Posts Tagged ‘iran’

Hello Iran: When people stop believing government lies they stop believing in the government

Posted: January 12, 2020 by John Ruberry in middle east, News/opinion
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Latvian Popular Front Leader Mavricks Vulfsons. Signs read “Freedom” and “1940–Year of Stalinist Occupation Regime”

By John Ruberry

Regular readers of my posts here and at Marathon Pundit know that my wife, Mrs. Marathon Pundit, was born in the Soviet Union–in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. She emigrated to the United States in 1991.

Mrs. Marathon Pundit was lied to regularly–just as citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran have been fed untruths since 1979.

As with other members of her generation, Mrs. MP believed the lies pumped out by the government, and that includes the schools, whoppers such as Soviet citizens enjoyed an advanced standard of living, even though Mrs. Marathon Pundit grew up in a farmhouse with no running water that was heated by birch logs. And Latvia was considered better off than most other Soviet Republics. She believed the falsehood that Latvia, along with Estonia and Lithuania, asked to join the USSR in 1940. The reality is that as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact the Baltic States were occupied by the Red Army and promptly annexed; the leaders of Latvia and Estonia were exiled to remote corners of the Soviet Union. The fate of Estonian president Konstantin Päts was particularly sad, as he was tortured in psychiatric hospitals because of his “persistent claiming of being the president of Estonia.”

Mrs. Marathon Pundit’s parents knew better of course. They also knew it was best to keep quiet. They knew repercussions awaited those who talked about the wrong things. The silent survive. And while it was impossible to cover up the deportations to Siberia of the Joseph Stalin era, the extent of it was known only to a few.

There were big lies and little lies. Here’s one of the latter. Before swimming in one of the few public pools in Latvia, Mrs. Marathon Pundit and other bathers were warned that if they chose to urinate in the water, or if there was an accidental leak, the urine would be immediately turn red and the pee menace would be promptly identified and of course punished. Eventually–I don’t know how–she discovered the clear truth on urinating in swimming pools.

Then there were the omissions. My wife didn’t learn until I told her that the Red Army–two weeks after the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939–seized eastern Poland. The same goes with the Soviet invasion of Finland later that year.

The “Throne of Lies” in the USSR began to collapse after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Ordinary Soviet citizens eventually learned that the state-controlled media reported on the severity of the catastrophe only after western governments noticed the spike in radioactivity in their lands. “The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month,” Mikhail Gorbachev wrote in 2006, “even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later.”

Those being lied to didn’t believe the lies any more.

A few years earlier the end of the junta era of Argentina came after the government had to admit their rosy reports on the Falklands War with Great Britain were wrong. It was the UK that was winning nearly every battle.

Now protests are breaking out across Iran after the mullahs were forced to admit that the crash of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, which took place on Wednesday shortly after Iran fired missiles at US troops in Iraq, was caused by a missile fired by the Iranian military, after first denying it. And there was a lie within the lie as the Iranians claimed that the passenger jet veered over a sensitive military area.

“They are lying that our enemy is America, our enemy is right here,” is one the chants heard in Tehran.

The people of Iran–or at least some of them–don’t believe the lies anymore.

Kimia Alizadeh, Iran’s only female Olympic medalist, defected last week. Yes, she did win a bronze in taekwando, that’s not a lie, but her state-created image was a sham. “Whatever they said, I wore,” Alizadeh wrote. “Every sentence they ordered, I repeated.”

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

The Ultimate Iranian Irony

Posted: January 12, 2020 by datechguy in middle east
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There seems to be a lot of outrage over Iran’s admission that they accidentally shot down a Ukrainian airliner full of Iranians, Ukranians and Canadians during their “attack” on our bases.

The outrage seems to be coming from all over the world from Canada to Ukraine to within Iran itself to the point where, much to the shock of Michael Moore, they are even defacing posters of a certain late Iranian general.

I’ll readily concede that people have a reason to be outraged. A lot of innocent people were killed, and this accident might have been preventable if Iran had grounded flights during their attack, or informed those manning batteries that the plane was going up, or had better trained their battery peole etc etc etc and the fact that this was an accident doesn’t make the people involved any less dead.

But the irony of the situation really hits me.

Since the Islamic Revolution Iran has been the #1 or #2 exporter of terror in the world (behind the soviets for a while) there are literally thousands if not tens or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of people who are dead because of the action of the Iranian Mullahs and their proxies, not to mention the millions who have suffered because of it. Their actions have deliberate, methodical and calculated but most importantly Iran’s actions have been an open secret known worldwide from Krakow to Khartoum.

Despite this knowledge the world had to be dragged kicking and screaming to get even weak sanctions applied to them to Iran. Diplomats were happy to look the other way as Iran did what it did.

Forty years of deliberate murder and the world didn’t bat an eye, but now Iran finds itself isolated not because of all those decades killing people on purpose, but for the one batch of people whose deaths they didn’t intend.

The world is a very strange place.

Unremembered Gratitude, Gatez Misdemeanor, Occam on Iran, Manslaughter vs Murder Williamson goes under the fedora

Posted: January 11, 2020 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, elections, News/opinion, politics, primaries
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There is a running gag in the TV show Maverick when both Brett or Bart Maverick after a long trip in a stagecoach or horse or whatever invariability when they get to a hotel they want a tub and hot water. As soon as it’s drawn invariability whatever lady they are paired with whether it is Connie Stevens or Kathleen Crowley appropriate the full bath from this which angers them to no end as a bathtub of water costs a dollar (the equivalent of $21.18 today) for it since someone has to haul the water, heat it and then haul it again to the tub one bucket at a time.

While California is doing it’s best to return their state to a land where a hot bath or shower is a luxury that most people can’t afford, which has been the norm the rest of us can be grateful that we live in an age and a land where such comfort is so common that it never occurs to be grateful for it.

Rep Matt Gaetz is getting a ton of flack for his vote with the Democrats on their Iran resolution in the house.

I can’t see the point of it, this resolution was symbolic, has no chance of becoming law and was about as meaningless as any that Pelosi has pushed.

After all we don’t throw Rand Paul or Mike Lee off the bus because their principles on foreign policy are different, perhaps Gaetz believes that on principle congress should not cede this power to the executive as a rule.

When he abandons the President or the Pro-life movement on something that actually matters I’ll worry but for now I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. After all people have the right to be wrong.

Had a bit of a twitter debate with a fellow who was insisting that we shouldn’t trust the US government info on the downing of that Ukranianian jet.

While there is nothing wrong with doubt Occam’s razor suggests that this was all about some panicked at the thought that Donald Trump would follow through almost at once, a perfectly reasonable explanation made more reasonable by Iran’s ducking and dodging on the investigation. Particularly with Iran doing all it can to obscure the site.

I’m wondering if those who are seeing a conspiracy here think that the pickets who shot Stonewall Jackson were actually Union spies under deep cover, after all they had the most to gain by removing him before Gettysburg…

One more thing about the jet business. I object to the use of “Murder” in describing what happened. Manslaughter or involuntary homicide would be more accurate. I suspect if the gunners knew it was a passenger jet they would not have shot it down, but given the situation it was irresponsible for Iran to let the jet go up.

Of course if you subscribe to the idea that Iran tipped us off and knew we weren’t hitting back because of it the command might have assumed they gave the battery folks a heads up. Very bad idea if so.

Finally Marianne Williamson has dropped out of the presidential race. A lot of people laughed at her but I am very relieved that she is gone.

In my opinion she was one of two candidates who had an actual chance against President Trump, not a great chance, but a chance.

You might ask why, and once all the candidates I think have a shot are gone I might give it, but until then I’ll just be satisfied that the President’s chances have improved considerably.

Three Trump Choices to Respond to the Iranian “attack”

Posted: January 8, 2020 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, media, middle east
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Last night twitter was all abuzz about the Iranian attack on our bases. All kinds of reports were flying hither and non but after a short period of time it became clear that what we were seeing was a giant propaganda exercise where Iran launched about 15 missiles with more than 20% of em blowing up on the way and then hit large US bases without managing to harm any Americans.

This not withstanding they put out a bunch of photos from previous events pretending that they were from tonight, and plenty of video and news of a great Iranian victory which our Trump hating media lapped up while loudly proclaiming that if we left them alone from this point on they’d leave us alone.

As can be expected the Iranians are talking big. I rephrased the statement of the Iranian diplomats thus:

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Or as Kurt Schlichter put it:

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

There might be an explanation for this bad bit of aim.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

If this is true than despite the breathless (and disgraceful) cheerleading for Iran by the American left and the media this might in fact be an Iranian peace feeler in the sense that they can tell their own people they won a great victory while backing down thus saving face, it doesn’t have to be true (for example Egypt still pretends they beat Israel in 1973) and their own people don’t have to believe it but they can pretend that they do. A very Arabian cultural solution keeping their pride while letting the US know they have backed down.

But regardless the President had three options at this point all of which I’m willing to support.

Option #1 Point and Laugh

Option one is to point out that if this is the best the Iranians can do it’s a giant joke and a sign that they are not a threat. He could even confirm the above possibility I just mentioned pooh pooing Iran’s claims as face saving drivel. He can back up his claim by the ineffectiveness of the Iranian action and say his base warning still stands. A few mega hawks will be disappointed and the left that was so worried about escalation will call him cowardly and of course he loses the change to completely erase the Iranian threat but he would avoid a war he doesn’t want plus in the end all the bluster and propaganda won’t bring General jigsaw back together again.

The bad part about this plan it is doesn’t put a further crimp in Iranian plans and the government could just wait for a Democrat to be elected before they start killing Americans again.

Option 2: Tat Tat Tat for Tit

Because the President promised a disproportionate response to any attack instead of laughing at the Iranians he could take several options that are damaging but not mega lethal. This would be within his MO because he doesn’t seem to want to respond to a non-lethal attack with a lethal one. He could take out several oil rigs, blow up some parked jets or even hit a refinery although that would likely risk civilian lives.

He could even seize an Iranian flagged ship, capture the crew paddle and release them (fun but risky).

All of these things have the advantage of being bigger than the attack, particularly in terms of how it would hurt Iran without being lethal and it would once again put Iran on the spot forcing them to either publicly submit which they really don’t want to do or go to a non asymmetrical war which they want to do even less.

The bad side of course is keeps the risk of a larger war on the table that he doesn’t want and of course it’s a half measure which tends to increase uncertainty. While uncertainly in Iran is to our advantage, uncertainty at home is less so, plus we don’t know how Europe or our enemies will react.

Option 3 52 putdown

This option is to treat this as a full fledged attack and to respond with the promised overwhelming force, destroy their navy, destroy their airforce, destroy their refineries and generally leave the country a wreck.

If the Iranians had managed an actual attack that killed someone this would in fact be the only option on the table.

The advantage of course is to clean up the trash that should have been cleaned up four decades ago and crush the power of the terror state to the point where revolution will almost certainly succeed. Frankly this should have been done in 1979 and if it had been a lot of the problems of the last 40 years would not be. Furthermore the lack of Iranian support would crumble terror networks all over the world and would put a lot of bad guys on notice that from this day on, none of them is safe.

While those a big rewards this option also comes with the biggest risks.

  1. If Iran falls we don’t know what will actually replace it. It could become a Persian Libya.
  2. Such a move would almost certainly cause attacks from any sleepers they have here (which might actually be good in the sense better to root them out when they’re not ready vs letting them plan) and cause some terror attacks in the middle east and possibly Europe.
  3. Russia & China with Iran neutralized will have to find a new proxy to counter us which could get really interesting.
  4. While we don’t need Iranian oil the flow stopping will make Europe more dependent on Russian energy
  5. Once the threat of Iran is gone the incentive for the Arabs who were scared of them to make nice with us and Israel goes with it
  6. It’s the equivalent of blowing up your neighbor’s building for trying to step on your toe and missing.
  7. The MSM will blow out of proportion the small amount of naval & air casualties that such a move would cost.

Biggest risks, biggest rewards

Given what we’ve seen from the deep state I hesitate to give a lot of credit to the Government however I do presume they know more about this than me and from what I’ve seen from Donald Trump I trust him to make the right choice from this list (or a different one that I haven’t thought of) based on what he considers in the best interest for the country given the realities on the ground.

The only think we really know for sure is that whatever the President does the Media will denounce him for it as either a failure, a coward, a warmonger or a butcher under the overriding principle of Orange man bad.

That’s why they can be safely ignored.

Update: Always trust the opinions of an Elder who has experience:

Still, at this time, it looks like Trump let Iran know that they can no longer assume that they can act with impunity in the Middle East, and Iran blinked – hard.

The honor/shame culture is what runs the Middle East. To Muslims in the region, appearances are more important than facts. It appears that at least some people in this much-derided administration understood that and the response was calibrated to allow Iran to maintain its honor.

All the while, in the reality based world, the US has won this skirmish hands-down. Iran’s major architect of terror is gone and Iran is backing down. The US has shown the Iranian leaders that direct conflict would be a very, very foolhardy move.

Again keeping in mind that it is too early to say for sure, but so far it looks like the “experts” and fearmongers have been wrong, and the White House has achieved an unqualified victory that not only hurt Iran because of their loss of Soleimani, but also has forced them to re-think all of their offensive moves in the Middle East for the foreseeable future.

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