Via Gateway Pundit:

In a strong statement to the press on Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the actions of Iran’s state security services “unacceptable.”

She called on them to “avoid any further escalation of the violence and to pursue political dialogue to peacefully settle internally disputed matters,” and also to respect their commitment to the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the right to peaceful protest.

What is our President doing while the world burns (again)?  Enjoying some rays and reading what looks to be a Harry Potter book on the beach.

In the meantime, Gestapo Janet says, “the system worked fine” as reports surface that a new wave of airline bombers may be coming.

It is too bad I missed this as a Christmas gift… I think they will sell out soon.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Via CNN’s iReport website:

Again, there are constant live updates from the people of Iran themselves on Twitter. Much violence and bloodshed. Today looks to be a turning point in the Green Revolution. Hopefully.

Meanwhile, Barry is golfing and taking the kids for ice cream in Hawaii.  Has the President EVER used the words “Freedom” or “Liberty”?  Just curious. 

UPDATED MUSING:  When did Barry and American Democrats stop caring about human rights?  Was that another casualty of the 2008 Election?

UPDATE: From “Iran1st” on Twitter: In over 1300 years no ruler or invader has ever shed blood on Ashura [Shia mourning holiday] - The Islamic Republic has.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

The Iranian People are rising up against their repressive regime again today.  Let’s hope this time that President Obama doesn’t ignore them again in favor of kissing the dictator’s ass.

Iranian security forces on Sunday killed at least four people, including a nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, during the fiercest clashes with anti-government protesters in months, opposition Web sites and witnesses said.

Amateur video footage purportedly from the center of Tehran showed an enraged crowd carrying away one of the casualties, chanting, “I’ll kill, I’ll kill the one who killed my brother.” In several locations in the center of the capital, demonstrators fought back furiously against security forces, hurling stones and setting their motorcycles, cars and vans ablaze, according to video footage and pro-reform Web sites.

Photos from Tehran fighting today (via dissidents on Twitter and Facebook):

It would be nice if these images would cause our President to get angry or something….

FOLLOW BREAKING DEVELOPMENTS FROM IRANIAN PEOPLE via TWITTER

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

While some have compared the rise of Islamofasctic Iran in the current decade to the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, there is one major difference.  Within eighteen months of taking power, Hitler had succeeding in snuffing out all opposition (quite literally because it was the murderous “Night of the Long Knives” at the end of June and beginning of July, 1934 that marked his total consolidation of power).

While Hitler never allowed a free and fair general election after he had taken power (though some might call the March 1933 elections free), he likely would have survived any plebiscite held in Germany in all twelve years of his “Reich.”  Not so with the Iranian mullahs.   Were it not for fraud, they would have lost the elections this past June.  And with the subsequent protests, the tyrants feared something which barely concerned Hitler after he had dispatched Ernst Röhm on July 2, 1934, the undermining of his regime from within:

The fraudulent presidential election in June and the subsequent mass demonstrations produced the biggest regime crisis in years. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei must have been panicked at the prospect of losing control — and with reason.

Thus, Robert Kagan, who penned those words above, contends since the election, the regime’s “overriding goal since the election . . . has been to buy time and try to reestablish and consolidate control without any foreign interference in its internal affairs.”  He suggests then the President focus ”on the regime’s instability,” ignoring “the nukes”, while pushing “crippling” sanctions which “could help the Iranian opposition topple these still-vulnerable rulers”:

The government’s behavior during and after the election has opened an irreparable breach between the regime and large elements of Iranian society, and even within the clerical ranks. The government may succeed in clamping down on the opposition and driving it underground. But the notion that the Iranian opposition will suddenly rally around Ahmadinejad and Khamenei if the West imposes sanctions is absurd.

With protests continuing more than three months after the fraudulent elections, it’s clear that the regime’s repressive measures have failed to dampen the spirit of the people.  Yet, the Obama Administration has acted as if their movement for change were a distraction from its foreign policy goals.   (more…)

Despite the news media having already forgotten about the stolen election in Iran and the violent crackdown there, the Iranian people haven’t.  This video comes from Iran earlier today where thousands brave men and women confronted tear gas to protest peacefully.

To follow real-time updates from Iran, go to Twitter #iranelection

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Why else would he now want talks with President Obama?  (H/t Gateway Pundit.)

Recall, that first as candidate, then as President, the Democrat offered to meet with the Iranian oligarch without conditions and Ahmadinejad wouldn’t give him the time of day. Now, in the wake of his government’s violent suppression of popular demonstrations against his supposed reelection, it’s clear his regime lacks the legitimacy many assumed it had.

We now know that the Iranian people do not support the regime.

Let us hope that, given that violent suppression, our president knows better than to agree to such a meeting.  I doubt the Iranian would have talked about such a meeting if he did not feel threatened by the protests by his people.  Perhaps, he seeks the legitimacy from world leaders than he cannot find at home.

UPDATE:  Here is another sign why Ahmadinejad might feel less secure than he once did, a leading clerical group is at odds with the oligarch’s religious patron over the election.  A split seems to be emerging among the nation’s clerics:

The most important group of religious leaders in Irancalled the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate on Saturday, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment.

A statement by the group, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, represents a significant, if so far symbolic, setback for the government and especially the authority of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose word is supposed to be final.

Guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised to see this sign as I approached the Bay Bridge, given my left-of-center friend who was wearing green for Iran.  Seems even the folks in Oakland support freedom for the Iranian people.

Sorry I couldn’t get a better picture, but snapped this in very slow traffic.

A rare picture of yours truly, this is compliments of a friend, who took some shots of me while I launched some balloons at my house in Denver today to show solidarity with the Iranian democrats.

While Iranian clerics advocate for the execution of peaceful protesters and US Congressmen actually suggest that those who opposed their harebrained Cap-and-Trade scheme are playing into Iran’s hands (no mention, by the way, of how Weiner & Co.’s continued denial of our own resources does exactly the same thing, but anyway…), supporters of the Green Revolution released green balloons into the skies all around the world today to show solidarity and do what our own government won’t: Stand clearly and affirmatively with the People of Iran against their oppressors.

I have so much to say about this and promise to bother you with it more soon.

Perhaps my favorite essay by George Eliot is her reflection on my favorite Sophocles play, Antigone.  In that great Greek tragedy, Creon, the tyrant of Thebes, succeeding the unfortunate Oedipus (from whom the unhappy Barney Frank could learn much) bars the burial that deposed king’s son, Polyneices, for raising against his brother Eteocles in the city’s civil war.

Antigone, sister to the deceased soldier, insists on burying him in defiance of her uncle’s edict both out of love for her sibling and out fealty to the gods.  A king, she believed (and the sage Tiresias agreed), should not enact and enforce a law at odds with the his (and his people’s) duty to the deities.

We saw just this week, another regime, this one claiming a divine mandate, defy its god in refusing burial to one who died defying the tyrant.  In defiance of Persian tradition and more assuredly the strictures of Islam, officials acting under the authority of the tyrants Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, refused to allow the family of Neda Agha Soltan, the Iranian woman martyred for freedom “to show any signs of mourning.”  They did not return the body for proper burial.

If they were truly devoted to the faith, they would return the body to the family for a proper Muslim burial.  But, just the tyrant Creon, their movement is not about faith, but about using it secure power.

While we have often been critical of the most extreme expression of Islam, there is much good in that faith, very much good.  But, this latest action shows that the Iranian “theocrats” have given short shrift to the ideals of the Muslim faith which blended with ancient Persian traditions once made (and could yet again make) Iran a world leader not just economically and politically, but also culturally.

And as this regime defies its deity, the tyrants at its head will soon learn what Creon learned so many millennia ago.  Attempts to secure your own power, in defiance of divine dictates, cause you to lose your grip and suffer a fall which false forms of faith cannot prevent.

ADDENDUM:  While there is much to quote in Eliot’s essay, this is perhaps my favorite passage, which I used as epigram to a climactic chapter in my novel:

Wherever the strength of a man’s intellect, or moral sense, or affection brings him into opposition with the rules which society has sanctioned, there is renewed the conflict between Antigone and Creon; such a man must not only dare to be right, he must also dare to be wrong—to shake faith, to wound friendship, perhaps, to hem in his own powers.

Sorry for another quick hit-and-git today. Even MORE sorry to the date I’m late for right now so I can post this.

Surely, you’ve all ‘friended’ Mir Hossein Mousavi on Facebook, right? Additionally, you can go into “Settings” and change your first name to “Neda” to show even more support.

Want to do more? How about this, latest post of his:

Ok, now all the world are going to show their supports to Iranains… This Friday, We all are going to send GREEN BALLOONS to the sky to show that now ALL PEOPLE OF THE WORLD ARE IRANIAN. On 9/11 everybody was American, NOW THE WORLD IS IRANIAN.

See you all Friday, and I’d love to see the sky filled with Green.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot) from HQ

p.s. I am so incredibly moved by what is happening in Iran (and simultaneously embarrassed by the milquetoast response by our own leadership). I have been meaning to write more, but I’ve been so busy with work. I’m hoping that (in spite of Pride this weekend in Denver) I will have time to fully express my thoughts about this in the forthcoming days.