AHMADINEJAD OWN-GOAL AFTER HE MOVES THE GOALPOSTS
Posted by Caledonian Jim in Daily Posts
Tens of thousands of Iranians yesterday defied a ban to protest (above) against last week’s hotly-disputed presidential election result as the authorities struggled to contain increasing anger amongst the reformist opposition. Chanting crowds, many wearing green campaign colours, greeted Mir Hossein Mousavi, the (allegedly) defeated candidate in Friday’s poll, as he slowly moved through the streets of capital Tehran on the back of a 4-wheel drive car. Scufflles broke out as supporters of “President” Ahmadinejad, riding motorbikes and armed with sticks, attacked the demonstrators along the route. “The vote of the people is more important than Mousavi or any other person!” said Mr Mousavi, standing on the car roof in Revolution Square and speaking through a loudhailer. The crowds of young and old who packed several kilometres of his route, shouted back: “Mousavi we support you! We will die but retrieve our votes!” And sadly that was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Almost inevitably, violence started. At least one demonstrator was killed (above) after police fired on hundreds of thousands of protesters who defied a government ban and took to the streets. Both Mr Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, another defeated candidate who appeared alongside him yesterday, have lodged complaints that the vote was rigged. And it emerged yesterday that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, had been forced by the strength of public opinion to perform a U-turn and back an election inquiry, despite declaring last Saturday that the victory by Mr Ahmadinejad, his preferred politician, was not only “fair and democratic” but also a “divine intervention”. It seems clear that Ahmadinejad has tried to win by moving the electoral goalposts to the extent of seemingly getting 63% of the votes - and got too greedy. And opposition anger has also been fuelled by sporting anecdotal comments made by Ahmadinejad, who regaling crowds in soccer match mode, reportedly told his supporters at a victory rally that losing the presidential election was no worse than losing a football match, and that Mr Mousavi and his supporters should “get over it”. That remark, followed by crude killing of his own people, might ultimately prove to be a spectacular own goal.
And talking of own-goals by enelected, undemocratic, delusional leaders, UK Prime Minister and Raith Rovers fan Gordon Brown (pictured above, with British troops in Iraq) has sparked an outcry by ruling that the official inquiry into the Iraq war announced yesterday WILL be held in secret. The investigation will not be completed until after the general election next year – surprise, surprise – meaning that voters will not know the outcome until it is too late to influence their vote. However Mr Brown pledged that the inquiry will have access to the fullest range of secret information and will be “as candid as possible.” He is attempting to reassert his authority in Westminster by approving a long-awaited inquiry into the war, helping his much vaunted “fightback”. Mr Brown said the inquiry would be “fully independent of Government” (yeah, sure), and the final report will disclose “all but the most secret of information”. The trouble is, we all know that everything relevant to the underhand, deceitful, lying build-up to that war will be regarded as secret, so the whole exercise is an irrelevant, doubtless expensive, waste of time. As usual. So much for Brown’s recent pledges on “open government and transparency”.
Maybe UK politicians shouldn’t be too quick to condemn Ahmadinejad’s tinkering with democracy, especially not New Labour ones. That epitome of undergraduate ineptitude David Miliband (pictured above) , the British Foreign Secretary, yesterday called for Tehran to rejoin international talks. “Our concern is above all for Iranian engagement with the international community,” he said. “We continue to await an Iranian answer to the very generous proposals that were made by the international community with respect to the Iranian nuclear programme. It’s very important that that proposal is answered by Iranian willingness to sit down and negotiate.” So far so good – but then Mr Miliband said he was concerned at events in Iran over the weekend, and was following the situation carefully, especially in relation to electoral irregularities. “I think it’s for the Iranian people to choose their own government”, he said. Very generous of him, but considering he’s a member of a universally detested UK governing party that got just 15% of the votes in last week’s European elections, I wish he would extend some democratic courtesy to the British people by pissing off, never mind the Iranians.
And don’t think for 1 minute that police brutality is confined to Iran. Recently we had fatalities and assaults during police action at the G20 in London. The latest assault by police officers (pictured above) happened in Nottingham, UK, on Sunday night. A video taken on a mobile phone shows how police repeatedly tasered and punched a man as they arrested him in a crowded town centre. The video shows how 2 officers use the taser gun to keep the man on the ground. The man rolls around in the street in agony after an officer urges his colleagues to stand back before tasering him. The suspect’s body jumps when the electric shock from the gun is administered. It’s high time we got some of these cops under control. I’ve no doubt they’ve got a hard job, but a small minority have lost the plot and seem to be better suited to the streets of Tehran. The YouTube video is here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hNmI5gUJHo
Swarms of snakes (example above) are attacking people and cattle in southern Iraq as the Euphrates and Tigris rivers dry up and the creatures lose their natural habitat among the river reed beds. ”People are terrified and are leaving their homes,” said Jabar Mustafa, a medical administrator, who works in a hospital in the southern Iraqi province of Dhi Qar. “We knew these snakes before, but now they are coming in huge numbers. They are attacking buffalo and cattle as well as people.” Doctors in the area say 6 people have been killed and 13 poisoned. The plague of snakes is the latest result of an unprecedented fall in the level of the water in the Euphrates and the Tigris, the two great rivers which for thousands of years have made life possible in the sun-baked plains of Mesopotamia. Bad news – but maybe an opportunity for the murdering nutcases in that part of the world to show some sense by stopping killing each other and instead bumping off the snakes.
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Ahmadinejad has been talking to old Bob Mugabe down here in Zimbabwe – I am sure this is where he was told all the tricks. All along we were told that Iran is actually a democracy, but one that is different from the Western type in that they are “united” (read Mugabe’s favourite and preferred State – a One-party state) and that they freely choose their leaders at polls that are never rigged.
Still, they have it better than us in Zimbabwe and are much braver, I think. Here, even after Mugabe refused to announce the March 2008 presidential election results (in which he was beaten by Tsvangirai), our people never took to the streets.
If they had, Mugabe, I am sure, would have had no compunction about using live bullets on them!
They are a ruthless dictatorship and treating them differently is foolish. They took British sailors hostage in 04 and 07. When will people learn.