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Thanks but no thanks

8 comments on Thanks but no thanks

Thanks but no thanks
: I missed Alireza’s open letter (in response to Michael J. Totten’s open letter) regarding American support for an Iranian democracy movement.

He essentially says: thanks, Americans, but no thanks.

There’s much I disagree with in the letter. This is a medium for links and responses even to that with which you disagree.

He says regarding September 11th:

When the Twin Towers came down on September 11th 2001, I did not light candles for the victims of that monstrous attack, precisely because of my memory of every crime the U.S. had committed against my country – and I assure you that I was not alone …

Which is to imply that America and its 3,000 innocent victims somehow deserved this fate because of things America had done. I fear he thinks there was even some justice in the act.

That is not only offensive, it is illogical. If you think the attack as “monstrous,” then you should mourn the victims.

I have considerable antipathy for the mullahs of Iran who kidnapped our diplomats and who called for the death of our nation and people. But that does not stop me from mourning the victims of the mullahs; that does not stop me from supporting Iranians who are struggling for democracy. It is possible to hold a regime and its actions in disdain while supporting its subjects.

He goes on:

Like many, I was hoping that September 11th would be a wakeup call for the U.S. to see the hatred that its injustices had created in the hearts of people all around the world. Unfortunately though, that hope did not last long, and it soon became obvious that America was going to continue to bury its head in the sand and blame those

8 responses to “Thanks but no thanks”

  1. button Avatar
    button

    That motto “Democracy – Whiskey – Sexy” was intended, I believe, to be shorthand for the concept of Personal Freedom– the ability of the individual to make choices and the empowerment of that ability.
    This may seem like a weird idea to people who are taught to be “Slaves of Allah.” But in most of the rest of the world, slavery is now illegal. The problem is that in the rejection of such slavery, a vacuum can take its place. Normally, that vacuum would be filled with personal responsibility.
    The entire concept has two parts which constitute the Social Contract– you have the freedom to make choices and with that freedom you have the responsibility for the choices you make.
    Totalitarian dictatorship infantilizes people. It is an “Escape from Freedom.” And it alleviates the acceptance of responsibility for the choices a person makes.
    This person Alizera is displacing his/her anger and frustration about his existential situation to an external drama in which he invests his ideas of good and evil. If you are satisfied with the destiny the mullahs have allowed you, then fine. Just skip all this stuff. It has no connection to you and your destiny.

  2. Me Avatar
    Me

    I’m curious about this — how can someone who lives in Boston, speak for so many of the millions that live in Iran?
    Seems somewhat pretensious to me, to assume to know the souls of so many folks, from such a distant.
    With age comes some wisdom, mostly from experience. Never having any room for any forgiveness ( as expressed in going back to the Iran-Iqua war, and naturally, that too, was America’s fault ), I find, is the biggest hurdle between the American and the Arab street. Whether the angry and hate is directed toward us, or directed to those from a different Arab country, or a tribe, or a different worship of Allah, there just seems no room for forgiveness; that lives and culture can change. Slowly, but they do change.
    No, I will never forget 9-11 — but it doesn’t so blind me, that I can’t the smiles when I see the folks of Afganistan and Iraq, extending their hands and smiles to our soldiers.

  3. Jeremy Avatar
    Jeremy

    Eh. If the US didn’t install the Shah, Iran would have been another Iraq – run by a communist/socialist thug (despite claims to the contrary, the US/CIA did not install Saddam).
    The Shah might have been a dictator, but he was a relatively moderate one, the only people he really bothered with Islmaic fundamentalists, and them not that badly (which is how he got deposed, after all). Non-muslims were far, far, far, far better off under the Shah than they are in Iran today.
    Had the Islamic Revolution not taken place, Iran would almost certainly be a real democracy today.

  4. button Avatar
    button

    So, now it turns out, he has admitted that he is physically located in Boston. He’s just a troglodyte. Well, Alizera, you have the freedom to hate in your little rat hole but not the freedom to act upon your hate illegally.
    He’s a bit like those upper middle class, affluent kids who became weather person revolutionaries.
    So, sit there and stew. While you’re stewing, you’re just spinning your wheels. What do you suppose your hatred will accomplish? Nothing worthwhile.

  5. Kombiz Avatar
    Kombiz

    Jeremy,
    It can sometimes be a good shotgun approach to spout of uninformed opinions and hope that some of them hit the mark, but sorry your not even factually close. Iran would not have been communist under Mossadegh, he was a nationalist. Oil interests pervaded the coup. The declassification of CIA documents prove that it was the case.
    http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html
    The closes shot you may be able to get is that an Iran not under Western influence could have been overrun by the Soviet Army, but it was the the US and Uk who initiated sanctions because Dr. Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry. Second, Islamic fundemantalism is a phenomenon that came about much later in Iran. While clerics were punished, the vast majority of those jailed, tortured, and killed by SAVAK were liberal democrats and students in society as well socialists and members of other groups.

  6. Soren Ryherd Avatar
    Soren Ryherd

    I’m not going to address anything other than the comments on “Democracy, Whiskey, Sexy”. These words were uttered by all accounts by an Iraqi greeting American soldiers with the only english words he could drum up. It serves as no slogan other than a representation of the burgeoning expression of freedom in post-Saddam Iraq. And yeah, it’s funny, which appeals to Americans in particular.
    For Alireza to take this as a serious slogan driving the foundations of belief for a democratic Iran (as in, we want democracy for Iran because we want them to drink whiskey and be hedonistic) is ridiculous.
    But then, I agree that Alireza has missed the point, that individual Americans and individual Iranians share common goals. To reject the support of individual Americans because of past government actions is as wrong as for Americans to reject any courtesy or kindness from individual Iranians based on their government’s actions.

  7. Brandon Heller Avatar
    Brandon Heller

    My heart goes out to Iranians. But when I hear these kinds of comments, I wonder if there is really any hope for Iran.
    America has only been around to be Iran’s scapaegoat for half a century, yet Iran’s problems go back for many hundreds of years.
    I doubt you’d find very many Iranians (except for a few die-hard Islamists) who’d claim that life was worse under the Shah. Nobody knows for sure what would have happened if America did not interfere in 1953, but there is a chance that Iran could have ended up worse off if we hadn’t interfeared. Many Iranians seem to forget that we were deeply entrenched in the cold war at the time. The Soviet Union was expanding at an alarming rate and was knocking on Iran’s doors. How do Iranians know that they would not have become a Soviet block country? And what if that had happened? The soviet union would have access to both Irans vast oil and gas reserves as well as her warm water ports. It is very possible that if that had happened that the Soviet union would still exist today. How much longer would the Soviet economy have survived in that scenario?
    I don’t know if this would have happened or not, but who really knows what the future would have held for Iran if history had taken a different turn?
    Yes, there have been crimes. To me the Mosadeq affair was not the worst of them. Helping Sadam was. We never should have done that. I get sick to my stomach thinking about it. But by Ali Reza’s same logic, Iran should be to blame for that – because of the anger they caused in taking over our embassy and holding Americans captive for 444 days. But don’t worry, because Americans have always been quick to forgive. We will not hold a grudge.
    In fact, America is willing to help save Iranians from continuing to suffer with THE CHOICE THEY MADE in 1979.
    When thousands of Iranian youth are being slaughtered in the streets by mullahs reticent to yield their power and the keys to the golden purse, it will be America who is first to respond to their aid. The crimes Iran has commited against America will be forgotten and America will be willing to spend billions and sacrifice American lives to save the lives of Iranians.
    I truly hope that the Iranian freedom movement will ask for our help at some point. The mullahs are not going to be as easy to oust as the Shah was. They will be quite happy to see hundreds of thousands die. It is no skin off their backs. They don’t care about human life – they prove it everyday.
    For now America is treating Iranians with respect. We have been asked to stay out and we are respecting your wishes, but when thousands begin dying in the streets, if you will ask for it, we will be there in a heart-beat.
    LONG LIVE FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY IN IRAN!

  8. Joel Avatar
    Joel

    Kombiz: “Iran would not have been communist under Mossadegh, he was a nationalist.”
    What do you call a nationalist who has been in power for decades? Did Castro, Franco, Khomeini, Kim Il Song, Mugabe, Nasser and the Baathists not start off as nationalists?