Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/14/australian-academic-kylie-moor.html
…
1 Like
It’s sad that she is is imprisoned as a token-piece. I really hope it works out for her and she makes it home sefely.
It’s also sad that Canadians and U.S. citizens can’t safely travel to the mid-east any longer without watching every word they say.
6 Likes
If the middle east really wants the West to stop sending civilians we can always send more armed soldiers. War is a terrible choice, but it is a choice.
Unfortunately while we could violently overthrow these regimes, we wouldn’t have a workable plan to establish something better. At some point the people in the region need to decide if they wish to participate in the world or close in on themselves.
I no longer view visiting Iran as an amazing adventure steeped in a vibrant and ancient history. I now view traveling there as a security risk to myself and my family.
6 Likes
The west violently overthrowing regimes is what caused most of the trouble in the first place. Iran would like to participate in the world, it is the Orange Fool and his buddies Netanyahoo and the Saudi crown prince who have scuppered that…
27 Likes
There have been numerous examples of Iranian authorities coming down hard on people for what for us look like minor or non offenses. Its a bit surprising that Kylie Moore-Gilbert didn’t know about that, and traveled to Iran even when the linked video was sitting on youtube.
3 Likes
That’s horseshit. Really. Sorry to be so blunt. But Iran’s theocratic leaders has been driving a wedge between itself and the West for many decades, long before Trump became President. Reagan’s Iran-Contra affair couldn’t have occurred if the US and Iran were already having peaceful relations. The hope that we could bury the hatchet easily through a few meetings is naive at best, and dangerously irresponsible at worst.
2 Likes
Careful there. Bordering on ungoodthink.
3 Likes
And how has that been working out lately?
I wouldn’t be so confident when it comes to an Iran there, a mountainous country four times larger than Iraq, with a proud and patriotic population of over 80 million, however repressed they may be. Iran is also much more culturally and religiously homogenous than Iraq; some 95% of the population are Shia. An invasion would involve urban warfare at a scale and attendant death toll not seen since WWII. Think Stalingrad. Jihadi fighters the world over would flock there in droves. It would be a bloodbath that would destabilize the region, and the entire world, many order of times more than it already is.
8 Likes
Indeed. As much as I sincerely wish for her expeditious and safe return, given her area of expertise you really have to wonder what the hell she was thinking travelling to Iran. Naive would be an understatement I’m afraid.
2 Likes
USA&UK organizing a coup against the democratically elected Mosaddegh and installing the Shah as a brutal dictator to keep control of the oil may have contributed to the tense relations, don’t you think?
30 Likes
1 Like
Most likely, considering the events of today and the tanker bombings this summer, Iran is now a target for airstrikes. Would expect those within days, if they aren’t already occurring. Probably to take out military targets and cripple their ability to send drones to Saudi Arabia.
“The west” - the new shortcut for “the UK and USA and whomever they make go along”
7 Likes
Not to mention the British-backed coup of 1921.
By what right? The UK and USA have shown themselves (ourselves?) to be predatory manipulators of Iran, again and again. Why not abandon the self-righteous, self-appointed ‘world police’ role and leave Iran alone?
Even if external pressure is justified, the UK & USA have disqualified themselves. Repeatedly.
True. Their choice. We don’t get a say in it.
16 Likes
I’m okay with her being in detention for whatever reason. When you visit a country, you follow the laws of the land. Ignorance is no excuse.
I’m sure she’ll get a fair trial and eventually either serve her sentence or be released on humanitarian grounds. Either way, I hope the same justice is delivered to the thousands of Iranians, Iraqi’s, Afghani’s, Syrians’, Yemens that are currently in ‘our’ secret prisons around the world…
Never forget, folks: it is the Coalition of the Willing - the ones dropping most bombs and killing most innocent people in country’s around the world - who are responsible for most of the terror that humanity is experiencing. Daily. At the rate of one bomb dropped every twenty minutes.
For twenty+ years.
3 Likes
Hmm. I agree with most of your post, but I’m not convinced that all arrests of foreigners/dual nationals in Iran are for genuine law-breaking - some do seem to be retaliation against other countries or attempts to bring political pressure. Nor am I confident of the fairness of the Iranian judicial system.
14 Likes
Jihadi fighters the world over regard the Shia as heretics and would not lift a finger to save the Islamic Republic of Iran.
6 Likes
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested and tried on the basis of “offences” committed outside Iran.
8 Likes
Perhaps I am missing something but that video does not appear to be offensive to Iran, if anything it is a criticism of Saudi Arabia.
Gee thanks Vladimir Ilyich, but how do the undeniable crimes committed by Western nations justify a theocratic dictatorship that brutalizes and murders its own citizens for not conforming to their totalitarian moral code. Really, I’ve had it up to HERE with this rote anti-imperialism that just mirrors Western aggression by uncritically defending every crime, no matter how heinous, as long as it’s committed by the other side.
15 Likes
