Michael's Dispatches

[quote name="in_awe"]Thank God President Obama has been there offering moral support to the Iranian people who are wishing and hoping for change.[/quote]

What? What exactly has he done to support the Iranian people?

Obama ignored the Green Revolution in 2009, when the Iranian people rose up against the regime.
Virtually ignored it.

Protesters were killed on the streets and people were dragged off to prisons and raped and tortured.

Moral support for the Iranian people from Obama?
You are delusional.

I'm pretty sure this was said with tongue firmly planted in cheek!

Did you mean to use the /s switch for satire?

Be sure to check the batteries in your sarcasm meter. That was a well written comment.

Maybe a mere overlook, but the woman in question lives in and is speaking of Iran, not Iraq.

[quote name="Sean"]While I feel for folks living under tyranny, this is what Islam gets you.

The sooner they all get back to killing each other off, the better off the West will be. If we somehow took out the current Iranian regime, who knows what would rise to power in it's place? I'd wager that the more ruthless of aspirants would succeed in that part of the world.

The only lesson I've learned over the past decade that intervening in Islam is a fool's errand. Defending folks from Islam is laudable, but trying to get a country filled with Muslims to even consider western-style civility is pointless. Their religion prohibits them from buying what we're trying to sell.

Islam is the new evil empire. It's always been an evil empire, but it's pre-petroleum-wealth impotence made it's imperialism unimportant. Now that they've got our oil money, we've been forced to recognize the danger Islam represents to all mankind.

I don't care if surveys say 99% of Iranians support us: eff 'em. They'll hate our infidel backsides in a week after we land.[/quote]

That is a very, very sweeping generalization you made. Practicing Muslims live in nearly every major country in the world and they function just fine while adhering to "Western style civility." Blaming Islam for the way things currently are in the ME is like blaming Christianity for the Crusades. As the very letter you're responding to shows it isn't religion that's the problem; its power hungry, ruthless, greedy people.

So how are we (the Western world) better than them if we just sit by the side and look when they start slaughtering each other, or be content with seeing a vicous dictator remain because "who knows what would rise in it's place?" People over there might be somewhat upset that we have behaved like that in the past.
As much as I don't agree with Islam, I'd still like to point out that a lot of the violence might have something to do with the region itself, and not quite that much with the religion. Take a look at the Lebanese civil war. There were Muslims and Christians pitted against each other, and both sides behaved like they were from the 13th century of Europe, but with assault rifles.
It probably has more to do with being in the third world than being Muslim.

"If we somehow took out the current Iranian regime"
Yeah, you know how Iran wound up a nutcase Theocracy in the first place? Because 'we' took out the independent Iranian regime in the 50s, and replaced it with a commie-hating, pro-west autocrat. Islam is an evil empire, what, are you literally twelve or something? Pack up your generalizations and your culture war BS and grow up.

"Western-style civility" that's a bit rich considering your comment.

Eternal Vigilance is the price of Liberty.

Resting easy only means we're caught flatfooted when it actually happens. Better to prevent than to cure.

As I recall, we were resting easy on September 11, 2001, and you know what that got us.

"I have spent a lot of time in Central America and know about corruption; and let me tell you we are becoming just like them."

What U talkin bout?

The US is where all foreign countries learn how to be corrupt!

I had to re-read it a few times. However, before you're quick to judge others harshly and negatively, give them the benefit of the doubt first. Perhaps you just don't understand what she's saying. Unlike here in the US, she's putting her personal security and her family's at risk by simply reaching out at all.

That said, I believe she's meaning that those against the US Government are mostly in that boat because their government, which they are loyal to, are against the US. Meaning, if the Iranian President said tomorrow Malibu Barbie is the best and he endorses Newt Gingrich, they would potentially be Pro-US on Election Night, Nov '12.

An English speaker with email and a Western (better yet, developed world to include Japan, Taiwan, etc.) contact is a minority, but not a small one. There are many Iranians with friends and family abroad. During my years teaching English in East Asia, I met a number of Iranians, mostly elite: visiting researchers and profs, grad students (almost always in the sciences). None loved the mullahs; most were proud to be Iranian (and ridiculed the Arabs) but were often looking at ways not to return to Iran, because all was stifled there. I did not meet many of the low-level Iranians doing menial work (and/or drug smuggling), but the elite Iranians looked down on them: "Ask them what part of Tehran they're from," because it would be some ghetto.

LA's large affluent Iranian community provides much programming that is happily consumed in Iran. Studying English is common, as are computers. Iran is not wealthy or free, but it is not a Turd World country. Iranians take pains to clarify they are not Arabs, whom they generally dislike.

On 9/11, the first person to call me--before I even knew what was happening back in the US--was a domestic student. The next was an Iranian foreign student. Iranians later took to the streets in solidarity with the people of the US, whereas the Palestinians and others celebrated.

On those big "Death to America" protests, I was told young Iranians love them because they are the only gov't-sanctioned public events. At a protest, you can be young, raucous, and mingle with the opposite sex. At no other time can you have fun without the gov't cracking your head. Yes, they're shouting "Death to America" but it's an empty slogan for most. They know the cynicism.

I study with a young Iranian-American who travels to/from Iran occasionally. The picture I get is, I assume, like the Soviet Union: The majority know they're being screwed, but there is little they can do, so they try to escape.

Cuba is far from isolated, despite the U.S. embargo. Many, many Cubans have family members in the U.S. who send money to them and occasionally visit. And Cuban hotels are full of Canadian and European tourists. It's not for lack of exposure to U.S. culture that Cuba remains a police state.

[quote name="Tehran Steve"]I'm an American who lived in just prior to the revolution. I was really surprised that there were enough anti-west allies of the government to make the revolution happen. I had MANY Iranian friends and ALL of them loved the freedoms provided to them under the Shah's pseudo westernized government, and I'm sure that they'd prefer to go back to those days in a heartbeat! Sure, the Shah had to exercise some ruthless tactics in order to hold the clerics in place, but that didn't affect the freedom loving younger people in Iran.

I still correspond with some Iranians and they are not happy at all with the way things are. If they new that the west would support them fully if they tried another revolution, they'd do it in a heartbeat. The problem with this proposition is what happens with the government after an overthrow? We have all seen what happens in places like Egypt, Somolia, Libya, etc. This regions has an extremely long history of instability and I'm afraid that this is just the nature of the people.... sad, because most of them are very good people.[/quote]
Brian

At that time, and around Iraqi Freedom, the regime in Tehran was actually closer to opening up to the West than they'd been since the Shad, mainly due to being quite scared that they were up for an invasion right after Iraq. Of course that didn't last very long when they saw how badly things went in Iraq after just a couple of months and someone saw fit to include them in the "Axis of evil" together with one country they hated (Iraq) and another with which they had hardly ever spoken to (N. Korea).

The time between 9/11 and those things might've been opportunities we'll never see again.