And countless human rights and freedom activists completely absolutely silent. They chose to be silent about Iran, it feels like iranian blood is worth less than other places apparently.
By the same precedent, it opens up Iranian human rights activists to the same endless accusations — when were you vocal on M23, Haiti, Kashmir, Kurds, Muslims in India, etc etc. I don't think it's countless silent organizations, and those organizations or activists are generally not in position to be able to influence the IRI or IRGC.
I think you have distinguish between feckless organizations like the ITU, and say, college student campus activists.
The same folks are very much in a position on college campuses to protest about numerous injustices going on in the world, from Iran to Somalia to Haiti to Cuba, yet they're silent.
Why is that? It's a fair question.
I don't think there's some moral failure for caring about one issue affecting one group of people more than another, but you really have to wonder why we care so much about Palestine over other issues, even more gruesome injustices.
This isn't to diminish of course the plight of Palestinians or any group for that matter, but it's a very clear outlier in the American, and dare I say entire western psyche.
Ok, you’ve convinced me. I now firmly support reducing billions in American aid to Iran, curtailing Iranian use of American bombs, and diplomatic cover America gives to Iran in the UN. I am now also calling strongly to remove all these state laws we have that ban government business with companies that don’t support Iran!
Are you calling for Iran to cease supplying Hamas and other regional organizations with weapons as well?
The human tragedy in Gaza is enabled directly by MY representatives and funded with MY tax money and given diplomatic cover for atrocities again and again by MY government. Nothing my country is doing enables what is happening in Iran right now.
The situation is less pronounced with Europeans, but not dissimilar. The EU has sanctions on Iran, unless I’m missing something? And frankly yes, if American support for Israel ceased I think Europeans would complain less because Israel would have to stop a lot of their behavior.
This seems like a cop-out and I’ve noticed a similar “Iran isn’t my country” pattern amongst others. Let’s be very clear, Iran needs to stop funneling weapons and money to Hamas and other terrorist organizations. They’re complicit in this war and the blood of Palestinians is on their hands too, never mind the thousands killed peacefully protesting this week.
Iran doesn’t need to be your country to call for them to stop initiating and supporting violence and genocide in the Middle East, or to stop repressing their own people. Just like Ukraine doesn’t need to be your country for you to call for Russia to stop their war.
It’s one thing to say well I’ve only got time and energy to protest my country doing XYZ, but that argument doesn’t hold water when having a discussion on the Internet which requires little effort and no sacrifice of any kind.
It's hard to really draw up the counterfactual but I'm not really sure that's the case. But there are many other players here besides just Israel that are helping to ensure that this conflict continues to fester, chiefly Iran.
I will point out the main reason it's hard to come up with, is the fact that American aid, weapons sales, and diplomatic support for Israel has been so constant and unchallenged over the past several decades that we don't have many good examples of what Israel would do without impunity.
I think there's an inclination on the Internet to lean toward one side or another, but just like with Democrats and Republicans, at least in my view, everyone sucks here.
I'm American. I pay taxes in the US. I could do some math and figure out how many deaths of innocent kids I've directly funded, how many Palestinian families I've helped displace. I get to live with that knowledge.
I'm not funding Hamas terrorist attacks, but I am funding a genocide.
You're taking the easy way out here instead of engaging with the world head on. You don't want to criticize Iran because you don't live there, yet their actions helped Hamas kill like around 2,000 other innocent people. But you're silent because you don't live there? Are you also silent on Russia invading Ukraine since you don't live in either country? Give me a break. What you and others who have made similar claims have presented are really bad, isolationist-style arguments.
Yes you got that right.
It's interesting how you just can't leave it at that. Any criticism of a country besides Israel or the United States has to be couched in sarcasm or outright refusal to criticize other belligerents. It's tribalism. And so you can't get mad at other tribes for being tribal too.
There is also a key difference between the Palestine issue vs the others you listed. The fact that our country is deeply in bed with the country that is committing these crimes against humanity and actively funding it, along with the strange level of undue influence that country has on our government.
It's undeniable that our society cares more about Gaza and the future of the Palestinian people, so what makes them unique that's different? Or are you suggesting that Americans, for example, care equally about what's going on in other conflicts and humanitarian catastrophes? If so, why don't we see campus protests for example?
Generally though, I find your line of inquiry fascinating. There are people out there actively protesting a particular issue because they genuinely care about it and the people affected. Meanwhile, you—presumably from the comfort of home—are criticizing them for not addressing other issues, all while doing nothing about ANY of these issues yourself. It reeks of apathy and malintent.
I think most of those students would answer that they are protesting the US government's complicity in this particular injustice -- which doesn't apply to the other injustices you list. I have a hard time imagining that most people asking this fair question can't think of that obvious answer.
Do you think if the US wasn't selling weapons to Israel that there wouldn't be protests and a lot of social media posts similar to how other humanitarian disasters are treated today? I guess would it be on the same level?
I wonder if there's a correlation across western countries with respect to protests and a given country's participation in selling weapons to Israel. I recall there were/are a lot of protests going on in Ireland with respect to the conflict but I know Ireland doesn't sell weapons to Israel. But there have been of course other cases in Europe where the country does sell weapons and there are protests. Maybe there's a rhyme and reason here, I'm not sure.
Another way to put it: the point of protesting generally isn't solely to express being upset with an injustice. It's to get some actor/stakeholder - usually one's government - to DO something about the injustice.
Because of this, it's entirely rational to NOT protest with equal opportunity for every injustice that occurs around the world. Those American campus students aren't just protesting to make noise, they are hoping that their government leaders - that DEPEND on their votes - will cease enabling atrocities.
The American government hates Iran with bipartisan support and has it sanctioned to hell and back, I have no idea what I'd protest American leaders to do here?
Well you could rally in support of more action, or protest outside an Iranian embassy for example to put pressure on them. I was reading that something on a small scale happened in the UK and they took down the Iranian flag from the embassy.
> Another way to put it: the point of protesting generally isn't solely to express being upset with an injustice. It's to get some actor/stakeholder - usually one's government - to DO something about the injustice.
Sure, I don't disagree. But let me ask, do you believe that if the US wasn't selling weapons to Israel that the public would react to this particular conflict in a way that's similar to how it reacts to other conflicts around the world? It's obviously hard to speculate about because it's just the world we live in and counterfactuals around these things are incredibly difficult and inaccurate, but something tells me there's something unique about this conflict and even in countries that don't sell weapons to Israel we do still see rather large scale protests and rallies and such.
What do you think?
You're describing methods of protest, but not demands. What specific action do you believe Americans should demanding from their representatives re: Iran, that the US government isn't already doing? We bombed Iran just this past summer, are you saying we should go back for round 2?
>obviously hard to speculate about because it's just the world we live in
The world we live in is the world where the US gives huge financial, material and political support to Israel. Your statement feels akin to saying "Sure there is a gigantic elephant in this room right now, but something tells me there's some unique reason why everyone is complaining about the room being cramped. Especially compared to these other rooms that don’t have a giant elephant inside.”
Well this action puts pressure on Iran, and in the case of the UK maybe more pressure for the UK to do something. You're right that the US government is already opposed (rightfully) to the Iranian regime and so additional rallies or protests might not have much effect but it could reinforce the government's stance and to show support. You can rally in favor of something, and protest against something, can you not?
> The world we live in is the world where the US gives huge financial, material and political support to Israel.
Yea but then you have to balance that with Iran giving huge financial, material, and political support to Hamas, Hezbollah, and other groups who take up arms and fight and kill people and stuff too.
But the point wasn't to suggest that the US doesn't give these things to Israel, which if you want to introduce "the real world" you have to include Iran and friends (Russia too now that I think about it, they've been helping Iran), but to just speculate on whether we would still see the level of protest we do today even if the United States didn't give weapons to Israel. I'm unsure. But it's a hard counterfactual to run, and I'm just mentioning it because the primary argument I see for the reasoning that more people care about this issue is specifically because the US sells/gives weapons to Israel. That's all.
Every action of the US can only be understood if there is wealth to be stolen.
"Iran (1953), Iraq (2003), Libya (2011), Russia (2022), Syria (2024), and now Venezuela (2026). The common denominator underlying the U.S. attacks and economic sanctions against all these countries is America’s weaponization of the world’s oil trade."
What is it that you say to each other: "thank you for your service." Service to whom is left unsaid.
https://www.democracycollaborative.org/whatwethink/venezuela...
https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs5746/files/202...
Kind of interesting to keep in mind when people protest for a ceasefire instead of say, Hamas removed from power and free open elections resumed for Palestinians.
Seems simple to me. The Palestine/Israel protests were demanding change from an ally. It was a call for "you guys are supposed to be good but what you're doing is bad."
I suppose there could be rallies of support for the Iranian people, but it would seem silly for US protesters to demand change from the Iranian government, given that our opinion is probably not regarded highly by them.
I think private individuals and even civil society organizations, no matter how noxious or loud they can be, have a right to have specific passions without being expected to be universalist in application or having to account for why. Particularly when it comes down to the individual, people have a right to say, I find this cause very moving for whatever reason and I don't think then there's an obligation to answer for everything else going on in the world. Especially outside of governments, international organizations, and civil society groups that claim to be universalist in their cause. If anything we should be glad people have passions outside their narrow world.
I believe that as a general principle, but also because in practice that criticism tends to get waged, dare I say weaponized, against particular causes. I don't tend to see people focused on Somalia, Haiti, or Cuba being denigrated for not caring about Iran. I don't see people shouting down advocates for Christians in Nigeria over supposed silence on the Rohingya. I think its punitive for believing in a cause, generally specific causes, rather than about integrity.
I would venture to guess you can also find ample examples across the world, and that selectivity is simply a part of human nature rather than some defect of western psyche.
I don't disagree at all, just to be clear for anyone reading.
> I don't tend to see people focused on Somalia, Haiti, or Cuba being denigrated for not caring about Iran. I don't see people shouting down advocates for Christians in Nigeria over supposed silence on the Rohingya. I think it's punitive for believing in a cause, generally specific causes, rather than about integrity.
Sure, and I think that's fair and I'm not denigrating those who are protesting in favor of action w.r.t Palestine/Gaza, but more so interested in why that particular issue seems so important over others. The most compelling reason I've read so far is that because the US sells weapons to Israel, though I think there's some good reasons to sell weapons too so it's not all negative.
> The most compelling reason I've read so far is that because the US sells weapons to Israel, though I think there's some good reasons to sell weapons too so it's not all negative.
Some of it is also memetic: a couple of decades ago Tibet was the cause celebre, after that it was Darfur and recall Kony 2012. Issues become important because there's active conflict and human cost, and then people discuss the issues that are getting discussed. And then sometimes those become signifiers for larger issues, e.g. anti-system politics as whole, liberal hopes, or conservative culture wars.
Jeffrey Sachs has talked about it at length in various forums. He's also written about it extensively.
But at some point it's like, yea you guys all need to just stop fighting and let bygones be bygones and just stop fighting.
That is the entire point, Gaza protests have been very vocal (and in many cases very misinformed). Human right abuses in Iran are but another example of this blindness.
You ask for equal reaction, here it goes: I want for Israel the same sanctions that are applied to Iran and Russia. Fair, right?
If they can't get them to leave, the partial genocide will escalate into a full blown mass murder campaign.
This is obvious. In fact, I suspect that they are going to success, and in a few years we will have to hear how that was a terrible mistake, but, of course, never again. Maybe, even you will be saying that.
Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as:
... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
I was sloppy in saying "partial genocide" as a colloquialism, because "partial genocide" is the crime of genocide full stop.
Besides, that's clearly not Israel's intent or it would have already been accomplished.
Maybe the reason for your "sloppiness" is that you instinctively understand the absurdity?
Israel is committing genocide because they have tried to destroy part of the population. Their goal is enthic cleansing. If they do not achieve it, they will continue to escalate, especially now that international law is shown to be toothless.
But thank you for showing your biases so openly.
Myanmar was literally burning people in open pits, happened across 800 villages, most people don't even know that happened.
Well yeah but we could drop even more bombs than we would have
I don't think sanctions are that helpful in establishing democracy, and even if they were, taking the population hostage in order to instigate an uprising is morally quite dubious.
In any case, U.S. has recently proven to be a dishonest actor, so even if above was correct I would still not want them to do it.
P.S. I was born in communist Czechoslovakia. So I have seen an organic regime change, and the Iranian one is IMHO too violent to be the moment.
No authoritarian regime wants to go down the same way Gorbachev, Husak, and Honecker did by meeting the opposition halfway.
Most regimes learnt from how China cracked down in Tiananmen and how SK cracked down in Gwangju, especially countries like Iran that are much more structurally similar to Maoist China than the 1980s Eastern Bloc, as much of the Iranian economy is owned by the Bonyads (Islamic charities), State Owned Enterprises, and regime affiliated conglomerates who wouldn't expect to retain economic control if Iran didn't remain an Islamic Republic, and the footsoldiers of the Cultural Revolution (yes, Iran had one too called the Inqilab e Firangi or "Revolution against the West") are the ones in charge.
The current violent crackdown is similar to that which the Iranian regime used during the Green Movement back in 2009-10.
The IRGC has a headcount of around 100k, the Police 300k, the PMF in Iraq (which have now been mobilized across Iran) have 200k, the Liwa Fateymoun (Shia Afghan militia) have around 3k-10k, and Liwa Zainabiyoun (Shia Pakistani/Pakhtun militia) have around 5k-8k personnel.
That's around 600k personnel who are ideologically aligned with the regime, have seen combat in Syria or Yemen, have had experience cracking down on anti-regime protests on multiple occasions, and have the means for a violent crackdown in a country of 90 million people. And that's ignoring personnel that the Houthis or Hezbollah can send despite being battered by Israeli strikes.
On the other hand, the SAVAK during the Iranian Revolution only had 5K personnel in a country of 40 million.
A lot of people will refer to Syria as an example of a counter-revolution, but the Syria's population was significantly better armed during the Assad regime compared to Iranians today. Before the Arab Spring it was common for the then Syrian government to send disaffected Sunni troublemakers across the border to Iraq to take potshots at the Americans and let them solve the problem [0][1][2][3]. This was how Jolani/al-Sharaa and a number of anti-Assad revolutionaries got their start as well.
I sincerely hope the Iranian people get the ability to choose the government that is right for them, but based on the lived experiences of my friends and family in authoritarian states, I sadly think the Iranian regime will stand.
[0] - https://jamestown.org/a-mujahideen-bleed-through-from-iraq-a...
[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/world/africa/07iht-syria....
[2] - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirectio...
[3] - https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2008/10/30/...
What "regime wants" is irrelevant. "Regime" is a collective construct, and people can collectively change it. Which is what happened there, and I think it shows that peaceful transition is possible. The way these regimes have changed was by people collectively realizing they don't want it, without foreign interference.
In this case, authoritarian U.S. (and possibly also Russia) projecting power into Iran is making things worse. (Czechoslovakia was in that situation - on the way to peaceful transition - in 1968, but it was externally interrupted from Russia.)
> I sincerely hope the Iranian people get the ability to choose the government that is right for them, but based on the lived experiences of my friends and family in authoritarian states, I sadly think the Iranian regime will stand.
I agree with you, and I said above that I believe it is too violent (and you confirm that). There is decent amount of research that shows that nonviolence is a more reliable way to change regimes towards democracy.
Not really.
Every single regime change has happened because a veto player decided to withdraw support for the incumbent regime. This has been documented for decades by Kuran, Karelian & Peterson, Ulfelder, and Hummel.
Once the incumbent regime begins shooting, they have no choice but to double down because statistically incumbents in an authoritarian regime will not continue to retain their positions if they back down.
For incumbents, you either do a managed transition (eg. Pinochet) or you double down on repression (eg. Deng). Vacillating in the middle ends up leading to mass mobilization and shows internal stakeholders that there is little downside to defecting to the protesters side. And that was the mistake Gorbachev, Husak, and Honecker made.
I have family in VN and go there fairly often, and given the nature of business in Asia have often bumped into their decisionmakers often. Much of their leadership was in Czechoslovakia, GDR, and Poland from 1986-91 on internal security or military scholarships, and the primary takeaway they took was to
1. Sustain economic growth to buy support and increase the revolutionary threshold by adding an increased economic cost
2. Dramatically expand the size of internal security bureaus (most Warsaw Pact members had 0.01-0.25% of their population be members of internal security organizations, but states like Iran and Vietnam are trying to maintain a 0.5-1% population ratio instead)
3. Double down on repression once the bullets start flying. My SO grew up in the Central Highlands during the ethnic tensions turned protests in the 2000s [0]. Once two protesters died after arrest, the BCA decided to double down. They began summarily executing protesters on the street, ambushed protesters in side streets and opened fire, hunting protestors using unfed dogs, and openly distributing small arms and ammunition to trusted party members and US-Vietnam and/or Sino-Vietnam War veterans, and giving them a blank check to enforce "discipline". That said, she was from a Bac 76 family so they were in a better position.
I guarantee you Iran's leadership thinks the same way. And from the looks of what is happening in Iran, their leadership is using the exact same playbook.
> There is decent amount of research that shows that nonviolence is a more reliable way to change regimes towards democracy.
Yes, but this is because an authoritarian regime allowing non-violent protest to occur means they have lost control, becuase the revolutionary threshold has been hit such that mass mobilization by civil society has happened and does not have a high cost - thus implying their grip on power and monopoly on violence has decreased. This is what Kuran highlights.
[0] - https://web.archive.org/web/20041222095607/http://www.abc.ne...
Private Interest Groups.
Troll farms were found to control half of the largest ethnic and religious Facebook groups before the 2020 election.
The tactic here is to use social media as a weapon to stoke every possible division in society.
The solution is to take the weapon away.
A whole half dozen, you say? And who could forget those iconic Michael Moore protest videos from 2020.
For anyone who wasn't paying attention somehow, these protests happened day after day for weeks in many major cities. And many smaller cities and towns had protests and vigils as well. This statistic is so unimpressive it makes this sound irrelevant.
You don't need a conspiracy theory to explain the social dysfunction being created and monetized as part of these firms' core business strategy.
Some, even support the terrible things that are going on, today and for a very long time, in those other places.
What am I going to do when I wake up to the news that yet another country under the control of religious fanatics is abusing their people? Demand the US invades them? Go to the streets every single day for every new issue (of which there are countless)? Demand sanctions against their government (already broadly exists)? Fly there myself? (Not sure if possible, and what help would that do?)
Who is choosing to be silent about Iran? Lack of knowledge, maybe, but deliberate planning? That would be the fault of media and perhaps the wealthy controlling the media, if it’s happening. Not the everyday person. I guarantee you, next to no one wakes up and decides “hm, I will choose to not talk about X atrocity today.”
You’re angry at the wrong people.
That's just such a bald-faced set of obvious lies that can be debunked with a 5-second google search... I struggle to see what your aim is in all this.
I mean...how about we just not kill each other. Kept the drawn lines, make "settlers" illegal and be done with it.
But nah we all tribal monkeys, our species is poisoned by evolution. So we'll never stop taking from each other, killing each other.
Israel did exactly that on 2015. Then, the Arabs (that’s what they actually are: Arabs from Egypt and Lebanon left behind by their own nations after they tried to destroy Israel in the very next day after the state was formed in 1948) went on to elect a government that specifically had as their campaign banner “the destruction of Israel” and kept sending dozens of rockets against Israel every day.