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Uglycat posted:Of course not. Brown people are incapable of democracy. How long until there are conservatives demanding the Libyan protesters thank George W. Bush for disarming Gadaffi of his WMD's to fight the WAR ON TERROR.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 01:01 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 15:30 |
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Nonsense posted:How long until there are conservatives demanding the Libyan protesters thank George W. Bush for disarming Gadaffi of his WMD's to fight the WAR ON TERROR. You're going to force me to find someone doing that already and make all of us sad aren't you? 5 Seconds later and 3 days ago. This is YOUR FAULT
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 01:09 |
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Nonsense posted:How long until there are conservatives demanding the Libyan protesters thank George W. Bush for disarming Gadaffi of his WMD's to fight the WAR ON TERROR. Honestly, I think that rhetoric - as ridiculous as it is - is far better than the 'radical Islam' fear-mongering I hear from the right-wing. I'd rather they get on board with the optimistic, positive narrative (in a self-serving, historically ignorant fashion) than actively work to undermine that (possible) outcome. A world where stable, sound, secular democracy takes hold in the middle east; where the Right falsely claims "credit" for that outcome; and where the Left insists that the people on the ground who overthrew their oppressors (while utilizing a variety of intelligent methods including but not by any means limited to new communications technologies) - is preferable, to me, to a world where the Right works to erode support for and confidence in the possibility of a peaceful, prosperous future. Uglycat fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Feb 25, 2011 |
# ? Feb 25, 2011 01:10 |
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Uglycat posted:Honestly, I think that rhetoric - as ridiculous as it is - is far better than the 'radical Islam' fear-mongering I hear from the right-wing. I'd rather they get on board with the optimistic, positive narrative (in a self-serving, historically ignorant fashion) than actively work to undermine that (possible) outcome. I'd have to disagree with you there. The thing is that democracy in the Middle-East is being achieved in spite of the right's (or the left's, since it seems like everyone supported "progressive" Ghaddafi) efforts, not because of it, and believing it's because of them justifies (to them at least) their actions, as well as any further actions which might destabilize the region because they were "right" this time. For example, in the article quoted, the author uses Libya as an example as to why Bush was justified in his invasion of Iraq, going as far as to say this is what GWB envisioned, when the lack of WMDs here is a by-product, not a direct consequence, of the invasion of Iraq.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 01:56 |
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Mustafa Abdel Galil, who resigned three days ago from his post as the country's justice minister, spoke to Al Jazeera at a meeting of tribal leaders and representatives of eastern Libya in the city of Al Baida. He warned that Gaddafi has biological and chemical weapons, and will not hesitate to use them. 'We call on the international community and the UN to prevent Gaddafi from going on with his plans in Tripoli,' he said. 'At the end when he’s really pressured, he can do anything. I think Gaddafi will burn everything left behind him.'" From the Al Jazeera live blog, how true this is i do not know, but I hope for the peoples sake this isn't the truth.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 02:05 |
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How do events in Libya contribute to the theory that the US unpopular regimes that that eventually draw the ire of their people? Libya wasn't propped up by the US, in fact the US would like to see nothing more than Gadaffi to die. To me it means that dictators will sprout up no matter what, and US support doesn't mean all that much in the end in terms of generating tyranical assholes.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 02:09 |
Pine Cone Jones posted:'At the end when he’s really pressured, he can do anything. I think Gaddafi will burn everything left behind him.'"
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 02:10 |
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Uglycat posted:Of course not. Brown people are incapable of democracy. Hey, I just asked because it is really really hard to get a functional government going after a dictator lead for almost half a century. I WANT to have hope, but I don't have faith in people anymore.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 02:17 |
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Crazy Ted posted:I just want to get this straight since I've been at work all day... This is totally incorrect and patently ridiculous - they are in fact being drugged with ecstasy and methamphetamines.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 02:21 |
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Pine Cone Jones posted:From the Al Jazeera live blog, how true this is i do not know, but I hope for the peoples sake this isn't the truth. A gas attack on a major metropolitan area like Tripoli would be unprecedented. It would make Halabja look like a sour fart.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 02:23 |
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Vladimir Putin posted:How do events in Libya contribute to the theory that the US unpopular regimes that that eventually draw the ire of their people? Libya wasn't propped up by the US, in fact the US would like to see nothing more than Gadaffi to die. What it means is that the people of the Arab world are fed up with dictators whether they're supported or opposed by the US. The US backed regimes aren't the only ones that are unpopular but the US supporting unpopular dictatorial regimes undermines US credibility when we claim support for democracy in countries with regimes we don't support.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 02:23 |
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al jazeera is reportedly dropping shipments of the drugs into lybia from their secret hover drones.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 02:25 |
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Basically CQ's idea of what is happening is akin to a COBRA plot from an episode of G.I. JOE.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 02:31 |
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Vladimir Putin posted:How do events in Libya contribute to the theory that the US unpopular regimes that that eventually draw the ire of their people? Libya wasn't propped up by the US, in fact the US would like to see nothing more than Gadaffi to die. I might be misunderstanding you, but you're saying that Libya's case negates the theory that the US is solely responsible for supporting dictators? Except that people aren't saying the US is/was solely responsible for all the dictators out there, just that they DID support some, and that these are backfiring spectacularly. Anyways, I don't think I've seen anyone specifically say that the US supported Ghadaffi in the first place. He was, however, supported by England, Italy, and a bunch of other Euoprean countries that are backpedalling as fast as they can to distance themselves from him. The theory that you are referring to basically states that a dictatorship is unsubstainalbe and tends to implode due to the very things that makes a dictator a dictator. Supporting the dictator, while at first beneficial, then becomes an embarassement, like with Egypt/Iran and the US or Italy and Libya.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 02:37 |
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ChubbyEmoBabe posted:It has more to do with speculation than anything else really. Basically the price goes up because people think other people will think the price will go up and buy some making the price go up. Well, I don't think this is the image you're looking for, but here's a pie chart showing Libya and US Oil consumption And here's a post talking about the oil market quote:The Financial Times is reporting that half or more of Libya's oil production has been shut down due to the unrest in the country. That's one reason the price of a barrel of Brent crude broke $110, a two-and-a-half year peak. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/at-least-half-libyan-oil-production-shut-down/71618/
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 02:46 |
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Oil consumption is not very flexible. If prices rise by 5%, you don't see a 5% drop in consumption because of the higher prices. That's what contributes to sudden price spikes; if production drops by even a very small amount, buyers are all competing to try and get the same amount of oil as they were already using, so they rapidly bid up the price far in excess to the amount of the defecit until someone is finally "priced out" and accepts a lower quantity. Most oil is used for transportation and power plants, and most transporters and power-producers have a job to do. It's easier for them to pay 10% more for fuel, than it is for them to reduce how much they're using, especially on short notice. The futures market speculation is a big part of that too, but the markets are all aware of the inflexibility of demand and take it into account in their valuations. It's not totally speculative to predict a 10% rise in prices from a 1% drop in production.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 02:58 |
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Life has some pretty interesting pictures/info related to Ghaddafi for anyone interested: Gaddafi's Craziest Quotes Gaddafi: The Last Supervillain? When Gaddafi Was Cute He's also featured here: The World's Worst Dictators (no idea if it's in any particular order or just random).
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 03:02 |
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Asianews.it (reliable?) is saying that North Korea is having a few protests, the first in Kim's history, due to the food shortage :x http://www.asianews.it.nyud.net/news-en/First-public-protests-against-the-Kims%E2%80%99-regime-20861.html quote:Seoul (AsiaNews) – The wave of protests that began in the Mideast appears to have reached even North Korea. For the first time in the history of the Stalinist regime, groups of ordinary citizens have protested in three cities demanding food and electricity, sources say. The event is exceptional and confirms the economic difficulties, especially concerning food supplies, people have to face under the Communist government. So, uh. Yeah?
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 03:26 |
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That's interesting. I thought they had some kind of news blackout over there.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 03:27 |
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Jack Napier posted:Asianews.it (reliable?) is saying that North Korea is having a few protests, the first in Kim's history, due to the food shortage :x Would be pretty interesting but yeah I'd call bullshit on this one. No way has news of whats happening in the middle east propagated that well through the DPRK. State media is so tightly controlled there that nobody would even want to MENTION a crazy dictator being overthrown by the angry, poor masses.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 03:35 |
Patter Song posted:After Libya (which I would've said was impossible a few weeks ago), I'm not writing off anything, but I highly doubt we'll see a major rising in any of the Gulf States apart from the ongoing one in Bahrain. (No, despite being on the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen is not a Gulf State) A lot of people in Syria are proud of the way Bashar Al-Assad is "standing up to America" and stuff. Also poverty is relatively low (compared to, say, Egypt), and food is pretty cheap (i.e. well-subsidized). When I was there a few months ago there didn't seem to be much heart for regime change except among certain Muslim activist groups who chafe a bit at the official secularist ideology of the Bacath Party. It's worth considering too that Al-Assad is an educated, charming, and competent character, much more like Saif Gaddafi (or at least, like he used to be) than the big old crazy Colonel. Of course, I would have never pegged Libya to explode like this either, so there's that.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 03:36 |
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Jack Napier posted:Asianews.it (reliable?) is saying that North Korea is having a few protests, the first in Kim's history, due to the food shortage :x Sounds more like a story the South made up to take advantage of the Middle-East protests. While it is possible (though higly, highly, unlikely), that the people might protest in some form, a lot of the story doesn't add up with the nature of the North Koreans, who venerate their dear leader god-like.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 03:48 |
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This was just posted in the LF cartoon thread. I don't even know what to say.shortprsn posted:
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 03:52 |
Ashmole posted:That's interesting. I thought they had some kind of news blackout over there. North Koreans have smuggled in radios they can listen to broadcasts from outside the country, and some North Koreans work outside of the DPRK. Supposedly they've been getting more antsy as of late; they did successfully get the government to renege on their currency revaluation plan after all.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 03:58 |
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BIG HORNY COW posted:Would be pretty interesting but yeah I'd call bullshit on this one. No way has news of whats happening in the middle east propagated that well through the DPRK. I remember watching a documentary once, it won some awards, that interviewed north korean refugees in China. They talked about still managing to contact relatives in the south while still living in the north, and from what I remember, even sometimes can tuning into South Korean TV and telecommunication Fake edit: Here's a thing I found on Wikipedia about NK cell phones. quote:Rebecca MacKinnon, a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, says that Chinese cellphones have reached North Korea through the black market in spite of government efforts to ban them. As the number of people using them grows, it is likely that cellphones that are web-enabled through Chinese servers will become more common. In addition, South Korean companies such as Samsung have been increasing their market share in China, which will likely lead North Koreans to have Korean-language information through their cellphones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_North_Korea
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 04:02 |
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BIG HORNY COW posted:State media is so tightly controlled there that nobody would even want to MENTION a crazy dictator being overthrown by the angry, poor masses. I decided to check if you were right. Let's see what North Korean state media is reporting today: quote:Anecdote about Kim Jong Il ... (In all fairness, today's news does include the slightly more newsworthy headline "One More Ancient Tomb With Murals Unearthed") EDIT: I just checked, through the entire three week Egyptian Revolution, for any mention. All I found was this: quote:Kim Jong Il Receives Egyptian Businessman Patter Song fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Feb 25, 2011 |
# ? Feb 25, 2011 04:05 |
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I remember seeing a piece on the news awhile ago that showed how NK intelligence officers in charge of monitoring the south tended to defect once they learned just how bad their lives were. They even tried to join the south's army, but weren't allowed, and ended up forming their own little militia, ready to make war with their former home.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 04:09 |
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Narmi posted:I remember seeing a piece on the news awhile ago that showed how NK intelligence officers in charge of monitoring the south tended to defect once they learned just how bad their lives were. They even tried to join the south's army, but weren't allowed, and ended up forming their own little militia, ready to make war with their former home. There's always this ol' chestnut http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_858 quote:Speaking at the United Nations Security Council, Choi Young-jin, representing South Korea, said that after eight days of interrogation in South Korea, she was permitted to see a film of life in the country on a television screen, and realized that "life ... on the streets of Seoul was entirely different from what she had been led to believe. She began to realize that what she had been told while living in the North was totally untrue."[9] Kim then "threw herself into the arms of a female investigator" and confessed to the bombing.[9] In Korean, she said, "Forgive me. I am sorry. I will tell you everything,"[9] and said that she had been "exploited as a tool for North Korean terrorist activities", and made a detailed and voluntary confession.[9] I can't imagine the "Holy poo poo I killed a LOT of innocent people for no reason" realization felt too good.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 04:28 |
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Nyyen posted:This was just posted in the LF cartoon thread. I don't even know what to say. Didn't this guy do a cartoon celebrating the use of white-phosphorous rounds against Palestinians a couple of years ago?
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 05:14 |
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Nucleic Acids posted:Didn't this guy do a cartoon celebrating the use of white-phosphorous rounds against Palestinians a couple of years ago? It's like if Glenn Beck did comics.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 05:15 |
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Shageletic posted:I remember watching a documentary once, it won some awards, that interviewed north korean refugees in China. They talked about still managing to contact relatives in the south while still living in the north, and from what I remember, even sometimes can tuning into South Korean TV and telecommunication Weird question, but how can you really have covert cell phones without (somehow) covert cell towers? Are they actually satellite phones, or are they piggybacking off of some other kind of tower (military, etc.)?
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 05:43 |
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EskimoFreeState posted:Weird question, but how can you really have covert cell phones without (somehow) covert cell towers? Are they actually satellite phones, or are they piggybacking off of some other kind of tower (military, etc.)? quote:Bloomberg Businessweek has a story on the Chinese cell phones in use in North Korea along the border region. It estimates around 1,000 people use such phones to keep in touch with relatives and associates in China, South Korea and elsewhere. Because the cell phones connect to Chinese cell phone towers it’s difficult for the North Korean government to eavesdrop on the calls, but it does mean use is restricted to the border area. source e: The original story has more info: quote:As many as 1,000 North Koreans use handsets that connect to Chinese networks to tell people in the South about subjects ranging from food shortages to leader Kim Jong Il’s health, said Ha Tae Keung, a South Korean who runs a Seoul-based radio station that broadcasts daily to the North. source e2: So according to the above article, there actually were protests. Doesn't say what came of it (probably nothing good though). Narmi fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Feb 25, 2011 |
# ? Feb 25, 2011 05:54 |
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EskimoFreeState posted:Weird question, but how can you really have covert cell phones without (somehow) covert cell towers? Are they actually satellite phones, or are they piggybacking off of some other kind of tower (military, etc.)? Hell if I know, but couldn't they be piggybacking off SK or Chinese towers, since they're so close geographically? EDIT: Yup, should read before I hit reply.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 06:29 |
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It's really a bummer that they have smuggled Chinese cell phones, but (if I'm reading this correctly) have to live/be within 10 km of the border to communicate with anyone. I assume that if you live farther south and the government keeps seeing you commute 200 miles out of your way twice a week, they're gonna get suspicious. Better than nothing, I suppose.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 06:41 |
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For someone who is always referred to by his military rank, I've always wondered why Colonel Qaddafi hasn't promoted himself to something like generalissimo or some outrageous title.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 07:27 |
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CatchrNdRy posted:For someone who is always referred to by his military rank, I've always wondered why Colonel Qaddafi hasn't promoted himself to something like generalissimo or some outrageous title. There's also probably a practical reason to it, since in most military systems Colonels are the highest rank that can command troops in the field, allowing him to always have a bodyguard without looking paranoid or relying on someone below him to give orders.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 07:33 |
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Slantedfloors posted:His stated reason is that he didn't promote himself because "general" is to fancy a title for someone as humble as him. Colonel is the highest rank in the Libyan military, period.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 07:34 |
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EskimoFreeState posted:It's really a bummer that they have smuggled Chinese cell phones, but (if I'm reading this correctly) have to live/be within 10 km of the border to communicate with anyone. I assume that if you live farther south and the government keeps seeing you commute 200 miles out of your way twice a week, they're gonna get suspicious. It's not like people in NK have any way of commuting 200 miles twice a week. There are very few vehicles, fewer highways, and even less petrol. Sure there are trains, but they aren't really suitable for the job. I'm guessing most people simply are already close to the border. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Feb 25, 2011 |
# ? Feb 25, 2011 07:37 |
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YouTuber posted:More like he is rubbing his hands in delight. Iran could have turned out to be a pretty nice Democratic country if the rear end in a top hat religious extremist didn't derail the revolution and that the country over for themselves. Iran was a pretty nice democratic country, until the CIA engineered a revolution...
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 07:45 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 15:30 |
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Jut posted:Iran was a pretty nice democratic country, until the CIA engineered a revolution... That is a gross exaggeration and twisting of the facts of what 1950s Iran was like.
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# ? Feb 25, 2011 07:51 |