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The Times’ Middle East Columnist Fails On Basic Facts
Ladies and Gentlemen, we present the Middle East columnist of the 'paper of record', Tom Friedman:
Iran Is Crushing Freedom One Country at a Time
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Having covered the Middle East my entire adult life, I’m seeing some trends emerging there that I’ve never seen before.
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The Iranian ayatollahs even had to largely shut down their own internet to prevent the domestic rebellion from spreading. Ever since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2002, Iran has never wanted to see a stable, multisectarian, secular democracy emerge in Baghdad, because then Iranian Shiites would be asking why Iraqi Shiites get to live freely and they don’t.
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For the record. The invasion of Iraq began on March 19 2003, not in 2002. Friedman should know that. He and his paper were major pro-war propagandists in the run up to it.
During the first three years of the war Friedman went on to predict 14 times that 'success' in Iraq would come within the "next six months", a period now known as a Friedman unit.
If the New York Times and its main Middle East columnist can not even get that date right what else do they get wrong?
A cursory read of Friedman's anti-Iranian column suggests that the answer is "everything".
There are a lot of news about the riot in Iran which are not covered outside the country, mostly in Farsi language. Here is an interview with firefighters, I have translated from Farsi, please refer to the link for picture and videos of the article.
Mr Reza Kazemi is one of the same firefighters who put his life on his palm to save lives and properties of people. He is in bed these days. We go to him to inquire about those horrible hours in Qods. His arms and legs are broken and his face burned. This broken arm and leg is both a symbol of his heroism and a symbol of the brutality of the rioters. Mr Morteza Zarrin is another fireman says a story of the courage of the Qods firefighters when, with one trick, they took back three fire engines from the rioters.
“They were brutal, like the Daesh ( ISIS)! ” This is the first sentence Mr. Reza Kazemi ( one of firefighter) says, in describing the rioters, as if it is only that they can show the height of their atrocities. He goes on: “As if someone had dictated to them how to go and hit and destroy. You could imagine a instruction writing was dictated to them. They had no feeling, no mercy. The rioters in Qods ( a city in west of Tehran) left no stone un-turned and did not have any mercy on the clinic and patients and ills in the clinics, they set clinic on fire, too. In the blink of an eye they set the city of Qods on fire and worst of all, they brutally stopped the fire fighters to extinguish the fire. We were prevented to put out the fire. Priority was given to us to extinguishing burning residential buildings, as all banks were evacuated. We had to save people’s lives first. The upper floor of one of the banks was a residential home. We were dispatched to extinguish the fire, rioters attacked the fire engine, they were armed. They brought us down with knives and cutlery, we were two people without any weapons, they blocked the way to any resistance. They picked up the firefighter engine and drove away quickly. We called the center to dispatch another firefighting engine; Until the next engine reached the desired address, all the belongings of a newly married couple, bride and groom, who had been married just two weeks ago, had been burnt. It was two weeks after the couple’s marriage. The couple stayed home until the last moment to prevent fire, but the fire seemed too forceful. My colleague and I reached the home, but it was too late. The young woman was sitting in the cold floor of the street and crying. “It’s been a week past now, but the crying of the young bride still is sounding in my ear.”
Reza Kazemi, is in bed these days, his arms and legs are burned, he has pain but his is in his best mood than ever, saying that ” I can tolerate so sever intense burning pains because I saved the lives of three people”. We ask him to recount the incident of that night.
“Rioters set fire to two banks and a pharmacy and three shops downstairs of an office and commercial building. Because the building’s facade was made of combo material the fire spread quickly to the upper floors. Two fire engines were dispatched to the site. I was supposed to stay at the station. The building is near the fire station. A few minutes after the engines were dispatched, I walked out of the station and saw that besides the bank and shops, all the buildings of Mount Nour complex were on fire, as if someone was whispering to my ear go to that building, even though I was assigned to stay at the station. ”
He considers not staying at the station was a miracle. As the narrative of that night goes on, we understand why he says it was a miracle; “I reached the building. The noise was high and the firemen were extinguishing the fire. The building was an office and commercial and was said to be evacuated and no one was there. But I realized there was some sound in the midst of the noises. It was as if someone was screaming for help. I sharpened my ears. I found the sound was coming from inside the building. Intensity of smoke and fire was huge that I could not get in from the main building. I walked around the building, the door of the yard was closed. Two or three people were around. They helped me to climb the wall and reached the upstairs, from upstairs there was some security fence, I climbed the fence and jumped into the yard. At that moment the pain wrapped around my hands and feet, but there was no time to hesitate. I went inside the building, it was just smoke and darkness and you couldn’t walk. The sounds got closer, the screams of a few people coming together. I went to the first floor, using the flashlight, reached to hall, three people were caught in smoke and fire and could not get out of the building. The fire was increasing every moment. I found them, the pain in my leg and hand was increasing every moment, my face was burning and my burning sensation was gone, but at that moment the lives of those three and their salvation was more important than anything. We went to the yard, but couldn’t open the door, it was locked, using a ladder I send all three to out of the building, and I came out of the deadly smoke and fire and took a breath.”
He paused for a while, continues: “My firefighter colleagues were busy extinguishing the fire at the front of the building and no one noticed me at the back of the building. All of the five-story buildings, including 20 commercial units and several banks and shops, were on fire. My leg and hand aches were so severe that I could no walk any longer, I sit on the street floor. The rioters saw anyone in firefighters uniform, beat them, they had no mercy. As I was lonely, tired of the pain, fell down on the street floor , At the same time I was so happy that I had saved three life, the rest was no longer important. I was about the same time when a couple noticed that I was injured and I was a firefighter, they helped me and got me in their car. I was wrestling with the intensity of my arm and leg pain, I did know where they could take me. The Qods city, which has no hospital, had no health centers, no clinic were left. At that moment, the couple found the safest place is the Qods Spah building. Getting there was also enough. The saboteurs blocked all routes by burning cars in the middle of the street. Finally, we went to the Corps building. The young couple handed me over to the guards. I was in the Corps building for a few hours, in pain. After few hours they could send me to the hospital.
The riots in the Qods was huge, you have to sit down for hours and listen to the words of each firefighter who was in the middle of a rioters destruction. Another firefighter Mr. Morteza Zarrin has an audacious account of the courage of firefighters and the brutality of the rioters. He says the problem has come to a point that we have had impersonate ourselves as rioters.
“The rioters in Qods not only attacked the firefighting engine, but also took us at gun point or knife and cutlery, so that we could not extinguish the fire”. Zarrin says three firefighters devised a plot. We were in the shock that we had lost the first firefighter engine, when our colleagues announced that the rioters had taken two more engine. In the event that Qods was on fire, the existence of each of these vehicle was vital.
We should have done something. Three of our coworkers arranged for us to take out our uniforms and wear plane cloth and go to the saboteurs gathering place. We were supposed to appear in the role of agitators and with this trick, take the fire engines from them. The plan was dangerous if they realized we were firefighters would cost our life.
But the city was on fire. In less than a few hours, 50 points of Hassan Khan’s castle were set on fire. We went to the rioters’ gathering on Str. 45m. They were so stupid that they thought the cans under the fire engine were gasoline. They had poured it on top f the vehicle to make it easier to ignite fire, no matter how much gasoline they were pouring, the cars would not burn because these cans were a special fire-extinguishing foam that had been spilled over on the engine. We took this opportunity and said we knew how to ignite a fire for the this type of engine, and we had already burned some more engines in Mallard. In short the thugs also believed, we got into the vehicle in the blink of an eye and drove out of the area. The rioters had looted all the engine. We estimate that about 300 million damaged the Qods Fire Department.”
Posted by: arata | Dec 5 2019 6:25 utc | 75
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