Halos and Heroes

Time has proven that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ridiculed for claiming to be surrounded by a green light when he addressed the United Nations in 2005, makes a better soothsayer than an Iranian president. A definite tea totaller, Ahmadinejad was the only one who saw green lights and halos during his first official address to the United Nations General Assembly, but the country he rules has been as green as far as the human eye can see since his “re-election” last week. Green will dominate today’s mass rally as protest deaths are commemorated by demonstrators in Tehran.

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“Seven demonstrators were shot Monday by pro-regime militia in the first confirmed deaths since the unrest erupted after the election, which the government said Ahmadinejad won in a landslide victory.” (FoxNews.com, June 18, 2009.) The blood-soaked green of Iran should come as a chilling reminder for what happens when administrations that brook no dissent take office after questionable elections. Mercifully, no one has died in the United States in the current round of TEA Party protests, but Homeland Security has identified returning war vets (to whom Janet Napolitano later apologized) and those who oppose abortion and who back border control as potential terrorists. Shoring up against dissenters Department of Defense now rules that certain first amendment-protected activity may amount to “low-level terrorism” (See update at bottom of story). Were it not for savvy young Iranians navigating their way around the communication crackdown via Twitter, news of the mass protest that recalls the protests of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, would never have reached the outside world. In Tehran foreign journalists have been banned from reporting in the streets. The government has blocked websites, including BBC Farsi, Facebook, Twitter and several leading pro-Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi sites in an apparent bid to keep truth from finding the light. The Revolutionary Guard has put Iranian Websites and bloggers on notice that they must remove materials that “create tension” or face legal action. Cutting off communication is a threat to the national security of any nation and the main pillar for Anarchy 101. President Obama has much in common with President Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad sees halos, Obama wears them. Ahmadinejad has the ayatollahs in his corner. Obama has government-funded ACORN in his. Meanwhile, protests from around the world support the courage of the Iranian people, and no one is wishing away the civic unrest in Iran more fervently than the self-proclaimed “troubled” Barack Hussein Obama. Update:

Pentagon Pulls Question That Called Protests a Form of Terrorism

Thursday, June 18, 2009 The Pentagon has removed a controversial question from its anti-terrorism training exam that labeled “protests” a form of “low-level terrorism,” calling the question “poorly worded.” A Pentagon spokesman said the question failed to make clear the difference between illegal violent demonstrations and constitutionally protected peaceful protests. Civil libertarians and activist groups, interviewed by FOXNews.com for a story that appeared on Wednesday, had objected strongly to the exam question, which a Department of Defense employee had printed and given to the American Civil Liberties Union. More...