April 12, 2007
Responses to Comments
A friend of mine from Lucianne.com, a poster by the name of "ForNow", has made some comments in response to my April 7 post on this blog.
From his comments:
"…some cultures do have distinctive characteristics, and I have spoken with quite a few Iranians over the years and decades, and have read about Iranian issues over the years. It's hard not to note an Iranian tendency towards being possessed by one idea or another and toward having a consuming agenda, howsoever well-intentioned it sometimes is." [For complete context of the discussion, please visit the "comments" for April 7, 2007.]
My response to him, here, in open forum:
I understand your points, ForNow, and immediately recognized you as one of the posters at Lucianne.com. Yes, I most certainly was advocating most vociferously for a military attack on Iran, as I enumerate in the blog posts here on this site, where I can say what I want without getting my own words edited, or even outright deleted, because I have committed some violation not enumerated in the rules posted on that fine and irreplaceable site.
Yes, I clearly advocated a war on Iran, and I changed my position based on new, and very credible, data. My discussions with Ghazal convinced me to reconsider my own strategy suggestions, and I am not a man whose opinions sway with the wind or who changes fundamental beliefs because of ideas thrown at me based upon shaky logical foundations.
Additionally, I just cannot agree that there is any "national tendency" in a nation that has produced 70 million souls.
I work with Ghazal in a sincere effort to help the Iranian people free themselves. I have been exposed to many voices outside and inside the nation of Iran, and am thoroughly convinced that the people there are ready to overthrow the vicious Revolutionary government. This is in no way based on some fatuous arguments; it is a result of honest, open and productive conversations with Ghazal, and some of the people she, and now I, am working with to cause an overthrow of the Mullahs.
In the past weeks, there have been three massive demonstrations within Iran. Have we seen them? Nope, we haven't. That is partly because of the inability to get hard news out of the country, but is also a direct result of the Western media's complicity in hiding the truth about what is going on inside the country.
I do find it despicable that the so-called "objective media" is nothing of the sort, but is rather openly engaged in the short-circuiting of legitimate resistance groups, and is also complicit in the silencing of the moderate Islamic voices that are trying to do the very thing for which so many Americans ask, and that is to speak out against the perversion of their own religion, used as an excuse by bloodthirsty Wahabbist terrorists.
I do think you most definitely are painting the Iranians with far too broad a brush, my friend. Even in a small state in the US like Louisiana, my own home state, you cannot state that there is any sort of "Louisiana tendency" no more than there is any "New Hampshire tendency" nor a "Colorado tendency".
I also knew Iranians prior to the Revolution. Here are the two groups with whom I had direct interaction:
1. At Encampment for Civil Air Patrol at Keesler AFB near Biloxi, MS in 1977, I was invited at the mess hall to sit with a group of six Iranian Royal Air Force pilots. This thirteen-year-old kid was taken in like a little brother, and these guys were some of the most wonderfully decent and welcoming men I have ever met. They were very interested in my own background, as I was in theirs, and they had the best time answering this young fellow's questions about being a pilot, and about their nation. Sadly, I am sure that every one of these fine Iranian heroes died in the ensuing chaos of the Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War.
2. The next year, as I was working at a McDonald's in Beaumont, TX, I worked with an Iranian "crew leader" who was a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth pro-Khomeini freak. He and I had some epic arguments in that kitchen, and late in our time together, I nearly had to fight for my very life when I stated, clearly and unequivocally, that Khomeini should be shot, sparing the Iranian people from a brutal thug who was intent on turning the nation into a religious madhouse, a situation that would play out very badly in international politics. It was not long afterwards that this jackass disappeared, presumably to join the revolution in Iran.
No one is able to make a psychoanalysis of the entire Iranian populace, and to say that Iranians-this or Iranians-that just short-sells the dominance of individual personality over collective consciousness. Iran has produced people of EVERY type of personality, from the peaceful, quiet folks to the raving, lunatic fringe, just as the US has done, just as Mexico has done, just as Argentina has done, just as India has done.
There is NO "Iranian" predisposition to exaggeration, nor to under-exaggeration, nor to overachievement, nor to underachievement, nor to inherent honesty, nor to inherent dishonesty.
Iranians are PEOPLE, my friend, and just like people everywhere, you find it takes all kinds to make the world. There are all kinds of Iranians, ForNow, just as there are all kinds of Americans. Please try to remember that.
bropous
3 comments:
I do remember that there are all kinds of people, but I stand by my remarks about cultural tendencies -- not deterministic but statistical, so to speak -- in general and Iranian ones in particular. It is very hard to rule this sort of thing out a priori without such exclusion's ramifying into the emptying out of the concept of culture itself. How is it that I was right about the Romanian reports? Sheer luck? Arguably, but I don't think so. How is it that I was more reluctant than you to see an anti-Iran war as being actually the offing during the hostage holding? I wasn't thinking in that case so much of the British or American cultures in general, as of the mini-cultures of the current admistrations of both countries.
My real point was about your changing your mind with full force -- it was, slow down, look at bigger pictures in every sense. Of course, as time is already passing, that point of mine here is losing relevance.
I don't think that Ghazal's ideas are to be dismissed on any such account, but I hardly could absorb them, judge her ongoing judgments' pattern in the tests of time, etc., so quickly. So till then I make do with my pittance of experiences with Iranians in general. On the other hand, I've had a chance to follow your L.com posts over time, and the fact that you've changed your mind about a near-term attack against Iran has certainly increased doubts in my mind as to whether it would be a good idea to attack at least in the near term. You can say that it all comes from Ghazal, but it's at most a combination of you and Ghazal. For the short term, your influence on my views arises from my judgment about you, not Ghazal (not yet, anyway).
1. I did not say that an attack on Iran would have been because of the kidnapping of the British Marines. I was stating quite clearly that Ahmadenijad was trying to force a premature attack with the kidnapping, before US forces were ready to carry out the entire attack plan.
2. I maintain my position that 70 million people do not retain any common tendency; the variation of individuality is missing from your equation. Heck, we can't even say that most Americans are completely sold on the concepts of individual freedom and individual responsibility enshrined in the Constitution.
3. I have ahd the opportunity to speak with Ghazal directly, almost daily, and at great length, and there has simply been far more opportunities for me to debate with her and listen to her counterarguments to my arguments in real-time conversation. That tends to accommodate a more rapid change of ideas than a back-and-forth of written material.
4. I know you are not dismissing the ideas expressed of the possibility of internal revolt, nor are you, in any way, attempting to attack Iranians nor their honesty in support of their casue to free their nations.
Had anyone told me three months ago that I would be advocating for a halt of a US attack on Iran to allow an internal revolt to work instead, I would have thought they were crazy. I was stolid in my firm belief that such an attack would be tremendously beneficial and usher in an opportunity for the Iranian people to rise up. Unfortunately, the fact that the Iranians, unlike Arabs, have a primary identity AS Iranians, rather more like Americans or Israelis in that regard, was missing from my own calculations.
It boils down to this point: An American attack, no matter how well-intentioned, will cause the Iranians to galvanize support around their government, and that is exactly what we need to avoid.
The recent increases in demonstrations against the government, and the increased visibility inside Iran of the government's abuses, such as sending women to Evin Prison in Tehran simply for protesting discriminatory laws against women, show me a couple of things. First, the people are setting aside their fear of the government and are increasingly speaking out, and the government is losing the weapon of fear they use to keep their people in thrall.
Ghazal has taught me a great amount not just about the growing discontent, but about the workings of Iranian groups in the West, some sincerely working for freedom for their people, and others diligently undermining the resistance efforts, and directly funded by the Mullahs and sidetracked by Iranain double agents. I will be posting more of this information on this blog, so please stay tuned for that additional proof.
I do suggest a good Google search and look at the Iranian protests, Iranian political prisoners, and other topics related to Iranian unrest. I think you will begin to see that the evidence has been out there all along, but just that there has been a dearth of folks who are connecting the dots. I am beginning to do so, and you would be surprised, my friend, who is starting to pay attention.
I know that you realize just like I do what a pro-Western, free Iran would do for the Global War on Terror. However, you and I are not the only ones who have that realization, and some of those folks are very well funded, very well organized, and also have fronts in the US working to help keep Iran in the hands of the Terror Masters.
Your comments are welcome here any time, and I invite anyone else who has intelligent critique of the statements I am making to state them as well here. I'm not erasing anyone who brings up cogent opinion.
Additional:
I think you would also get a lot out of reading Ghazal's book, "Living in Hell". It is an excellent insight into her thinking, and how she got to where she is today.
And, yes, my changes in attitudes are not just Ghazal's opinions replacing my own. I've had an evolution in thinking on the issue of a US attack on Iran, and an epiphany as well regarding the best way to remove the Mullahs, as that has been at the core even of my arguments for an attack.
I took what Ghazal and I spoke about, and I weighed that information against my preconceptions, and determined that she was making a heck of a lot of sense, especially with her knowing her own country far better than did I.
She has also gotten me rethinking some intolerant attitudes I had towards Islam, and I'll go into those at a later time. I am definitely of the opinion that Islam is in no way incompatible with "democracy", and that those who are using Islam as an excuse to murder innocent men, women and children are spouting perversions of their religion for the sake of convenience.
This doesn't mean I will be converting; I am not an adherent to the concept of a divine being, but I certainly can respect the faiths of others, and see good in all religions. I have to admit I've not always had that open-mindedness, but I'm evolving just like any other human mind.
Thank you again, ForNow, for your points, and keep letting me know your thoughts. Iron sharpens iron, and I'll keep passing along info that I get right here on the blog.
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