quote:

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Twenty-nine people convicted of various crimes, ranging from murder to being a public nuisance while drunk, were hanged in Iran, state TV said.

Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency reported earlier that 30 people would be put to death. It was not immediately clear if the last person's life was spared.

The Iranian judiciary's statement said that all 30 were convicted of various crimes, which included: murder, murder in commission of a crime, disturbing public safety and security, being a public nuisance while drunk and being involved in illegal relationships -- relationships between men and women who are not married to each other.

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If you click on the link, you can see a convicted person being hanged from a crane for his misdeeds.

quote:

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Clearly, Iran needs regime change!

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Whether or not Iran needs "regime change", I think most people (even those who favor the death penalty) would agree that executing people for having sex outside of marriage should not occur.

[ 28 July 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

As indicated by the hyperbolic use of the word "dictatorship" in the thread title, I believe the aim is to denounce Iran - which, not coincidentally, happens to be number one on the list of future targets for "regime change" by the Axis of Weasels. The opening post, in fact, would not be a bit out of place on any of the right-wing discussion forums that proliferate on the internet like noxious weeds.

Indeed, not even the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency calls Iran a dictatorship (at least since the Shah was sent packing); their "Factbook" calls Iran a "theocratic republic" and describes their elections thus:

quote:

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elections: Supreme Leader is appointed for life by the Assembly of Experts; president is elected by popular vote for a four-year term (eligible for a second term and third nonconsecutive term); last held 17 June 2005 with a two-candidate runoff on 24 June 2005 (next presidential election slated for 2009)
election results: Mahmud AHMADI-NEJAD elected president; percent of vote - Mahmud AHMADI-NEJAD 62%, Ali Akbar Hashemi-RAFSANJANI 36%

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quote:

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
I wonder how any of us would feel about anyone from outside of Canada stating "Clearly, Canada needs a regime change!"

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quote:

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
I wonder how any of us would feel about anyone from outside of Canada stating "Clearly, Canada needs a regime change!"
Although may of us would agree, I wager that none of us would presume that it's any foreigner's business...

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quote:

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Indeed, not even the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency calls Iran a dictatorship (at least since the Shah was sent packing); their "Factbook" calls Iran a "theocratic republic" and describes their elections thus:

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Oh and none of the people opposing jeff's point of view EVER use hyperbole, right?

Why can't we just acknowledge the fact that some of the people who lead oppressed populations are assholes but that we should not under any circumstances bomb or invade their countries? Doesn't that make more sense than bending our respective brains into gray matter pretzels trying to defend people like the president of Iran?

[ 29 July 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

quote:

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:

Oh and none of the people opposing jeff's point of view EVER use hyperbole, right?

Why can't we just acknowledge the fact that some of the leaders of oppressed people are assholes but that we should not under any circumstances bomb or invade their countries? Doesn't that make more sense than bending our respective brains into gray matter pretzels trying to defend people like the president of Iran?

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I'm pretty sure that they do use hyperbole, and it's usually entertaining. But in jeff's case lately, he posts news about horrific event without adding any editorial comments himself. Some readers conclude that the topic title is the editorial comment. I can't fault them for that.

quote:

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
I wonder how any of us would feel about anyone from outside of Canada stating "Clearly, Canada needs a regime change!"

Although may of us would agree, I wager that none of us would presume that it's any foreigner's business...

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Many, many people on babble have, in effect, said, "Clearly, America needs a regime change!"

quote:

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
I wonder how any of us would feel about anyone from outside of Canada stating "Clearly, Canada needs a regime change!"
Although may of us would agree, I wager that none of us would presume that it's any foreigner's business...[ 28 July 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sven
Many, many people on babble have, in effect, said, "Clearly, America needs a regime change!"

What's the big deal?

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Agreed.

quote:

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler
Why can't we just acknowledge the fact that some of the leaders of oppressed people are assholes but that we should not under any circumstances bomb or invade their countries? Doesn't that make more sense than bending our respective brains into gray matter pretzels trying to defend people like the president of Iran?

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quote:

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
Doesn't that make more sense than bending our respective brains into gray matter pretzels trying to defend people like the president of Iran?

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You seem to think that it's better not to correct certain lies as long as those lies are being told about "some of the leaders of oppressed people". You would even go so far as to characterize those who correct the lies as "defending people like the president of Iran."

This reminds me of the cheerleaders for the last big USian war, who accused of "defending Saddam" those persons who stood up to the official propaganda machine and said "there is no evidence of WMD's".

quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:

Many, many people on babble have, in effect, said, "Clearly, America needs a regime change!"

What's the big deal?

---

Discussions of this kind always go the same way:

Babbler A: The Saudi Religious police have just
beaten
a dozen women for
committing adultry. The Sudi government is made up of dictitorial shits.

Blabbler B: but the Saudi government has just allowed telecommunications workers to unionize, therefore you cannot possibly call them dictitoral.

Watching you and Cuball debate Jeff
is a bit like watching a freakish amalgum of the O'rielly Factor(Mr. House)
and
Yes,
Minister. You can almost hear the ghost of sir Humphery Appleby whispering in Cue's ear.

[ 29 July 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 29 July 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 30 July 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

quote:

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
You didn't adress the information that Jeff presented.

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Here's my answer to jeff.

A short drive away from each of us is a country which had 3,309 human beings on death row as of the beginning of 2008.

quote:

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unionist: Here's my answer to jeff.

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FFS. Jeff made a single posting on this topic 6.5 hours ago and then fled. I don't see how that fits with the aims of a Discussion Board. He hasn't even posed a question, much less hung around to debate whatever he thinks is important.

All he's done is hoist his own flag somewhere it will get attention and run off. I think I hear a Bronx cheer.

He posts a news story about the horrid, diabolical murderous brutality of the Iranian government - that no civilized person ought to be able to support. The simplest thing would be to either say nothing or say - "I agree, the government of Iran is a murderous dictatorship - tell me something we can actually debate".

Instead, the usual "the enemy of my enemy is my friend crowd" just can't bear the thought of letting a criticism of atrocities committed by the Iranian gov't go unannswered - so they waste a massive amount of time bending themselves like pretzels trying to be apologists for the Iranian gov't.

I've started a thread on the book and I'm adding to it as I find interesting or evocative remarks.

I should have another shortly (about Rachel Corrie).

[ 29 July 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
He posts a news story about the horrid, diabolical murderous brutality of the Iranian government - that no civilized person ought to be able to support.

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quote:

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"I agree, the government of Iran is a murderous dictatorship.

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quote:

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...trying to be apologists for the Iranian gov't.

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quote:

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...executed or jailed for being opponents of the government of Iran.

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Just two years ago a Iranian-Canadian woman was purposely beaten to death by the Iranian secret police. We know about that case because she has family in Canada that publicized what happened to her. Imagine all the thousands of people that the Iranian secret kills that we never hear about because they have no close relatively living abroad??

[ 29 July 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

quote:

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Stockholm: Who cares how many people the US or any other country executes?

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Why, people who care about war crimes. Are you excluding yourself from civilized humanity?

quote:

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Actually there’s a section in the Nuremberg trials wherein it was argued that the supreme war crime (the crime of aggression and the acquisition of lands through conquest) is so heinous because it encompasses all of the other crimes that occurred because of it. So the perpetrators of the initial war crime actually should have a lot more to answer to. For example, every non-combatant civilian killed, every Iraqi teenage girl raped, every artifact from the Iraqi Museum embezzled is, in the Nuremberg sense, on Bush’s head because he criminally set the circumstances in motion which caused each of these things even if none of them were directly ordered by him.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Nothing that the American government does justifies the Iranian government summarily executing people for adultery or homosexuality. Period.

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Stockholm, so far the only person in this entire thread who has tried to justify and minimize and whitewash the death penalty is YOU:

quote:

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... those few countries in the West like Japan or the US that regrettably still execute people - but only for first degree murder and usually after about 25 years worth of appeals and stays of execution.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Did you graduate from kindergarten???

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Not as recently as you, obviously.

Ok, Japan and the United States are both "West". I'll accept that for the sake of argument. Hopefully you won't tell me next that they're both Christian and White.

Now tell me why you painted such a benign picture of the state-organized murder of human beings by those two countries? Was that necessary in order to make Iran look more evil?

quote:

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
...in a thread dealing with wanton executions and atrocities in Iran....the Iranian government summarily executing people...

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And, having known a few Iranian refugees who have gone through both Iran and Canada's judicial systems, they all say that while Canada's is bad, it's a picnic compared to the Iranian system, in which they were tortured, beaten, and in one case, put under death sentence - for political reasons.

And as a woman, I consider the death penalty for "adultery" to be political persecution. I knew a woman a few years back who came here from Iran as a refugee - she told me she was flogged there for having premarital sex. In a justice system where a woman's testimony is given half the weight of men's testimony. Is that political? Darn right it is!

Does that mean the US should bomb them? No. But from the stories I've heard from Iranian refugees, it certainly does mean that Iran is still a reactionary dictatorship. Just because they have joke elections doesn't make it a democracy.

[ 30 July 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]

quote:

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"Wanton" executions? "Summarily" executing people?

Have you no respect at all for the English language? or the truth?

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The truth is that Iran (according to Amnesty International) executes the second most people per year of any country in the world. Only China (population 1.2 billion executes slightly more). On a per capita basis, Iran is eons ahead of any other country. I call the use of the death penalty pretty wanton when 30 people - many of whom have done things that should not be punished at all - are taken out an hung minutes after being paraded through the streets after a kangaroo court pseudo-trial.

quote:

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88 per cent of all known executions in 2007 took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the USA.

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At least they keep good company.

Amnesty International

And look! The progressive US of A struck down the death penalty for juveniles in 2005! Go USA!!

quote:

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Based on public reports available, Amnesty International estimated that at least 1,010 people were executed in China during the year, although these figures are only the tip
of the iceberg. Credible sources suggest that between 7,500 to 8,000 people were executed in 2006. The official statistics remain a state secret, making monitoring and analysis problematic.

Iran executed 177 people, Pakistan 82 and Iraq and Sudan each at least 65. There were 53 executions in 12 states in the USA.

The worldwide figure for those currently condemned to death and awaiting execution is difficult to assess. The estimated number at the end of 2006 was between 19,185 and 24,646 based on information from human rights groups, media reports and the limited official figures available.

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http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGACT500122007&lang=e

Iran should be properly condemned for the death penalty, for anyone.... but here we have a "democratic nation" the USA, murdering their own people ranking right up there with them. These other countries don't pretend to be democracies. The US does. Does that mean they have to set the bar higher? Hell yes!!!!

quote:

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
The truth is that Iran (according to Amnesty International) executes the second most people per year of any country in the world. ...

But according to some people, condemning Iran means we must be secretely pro-Bush. I guess Amnesty International must be some CIA front organization?

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Yeah, some people---but, are they posting in Babble forums?

I agree with Michelle's view on the Iranian justice system, and maybe even yours.

This forum thread began with the posting of a news article that could be used by a hawk to whip up emotions in the West again the Irainian government. A progressive person who does not advocate military invasion could also use it to illustrate the need for change in Iran. The reason for posting this article would be defined by comments supplied by the poster. But, no comments were supplied aside from a topic title.

quote:

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Originally posted by Stargazer:
At least they keep good company.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Robespierre:
Unless the poster, jeff house, was role-playing a RSS feed...

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quote:

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RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts in a standardized format.[2] An RSS document (which is called a "feed," "web feed,"[3] or "channel") contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner that can be piped into special programs or filtered displays.[3]

The benefit of RSS is the aggregation of content from multiple web sources in one place. RSS content can be read using software called an "RSS reader," "feed reader," or an "aggregator," which can be web-based or desktop-based. A standardized XML file format allows the information to be published once and viewed by many different programs. The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Michelle:
But from the stories I've heard from Iranian refugees, it certainly does mean that Iran is still a reactionary dictatorship. Just because they have joke elections doesn't make it a democracy.

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quote:

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Tell that to the CIA, which, as I have noted, does not call it a "dictatorship".

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[ 30 July 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 30 July 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Tell that to the CIA, which, as I have noted, does not call it a "dictatorship".

On what basis do you say the elections in Iran are a "joke"? Do you not believe that Ahmadinejad got 62% of the popular vote?

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Oh well, you know that Michelle---she buys more political snake oil than a SUV owner buys gasoline!

Ok, serious now...

1) Iran offers the electorate only two real choices for president every four years

2) has a death penalty

3) and is profoundly influenced by religious beliefs

quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
I agree, Sven. But I have to wonder what the purpose of this thread is. It's not to have a discussion about capital punishment.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Farmpunk:
So... you believe the CIA?

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quote:

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You seem to think that it's better not to correct certain lies as long as those lies are being told about "some of the leaders of oppressed people". You would even go so far as to characterize those who correct the lies as "defending people like the president of Iran."

---

All I did was object to the use of the term in the thread title, as an appeal to knee-jerk emotion, rather than reason. Similarly, I don't approve of calling everyone to the left of Obama a communist or everyone to the right of McCain a fascist, because those terms lose their meaning when they are used simply to express disgust or hatred.

Similarly, I object when people carelessly talk about "summary executions", simply for emotive effect, when they clearly don't know the meaning of the term, because they use it to refer to executions that follow a formal and official judicial process, however flawed one may think that is.

quote:

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All I did was object to the use of the term in the thread title, as an appeal to knee-jerk emotion, rather than reason. Similarly, I don't approve of calling everyone to the left of Obama a communist or everyone to the right of McCain a fascist, because those terms lose their meaning when they are used simply to express disgust or hatred.

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In order to defend your position that Iran is not entirely totalitarian, you also talked about Iran's elections, which is a poor strategy when discussing this issue, since the elections don't mean a whole hell of a lot. It would have been better if you talked about an event staged by Anti Mullah socailist activists rather than an event created by theocrats for theocrats.

[ 02 August 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 02 August 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 02 August 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

quote:

---

This forum thread began with the posting of a news article that could be used by a hawk to whip up emotions in the West again the Iranian government. A progressive person who does not advocate military invasion could also use it to illustrate the need for change in Iran.

---

So in other words, we should all refrain from reporting on or commenting on revolting human rights abuses in Iran, because the stories of those abuses might be used by a "hawk" to whip up support for an invasion of Iran? How ridiculous? I never realized that postings in babble had so much influence of whether or not countries get invaded.

quote:

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This is as stupid as saying that no one should ever post anything about Israeli actions in the occupied territories that they don't like on the grounds that it might be used by an anti-Israel hawk to justify more suicide bombings!

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Seriously, if anyone really thinks that the chances of Iran being attacked by the US are increased every time anyone reports on human rights atrocities in Iran - then rather than blaming people who publicize these human rights abuses - why don't we instead demand that Iran STOP these human rights abuses in the first place for their own good!

quote:

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
So in other words, we should all refrain from reporting on or commenting on revolting human rights abuses in Iran, because the stories of those abuses might be used by a "hawk" to whip up support for an invasion of Iran?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by M. Spector:
Believe it or not, it is possible for progressives to make trenchant criticisms of Iran without resorting to mindless name-calling.

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quote:

---

If we can't get the mullahs to stop executing people for having sex or for being gay by appealing to their morals and compassion - why not at least make the case that every time they commit these atrocities - all they do is provide propaganda to people who want to invade Iran and destroy their theocracy?

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[ 02 August 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 02 August 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

That having been said I deeply dislike organized religion in general and doubly so, religious fundamentalism, and trebly so when religious fundamentalists control a government.

quote:

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Discussing the rising U.S. exports of cigarettes to Iran recently, Senator McCain joked, "Maybe that's a way of killing them." We have seen the unfortunate impact that Iran has on the Senator’s sense of humor before (the famous “Bomb, bomb, bomb” song). But this essay is not about Mr. McCain or the election. It is about the circumstances that make it possible for him to voice the death wish: “our” deep ambivalence toward “them,” the Iranians.

The Americans who travel to Iran, an average of 300 a year, find the country full of surprises. Before they arrive in Tehran, they know a thing or two about the country. They know that a religiously oriented government is in place and the constitution extends its tentacle deep into personal lives. They know that many young Iranians long for living in a more western society. Not an unrealistic assessment. But there is a lot they don’t know. Iran has a constellation of highly developed urban centers. Literacy is pretty high (over 90% among 15 to 25 year olds). Universities are filled with women students. The infant mortality and population growth rates are under control. And the country is at the forefront of stem cell research. If these are not enough, there is a bigger shocker: Iranians like Americans.

Why is it then that, here in the U.S., Senator McCain can safely issue Iranians a collective, supposedly humorous, death sentence? After all, if he did that to the Poles, or the Senegalese, he’d be jeopardizing his political career.

Interestingly enough, the legitimacy of Mr. McCain’s comment is rooted in a handful of stories. In the past year or so, as we have gone about our daily lives, these stories have floated in the background developing – gradually but surely – into “facts.” In truth, they are neither facts nor fabrications. They are a selective arrangement of truth with important parts missing. And they all have one message: Iran is dangerous.

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