The following doesn’t even need to be true to enrage Iranians; but if the Regime is importing Arabs to fight off protesters in Iran, then this will only ignite the movement further, from Independent.co.uk:
The Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi is under 24-hour guard by secret police and no longer able to speak freely to supporters, according to the film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
Mr Makhmalbaf, 52, an informal spokesman abroad for the protest in Iran, said that Mr Mousavi was not under arrest but “he has security agents, secret police with him all the time. He has to be careful what he says.”
In a telephone interview, Mr Makhmalbaf, the director of the 2001 film Kandaha, denied suggestions that the protests against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were losing steam.
“The regime, arguably, is losing ground, not the protests,” he said. “Ordinary Iranians are openly rejecting the legitimacy and power of Ayatollah Khamanei. That is entirely new, unheard of.”
Mr Makhmalbaf, a friend of Mr Mousavi for 20 years, said that there were reports from Iran that some of the militia deployed to suppress protest were “speaking Arabic”. “That is unconfirmed but it suggests that the regime is unable to trust its own security forces to repress the Iranian people,” he said. “It suggests that people are being used from abroad.”
Iranians have an affinity with Arabs because of their shared religion. But beneath that veneer, lies two major rifts with Arabs:
- even within the religious affinity, Iranians are (like Iraqis, who are Arab) largely Shiite,
- nationalistically speaking, Iranias are Persians, ie. non-Arabs, and many still resent how the Muslims came to their country and imposed Islam onto them.
Any suggestion that the Regime is bringing in Arabs to fight off the Iranians taking to the street will backfire.
None of this is PC per se, but it is real: while an Iranian and an Arab will exchange pleasantries, an uneasy tension will exist between them, as well.
From The Nation:
Myth 1. It’s a dangerous world. We face an array of serious national security threats that require an experienced Commander in Chief.
Myth 2. The surge has worked. To withdraw from Iraq now would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and embolden Islamic extremists.
Myth 3. We cannot allow Afghanistan to become a safe haven for terrorists. We therefore must redouble our military efforts there or face another terrorist attack.
Myth 4. Iran is responsible for much of the violence against US forces in Iraq; by using its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza, it threatens to dominate the Middle East.
Myth 5. To talk to the leaders of “rogue” states like Iran and Cuba without conditions legitimizes their position and weakens American leverage.
Myth 6. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is an authoritarian state pursuing an anti-American agenda aimed at reconstituting the Soviet Union in the form of a new Russian empire.
Myth 7. Because the American military is stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must increase the size of our conventional armed forces.
Myth 8. A League of Democracies would create a global coalition for peace and freedom and would enable the United States and its democratic allies to intervene to solve humanitarian and other crises when the UN Security Council is paralyzed.
Myth 9. Globalization has strengthened the economy, and we cannot avoid it by hiding behind protectionist walls.
Myth 10. The world needs American leadership.
Interesting myths, no? To find out more about why they are myths, click and read The Nation:
Chilling… I don’t know how any American can possibly vote for John McCain after watching this:
Interesting analysis, as an Iranian born in 1978 who left Iran in 1983, this is pretty clever and accurate. In fact, America is becoming more and more of a theocracy just as Iranian demographic trends make Iran to be less and less of one. In 2019, at this rate, the countries might be closer alike than one might think. Written by Arash Kamangeer, found on AntiWar.com:
I grew up in Iran and immigrated to US to avoid living in a theocracy. Lately though, the trajectory of US politics is something to worry about, not only to me, but also to many others in my predicament.
Wednesday night at the Republican convention was an especially poignant moment. I was watching Sarah Palin deliver her acceptance speech. As I was watching her, her family, and her adoring fans in the Republican convention, I could not overcome a feeling that I have seen this scene before…
Right after the Revolution in Iran and the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the Iran-Iraq war was started. To be fair, Iraq started that war, but the new revolutionary leaders of Iran saw the war as a godsend. They milked it for all it was worth. They labeled anyone against the war as a traitor or unpatriotic. Anyone who suggested that there may be a negotiated settlement was ridiculed and purged from power. Even Ayatollah Khomeini once said that this war is a blessing from God himself. You may see the parallels here already, but keep reading.
One of the problems the government faced was opposition from legions of mothers whose sons had been maimed or died in the war. To confront this problem, the government-controlled TV would parade a mother whose son had died in the war in front of the TV on a regular basis. Invariably, this “show mom” would be carrying an infant child and a few other siblings with her. And invariably, she would say something to the effect that “I have given one child to this ’sacred’ war, and I am ready to give the next one.” Almost always, there would be an adoring crowd who would follow her statements by chants of “Allaho-Akbar” (God is Great). And again invariably, her statements would follow by a not-so-veiled threat from her and the adoring crowd. She would say something like “I and my family would not tolerate traitors and betrayals to the faith and country”. Then the crowd would break into several standard chants such as “Death to traitors” or “War, war, until victory.”
Sarah Palin was much better dressed than the average show mom paraded on Iranian TV more than 20 years ago. The show moms were typically dressed in a black veil. But that’s about the biggest difference. The rhetoric was eerily familiar. When she was finished, I knew I had seen her before. Only that it wasn’t her. It was her ideological predecessors at a different time in a different country.
Now, I am not a politician. I just cannot understand the need to drag a child afflicted with Down syndrome in front of national TV at 10:00pm. Is that good for him? Or does the need to rally the base trump the needs of a child? Whatever the explanation, I am sure I have seen that child when he was carried in the arms of the Iranian show moms for the cameras. So much for family values.
And then I wake the next morning and read that Sarah Palin is quoted as saying that the Iraq war is a “task that is from God.” It’s like déjà-vu all over again.
What’s interesting is that the Democrats and Republicans are running over very different stances about GWB’s legacy. Democrats say it was a disaster (it was); Republicans pretend to see it as America’s golden era, or do they believe it?
Who cares. Outsiders see it as a disaster:
Historians will argue over whether George W. Bush is the worst president the United States has ever endured. But that is not the point. Five years after Bush’s ill-starred invasion of Iraq, three years after Hurricane Katrina and seven months into the unravelling of the U.S. financial system, the point is that the 43rd president of the United States – regardless of his ranking in the pantheon – is a unique and unmitigated disaster.
Tonight, George Bush will try to calm Americans’ who are nervous about the state of the union. Meanwhile, next week he’ll ask for $70B for 2009 spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. Where does this take us?
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Congress has approved $691 billion to pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and such related activities as Iraq reconstruction, the Congressional Budget Office said last week.
Of the total, the CBO estimated that $440 billion had been spent on the war in Iraq.
What a sham. Bush is stealing money from American taxpayers and lining up the pockets of the American War Machine.
See a documentary on the Truth Movement here. See Conspiracy Theories: 9/11 here.
Who assassinated Pakistan’s former prime minister Benazir Bhutto?
The Mother of All Conspiracy Theories
That might very well become one of the greatest conspiracies ever. There are over 1 Billion Muslims in the world. After Indonesia, Pakistan is the world’s most populous Muslim country and the world’s fifth most populous country. Much the same way that - for better or worse - Osama bin Laden remains a larger-than-life figure in Islamic circles, Benazir Bhutto will become a martyr for years to come who’s legacy will be mixed amongst the world’s burgeoning Muslim population.
Of course, not only is the question of who killed her a mystery for the Pakistani’s government official explanation for her cause of death remains dubious, at best. The government’s official declaration was that she hit her head against the lever in her convoy as she tried to avoid the three gunshots aimed at her head. The inference is significant, for it shall determine her status as a shaheed, or martyr.
But while there is little doubt about what killed her, the question remains: who was behind the deed?
The simple answer is “a lot of people”.
A Day that Will Live in Infamy
January 8th, that was the day that Pakistanis were set to replace the Military Rule of Pervez Musharaf for the Civilian rule led by the PPP’s Benazir Bhutto.
Of course, all that changed forever when the latest assassination attempt on Bhutto proved successful. Like few people have been able to explain the death of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (Pakistan’s former president and military ruler from July 1977 to his death in August 1988), even fewer will be able to pinpoint the person or people who masterminded Bhutto’s murder.
Mind you, it should be noted that Zia-ul-Haq’s death in a plane crash probably brought joy to Bhutto, for ul-Haq was the man who hung Bhutto’s father Zulfikar in what many viewed as a judicial murder, for the murder of one of Bhutto’s political opponents.
Pakistan’s Troubled History
Benazir - who returned from exile to win the elections after ul-Haq’s demise - was herself sent off to exile based on corruption charges. She returned once again in 2007 to vie for the leadership position in the January 2008 elections, but it was evident that sooner or later, one of the assassination attempts would manage to change the course of history.
After a rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where the country’s military and intelligence services are based, a gunman triggered the gun and fired three shots, then exploded himself to end Bhutto’s life but catapult her legacy as a martyr, the last part much to the chagrin of her many enemies and critics, who count many characters in Pakistan’s troubled landscape.
Suspect #1: Pervez Musharraf
The fact that a gunman could get so close to Bhutto in a garrison city - imagine someone killing President Bush in Langley, Virginia, home of the CIA, for example - shifted a lot of the initial criticism and anger on the government of President Pervez Musharraf. Indeed, while Musharraf’s grip on power was under attack, it would be doubtful that Musharraf would himself call for her head, because it would be too obvious, and the repercussions too large.
So if not Musharraf, then who?
Suspect #2: Al Qaeda/Taliban
These days, not too much can go wrong without Al Qaeda being blamed for one thing or another. But much like a modern-day Bogeyman, Al Qaeda is more fiction than fact, far less a uniform and coherent group, and more of a rag tag band of America’s enemies that we lump together to simplify matters and propagate fear amongst American taxpayers and citizens.
It should also be said, that as far as America is concerned, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have for all intents and purposes merged their operations after they were forced to flee Afghanistan for Pakistan.
Did elements of Al Qaeda want Bhutto dead? Of course. According to one story:
The former prime minister had blamed al-Qaida, the Taliban and homegrown militants for a suicide bombing that that tore through a procession welcoming her back from exile to lead her opposition party in parliamentary elections.
But she accused militant “sympathizers” in Musharraf’s administration of backing the attempt on her life. Bhutto’s supporters chanted, “Killer, Killer, Musharraf!” outside the hospital where she was pronounced dead Thursday.
Al-Qaida’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, decried Bhutto’s return in a video message this month and called for attacks on all the candidates in the Jan. 8 elections. And according to Bhutto, several Pakistanis arrested in an assassination attempt during her second term in the mid-1990s said they were following Osama bin Laden’s orders.
If you can compare how much two sides want someone dead more, clearly the Taliban had a greater axe to grind: she was a woman, she was secular, she was educated in and backed by the West. She was, to the Taliban, the exact opposite of everything they represented and believed.
But the Taliban and Al Qaeda also want George W. Bush dead. That Al Qaeda managed to coordinate the deed is not impossible. But to suggest that Al Qaeda alone was behind it is sheer folly:
Baitullah Mehsud, a tribal warlord in the Waziristan region, was quoted in a Pakistani newspaper as saying that he would welcome Bhutto’s return from exile with suicide bombers. He later denied that in statements to local television and newspaper reporters.
Suspect #3: Pakistan’s Military
But the fact that Bhutto died in Rawalpindi - incidentally a stone’s throw from where her father was hung - suggests some of the elements in Pakistan’s military wing had something to do with it, too.
But why? Allow us to clearly state that the military was probably not behind it, but probably, there were elements of it that were aware of the impending attack, and let the story unfold because Pakistan’s otherwise impressive military institution would stand to lose from a Bhutto victory, which was becoming more and more of a likelihood just 10 days before the elections.
Civilian vs. Military Rule
Bear in mind that Pakistan’s history has been a shifting story of military and civilian rule. When Benazir’s father took over, he took over from a military rule. When Zulfikar Bhutto was thrown out of office, a military rule ensued after ul-Haq’s largely bloodless coup. When ul-Haq perished in the plane crash - that incidentally also killed a couple of American diplomats - then Bhutto took over and civilian rule prevailed. Years later, Pervez Musharraf took over the country’s reign in a coup. Musharraf, of course, ran the military.
Pakistan’s military is not only influential within Pakistan but is impressive on any scale. It has on a handful of times clashed with arch-enemy India, usually over Kashmir. Moreover, Pakistan is a nuclear power and the lone Muslim nation to be so.
What a Bhutto Victory Would Have Meant
But as Pakistan’s history suggests, a Bhutto victory on January 8th would have in all likelihood reduced the power of the military over political matters. More importantly, while Pakistan remains a friend of Washington, Pakistan retains much sovereignty over the delicate balance of internal military intervention from the UN or NATO. It would be doubtful to think that Bhutto would have been reluctant to cozy up to the West.
The U.S.-backed, British-educated woman who forcefully pledged to redouble Pakistan’s fight against Islamic militancy, was also despised by Taliban-style radicals backed by tribes along the Afghan border.
Bhutto’s murder highlights are the growig tensions and divide emerging across and within civiliations.
Divide #1: Islamic extremists vs. Western extremists
For one, there is a schism that is developing between Islamic extremists and Western extremists, for both the George Bush regime and Osama bin Laden are equally extremists in this spectrum of hatemongering lacking of tolerance and common sense.
Divide #2: Secular Islam and Islamic Fundamentalism
But, the other story line is the chasm between moderate Secular Islam and Islamic fundamentalism. According to another story:
Bhutto also was labelled an infidel by other groups, such as Jaish-ul Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Hezb-ul Mujahedeen, which were spawned by Pakistan’s military and intelligence services to take on neighbouring India in the disputed Kashmir region.
The groups later aligned themselves with al-Qaida and have vowed to battle foreign troops in Afghanistan and wage war against the Pakistani military for its support of the U.S.-led anti-terror campaign. Some of their leaders have said Bhutto deserved to die for her threats to crush militants.
“I think by far the most likely (suspect) is the al-Qaida organization, which has been trying to kill Bhutto for the better part of the decade,” said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former senior director for South Asia on the National Security Council.
“If it’s not them, it’s certainly one of the groups that are sympathetic with them,” Riedel said. “They all work together and share a common antipathy to Bhutto because she’s a woman, an advocate of secularism, a supporter of democracy and everything they stand against.”
Divide #3: Shia vs. Sunni Islam
There’s more to the story, since this murder might very well demonstrate the latest battleground between Shia versus Sunni Islam.
At a time when Israel and America’s nuclear weapons tower over a troubled and tattered Islamic world like a specter and Shia Iran has become more of a regional power, Pakistan - a country that is 96% composed of Muslims, of which nearly 77% are Sunni Muslims and 20% are Shi’a Muslims - would have to remain an anti-American Muslim nuclear power of a distinct Sunni flavor. Saudi Arabia is largely Sunni, as is most of the Muslim world, and with Iran exerting more and more influence over Iraq, it would be catastrophic for Pakistan to shift to the West, or to Iran. The reason for that, it could be argued, is that Bhutto herself was Shia Muslim. As the eldest child of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a Pakistani of Sindhi descent and Shia Muslim by faith, and Begum Nusrat Bhutto, a Pakistani of Iranian-Kurdish descent, of similarly Shia Muslim by faith.
In other words, make no mistake about it: a Bhutto-led Pakistan would have certainly meant a Pakistan drawn closer to the West and closer to Iran. Iran, of course, is a foe of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, who have teamed up to take down American interests everywhere, and Shia Muslims interests in Iraq and Iran.
On the surface, this story has very little to do on the surface with Iran or Iraq, or even Saudi Arabia, but with the murder of a woman, something that the Koran explicitly outlaws, but many people on all sides of the divide seem to forget and omit in the storyline.
So Who Killed Benazir Bhutto?
Good question. Is the government’s official story believable? Not according to members of her inner circle:
But others said that Bhutto, who loved political rallies, at times seemed heedless of her own security, or fatalistic.
“In her enthusiasm, she got carried away, and exposed herself in ways” she shouldn’t have, said former State Department official Marvin Weinbaum of the Washington-based Middle East Institute.
In Pakistan, the shifting government explanations and Bhutto’s burial without autopsy aroused suspicion.
Babar Awan, a senior official of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, said of the sunroof theory: “That is a false claim.” He said he’d seen her body after the attack and there were at least two bullet marks, one in the neck and one on the top of the head: “It was a targeted, planned killing. The firing was from more than one side.”
Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister, Mohammadmian Soomro, told the Cabinet that Bhutto’s husband had insisted on no autopsy. But according to a leading lawyer, Athar Minallah, an autopsy is mandatory under Pakistan’s criminal law in a case of this nature.
“It is absurd, because without autopsy it is not possible to investigate. Is the state not interested in reaching the perpetrators of this heinous crime or there was a cover-up?” Minallah said.
The scene of the attack also was watered down with a high-pressure hose within an hour, washing away evidence.
When the dust settles, tragically this was a case of a lot of people wanting her dead, out of the way, silenced for good.
It’s not so much a matter of who killed her - we’ll never know that - but rather, who did little to prevent it. But while the way she died was preventable (can you imagine the Pope popping up his head through a sunroof?) her assassination was not, it was a matter of time, tragically. Ironically, while the murderer committed the crime in public, in plain view and with hundreds of thousands of witness, ultimately, it might become the perfect crime: no one will be able to interrogate the anonymous killer and no one in the circle of power and influence will care to pinpoint who was fully behind it, and in that way, I guess, everyone will be guilty to varying degrees, including the very same people that she thought were her friends and allies.
Bhutto returned to Pakistan from exile in October partly at the urging of the Bush administration, which saw a renewed role for her as the best hope for returning the country to democracy and stability.
There were fears for her safety even before she arrived, which were heightened after twin suicide bombings upon her return that narrowly missed her and killed more than 130 others.
In hindsight, ever since 9/11, Pakistan has slid into what has become “Terror Central” (to borrow from a recent CNN report). Clearly for Bhutto to return to Pakistan was a death knell. You almost have to ask: did her friends want her eliminated? Time will tell, as the conspiracy theories are sure to grow over the years.
America has long claimed Pakistan to be a friend, and that might be the case. But if one is judged based on the friends they have, America should not be very proud today. Benazir Bhutto’s assassination was a matter of when, not if, and America served as an accomplice to the crime.
Adding insult to injury, American politicians on both sides of the fence were to quick to use the tragic event to jockey for position: one after another, the candidates were despicable. Hillary Clinton whored it up, while Rudy Giuliani once again used the names of the victims of 9/11 for his own gain.
The only one that showed any sense of honor, integrity was, surprise surprise, Ron Paul, who called it like it is.
Regardless, worth noting that the current American administration is fine and dandy with Pakistan being a “nukelar” power.
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