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What Do These Beautiful People Have In Common?
They're Iranians.
(They also happen to live in a stunningly beautiful country).
Why am I - an American - sharing flattering pictures of Iranian people?
Well-known American travel writer Rick Steves - who normally focuses on Europe - visited Iran to find out what the people are really like. (Steve's did a very balanced television special on his trip to Iran.)
As Steves says in a 10-minute C-span video, it is common to demonize the enemy to try to justify war, but we should "get to know people before we decide to bomb them".
While the hard-liners in Iran are problematic, I - like Steves - am simply trying to show other sides of Iran than normally shown in the war-loving American media, especially given that:
- The top American defense officials say that - despite its heated rhetoric - Iran is a "rational actor". For example, in 2011, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified before Congress that “we continue to judge Iran’s nuclear decision-making is guided by a cost-benefit approach.” In February 2012, General Ron Burgess, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress that “the agency assesses Iran is unlikely to initiate or provoke a conflict.” Also in February, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “We are of the opinion that Iran is a rational actor”
- Top American and Israeli military and intelligence officials say that Iran has not decided to build a nuclear bomb
- Top American and Israeli military and intelligence officials say that - even if Iran did build a nuclear bomb - it would not be that dangerous, because Israel and America have so many more nukes. And see this
- Top American and Israeli defense and intelligence bosses say that attacking Iran would only speed up its development of nuclear weapons, empower its hardliners, and undermine the chance for democratic reform
- While Iran's president may be a loose cannon verbally, his words have often been mistranslated by the press, and so it is hard to tell what he's actually saying. Moreover, experienced diplomats know that things said for internal political consumption should not be taken as serious threats. And Iran has not attacked another country in hundreds of years
- Security experts – including both hawks and doves – agree that waging war in the Middle East weakens national security and increases terrorism. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this
- 25 nations are sending cruisers, aircraft carriers and minesweepers to Iran's doorstep: the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. alone has sent 3 US Nimitz class carrier groups, each of which has more aircraft than the entire complement of the Iranian air force. The carriers are supported by at least 12 battleships, including ballistic missile cruisers, frigates, destroyers and assault ships carrying thousands of US Marines and special forces.
- Israel is permanently stationing a submarine carrying nuclear cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf
- Well-known economist Nouriel Roubini says that attacking Iran would lead to global recession. The IMF says that Iran cutting off oil supplies could raise crude prices 30%. War with Iran would kill the American economy. And see this and this
- China and Russia have warned that attacking Iran could lead to World War III
- The people pushing for war against Iran are the same people who pushed for war against Iraq, and said it would be a "cakewalk". See this and this
- Hotheads within the U.S. have been claiming for more than 30 years that Iran was on the verge of nuclear capability
- Iran has one of the largest Jewish populations in the world, and the second-largest in the Middle East behind Israel
- Jews are protected by the Iranian constitution, and are guaranteed seats in the Iranian parliament. And see this
- It was the ancient Iranian king Cyrus who freed the Jews from captivity by the Babylonians
- According to Stanley Weiss, Iranian diplomats in Europe saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust and Iran served as an escape route for Iraqi Jews fleeing to Israel after the 1948 war for Israeli independence. Weiss also says that Iran was one of the first Muslim countries to establish diplomatic and trade relations with the state of Israel
- The CIA admits that the U.S. overthrew the moderate, suit-and-tie-wearing, Democratically-elected prime minister of Iran in 1953. He was overthrown because he had nationalized Iran's oil, which had previously been controlled by BP and other Western oil companies. As part of that action, the CIA admits that it hired Iranians to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its prime minister
- If the U.S. hadn't overthrown the moderate Iranian government, the fundamentalist Mullahs would have never taken over. (Moreover, the U.S. has had a large hand in strengthening radical Islam in the Middle East by supporting radicals to fight the Soviets and others)
- The U.S. armed and supported Iraq after it invaded Iran and engaged in a long, bloody war which included the use of chemical weapons. Here is former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meeting with Saddam Hussein in the 1980's, several months after Saddam had used chemical weapons in a massacre:
- The U.S. helped fund Iran's nuclear program
- The U.S. has been actively planning regime change in Iran - and throughout the oil-rich Middle East and North Africa - for 20 years
- The decision to threaten to bomb Iran was made before 9/11
- America and Israel both support a group designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization which is trying to overthrow the Iranian government - the same group Bush focused on when he accused Saddam Hussein of harboring terrorists.
- Indeed, the U.S. is supporting Islamic terrorists who are killing Christians and Jews (these are the same idiots who are now attacking our embassies)
- We have nothing to fear but fear itself ... and the fear of terrorism is destroying America.
Finally, I am against any religion being unfairly blamed for terrorism. For example, Christianity is not responsible for terrorism, even though the Norwegian shooter claimed to be a devout Christian, millions of the most radical types of evangelical Christians want to start WWIII to speed the “second coming”, rogue U.S. military leaders want to start a nuclear war to wipe out Islam, a FEMA trainer implies that Christians are crazy radicals prone to terrorism, and polls show that Christians are more prone to use violence than Muslims.
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None of them appeared in "Fight Club." Full video is now up (for free) on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BToXI5_aFus&list=FLXfLwG72sUCtnhPEj5XsFvA...
What a hoot. Was up until 3:00 last night. On a long enough timeline.........
The comments by those who reject the message from KennyW illustrate a biblical principle. In 1 Corinthians 1:18 it says "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing..." It is to be expected that Christians will accept the message while others will reject it. Personally, I'm with KennyW. The world has not been particularly well served by those who proclaim 'rationality' and dismiss the Bible, and that includes many who claim to be Christians but ignore its basic principles.
The world hasn't been well-served by Christians, either. Turns out, what you do or don't believe about religion has essentially zero effect on how you live your life. Good people do good. Bad people do bad. Both can use religion (or its lack) to serve their ends.
Fool. Fuck Christianity. you idiot.
You mock and ridicule "ancient fairy tales" and at the same time we marvel at what the ancients did know. The Egyptians could build and align pyramids with the stars without our modern tools. They had advanced calendars as did the Mayans and the Chinese. Only now is science catching up to what they knew thousands of years ago, yet you mock and ridicule. Perhaps they were more in touch with heaven and the heavens than we are today.
If you do not believe, fine, but mocking what you cannot or do not understand lessens your thoughts & words....
Hey SAT 800, take a breather. What's eating you if others have found a way forward for their lives and souls?
By all means, suspend rational thought and put your faith in ancient fairy tales. If we can't beat them we may as well join them.
Christianity: a religion that believes that some cosmic Jewish zombie, who is his own father, can make you live forever if you symboilically eat his flesh and telepatically tell him that you accept him as your master, so that he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
Christianity can be quite hard to comprehend if you haven't recognised the limits of your knowledge and logic. In any case there is no need to use such expressions as "cosmic Jewish Zombie" given that belief in Christianity is not compulsory and disbelief in it is not punishable.
@peter pan well, I'm sure you'll be alright as long you don't come face to face with the limits of your knowledge and logic; if you do; god help you. snicker. snicker. Oh, by the way, oh un-limited logic one, the phrase "cosmic jewish Zombie" says nothing about compulsion or punishability; it is a comment on the absurdity of the whole construct. but fortunately, you are protected from understanding this by the very real, and fairly, severe limits on your knowledge and logic.
SAT 800, you use the words "absurdity of the whole construct." That's fine by me as long as that expresses your beliefs and doesn't presume to belittle my own. Your attempt to insult me with the words, "severe limits on your knowledge and logic," are obviously meant to insult me but once again I think they simply express the frustrations you feel in your own life despite your limitless knowledge and logic.
By the way, I do not feel the need to down tick you. There were times when I experienced your mood and understand the hole you are probably in.
Your psychological reliance on mythical paternal sky demons is reflective of many of the problems between the Western world and the Middle East.
The sooner humanity grows up and stops accepting fairy tales as reality, the better.
(And that includes the fairy tale of government as a benefactor of society rather than the parasitical, sociopathic ball-and-chain that it actually is. At least tapeworms don't try to convince me that their presence within my body is somehow for my own good.)
So... you believe the western world's ideas are superior to the east's? In superstitious religion only. And you place psychology up there in the high echalons of western thought? Dude, this website is all about the bankruptcy of the west, particularly because it has left its spiritual heritage from the east.
I've never heard a Western religious leader tell his people to murder their own children and call it honor killing.
Have you ever actually READ the Bible? There's killing children all over it. Moses with the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Per'izzites, God with the Son of Abraham, God with his OWN son.
Although the Song of Solomon is AWESOME reading for a 14 yr old.
lol. I'm SO gonna steal that.
Another religion is exposed. A religion with strong beliefs that guide the person through their daily lives. One that is heavily proselytized by men and women of its faith. One that shares a brotherhood with past and current world leaders, some of which are responsible for the deaths of millions of non-believers of this faith.
And yet, it is a religion which promises nothing, gives no hope for those trapped in a savage mortal life, and inspires no one on a personal level. Death means nothing to this religion and so life, at least in the eyes of non-believers of this religion, also means nothing.
But for the followers of this religion, their faith is just as strong and unfailing as those of other religions. Their disgust for those who believe differently is apparent is every discussion about faith as they seek to embarrass and marginalize those who do not share their belief.
It is a belief that is not borne of proof. Nor is it led by a single man or spirit. It is merely spark in the hubris of the human mind which declares that the accidental creation of man is the limit of life in this universe, making man himself his own god. All hail man.
Were you born an idiot, or did you have to work at it? You're goddam right, all hail man. Rational Man. Without rational men like me you would in all probability be discovering that there is no life after death; and your little sky buddy isn't there to welcome you. Retard.
Well, it's difficult to argue the less than profound points of this post. For the sake of your religion of reason, we will assume that you are not representative of the brighter minds in your religion. But if you are, could you provide proof - beyond your own reasoned belief - that there is no life after death. To be sure, that proof, if it exists, would end all religions.
@kennyw-Does a decieved person know he is decieved? A real Christian knows he has no life to "invite" Jesus into. Does the creator of the universe need an "invitation" anywhere? When you realize your utter helplessness and depravity(including your enmity with God), only then can you realize salvation in Christ.
Bush and Barak claim to be Christian.
Sounds like the religion of a lady who didn't believe cigarettes caused cancer and there was no need for welfare, who died of lung cancer on welfare.