Iran's Second Revolution, Week Two

I grab a broken brick and throw. I’m amazed. I never thought I’d do it. I should practice. It was a very bad shot. I grab another one, the size of a pomegranate and keep it with me, hiding it behind my back. My feeling is a mixture of a university teacher and a hooligan -

...There is a woman who is being beaten. She’s horrified and hysterical but not as much as the anti-riot police officer facing her. She shrieks, ‘Where can I go? You tell me go down the street and you beat me. Then you come up from the other side and beat me again. Where can I go?’

In sheer desperation, the officer hits his helmet several times hard with his baton. ‘Damn me! Damn me! What the hell do I know!’

How much longer can this go on?

The Mouse Roars!

· I have come due to concerns of current political and social conditions - to defend the rights of the nation
· I have come to improve Iran's International relations
· I have come to tell the world and return to Iran our pride, our dignity, our future
· I have come to bring to Iran a FUTURE of FREEDOM, of HOPE, of fulfilment
· I have come to represent the poor the helpless the hungry
· I have come to be ACCOUNTABLE to you my people and to this world
· Iran must participate in FAIR elections, it is a matter of national importance
· I have come to you because of the corruption in Iran
· 25% inflation means IGNORANCE - THIEVING - CORRUPTION - where is the wealth of my nation?
· What have you done with $300 BILLION in last 4 years - where is the wealth of the nation?
· The next Gov of Iran will be chosen by the people
· Why do all our young want to leave this country?
· I know of no creation who places HIMSELF ahead of 20 million of the nation
· We are Muslims - what is happening in Iran Government is a sin.
· This Gov is not what Imam Khomeini wanted for Iran - #Iranelection I will change all this - This is the SEA of GREEN

It sounds promising, but that last line worries me. The Mouse and his allies (Rafsanjani, Khatami, etc.) demonstrably know how to deflect and defuse popular sentiment for their own ends, and the last time they did that they helped Khomeini eliminate all political opposition to create the mullahocracy that so many Iranians despise. What will they do different now?

Note that the regime's thugs are now beginning to cover their faces. It is important that when the crowd catches one of them that they are photographed and even fingerprinted (one can always cut open a pen) before being released. Fear of accountability will then spread quickly through their ranks.

Iran Election Twitter feeds

[Posting comments over at Contentions.]

Update, 6/19/09: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei threw down the glove this morning and declared the vote legitimate, as a worried-looking Mahmoud Ahmedenejad, a man who knows he is currently president only in name, looks on. It seems no more compromises are possible, The Mouse must either accept the results or work outside the system and choose revolution. Mehdi Jami writes:

“This is the end of Khamenei and the beginning of a new era. He doesn’t hear our voice and doesn’t speak our language…today, Khamenei showed the people that he is not their leader…He sees us as enemies. Elections are not important for him. He only represents a small group of people. The problem is that he wants to suppress other groups so they cannot participate in decision-making. People feel this. They see that power is in the hands of a few. Khamenei even dislikes the old leaders of the revolution. In this regime, there’s no place for anyone with a different opinion.

Khamenei resigned from real leadership and was demoted to the leadership of a certain group of his supporters. He easily ignored and threatened this great opposition, which according to his own formal statistics, is composed of 13 million people. His problem is that he wants to ignore the population. His biggest mistake was to say that he is closer to the current president than to the people. According to our constitution, our leader cannot belong to one political party or another. He will be remembered as a leader who split the people, ended his own leadership and became a tribal chief. He created divisions in the society.

Khamenei says there are legal ways to protest. But in such a system, which laws are legitimate? A law on paper is not a law. A law together with its administrators is a law. When the administrators are corrupt, create roadblocks to the implementation of the law and interpret it any way they want, how can one have any hope in the role of law? Based on which law has he arrested hundreds of people? Based on which law has he ignored the complaints of millions of people?

I am certain that opposition by the great people of Iran will continue against this kind of politics and leadership until they find a new leader who is able to think of the people and does not dominate a small group over the larger population.

Mousavi and Karroubi are leaders of an opposition that did not vote for Ahmadinejadism. This is a result of Khamenei’s mistake who has tied his future with Ahmadinejad. This is a great movement by millions. Either Mousavi or Karroubi realize this and take the responsibility to lead it or they will retreat because of threats. But it is clear that this great power [opposition] will not remain without a leader and will not die down. Khamenei’s era is over and new leaders are compelled to emerge.

What goes through the minds of today's young revolutionaries?

“I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I’m listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It’s worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again. All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I’m two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children…”

Revolution, yes, but even now it is not certain that the rule of mullahs will be overthrown, for The Mouse represents conservative yet inclusive influences, not liberal Western ones.

The best hope for Iranians today is that the men on both sides are professional revolutionaries - they did this in 1979, remember - so that, like good generals, they will know when to tell their troops to retreat or surrender. This revolution could still be less bloody than the last. Tomorrow may be critical.

In the meantime, Iranians are enjoying a brand-new sport: Basiji hunting.

2 people shot inside U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

I was afraid of this but didn't expect things to happen so soon. An inevitable result of Obama's Cairo speech labeling Israel's "continued settlements" in the West Bank as "illegitimate" is massively increased danger to almost all Jewish-related targets: if the attackers make it to another country, they can fight extradition and prosecution on the grounds that they were attacking organizations that supported (even indirectly) "illegitimate" colonization, so their own attacks are, by extension, perfectly legitimate.

It seems somebody didn't want to wait for Al Qaeda or Hezbollah or the Nazis but took it in their head to attack right away.

Of course, I'm blogging off the top of my head. I could be wrong - but how likely is that?

Update, 2:48pm: Fox News reports the gunman is a white supremacist. Charles Johnson has excerpts from his website.

You don't just walk into the museum proper with a gun, not the USHMM anyway. The gunman was probably stopped just inside the building at the security desk. Question is, why wasn't he stopped before he got in? This is one of the most heavily-patrolled areas of Washington. There is little parking, so the gunman probably either took a taxi or walked with his shotgun a considerable distance.

Update, 3:04pm: As the alleged gunman describes it,

"In 1981 Von Brunn attempted to place the treasonous Federal Reserve Board of Governors under legal, non-violent, citizens arrest. He was tried in a Washington, D.C. Superior Court; convicted by a Negro jury, Jew/Negro attorneys, and sentenced to prison for eleven years by a Jew judge. A Jew/Negro/White Court of Appeals denied his appeal. He served 6.5 years in federal prison." [courtesy amir/LGF]

Pay attention to the word, "treasonous". Not that different from "illegitimate", is it? So the guy thought what he did was legal.

Update, 3:47pm: Illegally parked.

Update, 6/16/09: The real issue, as Richard Cohen puts it, is that

To far more people than we would like to admit, the mystery of James W. von Brunn, the alleged shooter at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, is not that he held such weird and depraved views about Jews and the Holocaust, but that those views are considered weird and depraved...That anti-Semitism is now a part of Middle Eastern culture. It has infiltrated textbooks; it is recited in mosques. It is aired on television -- for instance, the broadcast of a play produced at Gaza's Islamic University in which Jews were portrayed as drinking Muslim blood...James W. von Brunn was quickly segregated from the American mainstream and designated the crackpot he is. In the Middle East, though, he would be no such thing...

Thought of the Month

History creates and molds us Jews; Arabs create and mold their history.

Banned from the Pakistani Defence Forum!

I have been "eternally banned" from this forum, which I discovered a few weeks after the Mumbai Massacre. (I suppose it was something I wrote.) This post is provided for those forum members who still wish to discuss Pakistani issues with me.

Some interesting articles:

Corruption: "I own Karachi … and can sell it!" - parts 1, 2, and 3

Neutrality of religious organizations: What? Are we not Muslims?'

Pakistan's past duplicity: Little time and few choices

The old days were better: A brief, happy interlude

The Taliban may create recruits from the refugees they themselves displaced: Military victory in Swat will not be enough

Zardari on dealing with such problems as "18,000 madrasas that are brainwashing our youth": Pakistan on the Brink

Waking up to the Taliban: Paradise Lost

Frightened residents creep out of their homes in reconquered Mingora: link

Taliban communications intercept: "LOST IDENTITY: IS PAKISTAN WINNING ITS WAR ON TERROR?" link1 link2

The Taliban escape to Karachi: link

Pakistan's nukes make it an Al-Qaeda target: "[P]replanning for nuclear arsenal control is a lot better than planning for 30 years of Jihad." link

PBS Frontline Videos: Conflict Zones: Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq

"Some hypocrites say that we are doing this for money - or because of brainwashing - but we are told by Allah to target these pagans": Taliban recruits teenage suicide bombers for revenge attacks

Niilofur Farrukh: Unheeded lessons of democracy

An excellent article from Dawn. I couldn't put it any better:

...as Pakistanis muster up their energies to face yet another humanitarian crisis they must also pause to reflect on Talibanisation and its relationship to our dysfunctional democracy. We need to give serious thought to the deep-seated causes behind the presence of the Taliban...The Taliban managed to make inroads not because they are invincible or outnumber their detractors but because we, the citizens of Pakistan, for six decades have collectively ignored the lessons of democracy that promises equal rights and justice for all citizens...Dictators may have deprived us of our vote from time to time, but we as a nation have contributed to a system built on nepotism, expediency and convenience. Pakistanis clamour for democracy during dictatorships yet make a mockery..

With most institutions having lost the capacity to function efficiently the masses feel a growing sense of injustice, deprivation and helplessness. These have created deep fissures in our society and gradually pushed us to the brink that makes us so vulnerable to extremist ideologies. The nations that have averted disasters are the ones that can find the inner strength, resolve and resilience so future generations do not have to pay a heavy price...For any tangible success the real battle has to be fought within each Pakistani as he/she struggles to re-learn the spirit of democracy.

Even with men like Niilofur Farrukh, Pakistan may not win its battle. Those authors who confidently declaimed, "The pen is mightier than the sword!" never had to deal with murderous fanatics who slay not just those who oppose them, but all who fail to actively support their cause by word and deed.

Even liberals may have to pick up the sword and fight to remain liberals! Will they learn this?

Here's one who did:

I was programmed from birth to be a devout liberal. My dad, a hard working first generation Russian Jew, would lecture me on a regular basis, "The Democrats are the party of the little people. The Republicans are the party of the rich guy."..When I was 26, I parked myself in the People's Republic of Berkeley, CA, the epicenter of the far left. I came as a liberal but soon morphed into a leftist as most people here do...So maybe you get now how hard it was, how disorienting and destabilizing and crazy making it was, when I realized about 1 1/2 years ago that I no longer believed in liberalism. I walked around in a confused state for weeks...The first step, I decided, was deprogramming myself from decades of liberal propaganda...if this lifelong left winger from Berkeley can wake up, hopefully others will also do so before it's too late.

How to Deprogram a Liberal in One Year Or Less

Pakistan: The Logic of State-Supported Terrorism

Were the Mumbai attackers creations of Pakistan's ISI? Over at the Pakistan Defence Forum, "Energon", whose logic appears impeccable to me, had this to say:

The issue is very much about where these attacks are coming from. Kasab may not have official sanction of the nation, but he was recruited, trained and deployed by one of the institutions created by the state's agencies not too long ago, with the primary objective of conducting low intensity/subversive/proxy warfare and terrorism against India. Let's first and foremost be very, very clear on this point. (There are numerous internationally vetted official reports, intelligence briefs, published literature and admissions from Pakistan's own intelligentsia, and insiders about the origins of groups like JeM and LeT)

It would also be prudent to realize that the issue of state sponsorship when it comes to terrorist attacks by organizations like LeT, JeM etc. is an oxymoron. The fundamental reason for the creation of these groups was to absolve the state of blame, censure and retribution when perpetuating war, murder and violence; and their handling by the clandestine agencies was conducted with the primary intent of official deniability. In short, the whole point of having spies control terrorists is to not leave paper trails; but that doesn't change the fact that there are spies, and terrorists, and they share a relationship. Also the blanket of deniability doesn't necessarily cover the serious repercussions when the non existent spies can no longer control the 'non state actors' who carry out gross acts of murder and war that are all too real.

In regards to the Indian government holding Pakistan responsible for terrorism, an issue that has IMO been misconstrued in the press:

At least based on the formal position as voiced by Indian officials that I have been able to see present their case here in the US, I don't think they're saying that the Pakistani government "ordered a hit" on Mumbai; and even if they did there is certainly no evidence of it (albeit the whole point of ordering hits is specifically to not leave palpable evidence). What the Indian government is saying is that the mere existence of these institutions and the scope of their operational abilities after numerous international episodes warranting censure, warnings and subsequent promises from the GoP to crack down upon said groups over the past decade+ clearly indicated one of two things:

1. Pakistan is in fact a categorically ramshackle failed state where the government is incapable of preventing such high profile and massive institutions with global aspirations and vetted regional capabilities from operating freely from its territory. In which case the two subsequent deductions from this assumption would be:

a) the out of control institutions should essentially be considered as parallel governments. Especially considering that institutions like LeT/JuD or whatever they are called this week have shown the ability to outperform governmental agencies in providing certain services; in addition of course to their ability to unilaterally attack another state and hold a city hostage.

b) Pakistan's sovereignty is a joke if these parastatal [S2: working with the government in an unofficial capacity] organizations can wage war upon India at will.

2. The various terrorist organizations aimed at India remain free to operate, improve their capabilities and carry out trans national attacks from Pakistan with at least the tacit approval (which includes intentional ignorance and/or criminal negligence) of the government.

The GoP mobilized various representatives to deny the first category through a paper that was presented to the UN in January indicating that the GoP had just enough coverage in their territory (primarily in the east) to technically stave off the "failed state" label. Although the comprehensive picture was a bit hollow considering the western portion of the state it at least indicated that no India specific organization like the LeT could exist in Pakistan without the GoP having a good idea of their capabilities; and if they so desired could dismantle them, or at least render their ability to attack India inert. It then led to the consensus that the GoP should be held accountable for the organizations that they have spurned and the underhanded support they still provide them. That the connection between client Jihadi groups and the government have been incognito intelligence operatives and retired military officers is a topic that has been heavily discussed in the academic circles and which is also if I'm not mistaken elaborated upon by Ahmad Rashid in his latest book; so this isn't conjecture by any means, and again, to expect paper trails to establish the veracity of this claim in the court of law is oxymoronic.

Lastly, the intel reports suggesting the support that these 10 assailants had was based on much more than their ability to wield Kalashnikov rifles and throw grenades. In fact there is a very detailed analysis (I haven't seen it published as open source so I won't elaborate upon it in detail) as to how and what distinguishes these attackers from your run of the mill gun toting grenade blasting terrorist that are now dime a dozen in Pakistan. Furthermore the complexity and the institutional capabilities required to raise Fidayeen cadres is another thing you're overlooking in your simplistic explanation as to what the Indians found amazing about these particular assailants. What you fail to realize is that although the defensive apparatus of the Indian government itself is pathetic when it comes to protecting themselves from terrorist attacks, there are quite a few well renowned and highly experienced experts on the science of anti terrorism in the Indian academic and governmental structure whose council is sought worldwide. There are at least 4 of them (ok 3 of them, one isn't technically Indian) who are co-authors on the paper in question; so it certainly isn't something officials from the executive branch are pulling out of thin air.

There are however serious and prohibitive international ramifications for countries like the US and the UK to publicly hold the current civilian GoP responsible for the terrorism link who are hence forced to tread carefully, choose their words very wisely and try their best to suppress the recent Afghanistan embassy bombing link (technically a direct act of war) to do everything short of stating the obvious.

Update, 6/7/09: The Taliban will 'never be defeated'
Times story of the Pakistani trained by the U.S. to fight the Soviets, who then trained the Taliban.