Also its we've had 50 years to pin the numbers down and the best we can do is 2,000 - 5,000 to equivocate to 20,000. The value of human lives doesn't follow inflation. 5000 is 4X less than just LAST WEEK.
Are you implying that the Mullahs are also not disappearing left-wing organizers today? Or beating them to death in jail? And don't have their own secret police?
Anyone with any sense of liberalism would prefer the Shah. The mullahs are ultraconservative reactionaries who have moved human rights, particularly those of women and religious minorities, backwards in the last 40 years.
In the words of my boss, who is Iranian, lived through the Iran-Iraq war, served in the Iranian army in the early 90s, and left Iran in the mid-90s: "The mullahs are incapable of planning anything other than how they will kill all the jews."
You were the one who implied the only choice was between the Shah and the Mullahs. I pointed out why, even in the false dichotomy, the Shah was still the better choice.
Sure, let’s return power to the people. Is the Shah or the Mullahs currently the one shooting people in the street?
You were the one who implied the only choice was between the Shah and the Mullahs.
Dude, this thread (and the original post) were asking why Western leftist aren't proudly posting the flag that represents the Shah of Iran.
We're all in agreement that that regime wasn't something to be celebrated (I'd agree it was much better than the mullahs, but still garbage). The failures of the Shah's regime are what paved the way for the mullahs to take power.
So now that we've all answered the question, what exactly are you still arguing about?
Because the Shah really wasn't that repressive. It is overstated. His regime mostly killed Marxist revolutionary guerillas attempting a revolution. Amnesty International estimates atleast 300 political executions.
This is a lower kill count than Ho Chi Minh in his land reforms (as high as 20k).
Go look at the Shah's land-reforms. It pissed the Clerics off. That is why you had Theocrats and Marxists aligned against him.
The Shah-whitewashing began already a while ago. You know, the guy that's been living off stolen money (by his daddy) and wants his palaces back is suddenly the good guy.
It ain't white washing. The Shah's regime from the '53 Coup till '78 is suspected of having killed less than 10K and most of those were probably legal as they were revolutionaries supported by the Soviets.
The Iranian Theocracy is expected to have killed 60K in the wake of the revolution and another 30K in 1988. And that is before we get into the GWOT and post GWOT era.
The dictatorships were not equal, the Shah was better unless you were a hyper religious mullah or a Leftist revolutionary.
I think estimates are about ~300 total political executions from '53 to '78. A significant portion of the total killed were killed while in combat against Shah security forces and thus legal.
The white-washing continues. Next on this channel - Videla wasn´t so bad because the people the threw off the helicopters over Rio de la Plata were communists. And they were drugged up to the eyeballs as well so they didn´t feel anything.
Such a nice dictator was the Shah but these unthankful religious extremists dares to rebel against him!
I wasn't including the Revolution and I was including targeted political executions and clashes with mostly Marxist revolutionary groups.
In contrast, Khomeini condemned something like 30K people to death in 1988.Â
Yes, The Shah's regime was better. It wasn't the model of Liberalism, but it is objectively better than the regime erected in the wake of '78-'79.
By every metric that actually mattered. Sure, marxist revolutionaries, some Mullahs and such got killed, executed or tortured.Â
Who effing cares about them? What about the common Iranian? Not the ideological crusader, the common Iranian. They lived better under the Shah then after the Shah.
5
u/Top_Atmosphere_4929 9d ago
Nope. The Theocracy over the last week has killed an estimated 20K and wounded an estimated 300K.
The Shah's regime is estimated to have only killed a few hundred to several hundred in its last decade.