Iran

Speaking of toad's asses, do you still think that the NY Post has more journalistic integrity than the Times? I must have missed your response on that....

 

The Books of Revolution
By Azar Nafisi
The Wall Street Journal | June 18, 2003

Recent images from Iran -- of ferment, of impassioned young men and women on the streets -- take me back to 1979. That fall, I was teaching "The Great Gatsby" and "Huckleberry Finn" in spacious classes on the second floor of the University of Tehran without realizing the irony of the fact that, in the yard below, Islamist and leftist students were shouting "Death to America," and that a few streets away, the U.S. embassy was under siege by a group calling itself "The students following the path of the Imam."

Their Imam was Khomeini, who had waged a war on behalf of Islam against the heathen West and its internal agents. This was not a purely religious war. The fundamentalism that he preached was as much based on religion and tradition as it was on the radical Western ideologies of communism and fascism. Nor were his targets merely political; with the support of leftist radicals he led a bloody crusade against "Western Imperialism": women's and minorities' rights, cultural and individual freedoms.

The Islamist ideologues were also to attack my curriculum, and my intellectual foundations. "Gatsby" was deemed a symbol of American decadence, Kafka a "Zionist," and in the universities some vocal and persistent students and faculty demanded to replace Shakespeare, Racine and Aeschylus with works by Marxists or Islamists. The ayatollah had called the war with Iraq, which started in 1980, a blessing for his regime and many students volunteered to become martyrs, certain of the day they would march victorious into the holy city of Karbala.

By July 1988, Khomeini had agreed to a dubious peace, an act which he likened to drinking poison. Many of the eager youth who had gone to war wearing symbolic keys to heaven had either died, been taken captive, maimed, or returned to a country that was becoming less and less interested in their war, or their holy texts. Many of their former Islamist comrades who had been given absolute power in the universities had become disillusioned with the corruption and broken promises of their leaders. Their contact with professors and classmates who were formerly branded as "Westernized" had opened their eyes to the attractions of a forbidden world, one they used to call the land of the Great Satan. More than my secular students, it was this group that craved the banned Western videos and satellite dishes; they craved also to read works of Western literature, along with the heretical modern and classical Persian poets and writers.

In June 1989, a year after the war ended, the Imam was dead, leaving them alone with their rage against unfulfilled dreams, unspoken desires. The same former revolutionaries -- who in 1979 had anathematized all forms of modernism and democracy -- had now to turn inward and question their own ideology. This questioning became all the more urgent because they knew how isolated they were among the Iranian population, and how fast their revolutionary ideals had lost credibility -- because the revolution had turned the streets of Tehran into cultural war zones, searching and punishing citizens not for guns and grenades but for other, more deadly weapons: lipstick, a strand of hair, a colored shoelace, trendy sun glasses. Because the morality police had raided private homes -- arresting, flogging and jailing citizens for giving parties, for having forbidden videos and alcohol in their homes -- the regime had politicized not only a dissident elite but also every Iranian individual. People like me were energized, not because we were political, but in order to preserve our sense of individual integrity and identity as human beings, women, writers, academics -- as ordinary citizens who wished to live their lives.

In less than a decade after Ayatollah Khomeini's death, these illuminated revolutionaries -- the former young veterans of war and revolution -- were demanding more freedoms and political rights. They turned to reading Heinrich Boll, Milan Kundera and Scott Fitzgerald, alongside Hannah Arendt and Karl Popper. My book on Vladimir Nabokov could not have been published without the support of those individuals in the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance who had come to realize, as Nabokov had done, that "Governments come and go; only the trace of genius remains."

Soon the younger generation of Iranians, the "children of the revolution" whom the Islamists had hoped would replace their parents' modern aspirations with fervent revolutionary ones, were pulling off their scarves, and singing and dancing in the streets -- in defiance of the law, and under the guise of celebrating what was called Iran's "soccer revolution." Mohammed Khatami's election victory in 1997 was more a vote against the rulers of the Islamic Republic than in support of an obscure cleric with impeccable revolutionary credentials. President Khatami was not the cause of the movement for change but a symptom of it.

And now in the first years of the new century, Iranians, foremost among them the young Iranians, the children of those who once had railed against "Gatsby," have taken to the streets, protesting totalitarian rule, asking for political, social and cultural freedoms, demanding more open relations with the world, as well as a secular constitution. The same people who made Mr. Khatami's victory possible now ask for his departure. The cries against the Great Satan have been replaced by the protests against domestic despots.

But Iran's fate will not be resolved by a political "fix," or simple regime change; it goes much deeper than that. Over the past two decades, the anger against despotism has gone far beyond the political arenas of elections and public demonstrations. By reading and quoting the great thinkers and philosophers, by crowding lecture halls to discuss Flaubert and Rilke or great Iranian writers, Hedayat or Farokhzad, by breaking into riots to see films by great directors, Iranian or Western, by going to jail, quoting Kant and Spinoza, by refusing to act according to the dress code no matter how many times they are thrown in jail, the Iranian people, ordinary Iranian people, are making their statements, and revealing their civilizational aspirations.

Whatever might happen in Iran -- and what happens there will have a profound effect on the rest of the region -- would not be because of the violence of desperate Iranian rulers or their half-hearted promises and pledges, but through that urge for freedom expressed today by the Iranian youth, reminding us once more that the desire for liberty and the right for a better life is not the monopoly of a few countries called "Western," but the heritage of all mankind.

It is to the advantage of not only the Americans, but of all those who believe in freedom and democracy, to support the Iranian people's desire for a peaceful transformation toward democracy. For has not the most important lesson of Sept. 11 been that fundamentalism and terror, as well as democracy and human rights, are universal, and that stability and liberty in one part of the world will not be secured without their guarantee in other parts?

Ms. Nafisi, a professor of literature at Johns Hopkins University, is the author of "Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books," (Random House, 2003).

 

Why all the criticism of the Shiites in Iraq? The Shiite areas in Iraq are among the most peaceful. It's the other areas where the daily ambushes are occurring.

 

An accurate assessment. It is the Sunni areas where the population ranges from ambivalent to hostile, and not at all a coincidence where the last pockets of Saddam loyalists reside.

But why sully the discussion with facts such as these? Let's just keep with the "Iraq is going to hell in a handbasket" theses, and we can keep the discussion on the high-school level for all of our audience to enjoy...

 

Treeman, your arguements are generally much more compelling when they aren't so thouroughly laced with sarcasm and contempt. I'm sorry if I'm being an @ss, but when you get frustrated, it becomes much more difficult to read your stuff, which I usually find to be thoughtfull. When you fall into the polemic glynch/johnheath mode of conversation, have to suppress the urge to tune you out like I tune them out.

Regarding the post that centcom puts out only the honest and unbiased truth, I hope you don't really believe that. I don't think that they'd even argue among themselves that that is their job. I know they'd never intentionally put forth something that they know to be dishonest, to claim that they would give equal weight to the good and the bad would be to portray them as inept. What was the last major scandal that Stars and Stripes broke?

For anybody who doesn't know, while Iran has all the trappings of democracy, the Ayatolah basically has supreme override power over everything, both formally and informally. This basically makes the country a dictatorship with window dressing, and he basically preports to directly represent the wishes of god on earth, with much of the same hubris that allowed European monarchs in the middle ages to make the same declaration. The Ayatollah's title, lets remember, is "supreme ruler". If that doesn't say it all, I don't know what does.

Regarding Iraq, the fact that people who are big Bush people are bristleing more and more at any criticism without any real arguemnts with which to retort leaves me feeling more and more disallusioned. I would feel so much better if Bush's people or even the conservitive pundits would at least admit that some aspects of the process have not gone exactly according to the best projections.

From what I understand, however, this isn't particularly an Iran-specific problem for Bush. From the man himself, to Ari Flischer, and on down can't seem to admit that everything that has occured for the past 2 or so years hasn't occured exactly on schedule and as planned. It's all very quixotic, in a very frustrating way.

 

Delusions abound.

Read my signature:

 

I am aware of your silly signature, No Worries. You are free to put whatever you want there, even if it is effectively saying "Saddam had no nuke program", something that everyone who has ever studied the subject knows to be false.

You are also advertising the fact that you were dumb enough to bet that no such program would ever be found, when it is clear that it is much easier to prove that theory incorrect than it is any of mine... But time will tell. I eagerly await the day that the bunkers are found and that silly signature disappears along with its silly poster...

Ottomaton:

Some here deserve only contempt and sarcasm, as they offer nothing but lies and contempt themselves. To those who offer nothing else I will offer nothing else.

As far as CENTCOM goes - they do not lie about their deeds. They will surely put as positive an angle on things as they can, but they will not lie about what they do, where they do it, when, etc. Those facts are there, and it is those that the media is not picking up. That was my whole point for recommending scanning it - the mainstream media is ignoring most of what is taking place in Iraq, twisting (OK, misrepresenting) the "viewpoints" of ordinary Iraqis, and generally focusing entirely on the US body count to the exclusion of all progress made on reconstruction and political and economic development, which are the truly important stories.

 

Sam, since you just got here a couple months back you may not know this is treeman's signature move. He arrogantly asserts something ridiculous and when he's proven wrong he just shuts up and pretends it never happened. Happens all the time. Difference here is he's brazenly continuing to post in the same thread while ignoring the fact he was punked. Just clearing that up. Happy to help. Carry on, boys.

 

Said al-Sahaff?

 

If <i>thread disappearance</i> behavior was unique to treeman, then it would be worth calling him out by name. It is a common occurrence and there is a <b>generous</b> helping of <i>left of center</i> types that partake in that manner of BBS activity.

 

Iran is NOT a democracy. Anybody who thinks so is delusional.

 

What is thread disappearance?


Also, we're going in! OK, we're just rattling our sword. But this guy definitely needs a new hairpiece.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030620/wl_nm/iran_usa_bolton_dc_1

Bolton: Military Action on Iran an Option
Fri Jun 20, 7:21 AM ET Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!
LONDON (Reuters) - The United States reserves the right to take military action to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons, a leading member of President Bush (news - web sites)'s administration said on Friday.
"It has to be an option," John Bolton, under secretary of state for arms control and international security, told BBC radio when pressed on the issue.
But he stressed that it was one among an array of possibilities and relatively low down the agenda.
"The president has repeatedly said that all options are on the table, but that is not only not our preference it is far, far from our minds," Bolton said.
The United States has steadily ratcheted up the pressure on Iran, which with Russian help is building a nuclear power station, to abide by the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and sign a new protocol that would allow snap inspections.
Washington, which suspects that Tehran is trying to develop a secret nuclear arms program, insists the plant could be used to produce weapons-grade material.
Nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday criticized Iran's failure to comply with agreements designed to prevent the use of civilian nuclear resources to make atomic weapons.
But its statement fell short of the damning resolution Washington had hoped for.

 

Probably could have used a better phrase than that.

Basically, someone is actively posting in a thread..........things take a definite turn against the position they are advocating and that position becomes impossible to defend.

A few people will bow out gracefully, but most just suddenly <i>disappear</i> from the thread and don't give it a second thought. Watch other threads/topics and they are active in them........so it is evident that they have lost their taste for posting on that particular topic and they wish for the thread to drop off the first screen of thread listings by letting it go <i>cold</i>. Once it drops off the top, it is less likely to be revived and it becomes:

<i>out of sight, out of mind</i>

 

I agree with Mango that it happens from both sides of the aisle, but treeman's especially guilty of calling people idiots and then disappearing when proven wrong. It always starts with a self-righteous 'ha ha, you guys are so dumb and i'm so right' kind of tone and it practically always ends the same way. He's proven wrong and disappears. It's too delicious not to mention. And in this thread he actually had the gall to -- having been proven wrong definitively -- continue to post on other points while ignoring repeated entreaties to admit he was wrong. He deserved to be called out. And considering I am personally without that particular sin I feel absolutely free to cast stones.

 

Thread disappearance? Hell, half of you guys are just on my ignore list. Wouldn't even have answered if Mango hadn't commented...

 

I'm pretty sure I'm not on treeman's ignore list, but in case I (and I guess everyone else in here but Mango) am on it...

Mango, would you be so kind as to cut and paste the post on page 1 that put the lie to treeman's hilarious position that the New York Post was less guilty of yellow journalism than the Times?

Very, very funny to me, by the way, that disagreeing with treeman lands you on his ignore list since that's pretty much the exact same approach he has to the media. People are so ******* disappointing.

 

Hmm... I know someone's talking, but I just don't care enough to see what they're saying. If it's important someone else'll tell me, I guess.

 

Back to the topic at hand:

Cheers for freeing Iran

By Jeff Jacoby, 6/19/2003

PRO-DEMOCRACY demonstrations are convulsing Iran, and the country's theocratic dictators say it's all the Great Satan's fault.

On Sunday the Foreign Ministry blasted the United States for ''flagrant interference in Iran's internal affairs.'' Two days later, 217 members of the country's Potemkin parliament signed a statement denouncing ''America's strategy regarding Iran'' - a nefarious plan ''to take away its independence and turn it into America's slave.''

Alas, it is far from clear that the United States has a strategy regarding Iran.

Soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush declared Iran a charter member of the axis of evil, and he has repeatedly sided with the brave young Iranians who are defying the Tehran regime. ''I think freedom is a powerful incentive,'' he said most recently, calling the protests ''the beginnings of people expressing themselves toward a free Iran.''

Unfortunately, his position has been undercut by the State Department, which has spent much of the past 21 months trying to ''engage'' the mullahs' cooperation in the war against terrorism - despite the department's own designation of Iran as the world's foremost sponsor of international terror. At one point, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage went so far as to label Iran a ''democracy'' - a bizarre description for a country where demands for reform or criticism of the fanatical Islamic government can be punished with flogging, imprisonment, or death.

But if the administration's voice has been muddled, others have spoken with admirable clarity. One unwavering advocate of regime change in Iran is Michael Ledeen, an expert on terrorism and the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of ''The War Against the Terror Masters.'' Over and over, Ledeen has argued that the best way to bring down the ''mullahcracy'' in Tehran is to encourage and strengthen the Iranian people in their demands for liberation.

Iranians have good reason to loathe the despots who rule their ancient land, Ledeen writes.

''Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his top henchman, Ayatollah Mohammed Hashemi Rafsanjani, have not only stolen billions of dollars from the Iranian people; they have wrecked the economy ... and reduced a once-proud civil culture to humiliation. There are virtual epidemics of teenage prostitution and drug abuse, an ongoing exodus of able-bodied and talented Iranians, an endless repression of freedom ... and a mounting tempo of violence, arrest, and execution, including the revival of ... sharia punishments such as dismemberment, public decapitation, and stoning.''

No less despicable is the mullahs' role in the international terror network. ''Iran is not only a participant on the other side,'' Ledeen notes, ''it is the heart of the jihadist structure. If we are really serious about winning the war against terrorism, we must defeat Iran.''

Are we serious? The longer we wait to act, the more progress Tehran will make on its crash program to develop a nuclear bomb, the more successful it will be in sabotaging US efforts to rebuild Iraq as a democratic republic, and the more innocent blood its proteges in Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al Qaeda will shed. Americans of every political stripe should be able to agree that a free and tolerant Iran is preferable to an Iran ruled by ruthless bigots. We should be doing all we can to make that transformation possible.

What the Iranian people need from us is not a military invasion but sustained backing for their own self-liberation. That should include:

An explicit declaration that it is the policy of the United States to support a transition to democracy, pluralism, and religious freedom in Iran.

Financial support for the privately-owned Persian-language TV and radio stations in southern California that for millions of Iranians have become a key source of information and inspiration.

Reforming Radio Farda, the US government's Persian radio service, so that it seeks out the views of pro-democracy Iranian exiles and actively promotes human rights and self-rule in Iran.

The seizing of every opportunity to stress that the United States supports the right of Iranians to live in freedom under a democratic and lawful government of their own choosing.

All these provisions would be mandated by the Iran Democracy Act, S. 1082, introduced by Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas last month. The bill - which is to say, the cause of Iranian liberty - deserves enthusiastic and bipartisan support. Americans who opposed the war in Iraq no less than those who favored it should be cheering this embryonic democratic revolution. Nearly a year ago, President Bush promised, ''As Iran's people move towards a future defined by greater freedom, greater tolerance, they will have no better friend than the United States of America.'' Let it be so.

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.

This story ran on page A13 of the Boston Globe on 6/19/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/170/oped/Cheers_for_freeing_Iran+.shtml

(funny seeing that there)

 

Kind of amazing we win any wars with sissies like treeman in the armed services. Imagine if all our boys plugged their ears and ran away whenever anyone fought back. Even though you apparently can't hear me, keep on rockin in the free world buddy. I'm rooting for you.