Iran stops students travelling to join Hezbollah

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

29 July 2006


TEHERAN - Iranian authorities have stopped at the border a group of hardline students who on Wednesday left Teheran to join Hezbollah’s war against Israeli forces in Lebanon, the students said on Saturday.

The student group representing the 200 who left overland for Lebanon sent a fax to Reuters saying they had been stopped at the Turkish border on Thursday evening.

The students were staging a sit-down protest at the border but police were refusing to give them food or water.

Iranian hardliners have made great public show of recruiting volunteers for “martyrdom-seeking operations” in recent years. But there is no record of any of these Iranian volunteers taking part in attacks in Iraq or Israel.

A little more: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2006/July/middleeast_July699.xml§ion=middleeast

[Joe Bacon]

1. Gee, how will the Whore Press explain this?

According to the Whore Press, Iranians are flooding into Lebanon to fight with Hezballah! I'm sure Bob Woodward and his Stenographer pals will fail to mention this...

[rodeodance]

2. they are students of democracy--with the right to protest (my imagined

response from the bushco gang)

[Solo_in_MD]

3. Must have met their recruiting quota for the month

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

4. hmmm.

you think?

[Solo_in_MD]

7. At a practical level

200 untrained hot heads would just be cannon foder, which does have its uses in Iranian tactical doctrine. However they might endanger experienced or at least trained Hezbollah, so I can see why Hezbollah might not want them.

Seriously, assuming they actually exist (no way to tell), it does seem silly. The Mullahs in Iran are suffiencently out of touch with the rest of the world to think that someone might actually take that kind of press release seriously.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

8. it's not a press release. Reuters.

They do news.

[Solo_in_MD]

11. Article reads like nothing but quotes forom Iranian Gov

Nothing to indicate on site reporting

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

12. Like the part where the police were witholding food and water?

That's really a talking point they would want to spread. :sarcasm: :crazy:

[Solo_in_MD]

13. You are rationale

The mullah are not

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

14. We speak like Tarzan now?

rationale
One entry found for rationale.
Main Entry: ra·tio·nale
Pronunciation: "ra-sh&-'nal
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin, neuter of rationalis
1 : an explanation of controlling principles of opinion, belief, practice, or phenomena
2 : an underlying reason : BASIS


Main Entry: 1ra·tio·nal
Pronunciation: 'rash-n&l, 'ra-sh&-n&l
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English racional, from Anglo-French racionel, from Latin rationalis, from ration-, ratio
1 a : having reason or understanding b : relating to, based on, or agreeable to reason : REASONABLE <a rational explanation> <rational behavior>
2 : involving only multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction and only a finite number of times
3 : relating to, consisting of, or being one or more rational numbers <a rational root of an equation>

(sorry, couldn't resist it) :toast:

More apropos would be the fact that I don't live where they live and have not been raised in similar socio-economic circumstances. I am very sure that the Mullah's rationale seems understandable to those with similar shared experience.

[Solo_in_MD]

15. Hey, it passed the spell checker...

but still, it was pretty funny. No offense taken.

And you are correct about there being a cultural aspect to it. The Arab street eats up conspiracy stories and dark plots. They are also used to hyperbole from their media that would be unacceptable in the West. Other cultural elements are why Arab armies are so ineffective. We tend to forget in all of this that some of the ME conflict is that of a modern democracy against medieval theocracies like Iran. Hezbollah inflicts the Sharia on areas they control, just like like Iran and elsewhere

[formercia]

5. Fearless Leader will be disappointed....

They hold a war and nobody shows up.....

[uppityperson]

6. k&r for sanity

[MGD]

9. It can be interpreted in a number of ways

I interpret it as meaning Iran doesn't want to be caught openly fighting in this conflict for fear of fueling the US case against Ahmedinejihad. Iranians killed in this conflict would be all the pretext Bush and Blair would need to take a much harder position against Iran.

[Vidar]

10. My take as well.