For years whenever the crazed antics and threats from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad haved raised alarm bells, a push back by supercilious liberals and TV Iran “experts” counter the nation’s government is complex and in many ways the holocaust denying madman is not really in control. They point out that the nation is a “democracy” where moderation exists and the nation, if just left to its own devices, will march toward freedom.

So my question is this, if crazy-pants doesn’t run the nation and we shouldn’t fear what is going on, how come Iran developed an air defense system, is raising uranium enrichment, is developing predator drones and seems to be building alliances and defenses to start a War against Israel and the West? Regardless of who is actually calling the shots, it is pretty clear Iran is not seeking to spread peace and love as it develops a war machine.

It seems to me that in the time we have wasted NOT blowing the Iranian nuclear plants to hell the nation has developed, with the help of Russia, the means to grow their arsenal and protect it. They have also, in that time, silenced their opposition, cracked down on people who actually want to participate in the aforementioned democracy and have pretty much told us the plan moving ahead is to make life miserable for sanity and freedom.

I was heartened and emboldened by the summer protests in Iran, but fear that these protesters represent a small fraction of Iranians. A fraction increasingly behind bars or facing worse consequences for registering their discontent at a sham election. My hope is that an open rebellion will occur and the Iranian government will be overthrown. My hope is that liberty will reign and the leadership will face imprisonment or death for their crimes. I see little evidence any of this will happen. I see instead, a government consolidating power and following through with a dangerous agenda it verbalizes every chance it gets.

Attacking Iran would leave us with yet another quagmire. Like Afghanistan or Iraq, I don’t see what a post overthrown Iran would look like. With that said, I don’t see a positive outcome if we let Iran continue on its current destructive path. I do believe, very strongly, our world is furthering down a path toward a global war. I believe Iran is one of many surrogates for Russia and China, booby traps meant to distract the West and bleed it dry. While we exhaust diplomacy Iran builds arsenals. If we finally address the issue, we will undoubtedly face a force aided by two powers with massive military resources and dozens more nations ready to join in the fight against us. In short, we have no good options and they get worse by the day.

While I abhor neoconservatism, embracing an odd mix of isolationism and economic globalism instead, their agenda would have been best if it was seen through. First Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Iran and Syria in a massive and definitive blow to Islamic extremism and rogue nationalism. Instead we had the befuddled leadership of men like Donald Rumsfeld and a weird collection of progressives and nation-building conservatives who quickly gained, then lost, the mainstream media and the American people. Now we have a mess, a terrible track record of building nations and every reason to drag our feet. All the while Russia, China and Islamic extremism are growing in power and influence while our nation goes bankrupt.

I don’t believe there are any good solutions but we reached the point for a decision a LONG time ago. Bush did nothing, Obama is doing nothing, Congress is asleep and Israel kept on a leash. All I know is that every day without real action, is one day Iran, China and Russia have to further their plan.

Nine people are now dead from protests today in Iran:

The Shia mourning ceremony of Ashura became the setting for all-out confrontation between Iran’s torn political factions when the government unleashed a furious crackdown on pro-opposition protesters that included orders to open fire.

In the most violent clashes since the aftermath of last June’s disputed presidential election, security forces fired on demonstrators who had gathered in their thousands in some of Tehran’s main thoroughfares. Riot police and plainclothed agents attacked people with batons and iron rods, aiming for the head to exact maximum damage, said witnesses.

Ali Mousavi Khamane, a nephew of the reformist opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, was killed after being shot through the heart in the city’s Enghelab Square. The 35-year-old’s death could provide the opposition with a fresh rallying point by turning him into a martyr in its struggle against the regime.

Earlier, an elderly man had been killed after being shot through the forehead at Valiasr crossroads.

The crackdown was triggered by the opposition Green Movement’s decision to use Ashura – which commemorates the death of Imam Hossein, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, at Karbala in 680 – as a day of protest. The movement has been forced to limit its demonstrations to state-sanctioned occasions in recent months in the face of a fierce government crackdown.

Video

YouTube Channels watching the protests

peive17

onlymehdi

freedommessenger20

madyariran

Honduras Struggle for Power

Morning News

Obama deeply concerned…

Afternoon

Nicaraguan paper La Prensa Gráfica reports that the Venezuelan ambassador to the Organization of American States claims that the ambassadors for Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua in Honduras were kidnapped, hooded, and beaten. OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza announced he will travel to Honduras.

[1:28 PM EST] Venezuela’s Chavez says he will bring down any new government in Honduras… Reuters says Venezuela military on alert.

[1:32 PM EST] Reuters: Ecuador says it will not recognize any new government after Honduras coup.
[1:36 PM EST] Clinton urges condemnation of Honduras military action WHILE President José Manuel Zelaya says he was ousted in a coup

[6:10 PM EST] Appears the Honduran Congress voted to remove Zelaya

[9:39 PM EST] New president Roberto Micheletti sworn in

The Honduran Congress later voted to remove Zelaya for “putting in present danger the state of law” and appointed congressional President Roberto Micheletti as the new chief executive, as is mandated by the Constitution.

Resource: Fausta’s blog has breaking info Latest report from her blog:

Honduran Turmoil Background

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya’s push to rewrite the constitution, and pave the way for his potential re-election, has plunged one of Latin America’s poorest countries into a potentially violent political crisis (Wall Street Journal

Zelaya, a leftist elected in 2005, has found himself pitted against the other branches of government and military leaders over the issue of Sunday’s planned referendum. It would ask voters to place a measure on November’s ballot allowing the formation of a constitutional assembly that could modify the nation’s charter to allow the president to run for another term.

Zelaya, whose four-year term ends in January 2010, cannot run for re-election under current law.

The Honduran Supreme Court had ruled the poll illegal, and Congress and the top military brass agreed, but Zelaya had remained steadfast. (CNN

More on history of Honduras

- BBC History of Honduras Timeline

- CIA World Factbook

Iran
Iran Revolution day 15

Iran state TV continues its assault on Neda’s death

Iran arrests 8 British embassy employees – Hat Tip (Hot Air) … Britain calling for their release

Senators Graham & Schumer are calling for restrictions on tech exports to Iran

Cap & Trade

The Rino Eight and comprehensive list of cap-and-trade materials

Minority Leader John Boehne calls the climate bill a ‘pile of s–t’

Everything Else

Time Warner & Comcast trying to kill online TV

Senate agrees to full funding request by NASA, putting it at odds with House

US & Russia differ on treaty for cyberspace

Harrisburg PA chapter of NAACP urges martial law

Must Watch: Goode Family

Open Thread, will be updated throughout day

A couple quick things I want to point out:

1) We have been talking about a growing “youth movement” in Iran for 30 years. Wouldn’t all those “youth” have grown up and taken over the country by now?

2) Watch how things are reported. Take this article for instance. The first TWO words are “hard-line” and describe Ahmadinejad, while “pro-reform” is used to describe challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi in the first paragraph. Nearly every article you read in Western newspapers contains something similar, Financial Times calls A a “fundamentalist” and M “more moderate.”

There is a name for this; framing. The article establishes a frame through which you see the world and then paints the picture.

3) Now notice a pattern in reporting. It actually follows a rather similar trend in reporting of our own elections.

a) Turnout expected to be ENORMOUS and unprecedented due to the ((historic)) nature of the race. Every election is historic either because of the race, gender, creed of the candidate. The uniqueness of the race “old rivals, bitter rivals, resurrection of a flawed or fallen candidate etc.” or simply because it could change things from one leader to another.

b) That turnout represents large voter interest which MUST mean the vote is going to be very close;
“If no candidate gains more than 50 per cent of the votes today, which seems very likely.” Quote from the previously linked FT article.

c) The unique nature of the election is giving huge fears of election rigging. Weird “signs” of rigging like asking for more ballots for this, unprecedented election are presented. Of course more ballots are needed if turnout is high. If more ballots were not requested it would be used as a sign of rigging.

With this chain of events readers are left to interpret the picture through the frames already established. Who would be more likely to rig an election, a “moderate, reformer” or a “fundamentalist, hard-liner”?

In the weeks leading up to the election I kept reading that support for the “reformist” candidate had been growing and an unprecedented close election was on the way. How was this known? Well, I have no idea. I did not see opinion polling. Instead I saw fluff like the reform minded one likes to tweet, use Facebook & go on YouTube. MUST be clearly connecting with that growing “youth movement” & brings to mind the “small donors” of 2008, doesn’t it?

The only real “polling” was showing a clear win for the fundamentalist, hard-liner, holocaust denier but that was reported in “state-run” media and was always rejected in Western stories or news reports. Since any alternative media was shut down, no clear picture could be reported. SO our media just went with the story that the race must be close because of the “historic” nature. No evidence, just seemed right to the and it is what was being seen by “watchers” of the elections. Who were the “watchers” why policy experts for think tanks and “experts” who were current and former Government, military and intelligence officials. Surely THEY had no axe to grind and no agenda.

So what am I getting at here? Don’t believe what you read. Now that the election has taken place “BOTH SIDES” are claiming victory. Shocker. Those handy suggestions that vote rigging would be involved? Yeap, calls are coming out that vote rigging happened. Predictable? You bet!

It never seemed likely to me that Ahmadinejad wouldn’t. Frankly I don’t believe free elections ever truly take place in Iran anyway. Yet even if they did I never saw actual evidence that the vote would go any other way. I just saw a lot of suspicious Western reports that suddenly made it seem as though this “reformer” who has been out of the limelight for a few decades was capturing the same tired “youth” vote that is talked about whenever “reform” is discussed in Iran. A youth movement that always seems to talk big before any major action by the government in Iran is taken and then suddenly disappears.

Now I for one am more than supportive of any and all attempts to overthrow the reigning government in Iran. I would like Ahmadinejad & the theocracy that really runs the establishment to be sent to the fiery pits of hell. If propaganda and misinformation spread into that nation help us reach that goal, great. I just personally am getting a little tired of that propaganda being presented as real news in this country. It is further evidence that all of the news we read and hear, especially what is reported about ourselves, is a lie or at best a distortion of the truth.

It is interesting to me that the left believes the case for War in Iraq was a conspiracy pushed by the Bush administration and supported by the media; yet everything they read about Obama and the evil of capitalism is true. It is interesting to me that the right believes a “liberal media” is out to assassinate the character of every Republican candidate and destroy capitalism but trusts that the altruistic vision presented by the military-industrial-media complex is righteous.

What I am saying is that as our military might and our economy collapse and our foundation is buckling under the weight of growing challenges from the world, honest assessments of ourselves and the challenges we face may be paramount to our own survival. Yet the only vehicle for delivering those assessments, en mass, is beyond corruptible and the populace of our nation beyond gullible.

There is a great deal to be learned from what is transpiring in Iran right now and what has transpired in our own country over the last few years. Sadly, our nation has been so polluted by propaganda and misinformation I don’t know that any of us are capable of education.

Story from the Associated Press