Via Hot Air, this first-person account of pro-Ahmadinejad thuggery:
The swing that keeps replaying in my head was the black baton that smashed the man in the skull behind his left ear.
Seconds earlier the man had dared to stand up to the baton wielding men because they had shoved a 14-year-old girl. For his chivalry he got one of the most savage beatings I have ever seen at the hands of four Iranian riot policemen and members of the Baseej, Iran’s plain clothed volunteer militia.
Note: these are the die-hard loyalists; the regular police and military are sometimes sympathetic to their fellow Iranians—to the point that they have to be supplemented at times with Arab emigrés.
“To hell with Iran,” he said as he sat beaten and battered along the sidewalk. “This is not my government. This is not my country.”
A grown man who watched the beating burst into tears.
This was a glimpse of the ugly aftermath of Iran’s presidential elections, which sparked outrage among supporters of candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi.
Moussavi’s backers are calling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s landslide victory a sham. They’re demanding the vote be annulled. The government’s response has been a ruthless and violent crackdown.
For eight chaotic hours I saw the two sides clash throughout the streets of Tehran. These were Iranians versus Iranians, but the two sides were worlds apart in appearance, ideology and brute force.
Moussavi’s supporters were mostly young 20-something men and women. They were college students, young professionals with degrees demanding social freedom, a better way of life, and better relations with the West.
Two teenage girls carrying bricks had French manicured fingernails and designer sunglasses. The protesters threw objects, burned trash bins, honked their horns and chanted “death to the dictator!”
They were loud, until they heard the roar of the motorcycles.
The motorcycles belonged to two groups of Ahmadinejad supporters: Iran’s riot police and the Baseej.
The riot police looked like modern gladiators, muscular and menacing with camouflaged uniforms, black boots, black bulletproof vests and black shielded helmets. They rode in pairs. One drove while the other wielded a club or a baton. They swarmed crowds of rowdy protesters in packs of about 20, beating anyone who got in their way.
On several occasions I saw female Moussavi supporters plead with their male counterparts not to run away. But they almost always did. They were clearly intimidated by the brutal show of force.
The Baseejis were just as ruthless. Those who didn’t ride on motorcycles walked the streets in large packs carrying clubs. They didn’t wear uniforms, so they could easily ambush protesters. They beat one protester so badly that he collapsed in the middle of an intersection and trembled uncontrollably. I saw one battered young man crawl into the lobby of an apartment building, curl up under the stairwell and sob. He had welts on his forehead and bruises up and down his arms.
“They hit me with everything,” he said as he gasped for air. “They hit with clubs. They hit me with chains.”
. . . . . . . .
During a Saturday afternoon news conference Ahmadinejad compared the violent crackdown against the protesters to a citation after a traffic ticket.
. . . . . . . .
Never since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 have Iran’s people appeared this divided.
So, where’s our President? On a date or something?
Having traveled to the Muslim world and advanced the idea that the United States is in some way at fault for our poor relations with countries in the region, Obama must now face up to the very real consequences of his actions. To wit, that the leaders of the Iranian police state no longer fear the United States because the talkers and the negotiators have replaced the doers where it counts. As a result, they feel free to act pretty much as they please against their own people.
It is not too late for Obama to reverse course, or even alter it. It is probably too much to hope he will do so—but if he does give another speech, writes Stephen Hayes online for The Weekly Standard, the president “could tap into the enthusiasm and frustration of the protestors with a few well-chosen words about democracy, the rule of law, the will of the people, consent of the governed and legitimacy. He could choose a compelling story or two from inside Iran to make his points most dramatically, perhaps an anecdote about sacrifices some Iranians made to vote or an example of post-election intimidation.”
This would be a far cry from the silence heard thus far from the White House, the State Department and the other citadels of the foreign policy establishment. To the everlasting shame of many of us, in 1956 the United States failed to come to the aid of thousands of brave Hungarians who, hearing the message of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, rose up against the Communist police state depriving them of freedom. Are we seeing history repeat itself? Mr. President, are you up to this challenge?
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