31 Sunday Dec 2017
Tags
2017, against dictatorship, anti-totalitarianism, democracy, demonstrations, Iran, Iranian, Iranian freedom, Khamenei, kleptocracy, modern v medieval, popular revolution, protests, revolution 2017
Be born.
–33–
13 Tuesday Dec 2016
12/12/2016
https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/
https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/23/moscows-rules-a-module/
Related: “Remarks at a UN Security Council Emergency Briefing on Syria.”
Ambassador Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
U.S. Mission to the United Nations, New York City, December 13, 2016.
“Is there literally nothing that can shame you?” Power said. “Is there no act of barbarism against civilians, no execution of a child, that gets under your skin? That just creeps you out a little bit? Is there nothing you will not lie about or justify?”
–33–
02 Friday Oct 2015
Tags
21st Century Neo-Feudalism, Assad, foreign affairs, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, Khamenei, Medieval Axis, middle east, political analysis, politics, Putin, Syria
In childhood, the kid with the chessboard chooses his opponent. Why not in adulthood? And what if you could not only control you opponent but make the same another rival’s opponent . . . how cool would that be?
That would be so far beyond cool as to have arrived at deliciously evil.
😉
For Moscow — Putin’s post-Soviet neo-feudal Russia, “New Nobility” and all — ISIS serves at least these functions:
In ISIS, Khamenei (he may thank Assad and Putin) has chosen a familiar Sunni opposition for Iran’s purchase in Iraq’s Shiite militia community. Once again, Iranian Revolutionary Guard get to get their boots into battle with their old Baathist foes, now serving as generals in Baghdadi’s cause.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, established in 1949, has 28 members devoted to the idea of collective security. Prediction: By the time President Obama leaves office in 2017, the NATO pledge of mutual defense in response to aggression will have been exposed as worthless. Objectively the alliance will have ceased to exist. The culprits? Vladimir Putin—and Barack Obama.
The long-term aim would be to defeat or demoralise the non-Isil opposition, so that Isil became the regime’s only enemy. That would force the West to back President Bashar al-Assad against it. “They want to clean the country of non-Isil rebels, and then the US will work with them as Isil will be the only enemy,” the Damascus source said.
Russia bombed Syria for a third day on Friday, mainly hitting areas held by rival insurgent groups rather than the Islamic State fighters it said it was targeting and drawing an increasingly angry response from the West.
The U.S.-led coalition that is waging its own air war against Islamic State called on the Russians to halt strikes on targets other than Islamic State.
Next came Russia’s move on Syria. The weapons that Russia is sending there are not an attempt to settle the conflict. They are there to protect the Assad regime, which is its cause. Moreover, ISIL does not have warplanes: Russia’s air defense missiles are in Syria for a different purpose.
This became clear on Wednesday, when America was given less than an hour’s warning that the Kremlin was imposing, in effect, a no-fly zone in Syria. With this the Russians not only mounted a direct challenge to American authority. They also ripped up the rulebook of military diplomacy. America was aghast, but had no response.
The Ba’ath regime was strongly anti-American, so it’s not surprising that–despite the unfortunate fate of the Iraqi Communist Party–it was primarily a client of the Soviet Union (not the US), and this relationship continued up until the moment when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Weintraub, Jeffrey. “Who armed Saddam? – Some Reality Checks.” Jeff Weintraub (blog), March 31, 2003.
That Baathists helped ISIS, before the declaration of the ‘Caliphate,’ to rush into Iraq last year, and assist in the battles for key nodes in Iraq, is indisputable. Even in the Second Battle of Tikrit, just fought in the past few weeks, Baathists were a prominent component of ISIS forces. The very fact that Saddam Hussein’s al-Tikriti tribe was tossed out of their tribal domain certainly bore the hallmarks of the ultimate revenge against the Baathist core.
Karasik, Theodore. The erratic ISIS and Baath party connection. Al Arabiya, April 18, 2015.
Moscow’s action were in line with the strategy it had used to defeat the separatist movement in Chechnya, infiltrating the insurgency, driving it into extremism, and facilitating the arrival of al-Qaeda jihadists who displaced the Chechen nationalists. In Syria, Russia’s actions accord with the strategy adopted by the regime and its Iranian masters to present Assad as the last line of defence against a terrorist takeover of Syria and a genocide against the minorities. New evidence has emerged to underline these points.
Orton, Kyle. “How Russia Manipulates Islamic Terrorism.” The Syrian Intifada, September 8, 2015.
Testimony from gendarmerie officers in court documents reviewed by Reuters allege that rocket parts, ammunition and semi-finished mortar shells were carried in trucks accompanied by state intelligence agency (MIT) officials more than a year ago to parts of Syria under Islamist control.
Four trucks were searched in the southern province of Adana in raids by police and gendarmerie, one in November 2013 and the three others in January 2014, on the orders of prosecutors acting on tip-offs that they were carrying weapons, according to testimony from the prosecutors, who now themselves face trial.
While the first truck was seized, the three others were allowed to continue their journey after MIT officials accompanying the cargo threatened police and physically resisted the search, according to the testimony and prosecutor’s report.
Hannah, John. “Erdogan’s Deadly Ambitions.” Foreign Policy, September 21, 2015.
The Economist. “Why Turkey called a NATO Article Four consultation.” July 28, 2015.
Weiss, Michael. “Russia Is Sending Jihadis to Join ISIS.” The Daily Beast, August 23, 2015.
Orton, Kyle. “How Assad Funds the Islamic State”. The Syrian Intifada (blog), November 29, 2015.
Posted to YouTube 10/16/2015.
National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces. “Harvard University Reveals Secret Documents Proving Assad’s Involvement in Rise of ISIS.” August 23, 2016. Article comments from 2015 Der Spiegel article by Christoph Reuter based on papers obtained from the battlespace in 2013.
16 Thursday Jul 2015
Tags
And here we are in 2015 choosing to believe the promises made by the leaders of Islamic Iran regarding nuclear proliferation despite the well-known Islamic policy of taqiyya-religious deception. Despite the fact that they have lied about their nuclear programme in the past. From the Qur’an – This verse tells Muslims not to take those outside the faith as friends, unless it is to “guard themselves” against danger, meaning that there are times when a Muslim may appear friendly to non-Muslims, though they should not feel that way.” (Here And here – “And they (the disbelievers) schemed, and Allah schemed (against them): and Allah is the best of schemers.” If Allah is supremely deceitful toward unbelievers, then there is little basis for denying that Muslims are allowed to do the same. (See also 8:30 and 10:21) and here. From the Hadith: Bukhari (84:64-65) – Speaking from a position of power at the time, Ali confirms that lying is permissible in order to deceive an “enemy.” In other words, the word of a Muslim leader is not his bond.
The vast majority of countries on Earth with nuclear programs do not possess sensitive nuclear facilities. Rather the fuel is provided by a more advanced nuclear power, such as Russia, France, or the United States. This eliminates the need for the spread of dangerous enrichment or reprocessing programs to new countries. Countries like Iran that insist on developing their own sensitive technologies for “peaceful purposes,” therefore, are tipping their hand and revealing a likely intention to build the bomb.
Whether nations or women deceived, Islam and several of the states most representative of it would seem to have a big credibility issue. For Jews, perhaps others who have taken note, serious betrayal — and signal of the complete absence of compassion, conscience, and empathy — begins with the legend of the mass slaughter of the Banu Qurayza men and the barbaric enslavement of their wives and daughters.
Muslim critic and reformer Tarek Fatah has derided and rejected the authenticity of the Banu Qurayza legend for finding it execrable as any sort of example of morality while the “anti-Jihad”, in general, maintains the same as a potent symbol of the character of Islam.
Today’s skinny brings the tale of the imam who lied to betray his wife and woo another woman (K. M. Lessing) into conversion and marriage.
Same thing, isn’t it?
First, lie; then exploit the lie: to get the woman; to get power over others.
From simple mass slaughter and the abuse of women inveigled into relationships, Islam’s apparently inherent interest in the possession of absolute power — unanswerable, unconscionable (well demonstrated throughout the Syrian theater and the military and political play that has been fashioned as “Assad vs The Terrorists”), and humanly conflated with the presence in concept of God Almighty — extends logically to the possession of nuclear arms and the associated ability and evident intent to threaten the annihilation of others in exchange for their cooperation, loyalty, obedience, subjugation.
Should one take it on faith that not all imam are like K. M. Lessing’s imam?
Similarly, should on take it on faith that not all ayatollah and senior clerics are like Ali Khamenei or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? Or the Muhammad who allegedly slaughtered 800 self-surrendered, compliant, and disarmed fathers and sons?
What do the polls say?
Where are the social science measures of attitudes toward others from within Islam?
Here we are back at “Shimmer“.
It’s different today: the question had been, as stated by Daniel Pipes, “How Many Islamists?” Now we’re being positioned to ask among the despotic and theocratic leaders of Islamic states, who else (in addition to Pakistan) will have nuclear weapons, how soon, and how many?
While it may be understood that the Religion of Peace contains the genuinely peaceful and now an emerged leadership complement of Islamic humanists, social progressives, and reformers, its other faces retain the power and punch of military generals and political autocrats, and those in Iran it appears the west may now be rewarding with increased access to capital and the further encouragement of license exceeding all limits.
Afshari, Ali. “Khamenei preaches Shiite-Sunni unity against Islamic State, US.” Al-Monitor, October 22, 2014: “High-ranking officials of the Islamic Republic have always talked about the importance of Shiite-Sunni unity and even dedicated a week each year to the issue. Their actions, however, have served to deepen the Shiite-Sunni divide, in particular their discrimination against Iranian Sunnis, including limitations on their religious activities, as well as efforts to propagate Shiism in the Middle East.”
Al-Muslimi, Farea. “Yemen’s Houthis proxy, not ally for Iran.” Al-Monitor, November 19, 2014.
BackChannels. “Ali Khamenei and the Letter from Near Mosul — A Speculation.” January 16, 2015.
Bender, Jeremy. “Iran’s proxy war in Yemen just got exposed.” Business Insider, May 1, 2015.
Council on Foreign Relations. “The Sunni-Shia Divide.”
Frantzman, Seth J. “20 Myths About the Iran Deal.” Terra Incognita, July 15, 2015: “How a country that hangs people proudly and burns the flags of those it negotiates with has come to be so respected on the international stage is truly extraordinary. It is a testament to the soft racism of low expectations of the West.”
In September 2014, the U.S. began airstrikes in Syria that targeted ISIS, allowing Assad to perform an “economy of force“: Assad left the U.S. to attack ISIS in the east and focused on the moderates in the west. Assad has worked very hard to make extremists the face of the insurgency—for example between ISIS’ emergence and late 2014, Assad directed just six percent of his airstrikes against ISIS—and to present this as a binary choice between the dictator or the takfiris; this is a lie, but many believe it and it has worked to make the U.S. effectively Assad’s (Iran’s) air force in Syria.
Ross, Dennis. “Iran Will Cheat, Then What?” Time, July 15, 2015.
Starr, Barbara. “Sources: Baghdadi may have been in Raqqa.” CNN Politics, July 15, 2015. Post includes video, story, and photo panel of “Leaders of deadliest terrorist groups.”
Former U.S. officials and Iran experts say Khamenei has a deep-rooted suspicion of the West and a streak of insecurity – he rose to power due to his loyalty to the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini rather than lofty religious credentials.
A sense of inferiority has dogged him over the years and it would be especially important for Khamenei to be seen as not folding under Western pressure to reach an agreement, they said.
The United States pushed forward with a sanctions-based approach largely because key administration officials believed that sanctions strengthened the credibility and leverage of those who wanted to engage Iran, while preventing more violent actions by Israel. They insisted that such an approach best addressed the myriad long-term mutual interests shared by the United States and Iran. President Obama himself reached the conclusion that there were too few negative incentives to affect Iran’s internal calculus, particularly regarding mutual interests.
Marashi, Reza. “The Political Psychology of Obama’s Iran Policy.” Muftah, January 6, 2012.
There’s not much on the web as regards “political psychology, Khamenei.”
Perhaps BackChannel’s approach with “malignant narcissism” aligned with the “Syndicate Red Brown Green” feudalism and associated anti-Semitism / anti-Zionism / anti-westernism will fill the bill: I believe Khamenei’s interests continue to reside with the possession of political “absolute power”, capricious justice, piratical leadership, militarism expressed through “war by proxy” and the cultivation of Daesh as a Sunni-aligned foil for Iraq’s Shiite militia (advised by Revolutionary Guard), and the long-term survival of Sunni vs Shiite teleological rivalry and related hot conflict as stage-managed from Tehran.
World Nuclear Association. “Nuclear Power in Iran.” Updated May 2015: “After two years delay due to Iran’s reluctance to agree to returning used fuel to Russia without being paid for it, two agreements were signed early in 2005 covering both supply of fresh fuel for the new Bushehr nuclear reactor and its return to Russia after use. The Russian agreement means that Iran’s nuclear fuel supply is secured for the foreseeable future, removing any justification for enrichment locally.”
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16 Friday Jan 2015
Tags
Governorate of Ninava
Number of copies 751
Dated June, 06, 2014
To all departments of the governorate
Prevention preparations
Due to critical circumstances in the governorate and since we are convinced that army is not capable to face and confront the mujahideen we order all departments and governmental establishments within the governorate to follow below instructions and advices:
1- destroy all contracts and documents relevant to procurements within your department
2- burn all documents with governor’s name or signature
3- employees must not confront the mujahideen and they have to run away
4- don’t move away or hide vehicles, machineries and heavy equipments
5- in case of facing mujahideen it is prohibited to confront them in order to save lives and properties
6- it’s prohibited to have mobile phone under all circumstances
7- minimize night shift surveillance in order to save lives
Those who will not strictly follow instructions will be severely punished, expelled and followed by security committee of the governorate
For immediate execution
Atheel Abdulaziz Alnujaifi
Governor of Ninava
“Mujahideen” is not a word used to describe an enemy. It’s rather like “freedom fighter”, a word glorifying men at arms. In the vicinity of Mosul, which is where the above letter was promulgated by Governor Atheel Abdulazziz Alnujaifi, “enemy” would be referred to, as they are elsewhere, as “terrorists”.
The mid-January attempted assassination of Iranian spy chief General Qassem Soleimani, Commander and Chief of the Al Qods Brigades reported by Debka today may have some relationship to the above “stand-down” letter issued to military personnel by the mayor of Mosul shortly before the Islamic State’s lightning assault on Iraq.
Working on the red-brown-green theme and related political psychology in this blog has been like watching a sea monster rise from the deep. At first, the waters are obviously troubled and for apparent reasons — the middle east conflict, anti-Semitism, related Solidarity organizations, the calumny of the UN, and so on — but then the black mass of alliances starts to appear — that International Club of Bad Little Boys: Putin-Assad-Khamenei; Putin-Orban; Putin-Erdogan — and then a little later more data starts pushing up through the roiled surface:
In the eyes of most Iraqis, their country’s best ally in the war against the Islamic State group is not the United States and the coalition air campaign against the militants. It’s Iran, which is credited with stopping the extremists’ march on Baghdad.
http://www.businessinsider.com/iran-has-never-been-more-influential-in-iraq-2015-1#ixzz3Ooudrg10
Of course: Iran’s despot may have been holding the reins not only on Shiite extremist interests, like those of Hezbollah, but Sunni extremist operations as well, like those of Hamas, al-Nusra, and the Islamic State.
It has been a complaint out of the Syrian Revolution (2011) cum Civil War (afterward) that while Assad was barrel bombing the hell out of assorted noncombatants — not to mention sniping babies in the womb — his air force was standing off the positions of the al-Qaeda-type organizations, essentially removing the moderate middle from the field and leaving on the field to fights in its place “the terrorists” — the real ones (reference for that thought: Aboud Dandachi‘s The Doctor, The Eye Doctor, and Me, published early in 2014).
Debka has posted another article already this month combing over the Islamic State’s targeting of Iranian top officers in its area of contest and control:
The Al Qaeda-ISIS force was made up entirely of Saudi jihadis.
When these three episodes are examined in context, the Islamic State’s current modus operandi takes shape, as outlined here by DEBKAfile’s military analysts:
It starts with the detailed tracking of the movements of targeted commanders and staff, followed by the penetration of spies, usually locals converted to the jihadist philosophy, to their staffs. These moles keep their bosses in ISIS abreast of the targeted commanders’ movements, time tables, staff aides and the forces assigned to their security.
If one is a child of the public left scribbling with crayons, “Saudi jihadis” conflates Baghdadi’s operation with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but all who track these wars know that “Saudi jihadis” are as much after the Saudi king as anyone else who gets in their way, and with that in mind, they are leagued naturally with the Ayatollah. One then might ask, what keeps them, if anything, from taking Ali Khamenei’s money when offered? And in the medieval mode: they may not know where the influence and money are coming from if the same presenting before them are agents provocateur.
While in a healthy society, the sacrifice of one’s own officers would be anathema — and cause for revolution, bloody housekeeping, or dissolving of an entire army — in a state commanded by a piratical malignant narcissist, such a sacrifice for the greater cause of the leader’s aggrandized image — objective: glorification and immortality — might seem but a small thing, another little bit of political theater and show business.
Over the past year, Iran sold Iraq nearly $10 billion worth of weapons and hardware, mostly weapons for urban warfare like assault rifles, heavy machine-guns and rocket launchers, he said. The daily stream of Iranian cargo planes bringing weapons to Baghdad was confirmed at a news conference by a former Shiite militia leader, Jamal Jaafar. Better known by his alias Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, Jaafar is second in command of the recently created state agency in charge of volunteer fighters.
Some Sunnis are clearly worried. Sunni lawmaker Mohammed al-Karbuly said the United States must increase its support of Iraq against the extremists in order to reduce Iran’s influence.
“Iran now dominates Iraq,” he said.
http://www.businessinsider.com/iran-has-never-been-more-influential-in-iraq-2015-1#ixzz3Ooudrg10 – 1/12/2015.
Again: I know it sounds absurd: why build or control an enemy?
However, if and as one ventures into the bizarre and perverse aspects of political behavior as tyrants display it — why child soldiers? Slavery? Trafficking? — then one may turn on the lights and raise the curtains on the Theater of Realpolitik — and doesn’t this look glorious and good?
Arab commentators believe that recent attacks attributed to Iran against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) positions in Iraq show a significant strengthening of Tehran’s efforts to help its allies in Baghdad and Damascus and maintain its regional influence through the fight against the threat of radical Islamists.
Images of Iranian air strikes in eastern Iraq provided the first concrete evidence of direct involvement by the Iranian air force in the military campaign against ISIS. The US military believes that Iran has conducted air strikes against Isis targets in Diyala province in recent days, although the Defense Department insists that it is not co-ordinating any military action with Tehran.
http://www.thetower.org/1354-iran-attacks-isis-in-iraq-to-protect-its-regional-influence/ – 12/8/2014.
What’s being argued is control — not God, not the fate of humanity, not good deeds: control — and what power greater than that to bring out the chessboard, invite a friend to play — provide him with hospitality and sweets or other reward for the pleasure of doing some combat — and play with and against the same at the same time?
Of course, what’s going on with “Daesh” ain’t chess.
At about this place, the appropriately leisured reader — you’re here — may wish to look up “VEVAK, Iraq, Mumford”.
Worlds may be moved from behind curtains and by staged plays – and what is a leader of a totalitarian mission and system if not a master storyteller and producer?
Along the axis I’ve referred to as “Putin-Assad-Khamenei” bring to this story Karen Dawisha’s analysis of the “Moscow Apartment Bombings” (in Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who owns Russia?): inside job, KGB manipulation of public perception, useful “false flag”.
News outlets report broadly attacks against two Iranian generals: Mehdi Norouzi on January 12, 2015 and Hamid Taghavi around December 28, 2015.
How does that happen — two in a row?
How does Daesh (IS, ISIS, ISIL) know who is going to be where and when?
The Debka article also says, “According to our military and intelligence sources, ISIS forces have been able to wipe out 555 Iranian officers in the four months since last October, most of them by means of jihadist hit squads.”
Holy moley!
The news has been disseminated widely but not recapitulated: would another western intelligence service publication please weigh in?
If the figure is not near to true, one may think that Daesh got lucky twice with perhaps an expected complement of “moles”, those untrustworthy others with access to operational plans.
If it is true and Daesh has made casualties of “555 Iranian officers in the four months since last October”, that sounds to BackChannels like ducks in a shooting gallery: the information on their whereabouts has been loose and broad — has to have been — and the moles could be anywhere, possibly everywhere, even at the top.
The fall of Mosul, allegedly to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), is not the military victory it has been made out to be. For a start, as the New York Times and Agence France-Presse report, ISIS gunmen (who faced an army outnumbering them fifty-to-one) were able to occupy strategic positions around the city only after Iraqi commanders ordered their troops to stand down and retreat . . . ISIS, it must be understood, is a nebulous entity with three distinct faces. The first face belongs to the ISIS that exists solely in the media, propagated by a scaremongering Iraqi government on the one hand and a grandstanding ISIS on the other. The second is that of ISIS proper, the very real and ultraviolent successor to al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The third is no face at all, but reportedly a mask worn by the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
http://clarionproject.org/analysis/three-faces-isis-who-behind-war-iraq – 6/17/2014.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2012/08/inside-chechnya-putins-reign-terror – 8/29/2012.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheel_al-Nujaifi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usama_al-Nujayfi
Choose which to trust: the closed information system or the open one:
“Major General Suleimani is in Iran and in good health and the news that he is wounded is false,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was quoted as saying on Thursday.
The Iranian statement was in response to a report about Suleimani’s injury that first surfaced in the Israeli website DEBKAfile, citing reports from military and intelligence sources in the Gulf. Ya Libnan published a report on the same issue on January 14.
http://yalibnan.com/2015/01/16/iran-denies-that-major-general-suleimani-was-injured-in-iraq-by-isis/ – 1/16/2015.
The Islamic Republic has, for all the blood and treasure shed to date in Iraq and Syria, invested heavily in the managed instability of both countries. Even the meteoric rise of ISIS cannot not significantly alter Tehran’s policy of forging both unity and disunity simultaneously, depending on the local context.
http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2015/01/12/two-brigadier-generals-in-death/ – 1/12/2015.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Sunday announced the death of Brig. Gen. Hamid Taghavi, who had been training the army and Iraqi volunteers in the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad.
One jihadi forum posted an image of the officer standing next to three others, with a red circle around his head and the caption: “A photo of the miscreant Hamid Taghavi who was killed by the men of IS in the region of Samarra.”
The more powerful ISIS grows, the more they are useful for the regime
The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has long had a pragmatic approach to the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), says a Syrian businessman with close ties to the government. Even from the early days the regime purchased fuel from ISIS-controlled oil facilities, and it has maintained that relationship throughout the conflict. “Honestly speaking, the regime has always had dealings with ISIS, out of necessity.”
Baker, Aryn. “Why Bashar Assad Won’t Fight ISIS”. Time. February 26, 2015.
Westcott, Lucy. “U.S. Accuses Assad of Aiding ISIS Through Airstrikes”. Newsweek, June 2, 2015.
Sumeri, Haider. “The Speicher Massacre and Its Legacy in Iraq”. 1001 Iraqi Thoughts, June 12, 2015:
Other survivors swear that they were betrayed. Several theories have risen from the ashes of the catastrophic Speicher episode, many of them pointing to collusion between commanders at the base and local Tikriti tribes. Survivors say that officers at Camp Speicher told recruits to leave the base and head back home on a short vacation, reassuring them that the area was safe and dispelling any doubts they had.
Down the road, local Sunni tribesmen and Da’ish militants were waiting.
The “Speicher Massacre” piece was reblogged — WordPress shares a teaser plus a link back to the article cited — on BackChannels on June 18, 2015. The citation belongs here as the field reports synch with the “stand-down” letter from near Mosul.
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24 Friday Oct 2014
Posted in Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology
Iran Human Rights, October 24, 2014: “They called from the prison office now. Told me to go to an address they gave me for the last visit. She (Reyhaneh) will be transferred tonight. Tomorrow is set for her execution”. Shole Pakravan, Reyhaneh Jabbari’s mother, wrote these phrases on her Facebook page at about 4 pm Tehran time.
http://iranhr.net/2014/10/urgent-reyhaneh-jabbari-at-imminent-danger-of-execution/ – 10/24/2014
“It is upon all Muslims to exhort love, respect for others and human dignity,” Rouhani reportedly said Wednesday, a comment that was widely perceived as being in support of the protesters.
Although Rouhani did not mention the protests or the acid attacks, the statement was remarkable, and it could be the latest public acknowledgement of an internal fight between Rouhani’s government and other, more conservative Iranian institutions. Rouhani has repeatedly clashed with religious hardliners in recent months, and he called them out again on Wednesday. “The sacred call to virtue is not the right of a select group of people, a handful taking the moral high ground and acting as guardians,” he said.
It writes itself.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/breaking-iran-executes-reyhaneh-jabbari-26-year-old-woman-who-killed-her-rapist-1471698 – 10/25/2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/25/iran-woman-hanged-for-killing-rapist_n_6046350.html – 10/25/2014.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/10/amnesty-iran-set-hang-woman-at-dawn-2014102422855125759.html – 10/26/2014.
Give me to the wind to take away.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/27/reyhaneh-jabbari-message_n_6054896.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000014 – 10/27/2014.
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10 Friday Oct 2014
. . . Shole Pakravan, said Wednesday morning that her daughter has heard nothing about the execution and is being pressured to sign a document that denies there was any attempt at rape and that there was no third party present at the time of the alleged murder.
http://www.bayoubuzz.com/us-news/item/759116-life-or-death-family-of-capitve-iranian-woman-left-in-the-dark – 10/9/2014; primary: http://www.lisadaftari.com/family-rayhaneh-jabbari-iranian-woman-death-row-dark-despite-report-spared/
As if more proof were needed of Ayatollah Khamenei’s ______ (you fill it it in — the writer’s tired), the entire world has now the spectacle of this smiley old white haired fella torturing a young woman not only by denying her an inherent right to an authoritative, honest, fair, just, and open — and openly audited — trial before the Iranian public but by degrading and humiliating her all the way to the gallows — or freedom, God willing.
Reyhaneh Jabbari’s first lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, had apparently made it clear that Jabbari’s death sentence was signed by the courts even after the evidence had been destroyed or went “missing.” Possibly those who signed her death sentence in the Islamic Republic of Iran are not even sure of Jabbari’s guilt themselves, or could be just trying to blame her for the murder, regardless.
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4283/iran-rayhaneh-jabbari-stay-of-execution – 4/23/2014.
The government announced that the execution will be postponed but did not give any indication the sentence had been overturned. It also did not disclose if any future execution date had been set.
Jabbari, who has already served seven years in prison, claims Sarbandi drugged her and attempted to have physical contact with her.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/04/15/tehran-government-postpones-execution-woman-charged-with-killing-her-accused/ – 4/15/2014.
Modafe website 31 Aug 2010 News Report- (Human right Lawyer Mr Mostafaei’s Official site)
Reyhaneh Jabbari is a girl from Iran. She is now 22 years old and has been in Tehran’s Evin prison where the last Wednesday of every month a number of prisoners are hanging. She has spent the best years of her life in the prison and she will. Maybe some other days of her life have left.
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-reyhaneh-jabbari.html – 8/31/2010.
Here is an interesting trio based on the web search “Iran, executions, last Wednesdays”:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/08/07/iran.executions/index.html – “Human rights group notes ‘alarming spike’ in Iran executions” – 8/7/2009.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/02/us-iran-executions-idUSTRE71161O20110202 – “Iran executions three times last year’s rate: U.N.”- 2/2/2011.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/04/us-iran-idUSBREA330VH20140404 “Spike in Iran executions seen politically motivated” – 4/4/2014.
Proposed film title: “Iranimania II: Death Cult Hanging Orgy!”
Each of the above reports, published in 2009, 2011, and 2014, comments on the acceleration of the rate of hangings by the Iranian regime: more arrests, more “trials”, more hangings, never fewer, often if not predominantly similarly unjust — and when a hanging is “unjust” it is only a common act of murder.
Into this atmosphere of the Islamic Devilution in Iran comes Rayhaneh Jabbari who presents as a young miss who handily fended off a known regime _______ (again, you fill it in) “—a former intelligence officer and, at the time, a high-ranking member of Iran’s government—,” says an April 2014 Vice article of the deceased Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, who had attempted to sexually assault her.
Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch declared in a most polite header with subheading, “Iran: Stop Woman’s Execution: Legal Process Plagued With Irregularities” (October 1, 2014). The tone was matched by an equally circumspect recounting of the horror.
”The grotesque spectacle of bound, blindfold figures being hauled into the air by cranes in public hangings is a common sight in Rouhani’s Iran.”
Many of these executions were carried out after trials lasting “only minutes,” added Mr Hogarth.
“Iran is a serial human rights offender and Britain needs to confront this fact in any dealings with the country,” he said.
Since Hassan Rouhani has become president over 1000 prisoners have been executed including women and juvenile offenders.
http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/17329-iran-a-prisoner-hanged-in-zahedan-prison3 – 10/8/2014.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/breaking-iran-executes-reyhaneh-jabbari-26-year-old-woman-who-killed-her-rapist-1471698 – 10/25/2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/25/iran-woman-hanged-for-killing-rapist_n_6046350.html – 10/25/2014.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/10/amnesty-iran-set-hang-woman-at-dawn-2014102422855125759.html – 10/26/2014.
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01 Wednesday Oct 2014
” . . . agents of Iranian security guard have transferred Mr. Kazemeini Boroujerdi to an unknown place in order to execute him soon.”
http://www.bamazadi.org/2014/10/mrboroujerdi-was-transferred-to-unknown.html#more – 10/1/2014
He reportedly first expressed his opposition to the theocratic nature of the Islamic government of Iran under which Islamic jurists rule or provide “guardianship” in 1994. He has been quoted as saying Iranians “are loyal to the fundamentals of the true religion and the Prophet’s mission”, but are “tired of the religion of politics and political slogans.”[1]
Boroujerdi and many of his followers were arrested in Tehran on October 8, 2006, following a clash between police and hundreds of his followers. Iranian officials charged him with having claimed to be a representative of Muhammad al-Mahdi, a venerated figure in Shi’i Islam, a charge he denies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hossein_Kazemeyni_Boroujerdi – as viewed 10/1/2014.
I have been told there are others today in similar danger to Boroujerdi and Jabbari.
One may recall here that the (malignant) narcissist is never wrong — or so sensitive to criticism as to suppress as much of that as possible. In the medieval mode in which Ayatollah Khamenei exists, this sort of thing, a combination of rivalry accompanied by excoriating observations, may have been what compelled the Grand Ayatollah to push another ayatollah off stage:
Of course, you were correct when you said that international sanctions could not accomplish a damn thing! Not only because you and your cronies and support system in general, suffered no setback; your provinces of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrain also weren’t bothered, because they blatantly looted and pillaged the God given wealth and natural resources of our defenseless nation and laughed their way to the bank, while stripping them of their economic independence and their will to think freely.
You have filled these thirty five years of contemporary history with your disgrace and deceit; and the names and memories of the sons of Iran have been written in blood which is the legacy of an antiquated dictatorship that operates in the dark ages.
http://www.bamazadi.org/2014/05/kazemeini-boroujerdi-to-khamenei-it-is.html – 5/19/2014.
Words are eternal in several ways.
Installed in books, they have shelf lives.
Installed in minds, they have a life in memory.
Uttered in politics, even if not remembered, they may develop influence, which may prove more powerful than mere encrustation in ink as thoughts take on lives of their own, passing from mouth to ear to mind to heart, one from the other, again and again, across the world and possibly out into the universe to God’s own ears.
That’s influence.
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/iran/#article/part1 – 11/11/2013
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