[OFF TOPIC] Politics Thread

[Monzanator 4,503]

10 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

He’s the President we need. Why the fuck, are we voting for Biden!?!

Normally I wouldn’t just share random posts, but damn this was a great speech. He’s not eloquent, he doesn’t follow the proper techniques, but he speaks with heart and power, and that’s what America needs right now.

 

Tell that to the blacks & suburban blue-collars. Biden had absolutely destroyed Sanders in these two groups

[MHSN 3,621]

Since we have LOTS of free time these days, I decided to read more about the history of Iranian politics. I'm not talking about the million years ago, I mean years around 1979, the Islamic revolution, the problem is it's impossible to find neutral and fair sources, everything is biased.

 

if you listen to IR sources

the Shah was a brutal dictator and his SAVAK killed lots of people, the whole "corrupt western world" (and even eastern) was supporting him. Khomeini was an angel falling from the heaven, it was only an "Islamic revolution" and other groups had nothing to do with it (which is in fact a big lie)

 

and if you listen to anti-IR sources
Shah was such a nationalistic gentleman but since the "western world" was afraid of him of being the next superpower, they plotted against him, they "made" Khomeini ! and BBC played a big role they still call it Ayatollah BBC,  (if you don't believe me, just google that, you will be surprised )

 

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recently I got my hands on some old newspapers, reading them is a very interesting experience for me, most of those comments and interviews at 1980s sounds extremely stupid and unbelievable right now in 2020

 

but the reason why I brought this up is a sport-related reason, it was always my question why exactly Iran boycotted two Olympics in a row. both Moscow and Los Angeles. today I found a newspaper from 1984, statement from the Iranian prime minister at the time about boycotting the games, I'm going to translate the most important part:

 

Because USA continues to meddle in middle east countries affairs, specially USA government's support for the "Zionist regime" and because of the crimes they are committing in Latin American countries specially  El Salvador !!! The Cabinet decides that our athletes don't participate ...

 

really, El Salvador ?

[konig 1,504]

2 hours ago, MHSN said:

Since we have LOTS of free time these days, I decided to read more about the history of Iranian politics. I'm not talking about the million years ago, I mean years around 1979, the Islamic revolution, the problem is it's impossible to find neutral and fair sources, everything is biased.

 

if you listen to IR sources

the Shah was a brutal dictator and his SAVAK killed lots of people, the whole "corrupt western world" (and even eastern) was supporting him. Khomeini was an angel falling from the heaven, it was only an "Islamic revolution" and other groups had nothing to do with it (which is in fact a big lie)

 

and if you listen to anti-IR sources
Shah was such a nationalistic gentleman but since the "western world" was afraid of him of being the next superpower, they plotted against him, they "made" Khomeini ! and BBC played a big role they still call it Ayatollah BBC,  (if you don't believe me, just google that, you will be surprised )

 

----------------

recently I got my hands on some old newspapers, reading them is a very interesting experience for me, most of those comments and interviews at 1980s sounds extremely stupid and unbelievable right now in 2020

 

but the reason why I brought this up is a sport-related reason, it was always my question why exactly Iran boycotted two Olympics in a row. both Moscow and Los Angeles. today I found a newspaper from 1984, statement from the Iranian prime minister at the time about boycotting the games, I'm going to translate the most important part:

 

Because USA continues to meddle in middle east countries affairs, specially USA government's support for the "Zionist regime" and because of the crimes they are committing in Latin American countries specially  El Salvador !!! The Cabinet decides that our athletes don't participate ...

 

really, El Salvador ?

There are things about our countrys thats is better to dont know 

 

Ate least for what i read, the Sha was in part incompetent and a puppet of some western goverments (not like Puyi of Manchuria, of course) and understimate absolutly his oposition and Khomeini, very helped for the western leftist (specially from France), one of his biggest mistake was the hard repression using the army against the few oposition in the streets, with the deads, they increase the numbers in a few time.

 

 

[MHSN 3,621]

7 minutes ago, konig said:

There are things about our countrys thats is better to dont know 

 

Ate least for what i read, the Sha was in part incompetent and a puppet of some western goverments (not like Puyi of Manchuria, of course) and understimate absolutly his oposition and Khomeini, very helped for the western leftist (specially from France), one of his biggest mistake was the hard repression using the army against the few oposition in the streets, with the deads, they increase the numbers in a few time.

 

 

 

yeah, but to me dates around 1977 to 1988 is like a black hole, you rarely can find information about those days. I mean from reliable sources because as I said earlier everything is biased.

 

yes of course he underestimated Khomeini, he had multiple opportunities to murder him but he didn't, Khomeini was in exile in Iraq for something like 15 years and  from what we know now, Saddam Hussein asked for MohammadReza's permission to murder Khomeini few times but he didn't want to do that, mostly because he was religious himself ! killing a grand Ayatollah was crossing the line for him.

 

Shah has a very famous speech on the national TV (or maybe radio) two months before the revolution, there is a famous line "People, I heard your voice of revolution" saying that could save him a year ago but he "heard" the voice when it was too late, he had to flee the country few days after this speech (and never had the chance to come back) his last prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar is one of the people I respect the most, he was jailed by the same Shah but Shah released him from prison only few weeks before the revolution asking him to save everything. he tried to help only because he knew what's going to happen when Khomeini captures the power. but as I said it was too late, Bakhtiar later got murdered brutally in France.

 

I'm not sure if other countries had anything to do with the revolution, they probably just let it happen but it was really people's revolution, Khomeini deceived everybody. it wasn't really an Islamic revolution at the start, there were other groups involved too. Khomeini was charismatic and indeed smart and took advantage of the situation, I recently watched a documentary on Sadegh Ghotbzadeh , he was very very close to Khomeini during the revolution, they were like father and son, he played a huge role, risked his life so many times but then got executed by the same person he was adoring , of course he was really planing for a coup but mostly because there were people like him believing their revolution is being hijacked by the islamists. in fact there is a famous picture, when Khomeini arrived in Tehran (from France) 10 days before the revolution, everybody on that plane risked their lives because it was always possible that Shah Airforce decides to shoot down the plane , what's amazing is nobody in that airplane is in power in Iran right now, they all got jailed, executed, or fled the country.

 

as I said most of these things don't make sense in 2020, I really can't understand most of  these comments, decisions,  actions etc. the whole war with Iraq doesn't make sense, I know Saddam started the war, but Iran could end it after 2 years, but they fought 6 more years for nothing, Khomeini was still extremely popular when he died, only after his death people started to open their eyes and learn about his true nature. what I never understand is what people were seeing in this man from the first day ?

[Dolby 735]

7 hours ago, MHSN said:

the whole war with Iraq doesn't make sense, I know Saddam started the war, but Iran could end it after 2 years, but they fought 6 more years for nothing, Khomeini was still extremely popular when he died, only after his death people started to open their eyes and learn about his true nature. what I never understand is what people were seeing in this man from the first day ?

I have a theory about Iran-Iraq war. It is just my theory, so most probably it is horribly wrong but still, here it is. 
 

Shah was American ally and Saddam was Russian ally initially. Russia was able to install Khomeini and was even able to have a communist coup in Afghanistan. In India, as well in 1980, Indira Gandhi, Soviet ally, was back in power. So, the only American ally in the region was Pakistan. 
 

USA asked Saddam to attack Iran and promised him Kuwait as reward for doing so. Iran was distracted on its eastern front and couldn’t help Russia with logistics in Soviet–Afghan war severely crippling Soviets. USA was able to flood and supply Afghanistan with Mujahideens through Pakistan. And was hence able to win the war. USA then dithered on Kuwait to Iraq leading to US-Iraq war. 
 

Maybe Iran’s top leadership at that time really believed that they could annex a substantial portion of Iraq and hence kept on going. 

[MHSN 3,621]

6 hours ago, Dolby said:

I have a theory about Iran-Iraq war. It is just my theory, so most probably it is horribly wrong but still, here it is. 
 

Shah was American ally and Saddam was Russian ally initially. Russia was able to install Khomeini and was even able to have a communist coup in Afghanistan. In India, as well in 1980, Indira Gandhi, Soviet ally, was back in power. So, the only American ally in the region was Pakistan. 
 

USA asked Saddam to attack Iran and promised him Kuwait as reward for doing so. Iran was distracted on its eastern front and couldn’t help Russia with logistics in Soviet–Afghan war severely crippling Soviets. USA was able to flood and supply Afghanistan with Mujahideens through Pakistan. And was hence able to win the war. USA then dithered on Kuwait to Iraq leading to US-Iraq war. 
 

Maybe Iran’s top leadership at that time really believed that they could annex a substantial portion of Iraq and hence kept on going. 

 

wow, that's too much

 

Iran got close to Russia only in past 10-20 years but Khomeini was strongly anti-soviet. actually he was anti everything. their slogan at the start was "No East, No west, only Islamic Republic" I really don't hear that these days. not at all, Khomeini and his friends used some of those communist groups (like any other anti-shah group) to make the revolution happen but after 1979 they arrested and executed most of communist leaders (it was called "Tudeh Party" at the time) even though I have to say some of those groups were as bad as him, MEK (or as I call them the Iranian version of ISIS) killed so many high rank officials, they had so many successful terrorist plans, including killing president Rajaei. those actions actually gave Khomeini more power and excuse to go further and silence all opposition groups. including Soviet-backed parties.

 

I'm not sure why Saddam started the war, I'm still trying to read more about that, but he knew Khomeini is his eternal enemy ( as I said he wanted to murder Khomeini when he was in Iraq) and Iraq was a Shia-majority country. he was probably afraid of Iran. he was also at war with Iran under Shah but they made peace later. after the revolution they destroyed most of the army, arresting and executing most of top army generals, so maybe Saddam saw an opportunity to attack a VERY weakened Iran and he was counting on Iranian-Arabs to support him. people in Southwest of Iran (oil rich provinces) are ethnic Arab but he was wrong and they didn't support him. Saddam invaded few parts of Iran, but then Iran regrouped and after 2 years they kicked Saddam's army out of Iranian lands. but the war didn't stop, Khomeini has a very very famous quota. "The Road to Quds (Jerusalem) passes through Karbala" in his wildest dream he was dreaming the Iraqi Shias supporting him taking religious parts of Iraq. Khomeini never wanted to stop the war, after 6 years finally some politicians managed to convince him that it's useless and since the whole world is somehow supporting Saddam and Iran is running out of everything, and Saddam was starting to use chemical weapons. (thanks to some European countries/companies) Khomeini only accepted the ceasefire because he had no other option, and drunk the "cup of poison" as he said himself.

 

of course there are still lots of secrets about that bloody war we still don't know.

[rybak 3,218]

 North Macedonia just joins to NATO, beings 30 member

[Agger 1,663]

 

Just lovely with a president who prioritize the right things...

[Olympian1010 7,976]

3 minutes ago, Agger said:

 

Just lovely with a president who prioritize the right things...

Things like this don’t shock me anymore. We all know he cares about no one but himself. We all know he’s rather incompetent. We all know he’s an ineffectual leader. It just is what it is at this point.

[Agger 1,663]

2 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Things like this don’t shock me anymore. We all know he cares about no one but himself. We all know he’s rather incompetent. We all know he’s an ineffectual leader. It just is what it is at this point.

 

I'm not really shocked either. Just pretty sad to see a president caring more about himself and his reelection campaign than the situation. Thank god for Dr. Fauci (and to some degree Birx)