Civil War in Syria
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Cory
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« Reply #350 on: December 26, 2012, 10:13:58 AM »


This is patently false. What would you have us do, invade Persia to prop up the Shah?
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Lief 🗽
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« Reply #351 on: December 26, 2012, 04:23:24 PM »

Our betrayal and treatment of the Shah was the greatest moral and geopolitical travesty of the past fifty years.

This might be the most ridiculous thing anyone's ever said on this forum.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #352 on: December 26, 2012, 05:42:41 PM »

Our betrayal and treatment of the Shah was the greatest moral and geopolitical travesty of the past fifty years.

This might be the most ridiculous thing anyone's ever said on this forum.

It is pretty bad, but...

Armstrong is clean and thus he won fair and square. He's taken over 500 drug tests and was exonerated every time. This is what happens when a bunch of euros can't stomach that an American beat them on their turf 7 years in a row. He is thus champion. End of story
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Insula Dei
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« Reply #353 on: December 26, 2012, 05:59:32 PM »

Yeah, that's one of the most disgusting things I've ever read.
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Simfan34
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« Reply #354 on: December 26, 2012, 07:11:19 PM »
« Edited: March 20, 2014, 07:26:37 PM by Simfan »

Well, I'm disappointed but not really surprised at the reaction. In a forum where pornography is celebrated as artistic expression and prostitution considered liberating, I should have expected that a regime as modern and progressive as the Shah's would be given so little credit.

Ah, I assume you're all waving your arms at this point. Talking about how Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was a megalomaniac dictator or the like. From the people that exult Hugo Chavez. I suppose dramatic economic growth means very little to you people. Iran had been posting growth rates similar to that of Japan by the 1970s, had the revolution never occurred, it is likely Iran would have ranked within the top ten largest economies in the world by now. The rate of development in imperial Iran was frenetic, six, seven, eight percent per annum. And it wasn't just oil. One of the Shah's major goals was the diversification of the Iranian economy, and the country was experiencing steady, consistent industrialization, with several factories, auto plants, and steel mills opening regularly. And who can forget the infamous "Guess Who's Building Nuclear Power Plants?" ad? The Shah was ready for a post-oil economy, and wanted Iran to become a major economic power, with or without petroleum.

Let's not forget his social policies. Inequality was kept low because of the reforms of the White Revolution, redistributing lands to tenant sharecroppers that had once belonged to the clerics. The dramatic increases in literacy and education. The modernization of the health services of the country, electrification, irrigation, bringing the Green Revolution to Iran. All worthless, I suppose. Then there was his progressive social policies, extending higher education to the masses, allowing local councils. And his policies towards women, in education, in the workplace, in the armed forces. This was a major triumph, and even the revolution could not reverse that. Because Iranian women cannot be forced back into the chador, Iran remains fairly liberal in this regard, when compared to say, Saudi Arabia, but it still became very repressive by any decent standard.

I'm not even going to address apologism for that dictator-in-the-wings, Mosaddegh.

Allowing this state to collapse into what it has become was a moral travesty because it was the Carter Administration who refused to support the Shah in his time of need, allowing the disgusting Khomeini free passage in France instead of detaining him as they should have. The called for wishy-washy, unspecific "reform", emboldening agents of anarchy and protest. They refused to send arms and riot control goods to Iran- so where police would have used tear gas and rubber pellets, they were left with no choice but to use live bullets. By not standing up to the rioters' demands, the Carter Administration encouraged further unrest.

Of course, it is important to realize several in the West were more than willing to see the Shah fall, being afraid of his scheme to have Iran as a major world power, especially in the United Kingdom, where they were still bitter about the loss of "their" oil. Certainly Powell-esque voices of this sort only encouraged the negligent and malfeasant policy towards Iran. The Shah was a strong, reliable ally of the United States, but only to a point, and he always put his country's interests first. That unsettled some people, that the Shah was not some vain potentate willing to sell out his people in order to live in luxury.

It is a geopolitical travesty because, well, it allowed the Imperial State of Iran to become the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is almost unfathomable to conceive what the Middle East would have looked like had the Shah remained in power. No Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. No Iran-Iraq War, or at least, an Iranian floorwipe. No Gulf War. No Iranian backed Hezbollah or Hamas. No 9/11. No Iraq War. No Afghan War... that's only the beginning. Imagine a Middle East dominated by a progressive, pro-Western Iran, instead of a backwards Iran or Saudi Arabia. Just imagine it. In almost no way could any person alive today be worse off had the Shah stayed in power. I'm sure this, as you just said, disgusts you.
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TheDeadFlagBlues
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« Reply #355 on: December 26, 2012, 07:20:50 PM »

Not to suggest I think that the "success" of Shah's economic policies justifies his disgusting regime, Simfan really needs to take this into consideration:


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Simfan34
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« Reply #356 on: December 26, 2012, 07:28:19 PM »
« Edited: January 28, 2013, 07:04:17 PM by Simfan34 »

Not to suggest I think that the "success" of Shah's economic policies justifies his disgusting regime, Simfan really needs to take this into consideration:




I'm not afraid to admit that while slightly familiar with the Solow growth model, I'm not entirely sure how this pertains to my argument.
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TheDeadFlagBlues
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« Reply #357 on: December 26, 2012, 07:38:46 PM »
« Edited: December 26, 2012, 07:41:05 PM by TheDeadFlagBlues »

Not to suggest I think that the "success" of Shah's economic policies justifies his disgusting regime, Simfan really needs to take this into consideration:




I'm not afraid to admit that while slightly familiar with the Solow growth model, I'm not entirely sure how this pertains to my argument.

The rapid Iranian growth rates weren't miraculous by any means and mirrored those seen around the world. Increasing capital investments in technologies that would yield far higher rates of production leads to rapid gains in standards of living. This rule is uniform and suggests that the rapid worldwide growth that occurred between 1950 and 2000 is due to optimization of easily applicable/currently existing technologies.  Do you support Park Chung-Hee, the PRI and Brazil's military rule simply because they managed to sustain high levels of growth in their respective countries? Seeing as its you, I wouldn't be surprised but my general point is that as long that civil society was maintained, some degree of foreign investment was allowed and basic investments in modern infrastructure were made; rapid growth was inevitable in this era.  

The Solow growth model illustrates this concept of convergence. My basic point is that it isn't remarkable by any means that Iran sustained a high level of growth during the Shah's reign. Then again, you also think that Stiglitz and Krugman are "dangerous" so your understanding of economics must be pretty shallow.
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Simfan34
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« Reply #358 on: December 26, 2012, 07:46:08 PM »
« Edited: February 08, 2013, 08:41:45 PM by Simfan34 »

Of course, I've never heard this hypothesis but I'm disinclined to believe it. 1950-2000 was hardly a period of "rapid worldwide growth", one should ask the stagnant Latin American economies, disintegrating African ones, or peaking European ones, or India, or the USSR, it goes on. The only major stories of the period was the expected European recovery and the strong emergence of several Asian economies.

There's no need to belittle my knowledge of economics. Though I'm sure you knew it would be extra-offensive to an economics major. Roll Eyes

Of that list, BTW, the only one I'm willing to support is Park Chung-Hee. The rest were incompetents and autocrats.
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Lief 🗽
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« Reply #359 on: December 26, 2012, 07:46:44 PM »

Simfan's new post may be even worse. I don't know what kind of twisted perspective of reality results in thinking that the Shah was some progressive hero who brought economic growth and equality to the country and saved it from the dictator Mosaddegh, but the fact that he actually believes in this nonsense is more disgusting than a one sentence posting of hyperbole.
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Donerail
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« Reply #360 on: December 26, 2012, 07:49:46 PM »

I'd rather be free and poor than wealthy yet under the boot of a SAVAK agent.
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TheDeadFlagBlues
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« Reply #361 on: December 26, 2012, 08:00:37 PM »

Of course, I've never heard this hypothesis but I'm disinclined to believe it. 1950-2000 was hardly a period of "rapid worldwide growth", one should ask the stagnant Latin American economies, disintegrating African ones, or peaking European ones, or India, or the USSR, it goes on. The only major stories of the period was the expected European recovery and the strong emergence of several Asian economies.

There's no need to belittle my knowledge of economics. Though I'm sure you knew it would be extra-offensive to an economics major. Roll Eyes

Of that list, BTW, the only one I'm willing to support is Park Chung-Hee. The rest were incompetents and autocrats.



I'm done with this discussion, your mindset is warped.
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Lief 🗽
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« Reply #362 on: December 26, 2012, 08:00:52 PM »
« Edited: December 26, 2012, 08:05:11 PM by Lief »

I actually wrote a paper in undergrad for one of my classes looking at American media portrayals of the Iranian revolution, and Simfan's perspective of the Shah and the revolutionaries is almost verbatim what the Wall Street Journal was printing in the winter of 79-80. The Shah was always portrayed sympathetically: he and his people were serious modernizers who knew how to run an economy; the revolutionaries were all hot-headed Muslim savages, whipped up into a riotous frenzy, who would destroy the Iranian economy. Never mind the fact that the revolution was supported by all strata of society, secular and religious, working and middle class, and never mind that the Shah was a murderous, nasty dictator, who created a society of stark inequality and corruption, robbing Iran of its oil wealth to fund his opulent palaces and have meals flown in from Paris.

I'd rather be free and poor than wealthy yet under the boot of a SAVAK agent.

If you lived in Iran in the late 1970s you'd probably be under the boot of a SAVAK agent and poor. I don't know where Simfan gets this nonsense that Iran was some prosperous place free of economic inequality.
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Simfan34
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« Reply #363 on: December 26, 2012, 08:05:56 PM »
« Edited: February 08, 2013, 08:41:36 PM by Simfan34 »

I'd rather be free and poor than wealthy yet under the boot of a SAVAK agent.

Ah, the security agency with 200 prisoners? How frightening. And then the one that became the truly frightening SAVAMA under the IRI? How ironic. The truth is the vast majority of instability in Iran was perpetrated either by fundamentalists or communists. The real radical fringe. Hardly your sort. Better to stay in the Imperial centre.
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Nhoj
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« Reply #364 on: December 26, 2012, 08:07:01 PM »

Back on the subject of Syria,
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/12/2012122614513868810.html
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Simfan34
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« Reply #365 on: December 26, 2012, 08:18:25 PM »
« Edited: February 08, 2013, 08:41:21 PM by Simfan34 »

We're not done, Nhoj.

I actually wrote a paper in undergrad for one of my classes looking at American media portrayals of the Iranian revolution, and Simfan's perspective of the Shah and the revolutionaries is almost verbatim what the Wall Street Journal was printing in the winter of 79-80. The Shah was always portrayed sympathetically: he and his people were serious modernizers who knew how to run an economy; the revolutionaries were all hot-headed Muslim savages, whipped up into a riotous frenzy, who would destroy the Iranian economy. Never mind the fact that the revolution was supported by all strata of society, secular and religious, working and middle class, and never mind that the Shah was a murderous, nasty dictator, who created a society of stark inequality and corruption, robbing Iran of its oil wealth to fund his opulent palaces and have meals flown in from Paris.

I'd rather be free and poor than wealthy yet under the boot of a SAVAK agent.

If you lived in Iran in the late 1970s you'd probably be under the boot of a SAVAK agent and poor. I don't know where Simfan gets this nonsense that Iran was some prosperous place free of economic inequality.

Yes, because that's what they actually were. Of course, it's very easy to get people into revolutionary, fervour, especially when your cleric is telling you to. Many of these "secular" sectors you actually talk about were actually communist. And they did ruin the economy.

Murderous, nasty dictator. You, of course, bring up the festivities associated with the 2500th anniversary of Iranian monarchy. Funny how they always talk about the food, and never the massive new infrastructural projects, or the thirty two hundred schools built to also mark the occasion. Or the iconic Shahyad Tower, but that appeals to the aesthete in me.

And the palaces? A leader isn't allowed to build a new residence or two in a 40-odd year reign? The hypocrisy is killing me.
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Donerail
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« Reply #366 on: December 26, 2012, 08:29:19 PM »

I'd rather be free and poor than wealthy yet under the boot of a SAVAK agent.

If you lived in Iran in the late 1970s you'd probably be under the boot of a SAVAK agent and poor. I don't know where Simfan gets this nonsense that Iran was some prosperous place free of economic inequality.

True; merely suspending disbelief to make a point.

I'd rather be free and poor than wealthy yet under the boot of a SAVAK agent.

Ah, the security agency with 200 prisoners? How frightening. And then the one that became the truly frightening SAVAMA under the IRI? How ironic. The truth is the vast majority of instability in Iran was perpetrated either by fundamentalists or communists. The real radical fringe. Hardly your sort. Better to stay in the Imperial centre.

I'd be very interested in hearing your source for 200 prisoners. My numbers put it at "thousands" (Time, FAS). SAVAK was SAVAMA: they took over the same apparatus, and retained much of the personnel. And are you suggesting I'm a centrist now? And fearmongering of Tudeh. How Eisenhowerian.
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Simfan34
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« Reply #367 on: December 27, 2012, 06:23:20 PM »
« Edited: February 08, 2013, 08:41:28 PM by Simfan34 »

The Shah was progressive, and the advances made were heroic, so, yes, he was a "progressive hero".
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Silent Hunter
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« Reply #368 on: December 28, 2012, 04:05:44 PM »

Syrian troops using killer gas bombs, says Syrian Observatory for Human Right

SYRIAN troops have deployed bombs containing a killer gas while fighting rebels in the central city of Homs.

"Activists in Homs say that six rebels died on Sunday night on the Khaldiyeh-Bayada frontline because they inhaled odourless gas and white smoke," said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists, lawyers and doctors to document Syria's raging conflict.

"Gas spread in the area after regime troops threw bombs that gave off white smoke as soon as they hit the walls," said the Observatory, which added the bombs were deployed during street clashes with the rebels.

"Those who inhaled the gas felt nauseous and suffered severe headaches. Some suffered fits," it added.

"These are not chemical weapons, but we do not know whether they are internationally prohibited," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

"Activists say it is the first time they have recorded these effects," he added. "They are not conventional weapons."

The Observatory called on the International Committee of the Red Cross to urgently send a specialised medical team to Homs, several of whose districts have been besieged by army forces for more than six months.

The Local Co-ordination Committees also reported the use of "bombs containing gases" in Homs.

"These gases lead to muscle relaxation, severe difficulty in breathing and the narrowing of the iris," said the LCC, a grassroots network of peaceful activists.

Amateur video filmed by activists and distributed online by the LCC showed a man laid out on a stretcher struggling to breathe as an unidentified doctor held an oxygen mask over his face.

"It's definitely a poisonous gas, but we don't know what type it is," said a field doctor.

http://www.news.com.au/news/syrian-troops-using-killer-gas-bombs/story-fnehlez2-1226543183488

Does tear gas have that sort of effect?
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Frodo
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« Reply #369 on: January 06, 2013, 11:25:32 PM »

Assad is going to die fighting:

Syria’s Assad is defiant in rare speech

By Liz Sly, Updated: Sunday, January 6, 8:58 PM

BEIRUT — In a rare public appearance Sunday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad dashed hopes that a negotiated settlement to the nation’s civil war would be feasible anytime soon, delivering a speech in which he offered no hint that he is prepared to surrender power, negotiate with his opponents or halt his crackdown on armed rebels.
(...)
Appearing weary but defiant as he addressed cheering supporters at the Opera House in central Damascus, the president sketched a plan for what he called a period of “transition,” in which a new government would be formed, a national pact would be drafted and a referendum would be held.

Assad’s proposals were vague, however, and made no mention of a mechanism under which he would surrender any of his powers, let alone step aside, as the opposition and most international governments have called for. He put the onus of responsibility for the plan on Western powers, which he said must end their support for the opposition before the implementation of a cease-fire and the convening of a national conference to chart reforms.

In his first public speech since June, Assad also made clear that his priority is to crush by force the nearly two-year-long uprising against his rule, labeling his opponents “terrorists” and “criminals.”
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
Ernest
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« Reply #370 on: January 07, 2013, 01:31:06 AM »

That's been clear ever since the Soviets Russians said last year that they weren't going to take him in if he decided to flee.  He has no other choice now.  If he stops fighting, he's dead.
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Blue3
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« Reply #371 on: January 07, 2013, 02:33:07 AM »

There are some countries that have offered him asylum... but yeah, he's not going to take it. He's a madman on a killing spree.
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« Reply #372 on: January 07, 2013, 02:43:40 AM »

Perhaps the Russians view Assad as a tool they can use to safely troll the west as long as he genuinely fears for his life. Fly/ship him some ex-Soviet hardware, accuse the west of supporting Islamic terrorists, frustrate US attempts to leave the Middle East, and cause trouble for key US allies Israel and Turkey. The only cost is some hot air from Washington.
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Cory
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« Reply #373 on: January 07, 2013, 10:26:59 AM »

That's been clear ever since the Soviets Russians said last year that they weren't going to take him in if he decided to flee.  He has no other choice now.  If he stops fighting, he's dead.

I wonder if it really came down to it Russia would arrange for Belarus to take Assad in if he falls? Belarus doesn't have really anything to loose by taking him in, although it's clear that the Russians are already jockeying not to alienate the new Syria more then they need to.
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they don't love you like i love you
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« Reply #374 on: January 13, 2013, 04:01:59 PM »

You can play a game of this here or on an Android if you have one.
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