Obama condemns Iran violence, singles out shooting of woman seen on video »
Posted By Progressive 5 months, 4 weeks ago in News
President Obama today condemned the ongoing government crackdown on Iranian demonstrators, using his strongest language yet, but declined to spell out consequences for the violence, saying there is still time for officials in that country to respect universal "norms and principles" of freedom.
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shapaug5 months, 3 weeks ago
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After all the demoRATS lying on Bush about his policy toward Iran that stupid fool Obama is now comming around to the reality that sweet talk and weakness does not work with terrorist. Obama is the stupidest president since Jimmy Carter who put these Iranian mullahs in power. Obama and Pelosi are disasters to this country. Vote them out of office
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hyperbola5 months, 3 weeks ago
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Obama should resist the efforts of the propaganda campaign being mounted by israelis and israel-firsters/zioncons in the US to try to force him to fight another mideast war to "protect" zionist crimes against humanity.
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Americans should be extremely sceptical of the "freedom and democracy" propaganda being put about by these groups. The Iran situation is extremely complex and most Americans do not understand the ramifications.
1. On one level (islamic clerics), this is about whether the "supreme leader" is responsible only to god and infallible, or whether he is responsible to the people of Iran. Not very different from the catholic argument about infallibility of the Pope.
2. On a second level, it is about the power of rich oligarchs (Mousavi, Rafsanjani) in Iranian society and whether the poor should keep quiet and do what the oligarchs decide is best. Remember that many Iranis voted for Ahmadinejad because he put aid to poor people ahead of corrupt oligarchs. Far from representing the "people of Iran", the Mousavi/Rafsnajani faction may be using middle class discontent to foment their own corruption cirles.
3. On a third level it is about the wishes of "middle class" Iranians for more personal freedoms. It is clear from the demonstrations that many people feel very fervently about this, especially in central Tehran. However, to a majority of poor Iranians, e.g. in the slums of south Tehran and the rest of the country, the "aid for the poor versus power for the oligarchs" may be a more decisive argument. That is why Ahmadinejad already decisively defeated the Rafsnajani/Mousavi group in the previous elections (and by the same margin).
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Progressive5 months, 3 weeks ago
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...or, to put it another way:
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Progressive5 months, 3 weeks ago
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Obama sent letter to Khamenei before the election, report says:
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/24/khamen... -
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Progressive5 months, 3 weeks ago
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Contradictory information continues flowing from Iran, as one report will say that the streets of Tehran are relatively calm, while video and tweets say otherwise. Now, reports of a brutal crackdown of a gathering of as many as 5,000 protesters is gaining momentum. Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish quotes a dramatic phone-call broadcast on CNN of a protester describing the horrific scene. "All of a sudden some 500 people with clubs came out of [undecipherable] mosque and they started beating everyone. They tried to beat everyone on [undecipherable] bridge and throwing them off of the bridge," the woman said. The Lede backs up this story, saying that several Iranian bloggers have reported hearing gunshots at the rally. One tweet picked up by the Huffington Post and Andrew Sullivan is the most disturbing of all, "In Baharestan we saw militia with axe choping ppl like meat - blood everywhere - like butcher . . . Fighting in Vanak Sq, Tajrish sq, Azadi Sq - now . ."
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http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/latest... -
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Progressive5 months, 3 weeks ago
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Things are looking troubling in Tehran: According to Reuters, “riot police and Basij militia appeared to have largely quelled mass protests against the June 12 poll.” Also, a conservative candidate, who originally disputed the election results, withdrew his complaint on Wednesday. And The Huffington Post has translated a report from a newspaper loyal to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that lays the groundwork for the arrest of Mir Hossein Mousavi. It claims, “Tens of dead and injured, widespread destruction of public property, widespread fires, and hundreds of citizens' cars destroyed are the results of two weeks of dodging the law and the selfishness of Mir Hossein Mousavi.”
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Progressive5 months, 3 weeks ago
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Things continue to worsen in Iran: Zahra Rahnavard, the feminist leader and wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi, defended her husband’s supporters’ right to protest, and said it was “as if martial law has been imposed in the streets.” The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, "On the current situation, I was insisting and will insist on implementation of the law. … For sure, neither the system nor the people will give in to pressures at any price." Meanwhile, The Huffington Post's Nico Pitney reports on a violent protest in Baharestan Square, where apparently about 5,000 demonstrators have been attacked by police. Gunshots have been heard and police beatings have been reported.
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Progressive5 months, 3 weeks ago
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It's McCain vs. Obama all over again, and pundits can't get enough. A vocal critic of Obama's Iran policy, McCain may have been a target when Obama accused his Iran policy detractors of partisan bickering, noting "only I'm the president of the United State." But the man who wishes he was president kept speaking out, and pulled his military trump card, citing "long years of experience on these issues." Time Magazine’s Joe Klein, who reported from Iran during the election, has now jumped into the fray. On Monday, when asked about McCain’s remarks, Klein said, "Be quiet. You don't need to do this. You know? You know what you're doing is a self-indulgent at this point. Sen. McCain, if he's going to talk about this, should also talk about the fact that the United States supported Saddam Hussein in the Iran/Iraq war for eight years. Every one of those protesters out in the streets, every last one of them believes the United States supplied Saddam Hussein with the poison gas that has debilitated tens of thousands of Iranian men."
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM... -
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Progressive5 months, 3 weeks ago
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(Newser) – A little more than a month before Iran’s disputed election, the Obama administration sent a letter to Ayatollah Khamenei proposing improved bilateral relations and a resolution to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, the Washington Times reports. Khamenei mentioned the letter in a lengthy sermon last week, amid accusations that the US was inciting election protests. Iranian sources say the letter was sent between May 4 and 10.
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In his sermon, Khamenei misquoted Obama as saying that he expected the people of Iran to protest. “On the one hand, they write a letter to us to express their respect for the Islamic Republic and for re-establishment of ties, and on the other hand they make these remarks. Which one of these remarks are we supposed to believe?” he said. -
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Progressive5 months, 3 weeks ago
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Iranian-American activists are circulating an email, written in Farsi, in which a 17-year-old boy describes his torture at the hands of the regime, complete with graphic photographs, Salon reports. The boy, who says he's not an activist of any stripe, says he was minding his own business in a parking lot when agents apprehended him. Taken into custody, police beat him with batons, broke his fingers, and sliced the webs between them, and hung him from his wrists to be beaten some more.
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Finally, he was taken to a hospital, bandaged and released. “I think they knew we did nothing,” he writes. “I am surprised how I tolerated all the tortures and survived.” Salon’s translator raises some issues with the email: the boy seems to confuse Basij paramilitaries and police, and claims non-Iranians were among his captors—a rampant and unsubstantiated rumor in Iran. But some confusion is natural, the translator said. “It is obvious that he was tortured.” When this happened is unclear.
http://www.salon.com/news/primary_sources/2009/06/... -
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Progressive5 months, 3 weeks ago
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Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi is constantly surrounded by guards and secret police and can no longer speak freely to supporters, protest spokesman Mohsen Makhmalbaf tells the Independent. Makhmalbaf, one of Iran's leading film directors, says Mousavi's lines of communications have been cut or confiscated.
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