Mass protests in Iran

[Fenris]

For some strange reason this hasn't been getting much press, but there's mass protests against the government in Iran. About a dozen people killed so far and hundreds have been arrested.

[Fenris]

The only national leaders speaking in favor of the protesters are Trump and Netanyahu. All those world leaders who freaked out at Trump's statement on Jerusalem are oddly silent at the suppression of human rights in Iran.

[Fenris]

Benjamin Netanyahu: The Iranian regime tries desperately to sow hate between Iranians and Israelis. They won't succeed. When this regime finally falls – and one day it will – Iranians and Israelis will be great friends once again. I wish the Iranian people success in their noble quest for freedom.

Trump: Big protests in Iran. The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. Looks like they will not take it any longer. The USA is watching very closely for human rights violations!

[Fenris]

The Iranian soldiers are running over protesters with trucks. Just driving into them. God have mercy.

[Fenris]

The UN hasn't made a statement because of "the holidays". That's great, we wouldn't want to interrupt their New Year's Eve party with bad news about human rights violations or whatever

[keck553]

It astounds me how the liberals and Europe are taking sides with a dictatorial barbaric regime against the people of Iran. Their true colors are showing.

Anything to protect Obama I guess.

[ChristianCoffee]

I am just shaking my head at the worlds reaction to this, and praying for the people there. May they finally become rid of the yolk of terror that has ruled them for so long.

[Fenris]

It seems the European attitude (and they said this, in so many words) is that the uprising will be put down, and then the Iranian government will be mad at us if we support them.

First of all, this is a horribly defeatist attitude.

Second of all, it's immoral. These people are being crushed under a totalitarian dictatorship and they're crying out for freedom. Offer them help, even of the rhetorical sort. But no...

While President Reagan’s 1983 “evil empire” speech horrified many critics – and even some of his staff – as a “provocation,” dissidents in at least one Soviet prison were “ecstatic.”


Israeli cabinet minister Natan Sharansky, who at the time was confined to an eight-by-10-foot prison cell on the border of Siberia, said his jailers gave him the special privilege of reading the communist newspaper Pravda.

Splashed across the party organ’s pages after Reagan’s March 8, 1983, speech to the National Association of Evangelicals was condemnation of the president for having the gall to label the Soviet Union in such terms.

But a far different take on the speech quickly began to echo among the dissidents, who spread the story by tapping on walls and talking through toilets.

“We dissidents were ecstatic,” Sharansky wrote in a column for the Jerusalem Post.

“Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth – a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us,” said Sharansky, a Russian Jew.


In the speech, delivered in Orlando, Fla., Reagan urged the evangelical leaders to “speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of military and moral inferiority.”

The president said, “[I]n your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride – the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.”

Sharansky recalled, at the time, he could not have imagined he would be in the White House three years later telling his story to the president.

The Israeli leader said he was aware there had been much criticism of Reagan’s decision to cast the struggle between the superpowers as a battle between good and evil.

“Well, Reagan was right and his critics were wrong,” Sharansky said.

Sometimes just calling something what it is becomes a powerful thing.

[keck553]

It seems the European attitude (and they said this, in so many words) is that the uprising will be put down, and then the Iranian government will be mad at us if we support them.

First of all, this is a horribly defeatist attitude.

Second of all, it's immoral. These people are being crushed under a totalitarian dictatorship and they're crying out for freedom. Offer them help, even of the rhetorical sort. But no...



Sometimes just calling something what it is becomes a powerful thing.

Somehow the tenacity of Churchill seeped out of the European elite culture and replaced with the foolishness of Neville Chamberlain.

[Athanasius]

Leftist and/or Liberal Europeans hate themselves, so obviously Iran and its government must be better (must be all that guilt from the '70s).

[BraveUlysesses]

anybody have sources with liberals siding with the Iranian government on this issue?

[Cyberseeker]

Reminds me of the time (stretching my memory here) the Russians rolled into Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Then there was Tiananmen square; now Iran. The United Nations have always been a paper tiger.

[Sojourner]

Back in 2010, when Obama and his supporters were cheering on the protesters and freedom fighters of the "Arab Spring" blossoming elsewhere in the Muslim world, Iranians seeking support when protesting a rigged election were completely ignored. Today, the Iranian people are protesting billions of dollars being sent to other Muslim countries at a time of high unemployment and ignored economic need in their own country. (Most of Iran's foreign aid funds terrorism around the world, BTW). With no outcry from the UN, or real support from the international community, it seems the Iranian people are going to keep the momentum going on this one as long as they can.

[Tony P]

This is certainly tragic. I don't think anyone expects the protests to succeed and that is why no one seems to care. Iran is in pretty bad shape with skyrocketing HIV and drug use. The people are miserable and my heart goes out to them.

As Sojourner mentioned the Arab Spring mess didn't really make any positive impact. On top of that, the world has spent untold amounts of money in Afghanistan and Iraq with almost nothing to show for it. Freedom and Islam are just incompatible and the world now realizes that I think. So, there is little hope at all for the suffering Iranians.

Forget Europe. The muslim invasion has totally neutered the already weakened people. They all went out of their way to condemn the US for recognizing the obvious on Jerusalem. They have absolutely zero moral clarity or authority. Europe is on its way to the ash heap of history in record time. It is astonishing to watch.

China and Russia care about no one but themselves. Especially China. 4000 years of continuous history and they have never lifted a finger to assist anyone. Unless they were trying to take advantage of the situation for themselves. The UN has also relegated itself to utter uselessness, being full of selfish and spineless nations whose whole focus is anti-Semitism.

So, the Iranians have only Trump and Netanyahu to support them. That is it. But, the people is the gulags of Siberia had only Reagan to support them and it was enough. We'll see. I just don't think Trump is going to push the issue hard enough. For now, at least. The protestors will probably lose their lives for nothing.

[DurbanDude]

Yes I feel sorry for those guys. When they remain under oppression it's bad. When they fight oppression it gets even worse. Look at Libya and Syria. Foreign intervention doesn't make things any better.