NRO, MOFO
Something to chew on
Ledeen makes a convincing little argument about why the revolution is about to change course from the religious to the secular. If i were an iranian, i would have wanted to ditch the Shah as well. Clearly, having a tyrant is no way to run a country...especially one who is basically a puppet. but the rule by the clerics is not good either.

The SS-type shocktroops are definitely a sign of weakness...using such brutality against your own people is not the sign of a popular government...at least it won't be popular for long. The senseless violence is, well, brutal. I was only a little shocked by the BBC's letters from Iranians.

What could throw the push for democracy off? a large, foreign military influence...at this point, there are no allies with the will or clout to maintain the presence of the Islamic Shia state....Saudi Arabia would be the only middle eastern country with the money and interest in seeing Iran maintain a status quo..but saudi arabia is sunni, arab and does not share a common history like syria, lebanon, jordan, iraq, yemen, egypt share with Saudi arabia.

Pakistan, afghanistan, and the former soviet states are in no position.....although, there may be al-qaida operatives who might collaborate to maintain the state...like they did in afghanistan...If anyone knows repression, its the Taliban Alumnus.

Exploitation/solution
What do you make of this?...I'm not sure if this is good or bad. i suppose if this is more about charity then this is okay. But if it was charity, these squeegy kids wouldn't have to hold advertisements for the pizza joints. True charity doesn't need recognition.

Congo, Israel, Palestine
Browsing Indymedia, you can sometimes be surprised by the different type of news presented.. Sometimes, there is blatant anti-semitism/anti-americanism and consistently a radical socialist perspective. Now, the situation in the congo is not exactly being ignored by the mainstream, its not really front and centre. while the palestinian/jewish situation is serious enough, it is by no means as intense as the congo..why?

the extreme left will tell you its because the jews control the media, that Israel has too much clout or other nonsense, while others will tell you that yasser and friends are extremely adept at getting their disgusting, immoral and reprehensible message out (did i give away my position there?). The real answer is probably somewhere in the middle there....

Jewish and, apparently, christian people feel a great afinity for israel. this is a developed, western, modern nation with all the functioning democratic insitutions of the west...but faced with a hostile neighbour. This must strike a chord with not only jews, but the French (who had the Germans), the US (who has faced down plenty of hostile neighbours), the English/Irish...whew. So, the west can relate, not only as common western, developed nations, but as people who have to deal with hostile force...although, i suppose the latter can also relate to smaller extent to the palestinians.

but chiefly, there is a sympathy with israel...even more so because the west feels regret over the way the jewish people were treated in WW2. the mid east, however, and much of the rest of the world, feels no regret or really no understanding of the atrocity. Just as the west cannot fully comprehend on a mass scale the absolute horror of the Maoist holocaust (50 mill slaughtered), much of the world cannot grasp the jewish holocaust....It also does not help that most of the middle east is informed of their attitudes from Nazi Ideology....the fact that english books are so rarely translated into arabic is a whole other matter, but does not help the situation.

Why the neglect of the congo? We cannot relate. Its possible we will start to, but because there are few western links (other than shameful colonialist ones) there are few links to congo economically, historically (relatively speaking), politically, religiously or philosophically. Who are the congolese people? students do not visit the congo after they graduate, leaders do not visit to extend hands of welcome...there is no engagement because it is not necessary.

and not too many voters will want their sons and daughters sent to an unknown land, to fight an internal battle of another nation, for people they have no connection to (see Vietnam, popularity of). The UN has the mandate to get a message across to the world that they have to see a reason to step in that transcends these reasons: these are human beings doing horrible things to each other. on a grand scale. all pretensions of sovereignty of this nation are out the window since there are 5 foreign armies on the ground, and a handful of factions all gunning for all them and each other.

Kofi (not my hommie) annan will watch as he did the first time this happened. W should do something since he's pledged so much time (building pro democracy incentives for aid policies) and money (15 Bill for fighting Aids) in africa.....Africa, the dark continent is slipping.