Sic Semper Tyrannis

About Iran:

//abcnews.go.com/International/iranian-hikers-release-delayed/story?id=14561543

Does anyone know of any other nation behaving in this manner?
Well, we know that the 'evil USA' is the worst when it comes to 'human lefts' and such..., but any other nation coming close to the Iranian one?

re: contact button :)

"Is my contact information really blocked? Didn't even know. All the better. I don't want to get hate mail from fat people."

I remember that blog too which was another LOL moment.The thing is the truth hurts and sometimes it is refreshing to see bloggers who are not bothered with political correctness and say it as it is. It is interesting to watch peoples reactions.

your reasoning goes against statistics

75% of Iranians hold a favorable view of the US and countless number of Iranians try to imigrate to the US.  Your frustrations should be directed at the IRI (government).

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Admin:Why was G. Rahmanians comment deleted?

What is going on?  Who owns this site these days???

Looks like if anyone objects to the orchestrated campaigns of personal attacks by the islamist regime's cyber agents on this site, gets his comment deleted.....

Amazing indeed, 

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

So was mine...

The ratio of fairness to unfairness on this site is in proportion to the interests of American foreign policy and native informing.

Amazing!

Why was my comment deleted?

RG

What you see as colorful I see as racist generalizations. AO claims "we" did all these things. It implies "collective guilt" which I oppose. From that follows "collective punishment" which is a human rights violation.

I repeat: maybe he was involved in some of these. If so maybe he feels a guilt. The best way is for those people involved to turn themselves in. Then allow justice to handle it. Makes them feel better and gets them off backs of innocent people.

easy VPK, go easy on our friend AO :)..

AO has a colourful way of expressing himself, I agree,. But note his core message of hatred of some Iranians towards West and USA, the very same ones who happen to be very happily residing in the west. As a matter of fact, his point is well proven here by one specefic user here whose  constant rants about the west and US and his attacks on anyonbe "suspected of supporting USA!!!!" is boring us all to deatht, whilst no doubt he/she is firmly residing in the west. enjoying all the benefits to be expected from a liberal democracy  

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

Regarding 1400 Islam

I have always been critical of Islam and all who know me know it. I am not a Muslim so AO's rhyme about Islam is out of line. Just like his other statements. At least do your research before writing something totally off the wall.

Hey AO

Yeah...we climb the U.S. embassy fence like coked up moneys and take its diplomats hostage, and then it becomes the American people's burden to do their research,

Who is "we". I did not climb the US embassy walls. Maybe you did. If so turn yourself into the American authorities. Who are you to accuse me of doing something I did not. 

It is people like you who do not understand the differences. Of a bunch of thugs and a group of normal people. You and your buddy Fesenjoon encourage racism and anti-Iranianism. 

The same logic would say "Japanese raped Koreans". Or "Russians sent themselves to Gulags". Do you even think before you write. Or is your self hate so deep you are no longer thinking. Really change your name to "Bill" or "Jack" and be done with it. You are not needed in Iran now or after the IRI goes. Bye to you and your self hate.

Proposing Better Foreign Policy Options IS NOT CRITICISM...

Its actually constructive. There are better foreign policy options. Many politicians on both sides of the aisle readily admit that mistakes have been made.

Feedback is a gift. If someone says this policy is wrong, you can call it criticism, but its actually a gift ..its constructive, it helps for people that know something to provide feedback. The emperor sometimes has no clothes on.

Be amused, if you like, but I think its the duty of anyone that lives here (Iranian or not) to provide feedback to US voters and government - when ever possible. First generation Iranians know the facts on the ground better than those neo-con preppies who shape policy for whom traveling to Canada is an International trip....who have never set foot in the middle east...who are now somehow responsible for policy on the hill.

The U.S. has better options. The U.S. can spend less money and get more benefit in the short and long-term for its buck. We do not have to have trillion dollar wars, led by a drop out president with allegiance to his Texan arm merchants, who did not even own a passport when he became president...there are better options.

And if you can't see it - then you are blind. Feedback is a gift.

Leaving the pros and cons of this debate to one side

It never stops being amusing that so many critics of the US of A (Iranian or otherwise), live in it!

Pro-imperialist pseudo-leftism of native informers

The assorted native informers of the American Neo-Conservative establishment often masquerade themselves as leftists or socialists while using this as a smokescreen for articulating the essential propaganda talking points of the Empire and its genocidal agendas of conquest, hegemony and subjugation back in their homelands. 

Anti-imperialism is an essential point adhered to by all genuine leftists and libertarians. Any genuine Iranian nationalist - or any nationalist, period! - by definition is an anti-imperialist. Yes, the IRI has used and manipulated anti-imperialist rhetoric to its advantage. But this is no way invalidates the arguments against imperialism nor does it make anyone who is an anti-imperialist an agent of the regime. Those who attempt to argue otherwise are possibly themselves apologists for the genocidal policies of their Neo-Con masters and must be the latter-day Quisling fifth-columnists systematically undermining the best interests of the people, not governments, of their own homelands.

The native informers and agents of the Neo-Conservatives, however, cannot stomach or countenance such nuance or ambiguity because such nuance and ambiguity mitigates against the imperial agenda their masters are attempting to execute. Such native informers also do not have any historical consciousness or a dialectical understanding of history, as much as they utter left-sounding platitudes to mask themselves. They do this because if they don't label or smear the dissidents of the Empire and its genocidal Reich as "islamist" or "hojjati" they stand to lose on the spoils their Neo-Con imperial masters have promised them should the plan either not get off the ground or backfire.

Indeed Ho Chih Minh put the interests of Vietnam first. However America certainly did not have the best interests of Vietnam in mind - rather it had its own geostrategic interests in mind - when it took over from the French colonialists and scorched the earth of Vietnam for 20 long years and committed atrocities which to this day it has not answered for either to the people of Vietnam or to the working class soldier-veterans from among its own whose lives were forever scarred by that conflict!

AO, The false anti Imperialism of the islamist regime.

is something to note. wrapping  polar opposites of Imperial japan, nazi Germany on one hand  and vietnam on the other hand into one package and throwing it at the gullible as the justification for their own policy of hate not towards the "american imperialism", but all the forces of progress from west.

The father of modern vietnam, Ho-Chi-Min, a committed communist was not at all anti-american. The declaration of independence of vietnam from the French colonists just after the WW2, composed by Ho himself, was almost a copy of US declaration of independence. He asked and received Soviet backing only after being rejected by US. What US did in Vietnam afterwards were indeed war crimes

The Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan on the other hand were two murderous Fascist entities. Japanese treated chinese as subhuman and after capturing big chinese cities they'd go on campaign of rape and murder of civilians. So did Germans who treated Russian as sub human. never mind the 6 million Jews, Russians lost 20millions, of which at least 14million were civilians. Military attacks on both Fascist entities of Japan and Nazi Germany which were conducted not only by Americans but also Soviets and Brits were just and correct.

Back to Ho-Chi-Min and Vietnam. Ho put the interest of Vietnam and it's people ahead of his own ideology. Pure and simple. That to some degree (not entirely) explains the current course of events in Vietnam.  

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

You are absolutely wrong AO

We lost good chunk of Iran to russian on Turkamanchi and Golestan agreement and they are still screwing us and we happen to love. So, your observation is incorrect.

A O

for some time not agreeing and some view point agreeing with you..

reading your war time experiences  leaves me with some common pains with you even though personally did not experience that but my whole extended family did from khorram shahr ,ahvaz,hendijan travelling to north tehran and finally north Iran.

hate the govts. of both Iran and u.s  and at the same have to love  both lands cause of some connections.

Maziar

AO

What is it with this incessant wrapping of yourself in the stars and stripes and chest-beating and cheerleading for the most brutal and two-faced imperialist power of modern times, while throwing one-sided and partial interpretations of history into the mix?

America dropped two atomic bombs on Japan and then occupied it for over a decade, ensuring during its occupation that forces amenable to its agenda became the political elite taking over after it left the mainland. That is what occupation forces and imperialist powers do: they socially engineer forces amenable to themselves so that once they leave, the reason why they came there doesn't happen again. But America continued occupying other Japanese islands and territories with military bases - including military bases on the main islands! Example: Okinawa is not technically American territory. It is Japanese. What is America doing there almost 70 years after the end of WWII? You might also want to read up a little on Japanese post-war politics up to the late 1990s to realize that the picture you paint on Japanese views of America are not as rosy as you paint them. There are still a huge population of Japanese to this day that have not forgotten what America did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and resent everything America represents.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of China as the Asian economic power house, Vietnam has had no choice but to re-establish diplomatic relations with the US. You might want to look at what happened throughout Indochina during the Soviet/Chinese proxy wars during the 1970s in places like Cambodia and Laos to understand some of the reasons why Vietnam bit the bullet and re-established relations with the US of A at the first opportunity. These were purely for strategic reasons. Don't think for a minute that this means the Vietnamese have suddenly let bygones be bygones. They haven't -- and if you don't believe it, I invite you to go to Vietnam and talk to the Vietnamese themselves.

The case of Germany is no different than Japan's. The German left and the German right utterly detest America, and their views of America are not much different than most of the rest of the world who also detest America for valid reasons. Were it not for the fact that you have had a huge immigrant population (esp. Turkish) who have re-configured the political demographics of Germany, after reunification Germany would have become one of America's worst European nightmares. The migrant issue in Germany has created enough of a social friction within German society that the German electorate - whether right or left - no longer have the time to prioritize America as the source of 99% of the world's problem! But go back to the 1960s and 1970s of West Germany and gauge for yourself what the overwhelming electorate thought of the USA and its military presence there. Three words should give you an idea as to where the German Left stood: Baader Meinhoff gang.

Where Iran is concerned, are you kidding me?! Twice in 35 years American interference in Iranian internal affairs ended up short-changing us in a major way: with the coup d'etat against Mossadegh which the Shah was strong-armed into by the CIA and again with the rise of Khomeini. Given this, our situation is no different than the Germans in many respects because both our own right and our left look at America as the single most abrasive and negative influence on our recent history.

If you ask me, do you want to know why some Iranians in the diaspora are a petty and foolish people who aren't taken seriously by folks back home, and in fact even scorned: precisely because of the short-sighted and partial take on things expounded by this blog.

Samsam Jaan

I know my brother.  I exaggerate to get them riled up!  It works.  

Thanks for dropping by bro!! 

A dedication to VPK and Ayatoilet1

Veeee are Iranian.  We are a great nation.  We have done many great things for the past 1400 years since we became Muslims.  In fact, our most important invention is this.  It has many uses, like this, or this.  We are very smart.  Our country has everything, including one meter long kabobs.  We are the best, and superior to all other people on this planet.  In fact, if there is life on other planets, we are superior to them as well. 

But at the same time, our level of intelligence is the same as a five year old retarded imbecile.  Again, that’s a five year old who is retarded, and is also a moron.  That’s why everyone has been stealing from us and has been holding us back for the past 100…no, let’s make it 300 years.  We’re just too hapless of a people to stop them.  Hell, we’re so stupid that one single American who couldn’t speak our language, had never been to our country and didn’t know a thing about culture came over to our country and within a month toppled our government!  Now how is that for stupid?!! 

And now, they’re stealing our interests in our seas, they’re going to invade us, bomb us and even take our women.  And there is nothing we can do about it.  All we can do is burn American flags and chant ‘death to America.’  See how retarded, helpless and hopeless we are?  

But we love Americans.  We take you hostage, blow up your Marine barracks and send terrorists to hijack your planes.  Ah, we also chant ‘death to America” everyday.  But we love you.  We just hate your government.  Can we have a student visa please?   

Ayatoilet1 - Sorry, but your comment belongs in the toilet!

Do you know how demeaning you are to Iranians?  Are we so stupid as a people that everyone on the planet has been able to screw us for the past 100 years?!!!  Do you know how idiotic that position is?  Do you know how irresponsible that mentality is?

Dude, here's the deal: every nation on this planet is out there looking for its interest,  Iranians are not the center of the uniiverse.  Other nations owe us nothing and will only look out for their own interests.  That's the real world, not "i'm an Iranian, worship me" world.  

God, the Iranian mentality is beyond hope!!  

Anyway, read my next comment.  Your new friend VPK should read it as well.   

Oh, oh, I was caught by the "being in line" police!!

VPK - you're funny.  Do you even think before you write these comments?  Yeah...we climb the U.S. embassy fence like coked up moneys and take its diplomats hostage, and then it becomes the American people's burden to do their research, study world history and figure out why we are the crazed, flag burning, airplane hijacking lunatics that we have become.  That's right American population of 1979, all 200 million of you.  Line up at the libraries, (remember, it's 1979, no internet, no Fox News, no Glenn Beck), check out books about world history while we pay Imad Moghniyeh to hijack the TWA flight, shoot the passenger on board and throw his body on the runway.  You have to do this.  You owe it to us.  Remember what Kermit Roosevelt did? We chant Death to America.  But you have to treat us nicely.  That's because  we are special.  We are Iranians.  The world revolves around us!

And as far as the money, tell your father not to worry about us.  We have no money left for us in Iran.  Our home was destroyed in the war.  We spent a couple of weeks sleeping in the mosque in Shiraz, and then ended up in a two bedroom apartment with three generations of my family.  After spending more than a year in those cramped quarters we came to the U.S. with the clothes on our back and two suitcases.  We had to collect food stamps so that we could eat for almost a year before my parents could get on their feet, get jobs and feed us.  My parents sold the land where our home used to be years later for little more than a $1,000.00.  We still don't have a home in Iran, despite my parents' wish to someday have a place of their own there.  They just haven't been able to afford it yet.  My dad does still have a brick of what our home used to be back in Iran.  He kept it as a momento of what his life used to be.  If you or your father want it, I can send it over to you. 

may be.......

A dream or reality of near future..

with all the out sourcing of the past 25-30 yrs; just picture if they move the whole wall street operation of east coast  and simi valley's of west coast operations to china and .........

p.s  Iran may need another 100 yrs to get where china is today.

Maziar

Abarmard

Regarding China: USA almost succeeded in disintegrating China. But the authorities in Bejing were not going to put up with it. They watched the Soviet Union go donw the tube. Figured out what was being planned for them.

Then went all out and blew the "pro democracy" movement out! That is how they got to keep China in one piece. Not nice; not peaceful but they pulled it off, Then went for corporate greed and got their economy back on track. But China is ruled by much more benevolent dictators than IRI. Not to mention more pragmatic. Besides they do not pose a perceived threat to Israel. Therefore they are in a different position. Iran needs a nationalist government to get where China is now.

Just for record

Both Ayatoilet {despite our differences on the other blog} and Abarmard are right.

Looks Who's Talking?

Like they say in Iran, its the Pan calling the kettle black! When it comes to vindictiveness and pettyness...lets see. 3000 people died on 9/11; then George Bush got the mandate to spend some 3 Trillion dollars on two wars (one of them falsely linking the enemy to 9/11...) and ended up killing some 200,000 Iraqis, some 50,000+ Afghans...none of which had anything to do with 9/11 ...

And you have the audacity to call Iranians vindictive? Do you really think he could have, would have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan without the vindictiveness and venom of the American public?

Iranians have everyright to fight for their freedom and democracy. And no we are not fighting because the brits brought up the price of Tea. We're fighting because this has been a 100 year struggle for freedom in Iran. Iran was the FIRST democracy in Asia...back in 1906. And 1953 (and kermit roosevelt) was the continuation of the fight for freedom and democracy in Iran (that the Brits and their idiotic masters America - who revere anyown with a British accent - took away from Iranians). In case you did not know, the Brits organized coup after coup so they could steal Iranian oil. In 1952, in front of the world court, Mossadegh proved that they were stealing with their taxes on profits to the British government in ONE YEAR being more than ALL the royalties they paid Iran since 1922 (i.e. 30 years).

You want us to simply sit by and let people steal from us? If so, AO, you're an idiot. And by the way, they are stealing our resources out of the Caspian Sea now, but the game is not over. Our day will come. If it takes 1000 years, we will win our freedom and democracy - and while we may forgive, we will never forget who stole our liberty and resources. 

Nothing petty about that. And unlike Japan, and Vietnam...we were NOT in a declared war with U.S. or Britain. We were "attacked" without any provocation. Have them dig their wells somewhere else please. And please give back our liberty...and stop medling in Iranian affairs, or Azeri affairs, or Turkmen affairs, or Iraqi affairs...please leave us all alone.

Please. Nothing petty about that. 

Answering your suggestion

Answering your suggestion in regard to overall Iranian behavior in respond to US actions towards Iran is simple yet hard. It is simple because the question has many answers that can be given without much research. Hard because one doesn’t know where to begin and answer your blog in a short and most efficient manner.

It is not a matter of one sided scenario but an equation. Simply in those countries the US had decided to promote a relation based on mutual trust and equal terms in economic benefits.  It is not the same case with Iran. You may ask why is US so hung up about the 1979 hostage crises? The answer is the same. The objective of the policymakers in both countries is to limit the power of the other as they perceive each as a rival. A rival does not mean in economic terms. Rival meaning in an area that one had originally strategic/political foot prints and wants to keep it in tact.
Iranians who want and promote better relations are in the same line of thinking as to have relations based on mutual trust. Mostly they perceive relation to mean free trade for a better and prosperous economy. Iranians don’t have a grouch against anyone if they sense that free trade would take place similar to the countries that you have mentioned.  So to simplify, you have to ask what it is that you are willing to give to get a good relation with US. In the case of China, Russia, Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan, and etc. the situation is vastly different.
 
US is not willing to sit and talk to Iran. Iran is not willing to submit to US demand. It’s not a matter of dictatorship, as US supports dictators around the globe, and it’s not a matter of Nuclear weapons, as US knows well the full capability and reality of that weapon in hands of Iran. Even Iran is fully aware that this game is nothing more than keeping or kicking the foot prints of your rival in the region.

The better scenario would have been for you to bring China or Soviet example. China did not give to US demand but US decided to have equal economic terms and open trade with China, which I hope US will reach the same conclusion in regard to Iran. In Soviet case, US and Soviets fought for strategic footprints in the region until one submitted defeat.  That’s more like Iran today but I add that the world has changed and Iran is not Soviet Union!
Back to the argument, the issue here is based on equation rather than one side to submit. Meaning US will not have similar trade benefits to Iran because Iran is looking beyond her borders where US has settled! US could have easily won Iran if she thought Iran will sit idle like Saudi Arabia, and take the money. But Iranian agenda in the region is more like Soviet or China in the cold war era.

This argument can be developed in many areas and can be very long. I suggest you read a bit more about Iranian history, and also world history. Try to avoid news flash and quick highlights, but comprehensive study as 20th century politics up to now. You will know your answer.

Responses

Regarding "How was the average American to know the difference". By reading history; learning and educating themselves. But why bother as long as they got 200 channels of mind numbing TV. Plus Rush; Glenn and Fox. 

• AO: As usual you are out of line. More generalizations just like Fesenjoon. Yes Iranians are vindictive. Why: because we are not begging to be bombed! Great job man keep up the good work! You scare me more than IRI does.
• Dear Dr. Ala: I agree with you completely. AO is making some really out of line remarks.  He is just taking the lead from his buddy Fesenjoon in trashing Iranians. The actions of USA to many nations has been outrageous.
• Dear Anahid: I also experienced some pretty nasty reactions. I was in the very liberal Cambridge MA! A bunch of Harvard Students stalked me until I had to go to police.

I may go on for hours but there is no point in it. There are some Iranians who hate who they are. They are unable to see the variations in Iranians. They paint all Iranians with the same brush. I truly hope they all decide to stay in the West for good. Once the IRI is gone there needs to be a lot of rebuilding. It will not be done by these people. They will be in the West ridiculing anything Iran does. My father warned me: the only reason they go back is get their money.

Dude, ya juss don't get it, do you? "Storm the Reality Studio"

remember?

Rastakhiz and Hzbollah are actually very similar. Regarding the base and social class of Basij elements in Iran , as odd as it might sound, even amongst them, some working class elements of Basij  might have the potential for change.

On the "Storming the Reality Studio" front, check this out:

//realitystudio.org/bibliographic-bunker/fuck...

//www.jofreeman.com/photos/Pentagon67.html

This march is also famously wrriten as a historical novel by Norman Mailer, Armies of the Night. Highly recommended.

AO

Good point.