The following is a letter (open, I assume) to President Bush from an Iranian citizen in Teheran that has been circulating via email to a list of people interested in a free Iran. I am posting it here in the hopes that Teddy Kennedy might see it. (Just kidding. A lot of surprising people drop by this blog from time-to-time but I don’t think he’s one of them.) I’m really posting it because it moved me and I thought you might find it interesting. It is unedited, obviously.
Dear Mr President;
I heard your wonderful world loving speech ; it brought tears to my eyes ; you couldn’t imagine how you made me feel!!!
Your policy is right about Iran ; please don’t let anyone get in your way specially the Europian Union ; all they care for , are their benefits (black gold , multi million dollar contracts and etc… )
for price of what ???World humen lives!!! (Terrorism and atomic bombs)!!!
We are behind you %100 ; we would love to have good relations with you ; our nations have mixed with each other ; my son is half American and so lots of others like me.
Our country is in the hands of terrorists who have been brain washing our people for 26 years to hate ; to die ; to kill etc…
On walls of streets they write death to America ; also on the roads!!!
They are anti American and overall western world!!!
We are just like prisoners here in our own country ; no freedom of speech ; no freedom of press ; no freedom of thoughts ; no freedom of religion ; no freedom of pre marriage relationship ; no freedom of social activity (music) , no social freedom ; no political freedom ; no ecconomical freedom and on and on and on!!!!!
Your prisons in U.S have much better living condition than here!!!
Do not trust them for a second ; they are the biggest liers world has ever seen , they might say ok what ever you say in the last minute ; to buy time and when your presidntial term is over ; no doubt they would start again!!!
I am cofident that %99 of our people want regime change!!! Please support us by not negotiating (any talks) and don’t let any other country do it either.
Put pressure on our opposition leaders to becaome united ; also our media.
Make sure that people inside hears the leadership by radio station that can’t be disturbed by any parasites or noise.
Our movement must be organized to work.
I have a lot more things to say to you but knowing that you are very busy ; I cut it short.
If it’s possible for your adminstration ; please reply my email by your comments ; Thank you so much
Babak from Iran — Tehran
Babak — sos214(Member of sosiran )
Please support www.sosiran.com
UPDATE: Regarding the provenance of this letter, I have the full name and email address of the sender and the full list of addressees, almost all Iranian names. This does not mean it is authentic, of course, but I suspect some of these dozens of addressees know the sender and can check.
Babak seems to be a pretty common name on google. Anyway, a coworker of mine went to Iran a few months ago to visit is ailing dad. He says that no one likes the regime, but that there is nothing to rally around: no well known person or idea. I wonder if Bush’s speach might fill this void to some extent.
Roger,
Speaking of Senator Kennedy, didn’t the great Dean Vernon Wormer say, “Fat, drunk, and being a U.S. Senator is no way to go through life, son.”
Well, maybe not, but it’s the nicest thing most of us can say about Ted.
As far as the Iranians go, unless someone blasts their nuclear program to kingdom come and humiliates the Mad Mullahs, nothing is going to change in Iran. The dissidents have had twenty plus years to overthrow the government and
they seem as entrenched as ever, very much like Saddam in Iraq, who wasn’t removed until a military intervention by the U.S.
Recall that the Israelis caught unjustifiable hell for bombing Saddaam’s nuke factory in ’82. (Thank God they did it!)
Maybe we need them to do it again to the Mullah’s factory in Iran. And if it’s too far for them to fly and we’re worried about the Euros and the “Arab Street,” we could lend-lease them a carrier for the mission.
Are you positive this person is for real? I’m not calling you a liar or a naif, I just ask: how do you know this is for real?
I hear that Condi Rice got into it with the Iranians at the socalled terror conference in Riyadh. It seems they can not even decide on what terrorism is, much less how to deal with it.
The Israelis can’t take these sites out the way they did the reactor in Iraq. The trip is too far, there are too many sites and they have to fly over Iraq to do it. That brings Iraq into it and right now that is not a good idea.
It seems the best way to deal with it might be from within and so let’s hope this letter is legit.
But I do believe that if these guys get a nuke, the world and their people will be stuck with them.
Momentum is building. Read this whole article.
Dean
I visited your website because if possible it is best to get a sense of where one is coming from and you definitely deserve for your question to be treated as thoughtful rather than cynical (it makes a difference). I look at it like this…
I regret that I never supported Ronald Reagan, but history and testimony of those living behind the Iron Curtain will tell you that Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech and similar rhetoric along with a show of consistent unwavering principled stances concerning the “Evil Empire” was the back-breaking difference in people having courage to stand down their leaders and demand freedom. Reagan walking away from Gorbachev in Iceland showed people Reagan was serious, again it made the difference.
Bush has not only done similar to Reagan but more. He sidelined Arafat, moderated Sharon, and basically said “I don’t need back-stabbing allies to win”. I believe we are about to see our fair weathered allies judge the weather favorable, but most importantly they have been exposed, people in Iraq want the U.N’s help, but it is the United States that makes the West credible, it is Bush they trust. Notice I say Bush, they know that there is a large group in our nation that cannot stomach or bear what Bush has done and I bet this may actually accelerate the anxiousness of the people of Iran because they may view this as more a “Window of Opportunity” than a full nation committed to Iran’s well being. Bush has gone much further then Reagan because he done the “Grenada thing” in two much more difficult locations, Afghanistan (the Soviet Union’s “Vietnam”) and turned it into a relative cakewalk, and Iraq where Baghdad was declared the next “Stalingrad” of course that has been now modified to “Vietnam” by anti-War naysayers. Reagan declared the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire”, Bush has declared three “Axis’s of Evil”.
History and patterns of human behavior are fairly consistent, whether the above letter is a cynical fake does not change the above facts so my point and question is… What elements today would not point to the probability that those oppressed today won’t have a similar reaction as those in Eastern Europe? Japan also proved a nation need not be “Christian” to enjoy freedom, it is inherent in all to enjoy freedom once given the opportunity. The Soviet Union fell after Reagan left office on the eve of his decent into Alzheimer’s, yet he rightfully receives full credit. If and when other nations follow Iraq and Afghanistan into freedom anytime in the next generation or even more, Bush will rightfully receive that credit as well, it was pure leadership on Bush’s part that brought about the policy and will to see it through. Of course Bush doesn’t need any cynical fake letters to help his point, but even if it is fake it will change nothing as the path we are on is entrenched, our elections last November followed by Iraq’s elections in January have guaranteed that. Bush in my opinion, the first Republican I ever voted for, deserves a prominent spot on Mount Rushmore (hell he should get that for winning me over, a huge obstacle I assure you). It doesn’t matter, if they don’t build him one here they certainly will somewhere in the Middle East and maybe more. Democrats, Europe and the MSM can keep trying to change facts and history but they are past being able to do that, Bush’s legacy like Reagan’s will by sheer force of nature, in other word truth, flatten every attempt to do so.
Samuel -
I agree with most of your post – except the fake-but accurate point. Please, don’t use this as a debate point in this medium –
/laughing
DanM
Yuck! Please, I never made a “fake-but accurate” point, in fact I implied the opposite. I simply said…
“Of course Bush doesn’t need any cynical fake letters to help his point, but even if it is fake it will change nothing as the path we are on is entrenched.”
Notice the word “cynical” preceeding the word fake, a key qualifier to the meaning. For further clarification the meaning is… even if it were proved to be fake, (which in context to what was written was how I intended it to be interpreted). My implication was that it certainly would be negative, but not enough of a negative to change the course of history or Bush’s reputation as a leader. I would never condone such tactics, I loathe such tactics and in fact support Bush because he is straight-forward and the least prone to such tactics of any politician I have ever supported. I was making a point about the force of history we are currently witnessing and how stupid it would be to think such a thing would help because “Bush doesn’t need any cynical fake letters”. Accuracy had nothing to do with any point I made.
Fake but accurate is an oxy-moron and in the spirit of Dan Rather and memo-gate. Anyone who has followed my postings knows this is the very opposite of what I am about.
No offense taken, just felt a need to clarify.
To all,
I agree this could be the tipping point. We all now have the power in our finger tips to push this over the edge.
As Hewitt suggests in his new book, “Blog,” it’s the power of the “Long Tail.” We are in a tranformational period of human thought as great as Martin Luther’s time when control of info and news was wrestled away from the Pope and the Catholic Church [read MSM].
Feel empowered both individually and collectively to make a difference.
Blessed be for the Blogos! Let the light of the free world shine on the Mad Mullahs of Iran in support of a people that wish to be free.
The sword of truth will be the deciding factor in the crushing of Islamofacism as yet another failed ideology of hate, opression, tyranny, torture, and the denial of the free will of men and women.
Read further:
THE POWER AND POLITICS OF BLOGS
and
IRAN – MULLAHS ABOUT TO STONE 13 YEAR-OLD GIRL
Link Here
Great post Samuel. The reason I come to this blog is because of Roger and people like you. There is more intelligent discussion of the issues on this blog than anywhere else that I have found. I believe the reason for that is that so many on the posters are recent ex-democrats. No, the discussions are intelligent not because you are no longer Democrats (of course that doesn’t hurt) but because you have had to rethink your own ideas and not simply follow the latest talking points that the DNC has come up with. By rethinking your positions on the issues you have had to challenge yourself into deciding what made sense and what doesn’t. When I read this blog I find a core believe in the correctness of George Bush’s foreign policies to fight Islamic extremists and to try and bring democracy to countries that have never known it. I also find many divergent views on almost every other issue. Thus, my own views are constantly being challenged by having to defend my own beliefs. And that is a very good thing!
I consider myself to be a classic liberal from the 1960s (I am a contemporary of Roger) which of course makes me a political conservative now. I grew up in a good New Deal Democratic household and I instinctively voted Democrat. However, I found as I got older the Democrats no longer represented the ideals that they once did. For example, they went from opposition to racial bigotry to support for a racial spoils system. My epiphany came when Ronald Reagan first ran for office. Once again, we had a Republican who was not simply wrong, but was being demonized as someone who would destroy the country. Since the reality was so different from the rhetoric, I with great trepidation pulled the level for a Republican for the first time in my life. Surprisingly, a lighting bolt did not shoot out from the sky and consume me instantly. Since then I have not looked back and I have voted exclusively for the Republican candidate for President (and for most other Republican candidates). It is not so much that I am voting for Republicans (however, that is definitely the case with George Bush). It is that I cannot support a Democrat party that has become a reactionary party of class warfare, racial spoils and anti-Semitism.
Samuel,
Sorry, had to cook the obligatory Sunday breakfast for the kids..
I really did get your point. I fixated on the “but even if it is fake it will change nothing” I thought your post was excellent – my deficiencies not withstanding.
I think that the sentiment in the letter is what you were referring to in your post – not the letter itself. As you correctly state, the die is cast and it appears that the winning roll is ours. I am hopeful.
I must remember that the nature of semi-asynchronous communications doesn’t lend itself to well-intentioned humor.