Iran is still happening — for God’s sake they just discovered a mass grave of 44 people suspected of being demonstrators. But the fad’s over, so we’re not hearing about it.

Where? I missed the news of this one. Can you give a source? Thanks.

Because funding mass murders and installing puppet dictators is really equatable with supporting actual democratic process and providing humanitarian aid.

Of course not.

But it is a lot easier to get entangled with another country’s politics, residents, and future than it is to get DISentangled.

So, why worry about entanglement? Well, to make it more clear, you should try different language.

“Supporting democratic process” is one way to put what we would be doing. “Openly assisting in the removal of a government” is another way to put it, even though the current government was obtained through military coup. And we both know which way it is going to be viewed by the current (in power) government.

We already get into trouble playing world policeman, even when we are trying to prevent fairly obvious issues like international wars of aggression. When we step into a country’s internal government, especially when we are acting to try to completely change it, we risk setting a dangerous precedent.

While I agree that Hondurans would benefit from a better government, and while I am also opposed to a variety of other pro-dictator U.S. intervention that is ongoing, I can see why we might not want to get into yet another fighting ring right now.

I think Mindy was bang-on in saying that Iran has a certain place in the average American (and Canadian) consciousness that isn’t mirrored in our consciousness of Latin America. With the war in Afghanistan (widely participated in by many countries, including Canada–we have a really big role there), and the war in Iraq (admittedly pretty much just an American-British thing, but nonetheless very heavily covered by Canadian media), I think Westerners have a certain we-have-to-help-all-these-poor-middle-eastern-folk complex. A complex that is ethnocentric and sad, but very real. Whereas with Latin American countries, the public consciousness seems to say “Well it’s sad, but that’s what poverty does.” Kind of like the way we react to dictatorships and poverty in many African countries. The “trendy” place to do aid work and save people, today, does seem to be the middle east. It’s quite a horrific state of affairs.

And–it must be sad–add to that the fact that the Honduras coup happened within days of MJ’s death, and there you have it. I think we know which story of those two “won” the media.

Just briefly before I go to work (hope this isn’t too pre-coffee incoherent):

“There were demonstrations in this country–and in many other countries all over the world–against what was happening in Iran, and while they might not have been “huge” outpourings of grassroots support, they were also not insignificant, and they were not exclusively Iranian (at least not the ones that I went to). I guess I just don’t want the people at those protests to become invisible in your analysis.”

Absolutely, and I don’t mean to erase these people either, or imply that they are/were uncritical of the politics at play. I’m just trying to look at the support for Iranian protesters phenomenon (in the US specifically as that’s what I’m familiar with) and compare it other situations where things went differently, in this case Honduras, though there are countless examples we could use.

“Are you saying that situation in Honduras is different enough from the situation in Iran that Obama should take a different tack?”

I’m saying he is taking a different tack, on the PR if not policy level. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if some US body, if not the president himself, had either a hand in this or turned a blind eye. I’m not trying to float conspiracy theories, and I’m not saying I believe that is the case Just looking at the government’s interests and history–it wouldn’t surprise me.

Iran is still happening — for God’s sake they just discovered a mass grave of 44 people suspected of being demonstrators. But the fad’s over, so we’re not hearing about it.

The whole thing makes me pretty sick to my stomach.