It takes a nation to protect the nation
So now the Ahmadinejad people and the Khamenei people are fighting it out in the streets of Tehran, as Reza tells us. Those who have followed this blog for some time will recognize it as the latest phase in what I call “The War of the Persian Succession,” a nasty fight over who will be the next Supreme Leader of Iran, after the passing of Khamenei.
Remember, too, that Mousavi — the leader of a Green Movement that is very much a player in this struggle — designed a strategy that would lead to the implosion of the regime, not its overthrow in a dramatic confrontation. He believes that the internal conflicts are so severe, that if only pressure can be maintained, the system will come down. He hoped that pressure would come from the West, but it didn’t (even though the sanctions have made life more difficult). So the process is slower than it might have been, but still moving along the lines he designed.
I think it is unlikely that one “faction” will definitively prevail over the other. The leader and the president are siamese twins, fused at a vital part of their anatomies, and separation might well be fatal to both. Each has weapons aimed at the other’s heart, and the weapons consist of information of massive fraud and theft.
The Greens issued a lengthy report on these practices, and on the skullduggery the contending forces are practicing on each other. It’s quite spectacular (h/t Michael Rubin and Ali Alfoneh):
The entirety of the country’s oil and gas business is now in the hands of Khamenei’s son. There is no oversight from the “government,” and when the deputies in the Majlis tried a bit of earmarking, they found the cupboard was bare:
IranChannel reported on March 18 that the mullahs in parliament found $11 billion missing from the state-controlled petrodollar fund in Iran’s foreign exchange account. On April 29, Asriran.com reported that a member of parliament declared that not even a dollar was left in that account. Reviewing the current budget, the head of the parliamentary agricultural committee proposed $2 billion from the foreign reserve account to fund water projects, to whom the head of the joint (talfigh) committee replied that nothing, not even a dollar, remained.
No surprise, then, that there is still no approved national budget for the year that began in March. There are varying reports of whether food subsidies will be extended, cancelled, reduced or increased. The numbers we have on the economy are impressively negative. The government’s bank debt has risen 35% in the last 9 months; unemployment is up, labor protests are increasing…
Indeed, aside from stealing, the only thing this regime is still able to do is torture and kill. There are many reports of the Iranian involvement in the Syrian slaughter, most recently a story — which I have confirmed — that Khamenei has ordered the Iraqi-based “Sadr Army” (you remember Muqtadah al Sadr, surely) to send thousands of killers into Syria to save the Assad regime. Previous stories identified Hezbollah killers as snipers in Syrian cities, and Revolutionary Guards officers acting as commanders in the field and advisers in Damascus.
The evil visited upon the Iranian people continues apace. Here is a recent letter from a prisoner that gives us a sense of how bad the jails are:
What occurs behind these prison walls is “indescribable” and impossible to convey! Until I was forced to live it, I had never in my life experienced such a thing, read about it or heard about anything quite like it. Such a prison has never been depicted in any movie or any book. It was inconceivable to me that such a place cold even exist! I suppose this tragedy stems from individuals being forced to spend every single living moment under such unbearable conditions, in a small, confined and contaminated environment, overcrowded with conflicting prisoners of all kinds. I have a hard time describing a place that lacks even fresh air or a small area where prisoners can take a few steps.
In the past months I have spent in this prison, I have sometimes spend night and day pondering on my thoughts and behavior; a process that has made me come to surprising conclusions. I feel as though my life is slowly drifting from one in which I live like a human to one in which I am being treated like an animal; the instinct for self preservation and the desire to survive having become my main drive and concern. It feels as though there is nothing else to worry about except to stay alive. When I leave my room, for example, I try very hard not to look at anyone, to avoid making eye contact. If anyone sleeping in the courtyard addresses me, I pretend as always not to hear their request and ignore them rudely. When in line for the showers or the use of toilets, I find myself fighting like prehistoric humans, while trying at all times to limit contact as much as possible. Believe me when I say that though I am not a picky person in the least bit, here I feel as though one must be fearful of even breathing the air. On winter nights, when I would stare at the prisoners sleeping exposed to the piercingly cold winter air, two or three squirming under one damp, dirty blanket, I was left shocked at my lack of pity and compassion for others. It felt as though I had completely accepted that this is and will always be the fate of the world and humanity at large. How can one be ethical in a place where humans don’t have the courage, if only for one moment, to put themselves in the place of others?
We have heard a lot of verbiage from Obama and his moralistic Valkyries ever since they bragged of saving our national soul by preventing mass murder in Libya. Remember? There was even a doctrine according to which America could and would not stand by while a tyrannical regime slaughtered innocent civilians seeking freedom. If there ever was such a doctrine, it has long since become a laughing stock. We stand by as Syria and Iran — totalitarian and barbaric regimes that kill their own as well as our own — conduct precisely the sort of mass murder we claimed we would not tolerate.
Members of Congress — who busy themselves with laudable bills calling for support of the Iranian people and the Syrians as well — should be unstinting in their insistence that America call for the overthrow of Assad and Khamenei/Ahmadinejad. Never mind doctrines. Just say it: Assad must go. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad must go. Now.
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Welcome to 4 Freedoms!
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Most Western societies are based on Secular Democracy, which itself is based on the concept that the open marketplace of ideas leads to the optimum government. Whilst that model has been very successful, it has defects. The 4 Freedoms address 4 of the principal vulnerabilities, and gives corrections to them.
At the moment, one of the main actors exploiting these defects, is Islam, so this site pays particular attention to that threat.
Islam, operating at the micro and macro levels, is unstoppable by individuals, hence: "It takes a nation to protect the nation". There is not enough time to fight all its attacks, nor to read them nor even to record them. So the members of 4F try to curate a representative subset of these events.
We need to capture this information before it is removed. The site already contains sufficient information to cover most issues, but our members add further updates when possible.
We hope that free nations will wake up to stop the threat, and force the separation of (Islamic) Church and State. This will also allow moderate Muslims to escape from their totalitarian political system.
These 4 freedoms are designed to close 4 vulnerabilities in Secular Democracy, by making them SP or Self-Protecting (see Hobbes's first law of nature). But Democracy also requires - in addition to the standard divisions of Executive, Legislature & Judiciary - a fourth body, Protector of the Open Society (POS), to monitor all its vulnerabilities (see also Popper).
1. SP Freedom of Speech
Any speech is allowed - except that advocating the end of these freedoms
2. SP Freedom of Election
Any party is allowed - except one advocating the end of these freedoms
3. SP Freedom from Voter Importation
Immigration is allowed - except where that changes the political demography (this is electoral fraud)
4. SP Freedom from Debt
The Central Bank is allowed to create debt - except where that debt burden can pass across a generation (25 years).
An additional Freedom from Religion is deducible if the law is applied equally to everyone:
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