Witnesses said police beat protesters and fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands who rallied in Tehran today in open defiance of Iran's clerical government, sharply escalating the most serious internal conflict since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Related articles The Ayatollah speaks - and the protesters are warned Leading article: A show of force as the Islamic revolution fights back Robert Fisk's World: In Tehran, fantasy and reality make uneasy bedfellows Robert Fisk: Khamenei is fighting for his own position as well as Ahmadinejad's The eyewitnesses described fierce clashes near Revolution Square in central Tehran after some 3,000 protesters chanted "Death to the dictator!" and "Death to dictatorship!" Police responded with tear gas and water cannons. The witnesses told The Associated Press that between 50 and 60 protesters were seriously beaten by police and pro-government militia and taken to Imam Khomeini hospital in central Tehran. People could be seen dragging away comrades bloodied by baton strikes. Helicopters hovered over central Tehran. Ambulance sirens echoed through the streets and black smoke rose over the city. Tehran University was cordoned off by police and militia while students inside the university chanted "death to the dictator," witnesses said.
Witnesses said police beat protesters and fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands who rallied in Tehran today in open defiance of Iran's clerical government, sharply escalating the most serious internal conflict since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Related articles
The eyewitnesses described fierce clashes near Revolution Square in central Tehran after some 3,000 protesters chanted "Death to the dictator!" and "Death to dictatorship!" Police responded with tear gas and water cannons.
The witnesses told The Associated Press that between 50 and 60 protesters were seriously beaten by police and pro-government militia and taken to Imam Khomeini hospital in central Tehran. People could be seen dragging away comrades bloodied by baton strikes.
Helicopters hovered over central Tehran. Ambulance sirens echoed through the streets and black smoke rose over the city.
Tehran University was cordoned off by police and militia while students inside the university chanted "death to the dictator," witnesses said.
Reality Continued | Jamail | 27 May 2009
... At one level we have the Human Terrain System (HTS) I have written about previously wherein social scientists are embedded with combat units, ostensibly to help the occupiers better understand the cultures they are occupying. The veiled intent is to exploit existing schisms and fault-lines in these societies to the occupier's own advantage through the policy of divide and conquer. As Edward Said stated in "Orientalism": "... there is a difference between knowledge of other peoples and other times that is the result of understanding, compassion, careful study and analysis for their own sakes, and on the other hand knowledge - if that is what it is - that is part of an overall campaign of self-affirmation, belligerency, and outright war. There is, after all, a profound difference between the will to understand for purposes of coexistence and humanistic enlargement of horizons, and the will to dominate for the purposes of control and external enlargement of horizons, and the will to dominate for the purposes of control and external dominion." It is extremely obvious that the HTS belongs to this second category. At another unquestioned level, the "democratization" and "modernization" of a "barbaric" society goes on. The embedded scholars of HTS evidently find no evidence of these cultures having withstood decades of international isolation and assault, yet sustained their sovereignty by the sheer dint of their education, culture and a well-integrated diverse social fabric. So the US sets up a range of state-funded programs, ostensibly to empower the women and youth of the target society, in the ways of democracy and modern civilization. Whether or not that suspect goal is accomplished, the badgered collective consciousness of the invaded people, traumatized by loss and conflict, does begin to submit to the "norms" of behavior prescribed by the victor, even when they are in violation of actual norms of society that may have prevailed prior to invasion. ...
As Edward Said stated in "Orientalism":
"... there is a difference between knowledge of other peoples and other times that is the result of understanding, compassion, careful study and analysis for their own sakes, and on the other hand knowledge - if that is what it is - that is part of an overall campaign of self-affirmation, belligerency, and outright war. There is, after all, a profound difference between the will to understand for purposes of coexistence and humanistic enlargement of horizons, and the will to dominate for the purposes of control and external enlargement of horizons, and the will to dominate for the purposes of control and external dominion."
It is extremely obvious that the HTS belongs to this second category.
At another unquestioned level, the "democratization" and "modernization" of a "barbaric" society goes on. The embedded scholars of HTS evidently find no evidence of these cultures having withstood decades of international isolation and assault, yet sustained their sovereignty by the sheer dint of their education, culture and a well-integrated diverse social fabric. So the US sets up a range of state-funded programs, ostensibly to empower the women and youth of the target society, in the ways of democracy and modern civilization. Whether or not that suspect goal is accomplished, the badgered collective consciousness of the invaded people, traumatized by loss and conflict, does begin to submit to the "norms" of behavior prescribed by the victor, even when they are in violation of actual norms of society that may have prevailed prior to invasion. ...
And I think it no coincidence that the "target" demographic of McWorld freedom is --in Iraq, "Af-Pak," and Iran for example-- are adolescents. After all, 20th-century "conflict" was all about annihilating cultural foundations and stripping natural resources from ROW. Seasonal tilling the land, if you will, in order to sow seeds not of democracy but corporate fealty. In a country like Vietnam the "enterprise zones" rise around slums of the very young and very old in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.
The very old await death. The very young, sensing "somthing is not quite right" with choosing between one colonial steward and another, riot. Periodically. So the Westworld NGOs and such harvest the birth of another "movement". Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
