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What’s Happening In Iran & Why It Is So Important

October 8, 2022

Video: What’s Happening In Iran Right Now & Why It Is So Important – Part One: The History

Video: What’s Happening In Iran Right Now and Why It Is So Important – Part Two: What I Learned While In Iran

The last two weeks have been incredible, both inspiring and heartbreaking, for the country and people of Iran and the implications of what a true Democratic Iranian Revolution would mean for the world.

We spent the last week creating a video (that we’ve now split into two parts) to help explain what’s happening in Iran right now in the bigger context of their history and who they are as a people, hoping to increase understanding of the Iranian people, their long, rich history and why these current protests are so vital, not just to the brave women and men on the frontlines in the streets, but also for world peace.

We believe what we are witnessing in Iran right now is historic. We know we are personally taking a big risk by posting the videos due to their openness & honesty, and it is something we are still actively discussing. But we also sincerely believe that our brave friends in Iran deserve all the attention & support they can get, including a real world understanding of who they are & what they’re fighting for. Freedom Justice Equality & basic human rights.

If you have any questions or desire to get more involved to support the cause please feel free to reach out. Together we can. – Ed Hale

What the United States Government Doesn’t Say About Iran

September 17, 2019

Just did a refresher study on the exile and last year of the (second) shah of Iran. Was specifically interested in it’s effects on U.S. relations and global stability then and now.

As we already know, Great Britain and the the United States through the CIA with a little help from France perpetrate a coup d’etat in 1953 to topple the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, who had run on a platform of not giving away Iranian oil to Great Britain at below market costs anymore. These three western powers then reinstall the Shah of Iran’s son into power and reinstate monarchic rule in iran. Just what the Iranian people wanted. NOT. Great Britain, France and the US form a new big oil conglomerate from all this free oil they’re about to come into and call it BP, British Petroleum. In exchange they will prop up and support the monarchy in Iran militarily against the wishes of the people and keep down any revolts.

And so begins a renewed relatively stable alliance between Iran and western nations. Iran becomes more and more westernized. Brits move there in droves to run the oil plants. Iranian kids go to British schools and learn English. Highways and streets in Tehran are renamed Eisenhower Boulevard and Kennedy Street.

After a few decades of watching the so called “royals”, elites and western nations blow through all their wealth and natural resources the Iranian people begin to get angry. Like revolution angry. It’s the 1970s. The situation is not helped by the fact that a well educated and well spoken radical Islamic cleric named Khomeini is constantly preaching revolution from exile in France, encouraging the people to rise up against western domination. Protests in the streets begin, calling for an “end to control by America”.

In the late 70s, the presidents of the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany secretly meet in Guadalupe to discuss what they’re going to do about the Shah because their oil contracts are soon to expire and they don’t want to start paying more. Do they depose the Shah? Take him out? Support him and squash the protests and use their support to bargain their prices low for another 50 years? Before they can decide they’re informed that the Shah has cancer from one of their informants. Ah hah! Perfect! Let’s not support him during these turbulent times, we’ll force him into exile and put someone else in power who will give us even more control and lower oil prices.

It’s getting dangerous for the Shah now. He calls his US and British allies to ask for help and they inform him they won’t be able to help him. He should leave if he has to. So he does. First to Egypt. Then Morocco. Then the Bahamas. Then Mexico. By now Khomeini has returned to Iran as a revolutionary hero. Promising an end to monarchy, western rule and a return to democracy. He very quickly kills everyone ever employed by the shah’s government and names himself Supreme Leader for Life. He obviously had watched Star Wars one too many times.

By now the Shah is very sick. In his defense, US president Carter, though he ruthlessly betrayed his ally for his country’s selfish gain, did want to help the Shah in his illness. But the Iranian people were not going to tolerate the US harboring the Shah, healing his illness and then reinstating him again in a year or two. So they stormed the American embassy in Tehran and took a bunch of American hostages and demanded the Shah return to face trial and a return of all the Iranian assets that the Federal Reserve, the US Treasury, American banks and American corporations had seized during the protests. (Some of this money was eventually returned to Iran by US president Barack Obama 40 years later, who also acknowledged and apologized for the 1953 coup, which is what created the current mess the Iranian people are still in today.)

President Carter at this point just wants those American hostages back. He realizes he made a huge mistake by ousting the Shah and allowing this Islamic cleric Khomeini to waltz in and take over Iran. But he cant get enough of his colleagues to agree to give Iran all their assets back. So the hostages are stuck as pawns there in a dangerous political game. The Rockefellers, who are holding billions of Iranian assets in their banks, don’t want to let go of all that money but they do offer to provide doctors and medical support to try to save the Shah’s life. So they secretly fly him to New York. An operation is performed. It’s botched. He gets sicker. They then become fearful the American hostages will be endangered if they continue to help the Shah. So they fly him to Texas and then force him on Panama, using the recently completed Panama Canal deal as a bargaining chip. But Panama too is afraid of retaliation by this crazy mad Khomeini. So they cut a secret deal with Khomeini to extradite the Shah back to Iran to stand trial and be executed.

But Egypt’s Sadat swoops In to rescue his old friend and offers him sanctuary in Egypt. So off they fly to Egypt. The Carter administration calls Khomeini and says “we’ve put the Shah on a CIA plane to Egypt. We’ll trade you the Shah for our hostages. Do what you want with him.” Obviously getting cheap oil is no longer a priority. And neither is loyalty to longtime allies.

The US suddenly brings the plane down on some Portuguese islands in order to secretly hand the Shah over to Iran without telling him (they tell him they have to refuel. They dont), but Khomeini doesn’t trust the U.S. so the deal gets broken at the last minute. The Shah ends up back in Egypt. He very soon dies from complications from his botched American surgeries. The Ayatollah Khomeini does eventually release the American hostages but waits to do it until Carter is ousted from Washington just to twist the knife a little and make his point clear.

He believes he may have found at least a frenemy in new US president Ronald Reagan, who very soon will militarily and financially support a newly American installed ruthless dictator in Iraq named Hussein who is immediately and secretly ordered by the US to attack and overtake Iran. Which he does. In the 8 year Iran-Iraq war. Of course, Reagan, not wanting to play favorites also secretly supports Iran by supplying them with weapons of war to kill the Iraqis, assuming that no matter who wins they’ll just become their ally and help them get rid of the other guy. They both have plenty of oil after all.

Eventually this plan backfires as both countries begin to realize that neither of them want to be subservient lapdogs of the wicked western imperialists. The US eventually takes Iraq out 20 years later. Along with a few other pesky Muslim nations. Only Iran remains, steadfast in their desire for self deterministic rule and autonomy, albeit under excruciatingly unhappy circumstances under a brutal authoritarian rule.

There’s more to the story. There always is. But it all goes back to ‘53 and ‘79. American greed, selfishness,

very poor judgment and ill advised strategy. And here we all are. Happy days.

For Groups Like ISIS No Mercy No Quarter No Patience

August 20, 2014

There is at least one area where I wholeheartedly agree with the global super powers and this isn’t something that happens very often — because in reality it’s not very often that a group that the United States (or any other global super power) labels “terrorists” is actually anything close to being terrorists. Most of the time they’re anything but. More often they’re noble freedom fighters akin to the early American settlers during the American Revolutionary War (people who by all accounts were surely being labeled “terrorists” at the time, but who are now looked at as “heroes”); or they’re the last of the brave holdouts attempting to defend the truth versus the corporate bs propaganda that is so regularly being fed to the masses.

This is a sad and frustrating phenomenon that has made it nearly impossible for the average person to discern who is the hero versus who is the villain in the world of today. The majority of the people choose, whether they do so deliberately or not is up for debate, to just believe (or at least claim to) that whoever is in control, i.e. their government of the moment, is the hero, and whoever THEY brand a terrorist is the villain. Even though we have thousands of years of history that clearly disproves this.

Examples that come to mind are the Chechens, the Iraqi freedom fighters, the Ukrainians of today caught in the middle of a tense battle for control over their land between the United States and Russia, the Sandinistas of Nicaragua, the Iranians throughout the 20th century, Palestinians over the last 100 or so years, anti-Pinochet Chileans, etc etc. All labeled “terrorists” by the powers that be when in reality they were simply “those most brave and committed to truth among the throngs of masses who were willing to do whatever they were told by those with the biggest guns”.

But in the case of ISIS… they are not defending any truth, nor fighting for anyone’s freedom. Instead they are a plain and ordinary band of unscrupulous thugs and gangsters using religion as an excuse to murder and terrorize. And in these cases i personally believe it is very important that we bring the hammer down fast and furiously upon them, lest anyone forget how committed we are to the progress we’ve made as a species thus far and how adamant we are to never going back to a world that resembles anything remotely like an Islamic Caliphate or any other dictatorship. Islam is a religion. But it is not a valid excuse to terrorize.

There are very few cases I can feasibly imagine where I would condone the killing of another human being. And if the allied forces of the West, along with the Kurds of Iraq and free Syrian people, can round up and arrest every last one of these so called ISIS members, then so be it. But if that proves to be impossible due to the nature of the conflict then by all means we will be better off in the short term and the long run doing whatever is necessary to rid the world of these madmen as quickly as possible.

The same operating principle should apply to any groups of mindless murderous thugs who happen to spring up out of the vacuum of chaos and pandemonium created by the so-called Arab Spring, or anywhere else on plate earth at this time. This does not imply that the powers that be in the West, nor America, nor democracies or Christians even, are somehow the new world arbiters of what’s “good” “right” “just” or noble. Surely they’ve proved again and again that they are anything but. In fact it is this idea — the so called “Exceptionalism of America” — that is responsible for much of the trouble and heartache all over the world today. But at the very least they attempt to represent and defend the basic ideals that the majority of people around the world today deem the most preferable, freedom of the individual and not the state, personal liberty, a fair and just justice system, separation of religion and state and a relatively capitalist free enterprise system.

These ideas may be still more ideals than common practice in many parts of the world — including America at times, but they are certainly more preferable than anything put forth by the more radical Islamic groups that have sprung up over the last ten to twenty years in resistance to the admittedly imperialistic forces of the United States. Just because the United States and their overtly bullying and imperialist methods seem nefarious and repugnant to us does not necessarily imply that the forces who have cropped up to resist them are any better. In fact most of the time, if anything, they are worse.

Therefore if we have a mission in these various battles or even a say, it is to continue to attempt to improve on this most delicate democratic republic we have created in the United States and in many other countries around the world, rather than try to bring them down or radically change them in any major way. This is our noble goal.

The World’s Problems Ain’t Mine and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves

August 5, 2014

More and more posts on Facebook, Tumblr and other social media here in the States are exclaiming how they don’t want to see the horrific sites of what’s happening the world. I just saw another one today. It read:

“Wtf! Everyone on Facebook, around the world knows that there are horrible things going on in this world… we all fucking know this.. we are all aware, but some asshole feels it’s necessary to post horrific photos here, and frankly my friendship with this person just ended. I don’t need to open Facebook and see a severed child’s body on a morgue table. I don’t give warnings or second chances, my work with you is over, because you are contributing to a problem that I am full aware of you shameless piece of shit.”

I commented: “Ended up feeling so passionate about this post that i used this comment box as a platform to write a post for The Transcendence Diaries?. Please disregard and feel free to NOT read if you choose to. No harm in that and no offense will be taken.”

I’m very torn by this post frankly. As any intelligent mind would be, knowing that only the very bluntest of minds feel 100% one way or another about anything… Life is far too nuanced for that. Part of me totally gets it, agrees with it. We don’t want to be bombarded by grotesque sites everywhere we look. Especially not in our cherished world of social media. we’d rather look at pictures of cats and babies and wedding pictures. I get it. I’m with ya. Why SHOULD we have to see things we don’t want to? And yet we don’t really… do we? And we aren’t being forced to, not in reality. Let’s face it. 99% of the time everything in our cheery privileged world here in the US is the exact opposite of horrific pictures or “grotesque sites” — instead we are surrounded by smiling photos of Andi and Josh or the Keebler Elf or Captain Crunch or the cast of the Today Show; at worst we may come across some pseudo-shocking revelations about Justin and Jen or Kanye and Kim. But for the most part our lives here are pretty much Disney Family Movies?.

Meanwhile, just across the pond there are three entire countries, Gaza (Palestine), Syria and Iraq (at least… 5 or 6 really, if we include Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, and let’s not forget Ukraine…) completely demolished and destroyed AND the reasons and causes for the devastation pretty much all come down to us, here, in the US, in one way or another. But still, why should we care if we don’t HAVE to?

Gaza is a literal trash heap now. Completely demolished. almost 2,000 normal everyday innocent civilian folks killed, for no reason. That’s more than 1% of their population. It is akin to 340,000 Americans being killed in three weeks here. That’s three hundred and forty THOUSAND dead Americans. It’s astounding to consider. We wouldn’t have any clue how to deal with that kind of loss here in the US. We’d literally lose our minds if someone did that to us.

The means? 110% American tax payer money that paid for that. And American weapons that did the killing. NOTHING else paid for it EXCEPT American tax payer money. We pay the taxes and every year Israel receives 3 to 6 billion dollars of free American tax payer money. Why? How? How does that happen and we don’t even have a say in it or how it is used? But we don’t want to see images of what our money is doing on Facebook… It’s too sad. It’s too shocking. It’s hard to fathom, hard to swallow, hard to contend with. Impossible to feel the responsibility. We tell ourselves it’s not our fault. WE didn’t pull those triggers. We didn’t blast off those bombs. We’re not over there shooting people or blowing up homes. It’s not OUR business.

And yet… It is our business. Because it’s our money that pays for it and our support that permits it to happen. Just imagine Russia killing 2000 people ANYWHERE in the world and watch what the US does. Hah! Permit it we certainly would not. We would be OUTraged. But with Israel… we not only permit it, we condone it and supply the weapons and money to do it.

Same with Iraq. Sure we tried hard to “free them”. But we destroyed the foundation of an entire country’s governmental system in the process and now they’re weeks away from a bloody civil war the likes of which only Hollywood could replicate, but only in CGI –and the American people…? They now say they want no part in it. So no, sorry Iraq we’re not going to help you. You’re going to have to fight this one on your own. It’s already a disaster. But its about to be armageddon for these poor people. All because of the US and their pesky invasion and desire for “freedom”. At least that’s what they say. Frankly the Iraqis believe it had more to do with their oil… But who knows. Who cares? We’re again way over here, far from all that chaos and madness and destruction. Why should we care?

Then there’s Syria… God only knows how much the US has or had to do with it. Libya too. There’s another country we destroyed and is now crumbling before the world’s eyes.We stirred up a hornet’s nest there in Libya and now it’s getting so bad that we’re yanking our people out of there faster than Kim and Kanye marry and divorce. But the Libyans? They’re not going anywhere. For them, the Americans leaving means things are about to turn even uglier. God forbid the Americans have to see it.

Syria, God only knows how much or little we had to do with that…. sure we’re funding a host of different so-called freedom fighters and terrorists there in Syria — because we aren’t sure WHO to fund, so we’re throwing money at all of them — why? — because we just know we want that particular leader, Assad, ousted and thrown out of his country but we don’t have the courage or the fortitude to be honest about it and go do it ourselves. We know the world would never allow it. So we secretly and covertly (but openly) fund THEIR idea of “terrorists”. THIS is legal. Accepted at least. Hell, ANYthing that the United States does is legal and accepted. No matter what. It’s a twisted thing. Almost a million of their people have now been killed. In a year. How can we even fathom that? Clearly it’s not our fault. At least not 100%. This is THEIR civil war. We’re just playing a few sides to see if we can come out on top in some way when they’re done killing themselves. As we always do. (Chile, Nicaragua, Cambodia, Vietnam, Colombia, Iran, et al.) That’s our game if we can’t be directly involved.

But regardless of who’s to blame, it’s difficult to think that while we’re sitting pretty over here in Disney World that all of these people in Syria are dying or being injured. One gets the feeling that we should be doing something about it, that we should be doing something besides logging into Facebook to screw around and type funny messages to each other or play Farmville or Words With Freinds. There’s that nagging moral urge to help. At least in some of us. Frankly I feel that it exists in all of us, and furthermore I believe that’s what prompts the kind of posts that I quoted above. This girl is obviously feeling the pain created by this urge to help but not knowing how to… so she’d rather ignore what’s going on. It hurts too much to see it. Trust me, I know. I’ve never been in more pain than i have been sine Israel starting bombing Gaza three weeks ago. Talk about helpless.

Which is why at times I disagree with the above post. I get it. I really do. Why should WE be reminded of Syria and their desire to kill each other? Just like in Darfur a few years ago…. What was it our business? (Well that actually WAS partly our doing and thus our business…. bad example. But you get the point.) Why should we be worried about seeing gross images on our fun funny kooky cool social media sites just because the rest of the world is in utter chaos? We have no inherent responsibility to help our fellow man. We SAY we do. We pretend we do. We teach our children that we do. But in reality we don’t really feel that way. We don’t REALLY want to be bothered with all that. There’s too much good to watch tonight on TV here in the US. And there are too many good dates to go on and too many good restaurants to go to and too many good songs to listen to. Hell, there are just too many good apps to download! We do NOT have the time to worry about other people on earth who are dying or injured. And yes, by that standard, then it’s perfectly understandable that we should not have to see that shit on FB.

But what if we DO help? What if we give money to causes that try to help? And frankly we just can’t bare to see that much grossness all the time if we are expected to go to our jobs and raise our kids well enough to be able to afford to donate to these causes, right? We do our part. It’s a free country. We should have the choice. I get it. And if we say NO to grotesque images of reality, then so be it. The answer is NO. Because that’s what freedom means.

Now…. if we could just find a way to integrate THAT totally justifiable feeling with the fact that we are actually funding 90% of the devastation that is going on all over the world THEN i would feel totally comfortable with taking this stance. The problem of course is that we ARE creating and funding either directly (Israel) or indirectly (Syria, Ukraine) the majority of the root causes of the “grotesque images” we so desperately don’t want to see. And because of that, then by all means shouldn’t WE be forced to witness these horrific images as often as these people who are experiencing them are? At least until we figure out a way to stop our government from doing these things? How else are we going to be motivated to DO anything about what is happening in our name and with our money?

As a last thought… if WE had thousands of people dying all around US in a bloody civil war ala Israel or Ukraine or Syria, we WOULD do something about it, one way or another. We’d SEE it. Smell it. Hear it. We’d fall asleep at night listening to it. And we’d damn sure do something to stop it. Well I bet that the Palestinians feel that way right this very minute. And so too do some Israelis. And the rest of the world’s peoples struggling and suffering. Hell knows that Ukrainians are now wondering WHY they let the US come in and oust their president and government now that there’s a war going on in their country between the US and Russia over oil and natural gas. Maybe we just need to be reminded — as these people are on a daily basis — what it is that we are doing, so we can actually stop it. Hell even if we aren’t even involved anymore, Libya, don’t we have a moral obligation to help? Or did that go away with the advent of Facebook? This is what I contemplate all the time… Is there really such a thing as a moral imperative? Or is it just something we tell ourselves to make us feel better about ourselves in between bites of hot freshly baked just delivered pizza?

One Final Holy War in Babylon

June 20, 2014

I have thought long & hard for days about many of your comments re the present crisis in #Iraq. #1 Yes the US started it by creating the instability in the first place. If it makes one feel better… both admins can be blamed. One for starting it, the other for leaving too early. But blame doesn’t matter now. #2 #ISIS poses not only a threat to our current interests in oil & other natural resources there, but also to surrounding allied countries. #3 If ISIS is allowed to continue to grow & eventually meld with equally sinister forces in Afghan, Syria & Lebanon et al. it may grow too large for us to handle at a future time & threaten the entire region including Israel Jordan Iran & Saudi Arabia. #4 If allowed to grow further unfettered what’s to prevent it from taking #Afghanistan in a year — rendering all of our time lives & efforts there futile, OR worse posing a real threat to the US as a terrorist seeding & training ground?

So… Some of you are right: the #Obama admin needs to DO something. Fast. A peaceful diplomatic strategy w life threatening repercussions should they not agree to immediately disband should be Track 1. But let’s be real: no one believes this will yield anything but delay. ISIS does not wish to become a legit organization or negotiate. They want to rule as much of the Middle East as possible as soon as possible under an ass backwards Sharia type law, or worse. Diplomacy will not work.

We either need to say goodbye to ALL of our interests there for a good 50 years — AND be prepared to take responsibility for the potential deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis for creating this vacuum in the first place — or be prepared for the battle of our lives.

Track 2 would mean the Obama admin sends a force at least as large as GHW Bush did in 1990 — 230,000 troops or more — to the region immediately. Most can be used for intimidation, strategic civilian mobilization & repopulation & stay on standby while we use every known air & drone tool & tactic we know of to wipe them out as quickly & smoothly as possible.

This is the holy war backlash we were afraid of if we ever dared invade Iraq OR Iran. How we allowed it to transpire in our name and on our watch will & should haunt us forever as a nation. Serious consideration should be given to trying those who perpetrated this catastrophic & criminal error of judgment in a court of law, as well as exploring the true reasons for their decision. But that must come later.

For now we must accept that an entire generation has been born and bred hating America, not because they hate freedom or democracy, but because they’ve seen firsthand the death & destruction the US has caused to their people and to their homeland.

As much as any of us long for peace, we must also understand that there can be none if the world allows a terrorist regime as large & wicked as this one to take over a land as broad, geographically significant & naturally wealthy as Iraq.

Needless to say this is a battle that every American should participate in, in some way; not just soldiers or military personnel. We created this mess by allowing our government to do what it has over the last 12 years. It’s up to all of us to play a part in cleaning it up with an unquestionable finality.

It should also be noted that once we lay siege yet again to this cursed land of unlucky peoples & the final blow is dealt, we should once and for all allow Iraq — and the entire Middle East region — to re-map itself as they see fit without our interference. This will inevitably split Iraq into 3 distinct little nation states. We should have allowed this from the start.

As always I am curious to hear your thoughts.

– Posted by The Ambassador using BlogPress on an iPhone 8s Custom

Crisis in Syria – WTF are we meant to do about this?

October 11, 2011

This came in recently… An all time low. Using ambulances and “healing the wounded” as a way to lure protestors in so they can capture or kill them. The question that comes to my mind as a very staunch NON-imperialist is this: Are we supposed to help the people in Syria? Or not? America I mean. We help people all over the world. This is true. Sometimes we “help” when our help has not been asked for or even desired by the people. This is also true. (see Vietnam or Korea or Iraq or Grenada or Chile or Cuba etc etc…) Most of the time it appears to be only for political or strategic gain. True again. Every now and then we’ve been known to help “just because we should.” That’s true too. And that’s some good feeling stuff. The American government isn’t all bad. True again. But of course there are numerous examples of the US Gov not doing a damn thing in these cases because there’s just no “benefit” to the current administration’s agenda. Rwanda and Somalia and Darfur are all good examples. Not to mention the whole “Blood Diamond” crisis in Northern Africa. Nor Colombia where it appears we actually made things worse. Or Mexico. Or the whole Iran-Contra Affair… (not only did the Reagan Admin command and fund Iraq to attack and take over Iran (killing 200,000 Iranians); but after seeing that Iraq wasn’t going to win the war after six years, they then started secretly funding Iran too, figuring that regardless of “who won” we could then befriend that winning country and gain cheap oil in the process AND an additional security foothold in the Middle East to help us “protect Israel” — which still to this day I just do not understand the logic of… (unless of course these people are hard-core “christian fundamentalists” and actually believe that it’s “God’s will to protect Israel so Jesus can appear in the sky one day…” That’s some scary Shiite if you’re more of a humanitarian than a religious nut) — but of course they also got behind the wrong team in Colombia — “the wretched Contras” — in order to oust that country’s democratically elected leader, Sandinista). Truth be told, this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to America’s imperialist history. My God what a mess poor America has been in since WWII…

But let’s forget about all that for a minute and just turn our attention to Syria… I’m not a techy. Nor am I much of a pure-aesthetic’s kind of person — we’re all too busy at this point in today’s world for that… so I am going to do what my techy-friends consider “the unthinkable”. I’m going to copy and paste the content of an email into a blog. Yes it will look messy as all hell and contain tons of code that will fuck up all kinds of search engines. But honestly, compared to getting the word out, I really just couldn’t care. So see the below. And let me know what you think we should do about our brothers and sisters in Syria.
Sincerely,
The Ambassador

Dear friends,

Syrian death squads are killing protesters in their hospital beds, whilst Russia arms the regime and blocks international action to end the carnage. But pressure is building in the region, and if enough of us speak out now, we could persuade Turkey and Germany to use their leverage to get Russia to stop propping up this murderous regime. Sign the urgent petition and tell everyone:

The Syrian regime has reached a new low, its death squads have begun using ambulances and hospitals to lure and kill wounded protesters. To end this carnage, we urgently need to bring global pressure on Syria’s key backer and arms supplier — Russia.

German Chancellor Merkel and Turkish President Erdogan both have strong inclinations to global leadership, and a great degree of influence in Russia. If we make a massive and public call to them to act, they will press Russian President Medvedev to stop blocking UN Security Council action on Syria.

Syria’s horror hospitals are the latest in a string of unspeakable crimes against peaceful protesters. So far, Russia has faced little condemnation for its complicity in these atrocities, but we can change that. Together let’s build a massive public call to Merkel and Erdogan to act and work with the Arab League to press Russian President to stop supporting Syria’s brutal repression — it will be delivered to their Foreign Ministries this week.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_horror_in_syria_a/?vl

At least 5,500 people have been killed in Syria, as many as in the entire Kosovo war. According to hospital staff and witnesses that Avaaz has spoken to, Syrian security forces have been using hospitals and Red Crescent vehicles to arrest, kill and torture dozens of pro-democracy protesters and detain doctors, blatantly defying international law.

Shamefully, two weeks ago, Russia led the United Nations Security Council in blocking global action to stop the Syrian regime’s slaughter of innocents. Russia recently delivered high-powered weapons to the butchers and has given no sign it intends to stop.

But, right now, the pressure on Assad is mounting — economic sanctions have left his army under-resourced and exhausted, and the Arab League has given him two weeks to enter negotiations with the opposition leadership. And there are two countries that can make a difference: Turkey, Syria’s neighbour and emerging regional power and Germany, who is Russia’s second-largest trading partner and traditional intermediary to Russia.

Both Turkey and Germany are sensitive to global opinion and vocally support the Syrian people — and a strong push from all of us could get them to pressure Russia to stop propping up the regime. Sign the petition now and forward widely — it will be delivered it to the Turkish and German Foreign Ministers this week:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_horror_in_syria_a/?vl

While some governments are despairing about what to do, Avaaz members are making a real difference in Syria. We’ve helped push through tough oil sanctions that funded Assad’s crackdown — Syrian activists have told Avaaz staff how crucial this support has been. We’ve broken the media blackout and worked tirelessly to document disappearances and other crimes, dismantling the regime’s lies. Let’s keep the flame of hope burning brightly and light the way to a peaceful, democratic Syria.

With hope,

Wissam, Stephanie, Sam, Ricken, Luis, Benjamin, Diego, Carol, Rewan and the whole Avaaz team

SOURCES:

Europeans spar with Russia, China on Syria at UN (Reuters):
http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/10/14/idINIndia-59902020111014

Turkey Steadfast on Syria Sanctions (Al Jazeera):
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/2011105134748573461.html

Syria Keeps Pressure On Protesters, Ignores Critics (National Public Radio):
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/16/141240546/syria-keeps-pressure-on-protesters-ignores-critics

Arab League Discusses Suspension of Syria (Wall Street Journal):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204479504576634931272379572.html

Germany Russia’s second largest trading partner (German Foreign Ministry website, in German):
http://www.avaaz.org/german_foreign_ministry

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TheTranscendenceDiaries

Tag: Iraq

What’s Happening In Iran & Why It Is So Important

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What the United States Government Doesn’t Say About Iran

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For Groups Like ISIS No Mercy No Quarter No Patience

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The World’s Problems Ain’t Mine and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves

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One Final Holy War in Babylon

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Crisis in Syria – WTF are we meant to do about this?

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