morons no matter what we do or say. It's why so many people in this country don't give a fuck what you people think because your still so fucking bitter about not running the world anymore. Get over it. Maybe one day you assholes will get off your fucking high horses and get a perspective that doesn't involve having a stick up your ass. Until then, I couldn't give a fuck what you think.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
I'm an Iranian programmer. I voted for Mirhusein Moosavi (Ahmadinejad's main opponent, who was Iran's prime minister for 8 years until 1989), to prevent Ahmadinejad get elected once more and cause more trouble for my country and world. but they cheated in elections. I can say for sure that less than 4% of people I know have voted for Ahmadinejad. but they said he earned 64% for him and that's not true. all of elections candidates have doubts about the election, and asked the responsible organizations to cancel the election results. but they won't, because all of them are main supporters of Ahmadinejad.
Here in Iran people hate Ahmadinejad. we lost our SMS system since Thursday June 11 (and still down), our mobile networks were down on Friday and Saturday. total bandwidth usage of Iran's largest ISP has been reduced to 25% and this is not because people did not use it, it is because a shaping system that Iran telecommunications ministry is running on Iran's internet bandwidth. this has caused intense internet connection slowdown. they are filtering most news agency web sites, social networks, and are running DOS attacks on opponent web sites to make it even harder to access them. BBC Persian was filtered here for years, but now the BBC English website is filtered, Facebook, Youtube are filtered again (they had removed the filter some months ago).
Revolutionary Guards are in the streets, wearing SWAT-like guards and weapons, attacking and smashing ordinary people. people who want nothing but their votes' real results. this election is not valid. Ahmadinejad is not our president.
Basically what he said was "the fate of a nation is determined by its people unless it's determined by something else."
So I guess he's right about that...
I don't really consider China a first world country. Sure, it has a few modernized cities but the vast majority of it is as ass-backwards as you can get. I'm not trying to convince you we're the worst country in the world or any such crap. What I'm trying to do is make Americans who think we're a bunch of angels realize that we're far from angelic and far from perfect. Too many see this country with rose colored glasses. You obviously don't so really there's no issue as far as I'm concerned with you.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
Please apply the same criticism to your own sources. It's already been shown at least one of your claims is blatantly wrong, and that doesn't inspire confidence in your alternate history.
I agree with subamage. The Iranians are animals, programmed like an animal with instinct-based thought only.
Once you remove the secularists, the remaining Iranians can only "reason" to support a theocracy.
Iranians are vastly different from the Hungarians, the Vietnamese, the Japanese, etc. Those folks can think like human beings.
Hell. I will go out on a limb and say that even the Chinese are better than the Iranians. Millions of Chinese died in World War II, but they are not now trying to support terrorists killing Japanese in an act of religious revenge.
Christ. What the fuck is wrong with the Iranians? Their brains must be different from the brains of other homo sapiens. Ah. Maybe, that is the problem. Homo sapiens are not programmed by instinct. So, Iranians cannot be homo sapiens.
4 out of 5 German soldiers who died in WW2 died on the Eastern front. And in the west, or the secondary theaters like North Africa, the British and plenty of others were fighting the Germans too. The Soviet Union lost more than 10 million soldiers in Europe. The US lost less than 500 thousand in Europe and the Pacific. So, I repeat, the US military did not play a significant role in Europe, compared to the Red Army.
As for Stalin pushing for a second front, which he finally got almost 2 years after the Battle of Stalingrad, the turning point of the war in Europe: my theory is that he assumed (correctly) that the Germans would retreat in such a way that at the end of the war, Germany proper would be split roughly equally between Western and Eastern allies. With this in mind, he obviously wanted more (really, any!) fighting to happen on a western front, so that more of his Red Army would be available to him in the end to bring Eastern Europe under his control.
Not as ramshackle as your post would indicate.
He didn't suppose it was ramshackle. Just nowhere near "top". Yes, Iran's Air Force was impressive in the 1970s. One might suppose it was a pet project of the Shah's, akin to a millionaire's exotic sport car collection - because the other components of the military were pretty lackluster:
Navy ...? Nothing to speak of, not even remotely. Hell, even Israel had submarines by the 1960s. Iran started making their own in the 1990s (Chinese design?), but their Navy is still somewhat lackluster. ...? By far the largest part of their military: tanks, missiles, guns, and (of course) troops, much of it domestically made. This, of course, is useful to a tyrant, as it allows for control of the indemic population and inhibits the cut-off of war machinery in the event of expansive persuits.
Army
Of course, it's all moot in an "us vs. them" type scenario: our hands are tied as far as how much can be done to inhibit abuses once they've got the Bomb.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
You mean like in the 2nd world war where the Soviets crushed 3/4 of the Wermacht on the Eastern front before a single boat landed on Normandy's beaches?
Oh, you mean that whole "winter invasion" thing Hitler messed up (not that it could be helped) after the war had been going on for years throughout Europe?
I have to wonder where Russian pilots got, well, air planes (or for that matter, pilot training). Care to illuminate? My understanding is that having a surplus of equipment (particularly, air) was the primary contributor (2nded by many warm bodies) to Russia being able to "hold the line" against Germany at all.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Unfortunately, I can think of very few (admittedly quite ignorant) people who don't claim that every Christian believes the universe and Earth is only 6000 years old. Granted, many of these individuals are perhaps a narrow-minded as the religious folk they call out...
I think we're entering an age where anyone with a religious persuasion is automatically viewed as suspect by the non-religious population, regardless of faith. So much for tolerance! :)
He who has no
The US was screwing with Iran as early as the 52/53, and it is quite well documented that oil was the main motivation behind it.
Or are you suggesting that Iran threatened to nuke Israel in the early 50s? No? Didn't think so.
2/10, far too obvious.
Go back to Digg and practice some more.
It was the Soviets, and primarily the Russians ... The US military did not play a significant role in Europe.
Bullshit. The US military was the largest contributor of force to the western allies in Europe. The Reich expended staggering resources to fortify against the western allies. The western allies, including the US Army Air Force, bombed the living shit out of all aspects of Germany; military, industrial and civilian. Trying to prevent that same bombing destroyed the Luftwaffe. Large defeats in Africa by western allied forces, including the US Army and Navy, were devastating to German land forces. The US military destroyed the Reich's strongest ally in Europe; Mussolini. What reserves the Reich still had in '44 were annihilated by the US Army in the battle of the bulge.
Recent revisions of history have minimized all of the above by pointing out the vast number of Soviet casualties relative to the west. You're a sucker for believing that tripe. The US military did not piss away tens of millions of US lives to defeat Japan either; will you therefore claim the US "did not play a significant role" in Asia?
Stalin would have strongly disagreed with your nonsense. He lobbied hard for the west to open the second front. The largest part of the force that landed in Normandy was US. Look up Eisenhower some day when Jon Stewart isn't teaching you history.
Given the right circumstances, ANY culture will do evil things.
Sure they will. Every culture has a history that includes some evil acts. That's universal. That does not imply, however, that the "right circumstances" for every culture are identical, or that the evil things a culture would do would be identical--or even similar--to the evil acts of a different culture.
If you take two different cultures, and expose them to identical interventionist actions, you'll get two different reactions. That's simply undeniable.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
Your next post WILL be either concrete non-speculative evidence supporting this claim, or an unconditional confession that it's a complete fabrication based on your own wishful thinking.
Those are your ONLY possible choices.
And if you don't vote and just merely reside in the country?
Yes. Voting is not the only sanction you give to your government. If you pay taxes, if some portion of your labor is consumed by the government, if you patronize or support those who do, or if you contribute, in any way, to the legitimacy of the government, you share in some measure, responsibility for the government's actions.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
You're a complete moron.
If for some reason you can't recognize that more than 10 million soldiers gave their lifes during WW2, you might want to consider that 80% of the German casulties occurred on the Eastern front. How much more obvious can it be that the fate of the war in Europe was decided there?
There were far fewer casualties in the fighting between Japan and the US for the simple reason that it was not a land war, as in Europe. It was a war of attrition, and it was industrial capacity and not manpower that made the difference. You realize that 10 million men would be enough to man 4500 aircraft carriers, or 70000 destroyers?!
Building a nuke has nothing to do with "revenge". Since the U.S. has demonstrated its willingness to engage in wars of aggression, any state not closely allied with a nuclear power can only secure itself by obtaining a nuclear deterrent.
I thought Iran was pals with Russia.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Yes. Voting is not the only sanction you give to your government. If you pay taxes, if some portion of your labor is consumed by the government, if you patronize or support those who do, or if you contribute, in any way, to the legitimacy of the government, you share in some measure, responsibility for the government's actions.
Right. So your choice is to either support the government or lose your liberty. And don't even try to say "move to a country where you do support the government" - that only works if you are permitted to immigrate and can afford to immigrate everytime you disagree with a government's actions.
And not to Godwin this or anything, but your logic is precisely the same logic Osama bin Laden has used in justifying the killing of American civilians.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
There are no shades of gray, just black and white.
Ah, you miss the point. The correct analogy is, there aren't many kinds of white. There's only one white, and the rest is non-white (which includes black, and all shades of gray).
How are you supposed to do that if the enemy has just overthrown your nation's goverment?
You fight the enemy and take back the power. What did you expect?
The issue being discussed is, what you do after you take back the power. Installing a dictatorship is generally a wrong answer.
The Iranian people did act in their self-interest and helped a goverment to do what was the goal, eliminate US(and other nation's) interference in their private affairs and rightly so.
I don't have any objections against the Iranian Revolution as a way to stop foreign entities from exercising undue control over Iran. All countries that wish to have their sovereignty upheld have to go through this at some point.
However, there's little point in overthrowing foreign dictators just to install your own ones, just as bloody. More often than not, nothing is really gained for the nation in the end.
The fact that you make a democracy sound like all-curing snake oil ...
Did I claim democracy to be "all-curing"?
Of course it isn't. It's just the most fair and just of the known working forms of government, and that's all there is to it.
... what causes the rift in understanding between the west and the east. We need to stop treating western concepts like snake oil and maybe the world will become a better place.
The "rift in understanding" is caused by those in power - absolute monarchs, theocratic despots, and military dictators - not wanting to yield it. Since their power usually rests on outdated and, in this day and age, downright barbaric traditions and practices, naturally they tend to be reactionary, and you hear the stories about "degenerate and decadent Western civilization", which is always "on the verge of collapse" - they're part of official propaganda everywhere democracy is suppressed, from North Korea and Iran to Russia and Venezuela. That's your "rift".
(no, I'm not an American)
What the hell does that even mean?
Do you realise the act of "overthrowing" a government is not something you do in the morning like reading the paper??
That the US "western democracy" overthrew Irans own "national democracy" SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE IRANS DEMOCRACY WAS ACTING IN IRANS INTEREST.
Say the US came and overthrew your original "democracy". Then you somehow manage to overthrow the US backed tyranny - the government that with the aid of the US trained secret police (trained on US soil no less), backed by US government supplied guns, weapons and ammo have killed and brutally tortured anyone who even whipserered any dissent, tortued their CHILDREN in front of them (no this is not hyperbole, read up on the SAVAK)- tens of thousands over the period of ten years of absoulute tyranny, all funded trained and backed and morally supported by the US.
After all that, you would just go back to square one of this piece and reimplement the original democracy, knowing what happened when the last one failed so easily.
There's this definition of insanity quote that you may not be aware of...
What an utterly extraordinary manner of thought though. Such an aloof attitude towards the mayhem that "overthrowing" a government causes, a real stark example of the general attitude of a group that have never experienced anything resembling the pain that the victims of the US's murdourous, torturing monster known as the CIA wreaks across the world.
You're going to find out though, since the 90's the monster's begun to turn on its masters.
Most of them during the early part of the conflict due largely to errors by their own commanders. And, since when is the butcher's bill the only measure of how important a part a combatant played? The US has always preferred spending brain-power and/or material instead of manpower to win wars, and WW II was no exception.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
If the Germans had the vast majority of their losses to the Soviets, that should be all the evidence you need about who did the heavy lifting. Yes, having Timoshenko in command early did a lot of harm to the Red Army, and Zhukov made a big difference.
The fact remains that, after successfully finishing off France, the full force of the Wehrmacht was hitting the Soviet Union, and nobody else. And they withstood that onslaught.
The US has the luxury of having oceans of either side, and could enter the war at a time of its choosing. Russia did not have that luxury; neither did France. That has nothing to do with brain-power, it's simple geography.
So your choice is to either support the government or lose your liberty. And don't even try to say "move to a country where you do support the government" - that only works if you are permitted to immigrate and can afford to immigrate everytime you disagree with a government's actions.
You are correct about one thing: there is nothing you can do to absolve yourself of partial responsibility for your government's actions, short of leaving the country.
But, that responsibility, which we all share, is what motivates those of us who disagree with the actions of our government to act politically to change those policies. It is what underlies the concept of a "loyal opposition". Without that, there can be no functioning democracy.
And not to Godwin this or anything, but your logic is precisely the same logic Osama bin Laden has used in justifying the killing of American civilians.
Yes, I suppose it is. It's also the logic we use to justify the fire-bombing of Dresden, the incineration of Japan's cities, the dropping of the atom bomb, and Sherman's march to the sea. It's been used as justification in every war in recorded history. Just because bin Laden uses this justification too, doesn't make it incorrect.
To take just one example, consider our destruction of Japanese cities in WWII. Through our ceaseless bombing campaign of the Japanese home islands, we destroyed (read: burnt to the ground) a huge percentage of their urban areas, killing hundreds of thousands, mostly civilians. But, those civilians were the ones making the bullets being fired at our troops; they were the ones baking the bread to feed those bullet-makers; they were the ones who, directly or indirectly, provided every bit of matériel that their government was using to kill our soldiers.
To some degree, those civilians were responsible for their actions. Yes, I understand that people living under a repressive tyranny face extreme punishment for disobedience to the government. But, the fact remains that Tojo would have been completely powerless to do anything, if those people would simply have stopped following orders.
It is universally true, even in the most repressive of tyrannies (when unsupported by external forces, unlike the US and the Shah), that the power of the government depends entirely upon the consent of the governed. Iran today is no exception.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
>You mean like in the 2nd world war where the Soviets crushed 3/4 of the Wermacht on the Eastern front before a single boat landed on Normandy's beaches?
You realize wars can be waged in various ways aside from launching boats across a channel - with the lend lease to the Soviet Union and what not. More importantly, United States were a huge potential ground threat and with the naval supremacy safely in the hands of the Western Allies, wehrmacht had to keep substantial reserves guarding the Atlantic wall, the Balkan, Italy against a possible invasion. With the regular occupation force, this could have amounted to perhaps over a hundred divisions. Without the USA in war with Germany, these divisions would be rampaging through Russia, doing all kinds of nasty things to the Red Army. The USA did not win ww2 by themselves, but neither did the Soviets, remember that.
Woohoo, most violent, we're #1 ! We're # 1! In your face #2!
Its dangerous, certainly. But.. people unwilling to assume risk probably shouldn't be protesting, let alone fighting, against an oppressive government.
I don't expect morality, equality, consistency, or justice from the law. I expect only legality.
This is a fight between two fundamentalist religious regimes (Iran and Israel). Why take sides? I abhor both regimes, while rejoicing in the rich culture of *all* peoples in those oppressed states.
Fair enough. The whole "+5,Funny" thing was sarcastic.
... well... make a difference).
However, if I do manage to refute every point, then doesn't that indicate something? Like perhaps the parent was off-track?
I guess what I find disheartening and what I'm trying to say is, cut out the "black and white" view of the world. This isn't a comic book. States aren't heroes or villains. Every state is pursuing what their leaders' believe is their own national interest. Get past the rhetoric. Look at the actual actions of each of the actors. There is far less difference than most people think (although those differences sometimes do
More specifically he made no point at all. He essentially said that:
if there are no external forces then
internal forces are the only forces at play
endif
Since nobody on /. believes in God or divine intervention, he's quite right.
Consider yourself spoken to.
Do you realise the act of "overthrowing" a government is not something you do in the morning like reading the paper??
Yes, I do. It is quite irrelevant here, however. GP asked me what to do when your country is occupied by a hostile foreign government. Do you know a better answer than the one that I've given (and that Iranians have successfully implemented -and cheers to them for that)?
After all that, you would just go back to square one of this piece and reimplement the original democracy, knowing what happened when the last one failed so easily.
The mistake here is in assuming that, if a particular implementation of democracy failed once, then democracy in general is prone to that failure. I know about that mistake because my country - Russia - had repeated it as well, slipping back into authoritarianism for largely the same reason, and with the same symptoms (right down to "we have our own kind of democracy which is totally not the same as evil degenerate Western democracy"). It is still a mistake, however. Democracies don't have to be weak or corrupt, though these are frequent excuses used by dictators to support their rule - virtually every military dictatorship claims to rule in the interests of the people and the nation, to prevent disintegration of the country, etc. It's fairly easy to check how it actually works in practice by looking at typical results of such a rule. Iran is really no exception there.
It is universally true, even in the most repressive of tyrannies (when unsupported by external forces, unlike the US and the Shah), that the power of the government depends entirely upon the consent of the governed. Iran today is no exception.
You write as if responsibility is shared equally by all. That's far from the case. The vast majority of people do not have an effective say in either case - the common man's responsibility is so small as to be practically non-existent. Which is why your justification of the fire-bombing of Dresden, the nuking of Japan, Sherman's March and pratically every suicide bombing ever is bogus - the people killed in those actions received 100% death in return for sharing something akin to 0.0001% of the responsibility for the situations they found themselves in.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The Soviet military had a lot to do with breaking the Nazis in WWII. That Military enjoyed the benefit of Lend lease, particularly in US Trucks.
The US wasn't in Italy by itself, there were two armies, as well as Mark Clark's there was Monty's Eight Army with British, Canadian, Australian and Indian troops.
In the West Operation Overlord was a joint US, British and Canadian venture with other Empire and Occupied Europe troops. The US side of it was not as well prepared as it could have been because they dismissed advice from the British regarding beach clearing techniques (cf Hobart's Funnies for example) and they thought they could get by on one dock.
Just to look at Operation Overlord British, Empire and Allied Occupied Europe troops numbered about 84,000 (or which nearly 62,00 were British). The US First Army had 73,000 men. The Royal Navy and RAF were also kind of involved.
The whole thing was an allied effort. The US couldn't have done it on its own, Britain and the Empire could hold the Nazis off, but couldn't liberate Europe, and without aid may have had to seek peace or starve, the Soviets had the manpower, but lend lease helped them get some breathing space and oncentrate their manufacturing effort, and thus they broke the German Army.
It was not the US alone however
They [Britain] lost 13 colonies. They did, however, retain all their other holdings in North America, hence the existence of Canada.
Hey! Don't blame us for that! There's certainly no need to remind people that we're responsible, either..
Sorry, couldn't resist!
Someone must have missed the Liberation of France, the D-Day landings. y'know, The US involvement in Europe during WWII
By nationalise, you in fact mean steal.
No. By nationalize, he in fact meant "throw the robbers out and reclaim country's inalienable natural resources".
Technically, unless there's a very lopsided society, women, jews, baha'is, christians, atheists and homosexuals will be the majority.
Hell, women alone are 49.5% of the population, add in the 2.5% (or so) blokes that are gay and there's a majority even without the religious outcasts.
Of course, it's the other 40+% that have the guns..
So its hard to compare what is or isn't happening in Iran to what happened in the Warsaw Pact states, they are not cultural melting pots.
That'll be why Czechoslovakia is now.. how many different countries?
Oh, and Yugoslavia. Or are you too young to remember that name - it doesn't exist any more.
Maybe you've heard of the USSR. Frankly I've lost count of how many different countries that's become!
Even Hungary is culturally diverse, Poland never used to be where it is now and Albania's constantly fighting to stay afloat as a nation.
The Warsaw Pact countries were pretty clearly cultural melting pots. They've also dealt with that in a variety of ways, often involving separation, sometimes violently.
How's Iran going to progress?
To rule, you need a majority of power. People aren't equally powerful, so you do not necessarily need a majority of people to rule.
Minorities can and do keep majorities hostage. When some classes, like veterans, priests, businessmen or people of inherited wealth command more raw power than regular people, and differ significantly from regular people in their political preferences, this is the rule rather than the exception.
However, what you and most people fail to realize is that the actual source of power is the ruled themselves. They can cut the power flow to the rulers at any time and thus choke them. Rulers know that, so much of their business is to obtain cooperation of the ruled, through fear, bribe, both, or through projecting an illusion of participation in power by the ruled and accountability of rulers to them (aka "democracy").
OTOH, even though there are significant differences in political preferences, generally what is good for the ruled is also good for rulers, because, as I already mentioned, the ruled are the source of the rulers' power. It is not unlike, e.g., the relationship between farm animals and the farmer.
1. Get China to bring NK to heel. A transition from the cult-of-Kim to a dictatorship-by-committee (like in Myanmar) maybe just enough of a change to make the regime's external stance less volatile. How much leverage we have with China to force this is questionable. The alternative that China faces is surgical strikes on their neighbour, which they definitely do NOT want. This must happen before NK get delivery capability.
I'm the AC you responded to. While China (and maybe Russia) is basically the only power-player in the region, the only way they'll apply pressure to North Korea is if Japan starts making noises about developing their own nuclear program. The United States is no longer in a position to use its economic power to influence China (short of saying we're going to default on our loan guarantees). Proliferation breeds proliferation, which is another reason to nudge Iran away from that path. How do you tell Egypt and Saudi Arabia that they can't have nukes when Iran and Israel do?
I don't know they're not ruled now by committee and I'm not sure North Korea really cares either way about how they come across to others. Nobody will stand up and preemptively stop them, so it's a moot point. In a previous thread, narfspoon pointed out that a unified Korean peninsula is a scary prospect as we'd have "a hybrid nuclear + crazy + high-tech (former S. Korea half at least) rogue nation with a lot of western military tech."
But, they don't need nuclear delivery capability to achieve that.
2. At the same time, get the 1st world nuclear powers to establish a "civilian nuclear power" board (perhaps under IAEA aegis) to guarantee delivery of tech, advice, construction and low-interest loans for proliferation-resistant nuclear power plants. No country would be refused. This could even be linked to any global climate-change agreements.
I really like this idea. Not because I believe in anthropomorphic global warming (I'm neutral on the issue), but because I believe in nuclear power. Solar/wind/wave power have one serious drawback: you have to go out and collect it. Nuclear and fossil fuels have the benefit of having a high energy density. Dubai has an excellent model on how this would work in practice. Cheap and plentiful energy provides a net positive effect on the world.
3. Get serious with nuclear disarmament. Western powers just cannot claim the moral high-ground while adding to their stockpiles.
4. Raise the stakes with respect to sanctions for proliferation. Enable automatic sanctions if a country refuses 2 (above) and begins a weapons capable nuclear power cycle.
All of these must be done together as part of a package - a kind of global, nuclear "new deal".
Others have discussed #3 in much greater eloquence than I could. The main argument against #3 and #4 being realistic options is, coincidentally, North Korea. Let's say you could get the rest of the world to chuck their nuclear weapons into the sun. What do you do when you have a nation that has nothing to lose by starting a new nuclear program? I doubt the latest round of sanctions on North Korea will have any effect whatsoever and if you unilaterally disarm while another doesn't then the guy wielding a wooden board with a nail through can hold the world hostage.
The biggest fucking irony being that Iran is not an Arab nation.
Considering you like to throw around the "moron" moniker, you should take a look in the mirror. 10 million Soviet soldiers dead actually means the Soviet military was (very)inefficiently carrying out their war at the cost of MANY soldier's lives wasted; with Germany only suffering half that many yet the bulk of their fighting was against the Soviet Union. So many wasted lives, it resonates well with Stalin's quote "Quantity has a quality all it's own".
I think you will find that the luftwaffe was a strong contender for #1.
It's not theft, it's copyright infringement!
"To rule, you need a majority of power. People aren't equally powerful, so you do not necessarily need a majority of people to rule.
Minorities can and do keep majorities hostage."
Indeed, people seem to think it's limited to Middle Eastern or South American dictatorships and such too yet here in Britain, thanks to the first past the post system we have a party that got only 35% of the popular voting holding effective 100% of the power due to this being enough to give them a majority in parliament.
Couple this with the party sytem and the whip system and you have one man, Gordon Brown and his inner circle effectively controlling policy of the whole nation against the will of 65% of the people, possibly even more (i.e. those that voted Labour but not Brown) at the time of the election and now possibly against over 80% of the population if some of the polls are to be believed.
A similar point could be made about George Bush's election vs. Al Gore and the dodgy result that got him in.
The point is that power worldwide is held often against the will of the majority even in the most advanced democracies as you say. It's only nations with proportional representation that are really balanced and they're not overly common.
The original plea generates a bunch of political flames, numerous uninformed and/or useless responses and some vague calls for the use of Ham Radio - A wikipedia entry?...what are they going to do, go into the electronics shop and purchase a Kenwood/Icom/Yaseu etc. walkie talkie? Get real people. The state is bashing heads and this is the best you can do? Contemplate your own lack of knowledge and its impact on you if the same occurred in your country. Before anyone starts recommending any "solutions" they should consider what a severe beating, long imprisonment, torture etc. would be like and the possibility that light-hearted advice might result in same. I feel genuine empathy for the Iranian people. My recommended solution to oppressed individuals is lay low and get out of the country when the possible.
In the absence of an external interfering force (e. g., the army of the Soviet Union), the fate of a nation is determined by its people. Period.
Or the army.
Or the blokes who can afford to buy the army.
Or the people who have most weapons.
Or some elite that has some historical claims for power.
Or some elite that just happens to have enough support around the time of the 'liberation', for whatever reason.
Or some kind of combination of these.
From [edit] The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates:
The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less.
Yes, we tolerate them. They're clearly sub-adult intellectually but we don't deny them housing, simple work, freedom, etc.
But yeah, they are suspect - as is anyone unable to think clearly and logically. Who cares what any given one thinks (young/old earth) when it's just what they were told to think? It's a culture of ignorance and that's more important than any specific answer.
Of course, there are disciples of FOX and Michael Moore who are pretty bad at critical thinking too...
Navy ...? Nothing to speak of, not even remotely. Hell, even Israel had submarines by the 1960s. Iran started making their own in the 1990s (Chinese design?), but their Navy is still somewhat lackluster. ...? By far the largest part of their military: tanks, missiles, guns, and (of course) troops, much of it domestically made.
Army
Nobody above boasted to any Naval or Army strength for 1979 Iran.
Iran had a lot going for it at one point in time in terms of being a modern country. It's pretty screwed up now. About the only thing I do know, is that the US government "trying to help" will only make matters worse.
Leave this one up to the citizens themselves & netcitizens to help bypass censorship. I don't know what direction the Iranian citizens are choosing, but I wish them well and I hope it works out well for them.
Before calling someone you are attempting to have an argument with a moron or other things, perhaps you should first have looked up what the word culture actually means?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture
Culture describes human creations and behavior, contrary all natural things which is typically described as nature.
So yes, society is a part of culture. The word is much wider than just the programs shown on TV.
Flamebait? I'd rather consider it Uncomfortable Truth unfortunately... Iran might not be the best place to be on Earth but it sure beats the hell out of other countries like Pakistan and even India. Now all this mess with elections has the stench of American-Israeli interventionism... It has been regularly happening all over Middle-East since oil was found there. Why should I believe differently? And what exactly should I believe? That now that the US is deep in shit in Iraq and Afghanistan and can't even dream about war with Iran, the good people of Iran, aspiring to be free, are being oppressed by the manipulating evil regime of the fundamentalist Israel-haters and had their elections tampered with and need our help to overthrow that same regime? Or else there will be a nuclear war between Iran and the US?
Hum... now where did I see that before? Oh right, Afghanistan... or maybe it was Iraq?...
Americans: give us (and yourselves) a break. Stop fucking around with other peoples business around the fucking world. Aren't the problems in your own country enough for you? *sigh*
Oh and stop pretending the whole world wants a democracy like yours. It pisses people up.
Wifi computer networks can operate in ad-hoc which allows WiFi enabled devices to communicate directly with each other without needing an access point/base station. When operating in ad-hoc mode all wireless devices within range can be discovered and communicate in peer-to-peer fashion.
All wireless adapters on the ad-hoc network must use the same SSID and the same channel number. Ad hoc networks a great when needing to build a small, all-wireless LAN quickly. You can configure "add-hoc" network mode through the network configuration in Control panel.
Read the following for detailed descriptions of what to do.
Configuring an ad-hoc Wifi network with Windows XP
Configuring an ad-hoc Wifi network with Windows Vista
Fixed that for you.
Let's hope your involvement does not cause the involvement of other superpowers.
There is a fundamental error in your comment. In WW1 and WW2, you were called to defend the world from the German and Japanese invading armies. Do you see any invading army, as we speak? I don't. Being involved in Iran is not the same as being involved in WW2.
Assuming religion stops gripping so strongly the society, that is. Otherwise, you'll have to add another 0 to 70.
Not a very reassuring statement. Mature people always think of the consequences.
Didn't you do exactly that with Iraq? the French oil contracts stopped, the Americans oil contracts started.
USA is not a dictatorship. It is a imperialist force, exactly like ancient Rome.
You can be damn sure the the average European citizen condemns the US invading Iraq. Any reasonable person does (Oh, and lets not forget Afghanistan, which war you already lost, as has everybody who tried, and thanks for making it the top heroin producer in the world...). As for the teddy bear that you claim US to be, it is nevertheless the only teddy bear that has wiped two cities of the map with nukes. In fact, the more you accuse other countries the more we see the accusations actually fit yourselves (as a country) instead.
I didn't bother to read this, but Iran roxxxors! I hate facebook and anyone who wants to get rid of it is 100% compatible with me!
Get real friends!
The whole basis of your argument is that Iranians knowingly installed an absolute dictator. Actually, we're discussing violence following a contested election result.
The BBC has a good overview of the Iranian political system, which includes a directly elected President, Parliament and Assembly of Experts. Other institutions are appointed, as they are in other democracies.
The whole system looks very similar to the electoral system used in the UK. Our monarch is hereditary, our House of Lords is a mixture of hereditary and appointed, our judiciary is (obviously) appointed. We don't have a President and our PM is appointed by Parliament, making Iran theoretically more democratic than the UK.
The largest UK parties even make it known that they support the first-past-the-post method of vote-counting "because it keeps small parties out", which is not unlike the Guardian Council's responsibility for vetting candidates.
The UK is not a repressive country, despite what the tabloids might say, and I can promise you a change in government this time next year. Iran's problem is that its system of "checks and balances" was set up during a time of high emotions and anti-Western sentiment, which has proven very difficult to shift.
You're kidding me right?
1. The US kept the British alive as a sovereign nation via all the industrial support before Dec 1941. The Brits would have put up a great fight, much more so than the French or the rest of Europe, but would have likely succumbed to the overwhelming force of the German war machine.
2. Operation Overlord ring a bell? US, British & Canadian troops launch the single greatest invasion in history?
3. Battle of the Bulge - US troops (primarily) stop a massive German counter attack.
4. Without the US, it's entirely possible that the Soviets would have just re-conquered the rest of Europe once Hitler was out of the way. That's how we ended up with the 2 Berlins in teh first place ...
I could go on, but those are 3 pretty big ways (and one plausible hypothetical) in which the US played a massive role in the war in Europe. By noting what the US did, it doesn't diminish what the other nations sacrificed & contributed to the war effort and the role of the Soviets cannot be denied. Without having Hitler's attention divided among two fronts, the Russian winter, and the Soviet's willingness to sacrifice everything to defend their home, ultimate victory in Europe would have been much more difficult and maybe impossible. Had the Russians folded like the French we all would have been in serious trouble.
It should also be noted that without the US fighting Japan, they likely would have joined up with the Germans at some point (I'd guess somewhere in the "x_stans"). The Russians helped with the Japanese as well, but their contributions weren't to the scale of the American effort in the Pacific.
Does it really hurt that much to accept that 60 years ago, a country that has seen better days, had a very large part in doing something great? That it's possible that these currently unpopular people may have quite literally saved the world as we know it?
Feel free to answer in German (maybe Russian), as that's what you'd be speaking anyways.
That's gonna go real well
Yep, we really swept up Iraq and Afghanistan.
Canada has more rapes per capita than the US? Almost double the US? Other than that, US is in the lead.
Assault wise, it looks like US has a slight edge, but the US, Canada, UK, New Zealand and Australia is effectively the same.
Murders is weird. US is ahead for being a developed nation, but there are several nations that I'd consider to be developed that rank above it, such as Poland. (Most of Eastern Europe and the former USSR seem to have high murder rates...)
I'd have assumed that the US would be far out in the rankings, due to our rather tattered social safety net and ineffective prison system that doesn't encourage rehabilitation. But it doesn't seem that way, except in murders, and that could probably be chalked up to the availability of guns in the US.
Was the first sentence supposed to be a statement or a question? It's marked as a question, but has the wording of a statement.
---
Back to the subject:
If it was wrong to overthrow Saddam it would be just as wrong to overthrow Amadinotgonnaworkheremuchlonger. Unless having a Democrat president makes regime change OK for some magical reason. /voted for Obama //wants us to help ///mutters something about tyrants and pretense
i would argue that Saddam was worse to his own people and his neighbors than Iran's gov't has been. Iran's gov't is brutally repressive, but i doubt there are mass graves holding about a million dissidents. Iran didn't gas their Kurds, AFAIK. /former USAF intel analyst who studied Iran, Iraq and North Korea intently for 4 years with a TS/SCI clearance.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
1) the vietnamese kept POWs for decades after the war
Really? Decades? Gosh, that is a long time. The war ended in 1975, so you have some evidence that Vietnam kept POWs until at least 1995? Really? Evidence?
I didn't think so.
You've been drinking the MIA/POW koolaid.
Life needs more saving throws.
This is the same Iranian administration that our shithead president wants to speak face to face with. Yea. Let me know how that works out for you.
The US and most Western forces fought very differently than the Soviets. Stalin was essentially just throwing his countries sons & fathers into the German meat grinder in hopes of slowing it down. The Soviets were not as well armed, nor were they as effectively led as the Germans they were fighting and thus they had a MUCH higher casualty rate.
The US and Western forces would prefer to "soften" an area before attacking. Literally years of bombardment from both air and sea took place before D-Day. The US Army Air Force and RAF effectively destroyed all German industry, leaving them unable to replace the Panzers and heavy trucks that were being lost to the Russians and eventually on the Western front.
This is not unlike our strategy today as evidenced in Iraq. Step 1, remove all command & control. Step 2, remove basic infrastructure to paralyze enemy. Step 3, move in with overwhelming force. Step 4 is the tricky one ... figuring out how to leave.
The Russian strategy was to keep throwing men in front of the Germans until they ran out of supplies or froze to death.
Actually the correct steps are:
* Present your thesis.
* Exclaim PERIOD!
* Clamp your hands to your ears and run away shouting "lalalalalalala cant hear you!", before any counter-argument can be made.
4) Profit!!
And there you go, argument won.
There, fixed that for ya
You both forgot the Adam Corolla universal counter-argument:
'But still.'
Kermit Roosevelt would dispute your CIA claim - as he was the agent who personally managed the overthrow.
As for loving "his people," the Shah had a funny way of showing it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAVAK
The Fight for Student Power on Campus: www.forstudentpower.org.
Most of the former soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe now have a convertible currency, freedom of speech, freedom to leave the country, freedom to take their money or assets with them, freedom to elect new leaders, freedom of worship, membership of the EU... But apart from that, things have not changed at all.
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
Don't confuse tolerance and approval.
One can disapprove of stupid backwards stoneage religious crap and still tolerate it so long as it is kept to themselves and not forced into government.
(you hear that Christian Taliban? GTF Away from our government)
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
From everything I've read, the opposition party is mostly younger twenty-somethings who want more social freedoms and better relations with the West. The establishment of the current government was made before they were born, or at least very young.
Democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
Re: setting up a hope network to access restricted sites in Iran: Simply sign up for an openvpn account and you'll bypass the government mandated isp filtering. strongvpn.com has the best openvpn service imo.
Japan is violent? Really??
Ummm, ninjas !?!?!?
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
I see. So, what you're saying is that you don't have any technological know-how to give the Iranian guy in TFS, and you'd rather offer a geopolitical rant instead?
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Exactly what is so insightful about this post?
Nowhere does he say or even imply equal responsibility. Quite the opposite. For example, he writes "to some degree those civilians were responsible for their actions". and "partial responsibility for your government's actions".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
In Cuba, I believe they have been using a "sneakernet" to distribute information discreetly. It's high latency, but also high bandwidth and hard to detect or snoop. Another advantage: it's basically drag-and-drop simple.
1) Get a bunch of USB thumb drives
2) Put text files, photos, videos, or whatever on them
3) (Optional) Encrypt them
4) Pass them from person to person, copying them as needed
No transmissions to intercept, no technical expertise necessary. All you need is are the drives and a pair of sneakers to walk to your neighbor's house.
Not exactly ideal, but it has some advantages.
Nowhere does he say or even imply equal responsibility. Quite the opposite. For example, he writes "to some degree those civilians were responsible for their actions". and "partial responsibility for your government's actions".
To some degree the people making the bullets not the regular civilians who were killed.
And since when does partial mean "a very small amount" - it just as means divide responsibility equally across all citizens, they all share an equal part of the blame.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
noun
Synonyms:
"Nuff Said"
"or the Terrorists Win"
"and Oprah is rarely ever wrong"
Disclaimer: this post doesn't express a certain point of view on whether such things are good or bad; instead, it should be regarded as a purely informative one.
Hello, I'm extrasolar and I don't know much about the subject of this conversation, but I'll take a look anyway and see what I can make of it.
Reporter, I strongly suggest you learn A LOT more about history. If you want to talk about the difference of cultures, you need to actually learn about them.
Wow, that sounds like a reasonable appeal. You get the moral high ground for making such a statement. Because the more we learn about the respective cultures we can make a more comprehensive and subtle evaluation of each and be better prepared to make decisions about foreign policy.
For starters, you need to learn that Americans have the most violent culture of any first world country.
Wait, what? This doesn't sound subtle at all. Where *did* this guy learn his "history" complete with a top ten list of most violent countries? He loses the moral high ground and sounds as wacky as the fellow he's replying to.
Oh, and I'm American.
That explains it.
(Hey, I see Americans all the time. I even live there.)
But, no, let's go with what passes for entertainment in those countries. Because that is much more representative of culture than, you know, how people actually act.
And yet the debate, all this time, has been about whether the United States has the most violent culture.
And take another look at those statistics. Russia and Poland both beat the United States in terms of per capita murders, and I wouldn't exactly call them third world.
But of course, arguments like this are pointless as they end up in how you define things ("first world"). Good job making political points guys. They're all irrelevant.
You write as if responsibility is shared equally by all.
No, I most certainly do not.
A person who votes for the winning Presidential candidate is more responsible than the one who votes for the loser. But, by the very act of voting, they share equal measures of responsibility for the democratic form of their government.
The President is more responsible than a soldier for the actions of the military. But, the soldier bears some responsibility: without him, there would be no military.
The soldier is more responsible, though, for the actions of the military than the taxpayer. But, without the taxpayer, there would be no funding for the military.
The powerful in a country are more responsible than the weak. But, in all cases, the powerful depend upon the complacency of the weak to hold on to power. Even the weak share in responsibility.
To some extent, every member of a society bears responsibility for the actions of their government. As long as you participate at all, it is inescapable.
The vast majority of people do not have an effective say in either case - the common man's responsibility is so small as to be practically non-existent.
This is exactly wrong. The "vast majority of people", as a group, have all the power, and all the responsibility. Not even the most tyrannical and totalitarian of governments can hold on to power without the acquiesce of the masses.
Which is why your justification of the fire-bombing of Dresden, the nuking of Japan, Sherman's March and pratically every suicide bombing ever is bogus - the people killed in those actions received 100% death in return for sharing something akin to 0.0001% of the responsibility for the situations they found themselves in.
By that rationale, no one--not a civilian, an enemy soldier, nor the leader of the enemy--bears 100% responsibility for the situation. An individual soldier bears only a slightly higher fraction of the responsibility than a civilian, yet killing him is okay?
Yes, it's not fair that those civilians find themselves in those kinds of situations. But, each of us bears full responsibility for our own actions. To believe that we do not, is what allows tyranny to exist in the first place.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
This is when a truly disconnected mesh network would have tremendous value; just buy a couple of truckloads of Meraki nodes and setup a really independent internet network...
Read what you wrote before:
But, no, let's go with what passes for entertainment in those countries. Because that is much more representative of culture than, you know, how people actually act.
It's a semantic conundrum!
Nooooo! It's my own inability to read sarcasm!
Well, it's not all my fault. Because the traditional definition of culture is what is handed down from one generation to another, what you wrote didn't sound absurd enough to ring my sarcasm bell.
Only needs POTS and modems. Works unless the government wants to shut down the whole land-line phone network.
Well, apparently, you only have to fool the majority of people for a little while.
Well, it's obviously a loose term, and I think that's one source of all this debate (people trying to make political points is the other source). But when I read "culture" I think of what is handed down from one generation to another, so when someone says that a certain country is a violent culture, I don't make that evaluation based on whether anything in particular is happening in that country (going to war, terrorist attack), but whether there is a culture, a religion, tradition, or institution, that encourages that. For instance, if there's a culture where it is allowable to stone women I would call that a violent culture. So I don't consider the US a violent culture simply because most forms of violence aren't considered tolerable to us. But that doesn't mean that violent crimes don't occur, but it doesn't represent the culture in my opinion.
In the absence of an external interfering force (e. g., the army of the Soviet Union), the fate of a nation is determined by its people. Period.
Funny, whenever I see the words "external interfering force", someone else always pops into mind:
In the absence of an external interfering force (e. g., the marines of the United States), the fate of a nation is determined by its people. Period.
A person who votes for the winning Presidential candidate is more responsible than the one who votes for the loser.
You've also argued that someone who is a non-voter and merely born into a country and can't find or afford to immigrate to another country is also responsible for the actions of that government. You pick the easy cases which doesn't help for understanding the hard cases.
But, by the very act of voting, they share equal measures of responsibility for the democratic form of their government.
That's a useless claim and not necessarily true either. Of what point is sharing responsibility for the FORM of a government in assigning responsibility for the actions of a particular set of government employees?
This is exactly wrong. The "vast majority of people", as a group, have all the power, and all the responsibility. Not even the most tyrannical and totalitarian of governments can hold on to power without the acquiesce of the masses.
That is exactly wrong. The "vast majority of people", as individuals, have practically none of the power and thus none of the responsibility. Not even the most democratic and free of governments can represent the will of every individual.
By that rationale, no one--not a civilian, an enemy soldier, nor the leader of the enemy--bears 100% responsibility for the situation. An individual soldier bears only a slightly higher fraction of the responsibility than a civilian, yet killing him is okay?
An individual bears responsibility for what they do as an individual. If the military is not conscripting them, they need not join. If they are conscripted, they can still surrender, go awol, etc. Thus those who continue to fight do bear a significantly greater fraction of responsibility.
each of us bears full responsibility for our own actions. To believe that we do not, is what allows tyranny to exist in the first place.
As if it were so simple. You argue for collective responsibility even when individual responsibility requires different actions - where choosing an extremely small chance of revolution over the almost certain imprisonment, torture and death of your family means endorsement of tyranny. You claim that Iran is "unsupported by external forces" when in fact 3+ million barrels of oil per day brings in enormous amounts of support from external forces.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I prefer the trusted method of ending with, "good day." So when someone attempts to refute your point you can yell "I SAID GOOD DAY!" And storm out of the room.
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
Is it difficult to be as incorrect, misinformed and belligerently stupid as you are? Are you able to tie your shoes properly? Just curious.
Here's an idea:
Read up on the actual, declassified documents. Read up on the methods the US used to get Mossadegh out of power. Read up on Roosevelt's cousin's involvement. Read up on how the US then decided it would be better to have a chaotic Middle East and supported the ousting of the Shah. Read up on the US involvement in the Iraq/Iran war after the Shah was ousted.
IANAL, but I play one on
than you're part of the problem, not the solution.
If your not part of the solution, you may be part of the precipitate! Sorry, had to throw a chemistry joke in here, it was getting to serious...
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
I am currently in Nicaragua, came for a week-long stay for a regional Free Software encounter. I have been there just for a couple of days, but... Well, this is a country that became marxist in 1979 and went back to neoliberalism in 1989. I met several Nicaraguans during the last 10 years, and they mostly spoke very fondly about their Revolution. And now, that Frente Sandinista led by Daniel Ortega is back in power (although in a very different way, criticized by many of their hard-liners), people really feel hope for changing. There is much talk about the ALBA (the Venezuela-led Latin American Bolivarian Alternative), and... well, I am very surprised of what I see. For good.
By that argument the 49% of Americans that didn't vote for Barack Obama got screwed too...
Two things happened in Iran that didn't happen in the US.
1. In Iran it is alleged that the government censored and unfairly portrayed the opposition to maintain power skewing the vote.
2. In Iran the 49% think they are the majority and won't say they lost. They argue that point 1 caused the discrepancy, not that they are actually a very large minority.
You've also argued that someone who is a non-voter and merely born into a country and can't find or afford to immigrate to another country is also responsible for the actions of that government.
Yes, I have. I suppose that a hypothetical person, who does not vote, pays no taxes, and produces nothing which is not personally consumed, is not responsible for the actions of his government. I'm arguing that only a vanishingly small number of people in any country fit these criteria.
Of what point is sharing responsibility for the FORM of a government in assigning responsibility for the actions of a particular set of government employees?
By voting, a person implicitly approves of the democratic process for the selection of a leader. He is responsible for the legitimacy of the system, even though his candidate didn't win. Democracy is all about agreeing to be ruled by whoever gets the most votes, even if it's not your guy.
The "vast majority of people", as individuals, have practically none of the power and thus none of the responsibility.
No. The vast majority of the people have all the power, in a democracy or a dictatorship. The most oppressive tyrant imaginable only has power to the extent that the vast majority of people follow his orders.
Not even the most democratic and free of governments can represent the will of every individual.
I never said that they did, could, or should do so.
If the military is not conscripting them, they need not join. If they are conscripted, they can still surrender, go awol, etc. Thus those who continue to fight do bear a significantly greater fraction of responsibility.
The same logic applies to the citizenry at large. An army cannot fight without the massive amount of supplies and armaments produced by the civilian population of its country. If a baker is making bread for a soldier's rations, he is only marginally less responsible than the soldier himself; because, without the baker, no one dies, as the soldier cannot fight.
You argue for collective responsibility even when individual responsibility requires different actions - where choosing an extremely small chance of revolution over the almost certain imprisonment, torture and death of your family means endorsement of tyranny.
I haven't argued at all for any notion of "collective responsibility"; there is no such thing. There is only individual responsibility. A government or a nation is not some kind of meta-person, capable of action, possessing a will, or bearing responsibility. A nation is simply a bunch of people, each capable of individual action, possessing an individual will, and bearing individual responsibility for the results of their actions.
A person's approval of his government is of no relevance, only his actions are. Wishing that your government were different, while still participating in the system, does not absolve you of any responsibility for your actions.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
Sorry, but the Iranis have it coming. When they start assassinating their religious leaders -- you know, the ones who decide who gets to run for office -- then I'll have some sympathy.
Any society that lets religious fanatics run it gets what's coming to it.
If anything, the Iranis haven't suffered enough. Like dogs who shit the carpet, they need to have their noses rubbed in this brutality for generations, until they learn that this isn't the way to go.
"For starters, you need to learn that Americans have the most violent culture of any first world country."
Ahh, anti-American sentiment from an American. Damn, don't that just feel right to you?
First, maybe your mistake is considering the whole of the US first world when surely not all regions meet that standard. There are areas of cities I've lived in that are wonderful, peaceful places. Outside of certain regions of those cities, crime is huge, sick, and high; these are economically depressed and sick locations where I've seen better conditions in third world countries I've been to. Ganglands are not first world.
Second, I'd like to see your evidence of this as stemming from a culture of violence. Evidence of violent acts is not necessarily tied to a violent culture. Many times, it's situational, such as progress from freedom defining acts, or from government actions themselves such as anti-drug policies or crack downs on "crime."
A lot of our "violent" culture is based on our definition of violence, which is not equal to other country's definitions. For example, we consider drug distributors violent offenders. We consider people hunting on federal reserves violent offenders. We consider people transporting guns in a trunk who commit a crime but not using those guns violent offenders. Our criminal code makes out people to be violent offenders where other countries consider such actions simply commonplace or mere crimes. Hell, some states a disturbing the peace violent may be consider a violent act if in the act of fighting, which includes physical fights and arguing--being found guilty of arguing, becausei n the same section of law which includes fighting, makes you a violent probably offender, becasue there is no distinction in being found guilty under that law. You're just guilty, no one gives a damn how or why. (This is similar to many sex offense laws, i.e. public urination is flashing/exposure, a sexual offense.)
If you place people who commit a neglible act of violence in a violent facility, what/who comes out is frequently a physically trained violent person who commits a true by any definition violent act downstream of his incarceration. That is not violence which stems from culture, but from government.
Third, any first world country does not include Vietnam or Iran or many countries being compared to. It's also rather disingenous to define violent acts in modern times in spite of lacking history. That's like saying a serial killer that grown out of their spree are peaceful human beings. iow, Japanese society, which has a hugely low crime rate, also doesn't have much of a military. Did the stats you might put forward average in the Rape of Nanking or WWII experiences in there? Does China include all the humanitarian violations it does?
"Start there, life is not black and white, wake the fuck up, and grow up."
You seem to think life is black and white.
"Oh, and I'm American."
That doesn't excuse your ignorance. Oh, wait, it does, i.e. "stupid American." Nevermind, you fit the bill well.
I didn't know you could win an argument by appending a "Period." after your thesis.
Oh, you can't. It's a declaration that one refuses to change his opinion on the matter. It can sometimes be used to end an argument (if done correctly), but will never win one.
Yes, I know you were being sarcastic. I'm being pedantic. So there.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Whether you want to believe they kept POWs for decades or not, it doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with what I was arguing because they did keep prisoners for years after the war and that's not subject to debate.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
I didn't know you could win an argument by appending a "Period." after your thesis.
Actually the correct steps are: * Present your thesis. * Exclaim PERIOD! * Clamp your hands to your ears and run away shouting "lalalalalalala cant hear you!", before any counter-argument can be made. And there you go, argument won.
Rush Limbaugh?? Is that you?
What first world country is more violent than the US?
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
The BBC has a good overview of the Iranian political system [bbc.co.uk], which includes a directly elected President, Parliament and Assembly of Experts. Other institutions are appointed, as they are in other democracies.
The whole system looks very similar to the electoral system used in the UK. Our monarch is hereditary, our House of Lords is a mixture of hereditary and appointed, our judiciary is (obviously) appointed. We don't have a President and our PM is appointed by Parliament, making Iran theoretically more democratic than the UK.
You conveniently omitted the fact that Iran has a Supreme Leader with powers far more reaching than that of the UK monarch; and the Guardian Council, which vets all election candidates, and can ban any one they see as undesirable - which is not at all a theoretical power, and was exercised in the past. It also has full veto power over the parliament, and can thus block any legislation from coming through.
Of course, as soon as those enter into the picture, it changes, especially as the Supreme Leader appoints half of the Guardian Council directly and another half indirectly (via Head of the Judicial Power. Supreme Leader himself is appointed by Assembly of Experts, which is indeed elected - except that only Islamic jurists are allowed to be the members, and the list of candidates is vetted by the Guardian Council (since it controls all elections). End result is a bunch of people appointing each other, with people invited to vote at a single stage in the process, on the specially prepared list of candidates so that there cannot be any protest votes.
This can hardly be called a democracy - after all, elections were present in the USSR as well (where people also voted for candidates from the list vetted by the party), and are present in North Korea today - but that doesn't make them democracies. Democracy is not just when you vote, but when your vote counts (and no-one has the power to override it).
Democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
Agreed - that's true of any democracy to one extent or another, even though some implementations offer better ways to protect the minority than others (e.g. compare Canada and Afghanistan).
However, democracy is still a necessary prerequisite for social and political liberalism (which is, quite explicitly, a rejection of tyranny of the majority).
I haven't argued at all for any notion of "collective responsibility"; there is no such thing.
Yeah, you have. You completely missed it when you assigned "as a group" to "the vast majority of people" and you continued to do so when you completely missed my rewriting of your statement to say "as individuals" and went on to repeat your original point by saying "No. The vast majority of the people have all the power."
He is responsible for the legitimacy of the system, even though his candidate didn't win
Again, what is the point in saying that someone is responsible for the SYSTEM, you've just restated your original claim that merely by voting, people are responsible "for the democratic form of their government". FORM and SYSTEM are just synonyms in your usage.
Interesting also that you have no response for the key point that oil exports have made the Iran of today loaded to the gills with outside influence in support of the current regime. You've got this perfect model of the state with zero outside influence that doesn't even exist anywhere in the world, never mind the problems with assigning such a black and white interpretation of the responsible parties.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Yes, we tolerate them. They're clearly sub-adult intellectually but we don't deny them housing, simple work, freedom, etc.
But yeah, they are suspect - as is anyone unable to think clearly and logically. Who cares what any given one thinks (young/old earth) when it's just what they were told to think? It's a culture of ignorance and that's more important than any specific answer.
Of course, there are disciples of FOX and Michael Moore who are pretty bad at critical thinking too...
You seem to forget that a statement might be logically correct, even if the presuppositions that logic is based on is dead wrong.
Of course, there are disciples of liberal twits out there who are bad at critical thinking too...
"A transit shift of this magnitude may indicate that something (administrative, or physical) has affected Iran's connection to the submarine cables running east and west â" not a total outage, but some kind of significant impairment." well yea that sounds like an authoritative manipulation to me. Tensions mounting with both N.Korea and Iran (nevermind China for now), an borderline economic crisis, an over extended U.S. military in a war with no possible positive outcome except for the exploitation of a people and their natural resources (oh, and the positioning of a "true" democracy in the middle east that will never take form). Meanwhile U.S. politicians can barely appease their sensationalist media, let alone the citizens, who all want something for nothing, even if it means taking from the person next to them. I consider myself a pretty rational and calm individual. I served honorably in the U.S. military, I went to college and have a good paying job and a comfortable life. Am I the irrational one to say that that I feel stuck in a leaderless situation, part of a hopelessly flawed system of systems that is doomed to fail and spiraling out of any form of regulation or control? Am I wrong to think that reform alone cannot fix a fundamental flaw in the various infrastructures that make up our country? Am I the only one that sees mass panic growing in a nation full of self-serving ignorant hedonists, who would like nothing more than to pretend like 'this' (or that) isn't happening? Perhaps I should just post some pictures of cute fluffy animals, watch my favorite tv shows on-demand, spend more money on entertainment, food and libations, regurgitate my superficial knowledge of the issues as seen on tv, dance and sing and skip because tomorrow is a bright, new day. Or maybe I can quasi-involve myself by commenting on threads, blogging, twitting, and texting with others. Maybe the best form of involvement for me, as a member of a mass crowd, is to speculate, raise suspicion, form unsubstantiated opinions and present them as fact, get others riled up, scare people, so I don't feel alone and become the 1 in 10 pseudo-expert who doesn't agree -- after all, building a platform on sensational conjecture, in opposition to mainstream sensationalism, is truely the American way (as evidence from this sensational conjecture). (I really hope someone detects my sarcasm)
Yugoslavia wasn't a Warsaw Pact state and I remember the name, and the names of all the states it became, thanks.
Czechoslovakia is now two states, which was voted on and happened all nice and calmly.
The poster I replied to said - "After the Kremlin exited Eastern Europe..." therefore we are ignoring the USSR.
The three states you mention, Hungary, Poland and Albania - well the remark that Poland "never used to be where it is now", isn't accurate, but thats fine. Its been bigger, its been smaller but its generally been centered on what is now Poland.
In 1020, its pretty much where it is now
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Poland1020.png
Poland as a melting pot - Polish 96.7%, German 0.4%, Belarusian 0.1%, Ukrainian 0.1%, other and unspecified 2.7%
Roman Catholic 89.8% (about 75% practicing), Eastern Orthodox 1.3%, Protestant 0.3%, other 0.3%, unspecified 8.3% (2002)
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/PL.html
Hungary as a melting pot, wow its diverse! - Hungarian 92.3%, Roma 1.9%, other or unknown 5.8% (2001 census)
Roman Catholic 51.9%, Calvinist 15.9%, Lutheran 3%, Greek Catholic 2.6%, other Christian 1%, other or unspecified 11.1%, unaffiliated 14.5% (2001 census)
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/HU.html
And Albania, also diverse as heck.
Albanian 95%, Greek 3%, other 2% (Vlach, Roma (Gypsy), Serb, Macedonian, Bulgarian) (1989 est.)
Muslim 70%, Albanian Orthodox 20%, Roman Catholic 10%
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/AL.html
Iran, its got a nationalistic streak, its going to remain whole just fine. Israel will bomb it unless they agree to give up offensive weapons, but it will survive as a state.
First of all, I did mention the vetting of candidates.
Second, my post wasn't intended to argue that Iran today is a democracy, but to argue against the charge that Iranians replaced a dictator with another dictator.
I'd contend that any election in any country can be stolen, given enough supporters.
You completely missed it when you assigned "as a group" to "the vast majority of people" and you continued to do so when you completely missed my rewriting of your statement to say "as individuals" and went on to repeat your original point by saying "No. The vast majority of the people have all the power."
This is a misunderstanding, and it's my fault.
Yes, as isolated individuals, the vast majority of the people are powerless to effect change in their government; those people bear a commensurate amount of responsibility for their government's actions. That's a valid paraphrasing of what you're saying, right?
Now, where I think we disagree is in exactly who doesn't fall into the group: "the vast majority of people". I think you're arguing that there are powerful people in a country--the leaders, the wealthy, etc.--who possess a disproportionate amount of power, and thusly, a disproportionate share of the responsibility, right?
I am arguing that even those powerful people derive their power from their acceptance by the "vast majority". Even the President of the United States would be another powerless, isolated individual, if the vast majority in our country simply refused to follow his orders. The only power he has derives from that source.
Further, I'm arguing that the individual is the only entity capable of making the decision to accept his leadership, or to refuse to follow orders. And, as the sole source of the President's power flows from these individuals' acceptance, the individuals bear the responsibility for allowing him to lead them.
Again, what is the point in saying that someone is responsible for the SYSTEM, you've just restated your original claim that merely by voting, people are responsible "for the democratic form of their government". FORM and SYSTEM are just synonyms in your usage.
Close. By participating in a democratic election, you have chosen to respect the will of the majority. You are giving a certain measure of support to the winner, regardless of who you voted for. With that support comes a certain share in the responsibility for that government's actions.
Interesting also that you have no response for the key point that oil exports have made the Iran of today loaded to the gills with outside influence in support of the current regime.
All the money, guns, and outside financial support cannot keep a government in power if the vast majority of the people within the country simply refuse to participate. The excuse of, "I was just following orders," never absolves one of his responsibility for his actions.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
Please let me know! The CIA did not help the Shah - in fact the Shah was NEVER restored. He had always been the Shah, this time whoever he went on vacation to avoid a bloodbath, as always because he loved his people.
Yes, he had always been the Shah, since the resignation of his father during WWII. But from his accession until the CIA-backed coup of 1953, he had been politically marginalized and power was in the hands of the Majlis. There are legitimate questions about to what degree Mossadegh really was a democrat -- after all, he was a member of the Qajar family -- but he was clearly far more of a democrat than the Shah!
As for your comments about democracy and lies, I'm not sure what you mean. If you're arguing that democracy doesn't exist, well, no point carrying on this conversation. If you're arguing that the "Mossadegh as democrat" story is all Western propaganda, well just how does an admission that the Western world conspired to screw over Iran serve Western interests? It does nothing but paint us Westerners in a bad light.
If the Shah went on vacation because he "loved his people" and wanted "to avoid a bloodbath", he had an odd way of showing it upon his return. Secret police, random disappearances, detentions in the middle of the night. (But these were all bad people, right?) Thank goodness my own government does not "love" me so much!
And guess what, the Shah of Iran said that he is not going to RENEW the British oil contract in 1979 - and see what happened - "revolution" (If you don't get it, British and Americans overthrew him for making Iran independent).
Um, are you saying the British and Americans engineered the Iranian revolution?
So was Khomeini their puppet then? Given that Iran severed all communications with the U.S. and that the hostage crisis played a large role in destroying Carter's presidency, just how did the Islamic Revolution serve American interests? And if, as you acknowledge, the U.S. bankrolled Iraq to fight against Iran in the 1980s, surely the revolution couldn't all have gone according to their plan! So who did the Americans want to win the revolution, then? Not Khomeini, surely. And not the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, who would've brought Iran into the Soviet orbit.
I think you're trying very hard to view Iranian history from 1953 to 1979 in such a way as to cast the Shah as a sympathetic figure. He was, to a degree, and he did honestly try to engineer a good path for Iran and a resurgence of Persian culture. But from 1953 onwards, his was a client state of the United States.
That's no great shame: most of the world was divided like that and it was hard not to take sides. But don't pretend he was a wholly independent figure. And don't pretend either that his rule was founded on some sort of universal respect by the people. Leaders who are so blessed do not need a secret police force that disappear people in the night.
Why did slashdot decide to stop giving karma for "funny"? GP is a prime example of why that policy distorts the rating system.
I propose that a natural disaster occurring within the borders of a country (earthquake, drought, volcano) counts as an internal force that could change the fate of a nation without any blame falling on that nation's people.
>> Not every muslim is an islamist.
Umm ... not to nitpick, but ... http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/muslim
Musâ...lim
â"adjective
1.of or pertaining to the religion, law, or civilization of Islam.
â"noun
2.an adherent of Islam.
3. Black Muslim.
Also, Moslem, Muslem (for defs. 1, 2).
Origin:
Ar, lit., a person who submits. See Islam
I think what you meant to say is that not every Muslim is hell bent on shoving their superstitious bullshit down everyone else on the planet's throats on pain of death.
You know, like the Christians did until just a (very) few centuries ago.
"Oh my God! The dead have risen! And they're voting Republican!" - Bart Simpson
Let me guess... you're not actually a member of the military, and by "we" you mean "some other poor sap". Sure, why not. We only spent a trillion freakin' dollars on Iraq, and got thousands of our people killed... and put the new government firmly under control of... yes, Iran. And Iran only has like 6x the population of Iraq, so sure... why don't "we" go right ahead and invade there too? And we can just sort of conquer the entire rest of the "radical Islamic Middle East" as a sort of sideline.
The capacity for some folks to advocate for spending other people's money, and getting other people killed, for the sake of feeling more manly, never ceases to amaze me.
Well if God is everywhere and nowhere, then he'd be both internal and external. (which I don't believe, btw, 'cuz the Nicean creed is a load of medieval bullshit)
Consider yourself spoken to.
"The US military did not play a significant role in Europe."
I'm pretty sure that the United Kingdom, France, Italy, The Netherlands, and Western Germany; as well as the 101st Airborne and Patton's Third Army, respectfully disagree.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Geez, the plan has a lot of underpants gnomes style "???" about it.
No, it's really not questionable... we have essentially no leverage with them. "Get China to bring them to heel"? How? If we could do this, we'd have already done it. And the idea of threatening "surgical strikes" against NK is too obviously not credible - the NKs would promptly begin raining destruction on South Korea, which is an outcome everyone knows we can't stomach.
What you're talking about here is already the mission of the IAEA. Perhaps it needs more funding to provide technical assistance to developing peaceful nuclear power, but "encouraging peaceful nuclear power", and "discouraging nuclear weapon proliferation" is explicitly the mission of the IAEA.
Which western powers are adding to their stockpiles? The US is up against the START II limits, and has proposed further reductions. I don't believe the Brits and French are adding warheads either.
Sanctions have a pretty poor record of convincing countries to do anything. Of note, Cuba has been under sanctions for, what, 50 years, and have done exactly nothing about getting out from under them. Iraq was under very severe sanctions between 1991 and 2003, and again, did virtually nothing to comply with terms for ending them. North Korea has been under varying levels of sanction for years over their nuclear program, and they feel free to start or restart their program more or less whenever it suits them. Sanctions are vastly overrated as a tool for getting a regime to do what you want.
The bottom line here is that nuclear weapon proliferation is an extremely complex and difficult subject, and (not to make fun of you) unlikely to be solved with quick four-point plans you can list in a Slashdot post.
You don't, but you do if you append Q.E.D, at least until someone smart reads carefully.
"Period" is all well and good, but if you really want to be an asshat, you use "Full stop."
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
He bought tanks, missiles, aircraft, ships - everything and anything, provided it contained the latest in state-of-the-art technology. Had he remained in power but two years longer, his Air Force would have become the third most powerful in the world. Already, by 1979, Iran had more modern combat aircraft than most European powers.
Yes. Khomeini was your puppet, because it was the only one you could find against the Shah and you knew he would make Iran weak again so USA could continue it's exploition. Things go wrong, things don't always go right. The Hostage crises got a lot of enemies killed, beause "USA didn't have enough time to shred information on spies" and it allowed USA to freeze Iranian assets outside of Iran. How did the Islamic revolution save American interests? Let's see: The nation is weak, thus you can continue exploit it. Iran was sent hundreds of years back. Personal interests as well (http://aryamehr.org/eng/carter/carter.htm) No, the Shah was not a client and I am still not seeing anything that can prove me to me how he was a client of USA. Either way, oh.. so you bring SAVAK into this. Right, what about your beautiful CIA who disappear people? Torture people? Kill people? Secret prisons in Europe, or do Americans not count?
Oh. Interesting to see you use wikipedia, but I am sorry to tell you that you are wrong. Since you just give me a link, I will give you one link that contains two links so you can read the other side: http://aryamehr.org/eng/19august/19august.htm No, we did not put theocrats in power. If you go through the events, there is no way. Explain why the American general Huyser visited Iran prior to the "revoluton" and talked to Iranian generals without the Shah knowing he was in Iran? Later it was exposed that Huyser told them to say "neutral" during the "revolution". Please read this: http://www.studien-von-zeitfragen.de/Eurasien/Shah_of_Iran/shah_of_iran.html and http://www.thenewamerican.com/history/world/1111 to learn what really happened.
Oh, one guy against milions of people. I guess if Iranian intelligence agency today says Obama is their puppet in a pdf document, you will be the first one to believe it. Right? There was nothing wrong with SAVAK, as any other security/intelligence agency it protected Iran many times from terrorists like Mujahedin, Tudeh and Communists and from the Russians. So, what about your CIA who has secret prisons in Europe and torture innocent people in USA? Shall we go into that.. or?
Oh don't worry, if anything the CIA wins in the competition of killing, torturing, detainting, secret prisons and so on. And again, where are your responses to Mossadegh wanting to close the parliament? Is that more democract than the Shah who put Senate and Parliament in Iran?
I have read and it all seems to come from CIA whos job is to spread disinformation. What about you read the other side story a bit? Once you read these two parts, please come back as I have more articles, books and so on. http://aryamehr.org/eng/19august/19august.htm Sadly, western media do not want to show the other side.
How wimpy. Real assholes don't need to cover their ears and sing silly tunes. They just proclaim how stupid, evil, and gullible their opponents are. And if anybody complains about this ad hominem rhetoric they say "Oh, lighten up!". Much more satisfying, because that way you establish your TOTAL SUPERIORITY.
lol, you're not a moron, but close enough, you need to learn how to make a point. That's a hell of a stretch to say that a nation's crime is what constitutes its culture. That doesn't hold up, sorry, you have no point.
You just got troll'd!
When did I ever say the US was "special" or "all that"?
You didn't use the words "special" or "all that", you made a point that the USA had unquestionably the most violent culture in the first world period. I grouped that sort of comment with other observed behaviours that I identified as having a pattern of thinking the US were "all that".
What I love about Europeans is that even when an American is willing to be critical about his own country you attack him for it and somehow construe it into the person having an ignorant myopic view of the world.
Oh yeah, and why do you think that is? Because Americans praising or criticising the US are the two sides of the same US-centric manichean coin, which is exactly the point I made about Americans always thinking that America is the most/least something. Manichean and US-centric, that's the problem with the way you guys see things. Criticising the US doesn't help you break out of this a bit.
It's why so many people in this country don't give a fuck what you people think because your still so fucking bitter about not running the world anymore.
If you're in the world's driver seat and we think you're a myope who spends more time looking at himself in the mirror than looking at the road, perhaps you'll realise why we want the driver seat back.
Maybe one day you assholes will get off your fucking high horses and get a perspective that doesn't involve having a stick up your ass.
Now THAT's some analysis! lol, sucker.
You just got troll'd!
Are you honestly arguing that a culture is not defined by the actions of its people?
I'm arguing that culture isn't at the origin of crime in America, and that therefore you cannot use crime to argue that the culture is violent. That answers to the rest of your points.
You just got troll'd!
...ahmedinajad getting 55% vote in azerbaijani parts of iran means barack obama getting 55%+ vote in any part of redneck midwest with little black population.
In /my/ midwestern redneck state, he did at least get more than 50%. (Indiana)
What first world country is more violent than the US?
Just because I talk about the US does not make me myopic. I am allowed to talk about my own fucking country. Like I said, it doesn't matter because no matter what we say or do, it's all the same to you. Why? Because Europe is filled with elitist assholes whose only way to feel superior is take act like you know everything and we know nothing. It's nothing new and rather cliche at this point.
As for driver's seats, you had your chance. You guys are so fucking brilliant and knowledgeable that you couldn't hang on to it? Poor baby. Cry more. When we are no longer in the driver's seat, it will be China next and not you sorry assholes and I can guarantee you that you will wish we were still in charge when that happens.
Maybe in a few hundred years, you'll get another chance to fuck up the world.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
yeah the terrible Americans are the only reason the world is a mess. Funny there are more people trying to get here than ANY other place on Earth. This terrible place. you are pathetic self-loathing infant....regardless of your age
What first world country is more violent than the US?
No, just no. Your question should be "Which first world country's culture is more violent", anything else is just off-topic, and then, I didn't make a point that the US didn't have the most violent culture, only that it was far from being as obvious, factual, objective and clear cut as it was being made out to be. If you'd care to read the parent posts a few levels up you'd see that I offered Japan as a candidate. Although I must say that as a Frenchman I really don't see what our culture has to envy to the American culture when it comes to violence, so consider it another candidate.
Just because I talk about the US does not make me myopic. I am allowed to talk about my own fucking country.
Nice strawman argument, sucker.
Because Europe is filled with elitist assholes whose only way to feel superior is take act like you know everything and we know nothing. It's nothing new and rather cliche at this point.
Why just Europe? You don't think people think like this anywhere else? Believe me, they do. The rest of the whole world's full of elitists. Although it maybe says more about you than it says about the rest of the world.
As for driver's seats, you had your chance. You guys are so fucking brilliant and knowledgeable that you couldn't hang on to it?
Yeah, it's called world wars, or as some historians call it, the European civil war. See the UK, France and Germany were like fucking huge, oppressing people in every continents and running this shit. Then they fought each other until they were in such deep shit that they had to give up their colonial empires, and reconstruct themselves as the modern countries that they are now, and let the world become bipolar, the two poles being USSR and the USA, which themselves have more or less recently fractured themselves to let the world become a clusterfuck of lesser poles. See, you guys couldn't hang on to being a super power either, these things never last. At least we have a good excuse, we shared borders with Adolf Hitler and Mussolini. You guys pretty much just fucked yourselves through poor management/leadership/flawed ideology.
You just got troll'd!
> The bottom line here is that nuclear weapon proliferation is an extremely complex and difficult subject, and (not to make fun of you) unlikely to be solved with quick four-point plans you can list in a Slashdot post.
:-)
Fair enough - I did forget the "Profit!" step (although as you point out it had plenty of ????). The fact that we can't solve the world's problems in a single Slashdot post shouldn't discourage us from trying
Cute. Sorry to inform you but I actually studied world history. You created the environment for the Nazis to exist courtesy of the reparations specified in the Treaty of Versailles. So, you fucked yourselves through poor leadership and a complete lack of foresight. And by "you" I mean specifically France which desired especially harsh treatment of Germany. So I'm still waiting to hear how that makes you better than us.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
Oh it doesn't, everybody makes mistakes, and the Treaty of Versailles is a long shot from being the worst we've done. But unlike you we don't always have to be "#1".
But you've drifted far away from any of the points previously made, so I suppose I can safely infer that you're conceding to all the other points I've made. I accept your apology.
You just got troll'd!
Actually you're the one who derailed the conversation. I accept your apology.
:)
Just an FYI...I'm unemployed and I suffer from chronic depression so I can go on like this forever.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
Yes. Khomeini was your puppet, because it was the only one you could find against the Shah and you knew he would make Iran weak again so USA could continue it's exploition. Things go wrong, things don't always go right.
But American oil interests in Iran were nationalized by the state after the revolution! I suppose you think Khomeini (who, by the way, I am not defending!) was secretly shipping oil money out the door to the Americans, even though he spent all his time in public bashing them and fomenting Shia uprisings in Iraq and Lebanon.
I am attempting to say this as respectfully as I can: I believe your view of history to be delusional. However, I don't see why your view of history requires Khomeini to have been an American puppet. If the Americans played some role in stirring up the Revolution -- and this I could believe, since Western-educated Iranians with exposure to democratic traditions were among the first to support it -- then you could just argue it got out of control and Khomeini seized the momentum and turned it to his advantage. This could have happened whether he was a puppet or not, and if Khomeini was a puppet he sure had an odd way of showing it.
The Hostage crises got a lot of enemies killed, beause "USA didn't have enough time to shred information on spies" and it allowed USA to freeze Iranian assets outside of Iran. How did the Islamic revolution save American interests? Let's see: The nation is weak, thus you can continue exploit it. Iran was sent hundreds of years back.
That I don't deny, though as I've said previously I believe the Shah to have been an American client ruler and that the Iranian people did in some way ultimately benefit from being out from under the American thumb, although it came at the (brutal) cost of a theocracy. What I would have preferred to see (as much as my opinion as a non-Iranian Westerner counts for anything) is a republic or a constitutional monarchy emerge from the revolution, with real power vested in the Majlis.
No, the Shah was not a client and I am still not seeing anything that can prove me to me how he was a client of USA.
Well, I'm not going to convince you if you don't want to believe it. He got massive foreign aid and military hardware from the U.S., his army was trained by Americans and even his son Reza Pahlavi was trained as a fighter pilot in the U.S. air force. After leaving Iran during the revolution he lived in Panama and Egypt (both within the American sphere of influence) and the United States. His son Reza (who you perhaps regard as Reza Shah II?) has lived in the U.S. for the last 25 years.
Most significantly, the Iranians themselves believed the Shah to be an American pawn during the Revolution. This idea had to come from somewhere. Now, you could argue that Khomeini the "secret American agent" fed the theory of the "American puppet Shah" with anti-American rhetoric and false accusations, but the idea of the Americans systematically stirring anti-American rhetoric as part of some nefarious plan beggars belief.
Either way, oh.. so you bring SAVAK into this. Right, what about your beautiful CIA who disappear people? Torture people? Kill people? Secret prisons in Europe, or do Americans not count?
First off, they are not "my" CIA: I'm not American. I am a Westerner, so I can't pretend to be entirely distant from that world. But have you been listening to anything I've been saying? I have accused the CIA of being behind the Mossadegh takedown, and they are responsible for far more bloody and terrible things in South America and elsewhere. At no point have I made any attempt to defend the CIA, and I shall not!
The CIA is terrible, SAVAK was terrible, and so are the institutions in today's Iran that disappear and kill people like Zahra Kazemi. All of these agencies show the ugly faces of the governments they work for, and attempts like yours to cleanse the Shah's reputation and make him out to be some sort of tragic hero will never convince me and others like as long as the history of SAVAK is alive.
Ha, I was about to comment on how you're just not gonna drop it. I'm self employed and bored, and Slashdot is the only place I know where I can have elaborate troll arguments. Maybe I should go to a pub instead...
You just got troll'd!
rofl...you finally said something I agree with!
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
May IRAN Live Long :)
Hey, here's a seemingly simple answer. Check out Opera Unite:
http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/an-introduction-to-opera-unite/
From what I understand, it basically runs a web server when you run Opera. One of the applications is a chat app. So anyone in Iran that's trying to organize could potentially use this. It is alpha quality so maybe save the chat pages locally from time to time. I have yet to try it, but it might just work. Good luck!
Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried. - Winston Churchill
"But American oil interests in Iran were nationalized by the state after the revolution"
Not really. The Shah said in a speech that he will under no circumstances renew the British 25 year oil contract in 1979. At the same time he had "nationalized" the Iranian oil in 1973 by four-doubling the oil prices. This my friend, caused major inflation and problems in USA and UK specifically - so much trouble that Nixons secretary called the Shah "nuts". Many times this regime has bought arms fom Israel, done training exercises together and so. Cheap oil was sold to USA, the price was not the same price the Shah had put.
I still have not seen ANY evidence from those who claim the Shah was a puppet (which I will say, is it being a puppet when you 4x the oil prices and make others call you nuts?) but just because Khomeini was a puppet does not mean he should go out and say "LOL LOOK AT ME I AM A PUPPET", no. The idea was to make it look like he was not a puppet.
"I believe the Shah to have been an American client ruler"
I would like to know, perhaps you can be the first one ever to tell me exactly what he did for you to say he is an American client ruler?
"He got massive foreign aid and military hardware from the U.S., his army was trained by Americans and even his son Reza Pahlavi was trained as a fighter pilot in the U.S. air force. After leaving Iran during the revolution he lived in Panama and Egypt (both within the American sphere of influence) and the United States. His son Reza (who you perhaps regard as Reza Shah II?) has lived in the U.S. for the last 25 years."
That's something. There is a difference in being a puppet and working close to someone who has the same opinion and the same threat as you. The Russians ever since Ivan wanted to come near the warm waters of Persian Gulf. Russia even went as far as attempting to annex northern parts of Iran. Of course, Iran at World War I and II times being weak decided to do deals with another country (USA in this case, because they were nice and helped getting the Russians out of Iran during WW II)
Military hardware did not come free, the Shah bought it with the countries money and it was one of the greatest things he did. As you have you seen, the Iran-Iraq war was just a matter of time, at the same time the major Soviet threat from north and the Pakistan-India issue at that time! It was very wise to build up the military.
The Iranian army got (at the time Iran was very weak, with no functional army, say 1920 to 1940) help from the Americans - because you have to learn somewhere. This is not a matter of being puppet but working with other nations, USA did not help because they had "Installed the Shah" but because they helped so both USA and Iran can together fight the communist threat.
And if you have done successful deals, of course you continue doing more deals with te same nation. Do you honestly see "his son Reza pahlavi being traned as fighter pilot in the U.S. air force" as him being a puppet (the Shah).
After the "revolution" - the Shah was sick, tired, sad, angry and everything. He lost his country and had to think about all the innocent deaths, he didn't know where to live as for example USA didn't give him healthcare! He tried to go to a few other nations but Americans said no and the only reason he was in Egypt a lot was not because USA said so (because ofc, why didn't usa let him be in usa?) it was because Sadat (a great man) and worked very closely with the Shah, the Shah gave him free oil shipments when they needed it (later paid back, ofc) and so on. They did training exercises together and so on.
His son, which I do not see as "Reza Shah II" but later as a traitor who has ignored his nation, his fathers vision, his people. I have nothing to say and I can not defend him, but his son living in USA does not mean that the Shah was a american puppet, if he was in Norway, would be a norwegian puppet? He knew English, he perhaps had a apartment there and it was easier to go live somewh
"Ironically, the US has a quirky democratic system as well."
Yep....it's called a "Republic".
Quirky indeed...
Actually, I think the point trying to come across here is that Al Gore won the nationwide popular vote in 2000 by one million ballots, give or take a few, an uncontested number, but an irrelevant one in the presidential outcome, as the Electoral College system in place (the euphemism being "Representative Democracy") allowed for vote fraud to be applied by exploiting the system's weakest spot that year, the state of Florida (a neck-to-neck race, a Bush as governor, Katherine Harris). Add to the equation a 5-4 conservative majority in the Supreme Court and yes indeed, more quirk than most patriotic US citizens would be comfortable admitting. The year 2000 was basically a bloodless putsch in the United States.
The presidential election of 2004 was much more insidious, paperless voting machines skewing results in several states including Florida (again), New Mexico and, decisively Ohio, all in Bush's favor. The manufacturers of the voting machines in question, Diebold and Sequoia, were both major GOP corporate contributors, BTW, and had their machines installed in key Electoral College states under the auspices of a GOP-dominated government.
Finally, let's not overlook, let's never forget, the Gray Davis recall vote in California, where republicans exploited a loophole in the state's electoral system and put into effect a recall ballot with two basic choices: 1) Keep Gray Davis in office 2) Oust Gray Davis from office, and if so, who should replace him?
If the results are reconfigured as a straightforward election, Gray Davis (D) got 48% of the vote, Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) around 24%, Cruz Bustamante (D) 18%, Tom McClintock (R) 7%, various others the remaining 3%. Thusly, the GOP inserted itself and the Governator into Sacramento. With 24% of the vote.
That said, it must also be added: What the hell was Bustamante thinking? Instead of supporting unity within the democratic party during this flagrant political maneuver/assault, his ego handed the election to the opposition, now look at the state of affairs in California today. "Felicidades, estupido!"
Quirky indeed! Overall, totally FUBAR and compelling evidence of the republican party's totalitarian tendencies, sabotaging the good faith of the country's Democratic mechanisms through sociopathic power grabs.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
Neutral evil. The superpowers are adept at using international treaties as well, even if they are prone to ignore them, resile from them, or not ratify them, including the ones that they themselves originated, when it is inconvenient to them.
You are stupid and ignorant, plain and simple. We helped overthrow a democratic government there. The people marching in the streets are desiring the same type of government we destroyed in their country, and have in ours. Get a clue. You know nothing about the Iranian culture or the people.
Yes, you can arrive at a bad answer with logic.
A possibility of failure versus a certainty...
So?