Some of the Iranian police are apparently defecting… this is great.
You can check Youtube for some great real-time video coverage of the revolution.
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I wish them well in driving out their current repressive conservative regime.
Again, good thing we didn’t listen to the wingnuts who were urging us to Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran. Otherwise these protesters would be rallying in support of their repressive government against the “Great Satan”.
Any day we don’t listen to the wingnuts is a good day. 🙂
The birth of a nation. I hope we can help these folks decide their own destiny.
Even if it’s not exactly like ours.
It will be very interesting to see what they come up with.
When I was a kid, my father worked there. I saw the whole country went downhill fast and some “not always nice” people were replaced with hate filled ones who have proudly killed their opponents and kept their bloodstained hands in power for nearly 31 years.
It is a lovely country that HAD a lot more culturally in common with us than say China. They were proud to remind everyone they are not Arabs. They are the original Aryans! That is where the name of the country comes from.
Although I would love to think that it will get better soon, I have my doubts. It took 70 years to get the crazies out of the Kremlin and they would doubtless like their empire back. 31 years is a little soon – but there is always hope…
#5 You might want to read up on history a little more. When the Shah was installed, he created his own despised secret police (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAVAK). So the bloodstained hands go back a lot longer than 1979.
And I agree, they’re annoyed when people call them Arabs. They’re Persians.
Uh, thanks for sharing, little pedro. Whatever it was that you said there. 🙂
get A’jad!
#9 Great, now I’ve got the lyrics to “Get A Job” stuck in my head. 🙂
[Dip, dip, dip, dip, dip, dip, dip, dip, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, Get a job. Sha na na na, sha na na na na… – ed.]
Isn’t if funny how the All Knowing Phydeau, who probably never left the basement, knows more about Iran than Holdfast, who lived there?
#11 Try a little reading comprehension there, sport. I wasn’t disputing Holdfast’s personal experience. I was just pointing out that there’s a long and detailed history of SAVAK’s atrocities before 1979 also. So it’s not like Iran was some kind of paradise before the Ayatollah came in and mucked things up. Capice?
And I just look all-knowing to you because I actually do things like read history books. You should try it some time. 😉
Glad to see a population willing to stand up to oppression and corruption. I hope to see this in the USA in my lifetime.
Notice how Phydeau still doesn’t understand that:
“not always nice” people = Shah’s police, and
“hate filled ones who have proudly killed their opponents” = those in power AFTER the revolution?
Don’t believe me? How about others like Holdfast with some first-hand experience?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7879434.stm
Does it surprise you to find that Iranians yearn for the good old days of the Shah?
#12 Keep going. Pedro and what’s his face have nothing to contribute to any post other than the usual bull. No substance, no insight.
Understandably, they had their head in their respective asses when the GOP was dismembering the laws of the land. All to protect the children of course.
While the GOP remains rudderless and struggling for relevancy, Pedro and mule are here to discredit until a new GOP sheepherder comes forward.
Oh and Phydeau, how about this?
“Twenty-five years later, however, that joy has faded for most Iranians. Dissatisfaction is growing with theocratic rule. Many who despised the shah and feared SAVAK, his secret police, now remember his rule with nostalgia. Afshin Molavi, journalist and author of “Persian Pilgrimages: Journey Across Iran,” says that economic hardship and lack of social freedom are the main causes for the change of heart.
“When you travel across Iran what you notice is that there is a substantial amount of economic nostalgia for the Shah’s era,” according to Molavi. “And you see that just about everywhere you go and among all classes from the working classes to the middle classes, …”
And that was in 2004!!
http://globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2004/5-020204.htm
Oh, and here will be the final outcome of the current state of affairs in Iran.
“Behnud says that many people regret the departure of Mohammad Reza Shah. But author Molavi says few Iranians would want a return to monarchy. “They’ve come to this sort of a unifying idea that the Islamic republic has not served us well, so what we need is a more democratic republic, and I think that the people don’t necessarily believe that a monarchy is an answer to all of their ills.” (Golnaz Esfandiari)”
I guess I’m done beating up Phydeau, it wasn’t a fair fight.
#19 Thank you.
#15 Notice how Phydeau still doesn’t understand that:
“not always nice” people = Shah’s police, and
“hate filled ones who have proudly killed their opponents” = those in power AFTER the revolution?
Get it thru your thick skull: I’m not saying the Ayatollah’s killers were any better than SAVAK’s killers. I’m saying they exchanged one set of killers for another in 1979. Neither of which, by the way, would have existed if in our infinite wisdom we hadn’t deposed Mosaddeq in 1953.
Regarding #18, I’m sure Germans enjoyed their economic prosperity under Hitler too… while it lasted.
My point, and the point of many others here, is that we hope the Iranians can get rid of the religious dictatorship that’s in power now, and return to some kind of parliamentary democracy like they had before the 1953 coup. But spare us the BS of how wonderful Iran was under the Shah, because it wasn’t. (Psst, they overthrew him, remember?)
A further point is that if we had bombed Iran like you wingnuts were insisting we should, the religious dictatorship would have only been entrenched more strongly.
#20 Yeah, I guess you showed me. 😉 (Where’s that eye-rolling icon when you need it?)
Has it been uncomfortable with little pedro’s nose up your posterior? He’s a good little cheerleader, isn’t he?
Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!
“like you wingnuts were insisting…”
Wow! You can read minds now too?
“spare us the BS of how wonderful Iran was under the Shah, because it wasn’t. (Psst, they overthrew him, remember?)”
So life in Iran was SOOO much better before 1953? The people were SOOO much happier?
No buyers remorse since 1979?
Show me.
… waiting patiently for the wingnuts to admit they were wrong in wanting to bomb Iran…
Yeah, that’ll be a long loooooong wait. 🙂
#24 Wow! You can read minds now too?
No, just read the newspapers and the websites where all the terrorized wingnuts have been insisting that we must bomb Iran because they’re working on getting a nuke.
Maybe you missed that. 😉
So life in Iran was SOOO much better before 1953? The people were SOOO much happier?
No buyers remorse since 1979?
Sigh… you’re embarrassing yourself. No one’s saying life was “SOOO” much better before 1953. But which do you think is better, a parliamentary democracy (pre 1953) or a dictatorial monarchy (post 1953). Take your time. And no doubt the Iranians were dismayed by the religious dictatorship they got after 1979… lots of buyers remorse there. But no one around here is saying things were better after 1979 than before. Maybe you should check in with those voices in your head, maybe they’re saying that. 😉
Wow, Phydeau, so my mind, as well as Holdfast, is in a newspaper?
Oh wait, I know! Don’t answer the question!
Oh Phydeau, the great mind reader, are you now stating that possibly, even quite probably, the Iranians DO WANT the standard of living they enjoyed under the Shah?
That they were happier BEFORE 1979 and AFTER 1953?
That maybe your arrogant attitude in #6 was a little misplaced?
Almost as much fun as flipping dead ayatollahs
http://iconicphotos.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/khomenidead2-jpg.jpeg
Pre 1979 Iran was not as good as it could have been. It was not the freest country in the middle east. It was however the only country there that had diplomatic relations with the freest one. It may have been that relationship which upset the crazies the most. Can anyone guess which country that was?
Pilgrim, LOL!
Nothing like being a dead ayatollah!
Hey Phydeau, do you know the answer to Holdfasts question?
It’s the same state that the current Iranian administration wants to wipe off the face of the map.
After all that anti-Iran propaganda back in 1979 (with the Mickey Mouse posters giving them the finger etc.), I was pissed to learn later that our CIA had actually “engineered” the shah dictatorship that canceled the elections back in the early ’50s. Jeez, who could blame them for wanting to get rid of that oppressive regime?
But then, still later I found that it was cold war fear of Stalin’s (remember him?) designs on taking over Iran during WWII that concerned the West’s militarists to try to intervene after that conflict to ward him off. Such events must be considered also if one wants to see the big picture (such as it is).
History is complicated. I suppose petroleum may have had something to do with it, too.
Exactly, KneeJerk.
The big picture.
1953.
A democratically elected figurehead marching toward closer ties with the Soviet Union.
The Monarch since 1941 striving for closer economic and political ties with the west.
A religious faction wanting it all for themselves.
Could it be the CIA averted an all-out civil war??
I bet Iran authorities are calling them anarchists and have put them on the “Terror Watch List”.
In the sadly, unlikely event of a free Iran by the weekend, who would our leaders be protecting us against next week?
Would they have to fall back upon old favourites like Yemen, North Korea or Syria or would they “discover” new dangers they can shield us from?
For some reason you wingnuts have got the idea I’m defending the current Iranian regime. I don’t know where you got that idea. Hate to quote myself, but here ya go:
#3 Again, good thing we didn’t listen to the wingnuts who were urging us to Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran. Otherwise these protesters would be rallying in support of their repressive government against the “Great Satan”.
Got it, boys? Fundamentalist muslim government, bad. Totalitarian dictator propped up by other countries, bad. Parliamentary democracy, good. Simple enough for you?
#27 As I mentioned before, economic health is only one factor in a free society. We’d all like to be wealthy and not have to worry about the secret police. And there’s a lot you can read about SAVAK. They were bad guys, keeping the population afraid and under control until it got too big for them to control.
#32 Nice fantasy there, you’d have to provide some evidence though.
#35 I agree with your assessment, Holdfast. An external threat is always useful for a repressive government to keep the rabble in line.
#6. Phydeau- Just for the record, I agree with you. As an interesting aside…In the mid 80’s, I became college friends with the exiled son of the head of the Shah’s secret police…aka SAVAK. He was a nice kid……but I doubted his story. At one point he showed to me his fathers college graduation picture….it was from his graduating class at West Point.
That kind of blew me away, and opened my eyes. The rest of you can read into it what you want….but a country should be able to determine it’s OWN course, without outside interference.