IRAN

continued:

Ali (not his real name) is a 26-year-old Phd student who has been in Britain for the past 10 years and who voted for Mousavi, has been talking to my colleague Mark Tran.

I plan to go back in a week. I am filled with trepidation but this is too important for me not to go back. Some of my fellow students, about six or seven, have already gone back to show solidarity with the demonstrators.

We have people here who are hacking into the government's computers and state organisations such as Fars and other Revolutionary Guard news outlets.

We've got an information loop going as the government tries to fragment communications networks. People send messages to us via Twitter and Facebook and we disseminate the information back into Iran, it's like an endless game. Many hundreds of us have been demonstrating every evening outside the Iranian embassy.

Most of the students here actually supported Mehdi Karroubi. He was the biggest figure for the students because he was strongly in favour of civil liberties, freedom of speech and rule of law. He is the one with the support of lots of intellectuals in Iran.

I backed Mousavi because I thought he was the most pragmatic figure, someone who could work with the Majlis (parliament). Those who are playing the protest movement down are dead wrong, there are just too many who are angry. There are lots of people who voted for the first time, including my parents (in Tehran) who realised that it was apathy that allowed Mahmound Ahmadinejad to get into power last time.

People who voted thought they could bring about change and now they feel they've been robbed. This is a coup.

People are willing to shed their blood and people already have. My cousin who works in a hospital in Tehran has seen a 15-year-old child stabbed to death and another child who was shot. The regime is relying on the Basij militia to do its dirty work, but the security forces are less willing to do its bidding.

Mousavi is trying to replicate Khomeini's strategy by winning over the soldiers, by putting flowers into their guns. We need to see the movement spread, for example to see oil workers go on strike.

I will work with Mowj Sevvom - the Third Wave (a coalition of reformists that supports Mousavi) when I get back. I'll see what I can do but I'm not sure there'll be anything left by the time I get there. It might be all over.

I despise Ahmadinejad, a nut, fesh fallen from the tree. He has done imensense harm to his country. Finally the good people of Iran are rising up in opposition to the fanatics. Good Luck!

Obama Whitewashes US Foreign Policy
By Teo Ballve
President Obama is trying to whitewash the history of U.S. foreign policy. In two major speeches in the last month, he has spun a fairy tale.

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A common tactic practiced by the military in these dirty wars was to throw drugged, yet alive and conscious, prisoners out of aircraft over the ocean. Not even pregnant women were spared from electric shocks to genitalia and waterboarding.

As Congress became concerned over the intensifying repression carried out by U.S. allies, Kissinger assured his nervous Argentine counterparts: "Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed. I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported." Those "friends" killed 30,000 innocent people in Argentina alone.

In Central America, where civil wars broke out, the destruction was even greater. The CIA and the Pentagon worked with death squads in the name of U.S. national security. In El Salvador, where Washington spent $6 billion trying to defeat rebels, 75,000 lost their lives.

Today, Washington still disregards human rights abuses in its military alliances. Colombia's army is drenched in scandal over its execution of 1,600 innocent civilians, who were later claimed as rebels killed in combat. The United Nations has called political murder at the hands of the army "widespread and systematic." Nevertheless, Obama's first foreign appropriations budget has slated $270 million in military aid to Colombia.

I was about to say I appreciated the info on Iran, but then the last comment you posted...what does that have to do with it?

Are we back to the blame the USA for the actions of other nations?

We have to recognize that during the Shah's reign the United States approved everything he did....er, until the latter part of his reign when he thought they were too expensive.......and you know what happened to him.
I am simply proving that America behaves in a certain fashion.....and the piece proved that.

Fair or unfair, what can the United States realistically do about it? More sanctions? O.K., although I don't know what additional sanctions are left to impose from OUR end.

Do we send in a few armored divisions because we SUSPECT their elections MIGHT have been unfair? Although, to be fair, that would at least be a more legitimate reason for invading Iran than Bush had for invading Iraq...

But...no. And of course the shallowness of American analysis is always something of a wonder to behold. Yes, Mousaoui (spelling?) looks like a more likeable President than Ahmadinejad, but there are Americans running around talking like this guy is going to turn Iran into Sweden or something. This guy has been walking the halls of power in Iran since the Revolution. Even if the election were overturned, this guy is NOT going to come out and embrace America, for heavens sake. He MIGHT be able to make a few changes for the better at the margins of Iranian society. Don't get me wrong...that would be nice. But the fundamental issue here is fair and free elections -- and that is an INTERNAL matter for the Iranians.

Without being so lengthy and philosophical...Iranians are capable of choosing their own destiny.

I gotta believe this is Israhell trying to destabilize the iranian people and thier country and happily it is not working. Ahmadinejad has a lot of support in the countryside and that is a known fact. Rigged election or Israhell trying to destablize I don't know and would not bet on either one either way and we will probably never get the truth sort of like Dumb Ya in the American vote which we know for sure was rigged and is being covered up. I am not sure the iranian vote was rigged, I am not sure either way!

It seems now the Jews in the House of represenatives are calling for America to Boo Hoo Iran. Thank God Obama and the rest of the House is not going for it. This administration is going to show just how disruptive and violent the Jews can be since Obama is not playing thier game and letting them slaughter innocent people and do things like destablize Iran or any other country so they can Kill innocent Palestinians and make themselves look like victims and try to gain sympathy. Thier evil is coming home to roost. I hope these people are brought to justice for all of thier injustices.

I think this election was obviously rigged, the implications are that the Mullahs are fighting to hang on to their power in the face of an increasingly progressive populace.
Had the election gone the other way, I don't think the results would have been much different, only it would have brought out the fundamentalists which would have given the "enemies of Islam" a clearer target.
However it's clear the theocracy is losing its hold, we can only expect further destabilization in the future.
Haven't talked to my UN bros though, I'll tell you what they say when i hear from em ;)

If this is a result of the stepped up escalations brought on by the Bush administration, then it was a success. Obama should quit trying to find similarities between he and Lincoln and study the affect that Polish Solidarity had on the old Soviet Union and, how the uprising in Iran can be used to spread human rights and democracy across the Mideast. History for Mr. Obama is here for the taking. Which list will he choose to be placed on is his choice. Will he keep campaigning to be grouped with Castro, Mussolini, Stalin, Chairman Mao,Che Grevere, Kruschev, and Jimmy Carter, or does he take this opportunity to allign himself with Lech Walensa, John Paul II, Martin Luther King, JFK, Reagan, Jesus Christ, and Lincoln. This is the hope that WE have. This is were you can impliment your promise of Change for the advancement of Civilization. Innovator or Tool?

"Mass apostasy is the only way." With the iron grip that Islam has on its adherents, this is practically an impossibility. But it seems like this is the only way to bring Iran to democracy. I don't think it will work. It will be quashed like it was in China. However, we can look at the case of Ceacescu and his wife, both driven out of their palace and executed- one of the last death rattles of Communism. There IS hope, it just seems, with Islam's hold, it will be in vain.

Jimmy, the meaning of Allaho Akhbar is GOD IS THE GREATEST.

Why would they dump their religion?

We have freedom in the West, and we have religions.

Iranians are Shia Islam, which is less repressive than Sunni Islam, but of course the fanatics won the revolution...................the people of Iran are oppressed by and with religion.

In many societies religion is used as the opium of the masses. However, Iran will survive and so will the religion.

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