Home

Welcome back.
Were glad you’re safe and look forward to your reports.
splendid the Iranian people are–charming, well-educated, for the most part, and anxious to become part of the world again
.
It says a lot about you that you were inerested in going and expreiencing that for yourself. There are a number of people who make hugely consequential decisions based on little more than imagination and storytelling. (The comic-book mentality)
.
The idea that people are the same the world over doesn’t shock me but there are many people for whom that simple fact spoils an otherwise really exciting story of triumph over evil. Thanks for being willing to shed light on an area that some would prefer remain hidden.

Well wonders never ceased. I thought you were confined to your hotel room. Glad to see you are back safe and sound. Hurry and wright so can bi@ch at you old man.

Welcome back. Three questions:
.
1. Do we really have to wait for the dead-tree edition?
.
2. Where you expressly prevented from blogging/twittering? Or was there an insurmountable technical problem? Or a fear of being arrested and subject to “enhanced interrogation methods”?
.
3. Did you buy the gold or silver-plated hookah?

By the way Joe-While you were gone Sen McCain and Dana Rohrabacher with the blessing of the neocons have been running around using the current situation in Iran to start another war. I’m pretty sure with they are doing the bidding of the neocons. I can just imagine what this would be like now if McCain was president right now.
.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/16/obama-iran-meddling/

Glad you’re safe, Joe — write soon!

Welcome back! Glad that you are safe.
-
That’s a pretty good column by Ignatius. He’s not as unequivocal as he should be about the questionable results– Juan Cole and Walter Melbane, both of UMich, have well-informed and statistical analysis to back up the claim that there were wild irregularities. Also, the Mousavi supporters aren’t rioting, by and large, they’re just in the streets protesting. But he’s definitely right that, thank God, “America [is for once] firmly (but unobtrusively) on the side of the people.”

Welcome home!

Welcome back, Joe. I really look forward to your insights.

Glad you’re back home. I look forward to your report and analyses of current events in Iran; and other posts on Syria and Israel- Palestine. Rest up – not too long – and then get down to it. Thanks

Welcome back. We’re all looking forward to reading what you have to say.

” .. -charming, well-educated, for the most part, “

“for the most part”? For which part are they not “well-educated”?
Well. Just for reference, are all Americans “well-educated”?
Are all Israelis “well-educated”?
Where on earth do you find a nation of all “well-educated” citizens? And if there isn’t, them why mention it?
[Sure, your salvation lies in the fact that we don't know precisely what you mean by "well-educated".]

.

” .. and anxious to become part of the world again. ..”
“world”? “Again”?
Where had they all gone to?

.

” .. They deserve a far better government than the one they have. ..”

And of course a “better government” is one you say it is.

Don’t you just hate know-it-all supremacists!

Hi Joe. This is America. Enjoy your one day of being thanked and welcomed after traveling to danger in the middle east before everyone forgets about it and starts criticizing you again.
-
(sort of)

I can only hope you are joking, cfukara

And apparently smilies are enabled on this blog. Who knew?

I join the others in welcoming you back, Joe. There was a lot of concern when the unrest began and we had no idea if you were safe or not.
.
If you twittered, you would have been able to let us know!
.
Sean, if you shorten the emoticon, it doesn’t pop up in 3D, so you can choose or not!

Well, who knew, indeed!
.
In my best Emily Latella, Never mind.

@cf,
While you may think Joe’s ‘well educated’ might carry the same unfortunate connotations that we associate with ‘articulate’ in a different context, you have to recall that Joe has spent significant time in Afghanistan as well.
He probably was genuinely and pleasantly surprised.

Good to see you back. I was tweeting at KT wondering how you were.

Paul Dirks: ” .. Joe has spent significant time in Afghanistan as well.
He probably was genuinely and pleasantly surprised. ..”

Maybe the USAns are “educated, for the most part” too.
Perhaps Joel Klein may not have spent much time time among the hillbillies of USA’s Appalachia ..
Or in rural Texas of the outhouses ..
[He may be advised to to explore those areas freely while disguised as an African American journalist ..]

Joe, just remember that green is not a primary color.

Ah.
[He may be advised NOT to explore those areas freely while disguised as an African-American journalist ..]

C-Fuk: F@ck man, do you speak in fragments too?

Welcome back Joe. Have you heard how Amy is doing in rehab? We heard she was either in rehab or on a ship full of fellows somewhere around England.

I thought Amy was in the basement of Westminster Cathedral being re-programmed.

cfuk: way to spread the love, man.

tantef: I thought she was being reprogrammed at the Vatican. I miss Amy. FREE AMY!

Shakespeare in GA: ” .. cfuk: way to spread the love, man. ..”
Mucho thanks.

[I accept any complement - even a mirage of one ..]

And I love the kind of love that Twitter peddles – the kind that can kill you and your loved ones (with insurrection and bloody revolutions.)

What part is being played by foreigners and foreign journalists in the unfolding events in Iran – especially with regard to the organization and logistics of the criminal elements of Moussavi? What part can we expect such foreign shenanigans to play in destabilizing us – and are we ready for it? Yea, close all borders to foreigners! Hey, we restricted the access of our journalists to the areas of our gruesome wantonly carnage in Iraq, didn’t we? Have you heard them complain about it lately?

.

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20090617/tc_afp/iranuspoliticsunrestinternettwitter_20090617015048

Yea. The tales of the siren song in Cairo.
Our creed: We respect the sovereignty of other countries. We spread democracy and the rule of law: We abhor and dissociate ourselves from violence and violent demonstrations. We embrace the system of elections whereby the loser in an election concedes and tries another day. We abhor the killing of civilians. We spread democracy and the rule of law. We do not meddle in the internal affairs of other countries and definitely not in their way of governing themselves. We abhor the killing of civilians. [We just invade and destroy and torture and kill mostly civilians and swear it was unavoidable damage in pursuit of terror-spewing "shock and awe" ..
And if in the end we cannot win, we just withdraw and piously blame a scapegoat like Nixon/Ford or Bush#43 ..]

.

How is Twitter/NTT able to bypass a government’s control on means of communication in and out of their own country? If we had a similar unstable situation (somewhat like what we mildly had in the 1960s) would a foreign government and quasi-government-owned foreign entities find a back way to bypass controls and coordinate with internal saboteurs to cause us harm – unnoticed?)

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20090617/tc_afp/iranuspoliticsunrestinternettwitter_20090617015048

So I see Joe telling us how marvelous everybody in Iran is and that “They deserve a far better government than the one they have.” Please tell us how you and the President are going to go about giving them that Government.

” .. Authorities .. tried to further muzzle Web sites and other networks used by Mousavi’s backers ..

“tried to muzzle”?
Perhaps the Iranian government and the people should seek the capability to take stronger measures against internet-based threats that threaten their national security. And that goes for all countries of the world.

When Iran embraced IT, they must have, or they should have, thought of the dangers to its national security and how to pre-empt it.
For instance, the USA government employs a stable of hackers to, eh, test its IT systems … And the exploits of the NSA are without parallel. We have free-wheeling hackers out for mischief and others who just hate ‘barbarians’ and wish to cause them harm. It doesn’t take many to unleash havoc or to protect a system against cursory hackers.

Such unfriendly foreign or local sites that are viewed as injurious to the best interests of the USA would have been swamped and rendered inaccessible soon as they appear.
That happened to the sites of Al Jazeera which were viewed as unfriendly to USA’s interests. …

[So what other steps would USA take against foreign saboteurs? Is Twitter and NTT culpable in the deaths of any Twittering demonstrators? Of course., the cases would be held in Iran and the judgment to be commensurate with those awarded in USA against foreigners that cause, or are complicit in, the death of an American.]

[...] Home [...]