Sunday, 13 December 2009
Iranian intel chief warns of extent of opposition
Iran's top intelligence official denounced senior clerics who he said support the country's opposition, an acknowledgment of the split in the leadership amid the postelection turmoil and a sign of growing pressure by hard-liners within the government to extend the crackdown.
The comments, reported Thursday by the state news agency IRNA, came after this week's widespread student protests, the biggest anti-government rallies in months. The unrest appears to have raised authorities' frustration that a fierce crackdown since the June election has failed to crush the opposition.
Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi spoke to a gathering of pro-government clerics in the holy city of Qom and warned that the opposition movement -- which authorities label as a foreign-backed plot to overthrow clerical rule -- extended into the country's high ranks.
"Unfortunately, based on precise intelligence, a lot of forces that were expected to defend the supreme leader instead went with those who rose against the supreme leader, he said, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who stands at the top of Iran's clerical leadership.
A Nobel winner who went wrong on rights
In accepting his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Thursday, President Obama talked about the quiet dignity of human rights reformers such as Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi, the bravery of Zimbabwean voters who "cast their ballots in the face of beatings" and the need to bear witness to "the hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran." Earlier in the week, thousands of Iranians did just that, gathering at university campuses in the most substantial demonstrations in the country since the summer, when hundreds of thousands protested Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed presidential election.
But back in June, even as much of the world cheered the Iranian protesters, Obama seemed reluctant to weigh in. "It is not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling," he said at the time. The White House may have feared that public support from Obama would allow the regime to paint the demonstrators as American stooges or might undermine U.S. efforts on Tehran's nuclear program. Such fears seemed to paralyze the administration.
The irony of Obama's Nobel Prize is not that he accepted it while waging two wars. After all, as Obama said in Oslo: "One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek." The stranger thing is that, from China to Sudan, from Burma to Iran, a president lauded for his commitment to peace has dialed down a U.S. commitment to human rights, one that persisted through both Republican and Democratic administrations dating back at least to Jimmy Carter. And so far, he has little to show for it...
What I WILL do next year (a plan!)
Boy am I really pissed off to always see CRAPPY 'hand writing' (ie computer done w/ NO individuality) used in ads!!!
Saturday, 12 December 2009
(As) my friend Stan (said:)
Next time some snot nosed kid with a blog claims to be a music journalist tell them to read this and see how it's done http://bit.ly/6hINOK
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