Hey freepers, let's make something crystal clear:

[originalpckelly]

Iran's President is a CONSERVATIVE!

He's just a Shi'a Islam conservative, not a Christian fundamentalist.

Just thought I'd remind you little pukes of that fact.

[MADem]

1. You'd think they'd adore the man, with his chastity brigades, his hanging

of teenagers for crimes against morality, his old Pasaradan who have morphed into the "Nuaghty No No" police...why, he's Pat Robertson, fresh off a diet, unshaven, and minus a tie....

[originalpckelly]

3. That's the thing...

America would be like Iran if the freepers had their way.

[barb162]

33. I don't think so. To equate the two is inaccurate

Sharia law is something completely different than anything having to do with modern Christianity. Christianity progressed. Sharia stays in the medieval era.

[alarimer]

44. It is PERFECTLY accurate to equate the two

The difference is only a matter of degree. Fundamentalist Christians just don't admit that they believe that gays should be put to death. And that women should be stoned to death for having sex outside marriage.

[barb162]

45. Hogwash.You have no data to support the crap you're selling

I can provide UN and a lot of other reports to support what I am writing here. And when you start seeing public stonings around here because some teenage girl decided to date or some woman walked in public without fully covering every square inch of her body, let us know.

[Amonester]

2. Don't waste your time.

They don't care about anyone but themselves.

[originalpckelly]

4. Oh, they probably have a few lurkers...

and then there are probably a couple of people reading DU from freeperville.

Oh wait, I meant stalkers, not lurkers. :-)

[Catherine Vincent]

5. I'll recommend this.

The freaks need to see this. Maybe some of them will open their eyes and change their ways.

[originalpckelly]

6. You know it's true and they can't deny it...

:rofl:

[candidate]

7. It's funny

Last year there was a headline that read that Iran's president was cleansing his school of liberal teachers who he thought were dangerous, subversive, and too progressive.

The article infuriated the freeptards, and they scrambled about saying things like "well liberal means conservative in Iran" and other nonsense.

But yes, he is definitely a conservative. He supports capital punishment, hates secularism, believes that separation of church and state is horrible and immoral, is pro-war, anit-gay, and loves nationalism/jingoism.

[originalpckelly]

9. Indeed. You know Osama Bin Laden is also a conservative and so is al-Qaeda.

[barb162]

35. Yeah and they'll slit your throat simply because you're an

infidel, like they did to Danny Pearl. Conservative isn't quit the right word here. Extremist reactionary militants might be more correct. Terrorist is an ever better and simpler title for bin Laden etal. Your average ordinary conservative is not going to fly suicide bomber planes into buildings and slit innocent people's throats on camera, wouldn't you say?

[Moses2SandyKoufax]

38. Your right!

They won't fly planes into buildings, blow themselves up on buses, or do any of the "dirty work" themselves. Why do that when they have the world's most powerful military to do the job for them?

[barb162]

40. I don't notice the military doing suicide bombing or throat

slitting on camera. Sorry, you got things "way, way " wrong

[Moses2SandyKoufax]

41. 600,000 dead Iraqis is nothing to sneeze at

true, they don't slit throats or blow up buses or markets, but they do drop bombs from high altitudes

[pampango]

42. I don't think that the 600,00 figure refers to those killed directly

by US forces, but the overall number of civilians killed in Iraq since the start of the war. If you have any facts regarding the breakdown of how many of the 600,000 were killed by US forces and how many by car bombs, suicide bombers and death squads, which were unleashed by the war, I would be interested to know the actual figures.

My guess is that the overwhelming majority have been killed by Sunni bombers and Shia death squads. That is their strategy and they are quite good at it. I think they are proud of their accomplishments. They don't deny that they are killing civilians. It is by far the most effective way to create chaos and send a message to the American public, if not to their president.

[Moses2SandyKoufax]

43. Fair enough

however, I think we can agree all 600,000 are dead as a result of the invasion and occupation.

[barb162]

48. wrong, I'lk take UN figures which are far lower

[Moses2SandyKoufax]

49. Delete

Wrong spot, sorry

[barb162]

47. That is the Lancet estimate which doesn't agree with the numbers

put out by the Iraqi government or the UN. I think the Lacet just messed up in its estimate, even though it's a really good organization. The UN states 30,000-40,000 dead in 2006 in Iraq and this is by far the bloodiest year to date.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070116.wnewiraq0116/BNStory/International
Gianni Magazzeni, the chief of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq in Baghdad, said 34,452 civilians were killed — an average of 94 per day — and 36,685 were wounded last year in sectarian violence.
The Iraqi Health Ministry did not comment on the UN report, which was based on information released by the Iraqi government and hospitals. The government has disputed previous figures released by the UN as "inaccurate and exaggerated."
Iraqi government figures announced in early January put last year's civilian death toll at 12,357. When asked about the difference, Mr. Magazzeni said the U.N. figures were compiled from information obtained through the Iraqi Health Ministry, hospitals across the country and the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad.

snip

[barb162]

46. They're killing each other now

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070116.wnewiraq0116/BNStory/International
UN puts Iraq's 2006 civilian death toll at 34,452
"...the United Nations said more than 34,000 Iraqi civilians died last year in sectarian violence"

I've been really doubting that 600,000 figure/Lancet estimate. I think it 's too high and too many others, like the UN, aren't coming near it. Still, one death is too many

[Moses2SandyKoufax]

50. I agree,

the death and destruction is wrong on all sides. I didn't want you to think I was overlooking acts of terrorists who murder innocent people. I'm glad to see we are in agreement.


P.S Thanks for helping me boost my post count!


:toast:

[Lusted4]

8. Mere technicality.

[originalpckelly]

10. ??

Whah?

[Lusted4]

22. Just being facetious. A rose by any name. nt

[geardaddy]

11. Off to the Greatest Page with you!

K&R'd

[Lord Byron]

12. No. He's NOT a "conservative"

He's as much a conservative as Brezhnev was a conservative, meaning that he supports the status quo. He's actually an economic populist. He's on the left side of things on those issues. I hate the guy, but let's not twist words.

[Ignacio Upton]

14. He's "conservative" relative to Iran's political spectrum

The Ayatollahs represent Iran's theocratic right. And calling for purging anti-theocrat professors from universities is NOT liberal in any way. Ahmadinejad would fit in with Coulter and Horowitz (well, if Horowitz wasn't Jewish any way.)

[Lord Byron]

16. You're absolutely correct

In Iran, he's a conservative. There's no question about it. But the meaning of conservative shifts depending on the country in question. For instance, in Cuba, a hardline Castroist versus a liberal pro-US reformer capitalist would be seen as a conservative vs. liberal battle, with the former being conservative. So it depends on the country.

But on cultural issues, the Iranian president is definitely conservative by every meaning of the word.

[Ignacio Upton]

19. In the EU "liberal" means neo-liberal and pro-coporation

So yeah, the meanings of words vary from country to country.

[Lord Byron]

23. Great point. eom

[originalpckelly]

27. Iran's President is a religious conservative...

as is any Islamist.

[MADem]

15. Are you unnmedicated? The man is PLAINLY a social conservative.

No one, the rightwingnuts included, are referring to economic policy when they label the man. Castro's on the left side of economic issues, too, but just try to pipe up on the wrong side of his crowd and see how much free speech you're afforded. Iran's the same way--it's a "My Way or the Highway" regime.

As for the Mighty Midget of Iran, he is simply the fundamentalist front man for a regime that is ruled by an unelected "Supreme Leader" who is chosen by an unelected board of "Guardians."

He was picked by that crowd, NOT by the people. Ten thousand candidates were striken from the ballots when that jerk ran. The Guardian Council and Supreme Leader are the real powers, and they are ARCH conservative.

THOSE guys decide 1. Who is allowed on the ballot; 2. How the money is spent, 3. How the Armed Forces are utilized. Not the little putz without the tie.

In and of himself, he has no overarching power. He has, in fact, about the same clout he had when he was the halfassed Mayor of Teheran, but he can be a shithead in Esfahan, Tabriz, Mashed, Qom, and so forth.

The guy is a mouthpiece, a frontman, nothing more.

[Lord Byron]

18. I agree with you 100%, BUT

to be fair, the Guardian Council is indirectly elected. Their government institutions are rather complex, but there's a pretty good overview on wikipedia. I agree with you though that he's a puppet of the Ayatollah. And he's certainly not a "liberal" (though I remember seeing someone defend him on his Holocaust views just because he's buddy-buddy with Hugo).

[MADem]

25. No they aren't. They are APPOINTED. It's a circle jerk, you see.

The government is not complicated at all. It's run by the damned mullahs. The Ayatullah Khomeini made damned sure that the clerics had ALL the power; and the only way to wrest it from them is by revolution--outright revolt. And they're running the same kind of police state the Shah ran to mitigate that possibility. As for the Guardians, they're appointed by the Supreme Leader, and they pick the Supreme Leader when he croaks, and the way they do it is that they tell a crowd of clowns called, jokingly, the Assembly of Experts, WHO they want for the job. As for those "Experts," guess who picks them??? The Guardian Council. Elections, shmelections--it's a damned farce.

Here, read this article, it's old, but it sums up the truth of how they run things over there--don't believe this "elections" bullshit--every outfit that weighs in on these things acknowledges they're a total sham over there. The clerics hold all the power, anything you see that suggests otherwise is a damned Potemkin village pack of lies to make you think its a free society over there. It isn't. http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/01/16/edsamii_ed3_.php

The mullahs and the ballot box : Can Iranians change their political system?

By A. William Samii International Herald Tribune

Friday, January 16, 2004


There has been an uproar in Iran over the hard-line Guardian Council's rejection of 3,533 out of 8,144 prospective candidates for the parliamentary election in February. Reformist legislators walked out of Parliament and mounted a sit-in. Some legislators and cabinet members, and all 27 provincial governors, threatened to resign....The Guardian Council comprises six clerics appointed by Iran's supreme leader, the unelected Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and six lawyers selected by the judiciary chief, who is appointed by the supreme leader. Its role in vetting electoral candidates is based on its interpretation of the constitutional article calling for it to "supervise elections."
.
This vetting process has upset many people for many years. Not only did the council reject hundreds of candidates before the February 2000 parliamentary polls, but it overturned the results in some constituencies where reformist candidates won. In response to past criticism, Khamenei has remarked that the council was the most important institution protecting the Islamic nature of the Iranian system and was duty-bound to "prevent infiltration of impure elements into pillars of the system."...
The council's rejection of so many prospective candidates is striking, but what is truly unusual is its decision that 80 incumbent parliamentarians are ineligible. ...In the last few years the 35-member Expediency Council has sided with the Guardian Council on several important issues, possibly because six members are the clerics on the Guardian Council, another one is the judiciary chief, and most of the rest are conservative appointees of the supreme leader. In March 2003, for example, it decided to increase significantly the Guardian Council's budget for electoral activities, despite the protestations of the president and speaker.
.
The third possible outcome summarizes Iran's democratic dilemma — an unelected body has control over elections, and only an unelected official can overrule that body. For all the elections Iran holds, and for all the talk of reformists and religious democracy, the real decisions are made by a handful of conservative clerics operating behind closed doors.
.
In the presidential elections of 1997 and 2001, as well as the parliamentary election of 2000, Iranians voted in overwhelming numbers for reformist candidates who promised to change things. But the promises came to naught and Iranians came to see that their efforts are futile in the face of opposition from entrenched forces who can manipulate the system to maintain their grip on power. ....

[barb162]

31. Brilliant post; I am saving this somewhere.

I think this guy and certainly his backers are religious extremists wanting to put every woman in that country in full Taliban style invisibility and zero civil rights. A country where sharia rules all and every aspect of life.

[pampango]

34. God (or Allah) save him from the West! He is our kind of guy. n/t

[barb162]

36. Who is "our"

God save him from the West? He's your kind of guy? Do you agree with his Holocaust denial too or are you being sarcastic?

[pampango]

37. Sorry, forgot the sarcasm tag.

Only in our current domestic political climate could could there be any doubt that you wouldn't wish this kind of politician and his beliefs, and those of his backers, on any populace in the world. Sometimes, our "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" thoughts makes for some very strange bedfellows.

In any normal world, missing for the past 6 years, it would be hard to find anyone at DU who would have a kind thing to say about the Iranian leader and his backers.

[barb162]

39. thanks, friend!

[barb162]

30. Wow, great post telling the truth like it is!!!

[jgraz]

13. Also?

You're a moran.

[Swamp Rat]

17. Osama Bin Freepers

Y'all are EXACTLY the same as the islamo-fascists.

[ourbluenation]

21. Ahmafreepinjad...

[Rex]

51. Blaming the Left for 911 and calling Dems terrorists.

Pat and Jerry - two asshats just stupid enough to be dangerous.

[demrabble]

20. He's a FUNDY

He's a conservative fundy.

Kinda like the Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell of Iran.

[originalpckelly]

28. Indeed.

Hence the reason I said that.

[StrictlyRockers]

24. Chastity belts anyone?

The Islamic fundamentalists are close cousins of the Christian fundamentalists, whether they want to see it or not. They both expouse what we call Puritanical values.

SR

[TheBaldyMan]

26. a minor correction - a conservative religious fundamentalist

k&r

[originalpckelly]

29. I hope that was clear enough...

I did mention religion didn't I?

[barb162]

32. He's as extremist fundamentalist as they come

Don't fool yourself that he's some mild-mannered moderate conservative.