BS: Election in Iran

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: GUEST,Beardedbruce
Date: 12 Jun 09 - 10:38 PM

So, if the claim is made that it is the zionists rather than the Jews, there is no reason for Iran to kill its Jews- according to what the poster has stated.

CarlC: "If all Iran cared about was killing Jews, they would have killed all of the Jews in their own country first. "

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Jun 09 - 11:08 PM

Nope. That doesn't work either, because I never said Iran wants to kill Zionists. In fact I have said that Iran doesn't want to kill Zionists.

What was said by Ahmadinejad is that the Zionist regime in Israel will go the way of the Soviet government and the apartheid government in South Africa. Since we all know that both of those governments dissolved of their own accord, without their members being killed by any outside governments, what this means is that Iran has no interest in killing Jews, Zionist or otherwise, and that they are simply awaiting the day when the Zionist controlled government of Israel collapses under its own weight.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 01:48 AM

Looks like it's going to be Ahmadinijad (my favorite abuse of his name, I don't remember who posted it a long time ago - 'I'm in a dinner jacket') again. Ah well. On the bright side, even the person who posted right before my last post has admitted that whether or not he wins is largely irrelevant, since he's not the one who makes the big decisions in Iran.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 08:53 AM

It's kind of like America that way. You elect a president and the media makes the decisions.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Ron Davies
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 09:52 AM

"....the media make the decision".   Now the author of this bon mot wouldn't be possibly implying that President Obama was not elected in a fair election, would he?   Not that the poster is bitter about the outcome of the US election, not him.   Perish the thought.

And the poster with his "$ystem" can return to his delightfully entertaining--yet slightly inaccurate, to say the least--pontifications on politics and economics.


And as for Mr. Ahmadinejad, this is definitely a contested election, and the state-run agency has released obviously false results, knowing that if Mr. A did not get over 50% there would have to be a runoff.

The youth and other supporters of Mr. Mousavi will not forget this, even if a runoff is not held--and that will restrict Mr. A's freedom of policy for the foreseeable future--if there is not in fact actual continuing unrest in Iran.    The thing for the West to do is keep out of this election--and not give Mr. A any chance to say the West was behind Mr. Mousavi with anything but moral encouragement.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 03:19 PM

Hmmm. Not the result I'd have hoped for. Yes, Ebbie, there are definitely some risks involved in the Iran election aftermath.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 03:21 PM

No shit!

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: mg
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 05:27 PM

Well stuff is definitely happening. This is pivotal and maybe A. won legitimately, maybe he won legitimately and they skewed the results anyway, and maybe, just maybe, there is something fishy.

I am sure now the cruel laws have been passed against the wearing o the green..they can't. I can. Please to join me. I might get some green nail polish like the young woman in one of Andrew Sullivan's blogs..

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 05:28 PM

The "government" raid on an opposition newspaper office just after the election announces a landslide for the religious nuts has the smell of something going a bit Pete Tong...

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Azizi
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 08:11 PM

There are a number of diaries about the Iranian election on dailykos.com. Here are links to some of them:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/13/742141/-Tehran-Street-Photos Tehran Street Photos
by Al Rodgers; Sat Jun 13, 2009 at 03:32:30 PM PDT

**
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/13/742004/-Updated-V:-Rioting-Grows-Ayatollas-Call-for-New-Elections,-Telephone-Cut-Off

Updated V: Rioting Grows Ayatollas Call for New Elections, Telephone Cut Off Teheran, Mousavi Arrest
by Clifflyon; Sat Jun 13, 2009 at 08:26:21 AM PDT

**
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/13/739200/-Getting-your-facts-straight-Trita-Parsi:-Ahmadinejads-Math-doesnt-add-up

Getting your facts straight/Trita Parsi: Ahmadinejad's Math "doesn't add up"
by Nulwee; Sat Jun 13, 2009 at 12:26:41 PM PDT

**
Here is an excerpt from the last diary that I hyperlinked:

"[commentator] Juan Cole lays out a clear case:

'It is claimed that Ahmadinejad won the city of Tabriz with 57%. His main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is an Azeri from Azerbaijan province, of which Tabriz is the capital. Mousavi, according to such polls as exist in Iran and widespread anecdotal evidence, did better in cities and is popular in Azerbaijan. Certainly, his rallies there were very well attended. So for an Azeri urban center to go so heavily for Ahmadinejad just makes no sense. In past elections, Azeris voted disproportionately for even minor presidential candidates who hailed from that province.'
hyperlinked source: http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/stealing-iranian-election.html

Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion
Juan Cole,(President of the Global Americana Institute)
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Stealing the Iranian Election

Btw, Tabriz is Iran's fourth largest city, (more on cities below) and has a very liberal history as a center of poetry, mysticism and art. As an ethnic city, a tolerant city, a moderate city, Ahmadinejad would have to take this city's vote into account before hand. Dr. Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council in Washington, was just on CNN and said that the opposition is realizing it "didn't have a plan" for this kind of contested result, but Ahmadinejad's faction did.

'Ahmadinejad is claimed to have taken Tehran by over 50%. Again, he is not popular in the cities, even, as he claims, in the poor neighborhoods, in part because his policies have produced high inflation and high unemployment. That he should have won Tehran is so unlikely as to raise real questions about these numbers.'"
[Juan Cole source]

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 08:25 PM

Unless we want another Iraq on our hands the best situation for the US is to "chill"... Oh sure, we could go in there and kill another million people and further bankrupt our own country and for what???

Yeah, Iran has some problems with running clean elections... So does the USA...

Time to move on and do the best with what we have... If Iran's progressives should, per chance, overthrow the knotheads, fine... If not, we're going to have to deal with the righties in Iran...

But the righties in Iran have to know that there are one heck of their own folks who think they suck... So that oughtta moderate Ahmadinejad...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 08:38 PM

Constitutionally, I agree, it's no-one's problem but Iran's. It gets more murky if a hypothetically rightful but dispossessed "ruler" seeks help from his "allies".

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 08:55 PM

That sets up a rather comical image in my mind (seeking help from allies). I'm imagining Al Gore going to the... what... the United Nations perhaps? ...seeking help from our allies because he was the rightful but deposed ruler. Could have been very interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Azizi
Date: 13 Jun 09 - 09:18 PM

Here are some additional online resources about the current "situation" in Iran (Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/13/742162/-Crisis-In-Iran-Liveblogging-Mothership

Resources

Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish - has been all over the story and is an excellent resource
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/

National Iranian American Committee's NIACBlog - providing translations from Farsi to English of Twitter and Facebook reports of what's happening in the country. Fantastic resource for on the ground reporting.
http://niacblog.wordpress.com/

Tehran Bureau - A project of the Harvard School of Journalism in an attempt to provide in-depth coverage of Iran. There spot reporting has been invaluable.
http://tehranbureau.com/

NYTimes The Lede - Have provided constant updates from NYTimes reporters on the ground in Tehran. They've also compiled other reports from around the internet.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/13/landslide-or-fraud-the-debate-online-over-irans-election-results/?hp

BBCNews - Another great resource for on the ground reports from the Western hemisphere's premier broadcast organization.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/

**
Note the inclusion of "Twitter" reports. It's amazing how this new technology is changing how news is gathered and reported.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: mg
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 01:21 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAAd1xUP64o click

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAAd1xUP64o click

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vGItG3Xznw&feature=related click

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjaDBYMdDFY&feature=related click

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yrtK4K-GMg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yrtK4K-GMg


Here are some inspirational clicks. What we are hearing is the bells of freedom ringing. It is easy enough to silence the bells, and tyrants do not go down easy (and I agree with whoever said this is a military coup and did not realize that A. had been a Republic Guard)..but you can not unring them once they have rung. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 01:34 AM

Well, I'm sorry to say that in some cases you can. The Chinese government unrang them at Tiananmen Square back in 1989.

Let's hope that others are not as successful in that regard as the old men running China were...

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 02:06 AM

So where were the election monitors?

Calling Jimmy Carter . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: mg
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 02:24 AM

Probably a better question is where are they now. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Ebbie
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 03:49 AM

I read that Iran's constitution does not allow foreign monitors.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: alanabit
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 04:08 AM

It is hard to establish the facts of what happened in the Iran election. However, just because "our" side lost, we are not entitled automatically to assume that the election was rigged. I have not seen much evidence of that yet. It is very hard for us to accept a fundamentalist Islamic regime, but it would appear to be what the Iranian people want, having fought and died for it very bravely thirty years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 06:07 AM

What, alan, as the Taliban did in Afghanistan?

It's the combination of the wildly conflicted predictions, followed by government reports of a government "landslide" (remember Mugabe?) followed by government raids on opposition newspapers that stinks.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 07:40 AM

"raids on opposition newspapers" is putting it mildly.

Reuters:   "....Authorities, too, pushed back with ominous messages apparently seeking to undercut liberal voices: jamming text messages, blocking pro-Mousavi Web sites and Facebook and cutting off mobile phones in Teheran."


And this sort of stuff happened BEFORE the election:   WSJ 13 June 2009:   "The Ministry of Telecommunications imposed a nation-wide block of text messaging from mobiles. Mr. Mousavi's supervisors were planning to report discrepancies by text messages"

"Thousands of Mr. Mousavi's volunteer supervivsors were not issued credentials by the Interior Ministry, which runs the elections, and were barred from polling stations."

(Saturday) Mousavi's campaign said that "a group of people who identified themselves as intelligence officers entered Mr. Mousavi's campaign headquarters in northern Teheran on Friday evening demanding that the young strategists at the campaign, responsible for much of deploying new media techniques, leave the premises"

Mousavi's campaign lawyer said "in an interview that Teheran's chief prosecutor informed (him) that security agents would arrive Saturday morning with a court order to shut down all their communication operations".




As I said earlier, the thing to do now for the West (including Israel) is to KEEP OUT of this--except by reporting. Don't give Mr. A any excuse to claim the West is funding or otherwise backing (except by words) Mr. Mousavi.   And stop all saber-rattling.   Mr. A has plenty of juices in Iran to stew in without any help from us.

And this reeking "election" will, as I said, restrict his freedom to carry out his policies for the foreseeable future.



Question::   final outcome: supposedly 62.5% for Mr. A and 33.75% for Mr. Mousavi.   But there were several other candidates:    altogether they got virtually no votes? Somehow, not likely.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 07:47 AM

The most suspicious element to the Iranian election story is how the votes could be tallied so quickly. Large electorate, large percentage of voters, HAND counted.

There is a well known Iranian movie which involves a female vote registrar going to an island to make sure the votes are counted there. It is a charming look at village ways and values.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: alanabit
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 09:29 AM

Richard, I do not like the Taliban or the Revolutionary Guards any more than you do. However, I am sure that nothing will derail the development of liberal trends in Iran more swiftly than interference from the West. There I agree with Ron Davies. The mindset of the current rulers of Iran is that they have a God given right to be there, which has been resoundingly endorsed by a popular vote. If we have learned nothing else from the Taliban, we should at least know by now that everyone is safer if they live within their own law, rather than as outlaws from ours.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: alanabit
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 09:30 AM

I should have added that not for a moment do I believe Richard is supporting any interference. I am just worried that there are enough lunatics out there who would!

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 09:39 AM

On Saturday, Mousavi, a 67-year-old former prime minister, released a Web message saying he would not "surrender to this manipulation." Authorities responded with targeted detentions, apparently designed to rattle the leadership of Mousavi's "green" movement — the trademark color of his campaign.

The detentions include the brother of former reformist President Mohammad Khatami and two top organizers of Iran's largest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front: the party's secretary-general and the head of Mousavi's youth cyber campaign. Mohammad Reza Khatami and the two party activists were released Sunday.

Several others linked to Mousavi's campaign remained in custody, but the full extent of the arrests were not known.

Tehran deputy prosecutor, Mahmoud Slarkia, told the semi-official ISNA news agency that fewer than 10 people were arrested on the charge of "disturbing public opinion" through their "false reports" on Web sites after the election. He did not mention any names.

Iran's deputy police chief, Ahmad Reza Radan, told the official Islamic Republic News Agency that about 170 people have been arrested for their involvement in Saturday's protests. He said 10 of those arrested were "main planners" and 50 were "rioters." The others were arrested for being at the site of the clashes, he said. Some of the detained were active in Mousavi's campaign headquarters or had relations with foreign media, he said.

"Police will not allow protesters to disturb the peace and calmness of the people under the influence of foreign media," Radan said on state television, which showed footage of the protests for the first time Sunday.

Mousavi's newspaper, Kalemeh Sabz, or the Green Word, did not appear on newsstands Sunday. An editor, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said the paper never left the printing house because authorities were upset with Mousavi's statements.

The paper's Web site reported that more than 10 million votes in Friday's election were missing national identification numbers similar to U.S. Social Security numbers, which make the votes "untraceable." It did not say how it knew that information.

"Don't worry about freedom in Iran," Ahmadinejad said at the news conference after a question about the disputed election. "Newspapers come and go and reappear. Don't worry about it."

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, closed the door for possible compromise. He could have used his near-limitless powers to intervene in the election dispute. But, in a message on state TV on Saturday, he urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad, calling the result a "divine assessment."

The U.S. has refused to accept Ahmadinejad's claim of a landslide re-election victory said it was looking into allegations of election fraud. There are no independent election monitors in Iran.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday she hoped the outcome reflects the "genuine will and desire" of Iranian voters.

The European Union also said it was "concerned about alleged irregularities" during Friday's vote.

In Beirut, Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group — which is aided by Iran — congratulated Ahmadinejad and said the vote was conducted in an atmosphere of "freedom."

from here

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 12:45 PM

Damon Runyon wrote a short story called "Blood Pressure" in which there's a crap game; a hoodlum rolls dice in his hat and tells the onlookers what numbers came up. I think it was used in the Broadway Musical "Guys and Dolls".

This 'election' reminds me of that, only it's not as 'ha-ha' funny.

And the centrifugal separators keep on a-turnin'

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 01:26 PM

My only input at this time about the lack of democracy in Iran is to say that we should get no more worked up about the election in Iran than we should about the lack of democracy in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The main difference between these two and Iran, strictly in terms of our concern for democracy or the lack of it, is that the US (and some other Western countries) is helping to prop up the dictatorial regimes in those other countries, and those regimes are willing to do our bidding. Although I think it could be argued that Iran is more democratic than Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 01:35 PM

Yes, Iran probably is more democratic than Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Funny how politics works, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: alanabit
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 01:48 PM

"All their rights respected
Till someone we like can be elected."

(Tom Lehrer - Send The Marines")

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 02:02 PM

Western Primer on elections in developing countries

Click

Some Western principles in assessing elections in developing countries:

1) When the favored candidates win, the elections are free and fair. And when they lose, elections are certainly unfree and stolen.

2) Violent protests against elections that produce winners favored by the west, are to be strictly condemned and protesters are to be called terrorists, hooligans and mobs (can you imagine if Lebanese opposition supporters were to engage in violent protests against the election results in Lebanon), while violent protests against enemies of the US when they win elections (like in Moldova) are to be admired (and the protesters in those cases are called "democracy activists".

3) It is not against free elections to have Western governments interfere in elections and in funding candidates through Western groups for the promotion of democracy.

4) Candidates (or even dictators) who serve Western interests are automatically labeled as "reform candidates" (even the Saudi tyrant is referred to as "reform-minded"), while candidates who oppose Western economic and political interests are to be labeled enemies of reform.

5) Candidates who are not strident in their language about Israel are always favored.

6) Western observers of elections are always on hand to declare an election unfair and rigged if the favored candidates lose.

7) The corruption of pro-US candidates (like the March 14 bunch) is preferred to the non-corruption of, say, Mugabe.

8) The democratic credentials of dictators immediately improve if they change their policies toward the US and if they express willingness to serve US economic and political interests.

9) Countries where dictators do a good job in serving US economic and political interests need not hold elections.

10) If favored candidates can't guarantee electoral victory (like the PA tool, Abu Mazen whose term has expired months ago), they don't need to hold elections and will be treated as if they won an election anyway.

11) It is just not logical to assume that people in developing countries can freely ever decide to make choices that are not consistent with political and economic interests of the US.

12) Elections that are held under American and Israeli occupations are free and fair if the preferred candidates win.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 02:21 PM

"Yet Khamenei has now done something extraordinary to the regime's democratic apparatus. Even though Iran's Electoral Commission allows three days to hear challenges before presenting results to Khamenei for approval, the Supreme Leader rushed to put his seal of approval on the outcome, and warned all political factions to refrain from challenging it. His imposition of the result, just hours after the polls closed, stunned the country as doubts about the legitimacy of vote were voiced widely both inside and outside Iran. "


http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090614/wl_time/08599190458900

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 02:31 PM

more from above...

"The democratic element of Iran's system has functioned as an important safety valve for clerical rule by creating a managed channel for the release of popular frustrations. But now the Supreme Leader appears to have thrown his weight solidly behind what many are charging is a carefully staged putsch by Ahmadinejad. "The willingness of the regime simply to ignore reality and fabricate election results without the slightest effort to conceal the fraud represents a historic shift in Iran's Islamic revolution," Columbia University Iran expert and former National Security Council official Gary Sick wrote in a web posting. "All previous leaders at least paid lip service to the voice of the Iranian people. This suggests that Iran's leaders are aware of the fact that they have lost credibility in the eyes of many (most?) of their countrymen, so they are dispensing with even the pretense of popular legitimacy in favor of raw power."

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 03:04 PM

Thanks Carol and alanabit for your presumptive backing of election stealing in countries with democratic pretensions. Next time you attempt to justify violence in the name of Islam on the part of Palestinians or Al Qaeda or the Taliban, I'll feel free to drag in Darfur, Nigerian riots over references to Mohammed, and the calculated misrepresentation of Danish cartoons in order to stimulate man-killing riots the world over.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 03:33 PM

Thanks for putting words in my mouth (yet another dishonest tactic from this poster).

I have not backed election stealing in any form. What I support is non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. This means not propping up dictators who are willing to do our bidding, and not trying to use issues like the election in Iran as a pretext for attacking that country, even despite the fact that the people of that country do not want us to attack them for any reason.

It's this cynical abuse of the cause of human rights as a justification for violating human rights that I have a big problem with. Most of the people using this issue as a way to agitate for violating the human rights of Iranians by attacking their country really don't give a shit about Iranian human rights. They have a different agenda and reason for their faux concern for the results of this election. Their agenda is imperialism. We know this because they only care about supporting democracy when doing so helps them further their own agendas, and they don't give a shit about the people suffering under dictatorial regimes when those regimes support their agendas.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 03:41 PM

Thanks for putting motives in mine, a standard practise of yourself, CarolC.

I merely observed your frequent tactic of muddying an issue or blunting the point of a thread by introducing your pre-arranged array of societal grievances, thus distracting from the original point.

Your frequent accusations of others' cynicism is actually a display of your own. It is far easier to make a blanket appeal to human rights in general than to address the denail of human rights to one group of poeple in particular, in this case the people who wish to exercise their rights to democracy in Iran. In other forums you have defended the words of Ahmadinajad, and the fairness of the voting process in Iran, ignoring the fact that Iranian elections are overseen by an unelected board of religious judges, in essence a power elite.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 03:42 PM

The above poster is making an assumption about whose motives I was commenting on in my last post.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 03:46 PM

Anyone who really cares about the human right of the people of Iran will honor their desire to not be attacked by either the US or Israel, and their desire to handle their problems themselves. Anyone who is advocating an attack on Iran using human rights as their pretext is doing so for reasons other than human rights. If they cared at all about the rights of Iranians, they would honor their right to decide for themselves whether or not they welcome intervention from other countries.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: mg
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 04:18 PM

I am trying to follow the logic here but fail miserably...seeing that many people risk their lives, jobs, and us being sympathetic to their universal desire for freedom, in a part of the world where the more freedoms are peacefully and velvetly achieved, the greater our our national security...that sympathy toward them makes us want to find an excuse to attack them? I fail to see any connection whatsoever. And people living under tyranny basically, by definition, can not handle their problems by themselves. If they could, there would be no tyranny.   mg

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 04:31 PM

No, just having sympathy for them doesn't indicate a desire to attack them. Some people are just expressing sympathy. It's the use of peoples' natural sympathies as a pretext for whipping up support among the US voters for an attack on Iran that I am talking about, and there are a lot of people who are doing this. We saw the same sort of thing with the big lie about Saddam's "incubator babies" while people were whipping up support for the things we did to Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 04:46 PM

However, the Iranians themselves have said that they need to be allowed to solve their problems themselves. They have said that every time the US has tried to interfere, that interference has strengthened the hardliners and weakened the moderates. So if people really care about the human rights of the Iranians, they need to honor what the people of Iran have said they want and need, which is to be left alone to deal with their problems themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 04:48 PM

I say again: regime change in a country is a matter for that country. A possible exception is if a legitimate ruler seeks support from allies - but at the moment that is a circular argument for Iran.

It is however becoming clear that the present Iranian regime is using illegitimate tactics to prevent peaceful and constitutional regime change. That legitimates otherwise illegitimate tactics by those being targeted - so long, of course as those tactics do not involve collateral damage to non-aligned people.

Simples.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: alanabit
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 04:51 PM

I do not trust the Iranian authorities any further than I can spit. I would like to know however, why we are not all equally interested in human rights and free and fair elections in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and a host of other countries - including China? In fact, it looks most unlikely that conclusive proof will ever emerge that the Iranian election was stolen. (I will gladly concede that it is even less likely that proof will emerge to show that it was free and fair). I simply remarked upon the unseemly haste to condemn it as unfair, simply because "our side" lost.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: heric
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 05:50 PM

The messy part after transparency has been impeded is trying to determine (within and outside of Iran), who "speaks for the Iranians themselves." The power base has weakened itself.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 06:08 PM

I don't think many Americans would have welcomed outside countries attempting to rectify the results of the 2000 election - even if they thought Dubya did steal it.

And I suspect that's how people in Iran will generally see it.

I'd not be surprised if there has been massive election fraud in this latest election. But on the other hand I'd not be the least surprised either if the result does actually reflect how people did actually vote.

My impression is that an awful lot of people do tend to vote to re-elect populist leaders who are demonised abroad. And when people feel their countries are under siege, they do tend to vote for extreme nationalists (cf Israel).

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 06:12 PM

Well, I would say that people who don't live in Iran certainly don't speak for the Iranians. The people whose words I've been reading are pro-reform Iranians who live in Iran.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 07:05 PM

Forgot to mention I also have an Iranian/American friend (US born of Iranian born parents) and her husband is Iranian born, who lived in Iran for several years herself, who is absolutely horrified at the thought of any country attacking Iran for any reason. And she makes it pretty clear that while there are some Iranian expats (like her father, for instance) who would like to see the current regime deposed by any means, the people who are actually living in Iran do not share their opinion on that subject. My friend, by the way, is Sufi, which is one of the persecuted minorities in Iran, but even with that, she says that an attack on Iran would be very bad for Iranians.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 09:12 PM

I don't even see why there should be a dispute about the situation at all.   I thought we all agreed that Mr. A should be left to deal with the huge numbers of his own citizens he has just alienated--with no input from the West except reporting, and expressing dismay at the shoddy "election" just past.


Anybody who advocates any sort of "regime change" in Iran orchestrated by or even advocated by the West (including Israel) needs his or her head examined.

Mr. A has just weakened himself more than anything the West could have done. And any interference by the West will just give him the chance to raise the "patriotism" issue he has just thrown away.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Jun 09 - 09:19 PM

Well, some of the members of the US govenment, and probably all of the members of the Israeli government are trying to trick us into supporting an attack on Iran (just like they did with Iraq). Hopefully people won't fall for it this time. I posted this in another thread, but I think it should be in this one, too...


http://pulsemedia.org/2009/06/12/talking-to-iran-will-make-it-easier-to-sell-war/

As Iranians go to the polls to repudiate (it seems) some of the most pernicious aspects of Ahmadinejad's rule, America's Iran point man continues to make Ahmadinejad look like a reasonable peacenik.

The newly released book by Dennis Ross, President Obama's special adviser on Iran, reads like a how-to manual for launching a war on Iran, marketing the war successfully, and making sure the Iranians cop all the blame for it. Ross will have none of Bush's incompetent warmongering on flimsy pretenses of democracy and WMD's; when Ross launches his illegal war on Iran, it will be stage-managed to within an inch of its life.

"Tougher policies - either militarily or meaningful containment - will be easier to sell internationally and domestically if we have diplomatically tried to resolve our differences with Iran in a serious and credible fashion," writes Ross.

Note that there is no way to read this sentence but to see that the goal is to attack Iran. America trying to diplomatically resolve its differences with Iran is not a goal in itself; it is merely a means to more easily sell war and sanctions.

And, then, of course, we get the special Dennis Ross brand of peacemaking-as-warmongering--Ross's signature dish: derailing negotiations while making it appear to be the other party's fault.

"Such an approach may build pressures within Iran not to forgo the opportunity that has been presented, while also ensuring that the onus is put on Iran for creating a crisis and also for making conflict more likely."

The goal, of course, is not just to bring about a military conflict, but also to make sure that it appears that it was the Iranians who brought about this conflict.

This is exactly what Ross did as "mediator" of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, where he used diplomacy to further the aims of Israeli colonialism, as a cover for Israeli colonialism. As Norman Finkelstein shows in his meticulous destruction of Ross' previous book, it was Ross himself who derailed the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

Ross simply used his position as "mediator" to push for terms that were even more favorable to Israel than what the Israelis themselves wanted. During the negotiations, he became "furious" at Israelis for considering annexing less land in Palestine, and even said "if [Ehud] Barak offers anything more, I'll be against this agreement." The result was a "generous offer" on which then Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami himself commented: "if I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David".

But when the Palestinians rejected this offer, of course, it was a green light for "Israel's Lawyer" to spend the last nine years blaming the Palestinians for rejecting his magnanimous offer. The result is a global green light for the Israeli regime to destroy the Palestinian people and their chances of ever attaining freedom�while placing the blame entirely on the Palestinians.

America can now look forward to seeing this mendacious brand of evil shaping their policy towards Iran over the coming years. Expect to continue to hear Ross talking about the failures of his heroic efforts at diplomacy, and then going on a WINEP-sponsored world tour blaming the Iranians for the conflict he worked so hard to precipitate.

This should leave no doubt that though the Obama Administration is mainly made up of sane humans who do not particularly want to nuke Iran, unreconstructed neocon fanatics like Ross will do all they can to bring about as bad an outcome as possible. Watch this space.

Subject: RE: BS: Election in Iran
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 Jun 09 - 12:48 AM

Carol - The American public was tricked into supporting an escalation of the war in Vietnam, and forty years later a similar thing happened in Iraq. I don't think it's probable that they'll support a war in Iran only 7 or 8 years later. A generation or two needs to go under the bridge first. Fool me once...