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Ever since Iran’s presidential election a few days ago, there have been massive protests in the country’s urban centers. While the government has been successful in shutting down most communications coming out of the country, they have thusfar been unable to quash the thousands of tweets coming from the protestors.
Helping the twitterers out by setting up over 9,000 proxy servers and launching DDoS attacks on Iranian government websites, the guys with plenty of time on their hands at 4chan.org seem to be this country’s major cyber warriors – all those jokes about the 101st fighting keyboard brigade must have struck a nerve. Even the Pirate bay is getting in on the action by seeding torrents of videos taken down by youtube for their graphic content.
The information coming out has included pictures of injured and dead protestors, video of the Basij thugs shooting into crowds, and communications to other protestors about which places in Tehran and elsewhere are safe to gather.
From all the information coming out, this appears to be the beginning of a big revolution in Iran. Let’s hope they can change their country for the better. Here are their demands:
Demands from the protesters Â
1. Dismissal of Khamenei for not being a fair leader
2. Dismissal of Ahmadinejad for his illegal acts
3. Temporary appointment of Ayatollah Montazeri as the Supreme Leader
4. Recognition of Mousavi as the President
5. Forming the Cabinet by Mousavi to prepare for revising the Constitution
6. unconditional and immediate release of all political prisoners
7. Dissolution of all organs of repression, public or secret.
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I’ll be back to update this with links when I can.
l3wis
What sad is neither this Admin, nor the last one is doing anything to support the protesters and their movement.
Reagan told the Poles that we stood with them when it came time for them to break from the Soviet Union, the same sentiment needs to be communicated to the Iranian people by someone other than some kid in Kansas on Twitter.
What sad is neither this Admin, nor the last one is doing anything to support the protesters and their movement.
If Obama opens his mouth and says even the smallest words of encouragement to the protestors, and the government will use that as propaganda to turn the whole revolution into an American/Zionist plot. This has to be done by the Iranian people without our official support.
Unofficially, the State Department is rumored to have contacted the bigwigs at twitter and asked them to delay a scheduled outage to allow Iranian voices to be heard un-interupted.
Whether he means to or not, Obama is doing hte right thing here. The Iranian regime has been a house of cards since 1979. The average age of Iranian citizens is 24 – too young to remember the revolution and its causes. They’re tired of being oppressed.
You just pointed out the reason we are in the mess we are in when it comes to our poor relations with mideast countries, because we take sides too often. Our past support of Israel enrages the Mideast muslims, and giving Israel billions in aid and weaponry doesn’t help matters either.
I think when you are trying to use diplomacy instead of bombs to solve problems it’s best to be the audience member first then the referee.
Obama is doing the right thing by saying nothing. Just like the pirate situation, it’s best just to play it cool. Trust me. I’m sure he has made a ‘few calls’ already.
Now if John McCain would learn to shut his pie-hole.
I think when you are trying to use diplomacy instead of bombs to solve problems it’s best to be the audience member first then the referee.
When you’re trying to spread democracy, you have to speak directly to the people of the country you want to change. Threatening their government with sanctions and bombing raids will only gove ammunition to their propaganda wing, and only hurt the people you want to help.
For the last 15 years I have been hearing cries from people saying we just need to led the Middle East handle their own problems and keep our mouths closed, because every time we try to intervene it ends with a huge pile of shit.
Whether it is failed attempts to replace leadership or the Iran Contra affair, we clearly haven’t done a stellar job when we attempt to influence the region.
Add to that the fact we were essentially responsible for Saddam taking control of Iraq… well know how well that ended.
So finally we have a leader who understands one of the primary reasons so many in the Middle East hate America is precisely because we feel the need to control them and tell them what they should be doing instead of letting them figure this crap out on their own, and what do we get?
A bunch of whining talk radio desk jockeys who have never served a day in the military or had one shred of diplomatic experience along with a bunch of neocon armchair experts who take their history lessons from the likes of wikipedia telling us that Obama is making a mistake for not acting.
I say this is long overdue. Their nation will be stronger if the revolt comes from within just as our nation is stronger for the same reason. It is one think to ask for help and for it to be provided, but when “help” comes in the form of invasions and military strikes and assassination attempts, it never ends the way it was originally planned.
I think we have enough going on with Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Kim Jong Long Duck Dong Ill acting all crazy, so keeping our hands out of the Iranian soup seems like a brilliant idea.
It is one thing to walk softly and carry a big stick, but it is another to think you have to swing that stick at every given opportunity.
Keep them guessing and things will work themselves out. Just wait and see.
I saw him at a disco in Dallas in the early 80’s. The glitter ball fell on him and he has ‘glow’ confused with nuclear.
ah ah stayin alive