Korean Job Discussion Forums

[supernick]

It's time for war. Iran is and has always been more of a threat than Iraq ever was. The UK, Canada, the U.S. Australia and a few other countries is all it will take.

Coutries like Iran can no longer be threatening nor imprisoning people the way they do.

[chris_J2]

[Gopher]

Re: Britain vs. Iran: no cause for war exists here -- let alone British capability or will. Depending on Iran's legal system, those Iranian citizens arrested may have grounds for a lawsuit against Tehran. But that is about it.

Re: the belligerent, interventionist theme running through this thread: very surprising, some of these comments, coming from these particular posters, especially given previous positions on American intervention in the Middle East, from the Second World War through the present.

[RJjr]

America shouldn't get involved, even though our government has probably already pumped a lot of our tax dollars into the protests.

I have to give the Iranian protestors a lot of credit. They have the balls to actually speak up for their rights, come what may. Here in America, myself included, we're a bunch of pussies cowed down by the Patriot Act. We're too afraid of being put on whatever watchlist, an IRS audit, losing our right to fly as a passenger on a plane, etc. The Iranian protestors are studs. If there's any doubt as to which nationality is braver and who would win a war between the USA and Iran, look at which people are brave enough to stand up for themselves and which people (myself included) cower as the national treasury is looted and rights are stripped.

[CentralCali]

[chris_J2]

CentralCali, you're playing semantics:

[Manner of Speaking]

What this election and these protests show us is that Iran per se is not the problem. I have Iranian friends who are moderate muslims emigrated to Canada because of the stifling lack of freedom in their homeland, and these protests show that there are millions of them.

They're just ordinary people like you and me. People who want to be dentists, businesspeople, teachers, civil servants, who want to make a decent living and read and watch on TV whatever they want.

Most educated people in the world nowadays want their governments to act like big, passive, public utilities. They don't want to live under foreign interventionist or ideological regimes, they want to live under governments that respect their rights and freedoms and act for the prosperity of all its citizens. They feel that foreign interventionism is for civil servants and policy wonks who exaggerate foreign policy issues because they don't have any skills to offer in the private sector, and feel ideological mindsets and religious fanaticism stem from poverty and a lack of opportunity.

Make Iran a true liberal democracy and the Iranian "probem" will be solved. And half a dozen sniper teams blowing a few mullahs away live on TV would go a long way to getting Iran there. Do you really think its just a few non-Iranians who think that way?

[chris_J2]

An interesting article here:

http://www.iranfocus.com/en/iran-general-/foreign-office-withdraws-families-amid-iran-embassy-threat-18093.html

Note the date, Monday 22 June.

[Big_Bird]

A similar thing happened a couple of years ago in Russia when the British Council had a run in with the Russian government. Russian employees were intimidated and arrested and harrassed etc.

And why are they hiring so many bloody locals? Britain ought to hire more British to run their Embassies. Then there'd be more opportunities for those of us considering joining the Foreign Service!

[Kuros]

[Manner of Speaking]

[Julius]

Detained Iranian British embassy employees to face trial, cleric says
July 3
The Guardian

A senior Iranian cleric today said some of the Iranian British embassy workers detained in the aftermath of the protests that followed last month's presidential elections would be put on trial.

In comments that will inflame tensions between the two countries, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said the detained staff members had "made confessions" in connection with the unrest.

Jannati, a hardliner who is close to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said during a Friday prayer sermon: "In these events, their embassy had a presence. Some people were arrested. Well, inevitably, they will be put on trial."

The cleric's comments are not an official announcement from Tehran � Jannati does not hold a position in the government or judiciary. He is the leader of the guardian council, a powerful body of clerics that stands above the elected government.

Jannati did not say how many embassy staff members would be tried, or on what charges.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/03/iranian-british-embassy-employees-face-trial