http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/31495750#31495750
Video

Oh? Why is the refueling a problem? We could do that! Why would they need volunteers?

Their planes can't make it to their targets then back home. They need refueled, which I've been told, they don't have the refueling capabilities. Volunteers, think Dolittle Raiders. Problem solved.

Hope fades, anger grows amid Iran crackdown ‘My father died for the Islamic republic but ... he would fight these people’

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31539960/ns/world_news-washington_post/

Ahmadinejad: Obama is acting like Bush

Report: Dozens of university professors are detained after meeting Mousav

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31539392/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/31532938#31532938

Video savage crackdown

If we could have a do-over, it's clear that Iran would have been better able to support democracy on the ground than Iraq.  It is Iran which should have been freed of their oppressive regime, not Iraq.  Bush got that one wrong.

Here is a little snippet from the Christian Science Monitor.  It is a compilation of reports from various non-governmental sources.  It says that the illegal government is now widening its punitive net to the intelligentsia as well as street supporters.  Mousavi has refused to refrain from calling for street demonstrations, and he's been warned that he can expect a bullet for his trouble.

It is so obvious that Iran's attempt to showcase its 'democratic reforms' is a complete sham and that the country is a virtual dictatorship run by a junta with Ahmadinejad as its straw man leader.

"Iran arrested 70 university professors who favor a reform of the country's political system overnight, spreading its crackdown beyond protesters on the streets to members of the country's political and intellectual elite.

"The Associated Press – citing a web site close to Mir Hussein Mousavi, the centrist presidential candidate who observers both inside and outside Iran say had the country's June 12 election stolen from him – reported that the professors were arrested shortly after attending a meeting with Mr. Mousavi.

"Even as the regime did so, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, once the hand-picked successor of the father of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, condemned his government's behavior. [Courageous. This shows the Supreme Leader and his henchman are losing ground] This came amid signs that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the populist and anti-Western president who claimed victory in the election, was losing some of his old supporters. [Good!]

There [were] also indications that the disputed election has caused a rift among former Ahmadinejad supporters. Several Tehran newspapers reported Thursday that only 105 out of 290 members of parliament attended a victory celebration held by Ahmadinejad on Tuesday. Among the no-shows was Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani. [One wonders when he will be arrested.  Ahmadinejad won't be able to overlook the snub]

"Writing in Lebanon's The Daily Star, columnist David Ignatius predicts that in the short term "the thugs who claim to rule in the name of God" will carry the day, but that the brutal opposition crackdown, now symbolized by the murder of young protester Neda Soltan, whose death was caught on video, will ultimately lead to fundamental change. [Change is coming. Braveheart's Kennedy quote is so applicable here:Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.]

They have exposed the weakness of the clerical regime in a way that Iran's foreign adversaries – America, Israel, Saudi Arabia – never could. They have opened a fundamental split in the regime. The rulers will try to bind this wound with force, and salve it with concessions, but neither approach will make the wound heal.

[I hope they are distracted from their nuclear armament quest while they try to bind and salve and mollify the populace. It won't work.  But it might save them from Israel's pre-emptive strikes, thereby saving many many innocent citizens.  I pray for the best outcome for all, whatever it may be.]

I concur, Bard.  My dad, a very peace-loving but pragmatic New Yorker, once told me that if I was ever threatened by a group of boys/men (the assumption being they would be taller than me because I have always been slightly shorter than average) and I was outnumbered, my best chance for self-preservation was to take my best and dirtiiest shot at the biggest, meanest looking one of the group.  The theory being that it would take out the 'alpha' thug and intimidate his followers into thinking twice about messing with someone who was obviously too stupid to be afraid.

Your comment supports that theory which has been proven in world history in more than one conflict and required only twice, fortunately successfully, in my younger years.  It might have worked for the U.S. had we taken our 'shot' at Iran in stead of Iraq.

Also, I am surprised that Iran's internal conflict is getting more U.S. media coverage than North Korea's sword rattling.  The instability in the Middle East has been ongoing for decades while N.K.'s nuclear weapon delivery threat is, IMO, far more acute and Kim is obviously an insane despot without any concern for the repercussions that would follow a nuclear attack on the U.S.  N.K. is the most ominous threat to our country, IMO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5M_Ttstbgs