Will the Guardian Council in Iran even bother to roll out Ahmadinejad as "President" anymore?

[shadowknows69]

The emperors have no clothes. The charade (to the rest of the world anyway) of who the real power is has been forever shattered. I find it interesting that there have been no significant speeches from "The President" other than the first ridiculous press conference/political theater. I could be wrong.

[RDANGELO]

1. They have shown that they are willing to brutalize their own

people to stay in power. What is going to stop them?

[Party Person]

4. well

support for Mousavi is mostly limited to upper middle class elites, and students, in Tehran. That's why the demonstrations will peter out.

[shadowknows69]

7. So how long have you been a member of the Guardian Council?

[vadawg]

9. i hate to agree with the previous poster, but he may be right, this may not be the majority of the

population but rather a segment, if so it may go underground if the regime sends in the military to destroy it.

[shadowknows69]

13. It might have been true in the beginning but the GC has chosen a path they can't walk from.

This isn't even about Mousavi anymore (if I were Iranian anyway, it wouldn't be) it is about the Theocracy proving its brutality and desire to hold power at all costs. It wasn't the Ayatollah out in the streets proclaiming he was ready to be martyred for his beliefs. He's safely hidden away from his "adoring" masses.

[vadawg]

16. yup but we dont really know the extent of the unrest, im sure theres a lot of iranians

who are happy with living in a theocracy and im sure theres a lot who it all to lose if the regime goes down, and it all comes down to who has the guns.

[shadowknows69]

18. Or enough numbers.

[vadawg]

20. yup but its like the protests in DC etc, there were a lot of people

but do you really think that the crowds would have stood if they started getting bayonet charged, or mortar rounds coming in. The crowds just now in Iran are standing but if the regime goes to wholesale violence against them do you think they would stand, remember Iran lost over a million during the iran/iraq war. Dictatorships are immune to body counts.

[shadowknows69]

21. I was ready to stay if others were.

In the march I was in in 2005, actually the place I was in the parade, there were some rumors flying that a group was planning to alter the permitted route and march right up to Capitol Hill. Presumably they were talked out of it but I wonder what would have happened.

There were definitely sufficient riot police to make it Kent State times hundreds if things had gone all fuckeroo. I did witness several arrests but thankfully no brutality. They seemed individual incidents, but for all I know they could have been "tagged" targets from other protests now that we know the surveillance that was going on.

I was resigned to stay if the will had been there. I even basically said my last goodbyes to my wife because I told her if it got bad I had to stand for justice no matter the cost. Instead I came to realize the futility of these sanctioned, peaceful protests in our country. All despots deal in is blood and money, and they notice nothing that isn't drenched in one or the other. I realized then that we would never end the wars of Bush unless we were willing to march and OCCUPY. Until our demands were met. No matter the cost. With no fear.

[vadawg]

22. well you would of been in the minority cause when rounds start flying

people are gonna book, i can guarentee if it was guarenteed that if you took to the streets then you would be hung by piano wire from lamposts then nobody would ever protest, this is what allows these dictatorships to exist.

[shadowknows69]

23. In history occasionally it also ends up the dictator is the one hanging

Or leaving (Russia/Afghanistan-Britian/America), or killing themselves, which is about the bravery level I'd put the Mullahs at. Pampered old men who ask others to die for their "convictions" rarely ever doing the dying themselves, unless forced to. Bush would have probably capped himself had we come for him too.

[vadawg]

25. yup sometimes the dictator is on the rope, then i think iran may balkanize

not sure what the best outcome will be, not sure i would have liked the idea of you coming for bush anymore than i would like the idea of the teabaggers coming for obama, guess we would have been on opposite sides of the barricade.

[shadowknows69]

26. If you operate from the assumptions that A) Bush was illegitimate at least in 2004.

B) Bush had broken his oath of office and the Congress had no political will to do their Constitionally mandated duty to impeach him and...

C) That he violated both our adherence to the UN Charter, the Geneva Convention (Ratified treaties and "law of the land") and the Nuremburg war crime findings then....


We should have had no choice in our hearts but to "come for him" to drag him to an international court. Because I don't believe in mob justice in this country but I do believe in definitive action if the rule of law is being ignored by the people who are supposed to be enforcing it.

[vadawg]

27. i respect what you say, buty we differ on opinion on the way to do stuff

i am so against any international courts as i simply dont trustwhat it would become.

[shadowknows69]

29. It just seems to be more and more clear to me

That Governments are unwilling or unable to properly prosecute their own criminals. At the risk of invoking Godwin's law, do you think the German people would have unbiasedly tried the Nazi party and German Army? Have we shown an overabundance of prosecuting our political criminals in the US? There has been zero legal accountability for the last eight years of crimes and no sense there will be.

[vadawg]

31. see my problem is that i happen to like the rights conferred to you in the US

i dont like the fact that you may be tried under a system that dosent allow the 5th, or dosent allow witnesses for the defense. Not even for people i disagree with, for all its faults i happen to think the US system at least has your rights written down and they are pretty easy to understand

[shadowknows69]

33. I never said anything about discarding those ideals, quite the contrary

But when the rules don't apply to everyone then the whole system is broken and the ideals behind it a cruel joke.

[katanalori]

2. No, you are CORRECT......

Iran is a theocracy and to claim anything else at this point is delusional.

[shadowknows69]

3. No need for the mask anymore.

[Party Person]

5. so far

I haven't seen any PROOF that the election was stolen. They may have mishandled the vote counting but that doesn't mean mousavi won.

[shadowknows69]

6. Bwah ha ha ha ha. Actually the election is almost irrelevant at this point.

I think it has evolved beyond that. The people of Iran now realize the whole system is a sham. Also there's been plenty of evidence the election was tampered with. some districts came back with 130% voter turnout. Do I have to explain the simple math of that one to you? Anyhoo welcome to DU and enjoy your stay.

[Party Person]

8. I'm not sure what you mean

if it's so clear cut that it was stolen, why is Obama reacting cautiously?

I stand with Obama on this. I'm not getting swept away by all the hype yet.

[shadowknows69]

10. Obama is acting cautiously because it is the smart thing to do

Did you happen to notice what has occurred in two other countries we did not act cautiously about?

What would you have us do if it was proven to be stolen? Start bombing Iran and turn the hatred toward us instead of the Mullahs?

[Party Person]

11. I disagree

Don't get rolled by the latte-drinking, corporatist, MSM, dancing on the berlin wall with a coke in one hand and a pepsi in the other in 1989 hype on Iran, people.

[shadowknows69]

12. So are you going to answer my question? What would you have us do?

[Party Person]

14. response

"we" need to do nothing. That's the best course of action.

I've been pleasantly surprised at Obama's cool and skeptical response toward the demonstrators.

It's the Pavlovian American response to act as a cheering section for any kind of "freedom" movement (except when it goes against "our interests"), regardless of how viable the movement. I'm glad Obama's resisting that impulse.

[shadowknows69]

19. I've taken his statements to be a bit of cheerleading.

Of course he can't yell "Kill the dictator!" along with them, Bush might have, but I see nothing in his words so far that forgive the brutality of the regime or tries to discourage the Iranian people from gaining their own freedom.

[Engineer4Obama]

28. The speed of the announcment alone is proof

Unless you know someway they could magically hand count 40 million ballots in 2 hours.

Also did you hear some towns had over 100% turnout?

[shadowknows69]

30. That's one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle

It is simply not physically possible that they accomplished that. Try counting to a million sometime, just a million. See you in about 5 days.

[Bucky]

15. Of course they will. Did the last 8 years teaching nothing about the shamelessness of power?

[shadowknows69]

17. Point. We kept rolling out our puppet king.

But then we didn't have youtube of Bush's goons gunning people down in the streets. Although there was plenty of violence committed by our new paramilitary police forces. And The Ayatollah has now made the move that would have been the equivilent of Cheney coming on TV and saying,

"Yep, it was me all along you stupid sheeple! I made a war for profit happen with the snap of my fingers to the corporate controlled press and laid all my enemies to waste before me. To the point of treason. MU HA HA HA HA!!!" Then of course Dick would moon us all with his large warted ass.

[EFerrari]

24. But they have, twice, and it didn't take. Now what do they do?

[Bodhimarshall]

32. B.S.

This is a bunch of B.S. Amedinijad won the elction.....get over it, he's not really in charge of anything anyway....kinda like Obama.

[Name removed]

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