Will, Beautitious. As usual, you have the facts and evidence to prove your case. Any jury would bring home a guilty verdict. Unfortunately, we now live in Donald Trump's America where far too many people relish in this lawless violence. Additionally, the people that are supposed to defend us from these atrocities, the elected officials in Congress, have a difference of opinion on the matter. Since Republicans have enough numbers, their decision to enable was the real catalyst to propel this regime. Trump and his cabinet are perpetrating the evil, but the traitors are Republican Senators.
This article is deftly written to appeal to the Bulwark's anti-Trump audience: "you hate Trump already, but look how similar Trump is to the Iranian leaders. You should hate them too!"
In psychology, that's called transference. I remember transference being used more than 20 years ago to transfer the legitimate fury of the American people from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein. By the same jokers. For the same reasons. With the same devastating outcomes.
Saletan wrote:
"... Nasirzadeh called the Iranian protesters “savage armed terrorists.” He was lying—with few exceptions, they were neither armed nor terrorists ..."
"With few exceptions"? I'm sorry, what? There WERE a few "savage armed terrorists"? Who are these exceptional "savage armed terrorists"?
Saletan's article - as does the NYT article it references - implies that the protests in Iran ARE legitimate homegrown protests against a brutal regime, and it is the regime which is causing the mass deaths. While there IS home-grown resistance to the regime, it is of a VERY different nature to what we see today. There is very little evidence for Saletan's belief that THIS particular Iranian uprising is indigenous, other than some cherry-picked snippets of video of regime violence and ONLY regime violence.
But there is a lot of evidence against the Iranian uprising being homegrown, including overt admissions:
I put to you what we see is a standard CIA / Mossad fomenting of a revolution, not for the benefit of the Iranian people, but to plunge Iranian society and region into deep chaos, which Israel thinks is best for their society. The US, UK and Israel have a long history of such externally induced regime change operations, including a previous 1953 Iranian coup (Mossadegh), the 1954 Guatemalan coup (Árbenz), the 1973 Chilean coup (Allende), and the "Great Plan" for Lebanon (1982), all of which look very much like we are seeing here, including "protestor" violence.
The word "Israel" does not appear in this article by Saletan. The word "Israel" appears only once in the NYT article, and only to deny they are involved.
Do I want to see the Iranian regime go and a secular democracy take its place? Of course. But a rapid collapse of the Iranian regime would cause a regional sectarian conflagration that would make the post-Saddam era look like a walk in the park, and would kill millions of people. Not the hundreds we see today. Not thousands. Not even 10s of thousands.
Millions.
I wish, I so deeply wish, that the Bulwark's big brains, like Saletan here, would explain to their readers the long history of US / Israel covert interventions in other countries, the immediate and long-term effects of those interventions, and what we should realistically expect if the Iranian regime collapses. No friends, a Jeffersonian "democracy in a box" will not spring forth.
Just don't pretend this uprising is indigenous to Iran, rather than funded and directed from DC and Jerusalem.
Friends - it won't be Israel's blood and treasure expended in trying to quell the violent quagmire that comes with a rapid downfall of Iran - it will be ours. Our children. Our grandchildren. For another 20 years. Far worse than Iraq or Afghanistan.
Is that what you really want? Or are you tapping your feet to the drums of war, drums played by the same jokers who gave us the Iraq quagmire?
I would say it's weird that Trump apologists don't fault him for sounding (and acting) much like the people they have easily identified as evil - but they've now spent a decade insisting that whatever might be bad when other people do it is never wrong when Trump does it, so by now I would find it weirder if the Trump apologists started saying "Oh, that's bad."
Love Will's creative sarcasm here. It's so obvious-- the ridiculousness of MAGA folks criticizing gangs of murderous Basij thugs in Iran, but immediately pre-exonerating groups of ICE thugs in Minneapolis. When the hypocrisy is so stark it's difficult to defend.
The timing overlap of the protests is unfortunate for MAGA because it forces the comparison--i.e. forces Trump defenders to "think"!
Will - Hello from Occupied MN. NO ONE does better side by side breakdowns than you. I always appreciate the comparisons. If this regime had it their way, women would be covered in head to toe in trad wife gear, aka, the S Baptist Burqa. Keep up the good work illuminating, educating and fighting for our democracy.
That or American Flag bikinis! I've never understood how the MAGA religious contingent (cf. Mike Johnson) can be so tolerant of the "hot trad wife" aspect of the White House presentation. Shouldn't they be demanding the burqas, like you said? The moral cognitive dissonance must be deafening.
I suppose my theory is that it's historic patriarchy--their king or emperor is allowed to many wives or concubines like David or Solomon, and to flaunt them like Jabba the Hut, while regular folks need to abide by strict morality.
However, Trump seems to tacitly give license to all his administration and friends (esp named Jeffrey) to do the same, so I'm not sure the SBC would be able to complain. There must be some kind of wedge issue anti-Trump folks could push to split the strong Baptist/Evangelicals from Trump ethos.
Otherwise it's just another power play hypocrisy: "MAGA sexiness" is great but it's evil when Democrats do it!
"The moral cognitive dissonance must be deafening."
The cognitive dissonance between the "virgin and the whore" narrative has been around for literally thousands of years, since Demeter and Aphrodite. Probably earlier.
It's all just to keep women "in their place" as either the virgin or the whore. No other option allowed.
Exactly. The MAGA face woman for example. 🤦♀️ Let’s not forget what happened to David or Solomon, and these men actually were chosen, and had hearts for the Lord.
100%. TBF Trump ogled plenty of women like Bathsheba, but he hasn't stolen another man's wife and sent him off to death in a war yet (that we know of).
Maybe don't tell him that story--as CIC he might get ideas! (Who's Kristi Noem's husband, again?)
Maybe tell Trump the story of David and Goliath, and how the hero is the little guy (w God's power). Trump usually seems to think along the lines of "Look how impressive that Goliath guy is!"
2 points. The US may be doing a huge favor to the dictator of Iran by deporting Iranian refugees. That government can make an example out of them to terrify their people.
And why do we allow any refugees to be sent back to a place they fled? I would want them to stay here but it they are being deported can't we at least help them find a friendly country like Canada that would welcome them?
People forget about the 2017 incident where the Turkish guard went brutally brawling with protestors outside the embassy in Washington DC. They seemed to have forgotten that they weren’t in Turkey and started brutalizing American & Kurdish law-abiding protestors.
Then the US dropped the charges against most of the thugs in Erdogan’s service. If that happened today the US would give those thugs medals.
Sounds OK on the surface, but what about the visa implications? How do we get these zealots into the country without ICE getting involved and gumming up the works?
This article reminds me of a cartoon I recently of American agents being coached on how to say that anyone killed by law enforcement was a terrorist and the like. The instructor was Israeli.
The point is that there is a certain sector of the anti-Trump coalition that is willing to say anything in service of demonizing Israel. As long as the mainstream of the Democratic Party takes a see-no-evil approach to that group, there will be a sector of the electorate that finds the Democrats worse than Trump, many of whom support the Democrats over the Republicans on almost every domestic issue. As to The Bulwark's coverage of that sector, I have yet to hear an episode of Rhe Focus Group dealing with it.
We are certainly learning security lessons from Israel in recent years (exploding pagers, anyone?), but I'm pretty sure it was the US that put the majority of funding and training into the "War on Terror"
The cartoon has a grain of Truth, and a cartload of Anti-(Israel)-Semitism
Although to be historical, it was the British who trained Mossad long ago, so consideration should be given to the possibility it was British agents who taught Israel to use the language of "terrorists" and "thugs" (from the Indian Thuggee--secret societies or robbers/thieves)
Really good article and thanks for the points. I work for a big insurance corporation in Connecticut and I have been posting inside about Trump’s lawlessness and his negative effects on our economy for a while now. It can be tricky to stay within the bounds of ‘work speak’ but I like concise writing and my job includes editing down long-winded sentences. Inevitably, one of our employees in Minneapolis posted a blog. This is not my first ‘appearance’ on the company’s internal pages but I’m getting way more ‘likes’ and supporters than before. Thanks for pointing out that the rhetoric out of this White House is no different from what we’ve been hearing from the taliban, or the ayatollahs.
vance needs his head examined, but really why bother... somewhat robotic.
trump, shakin' in his boots, right when he was going to start traveling, the homeland.
Will, Beautitious. As usual, you have the facts and evidence to prove your case. Any jury would bring home a guilty verdict. Unfortunately, we now live in Donald Trump's America where far too many people relish in this lawless violence. Additionally, the people that are supposed to defend us from these atrocities, the elected officials in Congress, have a difference of opinion on the matter. Since Republicans have enough numbers, their decision to enable was the real catalyst to propel this regime. Trump and his cabinet are perpetrating the evil, but the traitors are Republican Senators.
This article is deftly written to appeal to the Bulwark's anti-Trump audience: "you hate Trump already, but look how similar Trump is to the Iranian leaders. You should hate them too!"
In psychology, that's called transference. I remember transference being used more than 20 years ago to transfer the legitimate fury of the American people from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein. By the same jokers. For the same reasons. With the same devastating outcomes.
Saletan wrote:
"... Nasirzadeh called the Iranian protesters “savage armed terrorists.” He was lying—with few exceptions, they were neither armed nor terrorists ..."
"With few exceptions"? I'm sorry, what? There WERE a few "savage armed terrorists"? Who are these exceptional "savage armed terrorists"?
Saletan's article - as does the NYT article it references - implies that the protests in Iran ARE legitimate homegrown protests against a brutal regime, and it is the regime which is causing the mass deaths. While there IS home-grown resistance to the regime, it is of a VERY different nature to what we see today. There is very little evidence for Saletan's belief that THIS particular Iranian uprising is indigenous, other than some cherry-picked snippets of video of regime violence and ONLY regime violence.
But there is a lot of evidence against the Iranian uprising being homegrown, including overt admissions:
https://x.com/mikepompeo/status/2007180411638620659?s=20
https://youtu.be/ccTbsHLcEDA?t=74
https://youtu.be/ccTbsHLcEDA?si=93ruAPsg23qx2Dh7
I put to you what we see is a standard CIA / Mossad fomenting of a revolution, not for the benefit of the Iranian people, but to plunge Iranian society and region into deep chaos, which Israel thinks is best for their society. The US, UK and Israel have a long history of such externally induced regime change operations, including a previous 1953 Iranian coup (Mossadegh), the 1954 Guatemalan coup (Árbenz), the 1973 Chilean coup (Allende), and the "Great Plan" for Lebanon (1982), all of which look very much like we are seeing here, including "protestor" violence.
The word "Israel" does not appear in this article by Saletan. The word "Israel" appears only once in the NYT article, and only to deny they are involved.
Do I want to see the Iranian regime go and a secular democracy take its place? Of course. But a rapid collapse of the Iranian regime would cause a regional sectarian conflagration that would make the post-Saddam era look like a walk in the park, and would kill millions of people. Not the hundreds we see today. Not thousands. Not even 10s of thousands.
Millions.
I wish, I so deeply wish, that the Bulwark's big brains, like Saletan here, would explain to their readers the long history of US / Israel covert interventions in other countries, the immediate and long-term effects of those interventions, and what we should realistically expect if the Iranian regime collapses. No friends, a Jeffersonian "democracy in a box" will not spring forth.
Just don't pretend this uprising is indigenous to Iran, rather than funded and directed from DC and Jerusalem.
Friends - it won't be Israel's blood and treasure expended in trying to quell the violent quagmire that comes with a rapid downfall of Iran - it will be ours. Our children. Our grandchildren. For another 20 years. Far worse than Iraq or Afghanistan.
Is that what you really want? Or are you tapping your feet to the drums of war, drums played by the same jokers who gave us the Iraq quagmire?
There is something quite new and totally unprecedented in America right now:
We are in the midst of _negotiating_ with the Administration what military occupation should look like -- going forward.
This is disheartening on so many levels.
I would say it's weird that Trump apologists don't fault him for sounding (and acting) much like the people they have easily identified as evil - but they've now spent a decade insisting that whatever might be bad when other people do it is never wrong when Trump does it, so by now I would find it weirder if the Trump apologists started saying "Oh, that's bad."
Love Will's creative sarcasm here. It's so obvious-- the ridiculousness of MAGA folks criticizing gangs of murderous Basij thugs in Iran, but immediately pre-exonerating groups of ICE thugs in Minneapolis. When the hypocrisy is so stark it's difficult to defend.
The timing overlap of the protests is unfortunate for MAGA because it forces the comparison--i.e. forces Trump defenders to "think"!
Will - Hello from Occupied MN. NO ONE does better side by side breakdowns than you. I always appreciate the comparisons. If this regime had it their way, women would be covered in head to toe in trad wife gear, aka, the S Baptist Burqa. Keep up the good work illuminating, educating and fighting for our democracy.
That or American Flag bikinis! I've never understood how the MAGA religious contingent (cf. Mike Johnson) can be so tolerant of the "hot trad wife" aspect of the White House presentation. Shouldn't they be demanding the burqas, like you said? The moral cognitive dissonance must be deafening.
I suppose my theory is that it's historic patriarchy--their king or emperor is allowed to many wives or concubines like David or Solomon, and to flaunt them like Jabba the Hut, while regular folks need to abide by strict morality.
However, Trump seems to tacitly give license to all his administration and friends (esp named Jeffrey) to do the same, so I'm not sure the SBC would be able to complain. There must be some kind of wedge issue anti-Trump folks could push to split the strong Baptist/Evangelicals from Trump ethos.
Otherwise it's just another power play hypocrisy: "MAGA sexiness" is great but it's evil when Democrats do it!
"The moral cognitive dissonance must be deafening."
The cognitive dissonance between the "virgin and the whore" narrative has been around for literally thousands of years, since Demeter and Aphrodite. Probably earlier.
It's all just to keep women "in their place" as either the virgin or the whore. No other option allowed.
Exactly. The MAGA face woman for example. 🤦♀️ Let’s not forget what happened to David or Solomon, and these men actually were chosen, and had hearts for the Lord.
100%. TBF Trump ogled plenty of women like Bathsheba, but he hasn't stolen another man's wife and sent him off to death in a war yet (that we know of).
Maybe don't tell him that story--as CIC he might get ideas! (Who's Kristi Noem's husband, again?)
Maybe tell Trump the story of David and Goliath, and how the hero is the little guy (w God's power). Trump usually seems to think along the lines of "Look how impressive that Goliath guy is!"
Seriously !!! lol. Thanks for these. 🤣💜
2 points. The US may be doing a huge favor to the dictator of Iran by deporting Iranian refugees. That government can make an example out of them to terrify their people.
And why do we allow any refugees to be sent back to a place they fled? I would want them to stay here but it they are being deported can't we at least help them find a friendly country like Canada that would welcome them?
People forget about the 2017 incident where the Turkish guard went brutally brawling with protestors outside the embassy in Washington DC. They seemed to have forgotten that they weren’t in Turkey and started brutalizing American & Kurdish law-abiding protestors.
Then the US dropped the charges against most of the thugs in Erdogan’s service. If that happened today the US would give those thugs medals.
I haven't forgotten, Rajeev.
But I also remember when the same thing happened with Ben Gvir in the US.
Sounds OK on the surface, but what about the visa implications? How do we get these zealots into the country without ICE getting involved and gumming up the works?
This article reminds me of a cartoon I recently of American agents being coached on how to say that anyone killed by law enforcement was a terrorist and the like. The instructor was Israeli.
The point is that there is a certain sector of the anti-Trump coalition that is willing to say anything in service of demonizing Israel. As long as the mainstream of the Democratic Party takes a see-no-evil approach to that group, there will be a sector of the electorate that finds the Democrats worse than Trump, many of whom support the Democrats over the Republicans on almost every domestic issue. As to The Bulwark's coverage of that sector, I have yet to hear an episode of Rhe Focus Group dealing with it.
We are certainly learning security lessons from Israel in recent years (exploding pagers, anyone?), but I'm pretty sure it was the US that put the majority of funding and training into the "War on Terror"
The cartoon has a grain of Truth, and a cartload of Anti-(Israel)-Semitism
Although to be historical, it was the British who trained Mossad long ago, so consideration should be given to the possibility it was British agents who taught Israel to use the language of "terrorists" and "thugs" (from the Indian Thuggee--secret societies or robbers/thieves)
It's not anti-semitism when it's true. Don't let Israel hide atrocities behind Judaism.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thebulwark/p/protesters-iran-minnesota-good-pretti-trump?utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=207683178
Really good article and thanks for the points. I work for a big insurance corporation in Connecticut and I have been posting inside about Trump’s lawlessness and his negative effects on our economy for a while now. It can be tricky to stay within the bounds of ‘work speak’ but I like concise writing and my job includes editing down long-winded sentences. Inevitably, one of our employees in Minneapolis posted a blog. This is not my first ‘appearance’ on the company’s internal pages but I’m getting way more ‘likes’ and supporters than before. Thanks for pointing out that the rhetoric out of this White House is no different from what we’ve been hearing from the taliban, or the ayatollahs.