This Time We Must Support the Brave Protesters In Iran Seeking Democracy
All is not well in Iran. Quite the contrary, life in Iran for the people there is fear, poverty, dirt, disease, and corruption. Its pathetic statistical standing in world rankings in all such areas are facts. The voice of the people in the so-called Islamic Republic of Iran is rising again. We who fight with drones and missiles, we whose primary military-political export is regime change allegedly in the name of Democracy, must offer this linchpin nation in the Middle East far more than President Trump’s words that “the world is watching”.
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Islamophobia requires our response
Middle Eastern Americans are removed from U.S. airlines ostensibly for speaking Arabic on board. Muslims are attacked outside U.S. mosques. Whispers and sometimes shouts of “terrorist” follow them in their daily lives. Their ethnicity is used against them in their jobs, in the courts, in relationships, in everyday business transactions. The stereotype is that they are dangerous, hateful and backward. Ugly epithets are flung at them. Where is the community outrage?
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Argo's Iranophobia and the Destabilization of Iran for Oil Profits and Regional Domination
US history is finally clear on the fact that the CIA paid mercenary Iranians to cause riots and protest the leadership of Iran in 1953 when the USA subversively overthrew Iran’s democratically elected leader, Mohammad Mosaddegh, and replaced him with the monarchy of the Shah in order to promote the USA’s own oil interests in the region. Of course, the US administration in 1953 internally justified its own shameful actions as promoting democracy in Iran, whatever that means.
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Je ne suis pas Charlie: Hate Speech amidst “Freedom” Rhetoric
In short, the USA and all the world’s nations stand to benefit from intelligently drafting and fairly enforcing laws that restrict and punish hate speech whilst upholding free speech to ensure that political, social, and artistic creativity flourish and racism and illegal discrimination are eradicated from the public domain. Laws rationally banning public hate speech can be drafted and should be drafted, for nobody can doubt the power and efficacy of the pen. Surely we can all learn this lesson from the martyred artists of Charlie Hebdo, may they rest in peace.
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Unwanted Refugees: Racism against Middle Eastern-Americans Requires a Public Response
What can we, as Middle Eastern-Americans, expect from our new home’s cultural perceptions of us but antagonism? Whispers and sometimes shouts of “terrorist” follow us in our daily lives. Our Middle Eastern ethnicity is used as a stereotype against us in our jobs, in courtrooms, in our relationships, in day-to-day business transactions, such that we are painted as dangerous, hateful, and backwards. When we are called ugly epithets, such as “sand-n****r” or “dune-c**n”, there is no public outrage.
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Governing by Khutzpah: Israel and the Outdoor Prison called "Palestine"
Between 1948 and 1967, Israel declared Jerusalem its capital, it continued its attacks on Palestinians living in UN refugee camps in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and it repeatedly defied UN resolutions reprimanding Israel for its violence. Feeling unprotected by the international community, frustrated Palestinians began to mobilize into armed groups, such as Fateh and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), and used similar tactics as the Zionist gangs in prior decades. Violence between Israel and Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip escalated to the point of war.
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Peaceful Democratic Revolution in the Middle East Calls for Regime Change
Problematically, the nations of Europe, North America, and South America have said very little or nothing at all, and have shown no tangible support whatsoever for the courageous protesters in the Middle East who are crowding the streets of Egypt, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, and Kuwait, demanding an end to thousands of years of oppression by hostile monarchies, military dictatorships, and fake democracies.
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Clash of Civilizations, American Jurisprudence, and Islamic Law and Policy in the Middle East
As Mary Robinson, the former UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, recently stated in her lecture at UC Hastings, the frightening convergence between purportedly “religious,” “fundamentalist” Western and Eastern political, industrial, and military leaders upholds free trade concerns while simultaneously degrading human rights, and that this international trend is truly “backwards,” taking us back decades in human rights reforms. In his book, Democracy Matters, Cornel West calls this “free market fundamentalism,” supported by the related theorems of “aggressive militarism” and “escalating authoritarianism,” the current era’s greatest threats to universal democracy. The violent international clashes between thousands of human rights-minded citizens and WTO or NAFTA convention security forces is one example of this trend.
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The Debate over Mr. Hamdan: Sources of Law and The Three Branches
The Bush Administration has worn away at the legal liberties and protections afforded our Nation’s free inhabitants as well as its accused criminals, who are still allegedly presumed innocent until proven guilty. All things considered, I am reminded of a famous quote by our Nation’s eldest Statesman and most prominent Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin – a signatory to the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, and the US Constitution: “Those who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.” Now, this is for the Court to decide.
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