Expressing support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law, and for other purposes.
Resolved, That the House of Representatives—
(1) expresses its support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law;
(2) condemns the ongoing violence against demonstrators by the Government of Iran and pro-government militias, as well as the ongoing government suppression of independent electronic communication through interference with the Internet and cellphones; and
(3) affirms the universality of individual rights and the importance of democratic and fair elections.Notice that this bipartisan resolution did not take a position on the election outcome (i.e., Ahmadinejad or Mousavi). To be sure, Obama's muted response has been praised as virtuous: so-called "foreign policy experts", including the National Iranian American Council and foreign Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, fretted that any American support of Iranian liberty and republicanism plays right into Ahmadinejad's hands, allowing him to demonize America as "interfering in its internal affairs": The US did not select the candidates, operate the election, fix the results, or beat, maim or murder Iranian citizens nonviolently exercising their human rights.
Earth to "experts": Since when is Iran "more equal" than other regimes we've condemned for violating human rights? Ahmadinejad trying to blame for the US for the corrupt Iranian dictatorship's crackdown on Iranian citizens exercising their constitutional rights to protest is not unlike an abusive husband trying to argue his beaten wife made him do it...
Let us remember what Edmund Burke said:
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.[It's more commonly paraphrased: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."]
Or perhaps this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.Silence or watered-down rhetoric in the face of an unjustifiable crackdown of protesters in opposition to a tyrannical, morally bankrupt regime is not courage; it's moral cowardice and made the US out to be little more than an international enabler. It sets an unconscionable precedent. The fact is, the corrupt Iranian regime has made the US its whipping boy for 30 years running now.
Obama finally at last Tuesday's news conference finally stated: "appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings and imprisonments of the past few days". Better late than never. I wonder what the so-called experts felt about the President's words. What changed the picture that got Obama to use the kind of rhetoric the Europeans used 10 days earlier? I hardly believe that a belated 10-day denunciation of a repressive crackdown is any less "meddlesome". Now, personally, I think he was finally living up to his Cairo speech, but he should have done it days earlier. I call it Obama's Katrina moment.
Of course, Ahmadinejad was furious over Obama's choice of words and "meddling" in the press conference and demanded an apology. Of course, in the eyes of Democrats, Ahmadinejad made the ultimate smear, by daring to compare Obama with George W. Bush... (I wonder if the Angry Left will get a clue and figure out that the bad guy is Ahmadinejad...)
What's even more bizarre is that same day the State Department still had not withdrawn its "hot dog diplomacy" invitations to Iranian diplomats for the Fourth of July... What part of what happened after the election in Iraq honors the principles of our Declaration of Independence? The unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? If you were going to invite any Iranians to a Fourth of July "hot dog" lunch, you should first make sure they follow the dress code--green armbands required. It does look like the State Department finally withdrew these invitations Wednesday.
Even more repression over the last few days: apparently four Iranian soccer players who wore green wristbands have been banned for life from the sport. There are reports that Mousavi is effectively under house arrest and it looks as though the dictatorship is looking to arrest him and charge him with crimes related to the uprising. Then there are troubling allegations made by individual tweets in Iran (NOTE: it's difficult to corroborate these allegations):
Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish quotes a dramatic phone-call broadcast on CNN of a protester describing the horrific scene. "All of a sudden some 500 people with clubs came out of [undecipherable] mosque and they started beating everyone. They tried to beat everyone on [undecipherable] bridge and throwing them off of the bridge," the woman said. The Lede backs up this story, saying that several Iranian bloggers have reported hearing gunshots at the rally. One tweet picked up by the Huffington Post and Andrew Sullivan is the most disturbing of all, "In Baharestan we saw militia with axe choping ppl like meat - blood everywhere - like butcher . . . Fighting in Vanak Sq, Tajrish sq, Azadi Sq - now . ."
It does look like Obama is finally beginning to find his voice. At today's press conference with German Chancellor Merkel, he said the following:
I think what's absolutely clear is over the course of subsequent days, that Moussavi has shown to have captured the imagination or the spirit of forces within Iran that were interested in opening up,and that he has become a representative of many of those people who are on the streets and who have displayed extraordinary bravery and extraordinary courage.
I continue to believe that ultimately it's up to the Iranian people to make decisions about who their leaders are going to be. But as I said this week and I've said previously, a government that treats its own citizens with that kind of ruthlessness and violence and that cannot deal with peaceful protestors who are trying to have their voices heard in a equally peaceful way I think has moved outside of universal norms, international norms, that are important to uphold.
And Chancellor Merkel and I share a -- share the belief that what's happened in Iran is unacceptable when it comes to violence against its own citizens and we call on the Iranian government to uphold those international principles...
I don't think -- I don't take Mr. Ahmadinejad's statements seriously about apologies, particularly given the fact that the United States has gone out of its way not to interfere with the election process in Iran. And I'm really not concerned about Mr. Ahmadinejad apologizing to me. I would suggest that Mr. Ahmadinejad think carefully about the obligations he owes to his own people. And he might want to consider looking at the families of those who have been beaten or shot or detained. And that's where I think Mr. Ahmadinejad and others need to answer their questions.
