Month: July 2009

It has been taken down and Sarahpac is saying they didn’t do it – a YouTube user and Palin fanatic called LauraVW apparently did it, labeled it misleadingly, and has now edited it in even more surreal ways. The new version is after the jump.

Some remarkable developments in Iran. The more brutally the coup regime acts, the more resolute the opposition has become. Khatami's words are especially powerful:

Some translations read this as a "velvet revolution" against the people. It seems to me in context that coup is a more accurate term. Mousavi is just as adamant:

"It's not yet too late," said Mousavi, who has slipped from public view in recent days. "It's our historic responsibility to continue our complaint and make efforts not to give up the rights of the people." Mousavi also condemned alleged attacks by security forces on college dormitories where "blood was spilled and the youth were beaten," and he called for a return to a more "honest" political environment in the Islamic Republic. "A majority of the people — including me — do not accept its political legitimacy," Mousavi said, adding: "There's a danger ahead. A ruling system which relied on people's trust for 30 years cannot replace this trust with security forces overnight."

The brutality of the current crackdown is only part of the story; the psychological and spiritual resilience of the resistance is the other critical part. This is now the balance we have to understand. These are the forces for freedom we must not forget or lose our focus on. There are some things more important than the death of Michael Jackson.

Matt Steinglass:

Protectionism in any form is worrying.

Rooz online interviews the sister of Ashkan Sohrabi, an 18-year-old Iranian killed by the Basij on Saturday, June 20:

Rooz: Tell us about Ashkan.

Elham Sohrabi (Sohrabi): He was my younger brother, born in 1989, very smart and full of potential for education and sports.  He was extremely kind and compassionate.  Despite his young age, he made very wise decisions.

Rooz: Where were you on the day of the event?

Sohrabi:  My mother and I were at our house.  Ashkan had just returned from the gym.  He told us people were protesting on the streets and that fires were burning everywhere.  He said he had trouble getting home as anti-riot guards had closed off all surrounding streets and were dispersing people.  My mother asked me not to let Ashkan return to the streets.  I tried my best to distract Ashkan with things other than the street, but the crowds on our streets (Azadi) continued to get bigger.  People sought refuge in alleys and homes.  We heard different chants and the sound of bullets and smell of tear gas were everywhere.  I asked Ashkan not to go to the street.  But he said his last words to me and left the house: "Don't worry, I'll come back."

He was shot three times in the chest.

John Schwenkler comes out swinging:

Please. The Anchorage Daily News, Palin's home paper, did not believe it was beneath investigating, especially since evidence completely obliterating all doubts about Palin's pregnancy is instantly available to Palin – and yet she continued to refuse to provide it.

It is, moreover, not the press's responsibility to protect public figures from questions that relate to their character, veracity and judgment. It is the public official's responsibility to clear any questions up, especially if they have the evidence to do so readily at hand. She cannot claim privacy when she has brandished her infant as a political tool and used him as her building bloc for appealing to the Christianist base. Palin is also, as we can see, pathological in her deceit and delusions. Under these circumstances, what might seem inappropriate for other politicians is highly relevant here. As I said, until we get any actual evidence Palin should be given the benefit of the doubt. But doubt remains. That is Palin's responsibility – not the press's.

I might add that simply calling questions "absolutely freaking ridiculous" is not an argument. In fact, the only actual arguments I have seen against this line of inquiry have been published on this blog.

Sans Rasmussen.

DiA describes what the US should do now that Iran has certified the election results:

Marcy Wheeler studies the case of "04-309," the only name we have for a 27-year-old Iraqi who was tortured and died:

Now I'm no doctor–and I definitely can't make sense of the cardiac findings. But it sounds like "stress positions," "sleep deprivation," "walling," and "water dousing" are all leading candidates to have caused the death of 04-309. Or, to use the terms used for techniques approved for use by one Special Forces group in Iraq until May 18, 2004, about a month after 04-309's death, "safety positions," "sleep adjustment/sleep management," "change of environment/ environmental manipulation," and "mild physical contact." It doesn't really matter what you call the techniques, though, because they amount to torture that–in the case of an apparently healthy 27 year old man–appear to have killed him in three days time.

A lot of people–from the CIA to Cheney to the torture apologists–want this debate to be about waterboarding, a technique they've only admitted to using with three detainees, and a technique that–as far as we know–did not kill anyone in US custody. But that distracts from the other techniques that just as much torture, the ones that were killing Iraqi civilians in a matter of days.

It was one of Cheney's euphemisms. It's someone else's too:

If you do not believe what Iranian dissidents are saying in publicly televised confessions, you should not believe a word of the "intelligence" that Cheney tortured out of his array of terror suspects.