From: javad@hplabsz.hpl.hp.com (Agha Javad)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian
Subject: Re: Iran-Iraq war
Date: 11 Nov 92 00:49:41 GMT
Organization: LabaniyyAtee-e-Sar-e-Koocheh

In article <1992Nov10.183608.15886@hplabsz.hpl.hp.com> javad@hplabsz.hpl.hp.com (Agha Javad) writes:
>In article <1992Nov9.221137.2067@ucbeh.san.uc.edu> minhaszt@ucbeh.san.uc.edu writes:
>
>[stuff delted]
>
>Thank you for your post, zafar jan.  This is more the kind of discussion I,
>and I trust we all like.  I agree with you completely with a few minor
>differences.  Let me clarify my view on this.
>
>First, a brief history of the beginning of the war, so if you want, please 
>skip to the next paragraph if you already know it.
>
>Yes, Saddam invaded Iran in an unjustified and barbaric fashion, and throughout
>his war, he made Hitler look like an angel.  From 1980-1982, Iran was truly
>fighting a war of defense of the motherland, and for the more Islamically

Oh and one more thing:

When revolution happened in Iran, the Islamic gov't quickly started executing
military personnel by the thousands.  It started with the heads, and went all 
the way down into even the junior officers, and many of these people weren't
even powerful or guilty of anything, the IRI was just scared of them.  They
killed and imprisoned hundreds of the best pilots, sailors, paratroopers, 
soldiers in the world, people who had been trained with the money of the 
Iranian people, and who would have easily fought for their country, as the ones 
who were spared did.  At the time, the government was talking about abolishing 
the army altogether (for those of you who remember, "enhelAl-e-artesh"), and 
they even reduced military service to 1 year.  They were saying that we don't 
need an army and that we are surrounded by "muslim brother neighbors".  Well, 
apparently they had never heard of bad neighbors.  The same people, Rafsanjani 
as a matter of fact, complained many years later in Tehran's Friday prayers how 
the previous regime of Shah cancelled the order of F16's, etc. right before the 
revolution, and that if that hadn't happened we would be so and so and such and 
such by by now.  This from the mouth of the people who in 1979 criticized the 
Shah for buying all those weapons!  What I am saying is that Iran has 
historically been threatened from the outside, and true, the revolution had and 
continues to have enemies, inside and outside, but believe me, they were 
completely careless in attempting to dissolve the army, and could have done a 
LOT more to keep up the defenses of the country and make a guy like Saddam think
twice before he attacked.  You know how many tanks were in ALL of Khuzestan on 
the day of the invasion? 28!! That's right! only 28 tanks out of a total in the 
thousands!! And you know what happened to them?  They were all taken intact, 
since they and their bases were unmanned!!  Iran had been going towards being
the world's fifth strongest conventional military force just a year prior, and 
now everything was completely gone! When the war started, they conditionally 
freed several hundred pilots from prison, and let them loose on the Iraqi Army, 
and these men played a big part in defending our country and halting Iraqi 
armor. These men went and fought for their country with a mistrustful gun at 
their head, and I say that is no way to treat your country's fighting men. The 
same people would have been executed had the war not started. In fact, many were
executed even after the war started under fabricated allegations of attempting 
to plot a coup, etc.I think if Saddam had waited just a year longer, things 
might have been different.  In a way, we got lucky that our enemy was such an 
idiot.  

If the IRI leadership had been smart, they would have invited those military
men who were not strong supporters of Shah, and were willing to work for
their COUNTRY to continue to serve, while firing only the heads who were 
unquestionable loyalists.  They would have also taken a peaceful stance
towards their neighbors and towards the rest of the world by not blabbing
about exporting their revolution and doing dumb things like taking hostages
(they could have achieved the same results in a much more dignified way
by merely expelling the US embassy personnel), and not advocating violence,
and won the sympathy of at least neutral countries.  But no, they had to
isolate themselves because they could find no country whose gov't thought
exactly the same way as they did, they had to execute anyone who didn't 
think the same way they did, and leave no one else but themselves.  Such
a government has no right to complain when they are left all alone in a crisis.
But the people certainly have a right to complain about their government's
policies, as I am doing now, but could not possibly do back home. And I
don't care when people question one's patriotism and courage because one
is criticizing his/her traitor government, I don't have to prove my courage
or patriotism to anyone.  I have been mocked since I just mentioned Gandhi,
a great man, since he stayed with his people and I didn't.  Well, I never
claimed to be and could never be Gandhi, he was a true man of the people.
But I challenge anyone on this net to come up with just ONE example of
a present day Iranian political figure who is a true "man of the people".
Even if a man like Khomeini had many people following him, he didn't live
with and like the people like Gandhi did, and certainly was well protected
from the sufferring and pain the people went through.  In our generation,
the only guys who had some significant following amongst our people ended
up turning around and screwing our people. If anyone wants to label us 
"westernized" just because we don't mimic the IRI, they certainly have
a very narrow view of the world, and in their view, if the world consists
of only IRI and the west, then we are definitely "westernized".  But that
view is limited, and I don't think we are any more "westernized" than
"fundamentalist".  We have our own views, and just because they differ from 
those of our present gov't doesn't make us without a country and culture.


>
>Agha Javad
>