Think Before You Bomb (video)

SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Pt.4, So What? Back in America

2008-11-13T14:14:00.014-06:00

Back in America ...
Footage from the September 1, 2008 march on the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN

Old Iran hand ...
is Robert Tait, "who spent nearly three years in Iran as a correspondent for the Guardian until he was forced to leave last December when the government refused to renew his visa."
SOURCE: www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/iran-fury.html

"The regime feeds off American hostility. Every time there's another threat from Washington, that gives them more oxygen. ... They won't be able to use this threat indefinitely. There's a widespread feeling in Iran that the way things are isn't the way they should be. People believe that too much isolation has not been good for them. But as long as there seems to be a clear and present danger, the government has what it sees as a justification to do whatever it wants."
SOURCE: www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/iran-fury.html

Comments on the Iran-Iraq War

SOURCE: Wikipedia:
"Not all saw the war in negative terms. The Islamic Revolution of Iran was strengthened and radicalized. [Nasr, Vali, The Shia Revival, Norton, (2006), p.140]
The Iranian government-owned Etelaat newspaper wrote:

"There is not a single school or town that is excluded from the happiness of waging war, from drinking the exquisite elixir of death or from the sweet death of the martyr, who dies in order to live forever in paradise." [Column in Etelaat, [[April 4]], [[1983]], quoted in Molavi, Afshin, Soul of Iran, Norton, (2006)]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War

COMMENT: Can it be that when the hardliners of the Islamic Republic consider the possibility of an American attack they remember ...

the Hostage Crisis at the Den of Spies - that established decades of American enmity towards Iran but whose popularity at home was so strong it led to the downfall of Bazargan's moderate Provisional Government and the passage of the theocratic constitution? and ...

the Iran-Iraq War - the last time another country invaded Iran? how the swelling of patriotism solidified the Islamic Revolution?

SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Pt.4, So What? Thoughts

2008-11-11T20:34:00.016-06:00

And surely you wouldn’t want anything to happen to her!!

COMMENT: This Iranian university student we met in Tehran was not only a charmer, but not-at-all pro-regime. The most pro-reform and pro-democracy demographic in Iran is women, young, and educated. North Tehran is also ground zero anti-regime territory. This was filmed in far north Tehran.

Issue of the Hostage Crisis

So what can you say to the neocon who argues that
If the issue is the injustice of the 1953 coup and Shah’s dictatorship,
then the solution to bad relations is justice. But if the issue is spite, hatred, domination … then fair play can’t really help better relations with Iran.
How can anything - except maybe force?

COMMENT: According to Middle East Expert William R.Polk: “One is the hostage issue at the American embassy [in Tehran] which has left a very deep and still raw scar on American public opinion. Throughout America people still mention that.”

SOURCE: Middle East Expert William R.Polk on United States foreign policy toward Iran interviewed by Ali Fathollah-Nejad at http://www.juancole.com/]

SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Pt.3 - Economics

2008-10-21T16:24:00.013-05:00

Arid Land
10% arable land
SOURCE: http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:uvury3Leg0MJ:earthtrends.wri.org/pdf_library/country_profiles/agr_cou_364.pdf+iran+arable+land+pasture&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

Gas Rationing

As one critic put it: "Iran is blowing its oil profits on petrol subsidies, so that people end up spending hours a day in traffic jams. ... At this rate, Iran will burn through its oil wealth in a generation"

SOURCE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/11/iran?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews
Julian Borger, “High-octane politics,” ''Guardian'', March 11, 2008

Since the rationing started you only get 26/gallons a month per car at that price. If you want more, it’s a buck and a half a gallon, or at least it was in May.

SOURCE: http://www.payvand.com/news/08/may/1181.html ]
[ http://www.aspo-usa.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=165&Itemid=2 “Gas Subsidies and Iran” Written by Dave Cohen, 05 July 2007 ]

SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Pt.3 - Officials

2008-10-21T16:23:00.017-05:00

Here’s the head of the government organization that organized our tour in Iran

He was the Director of the Center for Interreligious Dialogue, which was part of the Organization of Islamic Culture and Relations. You may remember him from the Question on Sunnis in Iran in Part 2.

Protect the young people from post-modernism with religious media – as though Iranian TV wasn’t force-feeding all the religious programming they could already.

Iranian TV (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting http://www.irib.ir/English/) is dominated by conservatives. SOURCE: Soul of Iran by Afshin Molavi, Norton, 2005, (for example Molavi credits their favorable coverage with of Ahmadinejad with helping him beat Rafsanjani in the 2005 presidential race)
Since the advent of satellite TV it has had to compete with popular commercial television and is reputed to be more entertaining than it was during Khomeini's time.

Dr. Mahdi Mostafavi, was the head of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organisation of Iran.
... who’s been described in the Western press as a member of President Ahmadinejad’s inner circle
SOURCE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/2061633/Pope-avoids-Iran

MY QUESTION ON SHARIAH INNOVATION

The fatwa declared that the interests of Islamic Republic have precedence over "secondary ordinances" of Islam.

An example of critics maintaining the fatwa meant Khomeini's Islamic state was an ideological failure:
SOURCE: http://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/khomeini_promises_kept.html#Laws_in_Islam

The fatwa was highlighted by the regime's critics because the raison d'etre for the overthrow of the Shah, according to Khomeini, was the Shah's failure to strictly adhere to the laws of Islam.
Khomeini had proclaimed before the revolution that
"No one has the right to legislate and no law may be executed except the law of God ... The law of Islam, divine command, has absolute authority over all individuals AND the Islamic government."

SOURCE: Khomeini in exile January-February 1970, Islamic Government by Ayatollah Khomenei, 1970 p.55 of Islam and Revolution : Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini

Some details on the labor law that provoked the fatwa and the reasoning behind the fatwa by a blogger unsympatheic to Khomeini:
http://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/khomeini_promises_kept.html#footnote_72a

A interpretation of the issue by an academic sympathetic to the regime:
http://www.imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?id=5978
(scroll down to: iv) Al-Hukm al-Awaly and al-Hukm al-Sanavy )

SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Pt.2 - Bahai

2008-10-01T13:39:00.006-05:00

And one last religious minority – the Bahais – the one religion officially not tolerated in the Islamic Republic.
This is their leadership, all of whom were recently busted and imprisoned by the Ministry of Intelligence.
SOURCE: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/16/iran.bahais/

About 200 Bahais, mostly leaders have been killed since the revolution.
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%ADs

The regime says they are conspiring with foreign enemies. The Bahais say they are being persecuted because they are considered apostates.
SOURCE: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/22/iran.bahais/index.html

Unlike Jundallah, no one besides the Islamic regime has accused them of involvement in violence.
COMMENT: At least I have never found anything saying so.

SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Pt.2 - Sunnis

2008-10-01T13:38:00.005-05:00

It is true that most of the Sunnis are ethnic minorities living near Iran’s borders, but Tehran’s boom town job market has attracted some of them, one million according to that International Religious Freedom Report.
SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35497.htm

Even allowing for exaggeration there must be enough for a mosque. 10%, 15% of the population of Tehran being well over a million people.
SOURCE: Population of greater Tehran is estimated at 14 million

But the issue of Shia Sunni relations in Iran is super sensitive. It’s not just the carnage in Iraq. A Sunni fundamentalist insurgent group in eastern Iran - Jundallah - claims to have killed 400 Iranian soldiers.
SOURCE: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IB24Ak01.html

And it appears they’re getting aid from the US government. It’s not just the Islamist regime that says so. Seymor Hersh a US journalist with good ties to the US military wrote about it in the New Yorker magazine.
SOURCE: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh

SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Pt.2 - Jews

2008-10-01T12:48:00.011-05:00

Jews of Persia

An even older religious minority in Iran are Jews.
The Persian Jewish community stretches back nearly 3000 years when Jews were freed from Babylonian captivity by Persia's King Cyrus the Great.

Mufti of Jerusalem

In the West we hear of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem visiting Hitler, Arab soldier helping out the Fuehrer in Serbia and the popularity of the anti-Semitic classic Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Muslim world. 20sIn Iran the MP told us a story of how Nazi’s called Jews “Muslims” - the idea being the Nazis didn’t know or care what the difference was between the two Semitic groups.

SOURCE: “From his appointment in 1921 by the British as the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Husseini was a major figure, and during the 1930s and 1940s he was the recognized leader--recognized, that is, by the British Mandate authorities and the Zionist leadership and, not least, by the leaders of the surrounding Arab societies and states--of the Palestinian Arab national movement, much as Yasser Arafat was the leader of the movement from the late 1960s until his death in 2004. And like Arafat, Husseini basked in the support of the Palestinian multitudes,

“… the story published in Joseph Schechtman's The Mufti and the Fuhrer (1965),
Zvi Elpeleg's The Grand Mufti (1993), or Jennie Lebel's Haj Amin and Berlin (1996).
To be sure, Haj Amin was an anti-Semite. ... His anti-Semitism was certainly reinforced by what he picked up during his years in Germany, between 1941 and 1945, when he was employed by the Third Reich to broadcast jihadist anti-Allied propaganda to the Arab world and to recruit Muslims for the Wehrmacht in Bosnia, while the Nazis, as they described it, were battling "international Jewry" and its agents in London, Washington, and Moscow. Husseini seems to have accepted the Nazi view of the Jews' world-embracing powers--something that is entirely lacking in Qur'anic and early Islamic anti-Semitism, which, if anything, belittled the Jew.
From: The New Republic
September 10, 2008
“The Darker Side” by Benny Morris
http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=701916b5-4f75-4a2b-8fa2-535badfb4ffe&p=5

SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Pt.2 - Armenians

2008-10-01T11:46:00.014-05:00

Our group was mostly Christian, including four ministers, and two different Armenian Christian patriarchs took time to meet with us. Armenians are the largest and least problematic Christian group in Iran.
SOURCE: "least problematic" I'm pretty sure it was Robin Wright who said the Armenians have the easiest time of all the minorities in Iran. (see: Wright, Robin, The Last Great Revolution : Turmoil And Transformation In Iran, New York : Alfred A. Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 2000. p.206-216)
COMMENT: Jews are associated with Israel and there are some verses in the Quran that can be interpreted against them. The very small protestant community is associated with British and American influence and with conversion from Islam. Armenians are an ethnic group, and so not exactly passionate about converting non-Armenians to the Armenian Orthodox Church.

They have three dioceses here and the constitution grants them two seats in parliament.
SOURCE: http://www.servat.unibe.ch/law/icl/ir00000_.html article 64 of the constitution

Somewhere between one and one and a half million Armenians were killed in the Armenian Genocide in neighboring Turkey during World War I.
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide

They have not suffered so in Iran. Maybe their biggest concern here is emigration. A couple million Iranians have left the Islamic Republic for North America, Europe or other prosperous places since the revolution, but the rate is much higher for non-Muslims. Most of them have left Iran and of the estimated 50,000 Armenians in the Tehran area about 2 or 3 thousand leave each year.
SOURCE: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_12_125/ai_n27497054/pg_2?tag=artBody;col1
COMMENT: Actually, I was guessing. The article above says there are 50,000 Armenians in Iran but its more like 300,000, so I think the author misheard the Bishop and meant 50,000 in Tehran.

Tehran Patriarch

On the subject of interfaith dialogue - dear to the heart of the delegation - he made an interesting point. ... how do you talk to another faith when both of you believe yours is the one true faith to which everyone should and eventually will, join? Particularly when your church is outnumbered a several hundred to one in the land you live in and the outnumbering religion enforces the placing of pictures of its supreme leader in your very own rectory. ... Instead of preaching at the others, we show our faith by what we do, we preach by example not by lecture. ... A nice finesse I thought in a part of the world where ... there's too much religion and not enough Christianity ..."
COMMENT: The Islamic regime has zero tolerance for Christian proselytizing but isn’t very worried about Armenians doing this because, as I said above, their church is tied to an ethnic group and language. Still Christianity, like Islam, is an evangelizing faith. Proselytizing is out of favor among Liberal Christians of the West as insensitive - after all it implies there's something wrong with the proselytizee’s religion. But in the Islamic world and the parts of Christianity that are growing - evangelizing is not just acceptable, it's central.

As to how sensitive the issue of proselytizing is, consider this off hand comment: One of the delegates asked the Bishop what the Armenians did for charity. Visit the community members and see they're doing OK, he said. What about helping the Muslims? she asked. (A good christian doesn't just confine himself to good works among his own!) Not an option, he said. It might be construed as missionary work.

Armenian Cultural Center

The outdoor lounge and dining is near the club’s two pools. The pool has separate hours for males and females "in accordance with” the laws of the Islamic Republic. In addition the women bathers are protected from view by these very high panels. This way people living in apartment buildings a across the freeway won’t see them. The Armenian women didn’t insist on it. Some pious non-Armenian people in the apartment buildings did.

I found this out talking to a guide at the center. The pious, complaining neighbors were quite a ways a way from the pool, so their complaint seems pretty ridiculous.
They were not Armenians (I assume they were Muslims but the guide didn't say that in so many words).

Esfahan Patriarch

According to the 2004 International Religious Freedom Report: “With few exceptions”, the private schools of the minority Jews and Christians in Iran must have Muslim directors. The Ministry of Education must approve all their textbooks, including religious texts. Christians and Jews and other minorities may provide religious instruction in their own languages, but if they do they must translate the books into Persian to get them approved, which costs a bundle.
SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35497.htm

Not very informative, but indiscretion could get them in trouble not me.
COMMENT: The Islamic government's caution/paranoia about minorities is reflected in his qualification to its compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and promise "to treat non-Muslims in conformity with ethical norms and the principles of Islamic justice and equity, and to respect their human rights."
"This principle applies to all who refrain from engaging in conspiracy or activity against Islam and the Islamic Republic of Iran." http://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/iran/Iran-04.htm

SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Pt.2, Minorities

2008-09-26T09:50:00.013-05:00

Iran is about 90% Shi’i Muslim. With Sunni Muslims, Jews, Christians, Zorastrians in the minority

According to the CIA Factbook, "Muslim 98% (Shi'a 89%, Sunni 9%), other (includes Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Baha'i) 2%" https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ir.html

SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Pt.1 - Hijab

2008-09-25T09:43:00.022-05:00

We came across a mosque setting up for a first hijab ceremony for girls

COMMENT: the Mosque where these very hospitable people left us shoot was in Isfahan, not too far from the Imam Square.

Non-Muslim girls and women are not exempt. These girls in black are not Muslims but Armenian Christian students at an Armenian Christian School.

COMMENT: There are about 8,000 Armenians in Isfahan.
SOURCE: http://www.caucaz.com/home_eng/breve_contenu.php?id=158
This is Jolfa part of Isfahan.

We visited in May, before the peak summer heat, but it could get a little uncomfortable. This is our filmmaker.

COMMENT: Our filmmaker's website can be found at http://www.aliciacattoni.com/
(This was filmed in Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque, one of the more architecturally celebrated mosques in the Muslim world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Lotf_Allah_Mosque

SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Pt.1 - Some people and some politics

2008-09-24T08:39:00.027-05:00

under construction

SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Pt.1 - Imam Khomeini

2008-09-23T13:04:00.015-05:00

Khomeini was also noted for his sternness and belief that `there are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam.`

[SOURCE: from a meeting in Qom "Broadcast by radio Iran from Qom on 20 August 1979.")(Taheri, The Spirit of Allah (1985), p.259 ]

SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Pt.1, Some History

2008-09-21T09:24:00.031-05:00

Part One
some history

"In 1953 CIA Agent Kermit Roosevelt organized a coup to overthrow Iran's popular nationalist-leftist prime minister Muhammed Moseddegh in favor of the Pahlavi Shah."

SOURCE: Kinzer, Stephen (2003). All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-26517-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=Wv4B6C-wTG8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=All+the+Shah%27s+Men:+An+American+Coup+and+the+Roots+of+Middle+East+Terror.&ei=qTK3SMb_KIuUiAHLioAx&sig=ACfU3U1g_SdriumGFc0ID4vzthkB3bXf9g

History lecture by our minder

Here's our minder being translated as he lays a hard-line Islamist-nationalist version of recent Iranian history on thick. Mixing legitimate grievances with conspiracy theories that …. weren’t very convincing.

COMMENT: When I first heard his spiel I assumed it was a "hard line version", the minder being a supporter of Ahmadinejad and the story seeming - to my Yankee ears - too crude and over the top to be the work of an actual government. But according to the book Guests of the Ayatollah, the most recent and thorough book on the hostage crisis, at least much of what he told us was IRI official history http://books.google.com/books?id=-nl2BhEZ9ykC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Guests+of+the+Ayatollah&ei=bHnWSO2YLJTsiQHN77TnDg&sig=ACfU3U33dlNfSf3ci5ATyzqkWAcKMUrcvA
- the history Iranian children are taught in school.

What annoyed me about our minders speech was not so much that it was propaganda (what do you expect?) but that it felt so obviously - even insultingly - untrue. Few people who watched TV at the time of the crisis (in America or in Iran), have forgotten the images of the hostages - hands bound, eyes blindfolded - being marched before angry crowds. This is "treated with respect and kindness"????

Overthrow of the Shah

The Shah is not so much an autocrat as a sort of naughty boy who is kicked out of Iran when he ignores once too often the warnings of the Imam Khomeini to behave.

COMMENT: The minder told how Khomeini didn't want to rule but was forced to when his repeated warnings to the Shah went unheeded. The idea here seems to be to suggest both powerlessness of the police and military power of the shah in the face of the Iranian people’s devotion to the Imam; and Khomeini's pious reluctance to take power – he could overthrow the Shah anytime he wanted, but was too holy and lacking in ambition for power to be bothered … until provoked beyond endurance.

The truth is that Khomeini did originally write (in 1942) that monarchy was OK provided the kings followed the Sharia, but later changed his mind (sometime on or before 1970) and started telling his followers that leading clergy needed to rule to save Islam. http://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/khomeini_works.html#answer_kashf_al-asrar

But the claim the Khomeini was reluctant to take power also seems directed at the widely agreed upon belief (fact) that he was deceptive in representing to Iranians (outside his circle of loyalists) what it was he wanted for Iran after the revolution. Anti-IRI folks point out Khomeini had given a series of lectures made into a book 9 years before the revolution calling for the Muslim world to be ruled by a leading Islamic jurist with no parliament or elections to assist this government, http://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/khomeini_works.html#answer_velayat
This theory seemed to be tailor-made for him (a leading jurist and the only one talking about the necessity of rule by jurist). However, it was not until revolutionaries had taken over and he had a solid grip on power that he and his followers let the general Iranian public know about this theory of Islamic government requiring rule by an Islamic jurist. http://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/khomeini_promises_kept.html#Islamic_Clerics

So the question is just when did Imam Khomeini decide he needed to take up the heavy burden of ruling Iran.

Womping the opposition

The post-revolutionary opposition to theocracy aren’t hapless civilians, their political parties banned and peaceful demonstrations crushed by Hezbollahi thugs. They’re villains ... repaying the regime’s offers of dialog and friendship with treachery and brutally - this brutality financed and controlled by the American embassy.

COMMENT: Were they victims not villains?

SOURCES: Khomeini warning opponents: "Those who are trying to bring corruption and destruction to our country in the name of democracy will be oppressed. They are worse than [[Banu Qurayza and Bani-Ghorizeh]] Jews, and they must be hanged. We will oppress them by God's order and God's call to prayer." (In a talk at the Fayzieah School in Qom, August 30, 1979, from: [http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2003/August/Khomeini/ "Democracy? I meant theocracy." By Dr. Jalal Matini, The Iranian, August 5, 2003 Khomeini defending forced closing of opposition newspapers and attacks on opposition protesters by club-wielding vigilantes:

`The club of the pen and the club of the tongue is the worst of clubs, whose corruption is a 100 times greater than other clubs.` [from: Shaul Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs, (1984), p.146]

Hostage Crisis

... All this led to the American embassy hostage-taking, but don't worry about the 444-day hostage of its employees, they were treated just fine.

Documents not withstanding, it turns out there all of three CIA agents at the embassy, none of whom spoke Farsi or had been in Iran longer than four months. They were not involved in sabotage and killing let alone its nerve center.

Actually, when the students took the Americans hostage, their demand was the return of the Shah to Iran for trial and execution – the Shah having just been allowed in the US for cancer treatment. When the Shah died a few months later the Americans were still kept hostage on grounds of beings spies, though countries usually deal with misbehavior by foreign diplomats by expelling them, hostage taking being against international law.

SOURCES: "On November 4, 1979, the students following the Line of the Imam (SFLI) attacked and seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They took embassy personnel hostage and confiscated documents. The takeover, like an earlier one, would have been brief had it not got the support of Khomeini, who saw in it a chance to get rid of the liberal government, radicalize the revolution, and increase his power. After the SFLI refused Bazargan's order to evacuate the embassy, his government resigned."

"The Khomeinists prolonged the crisis in order to weaken moderates and non-Khomeinist senior ulama, pass the constitution, and consolidate power. Debate on the constitution was undermined by claims that such debate was treacherous. A selective release of U.S. embassy documents defamed the moderates, the only ones who were shown as meeting with Americans, though senior Khomeinists had also done so. The left, including the Mojahedin, joined this attack." (Keddie, Nikki, Modern Iran : Roots and Results of Revolution, Yale University Press, 2003, p.248-9)

"A few observations might be in order. The U.S.A. had roughly 5000 `sources of information` in Iran, ranging from paid CIA agent to voluntary informants. These `sources were recruited from all walks of life and included almost all the Shah's known non-clerical opponents over some 25 years.`" (Taheri, Emir, The Spirit of Allah, p.267)

The Iranians were convinced that the embassy staff “was engaged in a massive spy operation intent on stopping the revolution, killing Khomeini, and restoring the” Shah to power, writes Bowden. There were three CIA agents among the staff, engaged in “routine, prudent espionage conducted at diplomatic missions everywhere.” In fact, says the author, the CIA work in Iran at the time was notably ineffectual, gathering little information and hampered by the fact that none of the agents spoke the local language, Farsi. (from: http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/Default.aspx?oid=63&ocat=2
review of Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden, Atlantic Monthly 2006)

Iran Iraq War

Not a word about the about the Great Satan, slogans like “war, war until victory”

COMMENT: As for America never admitting Iran was invaded by Iraq, what's he talking about???
Yes, there was much anger in America with Iran over the holding of hostages, but there was no denial that Iraq invaded. Here's the first line of story on the war in the New York Times less than 2 weeks after the war started:
"Iraq's invasion of Iran appears to have come to a dead stop along most sectors of the front, according to reports reaching Western analysts." (October 2, 1980 p.A16)
And in any case how would he know? His English was .... very poor and he'd never been to America.

Taliban

The Taliban – Iran’s enemy - are not homegrown Afghan fundamentalists but a - quote - intelligence service that occupies Afghanistan, created by the U.S. government - which also controls Pakistan’s intelligence service.

COMMENT: The taliban did indeed get training, financing and equipment from Pakistan's ISI intelligence service, and their Pashtun ethnicity was resented in non-Pashtun areas, maybe even considered an occupation. But the Taliban fighters and leaders were predominately madrassa-educated, Afghan refugees from camps in Pakistan. They were extremely ignorant, and could in no way be called "an intelligence service." And had little or no contact with, let alone instruction from the U.S. government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban

Bush-Bin Laden construction company

....But a Bush-bin Laden construction firm?

COMMENT: Most "information" on the internet dealing with Bush-bin Laden financial connections seems to be 9/11 denial stuff such as http://tvnewslies.org/html/bin_laden_ties.html
Wikipedia has a very short section http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_family#Alleged_business_connections_of_the_Bush_and_bin_Laden_families ... but I found zero on a "Bush-Bin Laden construction company."

SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Intro

2008-09-11T19:24:00.019-05:00

The video has a great deal of voiceover. This is in part due to my lack of a good microphone to get good sound from speakers I was filming, and in part because I didn't get many interviews, (which is in part because I didn't have much film and had to be careful what I filmed), in part due because I had a lot I wanted to say about Iran. Again my apologies for the poor quality of the sound and narration and hope you find the content interesting.

All voiceover appears in italics like this

Islamic Revolution
"in its Gorbachev phase"

see: Kaplan, Robert D., 1952- , The ends of the earth : a journey at the dawn of the 21st century / Robert D. Kaplan. New York : Random House, c1996.

The video illustrating the "Gorbacheve phase" of the Islamic Republic was part of the “18 Tir uprising” in July 1999 for more information see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_student_protests,_July_1999

SOURCES - images

2008-09-11T18:56:00.003-05:00

Carter toast with shah

from www.presidentsrus.com/wp-content/uploads/2007...

Nixon with Shah

from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:NIXONSandshah.gif2Bof%2Biran%2Bnixon%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den

Kermit Roosevelt in chair smiling

from cryptome.org/fdr-astor.htm

Armenian genocide

from sourcedorks.blogspot.com bibleprobe.com/christianmartyrs-armenia.htm (dead children)
www.bitsofnews.com (emaciated childs body)
davidderrick.wordpress.com (marching refugees)

Ancient Babylon and Jerusalem from

from http://karenswhimsy.com/public-domain-images/babylonia/images/babylonia-3.jpg

Painting The Feast of Esther (about 1625-26) Jan Lievens (Dutch, 1607-1674)

from North Carolina Museum of Art Depicts Queen Ester,
http://www.ncartmuseum.org/collections/highlights/european/dutch/before1650/012_lrg.shtml

Ahasuerus (Xerxes), king of the Persians, took Esther as his queen, not knowing she was a Jew.
Haman, the king's evil minister, plotted to annihilate the Jews by issuing a decree of execution in the king's name.
Esther invited both men to a banquet in order to reveal Haman's plot to Ahasuerus and to plead for the life of her people.
The king's anger is seen in his clenched fists; soon, Haman would meet his fate on the gallows.

Rafsanjani from globalsecurity.org

Council of Guardians from BBC

SOURCES - videos

2008-09-11T18:47:00.001-05:00

Videos

"Fox attacks Iran"
http://foxattacks.com/iran/

“Forewarned Is Forearmed: Bush On Iran”
http://www.eidelsonconsulting.com/blog/2007/10/forewarned_is_forearmed_bush_o.html

"UN Inspector Scott Ritter: Fools would Bomb Iran" 10/16/2006
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XQan1qo8T4

Student mob at gates
“18 Tir uprising”
http://www.iranian.com/main/singlepage/2008/18-tir-uprising
“July 8, 1999: Student demonstrators break front gates of Interior Ministry in Tehran This clip was filmed by someone inside the building and released for the first time.”

Video : "There Won't Be Any War! It's All Propaganda!* Ahmadinejad
BBC world news on missile launch
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5738442423272546548&q=ahmadinejad&ei=r717SLOsIo-E4gKRyYGTCw&hl=en
From: VOTERSTHINKdotORG

TITLE: “test fire of Iranian Shahab-3 missile”

"Iran's Ahmadinejad on Holocaust"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykd-syzZ4ZY
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is asked by MSNBC anchor Brian Williams to clarify his statements about the
Holocaust. (September 2006)
Interview with Ahmadinejad by Brian Williams.
Is from a Sept. 19 [2006] interview in New York, “Brian Williams sat down with
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for an exclusive interview.”
The transcript at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14912050/
TITLE in this video: “NBC anchor Brian Williams interviewing Ahmadinejad on the Holocaust”

BBC News Iranian missile launch
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5738442423272546548&q=ahmadinejad&ei=r717SLOsIo-E4gKRyYGTCw&hl=en
“There Won't Be Any War! It's All Propaganda!* Ahmadinejad” youtube from http://cspanjunkie.org/
July 09, 2008 BBC World
TITLE in this video: “test fire of Iranian Shahab-3 missile”

Iranian TV on Hijab
“Iranian Police Enforces 'Islamic Dress Code' on Women”
video from youtube on VerusX
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH9pH3542YQ
TITLE in this video:
“Iranian TV showing morality police warning women about their hair and dress”

Women being arrested
“Hijab In Iran An Iranian women is being arrested by the IRI police. “
video from pouyanb on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PGw2sfwiTo
TITLE in this video: “UTube video of Iranian women being arrested for bad hijab”

“Arrest of Iranian girl for HIJAB !!!
April 2007 Tehran” video from jaylondoner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zYKlSeIbrw

SPECIAL THANKS TO ...

2008-09-11T18:40:00.002-05:00

... those without whose help this video could not have been made

Alicia Cattoni for her bean bag tripod and advice

Foxattacks Iran
http://foxattacks.com/iran/

Dr. Roy Eidelson and his video “Forewarned Is Forearmed: Bush On Iran”
http://www.eidelsonconsulting.com/blog/2007/10/forewarned_is_forearmed_bush_o.html

MSNBC for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is asked by MSNBC anchor Brian Williams to clarify his statements about the
Holocaust. (September 2006)

Forrest Cahoun for his technical help

ParkTV.org for help with equipment

NBC TV
BBC News
Iranian.com
Associated Press
www.presidentsrus.com
wikimedia.org
Memri.org
cryptome.org
www.ncartmuseum.org
student.britannica.com
commons.wikimedia.org
www.ncartmuseum.org

.... And most of all John McHugh for his editing advice and patience.

Think Before You Bomb (Inside Iran with a Peace delegation, May 2008)

2008-09-11T18:35:00.006-05:00

Think Before You Bomb
...is a video about traveling in Iran filmed and edited by Mark McHugh, with a lot of help from many people, particularly John McHugh, his brother.

The comments made by the maker of the film do not in any way reflect the views or opinions of others quoted or shown in the video.

Copyright
This video uses video clips and images under fair use copyright doctrine.
The purpose and character of this video is for educational use and not for profit.
All the video clips used in the video have been shortened from or use poorer resolution than the original. The effect of the use of the images and video clips should have virtually no impact on the potential market for the originals, it should not in any way lessen the value of the original.

Apology
I would also like to apologize for the poor quality of the video - I have never made one before and despite dozens of hours of work over months it may be unwatchable in its entirety for all except those with a great interest in Iran. I would be working on it still but I wanted to get on TV before the 2008 election.

The voiceover was done in what I thought would be a calm, melodious tone. (By the time I understood how sleepy and somnolent it sounded, it was too late to change it.) There are also some mispronounciations of Persian names (Pres. Ahmedinajad and Khatami) and I humbly ask the forgiveness of viewers.