Slashdot Mirror
Iran Slows Internet Access Before Student Protests
RiffRafff writes "Iran is at it again, pre-emptively slowing or cutting Internet access before anticipated student protests." From the article: "Seeking to deny the protesters a chance to reassert their voice, authorities slowed Internet connections to a crawl in the capital, Tehran. For some periods on Sunday, Web access was completely shut down — a tactic that was also used before last month's demonstration. The government has not publicly acknowledged it is behind the outages, but Iran's Internet service providers say the problem is not on their end and is not a technical glitch."
Clearly if I'm getting a frist psot on /. then they've gotten to us to!
Anyone hosting tor ports to assist? I considered, but I'm nervous about having some /b/onehead abuse my address.
My debut novel AMITY now available: http://jeremydbrooks.c
How much will this really affect communication? If I recall, the last wave of protests mostly used Twitter, which doesn't exactly use a whole heap of bandwith? I could see this affecting Youtube, but it won't stop communication.
I hope the protest succeeds for many reasons, one of which is to show that regime change can be beneficial and effective without overt American influence. The Iranians are tough people with long memories, and they will be as resistant to American meddling as they are to the Ayatollah.
They're one of the few countries without McDonald's' and I'd like to see them stay that way.
How long do the authorities in Iran think they can keep this Internet slowdown going? Sooner or later, they'll have to let up, and when they do, there's going to be a flood of blog posts and website updates about the latest protests. Unless they cut off all Internet access forever, they can't stop it from happening, they can only delay it, and the longer they do, the worse it looks.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
From slow tweet to no tweet? Guess this might be the end of twitter as an organizing tool in Iran.
Well, that really doesn't leave much. I give the Iranian government credit though, this is a much more subtle way of handling things and potentially more effective than more blatant crackdowns. However, I don't think this will matter much for certain types of channels. A lot of the channels used in previous protests to communicate (such as Twitter and text messages) have extremely low bandwiths. So slowing down the internet shouldn't do much. And large scale cutting will lose the more subtle element. Of course, this sort of repeated behavior should make it clear to anyone in doubt that the current Iranian government really isn't popular with the people. If they were genuinely popular, they'd have little need to try to control communication like this. The government probably remembers that the last time there was an extremely unpopular government was the Shah's regime and that was brought down by what started as student protests.
Doesn't this just give the students more reason to protest, starting right now? I'd be even more pissed if the internet we shut down on top of the political turmoil.
How long before the Iranian government lays all new fiber to a central military facility and then disable the now-current fiber links? The idea being total central control to turn off the internet connection entirely or by segments from one physical location.
Hey, if they have the money to build another 20 nuclear reprocessing sites, they damn well have the funds to pull something off like this!
Life is not for the lazy.
Bah,
Last death throws of a failing regime. I feel horrible for the Iranian people right now, but thank god they don't seem to be taking this lying down.
It's like the 1960's over there, a huge boom of 'youth' and a repressive establishment to fight. Here's hoping the result of this revolution is a bit more friendly then the last, but more importantly that it treats it's people better.
If they were all using IRC/Jabber and regular POP3/SMTP email (with encryption/one-time pads) or something more decentralised and robust altogether the effects of 'slowing down the internet' would hardly be felt, since these protocols use so little bandwidth anyway. In this case anyway relying on 'De Cloud' ie. a couple of supermassive foreign social networking sites does not seem like the best course of action
I would have been first but I'm posting from Iran.
Maybe everyone was just blogging and tweeting about how awesome the protests were going to be, and it clogged up the tubes.
If so, that would explain everything.
The same thing happens when China "cracks down." The media whines and opines for a while, but at the end of the day the rest of the world is powerless to stop these boneheads from abusing their own people. I feel for those affected, but at some point the people inside the Matrix need to do more to help themselves. Having the people outside complain really doesn't do a whole lot to make it better.
So if I'm a thug government, I know I can pretty much do what I want, especially if I have something the world wants (cheap labor/oil/etc).
In Australia you need permission from the Government to stage a protest. How is this any different?
It's only a matter of time now...
I'm not in any way defending the absurd "free speech zones", but I also don't think you can really say Iranians are free to protest.
At least here in the U.S. they don't gun you down in the street, as they did in Iran after the election.
Civil disobedience is STILL disobedience!!
Sorry to disappoint you, but the "revolutionaries" are mostly urban youth (a lot of students there, obviously, which is why you often see those). However, that's not what the majority of Iran's population is - that comes from the countryside, rural agrarian folk, and they're rather happy about mullahs and Ahmadinejad. So at worst this won't be a revolution, this will be a civil war, and if the "more democracy" side wins, it will do so against the will of the majority (can you count the bodies it takes, already?).
I very much wish for a democratic Iran, but at this point it looks as unlikely as ever.
They're doing it wrong.
they should encourage p2p software use, increase the bandwidth, then everyone will stay home watching lost or house.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
If your analogy holds true we should see some real changes in say 30 years.
As I watch the situation I look for only one barometer of popular dissent:
when I hear about a police and/or military mutiny. That's when things
are cooking.
537
"At least here in the U.S. they don't gun you down in the street, as they did in Iran after the election." Where were you in the 60's and 70's? Write off Kent State as a one off mistake but then what about the civil rights movement? Hurts when you fall off that high horse doesn't it?
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
Especially those who are expert in Parkour? So that the net is not needed.
Actually, the Iranian regime is Shia, not mainstream Muslim. Shia represent a minority (estimates vary from 5% to 15%) of the worldwide Muslim population that the Western media lumps together. Mainstream Islam (Sunni, counting for between 805 to 90%) is hugely different from Shia, although the Shia people are allowed into Sunni countries freely and without incident (roughly 100,000 enter Saudi Arabia annually to perform the Hajj to Mecca, without incident).
In Iran, Shia are a majority, the only country in which this is the case. They are going after the traditional Muslims, who are contending that the brutality of the regime is not consistent with Sharia law, which has very clear principles. Ironically, the Western media is pointing to the Iranian regime and blaming its adherence to Sharia as the cause for the unrest there.
Sharia law is not counter to human rights, Sharia law resulted in a 1,400 year long reign over the middle east which was described by Jewish historian Bernard Lewis as the only time man has achieved true social harmony. It's a pity that the Western media has absolutely no idea what Sharia is, but bashes it based on a few clips from some village of some woman being whipped, regardless of the fact that Sharia had no part in such instances and does not condone violence against anyone, man, woman, Muslim or otherwise. Sharia law worked for 1,400 years in the middle east, and only fell when World War 1, a European war, spilled over into the region.
Sharia law causing global instability indeed.
I hate printers.
Hey Anonymous Coward - if you're going to write something, at least don't cut and paste from your previous post (...your post from Iranian Crackdowns yesterday):
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.
After the Kremlin exited Eastern Europe, 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.
In Iran (and many other failed states), no external force is imposing the current brutal government on the Iranians. 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.
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.
Let us not merely condemn the Iranian government. We must condemn Iranian culture. Its product is the authoritarian state.
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. Right now, the overwhelming majority clearly oppose the creation of a liberal Western democracy. The Iranians love a brutal Islamic theocracy.
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.
Note that, 40 years ago, Vietnam suffered a worse fate (than the Iranians) at the hands of the Americans. They doused large areas of Vietnam with agent orange, poisoning both the land and the people. Yet, the Vietnamese do not channel their energies into seeking revenge (by, e. g., building a nuclear bomb) against the West. Rather, the Vietnamese are diligently modernizing their society. They will reach 1st-world status long before the Iranians.
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.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
I remember my university did the same, l'Universite Laval in Quebec when we organized some protests. For instance a monopoly they wanted to grant to, and did, to Sodeco for all the restaurants on the campus. ...
But it is quite conservative. Maybe conservatives in Iran don't do better than conservatives in Canada... Could it be ?
Oh, let me remember, wasn'it Bush administration that prevented GIs to watch some medias during Golf War II ?
Finally, may be we got a censorship problem with conservative governments everywhere, from China to USA, via Iran, Tunisia, Marocco, Canada.
That waht we should fight against, and not think that censorship is the exclusivity of a government (foreign), a regime (communists !), a people (russians, no, arabs), a culture (african, arabic), and a religion (Islam !).
These are precious stereotypes to prevent us from defending our liberties (not freedom) and criticizing our own governments and their policies.
So yes, we should protest, and not only against Iran, but where ever freedom of speech is threatened.
he was an exile, an expatriot. he gathered financial support and philosophical encouragement from ideas outside china. he spent a lot of time in hawaii, finding inspiration in things like lincoln's gettysburg address. then he went home to china, and helped overthrow the backwards qing dynasty. he is revered by both the mainland communists and the nationalists on taiwan as the father of modern china
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yat-sen
my point?
national borders are artificial constructs, and the seeds of revolution often come from outside a country, not from within it. ideology is ideology ideology: if it works in one country, it can work in another. its not like you go over the border of china or iran and suddenly you are in a magical land where human nature is fundamentally different. no: human beings are human beings. an idea that inspires someone in rio de janiero can just as easily inspire someone in hamburg. you give far too much power to something as flimsy as a tribal, arbitrary dividing line
my point is: there is very much we can do to help an angry and energized rich iranian expat community to give birth to the iranian sun yat-sen
its not just people outside the country whining and complaining. that's not all they are doing, you can be sure of that. and the iranian government knows this: they jail relatives of iranian expats they perceive as being active in fighting the illegitimate iranian military dictatorship (the ayatollah is only a pawn now):
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/12/05/2044243
the iranian government certainly recognizes what you do not: its not the cia, or mi-6 that is there most potent foreign enemy. it is the iranian diaspora: raising funds, keeping alive hope, influencing opinion at home
the iranian regime has heard of sun yat-sen, and they are on guard against the iranian one
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
While I'm not wholly unsympathetic to your(at this point heavily copypasta) position, I think it lacks a certain something.
So called "force multipliers" and, more broadly, the fact that the "absence of an external interfering force" is rather like the "rational self-interested agent". At best, it is a useful approximation of the truth, at worst, it does the truth considerable violence whenever it is employed.
In this case, for instance, a subset of Iran has its hands on the levers that control internet and cellular network behavior and access. This media control gives them outsize influence over the society's discourse. Much of that stuff isn't indigenous hardware. Selling switches isn't nearly as dramatic as being an occupying army; but it is not wholly different in effect.
To the degree that the present regime finds an international marketplace ready and willing to take the financial fruits of their domestic control and turn those into a variety of useful force-multiplying hardware, the present regime is supported by the international marketplace.
Does this rural majority actually exist (a quick web search says Iran is 60% urban and rising fast), or is it the same kind of thing as Palin's "real Americans"?
In other words, is "rural Iran is the majority and supports the government" a propaganda thing being endlessly repeated by the Iranian government to try to convince dissenters that they're in the minority and resistance is hopeless? Given the way they rigged the last election, how do we know they didn't BOTH reduce opposition votes in the cities AND inflate government support in the rural areas? AFAIK, every failing government's PR mouthpieces claim majority support, right up about until the fall.
but don't take my word for it: allow an actual iranian to complain about ill-informed american armchair analysts who spout stupidity based on crap assumptions like yourself:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/opinion/19shane.html
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
They aren't fighting Islam, which is the root source of all their problems
Do you *really* believe that? Just how much do you really know about Islam anyway?
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Oh, I have such a difficult time telling the difference between those two.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
please explain these miraculous invisible mechanisms
see in china, or iran, there are actual laws about everything being approved and monitored, there are actual large and well-staffed/ well-funded offices for doing exactly that, and severe punishments are doled out if the government doesn't like what it sees online or in print, and the strict party line has been brutally enforced on hundreds of occasions in the last couple of years
so please tell us how this is EXACTLY how it works in the usa. see as a simple sheeple horribly under the foot of american propaganda, i cry out for your "insightful" enlightenment on this matter
k thx
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Not the Ayatollah
Not the Guardian Council.
Not Ahmadinejad
The Jews leasing the pipe to Iran decided that the surge of traffic last time could have brought them a few more little pennies and in anticipation to this current surge sent extortion letters to Iranian ISPs demanding lots more money. Like Jews do, always with the money. Iranians do not want to know that cockroach Jews control the Internet as well as all banks and businesses so the ISPs just told the Jews to fuckoff and the story was never released by the media. At least you can depend on Iranians not to be Jew puppets unlike fat American pigs.
NUKE ISRAEL AND LET THERE FINALLY BE A HOLOCAUST FOR REAL!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-45_Liberator Time to fire up the production line, and carpet bomb Iran with the things....then stand well back.
"It is morally wrong to initiate the aggressive use of force.." Of course, defensive force is fair game...
And those of us with memories don't need a reminder.
Remember when we sent weapons to Iraq and trained their army to fight Iran? I mean, remember when we allowed them to gas the Kurds and Saddam Hussein was a secular Islamic leader stemming the tide against the Iranian Revolution and their Russian backers?
Wait, I forgot. Iraq is Evil and Saddam Hussein is Evil. They let Kuwaiti babies die in the floor in the hospital! Well, that turned out to by a lie by a diplomat's daughter. But anyway, we never did anything like that to Iraqi babies, I mean, besides starve them with an embargo for 10 years.
Remember when we invaded Iraq because they helped al Qaeda with plotting 9/11? I mean, remember when we invaded Iraq because they had WMD? I mean, remember when we invaded Iraq to liberate it's people?
Wait, what's the story again?
Bah,
Last death throws of a failing regime. I feel horrible for the Iranian people right now, but thank god they don't seem to be taking this lying down.
It's like the 1960's over there, a huge boom of 'youth' and a repressive establishment to fight. Here's hoping the result of this revolution is a bit more friendly then the last, but more importantly that it treats it's people better.
Bleh. South Korea tried protests in the 1980 for democratization, and the military ended up killing several hundred demonstrators while troops were brutally restablishing control over Kwangju. South Korea has only had democracy since the 1987--and that's only if you believe Noh Tae-Woo, the previous dictator's buddy, was elected in a fair election. Otherwise, ROK has only had democracy since the mid-90s... and that covers the entire period from the end of World War II to present. :(
The Iranian government has already tried movie marathons. Perhaps people were tired of LOTR and they could try playing "V For Vendetta" ;)
That's a much older copy & paste troll...
(who also shows blatant lack of any idea about the processes that led to dissolution of regimes in Central Europe 20 years ago, in his second line; ot outright lies, no difference; later it gets only worse)
One that hath name thou can not otter
*nod* Generally speaking, the instances of Sharia law that get the Western world into a tizzy are either ones that have been blended with local or tribal customs OR have been applied by fundamentalist Muslims, and therefore give as true a representation of Sharia law as the WBC gives of Christian principles. (Here's a hint... that means "not at all".)
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I wonder if it is Iran slowing the Internet... ...Or maybe the U.S. or Israel or some other country with an agenda of war against them?
IMHO, it would be a mistake to equate what is happening right now in Iran right now with the 1960s of the west; the culture of the middle east in general and Iran in particular is very different. As others have said, the ayatollahs are quite popular with the poorly educated and rural majority of the Iranian population who are religious, suspicious of the west, and to whom information is very carefully metered and controlled by the state. Combine this with the repressive and violent nature of the Iranian regime and perhaps you will begin to see that nothing much is likely to change in Iran any time soon. In fact, it is my own belief that things will become much worse. An armed showdown between Iran and the west is practically inevitable now. The real turning point will come when Iran effectively withdraws from nuclear non-proliferation (I say effectively because once it becomes patently obvious to everyone that inspections are useless, it will be the same as if they formally withdrew from the treaty). Once that happens, it will only be a matter of time before Israel, and perhaps the United States, are forced to strike before Iran completes "the bomb".
Comment: A large percentage of the people support the government
Answer: Yes, 15%-18%. In every single poll on the internet I have seen almost the same number. And no, they (people) won't kill each other for it. People in Iran do not have gun and it is illegal to have it. Besides Iranian society is considered an educated community (3.5 million are in universities from which 60% are women).
Comment: The Iranians created this horrible society. It is none of our business unless they attempt to develop nuclear weapons.
Answer: No they didn't. US did a coup in Iran 40-50 years ago and overthrow their national democratic government and returned the dictator "Shah" to power. people were forced to act more aggressive to put the Shah away. An aggressive act of revolution caused more aggressive opinions.
Then a war was exposed to Iran by Iraq (Sadam) which killed almost 1million Iranians. The war was supported by most Arab countries + Europeans + USA. Arabs paid Iraq by oil and cash (around 200 billion) and Europeans and US gave them weapons etc (including chemicals for illegal chemical warfare). 50,000 Iranians are effected by chemicals provided by Europeans to Sadam.
The same Sadam used those weapons against same Arab countries a few years later.
About your comment on Nukes I should say, USA is the only country which has both built and used nukes. US has started around 50 wars in recent history. Iran has never started any war in last150 years or more.
You want to condemn the 7000 years old culture of Iran which has the oldest history of Human rights and has been one of the cultural roots of the human being and then support your own culture and people which have started almost 50 wars (in which more than 10 million are killed) ??? have you looked at the mirror recently???
Maybe it's not a smart move after all to cut internet. Free WoW would have done a better job.
It's also a rather inaccurate troll, since the protests and government reaction show that the Iranian government doesn't have such strong support, or at least fears that it doesn't.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Has anyone considered how cooperatively amazing the Iranians are? They are a large community working together for what they want. As an american, I am disappointed in how pathetic and lazy we are in fighting for our rights even if we are better off than Iranians in Iran.
This time around, the revolution WILL be televised (but apparently, just not in web-streamed 1080p).
I am just wondering if these oppressive regimes wouldn't have such a hard time subjugating their populace if the West wasn't supplying them with the means to exert their power.
Is the Iranian government technically able to censor/throttle the Interwebs? No. Most likely some US or European publicly owned company is supplying the technical capability to do this.
Does anybody know who this is as I for one would like to know and boycott their products.
but how is that equivalent to the kind of control china and iran exerts, which is what i was responding to as an assertion by the grandfather poster
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Thank you for this intriguing and informative post. Sadly my first thought is that you are most likely not an American... More and more of the people who live in the 'real' world are starting to see the Americans as the most brain-washed fundamentalists in the world. It's so ironic that everything America accuses 'the enemy' of doing is something they do best themselves.
What goes for people on a personal level also counts for a country as a whole. Change starts by looking at yourself and trying to better yourself, not by yelling at others that they are wrong and need to change. Especially when you accuse the others of things you do best yourself it makes you look like a puppet and hypocrite. I wish more Americans would put as much effort into changing their own as they are wasting in trying to change the rest of the world... it would be a better world for it.
People who try to think for themselves can fight in this 'war' of disinformation by doing exactly what the parent poster does: counter the disinformation with factual information. To the parent poster, and anyone else who is about 'the truth and nothing else but the truth': Thank you for doing this (at the risk of being labeled with 'teh terrorists' by the aforementioned puppets) and trying to make people think for themselves.
you describe
i however would like to know how that is equivalent to the brutal tactics china and iran use to control information in their countries, which is what the grandfather poster asserted
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
with the scenario you describe
what i take issue with is equivocating manufacturing consent with the brutal tactics used in china and iran to maintain control over their media, which is what the granfather poster was asserting
surely you do not assert that the process is you describe is the same as the tactics used in iran and china?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
People judge Islam by current practice, not ancient times.
Ancient times, it bears repeating, are over, past, kaput, done, no longer applicable.
There are zero Muslim countries where one has the freedoms we expect in the secular West. Not even Turkey, praise be to Kemal Ataturk for trying, qualifies.
I've seen the best Islam can do with an unlimited budget while deployed there (before GWoT) on a friendly basis. KSA, Turkey (limited budget but more Euro influence) Kuwait, and Abu Dhabi are all places no freedom-loving person would go unless deployed or making fat contractor money. The locals are friendly (bring social skills and a smile), but Islam sucks. Imagine the US taken over by Evangelical Christians of the Fred Phelps variety. If you are like them they like you. If not...
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Sharia law is precisely what allows for the absence of rights and the brutality that is Islam. Non-believers have are not equal to believers, women are not equal to men. Wherever Islam comes up against the outside world, there is almost always trouble: Sudan, Lebanon, Nigeria, Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Somalia, Yeman, Iran.
Try setting up a church in Saudi Arabia and see how long you last, especially if you are Saudi Arabian. All Muslims who convert to something else have an immediate death sentence where any Muslim can kill them and claim victory for Allah. A woman raped must have 4 male witnesses that have observed the penetration before she can receive justice. Stealing requires a hand, adulters are stoned. These are result of Sharia law.
Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
The Iranians are responsible for their current regime, trying to blame that on the U.S. is great rhetoric but wrong. Islam has always groped for power. The tyrants who now run Iran have finally gotten their chance to show Islam's true colors. Read about what they did to the Ba'Hai after the revolution.
Current Iran does start wars, the last Israeli-Lebanon war started because their dogs in Lebanon decided to listen to their Iranian masters.
Bringing up the the fact the U.S. used nukes is entirely out of context. The result of not using them would have been many more thousands of American and Japanese deaths. The U.S. has never used them since nor has threatened to use them. On the other hand, the current Iranian regime has threatened that if they get them, they will nuke Israel.
Whitewashing the Iranian regime is nice academic play, but that is all it is.
It won't be long; the religious despots pretty much all have colostomy bags by now, the youth have almost completely rejected their vision of how political Islam should look, and the middle aged religious moderates can see which way the wind is blowing and are making more and more reformist noises.
A society maintains continuity by the old passing on enough of their values to the young before they die. This process has clearly failed in Iran. The post-election protests showed conclusively to everyone in and outside Iran that the government only governs by force, not by even tacit consent. Theres more dark times ahead, but ultimately all the Iranian reformers need for victory now is patience.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Bravo !
Another thing to note is that the US services used heavily twitter and other net based social services to push and steer the post election manifestations.
You can find some informative papers now on how all the security services of all the countries have turned their eye and resources on how to leverage the web2 social features.
The Iranians are responsible for their current regime, trying to blame that on the U.S. is great rhetoric but wrong. Islam has always groped for power.
Trying to blame a whole religion is rhetoric. If you want to use this wrong method you should also remember that believers to Christianism have killed more than believers to any other religion. Do you remember world war I&II and Vietnam's wars and many others? However this type of reasoning is totally flawed.
The tyrants who now run Iran have finally gotten their chance to show Islam's true colors. Read about what they did to the Ba'Hai after the revolution.
1- Ba'Hais in Iran are less than a few thousand. 2- More believers of Islam (several hundreds times) have been hurt by Iranian regime than Ba'hais. How this discussion relates to Iranian people?
Current Iran does start wars, the last Israeli-Lebanon war started because their dogs in Lebanon decided to listen to their Iranian masters.
This is another subject. But I guess last war in Lebanon was between Israel and a big group of Lebanese people who defend their country against Israel (which you call dogs). Their country was bombed heavily and the whole infrastructure was harmed. How it makes them Iran's dogs? if you reason this way then you are going to make 80% of the world , dogs of the others. Nations don't fight for other nations. They fight for themselves. Again this has nothing to do with Iranian people.
Bringing up the the fact the U.S. used nukes is entirely out of context. The result of not using them would have been many more thousands of American and Japanese deaths.... On the other hand, the current Iranian regime has threatened that if they get them, they will nuke Israel.
This does not change the fact that no one other than US has used nukes. Show me where and who (in Iran) has threatened to use Nukes on Israel. You build facts?
Whitewashing the Iranian regime is nice academic play, but that is all it is.
No one does. I don't. I differentiate between Iranian regime and Iranian people. As I do between US (Bush government for example) and its people.
Then who shot Neda Soltan? The problem with illegal guns is that only honest people obey the law.
It seems pretty naive to blame everything on the CIA. If the Iranian society were so extremely susceptible to foreign manipulation that they cannot get rid of the consequences of a coup that happened almost sixty years ago the situation would be entirely hopeless for Iran. It's time for Iranians to stand up and accept the responsibility for their own acts.
Besides, Mossadegh didn't have the support of the conservative clergy either, so if the CIA hadn't done it there would still be the possibility that the clerics would overthrow his government. It's easy to play "what if" with past events.
Looking from the outside, the current situation seems largely unchanged: Iran seems to be governed by a dictatorship that is supported by a small but significant part of the population, this hasn't changed since 1953. The only difference between the Shah and the current regime is that the Shah wasn't intent on destroying Israel.
Not true, at the time of the Iran-Iraq war, Iran had American weapons, Iraq had Soviet weapons.
"Non-believers have are not equal to believers, women are not equal to men."
On the first part, under shariah law, allbelievers are citizens of the state, by default, just like Israel gives citizenship by default to all Jewish people. Under Shariah law, non-Muslims pay a tax, which is actually precisely equal to the required zakat paid by Muslims.
Aside from that, non-Muslims are afforded the same rights as Muslims in the state.
There are churches in Saudi Arabia, I was there not a year ago and visited a few.
Raping does not require 4 witnesses, adultery does, and it's 3, not 4, before any punishment of either party can occur. Criminal and civil justice is very similar under Sharia law as to the western system; rape, as with all crimes, has to be proven beyond reasonable doubt in a court. Not, perhaps, under the idiotic concoction that autocratic governments of the middle east have invented to entrench themselves in power.
As for stealing requiring a hand and adulterers being stoned, you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. Up until the end of Sharia law (which ended in WW1), over the 1,400 years there were a handful of cases in which the crime was deemed severe enough to warrant those punishments. That's right, it happened somewhere in the neighbourhood of once every two hundred years. Now you may jump up and down on your high horse, but I suggest you take a look at the justice system the West has managed to produce, and see if you'd consider the past 200 years to be flawless expanse of justice and fairness.
I left this bit for last:
"Wherever Islam comes up against the outside world, there is almost always trouble: Sudan, Lebanon, Nigeria, Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Somalia, Yeman, Iran."
Which of those countries currently has an army occupying another? None. Now, which of those countries has been heavily interfered with by Western powers? Almost all.
I'm sorry, try again, who is the trouble maker?
Ancient times are the only place you'll find examples of Sharia law. Criticising modern Muslim nations is not a critique of Sharia law, rather, it's a critique of tinpot dictators who Muslims do not want or support, and who we wish the US would stop funding so that we could deal with them ourselves. As it is, we can't overthrow idiots like the Saudi royals because they get enormous military support from the US in return for cheap oil. You want freedom in the middle east? Easy. Leave, and we'll sort it out. You, personally, were deployed to KSA on a "friendly basis". You, personally, helped prop up that morally bankrupt regime. You, personally, have no right to then criticize Muslims for having morally bankrupt leaders because you, personally are part of the problem.
You lost your ability to talk about freedom the minute your government started with the PATRIOT act and the rest of that silliness. The US is no freer than China or those other countries you like knocking on, your government just has better PR spinners. What with NSA having the capability that it does, and the CIA spying on everyone these days regardless of its international only mandate, you're probably more watched than Iranians.
I hate printers.
Then who shot Neda Soltan? The problem with illegal guns is that only honest people obey the law.
By Basij militia which is in fact a government organization. So the gun belongs to government.
It's time for Iranians to stand up and accept the responsibility for their own acts.
They did in the previous revolution. That's just the clerics hijacked it.
Not true, at the time of the Iran-Iraq war, Iran had American weapons, Iraq had Soviet weapons.
Mirage F1 and 2000s and other weapons, Bombs and Chemicals, Satellite intelligence of Iranian movements, political support, embargo on Iran and finally direct involvement of US army in the support of Iraqi army at the end of Iran Iraq war (in Umul-qasr and the other Isalnd) were examples of direct support of US and west.
Sharia law is not counter to human rights, Sharia law resulted in a 1,400 year long reign over the middle east which was described by Jewish historian Bernard Lewis as the only time man has achieved true social harmony.
Eh, I don't buy it. I see as necessary preconditions hat Sharia law treats men and women equally, believers and non-believers equally, allows for ursury and features of modern human economics, and no longer attempts to enforce an obsolete moral code. Further, I don't know what Mr. Lewis means by "social harmony", but my take is he is very wrong here. A society with more than a very small number of human beings won't ever be in social harmony. And frankly, I don't see that as a net problem. A more dynamic society which has parts of itself permanently in contention fares better in my view. For example, countries like the US or Europe allow one to have the choice of whether to live in harmony or not. You can chose to live a life of struggle and conflict or you can live in harmony. A society should not make those choices for them.
The US is no freer than China or those other countries you like knocking on, your government just has better PR spinners.
I'm pretty sure this is the dumbest thing I'll read this year. And next.
>>US did a coup in Iran 40-50 years ago and overthrow their national democratic government and returned the dictator "Shah" to power.
From Wikipedia: "Reza Shah established an authoritarian government that valued nationalism, militarism, secularism and anti-communism combined with strict censorship and state propaganda."
>>people were forced to act more aggressive to put the Shah away
Total BS. Carter, the worst president in US history, withdrew support of the Shaw, allowing your evil Ayatollah Khomeini to establish a dictatorship. Idiots like yourself don't understand the concept of 'lesser of 2 evils'. The Shah was FAR less of an evil than Ayatollah Khomeini and the current Mullah-cracy.
Sounds like a wonderful "national democratic government", especially since Iran wanted to wipe Israel off the map
The US-installed Shah was the best thing that happened to your country. He modernized your country and was relatively peaceful.
"Iran which has the oldest history of Human rights" - don't make me laugh, Iran has lousy human rights.
Suggest quoting, your parent was moderated -1 and AC (dunno why, it was a decent post) so your responses made even less sense.
Answer: Yes, 15%-18%. In every single poll on the internet I have seen almost the same number.
Wonderfully accurate source.
People in Iran do not have gun and it is illegal to have it.
It's probably also illegal to commit murder, so I don't think that illegally possessing a firearm is really the key law in play here. If you think you need a gun to kill someone you're not even really trying to examine the problem.
Besides Iranian society is considered an educated community (3.5 million are in universities from which 60% are women).
What does the education level have to do with the opposition to the government? I have seen people who never completed primary school oppose the government as vehemently as anarchists with doctorates and people who have never completed primary school wave a flag just as well as doctoral grads working for the establishment.
Ever actually *been* to China? Do you know that the average Chinese person actually thinks of the US what you think of them?
The American perspective is not universal. Shocking, but true.
To add to the lack of use of nuclear weapons in Iran. There is no documented evidence of weapons grade nuclear devices in development in Iran. Everything thus far was to attempt to build nuclear power plants. Israel has even bombed, via air strike, Iranian nuclear power plant construction projects. But no one here (stateside) is allowed to speak ill of Israel.
Balderdash!
Wonderfully accurate source.
I have seen at least 30-40 polls with more than 10,000 answers. Besides last time people voted and votes were counted correctly almost 85% voted to Khatami.
What does the education level have to do with the opposition to the government? I have seen people who never completed primary school oppose the government as vehemently as anarchists with doctorates and people who have never completed primary school wave a flag just as well as doctoral grads working for the establishment.
I was answering to the person who said Iranian people will kill each other to support or fight the government. I was saying they are not the typical lower educated barbarian who kill each other for nothing. You need to differentiate militia and government related (i.e. IRGC) from people. They know if the regime changes they will be prosecuted and punished. They might do anything to protect the regime.
The national democratic government of Mosadiq was brought down by US using a Coup and Shah was returned to the country and then to power. You need to know history before you start to troll.
"Answer: No they didn't. US did a coup in Iran 40-50 years ago and overthrow their national democratic government and returned the dictator "Shah" to power. people were forced to act more aggressive to put the Shah away. An aggressive act of revolution caused more aggressive opinions."
Wrong. There were maybe a handful of Americans within Iran during the revolution. The Iranians did all that to each other.
"Then a war was exposed to Iran by Iraq (Saddam) which killed almost 1million Iranians. The war was supported by most Arab countries + Europeans + USA. Arabs paid Iraq by oil and cash (around 200 billion) and Europeans and US gave them weapons etc (including chemicals for illegal chemical warfare). 50,000 Iranians are effected by chemicals provided by Europeans to Saddam."
Did you opposed the overthrow of Saddam? Which presidents did all this? Did you know that the US changes presidents from time to time?
"The same Saddam used those weapons against same Arab countries a few years later."
Well, he won't be gassing any Kurds or Iranians for a while.
"About your comment on Nukes I should say, USA is the only country which has both built and used nukes."
So? It's naive to assume that the USSR wouldn't have used them if they had won that race. Our use of them did two important things: ended WW2 (which Japan, Germany and Italy started, no the US) without a land invasion of Japan AND showed the world the horror of nuclear weapons. Which in turn prevented their further USE. Imagine the cold war without that knowledge.
"US has started around 50 wars in recent history. Iran has never started any war in last150 years or more."
Wrong. The US hasn't started ANY wars in living memory. Not one. We've joined two after being attacked. But we didn't start either of those and we tried to stay out of them. Since then we learned that isolationism and cruel indifference don't work.
"You want to condemn the 7000 years old culture of Iran"
The culture that exists there is not based on the culture that existed before. Once Islam took root there it became another culture. If Islam took root in the US in the way it did in Iran, it would be a radically different culture.
Furthermore the sins and virtues of the ancestor are not the descendant's to bear. i don't care if 1000 years ago some Iranian did $somethingMiraculous or $somethingAwful. All parties involved are dead. i could no more credit an Iranian born 20 years ago with the Cyrus Cylinder than i could a German born 20 years ago for Mein Kampf. It doesn't matter in the slightest.
The person you replied to wasn't condemning 7000 years of culture. Just the culture since 1935 or so.
Don't worry, i'll tell the girl at the campus bookstore how multiculti you are. She'll be impressed.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Thanks for taking your time to post a follow up. You addressed my concerns.
Is see your point about education. A well educated populace stands a better chance of winning without bloodshed and is smart enough to understand that the current regime has few options except to go down fighting.
Wrong. There were maybe a handful of Americans within Iran during the revolution. The Iranians did all that to each other.
Did what to each other during the revolution? Khomeini was not known by 95% of the people in Iran 2 years before revolution until he went to France and western media started to cover him and bring his voice to Iranian. When the airports during the revolution were closed it was France government which allowed Khomeini to embark the airplane and forced Shah's regime to allow it to land in Tehran airport. In my opinion, shah was replaced by Khomeini because it was believed islam can counter communism better than Shah. The same strategy was used in Afghanistan. Taliban was trained by the US to counter communists in Afghanistan.
Did you opposed the overthrow of Saddam? Which presidents did all this? Did you know that the US changes presidents from time to time?
No I didn't. I know the president changes but I also know it does not remove the wrong doings of previous presidents.
Wrong. The US hasn't started ANY wars in living memory. Not one. We've joined two after being attacked. But we didn't start either of those and we tried to stay out of them. Since then we learned that isolationism and cruel indifference don't work.
World believes you!
Don't worry, i'll tell the girl at the campus bookstore how multiculti you are. She'll be impressed.
Girls in the Campus already know. Both those in my lectures and outside. You do not need to bother yourself. And you are not as funny as you think.
Err.. young people from internet predators.
I am an American, and like close to half of my brethren, I am educated enough to know that Iran's democratically elected President was overthrown in a coup instigated primarily by the British and with heavy American involvement. I love how you lump all Americans into the category of "most brainwashed people in the world." The fact of the matter is that during the Cold War both America and the Soviet Union used the developing world as a battleground for their proxy wars. Some were more direct (Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan) and others much less so (Central America, Middle East, half the countries in Africa). America overthrew left leaning democracies that they saw as potentially becoming Soviet aligned and in their place put right wing dictatorships. The Soviet Union installed and supported numerous left leaning, but still authoritarian dictatorships. Now that the dust of the long Cold War has cleared, America is seen as the victor and also being responsible for all the damage that was done in the process. This is not to justify what happened. In all these cases, like Guatemala and Iran, it was horrible what happened, and had the American people known what was being done covertly in their name they would have been horrified. So here's the big difference: I can sit here and criticize my government and what they have done and speak out against it. I can run for office without being removed from the ballot by the Council of Guardians and the Supreme Leader. I can vote in an election if I don't like how my President has run up double digit inflation and made ridiculous denials of the Holocaust(despite the fact that most Iranians know it happened) and actually have my vote counted. Iran is no longer a democracy, or even a semblance of one. If people in the developing world would stop making America the hegemonic boogeyman they make it out to be, and instead understand that it is a highly polarized country with a large contingent of people who believe in the international community, they might make some progress. Instead they just blame America for all of the world's problems, ignoring the fact that if the Soviet Union had conquered the world, they would live in states resembling East Germany of the 1980's.
Iran has many young, bright, well-educated people who resent the government's interference in their lives. Now they have been given a strong incentive to find ways to route around this government censorship. I can only hope that they will share the methods they devise with the rest of the world; we all need help routing around censorship. (Yes, the same argument applies to the great firewall of China.) What we really have here is an arms race, and I expect the greatest strides in promoting freedom to come from the citizens of the most oppressive regimes, since they have the greatest incentive to do so.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Well, sura 5:38 I believe it is, says that a thief's hand should be "cut". Understandably, this has been almost universally interpreted as "cut off", when I suppose "marked", "scarred", or "tattooed" may be the actual intent.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I'm from the Netherlands, and here we are still thankful for the US (and rest of the allies) for saving our asses in WO2, we celebrate our freedom every year and thank the veterans who fought for it. But the fact that we are (and should be) thankful does not mean the US has carte blanch, and despite the argument you present that Iran is a crappy country to live in (which is obviously true), does in no mean justify the way the US acts in about every aspect of world politics...
If you feel insulted by the way people look at the US (and Americans) look 'inside' instead of pointing 'outside' and basically making an argument that boils down to 'we perform incredible acts of evil, but the enemy is even more evil!'.
P.S. Since you bring up 'democracy': the US is hardy worth calling a democracy...
In the Netherlands we have 10+ political parties (including some very right-wing nuts) but your vote always is a choice that actually has influence on the politics and no single party is large enough that it can decide the entire political policy.
The US has two parties with a 50-50 split. It's basically a coin toss which party's turn it is to undo a lot of work of the previous administration, although some even doubt that even chance has any real influence...
Oh I just LOVE made up stats on the Internet. I couldn't possibly spare enough time to explain the level of stupidity of your pro-Iranian rant.
I bet you give the current America credit for the American Indian culture that was here before us.
Please do everyone a favor and quit posting on the Internet. It gets a little stupider every time you leave comments like this.
Remember kids: /. is just like Digg. If you disagree with someone mod them as a troll to bury their comment. It's not censorship when YOU do it!
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Bullshit... these people are subjugated mainly because foreign governments view their slave labor as more valuable than their freedoms. The treaty establishing a communist, completely un-free state (China) as "Most Favored Nation" by the "bastion of freedom" (USA) was the wrong move. Instead we should have included fair trade protections in our treaties to encourage these nations to stop their slave labor practices, because it undermines the standard of living across the globe when we simply say "free trade" (ie, race to the bottom for wages and standard of living).
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
"The US is no freer than China or those other countries you like knocking on, your government just has better PR spinners."
The US has problems, but isn't nearly as oppressive as the countries I mention. Try committing public blasphemy in all of them, then get back to us.
I suggest the Piss Test, where you duplicate the Serrano work "Piss Christ" with a Quran. Serrano, unlike Salman Rushdie, isn't living under a fatwah. I don't care for Christianity either, but most of the Christians have been housebroken.
As for being watched more than the Iranians, perhaps electronically but not otherwise. The manning and resources don't exist and never have, not even for the misbegotten War on Some Drugs. We certainly aren't interfered with as much, and vilifying our elected officials is a national sport. :)
As for KSA, we support them, but we didn't CREATE them or their ideology. Their turf, their tribe, their rules. In the real world on cuts deals with some barbarians in hope of using them against others. One cannot change them, because they vociferously object and become violent.
"it's a critique of tinpot dictators who Muslims do not want or support"
The Iranians sure as shit "supported" their form of government and institutionalized a theocracy. Muslims are the ones enforcing the rule of these governments. Of course, the "helpless Muslim" model where everything is blamed on someone else is understandably popular. "Muslims" are whoever claims to be one, you don't get to choose your co-religionists or conveniently disavow the embarrassing ones (barring whatever the equivalent of excommunication).
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
They may not have existed before, but they do now thanks to the misbegotten War on Terror. More is now spent on war, law enforcement and security than is spent on health care and education.
Actually, yes you did. Read "House of Bush, House of Saud." And even you didn't, supporting them and then complaining about their idiocy is, well, idiocy. If you want to play divide and conquer by supporting one against the other, then I don't know where you get off complaining about middle easterners crashing planes into your buildings because they're fed up with your meddling in their affairs. You poke a hornets nest with a stick then take it like a man when you get stung.
No, the current Iranian government is the result of an American engineered coup against a democratically elected and extremely popular leader. That regime was overthrown in 1979 in another coup. The fact is that democracy and freedom in Iran was destroyed by the CIA.
Really? So not abiding by any of the beliefs, even core ones, not adhering to the laws and generally acting like someone totally different means that you get to taint everyone in the group by just saying you're one of them?
Sorry, to be a part of a religion, or any other social grouping, you have to actually have some kind of real relationship to them. It's not valid from an intellectual point of view, nor even fair, to paint 1.2 billion people in the world with a brush that some crackhead uses to paint himself.
Otherwise I can call myself Christian and start eating babies in the name of religion. Would that mean what I did could be linked to Christianity?
It's a Biblical reference, one of the Jesus parables.
I didn't initially mention that in order to avoid the religious angle. (FWIW, I intended it as more of a general literature reference than a religious reference)
Matthew 7 (NIV)
[3] "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?]
[4] How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?
[5] You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
So Iraq shot first?
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.