I guess you can’t expect too fast a pace from clerics who haven’t discovered pants yet for men or women. Change is slow.

petunia on July 6, 2009 at 1:44 AM

:-) Reminds me of a bit Seinfeld once did, or should’ve done:

“The one thing that impresses me the most about the clerics: they hung in there with the bathrobes. Now, they’ve seen the pant. We know they’ve seen pants. I mean, it’s not like their national sports team shows up to the Olympics or the World Cup dressed for a toga party. But, they’re hanging in there with the ‘robes…”

I guess you can’t expect too fast a pace from clerics who haven’t discovered pants yet for men or women. Change is slow.

I wonder if Khomeini is getting excited by all the growing chaos around him? He may think the 12th Imam is close and decide to fire all of his guns at once.

BL@KBIRD on July 5, 2009 at 11:39 AM

You have no clout
You better not try
You better watch out, I’m telling you why.
Twelfth Imam is coming to town

A-Bomb is on list
I’ll use more than twice
Good Muslims who die
Will go to paradise
Twelfth Imam is coming to town

He knows if you’re a Christian
He knows if you’re a Jew
He knows if you’re an in-fi-del
He’s told me what to do

So….You have no clout
You better not try, I’m telling you why.
Twelfth Imam is coming to town
Twelfth Imam is coming to town

ISNA Calls on the Iranian Government to Release Journalists and Human Rights Activists (Plainfield, IN – June 19, 2009)

“The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is troubled by the recent arrest of 500 journalists, political opposition leaders, and human rights activists, including Ebrahim Yazdi, the Secretary-General of the Freedom Movement of Iran. Dr. Yazdi was taken from his hospital bed in Tehran, where he was undergoing treatment for recurring cancer.

ISNA calls on the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to release Dr. Yazdi and all political prisoners and to respect the civil rights of the members of the media and political activists. The government must respect the rights of all individuals to exercise their freedom of expression and peaceful protest, which Islamic values and traditions affirm, and which are guaranteed by the Iranian constitution.

Ebrahim Yazdi pursued his graduate work in the United States and later joined the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, with appointments in the Departments of Pathology and Pharmacology. He was a founding member of the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) and the Islamic Medical Association of the United States and Canada (IMANA).

Dr. Yazdi served as deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs in the interim government of Mehdi Bazargan in 1979. He opposed the hostile takeover of the US Embassy by Iranian students and resigned in protest when the Revolutionary Council endorsed the student takeover.”

Contact
Louay Safi, ILDC executive director
louay@isna.net
317-839-1807
————————————————————————–
Comment:

Maybe I’m just nitpicking here, but this seems to be pretty tepid and specifically concerned about one individual. Where are the follow-ups? Where is the outrage about those protesters shot down in the streets, like Neda Soltan? It would seem to me that additional statements would be forthcoming as the events have progressed since June 19. Or is this just a pro-forma “statement of concern” to be put on the record to show that they have “spoken out” against the government of Iran?

Pretty weak, if you ask me.

This one did. Too funny.

Calling out the Army will get you 1917 in Russia where the army joined the population. Save I think the Iranian Army will not melt away but remain cohesive. It is the most representative body in Iran, at the moment, being conscript drawn from a population that has a majority under 30. Calling out the Iranian Army might be a strange form of seppuku for the regime… thus they are stuck with only partially reliable IRGC, wholly reliable barbarians in the Basij and as reliable as far as the money goes thugs.

Now if the Clerics join the people and the Army would if they were called out… ahhhh… the regime is ‘one deep’ and getting very old very quickly… hmmmmm… yes, seppuku it would be.

Anyone in the MSM notice that the world -as the U.S. encounters it- has gone into chaos since Barry was put in office by the sleepwalking suckers of an affirmative action presidency?

profitsbeard on July 5, 2009 at 6:22 PM

MSM? no…. Conservative America? YES!
….but what would we know, right? We are just dumb “tea-bagging rednecks!”

/sarc

That leaves their authority as the power-in-being behind the basiji, the police, and the armed forces. How far they can push that authority is unclear, and how soon cracks will appear because of the squabbles is also unclear, although such authority takes years or generations to crumble altogether.

Iran, Honduras, North Korea, Pakistan, the economy, job losses, business stagnation, rammed-through crap bills like Cap and Trade (Thieve and Tax), etc., etc., etc.?

Nah… slandering Palin and boo-hoo-hooing about Michael Jackson’s cartoon death are so much more vital for the public interest.

Bulldogger on July 5, 2009 at 4:20 PM

Is he going to tuck it behind his jug ears, you know, like a pharoah?

I wonder if some of the REAL Grand Ayatollahs are a bit resentful at the way he got that title? Khomeini was a hateful man – and he DID have enemies in the cleric ranks and especially in the Grand Ayatollah ranks. So I wonder if some of those enemies are spiteful of Khamenei because he’s only become a Grand Ayatollah by virtue of the fact that he was Khomeini’s most cherished butt-boy. So this may be one source of disagreement coming from the clerics.

Another source of course – is the fact that many of the clerics believe they should play no role really in government. Sistani in Iraq is one … but Shariatmadari (who was pretty much tormented to death by Khomeini – was another).

We need to let this play out and hope the clerics splitting with Khamenei come out on top. But we should not support them – because doing so would only give credibility to Khamenei.

She sent me the following link; some of the pictures have been seen before, others, not.

She says at night, her and her family go up on the roof and shout “Allah o’ Akbar”:

http://www.pbase.com/masud/irans_disputed_election&page=all

What in God’s name did Bush have anything to do with the Iranian’s protest? They elected Khatami long before Bush entered the scene.

Millions of Shia Muslims in Iran saw that millions of Shia muslims in Iraq could overthrow a hated, despised system of government and elect a fellow Shia to rule over them. They saw that the ballot box can rule over tyranny. And now they want that in their country as well.

They have hope now.They’ve had tyranny from the either the Shah or the Mullahs for the past 50 years, and now they have hope for freedom.

May we as a nation have the courage we had in 1981 when Poland sought it’s freedom rather than the cowardice we showed in 1989 with China and Tiananmen Square.

“present”.

What in God’s name did Bush have anything to do with the Iranian’s protest? They elected Khatami long before Bush entered the scene

A Axe on July 5, 2009 at 11:26 AM

Pffft. Typical Lefty. All mouth and no substance. Can’t see past the Obama smear on your nose.

Not only will Iran eventually become some type of democracy but Egypt will soon follow. It can’t be stopped. President Bush has changed the world for the better. Now THAT’S hope and change I can believe in.

This reminds me of that quote from Stalin when he was told that the Pope objected to his oppression of Catholics: How many divisions does he have?

Bennett on July 5, 2009 at 11:12 AM

Hopefully Khamenei’s position isn’t as solid as Stalin’s was. But if the protesters don’t win, he probably WILL solidify his authority.