Free Republic

Obama said in his latest hem-hawing, foreign policy bloviating, what-the-hell-is-he-talkin’-about press conference that “we need to have a vigorous debate” regarding Iran’s current tyrannical Muslim-based governmental crushing of young people who desire a touch of freedom. We need to debate? “We” who, BHO? I’m guessin’ he is talking about American liberals and conservatives because—from what I can deduce from the YouTube vids—it appears as if the Iranian dissidents aren’t looking for lively banter with the death dealing, lying through coffee-stained teeth religious whack jobs who look like a group of angry, homeless Santa Clauses on crack. A debate, Mr. O?...

So, as it turns out, U.S. President Barack Obama is not "God" when it comes to dealing with the Islamic world after all. This, contrary to that gushingly inane description of him by Newsweek editor-at-large Evan Thomas, following Obama's June 4 speech in Cairo, seeking reconciliation with Muslims. Unfortunately, just eight days after giving that speech, Obama was confronted by Iran's deadly crushing of citizen protests over an election now widely seen both inside and outside Iran as hopelessly corrupt. This would be the same Iran Obama had just finished telling the world in Cairo he was prepared to work...

Iranian police clash with up to 3,000 protesters AP – In this photo taken on Monday, June 15, 2009, a woman passes Iranian police officers, as they stand guard … By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer Witnesses in Iran say police have clashed with up to 3,000 protesters near a mosque in north Tehran. They say security forces fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, and some demonstrators fought back, chanting: "Where is my vote?" Witnesses at the scene tell The Associated Press that some protesters claimed they suffered broken arms or legs in Sunday's clashes around the Ghoba...

The Obama administration will leave open the door for discussions with Iran over its nuclear ambitions even as demonstrators question the legitimacy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election, administration officials said Sunday. Ahmadinejad has accused the West of stoking unrest, singling out Britain and the United States for alleged meddling. Last week, Iran expelled two British diplomats, and Britain responded in kind. Iran, which detained nine British Embassy employees Saturday before releasing four, has said it's considering downgrading diplomatic ties with Britain. The U.S. has not had diplomatic relations with Tehran since the aftermath of the Iranian revolution in 1979. On...

TRIBUTE TO NEDA AND ALL BRAVE IRANIAN WOMEN Please watch this great video that represents the depths of the depravity of the tyranical Islamic rule that the people of Iran, and particularly its women, suffer under. The likes of Khamanei & Ahmadinejad need to suffer the same fate of Benito Mussolini & Nicolae CeauÅŸescu. We cannot forget, or give up on the freedom fighters in Iran. Please remember them, remind your representatives of them, and support them in any way you can. Please join us at: Americans on facebook for Iranian Liberty

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Saturday to make the U.S. regret its criticism of Iran's postelection crackdown and said the "mask has been removed" from the Obama administration's efforts to improve relations. Ahmadinejad — with his internal opponents virtually silenced — all but dared Obama to keep calling for an end to repression of demonstrators who claim the hardline leader stole re-election through massive fraud. "You should know that if you continue the response of the Iranian nation will be strong," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to members of Iran's judiciary, which is directly controlled by the ruling clerics. "The response...

OBAMA TO IRAN: LET THEM EAT ICE CREAMJune 24, 2009 On Iran, President Obama is worse than Hamlet. He's Colin Powell, waiting to see who wins before picking a side. Last week, massive protests roiled Iran in response to an apparently fraudulent presidential election, in which nutcase Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner within two hours of the polls closing. (ACORN must be involved.) Obama responded by boldly declaring that the difference between the loon Ahmadinejad and his reformist challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, "may not be as great as advertised." Maybe the thousands of dissenters risking their lives protesting on...

This is an outstanding video interview of the man who tried to save Neda. It's about 19 minutes long but take the time to watch it.....one of the more shocking things to come out of it was that the crowd caught the gunman, and after taking his ID and picture let him go: [video at site] Meanwhile Threatswatch posted on the massacre in Baharestan Square yesterday by the Basij thugs, as told by a Iranian blogger: Bus loads of protesters were stopped and unloaded from their buses by "black-clad police" and literally herded. When the massing was sufficient, as the...

http://www.youtube.com/user/PNNVideo

<p>Late Sunday night and early Monday morning, some 300 police and members of the paramilitary Basij militia stormed the university’s dormitory, where students had protested against what millions of Iranians, along with most independent analysts, believe was a stolen election. Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the runaway winner, with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describing his victory as a “divine assessment.”</p>

• Reports militia drafted in and paid to beat protesters • Ministers threaten to cut diplomatic ties with UK Bloody clashes broke out in Tehran today as Iran's supreme leader said he would not yield to pressure over the disputed election. The renewed confrontation took place in Baharestan Square, near parliament, where hundreds of protesters faced off against several thousand riot police and other security personnel. Witnesses likened the scene to a ­war zone, with helicopters hovering overhead, many arrests and the police beating demonstrators. One woman told CNN that hundreds of unidentified men armed with clubs had emerged from...

Just saw it on Fox News in a discussion about the role of camera pens in the Iran protests.

Just caught the nd of a phone interview on CNN.. A woman from Tehran was describing going to a protest today in front of Parlement, and the protesters were ambushed by Basiji streaming out of a masque, who bwgan massacring the protesters, beating them to death, shooting them..Still on now..the woman is crying as she begs us for help!

Is history repeating itself in Iran? Is the country replaying its 1979 revolution that ended 25 centuries of monarchy? With the current crisis showing no signs of abatement, these questions haunt many of those interested in Iran's future. At first glance, there are many similarities between the current revolt and the 1979 one. The first of these is the fact that the streets of Tehran and other major cities have become the principal arena for the power struggle. In 1979, a substantial segment of Iranian society had lost all faith in institutional politics. The parliament was discredited because it was...

The last eight years well intentioned people of different political beliefs, different religious faiths, and different cultural perspectives have been quietly asking themselves some vital questions. Is Islam a religion of peace? Is the goal of Islam violent global conquest or rather the persuasion of non-Moslems that Islam is the true religion? There are many good Moslems in our world, but is that because of Islam or in spite of Islam? These questions will be answered in Iran. There is no question (or there should not be) that the Iranian people -- actually, the different peoples of the nation of...

Whatever else former president George W. Bush got wrong, he was right about this at least: "The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder." (Speech to American Enterprise Institute, February 2003.) That is, foster liberty in the world’s most oppressive countries and watch the axis of evil bend, then break. Look at Iran today. True, the burden of proof is on anybody who wants to attribute a passion for liberty to Tehran’s crowds. At one point, more than a million people were thought to...

I'm Josh Shahryar AKA NiteOwl - iran_translator on twitter - and I've been immersed in tweets from Iran for the past several hours. I have tried to be extremely careful in choosing my tweet sources and have tried maximally to avoid listening to media banter. What I have compiled below is what I can confirm through my tweets to have happened in the past day and in the past week in Iran. Remember, this is all from tweets. There is NOTHING included here that is not from a reliable tweet. No news media outlets have been used in the compilation...

The young people of Tehran who threw themselves in frustration at the security forces seem to be the group that in the great High School Yearbook of the Civilizations would have been voted least likely to succeeded. They are a suppurating mass of social pathologies. Oil wealth has made prostitution an acceptable way for a young woman to earn university tuition. Perhaps 5% of the adult population is addicted to opiates. About two-fifths of them say they would emigrate given the chance.

Government authorities stepped up their crackdown on protesters Monday, as officials for the first time acknowledged evidence of voting irregularities in this month's presidential election, the issue that has sparked the largest street demonstrations since the Islamic Republic was established three decades ago. An initial probe into the June 12 presidential election has shown that the number of ballots cast exceeded the number of registered voters in 50 locales, a discrepancy affecting 3 million votes or more, according to the spokesman for the Guardian Council, a body of jurists and clerics in charge of safeguarding the country's constitution The council...

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.—Dietrich Bonhoeffer Question. Silence in the face of murder in the streets of Tehran and a government killing our citizens and soldiers. Vocal support for democratic elections and unseen consequences.