from MicroWave@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 23 Feb 2026 12:45
https://lemmy.world/post/43485627
As details of the death toll for January’s protests continue to emerge, three students explain why they are resisting a return to normality
More than 45 days after a brutal January crackdown that left thousands of Iranian protesters dead, students across several universities are protesting again. As Iran’s new academic term began on Saturday, students in Tehran gathered on campus, chanting anti-government slogans, despite a heavy security presence and plainclothes officers stationed outside university gates.
The Guardian spoke to protesting students about why they were rallying despite the fact that thousands had been killed and tens of thousands arrested in the January demonstrations.
“Our classrooms are empty because the graveyards are full,” said Hossein*, 21, a student at the University of Tehran. “It’s for them – our friends, classmates and compatriots, who were gunned down in front of our eyes, that we decided to boycott the classes.”
#world
threaded - newest
The AI generated protest images are pretty spot on as well
After 40 days, as expected. Trump now has his public excuse to attack. I don’t know what to think of all this.
William Spaniel, Lines on Maps on YouTube, tried to break it down in a couple of videos.
Why is it the responsibility of the US? I’m old enough to remember being (rightfully) shunned for doing the same fucking shit in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Why did the US invade Afghanistan? Why did they invade Iraq?
Do you believe the US is considering a ground invasion of Iran?
(ps I don’t advocate it’s their responsibility, mainly arguing about opposing any intervention)
How do we improve things for the people of Iran?
We don’t. Stop being a chauvinist. The Iranian people, together, improve things for themselves. Our responsibility is to dismantle the Western imperialist machine that has killed almost 40 million people in the last 50 years through sanctions alone
Why would I need to dismantle the Western machine and not the Iranian one?
Because you don’t live in Iran and it’s not your responsibility. Your responsibility, depending on where you live, is to dismantle the closest link to you in the chains that hold the world in imperial bondage, which is the Western machine helmed by the USA.
Why would these be exclusive?
Because toppling the Iranian government is aligned with empire’s goals and creates positive reinforcing outcomes for the empire. So either you fight the empire and frustrate its goals in Iran, or you support the empir by bringing about its goals in Iran even if your heart is pure.
So these people should teach their children that they should give up on hoping for a better life, because that would somehow help teh empire?
I hope you teach your kids something different
You’re such a bad propagandist. Hope for better life doesn’t help the empire. Hope for a better life comes from hoping for the death of the empire, the end of sanctions, the end of neocolonial oppression and extraction. When the empire dies, Iran will flourish for all Iranians. That is what Iranians hope for. No one hopes for American bombs.
Do you think they’ll drop their religious oppression when the empire dies?
Why don’t they drop it now?
It’s literally the only thing that has worked for them. They had a liberal democracy and the US and UK murdered their way to a coup and took over the country for years while extracting wealth and killing dissidents. The theocracy has thus far maintained Iran’s autonomy against the West for the longest period of time in modern history.
Yes, when the empire dies regressive theocracies will slowly fade. As we see literally all over the world, a reduction in violent oppression and an increase in economic prosperity reduces religious fanaticism and regressive social attitudes.
Lol they murdered and tortured the communists and socialists that helped win the revolution. They imposed their extremist version of islam and murdered and tortured everyone that dared to protest.
“It’s the only thing that worked for them”
& “I’m sure they’ll stop after they’ve won”
flol
By respecting their agency.
By not subjecting them to criminal economics mic sanctions, which are known to murder more than half a million people yearly?
Why not use sanctions? What universal law is there that we cannot, under any circumstances, block economic interaction? Governments unable to block trade might be the ultimate capitalist dream but there’s no reason sane people should be forced into it.
What part of “US sanctions murder half a million people yearly” do you not understand or care about?
For starters: the absolute vagueness of it
Say that I’m doing some genocides and you decide you don’t want to trade with me anymore because of it. If that means I run out of money and my baby starves, would you have remorse?
(This is a simplified allegory of the situation, but I hope you care enough about the world to understand the comparison)
Fuck off, Zionist fascist scum
Please don’t lump Afghanistan and Iraq together.
Afghanistan had no oil. The US invaded because it was attacked by a group based in Afghanistan. The end was a mess, but the invasion was justified. This has been the only time NATO article 5 has been activated, by the way.
Iraq has oil. The US has invaded twice. Once because the UN authorized restoring the independence of Kuwait, after Iraq had invaded Kuwait. The second time because emperor Bush II lied to everyone about weapons of mass destruction. The end was a mess, of course.
Does this have any predictive value for Iran?
I can only tell this:
As a result, I am not convinced of any outcome, I do not support and do not oppose, I observe and try to understand.
A long time ago. In response to the USSR couping and occupying Afghanistan. Which was, of course, also not justified.
If Afghanistan had been left alone, things would very likely be better in several countries…
So you’re arguing that some interventions by the US that led to hundreds of thousands or millions of civilian deaths, long-term cancer and birth defects, total destruction of civilian infrastructure, and decades of neocolonial extraction are somehow justifiable?
Am I?
Disgusting sentiment
As an American I’ve long supported assisting rebels, but going to war is just as likely to backfire as it is to succeed.
Well you can give the small arms but then they’re up against an advanced military. They basically don’t stand a chance without at least air support
If you let them get nukes it’s basically game over
The US does that when it wants to create a civil war where previously there was no civil war. Civil wars are great for neocolonial intervention. You pump arms into the weaker side. They start killing. The whole defense complex now has to manage its existing counter-intelligence program against the US but now they also have an active hot conflict domestically. Lots of military-capable people die. Then the neocolonial empire comes in once the chaos has weakened everyone and they save the day!
There’s no civil war because the Iranian regime kills everyone that poses a threat. People are taking to the streets to demand basic rights and they get shot in the head by the thousands.
How do you suggest the Iranian people get out of this situation?
By coming together with their government to defeat the imperialists?
Start shooting protestors and hanging gays?
Find and expose the foreign spies operating in Iran, continue to advocate on the world stage for the end to the crimes against humanity that are the collective punishment of sanctions, and engage in mutual aid to reduce the suffering caused by the crimes against humanity that are the collective punishment of sanctions.
What they shouldn’t do is align their interests with the US and Israel for the violent overthrow of the anti-imperialist Iranian government.
Yeah but what if you want to help your government to ‘expose the spies’ and they tell you to go hang some gays first? Do you side with teh empire or hang the gays?
Fun thought experiment but the government is not asking average citizens to hang gay people.
But even if they did. The answer is you never side with the empire and you become a conscientious objector for anything you believe you should not do but are ordered to do. Conscientious objectors are not traitors. People who side with the empire are.
Would you consider it siding with teh empire if you intervene when they are hanging gay people?
Basically the government would lose time catching them again when they could be looking for spies instead
Of course not. There have been plenty of protests in Iran over the last several decades and there has never been the situation that we saw in this most recent violent episode. It’s like you live in a world where there is no history, there’s only a collection of vague facts strictly formed into a Manichean moral framing and nothing is going to stop you from creating decontextualized trolley problems that make your vibes-based conclusion both obvious and vacuous.
Edit: an interesting thing to note, Iran allows transgender people who have undergone gender-affirming surgery to change their legal gender markers, something the empire is actively working to fight against. In fact, in the US, the ability to legally change your sex on official records was only partially admitted in some states and only became a more generally accepted law in the last 20 years. So even while Iran is quite possibly the most hostile government towards the queer community in the entire world right now, they still have this one area where they are actually more progressive than the US.
That’s a weird response to my post, lol
I think you have whipped yourself into such a frenzy against the US that you’ve become unable to empathise with or even understand the plight of the common people in Iran
Whipped myself into a frenzy? Like a blood frenzy? Like the US killing 500k children in Iraq and then saying they’d do it again? Like forming Zero Units in Afghanistan with child soldiers trained to rape, torture, and murder civilians, families, and other children? Like using white phosphorus against civilians which bonds to the water in flesh and burns people to death in the most gruesome way you can imagine? Like funding and facilitating a genocide in Gaza where soldiers literally mass murder families in their refugee camps or people coming to aid trucks for food and water?
That kind of frenzy?
The common people in Iran are not a single bloc. There are millions protesting on behalf of the government and millions protesting against the government. What I do know about the common people of Iran is that US intervention is absolutely going kill hundreds of thousands of civilians and result in neocolonial dominance of the land and the people that will last for years until the empire is pushed out by whatever force necessary.
Maybe you should channel all of this anger into a book or something.
As I said, you’re so focussed on what you recently learned about the US that you’re unable to see the Iranian regime for what it is. They’re what would happen when you let the conservatives have full control over the US for 40 years. Progressives: murdered. Socialists: murdered. Anyone who dares to speak up: murdered.
And here’s you saying they should ‘come together with their government’
You think the litany I went through is anger and not just historical fact? That’s on you.
Shitty propagandist technique to emotionally rile up your discursive partner. I see you.
You don’t get to be the arbiter of reality. I see it for what it is.
This is so obviously false. US religious racists have had full control over the country starting from the founding, for far longer than 40 years. It resulted in completely different conditions, because it started from completely different conditions. I can’t even enumerate all the ways in which this is wrong.
First off, Iran is not a settler colony founded fundamentally on indigenous genocide, land theft, and chattel slavery.
Second, Iran does not use religion as a justification for a globe-spanning military empire. It is an indigenous culture on its homeland. It is defending against imperial incursion, not engaging in the management of the contradictions of empire, which is what the Christian conservative movement in the US is doing.
I will stop there because I don’t think I’ll ever convince you of anything that contradicts your preconceived notions
Book #2!
I chuckle once more and, as you seem at least somewhat interested in history, serve you this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelver_Shi'ism & en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Iran
Ugh. I promise this is the last time I will rise to your bait.
It is literally impossible for religions themselves to be “original” to a land. Religions develop among indigenous cultures and they compete for mindshare. All religions emerge from the activities of humans in social contexts and religions winning or losing mindshare is not enough to conside them indigenous or colonizing. It is the PEOPLE who are of the land or not of the land. At the cutting edge of indigenous social science there is research and analysis going on about the process of becoming indigenous to place since nearly all place with humans on it received humans through migration. Your shallow analysis of the history of Islam is useless in navigating this terrain.
The people of Iran, including the people who form the government, the people who support the government, and the people who oppose the government, are indigenous to the lands that they occupy. Their development and use of religion is [edit] not [/edit] genetic - ideas are not indigenous to lands, people are.
And now that that’s been dealt with, we return back to your statement that the Iranian government is what would happen in the US if conservatives had unopposed power for 40 years. Your own references to Wikipedia show that position to be completely at odds with reality.
But you don’t read sources to understand. You read sources to reinforce your already preconceived positions, cherry pick the smallest facts that you can vibe with, draw incorrect conclusions, and then assume everyone else is less educated than you are and operating purely from irrational positions of emotion and ideological fervor.
Bye.
Thanks!
btw I think this is your best sentence in there:
Again, I ask, why does the responsibility always default to the US? Why?
Responsibility?
The best way to support Iranians would be to mass-protest against the US-imposed economic sanctions demolishing their economy. US economic sanctions murder half a million people yearly, per latest medical studies.
Well, your copypaste doesn’t really say what you say it does but, yeah, even if that was the case how does it help the people of Iran?
There aren’t too many sentences there. You can do this.
I get where you’re clumsily aiming at but the current situation is what it is. The Iranian people don’t gain shit when we limit ourselves to reciting history to eachother
“People” are genuinely trying to argue the US is just as bad or even worse.
The US killed 500k children in Iraq and when asked about it our political leadership said they would do it again because it was worth it
As tragic as that is, I’m referring to US treatment of its own citizens.
The US has done more global damage to the world than any other nation in history, except maybe Israel because they are working together.
Why are you referring to the US’s treatment of its own citizens when its entire history has been the history of limiting its definition of “in-group” so that it can commit mass murder of everyone else? Why not refer to the US treatment of the country’s inhabitants, like the indigenous populations, the migrant workers, the asylum seekers?
By limiting your frame to only the predominantly white, predominantly “middle class”, you are playing into the narrative that allows the US to go around killing millions. Because you think the US is not as bad as Iran, you create the political conditions for the US to be considered a legitimate nation with real interests and intentions that matter. The truth is that the US is built on genocide and slavery, has always been built on genocide and slavery, and continues to engage in genocide and slavery. The US is far and away worse than Iran.
Ignored.
I want the privilege to ignore the US imperialism
You should stop ignoring your English teachers.
yeah i forgot the world revolves around the english language i beg your pardon good sir im going back to only speaking my inferior native language
vas y chiflas a tu perra mouser imaginate llamarte alonso y cagarle a alguien por escribir mal el ingles
/c/worldnews isn’t the world, sweetie.
I know it can be confusing if you’re not proficient in English.
The us is complete utter shit.
The protests are good and justified, all power to the Iranian people. Iran deserves a second revolution, after the first one was taken over by the Mullahs for their own goals.
But it’s genuinely disheartening how readily nominally progressive spaces are jumping abord the manufactured consent for an imperialist military intervention by Israel and the US.
How, exactly, will bombing Iranian cities help their liberation? Or even if they succeed with deposing the Mullah regime, is anyone really expecting self determination by the Iranian people afterwards? We’re seen how the Shar’s son is pushed as the next US puppet government by US- and Israeli media (and their European allies).
The Iranian people, not just the current regime, are supportive of Palestine, and Israel and the US absolutely cannot accept that. Don’t cheer for imperialist intervention.
I think most people are hoping for an attack on military targets like last year. No-one is calling for “bombing cities”. That’s a tankie fantasy. A fantankasy
People said the exact same thing about Libya in 2011. ‘Just military targets.’ ‘Just a no-fly zone.’ It’s genuinely impressive how the same script can be rolled out over and over.
What it actually meant was destroying Libya’s air defenses and command systems. Once that was done, NATO pushed regime change, the state collapsed, and the country was handed over to militias, foreign powers, and jihadist groups. That’s the model.
When people say ‘only military targets,’ they’re repeating the same script. You don’t bomb a country’s defenses unless your goal is to weaken it. Once that happens, it’s open season: invasion, proxy forces, destabilization. These strikes are never isolated. They’re step one.
Well you’re partly correct, in that you seem to agree that it is, indeed, possible to limit yourself to target military targets… Instead of it being a cover for ‘bombing cities’ which is what was claimed here.
But that’s separate from what happens in the vacuum later.
You can look at the support for the Kurds in Syria as a good counter example - arming them and giving them intel and air support helped them defeat IS. Or working together with the résistance in WW2 to defeat the nazi’s.
Syria? The country currently controlled by terrorists massacring minorities is a good example of what you want? Also the USSR did 90% of the work of defeating the Nazis while America continued to trade with and fund them through ford IBM and other enterprises. I think the US should just stop intervening but they never will as the massive violence and immiseration is necessary to sustain their empire.
I think you don’t have the slightest idea of what life would be like under the boot of IS (pretty comparable to Iran in most regards, imo) or even what life was like under Assad. Can you let me know how the current Syrian government is ‘massacring minorities’? Because that seems like quite the overstatement. Sure they’re islamists but Turkey seems to have the leash on pretty tight.
Funny tangent you’re going on in the second half. USSR kickstarted German conquests allying with them at the start of WW2. And when they were inevitably stabbed in the back they had to call on the US to supply them so they had a bit more than their bare hands to fight back. I’m sure you
can’tsee the resemblance to the situation the Iranian people find themselves in.Ah you’re one of these people. Ok conversation with you will not be productive. Continue believing what you want all the best.
Hey as I’m currently enjoying some WW2 flight sim, here’s a relevant fun fact to close with :-)
What plane did the top USSR ace use to kill most of his nazi’s?
Do you think the plane would have been able to do it without him in it?
The biggest death toll in the Iraq war didn’t come from the US explicitly bombing civilians, it came from the US destroying the infrastructure and military of Iraq, leading to a failed state which melted the economy, led millions to destitute poverty, and created the conditions for the appearance of ISIS.
The US doesn’t need to bomb civilians to murder them, they already murder half a million civilians worldwide every single year through economic sanctions, in which Iran is plastered.
Well no. The biggest death toll in the Iraq Adventure ® came from the civil war that erupted between (mainly) Sunni and Shia militias. Instead of singing kumbaya and rebuilding the country together they started murdering eachother to settle old scores and try to grab power. Which is to be expected, and was expected, actually.
But that doesn’t mean that should be the final argument in the question of how you help a people liberate themselves from their oppressors, as that would just mean you accept the status quo and the fact the oppressors won.
at this point I’m don’t understand it but I can see it as a possible future for a lot of Latin America
we are watching in real time how Venezuela is transforming into a US colony
right now Fidel’s grandson is allegedly making deals with the US gov (while the US asks Mexico to stop any deals involving gas with Cuba)
and here in Mexico the state is so corrupt and the US propaganda is running strong for an intervention like the one in Venezuela (and what happened yesterday just made it worse)
The american savages are drooling at the prospect of colonizing Latin America as part of their future war effort with china. They will plant propaganda everywhere to steal from the global south as the death throes of their crumbling empire.
Please provide evidence where this generally left-of-centre british reporting is “manufacturing consent”. Which text lines do you think are trying to make us readers agree to that kind of action by these two states?
The guardian.
I’m not sure you know what it means to be left of centre.
From the Wikipedia article of Atrocity Propaganda (I added emphasis):
Nice wiki quote. Now show me, where this applies to the article.
From the text in the post, I’ve added emphasis:
There is literally not one paragraph in the post text without atrocity propaganda, some paragraphs with several cases. Are you being purposefully obtuse?
They are spreading details about the crimes committed by the enemy, whether factual or not, and this can serve to justify a casus belli. It’s literally the definition of atrocity propaganda.
You’d need to show how this is more than simply reporting events and the POV of participants. You’d have to show how the intention is propaganda, how the article manipulates the reader, etc. You’d need to show how this differs from the reporting of ICE crimes, for example.
And then you’d need to show how the article tries to convince me that a US military intervention would be something I as a european should support.
Reporting ICE crimes is also atrocity propaganda. Propaganda doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just means you’re swaying public opinion. I believe that spreading anti-ICE propaganda is good because ICE are a bunch of fascist pigs, I believe that propagating anti-Iran propaganda in the context of the military buildup against Iran is bad because it serves to justify the casus belli and the upcoming military invasion.
How exactly is this article doing this?
Propaganda is communication that is primaroly used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda. Methods to do so would be using selective facts, loaded language, etc so the audience does not come to a rational conclusion but a fabricated one.
Which facts does the article leave out, where does the article use loaded language, which effects do these parts have and how does that make me, a european, want the US go to war on Iran?
That’s not how propaganda works, propaganda explicitly can be true information as explained to you before using the Wikipedia article. I literally quoted it to you, it can be factual information.
Mentioning atrocities in every single paragraph is the biggest case of atrocity propaganda, and if you are purposefully obtuse enough not to see it, just drop this conversation.
Where did I state the information used for propaganda can’t be true? In the sentence you quoted I talk about the audience’s conclusion, not the presented information.
You repeatedly fail to show where the concepts you present are applicable to the article. You keep deflecting, moving goalposts around and dodging the actual questions.
Disengage.
I applaud your patience. “obtuse” is such a mild term to what’s deserving.
I find it hard to engage with these people without using ableist terms, I’ve settled on “purposefully obtuse” because it’s clear and neutral enough I believe. Thanks for reading anyway
You, as a european, are not the target demographic.
Who is, according to you?
It should be obvious that the target demographic for atrocity propaganda about an enemy of the US is US Americans.
Why should US citizens be the target audience for a british medium?
430k Guardian subscribers are American, compared to 529k from the UK. A significant number of their articles are produced specifically for a US audience.
Having some basic media literacy and asking why a story is being told and who it’s for doesn’t make me a tankie or whatever box you’ve likely already put me in. I’m not even disputing the facts in the article. Propaganda can be truthful and still be propaganda. Atrocity propaganda often is, and even when it is exaggerated tends to be based on a kernel of truth.
So? US-based subscribers make up sixty percent compared to european readers, but this is definitely targeting US-americans and no way I, as a european, am part of the target audience?
You are, like the others I had the dubious pleasure to discuss under this post, not providing any evidence for all the bogus claims you are making.
Obviously you’re part of the target audience - the entire western world is - but the primary target demographic is US Americans. There has been an increase in selective reporting on the political situation in Iran in order to manufacture consent for military intervention and ultimately regime change by the US. Western media has been known to do this in the past such as during the leadup to the Iraq war, and they’re doing the same thing now with Iran. They make certain editorial choices to play up the emotional impact and imply that US intervention is justified or even invited by Iranians, and because they don’t (usually) outright lie about what’s happening they have plausible deniability about their intent, which is why it can’t be proven.
I feel like so many on this post just think we should cease all reporting about Bad Things because the reporting could be used as propaganda to those who lack the ability to think critically.
Smh so many slow people around today.
Insane that people believe this even exists
The Guardian is TERF central
Are they even accusing the article itself of manufacturing consent? The way I read that, it was talking about online spaces and communities falling for the manufactured consent. Which is not coming from the reporting, but from propagandists, who use the reporting to help them manufacture consent.
No, I don’t think so. But that also comes from arguments I had with the user before and other users in this thread claming this article was manufacturing consent.
Same way that kidnapping Maduro liberates Venezuela. And embargoing gasoline liberates Cuba. And sending ground troops into Denmark liberates Greenland.
Under Shah Reza Pahlavi, they will crush Hamas and Hezbollah, defeat ISIS, and end Woke Gay Iranian Antifa once and for all.
What? You don’t believe “Hossein, 21”, they named him and everything! You want to see actual evidence! You can’t believe that I’m 2026 not a single person recorded a video of said massacres on their phone?
The Iranian government cut off internet and satellite connections nationwide during the massacres. And some videos did still manage to leak out.
The internet has been back for a while now, and there’s no chance nobody could have leaked anything. Israel cut off internet power and was actively bombing every neighborhood of Gaza and footage still got out.
Don’t be silly.
Footage did get out of Iran, you just haven’t looked for it because then you’d have to reconsider your belief in the mullah’s moral pedestal
Go ahead and share that footage.
I don’t believe the Iranian government is moral or good, I just know American imperialism and genocidal war is worse.
Again, go ahead and share that footage. I find it highly unlikely that the western media reporting obscene casualty numbers in the tens of thousands isn’t sharing any of that footage and instead just quoting a random first name, but I’m open to being wrong. Go ahead and share the footage you’ve seen that I haven’t been able to find…
Why would I put effort into finding videos that I’ve already seen, just to show you when you’re already sealioning?
You can be confidently wrong, I don’t care.
Because you’re a lying piece of shit…
The people that would benefit most of showing this footage are for some mysterious reason censoring it, and you’re so concerned about the supposed crimes the Iranian government committed that you’re unwilling to share this supposed evidence you’ve seen to spread awareness while you beat your war drum and encourage a war of total destruction on millions of people and incredible devastation on the whole region.
Really, you think I’m fucking bluffing? Then how do you explain this?
Or these articles from Amnesty International, Associated Press, BBC, and Independent?
Go ahead. What BS are you gonna come up with to try to justify this authoritarian brutality?
When/where did I do that? Point to the thing I said that fits that description.
You can’t, because I didn’t. That’s just a pathetic strawman, because you can’t handle the truth that you’re wrong.
You showed 40,000 deaths ha? You showed what you think justifies starting a war that will kill hundred of thousands, displace hundreds of thousands, and effect the lives of millions?
Again, I don’t justify it, if you look at my comment history I’ve said before they I have no doubt they killed a lot of civilians, and I don’t align with the authoritarian government, but I don’t justify imperialism and even more destructive and deadly wars as a response. You’re not helping Iranians.
While you’re watching protest videos, go ahead and watch the videos of counter protesters burning Israeli and US flags. Don’t just cherry pick footage that justifies your war lust.
They didn’t kill 40k+ people, and you will not provide footage that demonstrates they did anything near that because it’s a made up lie.
Should Iran develop nukes and attack the US because ICE is shooting civilians in the street? Same justification, but you can’t wrap your head around the fact that you’re not the heroes of the world and America doesn’t have an obligation to interfere with every country however it deems fit.
We’re gonna pretend like your comment is in a vacuum and the context where you made it is irrelevant? Okay then…
Where did I say anything about 40K deaths? The highest estimate I saw in any of those links was 20K, and the highest confirmed body count was less than 10K. Are you just making shit up to make it sound easier to discredit?
Then what the fuck are you even arguing? Because you seem to keep calling me an imperialist propagandist for stating facts like the iranian regime viciously suppressing protesters.
I never said anything even close to any of that. You’re fucking psychotic, dude.
Those aren’t counter-protesters. It’s all the same protest. I know you find this impossible to comprehend, but it’s entirely possible to oppose the mullah and US/Israeli colonialism.
That’s not how satellite connection works, though? The US smuggled 6000 starlink terminals into Iran.
Frequencies can be jammed, you know…
Not country-wide…
But in all the cities where it matters
You cannot frequency jam an entire city either bruv, the way they were preventing Starlink usage was by detecting emitted radio signals of that frequency and going in person to arrest the users and confiscate the equipment.
Okay… so you admit they were heavily censoring it?
Obviously, I never doubted it, but you can’t jam 6000 starlinks, so it was still possible for videos to come out of Iran.
Some did, but the reason the videos aren’t pasted all over the place is because there was a concerted effort by the Iranian regime to suppress it.
The Iranian government doesn’t have the power to suppress western media, and western media would publish every single of these videos like wildfire.
Well, the western media did publish videos. That’s why I and others have seen them. You don’t have to take my word for it, just follow the link in my previous comment.
The reason it isn’t all over your social media feed probably has something to do with tankies not wanting to promote content that proves the Iranian regime is a violent dictatorship. That kind of flies in the face of their carefully constructed alternative reality in which only the west is evil and anti-western governments can do no wrong.
It would be harder for them to deny the atrocities if they were posting the videos themselves, so that’s why you don’t see as much as you do from Gaza.
Oh, it’s tankies controlling social media feeds, thats why I’m literally reacting on .world to this post with 650 upvotes by an account that literally only reposts western propaganda
I didn’t say they control all the social media feeds, but if your social media feeds are mostly tankie content then you’re not gonna see the stuff they aren’t posting.
The guardian isn’t western propaganda, ffs. It’s independent journalism. You’re here peddling pro-mullah propaganda, because the facts are the regime murdered thousands of protesters in the span of a couple weeks and you’re trying to say “nuh uh, western lies!”
God forbid there is 1 space in my life not plastered with western imperialist propaganda
If you’re going out of your way to avoid any information that conflicts with your preferred narrative, don’t act like contrary evidence doesn’t exist just because you haven’t seen it.
Hey I’m the one with both Hexbear and Reddthat accounts, not dodging anything. I’m just calling atrocity propaganda in the eve of invasion by its name.
The protests and their coverage started before the US admin leapt on it as an opportunity to justify military action. You’re discounting a people’s movement against an authoritarian regime just because some other authoritarian regime is trying to use them opportunistically.
The protests and their coverage famously happened months after Iran was literally bombed by the US, have you forgotten about that? The whole Iran throwing missiles to Israel thing?
Two different stories, dude…
Sure buddy
Well, now the Zionists are bombing Iran. Do you admit you’ve been running Zionist propaganda?
It’s not zionist propaganda. It’s news about current events. Just because zionists latched onto it opportunistically doesn’t mean the whole thing is their doing, and it doesn’t discredit the New Iran movement either.
And you’re a really shitty person for not being able to see the difference.
From the start, as I’ve stated multiple times, my support is for the Iranian people in their struggle for autonomy and self-determination. You’re the one who’s been constantly desperate to insert Israel and the US into that narrative, even when the article in this post isn’t about them.
Let’s see if the US succeeds what happens to Iranian self determination
Okay, but that’s a different argument to make on a different post about a different argument, not this one because it’s irrelevant here. Literally no one here is arguing in favor of US/Israeli military action.
Why don’t you go argue with people on a post about the invasion? Spoiler: you won’t see me there supporting it because that’s not what I’m doing.
Then stop spreading the same news as the US/Israeli propaganda apparatus
That’s not what I was doing. This post is an article from The Guardian, an independent journal, about Iranian student protesters.
But now that we’re clearly arguing in circles, I’m blocking you. Enjoy those rials while they last.
Death to Khamenei. The New Iran will rise from the ashes of the regime.
The Guardian is a Zionist mouthpiece, if you refuse to see that after 3 years of genocide the fault is on you.
It’s insane. Gaza is over two years of bombing turning it into a parking lot. Like, many people have been killed in Iran during the recent months. It’s just gross to report numbers that are not physically possible.
I saw one report that MORE than 80,000 in 2 days. The last time that many people died in such a short amount of time was when we dropped two nuclear weapons on Japan. Did Iran nuke itself? Like, how can anyone print that number?
Not to mention, the solution to this is apparently for the US and Israel to do exactly what Israel did to Gaza to Iran.
Edit: Everyone just purposely misunderstanding my comment below.
(1) I never said or implied the 80k number was from a credible source.
(2) I sure as hell never said it was the guardian.
(3) Pointing to “more” credible sources on the numbers is not related to my comment. All sources at this point are SIGNIFICANTLY less credible than the very conservative “Hamas Run Health” numbers that all of you libs discredited for over a year. Stop getting excited at death tolls that, at this point, only serve to justify MORE death at the hands of US intervention.
(4) Any number printed by western media or it’s organizations should be questioned BECAUSE of their aligned interest with Israel and the interest of American Imperialism. Iran is NOT a US Ally like Israel. Any coverage of its REAL human rights violations will be reported in the same way it would Hamas.
(5) The Iranian people are my concern. The people using “death tolls” to further US intervention are the same idiots that would have supported the invasion of Iraq. And yes, this includes the “sources” inside Iran begging Trump to come bomb their country with freedom.
I was literally simply saying that at the time of the protests and Internet blackouts that the media went spreading unverified numbers to grab clicks. One of which had it as high as 80k. A number spread on social media and printed as a “some say” in garbage outlets that just wanted to get clicks for numbers.
I provided two sources of this bogus claim below. And I never meant it more than a comment about how false information spreads online. Especially when it favors the narrative of a demented old man we call a president.
Fucking liberals are are so war hungry that they are more focused on nitpicking a comment critizing the spread of pro war propaganda that they’ll be upset when you point it out.
I was in the same spot in 2023 trying to explain what lead to October 7th. In 2-3 years maybe you’ll understand why you should be critical of any reports and justifications for US intervention. Whether that number is 20k or 80k. You’re missing the fucking point.
DOES USA INTERVENTION MAKE IRANIANS LIVES BETTER?
Iraq and many other countries can tell you that answer.
Where did you get that report? Most I saw was 30k over 3 weeks
To be clear. I wasn’t saying it was credible.
x.com/i/status/2014484450315293173
This was the one going around at the time I was talking about. I know there were articles at the time citing this as evidence as well. But, it looks like that’s been purged from most articles.
I know that number was spoken on Fox News as well at some point. But I’d have to dig for the clip. Just the usual, “some reports saying as high as 80,000” vague propaganda from a guest interview.
Ok but you said you saw a report and now you’re linking me a tweet
Can you link us the actual report?
I’m not sure why you are acting like I’m the one that said there was a valid verifiable report of this. My initial comment was literally talking about how people were lying about the numbers and saying it was “reported as 80,000”
This was the propaganda going around Twitter. A “report” can literally just be someone from inside Iran reporting on it. Which is exactly what that tweet was.
Maybe I worded my comment poorly? I was pointing to the absurdity of a number like 80,000 being taken seriously. And now for some reason you want a verified report of that? I’m so confused.
Why would you say
when no one printed it?
You’re using it to back up someone saying we can’t “trust the murderous media” but it’s just lies
Look dude. Just because you were not paying attention to articles at the time doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/s/mEVnnKEJ4w
This same shit was spreading around social media and many news outlets printed “some estimates inside Iran put the number at 80,000”.
It was bull shit and every single outlet that printed it has modified their reports since. I’m not sure why it’s so hard for you to believe that the media grabbed the largest number they could and ran with it for a day.
I’ve shown you where this number came from. It’s not “just a post on Twitter”. It was from inside the country during a total internet blackout. The media ate it up for a day because there was nothing else coming out of Iran at the time.
Why is this so hard to understand? What evidence are you looking for? Because it’s gonna be tweets or “way back machine” articles from Fox/NewsMax or Israeli newspapers. I’ll find them tonight if I have time. But you are just as capable of looking.
Yes, believe it or not, I made a comment about something that I literally saw happening in real time and didn’t bookmark. Fuck me right?
Reddit/NewIran
with source… just a post on twitter
If this claim is correct it’d indeed be easy to prove using the Internet Archive. If you’re watching NewsMax and telling us it’s proof we shouldn’t trust the press then… yeah
Looks to me like you’ve been duped by Khamenei’s alt account on twitter and concluded you should look away and go back to sleep
Yes. That was literally my point mate. That news outlets lie and print shit that isn’t confirmed. Thanks for understanding my initial comment this deep into the thread.
I wasn’t “duped”. I was literally pointing out the bull shit coverage in my first comment.
I never once said I thought that number was real or that I believed the outlets that spread it.
Your point was that you backed someone saying we shouldn’t trust the reporting for The Guardian on on this issue by saying “It’s insane. I saw a report saying 80k. How can anyone print that number”
When in reality what you saw was… a twitter post.
Do you think it’s fair to sow distrust for the credibility of the article in the OP because you read something on twitter by someone else?
I’m sure you’ll continue to try to twist this away from that initial post towards how what you really meant is that you didn’t believe “all the [other] outlets that spread it!” (which you conveniently don’t have time for to dig up lol). The best thing I can hope for is that you look away from your screen for a minute and ask yourself the question why you felt compelled to ‘massage the message’
You win! You made it to the bottom of the useless comment thread of one person making an assumption that was never said. It’s fucking exhausting. You deserve a break. Get some water and go stretch.
Instead of cherrypicking non-credible sources so you can point to the absurd numbers they claim, why don’t you check some credible sources to see what the actual numbers are?
For instance, from Amnesty International:
The Guardian is british.
That’s a claim you’d need to provide evidence for. Really, really good evidence.
I am doing nothing. You are claiming bullshit and don’t even know jackshit about the news outlets you’re making up shit about.
Also, I’m not even from the US.
What did I invent, exactly?
Evidence or GTFO.
Iran did kill thousands of its own people. Were you sleeping? It wasn’t even that long ago.
And nobody mentioned bombing Iran but you. This is an article about Iranian student protestors.
Not suddenly at all. I followed the New Iran movement back in 2021. I cared about their cause then and I care about it now. Are you suggesting we shouldn’t care about the plights of the proletariat around the world?
Trump is a fascist, but that doesn’t mean I have to support the Ayatollah. And this article isn’t about the impending US invasion, it’s about the Iranian protesters. Get a clue.
Do you know what (to) corroborate means?
He’s from .ml, he won’t ever offer evidence, he’ll just continue to accuse you of all the worst things he can think of.
I don’t think western conservatives care about Iranian civilian casualties. If you’re suggesting I’m a conservative, you couldn’t be more wrong.
Also, this is The Guardian. They’re not owned by billionaires. Oh, and they’re not the only source or evidence for the atrocities committed by the Iranian government against its own civilians, either. You’re the one rejecting evidence.
You’re clearly just a shill running cover for the mullah, so why don’t you go eat shit?
Because I’m not a conservative, dumbass. I do care about civilian casualties.
The guardian crowdsources their funding from mostly small donations to maintain their independence from corporate interests.
I don’t.
You’re calling it western propaganda because you either refuse to believe it or you’re actively peddling pro-mullah propaganda. Either way, I’m not wasting any more time on you.
Not even a little bit. You don’t know what you’re fucking talking about. In fact, the Ayatollah, being the dictator of a theocratic regime, is far more right-wing and “conservative” than even the most centrist western neoliberals (which I’m not even that, by the way).
Have you forgotten about Mahsa Amini, who was murdered in police custody in 2021 for being a woman and not wearing her hijab “properly”?
By the way, is this the same The Guardian that you’re calling “western imperialist propaganda”?
He would if he could. But that’s neither here nor there, because this post isn’t about the west. It’s about Iranian student protesters, and you’re trying to say we shouldn’t give a fuck about them just because their oppressive government is anti-west.
Your red herrings are meaningless, because two things can be true at once. The Ayatollah is a violent dictator, but that doesn’t mean the west is faultless. And nobody here claimed that it is.
The point is that this article isn’t about the west, and you’re only trying to insert them into the conversation to deflect blame for the Ayatollah’s crimes against humanity.
The coverage isn’t sudden, it’s been there since the start of the protests. You just haven’t been paying attention to it because it would force you to reevaluate your opinion. The media coverage was there in 2021/2022 during that movement too, but you probably weren’t paying attention then either.
I’m not doing any of that
The current Iranian regime doesn’t have the right to do those things to its people either
This is an article about the Iranian people rising up against their regime, and you’re bitching about it because why exactly? Cause you hate the west so you lick IRGC boots?
I don’t support trump or maga. In fact I viscerally hate them. How about you stop projecting and do the world a favor and stop voicing your excuses for supporting a militant right-wing theocratic dictatorship that’s actively massacring its people?
I’m not committing any genocides. Never have and never will.
“Fascist lib” is an oxymoron. If you ask an actual fascist, they’ll say liberals are the devil. And liberals rightfully hate fascists too.
Oh by the way, I’m more of a leftist anyway. I know you’re not capable of comprehending this, but some leftists are actually capable of critical thinking and arriving at a well-reasoned opinion based on contextual nuance and complexity instead of simply falling for ideological campism, purity tests, and sports-team-like black-and-white thinking.
Good, I hope you rupture your stomach and turn yourself inside out. You’ll be able to think more clearly in a coma.
I never fucking said that, but since it’s the Iranian regime that’s killing Iranians and you seem to be supporting the regime, then I guess that comment is just projection…
You’re the one dancing. I don’t need to.
I said “I don’t need to dance around,” implying “my worldview already aligns with reality and I don’t need to contort either to get them to fit together.”
What part of that do you interpret as meaning “I actually can’t argue against your opinion that’s divorced from reality even though you’re the one skewing facts and ‘dancing around’ just to try and validate your asinine take”?
If you expect the whole world to twist itself to cater to your needs and wants, then you’re probably a fascist.
Is that what you think dancing is?
I would believe anything regarding foreign policy coming from a bloodthirsty brit.
This is The Guardian, a left leaning paper or left of centre at least.
“left of centre” is doing a lot of work there.
Not only in your obvious British spelling of center but in the other obvious way. You Brits turn your nose up on Trump supporters but for some reason fall for the same garbage war propaganda. Hell, even our MAGA voters are turning against Trump on Iran intervention. Are you guys ok over there? Are you just larping as MAGA supporters on that island?
It says a lot when you call the guardian “left”. I swear you guys are further behind class conciseness than folks in the US southern states.
Calling an institution that reports to and serves the interest of capital “left” basically destroys all meaning of the word.
Or are even you Brits using “left” to mean “liberal”. Like, have we exported our American brain rot that fucking hard?
I think you’re reading way more into my comment than intended.
I just meant centre-left in the conventional media/political spectrum sense used in the UK, not a deep ideological classification.
Here’s a detailed article on The Guardian being couped by Zionists:
How The Guardian’s editor-in-chief caved to pro-Israel pressure.
It’s unfathomable to me how, after western media carrying 3 years of endless Zionist propaganda, there’s still any modicum of respect for them among progressives.
You gotta remember that most people today supporting Palestine and understanding what was done to Gaza was a genocide are recent things.
They hit a breaking point after two years of genocide that could not be denied. These are the same type of people that were “always against it” after the fact.
This is how it goes. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again, etc. They don’t actually have a means of understanding it until they see the aftermath. They don’t look at the material interest and where they will inevitably lead. They are only capable of reacting to the results. And until there are results they will only listen to the intentions. The intentions that they read in media. Not the real intentions of those that own that media.
I’m sure, you, personally understand this. I’m mostly just leaving this comment as an opportunity for the few that WILL be able to think through the media narratives.
The media is going to tell truths about Irans human rights violations. But it will ignore the same for Israel for decades. Why? Because it doesn’t care about those violations. It cares about how it can make you believe what it does NEXT is justified.
TheGuardian claimed to have seen video and pictures of Hamas raping women on October 7.
Those videos and pictures later turned out to not exist.
Will you accept evidence? Or will you downvote and call me a Russian bot?
www.theguardian.com/news/2003/…/letters.iraq1
That’s a classic consent-making move: the debate becomes when invasion is justified, not whether the West has the right to invade at all.
“the government argued its actions ‘undoubtedly’ saved civilian lives in Libya.” “required decisive and collective international action”
theguardian.com/…/british-government-intervention…
Even when the article notes criticism, this kind of repetition of official justification is exactly what sourcing/agenda-setting critiques focus on.
A no-fly zone is an act of war (you enforce it with force). But it’s often discussed as a humanitarian “measure.” The Guardian’s reporting frames it that way:
“a potential no-fly zone over Syria to protect civilians”
theguardian.com/…/may-questions-syria-no-fly-zone…
And then the debate becomes technocratic (“who enforces it?”) rather than moral/anti-imperial (“who gets to control Syrian airspace?”). Example of that framing inside the piece: “Who would enforce that safe area?”
“All sides should contribute to halting the cycle of violence”
theguardian.com/…/guardian-view-conflict-in-gaza
Same editorial also uses the legitimacy gateway line: “Israel has a right to defend itself”
And frames it in a way to not directly endorse it, but still assert it by not stating the objectively moral rebuttal: Gaza has the right to defend itself.
Here they outright assert it: “Israel has a right to defend itself and a duty to protect its citizens.” theguardian.com/…/the-guardian-view-on-gazas-casu…
This is a very strong legitimising phrasing because it implies the violence is mainly a matter of proper execution rather than structural injustice / siege / occupation: “Israel has a right to defend itself by all legitimate means.” theguardian.com/…/observer-view-only-ceasefire-sa…
This is exactly the kind of moral language that can slide into collective punishment logic (even if the editorial later adds caveats): “Hamas had to be punished severely and forcibly dislodged from its perch in Gaza.” theguardian.com/…/the-observer-view-on-the-middle…
This rhetorical move invites readers to inhabit the state’s mindset. another common consent mechanism: “Confronted by all this, Israelis ask, reasonably enough: what would you do?” theguardian.com/…/the-observer-view-on-the-middle…
Not genocide, guardian. You shouldn’t do genocide.
Even when labelled “alleged,” this piece foregrounds the IDF narrative and evidence drops in a way that can function as justification-for-bombing context:
“alleged evidence released by the IDF to support its claims that Hamas uses… Gaza as human shields” theguardian.com/…/human-shield-israel-claim-hamas…
“Israel has cited what it says ar
Really? You could not do it without weird and undounded assumptions? C’mon, grow up.
Anyway, I appriciate you provide actual reasoning for your arguments. I’ll read into it.
It’s what happens every time. I’m sorry, that was unnecessary, I felt burnt out.
Oh well that’s a relief. British newspaper. The people that called bin Laden a freedom fighter. Totally not a mouth piece for war in the middle east.
Also it’s owned by a non-profit trust. As peak as you can really get when it comes journalistic integrity structures.
It’s cute when British people think they’re not just a colony of US imperialism. I know I know. You have your royal pedophiles the same way we have our pedophile billionaires. It makes you feel independent and sovereign.
Maybe you’re not British. But I hope you are. Even American hogs know the Brits are dogs to whatever American rulers want.
I’m not. And you are nothing but insulting.
Dude. The war mongers jumped on this thread. When I initially replied to your comment it was top. Lemmy is becoming like reddit. It’s fucking pathetic how many “anti trump” libs are onboard with bombing a country into freedom.
Fuck the Mullah dictatorship!!!
It is a terrible situation for everyone.
That’s literally how eastern Germany got rid of their government. And yes, people got killed. But in the end they succeed. There was absolutely no chance for a violent coup if this is what you’re implying. The government and the Soviet Union would have crushed that immediately.
Eventually, they will succeed. If you understand Iran’s demographics and the history behind those demographics, this is the logical conclusion. The mullahs’ days are numbered.
… All the more reason an invasion is all the more stupid. Iran is a problem that will deal with itself.
I will try to explain. Protesting allows to determine how many are generally “on board” with an idea. If you protest and you see that you have a supermajority (e.g. 90%) the point is moot, then the armed services are likely also on your side (e.g. USSR in 1991).
The next step, changing the government, usually requires a bit of force. It can take two typical forms:
a) people overcome cops while the army does nothing
b) units of the army rebel and overcome cops
c) units of the army fight each other in a civil war
Now, as you may guess, option C is pretty bad - weaponry made for international defense gets unleashed internally with no clear lines of conflict. But option A is pretty tame and B can be reasonably quick and bloodless.
It all starts with a show of hands, and an evaluation of how many are OK with a plan - inside a group and between groups. If too few show up, one knows the time is wrong. If a modest amount show up, one knows to be careful. And so forth.
Wouldn’t you rather be dead than oppressed.
wagingnonviolence.org/…/can-nonviolent-struggle-d…
Good book on this if you actually want to know why it’s good to protest even in authoritarian countries www.penguin.co.uk/books/453761/…/9780241618820
Very great to hear and gives me so much hope for the future.
May Iran become an Islamic Kingdom again.
How is OP not banned? 18k posts which exclusively seem to be news, 5 comments, it’s literally a propaganda bot, what the fuck!
OP actually has hundreds (thousands?) of comments over the past few years, but all but the most recent are listed as deleted by creator. I won’t speculate as to the reason for this, but just note that their current comment count doesn’t reflect their historical contributions.
I’ll also just leave this quote from one of the comment chains they’ve recently commented on:
I don’t personally keep track, but it seems some others do feel they make valuable contributions. I for one don’t want to see anyone too quick to torch the relative few individuals putting content on Lemmy.
I can’t fathom how, after the disgrace that western media has proven to be during the “Israeli” genocide of Palestinians, posting unending links to western mass-media can be considered a positive and not a tool of brainwashing.
Thanks for this comment. News about Iran seems to bring out extreme personalities lately it seems like.
Propaganda bot for posting The Guardian? You’re ok?
18k news posts, most of them from genocide-complicit western Zionist media
OK then be this way
Huh?
You’re not wrong about the Guardian but also like… the Iranian government is fucked. Yes, this is probably propaganda to manufacture consent, but that doesn’t mean it’s not also a real story of real students fighting a real struggle. It’s a tough line to walk.
Not a tough line to walk, really. I see no constant stream of news on Lemmy about Qatar being an apartheid state with 80% of migrants without rights, or Saudi Arabia’s similar policy. No constant stream of posts about mass incarceration of black people in the US, of Nazis roaming the streets of Madrid and Paris…
Deciding what news to publish is itself extremely political, and focusing on atrocity propaganda in Iran, a heavily sanctioned country against which there’s an ongoing US military buildup on the verge of invasion, is willing and a form of atrocity propaganda. It’s designed specifically to make progressive people less critical of the upcoming strikes, and judging by the number of upvotes these posts get, it’s working.
5 years ago there wasn’t this constant stream of anti-Iranian propaganda, it was Venezuela, and we’ve seen the results. Learning to distinguish the workings of propaganda is critical to any progressive, and it allows us both to be more resistant to propaganda and to use it better (for example by relentlessly posting about Palestine or the ICE, we can similarly engage in what I consider good atrocity propaganda).
“It’s not a tough line to walk, I just think that students facing oppression, violence, and mass killings by a theocratic government should shut up and be quiet in case their struggle might be perverted to further imperial interests.”
I don’t know, from where I’m sitting, you seem to be struggling a bit to walk that line as easily as you proclaim.
I never said this. All my power to the students combatting the repression in Iran. My issue is absolutely not with the protestors, my issue is the framing of this in western media as justification for military invasion of Iran.
And on that, I agree with you 100%, but this specific article doesn’t do that. It’s implicit, I agree with you, but how do you suggest combating that? I think the solution has to be using every news article post as a platform to denounce that military intervention and promote critical thought, rather than decrying the mere existence of those posts and suggesting that people will be too stupid to discern the truth if they’re faced with propaganda. (Which is, of course, accurate lmao, but it’s also a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people are never taught how to think critically and presented with opportunities to do so, they will remain stupid forever.)
Also in my opinion, Americans oppose military action in Iran for financial reasons, which always takes precedence over moral concerns. So, in this case, both fortunately and unfortunately, Americans will not be motivated to support military action because of another government’s brutality against student protestors imo. It’s a tired old talking point out of the War-on-Terror and Hasbara playbooks, but even older people barely buy that shit anymore - and even if they do, they’re probably more concerned with why every trip to the grocery store is $250.
Yawn more Western propaganda to justify war against Iran.
300 cops were killed by these “peaceful protesters”.
Iran literally sentencing kids to death and you’re saying this shit? You’re getting paid or smt?
Two 17 year old terrorists magically become children.
Those 300 cops must have killed themselves.
So they literally killed police and burned down mosques.
Amnesty is an imperialist propaganda organisation which has repeated the debunked Hamas rape hoax. They will paste any Zionist propaganda they are asked on their frontpage.
I mean, they did commit arson with a deadly outcome, but Basij are not cops. They’re a junta.
That being said, I strongly oppose the death penalty, I oppose war (fuck the US and fuck Israel), and also fuck the “protestors” that destroyed people’s cars, shops, mosques and homes. I’m an anarchist and a revolutionary, they’re mindless thugs. We are not the same.
I guess security forces are technically a better description but in practice they would be comparable to volunteer cops.
This isn’t novel to Iran. The US was sentencing minors to execution until as recently as 2005, when the SCOTUS struck down junivenille executions in Roper v. Simmons.
And that was under a relatively liberal majority. No way Roper would have gone 5-4 under a Roberts court.
I mean, it can be both. The Iranian government has been an oppressive theocratic reactionary force practically since day one of the revolution. They rejected socialist reforms and partnered with Ronald fucking Reagan to start a turf war with Iraq using chemical weapons. They’ve flubbed any effective containment of Israel, failed to integrate their economy with Pakistan or Turkiye or Afghanistan, gave up backing Yemen, and never finished their nuclear deterrent.
The current crisis they’re in wasn’t unforeseeable. But when even Ahmadinejad is too far left for your Guardian Council, it locks you into a dark future.
We can keep talking about dumb stuff Iran did 50 years ago but Khamenei is already dead. Iran is currently the only major party fighting Israel and standing for human rights and against genocide.
Saying they have failed to contain Israel is laughable. The entire American air force is on Irans doorstep because they have been so effective in containing Israel. Pakistan and Turkiye are led by unreliable NATO slaves there is no stable partnership to build with them.
Yemen is still receiving Iranian weapons and has defeated the US air force last year with them while lobbing missiles at Israel.
Pezeshkian is their current president and he is a reformist. The reformists are the reason that Iran does not have nukes right now.
No, they aren’t. They’re rolling over for Israel time and time again.
They withdraw support from Hezbollah, from the Houthis in Yemen, and from the Taliban in Afghanistan for a few temporary sanctions suspensions. They actively collaborate with Israel’s friends in Russia and Saudi Arabia. They collaborated with the fucking Americans during the initial Iraq War. They crack down on their own domestic civilians when those populations want more aggressive Palestinian support. They’ve been “six months from producing a nuclear weapon” for thirty fucking years.
They are not
The only thing they know how to do to Israel is to fire Warning Shots. Over and over and over again. Even as Israelis butcher their people at home and abroad.
They aren’t fighting them in any material sense.
The Iraq war is 20 years in the past it is no longer relevant. Bigger recent human rights abuses from Iran came from their support from Assad. But now that Assad is gone a US slave has taken his place so that is double sided.
Iran supports the resistance behind the scenes not in front of it like Yemen. I would love for Iran to actively start shelling Israel, they have during the 12 day war, but they are already doing a million times more than every other country worldwide such as China which is actively helping Israel colonize the West Bank.
I clicked your Houthi link and it is one of those anti Houthi propaganda websites. Becomes rather obvious when you go to their front page. I hope you reconsider your sources.
That stopped being true years ago. They’ve fully retreated from the regional stage.
They’re unable to keep the water flowing and the lights on, because they keep trying to make deals with Western imperialists and getting played
fdd.org/…/post-12-day-war-iran-continues-to-inves…
Iran is sanctioned because it does not bow for Israel. That is the entire reason.
based
But yeah, it is warmongering propaganda.
I’m sure the cops were equally as ‘peaceful’ as the protesters and didn’t go and kill a few tens of thousands of them.
Shit gets violent under a fanatic totalitarian regime.
It is amazing the amount of mental gymnastics people are willing to do to justify American and Israeli backed terrorism. Iran tolerated the protests until terrorists started shooting with AK’s and shotguns. The terrorists also shot many civilians because they know that you will blame every single death they cause on the Iranian government.
What the fuck?