WHO WILL REBUILD UKRAINE?
The West should convert frozen Russian assets, both state's and oligarchs' owned, into a full seizure and set them aside for the future rebuilding of Ukraine. Like the Marshal Plan, call it the Putin Plan.
A HERO IS BORN.
I am staying put. I will not run away and abandon my people. The fight is here in Ukraine. What I need are weapons and ammunitions, not a ride out of town like former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani - President Volodymyr Zelensky.
IT IS WHAT IT IS.
"There is too much hate in America because there is too much anger in America." - Trevor Noah.
WORD!
A life without challenges is not a life lived at all. A life lived is a life that has problems, confronts problems, solves problems and then learns from problems. - Tunde Fashola.
NOW, YOU KNOW.
When fishing for love, bait with your heart and not your brain, because you cannot rationalize love. - Mark Twain.
JUST THE FACT.
In our country, you can shoot and kill a nigger, but you better not hurt a gay person’s feelings - Dave Chappelle
DO YOU?.
“What you believe in can only be defined by what you’re willing to risk for it." - Stuart Scheller.
HEDGE YOUR CRISIS.
Never get in bed with a woman whose problems are worse than yours. - Chicago PD.
OUR SHARED HUMANITY.
Empathy is at the heart of who we are as human beings. - Cardinal Matthew Kukah.
#MeToo MOVEMENT: A BAD NEWS GONE CRAZY.
"To all the women who testified, we may have different truth, but I have a great remorse for all of you. I have great remorse for all of the men and women going through this crisis right now in our country. You know, the movement started basically with me, and I think what happened, you know, I was the first example, and now there are thousands of men who are being accused and a regeneration of things that I think none of us understood. I’m not going to say these aren’t great people. I had wonderful times with these people. I’m just genuinely confused. Men are confused about this issue. We are going through this #MeToo movement crisis right now in this country." - Harvey Weinstein.
RON DELLUMS: UNAPOLOGETICALLY RADICAL.
"If it’s radical to oppose the insanity and cruelty of the Vietnam War, if it’s radical to oppose racism and sexism and all other forms of oppression, if it’s radical to want to alleviate poverty, hunger, disease, homelessness, and other forms of human misery, then I’m proud to be called a radical.” - Ron Vernie Dellums.
Like Nigeria, the institutionalized authorities in Iran are denying the people the choice they made at the polls last Friday, June 12, 2009; but unlike Nigeria, the Iranian people are not taking it and are fighting back, protesting what everyone suspect was the grandest election rigging and mother of all election frauds in recorded history? Icheoku says, kudos to the Ir
anian people for standing up to the mullahs of Tehran to preserve your honor and votes! We hope that Nigerians will learn from your example, to become brave-enough to fight back and not turn tail, each time the cabals of Nigeria choose to railroad their wish through and against that of the Nigerian people. As the world watched the built-up momentum that led up to the Friday's election and the apparent support which the opposition candidate had; it becomes very difficult to comprehend what happened and how the incumbent won with such a chasm of a margin, 62.6%? This puzzle would be solved with the understanding of the magical counting of about 40 million handwritten paper ballots in a matter of hours and the declaration of a winner so soon thereafter voting ended? This 
becomes more complex in the face of the logistical nightmare posed by collating these votes, spread across vast Iranian territories and these were not electronic ballots but hand written paper ballots? To understand how this feat was made possible is to understand what actually happened with the votes of the Iranians. Icheoku says, until these Siamese twins are successfully separated, Iranians might have to deal with four more years of apprehension and bellicosity of Iran, pitted against the entire world under their President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 'landslide victory' is suspect and the endorsement of his 'victory' just few hours after the votes closed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei further fuels the suspicion of a grand concert by the powers in Iran to rubbish the efforts of the people and maintain one of their own inside Teheran's seat of power. But will Iranians accept this? Icheoku says, we don't think so and if the developments ever since last Friday is an indication, then all hopes are not lost; provided the mass action does not abate. It is encouraging that the supreme leader has now been forced by development, to order an investigation into the alleged election fraud? The leading reformist challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi 33.75% election votes is rather too modest for what should have been following reasonable expectations. This shows that these election-riggers of Iran were not that smart, otherwise they would have made the result to be within a reasonable margin of about 51% to 48%; in which case everybody would have said, oh it was as close as expected and would have moved on? But no, they were as dumb as the thieves they are and the percentages were rather too loud and is now eliciting the present outcry in the streets of Tehran? 
The bone of contention was how about 40 million paper ballots could be counted so easily by hand and final results tallied and announced by authorities in Tehran in just about 12 hours; in utter difference to past elections which took at least twice as long? So what changed or did the Iranian authorities suddenly learn some art of magical number tabulating, not previously known to mankind? What genius could have counted, by hand, about 40 million ballots, entered same data into the computer, aggregated and transmitted same to the Interior Ministry in Tehran all within just 12 hours? Icheoku says, except that genius is the authorities in Tehran and the existential logistical nightmares suddenly vanished, in a disappearing act? According to one observer, "If they're still using hand counting, that would be very speedy, unusually speedy" indeed? 
Finally, Icheoku says, while the world awaits in heightened expectation to see how the election snafu in Iran is finally resolved, we pray that Iranians will maintain their tenacity in demanding that their votes be counted correctly and not allow the oppressors of Iran to hijack the election and debase their effort at having a say in who governs them. Once again, congratulations to the people of Iran for your courage against all odds and intimidation, protesting what is rightfully yours - the votes you cast last Friday.
Iran's Islamic regime has survived a devastating war with Iraq, strong American sanctions and international isolation in its 30 years of power. It has seen reformist and hard-line presidents come and go, with barely a flinch.
ReplyDeleteBut now, public anger over the disputed election has given Iran's ruling elite a challenge of a new and unsettling kind: A growing opposition movement with apparent broad backing, headed by a leader who is one of their own — and doesn't seem intimidated.
Iran's clergy-guided system does not appear in immediate danger. But the ruling clerics are paying close attention to the street anger — the same popular unrest they harnessed themselves three decades ago to bring down the shah in their 1979 revolution.
There is also a chance, more likely, that to avoid such an outcome, the clerics will either jettison, or at minimum rein in and weaken, the president they have supported until now, hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
For that to happen, the protests would almost certainly need to be sustained, spread to other cities and most importantly, attract enough clerical support to create high-level rifts.
Many Iranians feel strong kinship with the revolution, its heirs and the system they created, and are reluctant to do anything that would trigger bloody upheaval again. Ahmadinejad has broad support among the poor and pious, who also venerate the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Yet Ahmadinejad's hard-line jousts with the West, his mishandling of the economy and, in particular, what many view as a blatant theft of the election, seem to be turning off growing segments of the middle class.
The recent protests are different from the country's last unrest, student-led protests in 1999 that fizzled. In particular, this go-round has attracted some of Iran's middle class, the same group that changed a religious movement in 1979 into a strong revolutionary force.
The leader of the street protesters this time, rival presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, is also different from the reformist student leaders of 1999. He is no sideline player or amateur but an experienced politician who was prime minister in the 1980s during Iran's tough war with Iraq, when Khamenei was president.
Mousavi does not appear intimidated by the supreme leader or his inner circle. Indeed, he can take his complaints right to them, and he can make their life rough if he begins to criticize the clerical system as complicit in protecting Ahmadinejad.
There's no way to know if Mousavi will challenge, or would even want to challenge, the Islamic system itself. He is a product of the revolution, never known as a reformer in the past. Yet he has already gone further than many expected.
Iran's power structure has always been opaque. Essentially it consists of a broad base of clerics supporting a ruling elite of high-level clerics, who have the power through various institutions to overturn the decisions any president makes.
At their top is the country's supreme leader — Khamenei, who controls the armed forces, other security forces and the nuclear program. He serves as final arbiter.
But even Khamenei must be careful lest he lose the support of the clerics who empower him. A rift in the high levels of the clerical structure could endanger even him, the supremacy of his position and the clerical system itself.
Some clerics in key institutions like the Guardian Council — which vets the election — are lockstep backers of Khamenei. But others, such as former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, a fierce critic of both Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, are wild cards.
So far, Mousavi has made no direct threat to the Islamic system.
But he hinted at it during a massive rally of supporters Monday, telling them to stand up to "this astonishing charade ... Otherwise, nothing will remain of people's trust in the government and the ruling system."
In Iran's post-revolutionary history, protesters have almost never crossed that red line and demonstrated against the ruling clerics themselves.
thank you, thank you, thank you icheokuu; i live in Ispahan Iran and we want change. i reed your artikle and i like it much. keep it up. good job icheoku keep it up.
ReplyDeletei live in ankara turkey and like to comment that what happened in iran is unislamic. it is against islam to steal votes and we hope the election is cancelled and a re-election done to sort out the problems. thank you icheoku for the insight. i ran into your web surfing the internet and will sure pass it on insha allah. iskmet.
ReplyDelete