Poster for the November 4, 2009 demonstrations against dictatorship in Iran.
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"Neither East-leaning, Nor West-leaning, Regimes: A National Democratic State in Iran"
November 4, 2009
On Tlaxcala at:
http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=9191&lg=en
Today, November 4th 2009, in the few hours that a public demonstration was declared legal by the government of the Islamic Republic, Iranians poured into the streets, crying, "Neither East-leaning, Nor West-leaning, Regimes: A National Democratic State in Iran"
Demanding a home-grown democracy is what this recent wave of demonstrations in Iran is all about.
The people of Iran believe that the current government has stolen the last election (June 2009) and that a repeat of the election is in order; this time with trustworthy observers, and with independent oversight to assure a healthy, honest election process, which will yield accurate results.
No Iranian wants a "regime change" imposed by the U.S. and Israel.
Iranians know, full well, the devastating effects of war-- they were forced to endure an 8-year war with Saddam's Iraq, imposed by Saddam's ally, the United States. At the time, Saddam's regime had full U.S. military and political support, while Iran was just emerging from a popular revolution which had overthrown the Shah's U.S. puppet regime. The Shah's regime, with full support of the U.S. and Israel, had brutalized and tortured the Iranian nation for almost 30 years. The Shah had been installed by a U.S. coup d'etat in 1953 which removed the democratically elected government of Dr. Mossadegh.
To weaken the new revolutionary Iran, the United States encouraged and supported an Iraqi invasion of Iran, and continued to support this so-called "Iran-Iraq war" for years. The U.S. offered Saddam chemical and biological weapons to use against people of the region, Iraqis and Iranians alike. The losers of this war were the Iranian and Iraqi people, who lost over a million lives and are still enduring massive public health problems such as cancers, loss of limbs, and psychological disorders inflicted on them by that U.S.-sponsored war.
The Iranian people are also well aware of the fact that the U.S. (despite Obama's pretending to oppose the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan), and despite his "change you can believe in" rhetoric, is still imposing crippling sanctions on Iran. Furthermore, the U.S. has not made a single move to end the illegal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The people of Iran are encircled by deadly American military power, which has so far claimed millions of lives in the Middle East and made many more millions refugees.
The people of Iran feel that the way to real stability and peace for their country, and for the whole of the region, is peaceful, nonviolent, democratic change that will allow functioning of the civil society without abrupt upheavals that would disrupt life and potentially invite unwanted foreign powers into their land.
So, in answer to President Obama's "We have heard for 30 years what the Iranian government is against; the question, now, is what kind of future it is for"
It must be said that: What the current government in Iran wants, and has been pushing for, is a prolonged verbal cat-fight with the U.S. and Israel, to create an atmosphere of crisis, so that the Iranian public will not protest its illegitimate power grab. This verbal cat-fight is a dangerous game, because the U.S. and Israel keep maneuvering to "obliterate" Iran, a land of 76 million people. After Hillary Clinton threatened to "obliterate" Iran, Obama chose her to be his Secretary of State.
The Iranian people, however, want home-grown democratic rule, a demilitarized Middle East, and an independent Iraq and Afghanistan without U.S. intervention. This will guarantee that the people of the Middle East (Iranian, Iraqi, Afghan, etc.) will have the ability to organize their elected governments and build a future THEY see fit for themselves and their children.
The best way that you, Mr. Obama, can help is by taking your hundreds of thousands of military personnel out of Iraq and Afghanistan, to give people breathing space. You can also help by halting U.S. funding of the violently racist state of Israel. Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons and a history of constantly bombing and invading Middle Eastern nations.
Saying "change you can believe in" is a mockery, when you continue occupying millions of peoples' lands across the Middle East and Afghanistan.
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