Human Shields

Israel has long claimed that Palestinian civilians die at the hands of Israeli attacks only because Palestinian militants fire from among them and that civilians die from Israeli response fire. Palestinians have long claimed that Israelis deliberately target Palestinian civilians and even use them as human shields as they seek out Palestinian fighters.  Israel is now charging Israeli soldiers for using Palestinians as human shields. She the video here.

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Iran Tackles Marriage Issues

See the interesting al-Jazeera video here..

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Bedfellows in a tiff

al-Jazeera video on how US-Israeli relations are now under strain.

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Nazila Fathi at the New York Times…

Needs to get herself a clue: “Since a disputed presidential election in June set off enduring unrest, the opposition has timed some of its protests to holidays. The December protests came during Ashura, the commemoration of the martyrdom of Ali, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.”  So according to this NY Time’s correspondent, Ali (a.s.) was the grandson of the Prophet. OK, thanx, have a nice day.

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Gorbachev’s Op-Ed on the 25th Anniversary of Perestroika

NY Times – Excerpt: “The series of political and economic reforms I undertook in the Soviet Union in 1985, has been the subject of heated debate ever since. Today the controversy has taken on a new urgency — not just because of the 25th anniversary, but also because Russia is again facing the challenge of change. In moments like this, it is appropriate and necessary to look back. We introduced perestroika because our people and the country’s leaders understood that we could no longer continue as we had. The Soviet system, created on the precepts of socialism amid great efforts and sacrifices, had made our country a major power with a strong industrial base. The Soviet Union was strong in emergencies, but in more normal circumstances, our system condemned us to inferiority.”

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Jimmy Kimmel’s “Handsome Men’s Club”

Oh how this is funny.

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Oscar Results

I flew back from Cali to Ann Arbor tonight (had a marvelous spring break – thank you for asking) and I caught the latter half of the show… thought the Baldwin-Martin ‘Paranormal Activity’ spoof was laugh-out-loud funny 🙂 and I enjoyed the Ben Stiller Na’vi act, though I generally do NOT like Stiller, not at all. I enjoyed some of the speeches, esp the ones with some substance to them, like the Mo’nique speech and the one where the guy talked about supporting youth to develop their creativity. The speeches where they just get up and thank their laundry list are lacking, no doubt, though I enjoyed Jeff Bridges’ speech, esp when we invoked his parents and his acting background. Needless to say, I was a bit disgruntled to see ‘Avatar’ get routed (Im a guilty fan). I wasn’t entirely surprised bc all the main critics predicted that ‘Hurt Locker’ would clean up.  Perhaps I should see the movie again to fully understand why but my initial assessment as to why it won best picture, other than it being well made, is the fact that it is the first Iraq War film that actually understands SOME, though not all, of how this war is different from other American wars. Most American dead have died at the “hands” of roadside bombs so it makes sense to make an Iraq War movie that is about that aspect and some of the tension that it encompasses.  Here’s a list of award count by number and by category.

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Army Ebbs, and Power Realigns in Turkey

[Excellent article on recent and historic developments in Turkey… thanx Asli] NY Times: ISTANBUL — The detention of top military officers in Turkey last week was nothing less than a quiet piece of history. The military, long considered untouchable in Turkey, was pushed from its political pedestal with startling finality. The moment, years in the making, was more whimper than bang. But it still raises an existential question for this NATO member: What sort of country will Turkey be? The question goes to the very heart of modern Turkey, a Muslim democracy whose military was a potent force in the country’s political life for most of its 86-year history. Its strictly secular ideology permeated all aspects of public life, including the education system, the judiciary and the bureaucracy. The military, long considered the ultimate guardian of that secularism, has overthrown elected governments to protect it. Not only has the military been politically defanged, but it has also proved unable or unwilling to fight back. Dozens of officers were detained last week, and several senior ones were arrested. Top military leaders met and managed to produce only a brief statement, never mind a coup.

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Say “Persian Gulf” or Don’t Fly Over Iran

Associated Press: Airlines not referring to the waterway between Iran and the Arabian peninsula as the Persian Gulf will be banned from Iranian airspace, the transport minister told local media Monday. The warning was directed specifically toward the airlines of neighboring Gulf Arab countries who have a history of referring to the body of water as the “Arabian Gulf.” “The airlines of the southern Persian gulf countries flying to Iran must use ‘Persian Gulf’ on their flight monitors,” Hamid Behbahani told the IRAN daily. Airlines ignoring the warning would be banned from Iranian airspace, while repeat offenders would have their planes grounded in Iran and “the companies’ flight permits to Iran canceled.” The report said Iran expelled a Greek flight attendant from the private Iranian airline, Kish Air, for using “Arabian Gulf” on a monitor over the weekend. Iranians are traditionally sensitive over the historic name of the waterway between Iran and seven Arab nations. Last month the Saudi-based Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation said it canceled the Islamic Solidarity Games in April because its Iranian host planned to use Persian Gulf on banners and medals. In 2004, Iran banned American National Geographic for using Arabian Gulf instead of the Persian Gulf. In 2005, National Geographic revised its world atlas to use Persian.

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Stephen Kinzer: “Clinton clings to Bush ideals on Iran”

The Guardian: Hillary Clinton‘s sudden volley of shots at Iran marks the end of an engagement policy that never really began. She wants to convince the world that the regime in Tehran is opposed to serious talks with the west. That may be true, but we’ll probably never know because in fact, no one has offered such talks.

In laying out the American approach to Iran, Clinton showed how little US foreign policy has changed since the last years of the Bush administration. President Bush famously explained that he would not negotiate with unfriendly regimes because he didn’t want to “reward bad behaviour”. He wanted states like Iran to change of their own accord, not as a result of negotiation but as a pre-condition for being allowed to negotiate.

Clinton embraces this same idea. She rejects the view that as Iran becomes more threatening and approaches nuclear breakout capacity, diplomatic engagement becomes more urgent. Instead she takes the opposite view. “We don’t want to be engaging while they are building their bomb,” she said this week.

Whether the increasingly splintered regime in Iran would or could respond to a serious offer of negotiations is highly uncertain. What is clear, though, is that the regime has not been offered this option. The Obama administration, like its predecessor, has made clear that it is interested in negotiating only one thing: curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme. No country, however, would agree to negotiate only on the question that an adversary singles out, without the chance to bring up others that it considers equally urgent.

A more promising approach would be to tell Iran what President Nixon told China 35 years ago: if you agree to consider all of our complaints, we will consider all of yours. Clinton has made clear that the US will make no such offer. Instead it clings to the decades-old American policy toward Iran: make demands of the regime, threaten it, pressure it, sanction it, seek to isolate it, and hope for some vaguely defined positive result.

Some of America’s most seasoned diplomats are eager for the chance to see what kind of a “grand bargain” they could strike with Iran. An ideal one would curb the nuclear programme, guarantee some measure of protection for brave Iranians who are being brutalised for defending democratic ideals, and give Iran security guarantees that might lure it out of its isolation and lay the groundwork for a new security architecture in the Middle East. Instead the US has fallen back on sabre-rattling. This pleases Israel, war hawks in Washington, so-called American allies like Saudi Arabia – and most of all, President Ahmadinejad and his reactionary comrades in Tehran. They thrive on confrontation, and are doing all they can to bait the US into attacking their country. It is a strategy as effective as it is dangerous.

Posted in Iran, Obama's Administration | 8 Comments

Indigenous Peoples Unite

I usually post here on my blog and since my blog is linked to my facebook profile, each post also gets posted there too. This is one piece of news that was so pleasing that in my rush, I actually posted it on facebook and forgot to do it here. So in case you missed it: Palestinians in the West Bank employed symbolism to which people of the world in general and the US in particular could relate… they dressed up as Na’vi people from Pandora to parallel their very real plight with that of the fictitious but still relevant plight of the Na’vi. See the pictures here.

Posted in Film, Palestine | 4 Comments

Helicopter View of 22 Bahman Demonstrators

The number of attendees at the pro-government rallies on Thursday is staggering, STAGGERING, and serves as a wake up call to anyone who thinks that the regime does not have proponents. See the video here.

Posted in 22 Khordad, Iran, Iranian Revolution | 6 Comments

Iran’s Failed Facebook Revolution

Foreign Policy – Excerpt: “Now, many of the greens are experiencing a sort of idealism hangover. Mohammad Sadeghi, the 27-year old Iranian-German who administers Mousavi’s official Facebook page, admits that he doesn’t know what comes next. He has always managed to be one step ahead of the manifold events of the past year, but now he’s at a loss. He created the Facebook page last January, before Mousavi had even officially declared his candidacy, back in the days when Facebook was still freely accessible to any Internet user in Iran. In the following months, after the page had attracted a small but devoted following, Mousavi’s campaign reached out to him, expressing its desire to consult and cooperate with him in the run-up to the election. After the election, Mousavi’s Tehran-based campaign and his Germany-based Facebook site experienced diverging fates. Layers of campaign staff were hauled off to Iranian prisons, while the Facebook site saw an explosion in followers. Sadeghi decided that he had a responsibility to independently continue the campaign in Mousavi’s name, to serve as a meeting place, conference room, and bulletin board for sympathizers and activists. By his account, the Facebook page played a key role in propagating the defiant nightly “Allahu Akbar” chant and organizing the protest schedule linked to major Iranian and Shiite holidays.”

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“Not all Iranians hate their regime”

The Guardian – Excerpt: “Anyone who has spent time in Iran and the Middle East knows about the hospitality of this region. It’s extremely disrespectful for a host not to offer a guest food or drink. To suggest that free food and drink were one of the motivating factors that brought hundreds of thousands out to Azadi Square yesterday is beyond absurd. This assumption that in order to support Ahmadinejad one must be from a poor, rural or illiterate background highlights a larger bias in the western media in their attempt to demonise the Islamic Republic and ignore its widespread support.”

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Opposition sites hacked…

The government is trying to build on the momentum resulting from its victory yesterday…. Mousavi’s kalame.org, rah-e sabz, and other sites have been hacked (as of noon time today) by the “Iranian Cyber Army” leaving this message:

« به احترام رفراندومی که در 22 بهمن برگزار شد ومردمی که رای دادند و به احترام ملتی بزرگ و وطنی به نام ایران »

«    بيشتر از اين مهره بازي افرادي که خود در آمريکا در امن و امان به سر ميبرند و از شما به عنوان مهره

استفاده ميکنند نباشيد »

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