Protest & Possible Deaths: What isnt' being reported from Iran

In the aftermath of the presidential election, thousands are in the streets in Iran. There are reports of deaths, of the entire faculty of a Tehran university resigning in protest because of deaths on campus and more. Right now the best places to get news appear to be on blogs and Twitter.

See Andrew Sullivan and Huffington Post. Some of the best reporting is being funneled through Sullivan's blog. He reports that The Atlantic, which hosts his blog, appears to be under cyber attack, so be patient for long loading times.

The desperate lives of gays in Iraq

By Diane Silver

The New York Times paints a chilling portrait of how LGBT people are forced to live as religious extremism rises in Iraq.

One of the saddest quotes:

“We thought that with the presence of Americans, life would become paradise, that Iraq would be Westernized,” Mohammed said. “But unfortunately the way things were before was so much better than where we are now.”

Bush lies about Iran provide support to Al Qaeda

By Nancy Jane Moore

Despite the Bush administration's efforts to blame Iran for the ever-increasing violent attacks in Iraq, a report by McClatchy Newspapers indicates that fewer than 10 percent of the attacks on U.S. service members occurred in Shiite areas.

Since it is extremely unlikely that Iran is providing weapons to the Sunni groups that are the heart of the insurgency in Iraq, it appears that Bush is once again trying to lie us into an unnecessary war.

A detailed report by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker also points out that "in Iraq, most of the insurgent violence directed at the American military has come from Sunni forces, and not from Shiites."

But not only is the Bush administration rattling sabers at Iran, they are also funding other Sunni organizations and governments. Hersh says:

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Pay attention to those last four words: "sympathetic to Al Qaeda." This latest Bush administration "strategy" plays right into the hands of the one group that has actually attacked the United States.

I feel so much safer.

Hersh explains why the Bush people are taking these actions:

[F]rom the Administration’s perspective, the most profound -- and unintended -- strategic consequence of the Iraq war is the empowerment of Iran.

(And, indeed, as Juan Cole says this morning, Iran is doing a lot of business in Iraq: Their 2006 non-oil exports to Iraq topped $1 billion, he reports.)

Let's see if we understand the progression here: Al Qaeda attacks the U.S. on Sept. 11. The U.S. mounts a half-hearted attempt to deal with Al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, then minimizes that effort so it can invade Iraq, which had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks. The war in Iraq deteriorates into the current civil war and general mess, so now the U.S. wants to take on Iran, which is certainly not backing the hardcore Sunni insurgency in Iraq.

In other words, we keep attacking the people who aren't attacking us, instead of going after our real enemies.

Does this make sense to anybody besides Dick Cheney?

[corrected to fix typo at 3:46 PM]

When the Bush Administration talks about Iran, remember what they said about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq

By Nancy Jane Moore

U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns is running around giving interviews suggesting that Iran has something to do with killing Americans in Iraq. I heard him on NPR's Morning Edition this morning and there are press reports as well.

Before you get the idea that maybe Iran really is the problem, remember the lies Bush and his posse told that sucked Congress and a large percentage of the US population into supporting the Iraq War.

And then read Juan Cole. Today Cole calls Burns's comments "vague and unsubstantiated." On Tuesday, his article on the dangers posed by Bush's current Iran policies appeared in on Salon. He also discussed it on Informed Comment on Tuesday.

The real danger here is that Bush will lead us into another unnecessary war. And the irony is that sane solutions to the incredible mess he made in Iraq involve working with Iran.

For an amusing take on Bush's policy that he will take military action against any country he thinks is destabilizing Iraq, I recommend this week's panels of Darrin Bell's comic strip Candorville.