election in iran

[Sean]

Originally Posted by cured

C'mon Sean, what do you think of the "investigation"?

Here's the problems with that:

1) Ballots were most likely destroyed, if not stored elsewhere
2) Who would conduct the recount, if there is one? Surely the same people who counted them in the first place, right?
3) Who does it serve if the investigation/recount turned up a different winner? There'd be widespread chaos. At worst, Ahmedinejad would lose a chunk of percentage points but remain comfortably over 50%.

I believe Khamenei has really misjudged this situation and is flailing at focusing the blame elsewhere. By directing some of it on the protesters, it only serves to prove, in their minds, that what they're doing is right and they need to push on.

If Khamenei wants to survive this process, he'll have to make a lot of concessions, but at this point I don't think he can do enough to reverse his stature, based on his last 2 speeches.

I was only commenting on the strategy of Khamenei's sudden proclamation that it was a "definitive victory" for Ahmadinejad only days after he called for an investigation into the election results. As for the investigation itself and how fruitful/effective/legitimate it would be, who really knows? The level of corruption involved in Iran (as in most places) is pretty insurmountable, so I doubt it would lead to any honest, constructive conclusions. I basically agree with everything you've said here.

[Sean]

So now, as his government continues to make activists disappear and reportedly beat protesters "like animals", Ahmadinejad has taken to lecturing Obama for using such vile tactics as a harsh "tone". The attempts by the Iranian government to deflect criticism of it's own actions onto Britain and the U.S. have been so pitiful that I wonder who it is they think they may be convincing with them?

It's difficult to imagine what's going to happen when all of this is over.

[cacophony]

just tossing it out there for discussion;

let's say in the last US election the mccain supporters decided to protest and set things on fire in the street (as many pieces of footage have shown). how do you think the US gov't would react?

[Sean]

Originally Posted by cacophony

just tossing it out there for discussion;

let's say in the last US election the mccain supporters decided to protest and set things on fire in the street (as many pieces of footage have shown). how do you think the US gov't would react?

Depends on the scope and violence of the protests of course, but I would assume arrests, maybe tear gas, things along those lines.

But making activists disappear as I linked earlier? Probably not. Or assigning someone like Saaed Mortazavi, aka “the butcher of the press” thanks to his involvement in the torture, rape and killing of a detained photographer back in 2003 to interrogating arrested protesters? I don't think so. Or unleashing hundreds of violent, government sponsored fundamentalists onto the streets with clubs, axes and various weapons to quell non-violent protests? I'd say no to that too.

If Iran was simply trying to maintain order with their actions, then that's one thing. And frankly, even if that was the case, there'd probably some random instances of unnecessary violence thanks to the fact that there will always be some bad eggs on both sides of a large stand-off. But that's not what Iran is trying to do. They're actively suppressing the voices of the Iranian people through violence and terror, period.

How would you answer your own question?

[cacophony]

i think if we were talking apples and apples, meaning the scale of the protests were the same and a minority of people were lighting things on fire and smashing things our gov't would send in the national guard behind beefed up police forces.

i also think that under GWB's watch protesters would have disappeared, charged with violations of the patriot act, which makes it legal for the gov't to hold you indefinitely and makes it illegal for you to discuss the terms of your detainment.

i'm just mulling it over in my head but it feels like we're very outraged at the iranian gov't and just a few years ago we lived with an administration that would have been happy to do the same.

on the other hand, i feel like the cantankerous nature of the legislative and judicial branches and that "checks and balances" concept makes it unlikely that the clamp-down would go unpunished. but then...... a lot of things went unpunished under GWB, and will likely never be made right.

i don't know. it's so hard to know how accurate any of the reporting is from iran. it's all anecdotal self-reporitng from those few people who can get footage out of the country. an analysis of the twitter "revolution" showed that it was actually just a handful of people tweeting about the situation and a lot of other people re-tweeting or talking about the original posts. it's hard to get a clear view of what exactly is going on. people can't even agree whether neda was a protestor, a bystander, if she was shot by cops, or by a sniper.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Neda appears to have been a victim of a botched terrorist organization's hit.

HMM.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by cacophony

i think if we were talking apples and apples, meaning the scale of the protests were the same and a minority of people were lighting things on fire and smashing things our gov't would send in the national guard behind beefed up police forces.

Probably so.

Originally Posted by cacophony

i also think that under GWB's watch protesters would have disappeared, charged with violations of the patriot act, which makes it legal for the gov't to hold you indefinitely and makes it illegal for you to discuss the terms of your detainment.

While this is a possibility, would you put it on a comparable level to what's happening in Iran now? Reporters Without Borders' count puts the number of detained reporters since the election in Iran at 34, supposedly 70 professors were detained for having met with Mousavi (although the source on this is Mousavi himself, so we can take that with a grain of salt), along with estimates of hundreds of protesters who have been detained - and it's probably fair to say that a fair number of them weren't detained due to their violent behavior.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find any example of comparable, contemporary stories here in the States, despite the obvious, troubling faults in the Patriot Act. And that can probably be largely attributed to the fact that while we have surely been subject to election fraud here, it's not been as big and blatant as what appears to have happened in Iran to spark these protests. So there's yet another difference

Originally Posted by cacophony

i'm just mulling it over in my head but it feels like we're very outraged at the iranian gov't and just a few years ago we lived with an administration that would have been happy to do the same.

I've never been on board with attributing this level of maliciousness to the Bush administration. Inept and wrong-headed, yes. Dancing on the line of heading in this direction, quite possibly. But actually saying they would've been "happy to do the same"? No.

Originally Posted by cacophony

on the other hand, i feel like the cantankerous nature of the legislative and judicial branches and that "checks and balances" concept makes it unlikely that the clamp-down would go unpunished. but then...... a lot of things went unpunished under GWB, and will likely never be made right.

And there's yet another crucial difference between the situations here and there. In Iran, the checks and balances come down to the Ayatollah and the clerical assembly that undemocratically selects him and has the power to replace him at will.

Originally Posted by cacophony

i don't know. it's so hard to know how accurate any of the reporting is from iran.

That alone highlights a world of difference if we're focussing on how comparable the situations would be. The blatant suppression of the press began before the results of the election were even available. The Bush administration (and Republican party in general) was certainly no fan of or supporter of the U.S. press, but this kind of suppression would simply not be tolerated here.

Originally Posted by cacophony

it's all anecdotal self-reporitng from those few people who can get footage out of the country. an analysis of the twitter "revolution" showed that it was actually just a handful of people tweeting about the situation and a lot of other people re-tweeting or talking about the original posts. it's hard to get a clear view of what exactly is going on.

Even if the "twitter revolution" wasn't as big as once thought, it's extremely telling that it, along with eyewitness accounts through various other sources, is our only source of information out of the country aside from state sponsored news that showed only celebrations for a victorious Ahmadinejad. Even his opponent Mousavi's own newspaper has been shut down by the government.

Originally Posted by cacophony

people can't even agree whether neda was a protestor, a bystander, if she was shot by cops, or by a sniper.

Well, Iran's government claims it was some separatist group who shot her with the intent of blaming the government. So far, the Iranian government's been trying to shift the blame for everything they've done to someone else, and there's no reason for me to think the same isn't happening here. And yet again, the difficulty in getting any information out of the country thanks to government crackdowns is probably largely to blame for our inability to get clear answers about her shooting.

And all that being said, when things tipped too far to the right, we went ahead and elected a Democratic black man named Barack Hussein Obama to take the reigns.

To me, when the differences in every point raised are so glaring and easily illustrated, I find it impossible to claim any significant similarities between the situations.

[//\/\/]

that's just bullshit. using the word 'terrorism' and watering it down with 'lesser form' detracts from terrorism itself. by calling everybody some sort of terrorist, you undermine the negative essence of the association. in that sense, you're as bad as any number of right-wingers who slap the label on anybody who opposes them as it's a hard word to argue against. it's intellectual dishonesty of the highest order.

[Deckard]

Well said //\/\/

[cured]

Michael Jackson died to a shot of Demerol, it seems. Of course it deserves front page billing, it hits all the major news elements in one fell swoop, plus he happened to be the biggest thing in the 1980s.