.................RATIONAL THINKING.................. مرا جهل در کامِ دیو میبَرَد.............از آن دوستی میکنم با خِرَد
November 9, 2022
With Veterans Day in mind, I was asked as a retired U.S. military officer for a comment on the 2022 election results, which produced this:
When both political parties pose as pro-military, when both are pro-war, when both are enablers of record-high Pentagon spending, when both act as if a new cold war with China and Russia is inevitable, do election results even matter? No matter which party claims victory, the true victor remains the military-industrial-Congressional complex.
November 11, 2022
Hundreds of angry men protested after Friday prayers in Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan province, online videos showed, six weeks after rights groups say dozens were killed during a crackdown in the region.
آپارتمانی که حاج عباس در آن زندگی میکرد چهار طبقه بود. هر طبقهای دو واحد داشت که درهایشان روبروی هم باز میشدند. بنابراین در این ساختمان هشت خانوار زندگی میکردند. ساختمان در یکی از محلات گرانقیمت تهران قرار داشت. عشرت خانوم، همسر حاج عباس، با خانمهای همسایه مقیم در آن مجموعه هر روز با هم و بصورت گروهی راه میرفتند. نزدیک منزلشان پارکی بود که وسائل ورزشی داشت. خانمها قرار داشتند که هر روز ساعت چهار بعد از ظهر پیاده به پارک بروند و نرمش کنند، و سپس پیاده برگردند، که هم راه رفته باشند و هم نرمش کرده باشند.
"If there is a hot war between the U.S. and a major power, it will be the result of the U.S. choosing escalation over de-escalation, brinkmanship over detente — not just once but over and over again."
November 9, 2022
The commander of the U.S. nuclear arsenal [Charles Richard] has stated unequivocally that the war in Ukraine is just a warmup exercise for a much larger conflict that’s already in the mail.
November 8, 2022
Walter Russell Mead jumps at the chance to push for regime change:
“But using all the diplomatic and economic tools at America’s disposal to help the Iranian people’s fight for freedom is both the right thing to do and the best way to advance U.S. interests at a critical time.
The time for action is now.”
November 7, 2022
The bipartisan project of dismantling U.S. democracy, which took place over the last few decades on behalf of corporations and the rich, has left only the outward shell of democracy.
The courts, legislative bodies, the executive branch and the media, including public broadcasting, are captive to corporate power. There is no institution left that can be considered authentically democratic. The corporate coup d’état is over. They won. Americans lost.
در مورد جهتگیری این خیزش چندان سخن نمیتوان گفت، چرا که این رژیم طولی از انقلاب نگذشته بود که چهرهٔ کریهٔ خود را نمایاند. انقلابیون، بجز عدهٔ معدودی، خمینی را به عنوان رهبری که دیدگاههای مختلف را در زیر یک چتر قرار داده بود میدیدند، و به دلیل پیروزی سریع این انقلاب، از دست پنهان غرب غافل شدند. همین باعث تسلط خمینی بر کلیه نهادهای رهبری کشور، و نابودی سایر نیروهائی که در انقلاب شرکت کرده بودند، بجز ارتجاع مذهبی شد. شاه تصمیم گرفته بود که برای پیشبرد هدفهایش با کشورهائی که در جبههٔ غرب نبودند نیز روابط سیاسی و اقتصادی برقرار کند. از آنجائی که این یک نوع سرپیچی از خواستههای امپریالیسم غرب بود، رژیم شاه از حیطهٔ تابعیت بدون چون و چرا از این دول خارج شده بود. بنابر این جانشین کردنِ او با یک رژیم بدوی و سبُع لازم بود، بخصوص که اسلام جدیدترین حربهٔ امپریالیسم برای تحمیق و زیر سلطه نگاه داشتن خاور میانه بود.
جوانانی که هم اکنون در خیابانها بر ضد این رژیم ارتجاعی شعار میدهند و در شعارهایشان کسانی را که در سال ۵۷ انقلاب کردند مسئول این رژیم اسلامی میدانند، از آنچه که پشت پرده در آن انقلاب صورت گرفت آگاهی ندارند. همین ناآگاهی باعث آن خواهد شد که اگر این خیزش به سرنگونی این رژیم بیانجامد (که البته با قدرت نظامی و سبعیّت این رژیم احتمال آن بسیار کم است، مگر آنکه غرب دخالت کند) کشور ما تجزیه، و حداقل به چهار قسمت تقسیم خواهد شد، همان بلائی که در اواخر قرن پیش بر سر شوروی آمد. آذربایجان ایران به جمهوری آذربایجان و کردستان ایران به کردستان عراق خواهند پیوست، و جنوب و مرکز ایران به دو بخش مجزا تقسیم خواهند شد. این حداقل سرنوشت ایران در تجزیه و تکه پاره شدن آن خواهد بود.
November 4, 2022
Both the Pentagon’s
recently released Nuclear Posture Review and National Defense Strategy say
Tehran has no nuclear weapons. Washington believes Tehran "is not pursuing
one."
November 4, 2022
In an article published Thursday, economist Jeffrey Sachs called for an independent investigation of information held by U.S.-based institutions that could shed light on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Sachs and his co-author, Neil Harrison, a Columbia University professor of molecular pharmacology and therapeutics, said that federal agencies and universities possess evidence that has not been adequately reviewed, including virus databases, biological samples, viral sequences, email communications, and laboratory notebooks. Sachs and Harrison also highlighted a tantalizing scientific detail that may be an indication that SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, originated in a laboratory: a sequence of eight amino acids on a critical part of the virus’s spike protein that is identical to an amino acid sequence found in cells that line human airways.
November 4, 2022
Shiite cleric Sayad Shahraki has been shot dead by a group of
armed men in the eastern Iranian city of Zahedan, one of the epicenters of the
protests against the Iranian authorities that erupted almost two months ago
over the death in custody of young Mahsa Amini, who was initially arrested for
wearing the veil incorrectly.
October 19, 2022
The moment that Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was ousted by his own former military colleague, Captain Ibrahim Traore, pro-coup crowds filled the streets. Some burned French flags, and others carried Russian flags. This scene alone represents the current tussle underway throughout the African continent.
A few years ago, the discussion regarding the geopolitical shifts in Africa was not exactly concerned with France and Russia per se. It focused mostly on China’s growing economic role and political partnerships on the African continent. For example, Beijing’s decision to establish its first overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017 signaled China’s major geopolitical move, by translating its economic influence in the region to political influence, backed by military presence.
Octobr 18, 2022
Of all the face-meltingly stupid narratives that have been circulated about the US proxy war in Ukraine, the dumbest so far has got to be the increasingly common claim that aggressively escalating nuclear brinkmanship is safety and de-escalation is danger.
We see a prime example of this self-evidently idiotic narrative in a new Business Insider article titled “Putin’s nuclear threats are pushing people like Trump and Elon Musk to press for a Ukraine peace deal. A nuclear expert warns that’s ‘dangerous.’”
October 16, 2022
On September 26, the world was put on edge when “blasts equivalent to the power of several kilograms of explosives,” according to a UN report, severely damaged Russia’s undersea Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, an engineering marvel which had been scheduled to begin transporting natural gas from Russia to Germany before the Ukraine war broke out in February.
14 October, 2022
After activists called for protests in the predominantly Arab, oil-rich province of Khuzestan at the Iraqi border on Friday, police deployed heavily in the city of Dezful, a witness said.
October 13, 2022
The death of a young Iranian woman in police custody has ignited a wave of extraordinary protests among young Iranians, including university students and schoolchildren. World leaders watch in awe as brave Iranian women publicly remove their hijabs and even burned them, knowing full well the possible consequences. Iranian youth, raised under the Islamic Republic, have shown remarkable resilience in opposing a brutal regime. Do they have the potential to spark another revolution in Iran?
October 13, 2022
DUBAI (Reuters) -Iranian security forces stepped up their crackdown on Kurdish regions of the country overnight, deploying militia troops, as authorities pursued their deadly suppression of nationwide protests sparked by Mahsa Amini's death in police custody.
10/11/2022
Anti-government uprisings are to remain a sticking point and increase in frequency in Iran's political landscape as dissatisfaction with other factors like the country's economic conditions surface, according to analysts.
October 11, 2022
The Biden administration is swiftly establishing a narrative that the recent OPEC decision to cut oil production by 2 million tonnes is a geopolitical “aligning” by Saudi Arabia and Russia.
It taps into the Russophobia in the Beltway and deflects attention from the humiliating defeat of President Joe Biden’s personal diplomacy with Saudi Arabia. But it is not without basis, either.
October 10, 2022
Protests against Iran’s leadership entered their fourth week with further reports on social media of violent crackdowns by police, with rights groups reporting the deaths of at least four people by security forces over the weekend.
October 6, 2022
The brutal war in Yemen, which has raged since 2015, is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. A delicate truce since April has reduced some of the horror, but that deal seems to be breaking down.
