Parastoo Ahmadi sang while wearing a sleeveless dress during a concert livestreamed on her YouTube channel in December 2024. Iran's laws ban public performances by women and require them to wear headscarves and modest clothing.

Iran's judiciary launched proceedings against the 29-year-old after the video went viral, gaining millions of views, saying the performance was "in violation of the country's legal and cultural regulations".

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[–] 19 points 5 days ago (42 children)

In no case of Western intervention have regular citizens fared better. Afghanistan. Iran. Iraq. Palestine. Syria is being "governed" by a CIA Al Nursa operative and Syrians are rioting, despite a brutal crackdown and Israeli mass destruction.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 days ago (10 children)

    Women are better off under the Taliban than under US occupation?

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago (3 children)

    US intervention created the Taliban

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  • [–] 0 points 4 days ago (2 children)

    Yeah I know Afghanistan was really at the forefront of womens' rights before the American showed up

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  • [–] 4 points 3 days ago

    Kind of, yes 😅. Only it was in the Seventies, when the US showed up and supported the radical Islamists.

    the General Secretary of the PDPA, introduced several contentious reforms during their time in office, such as land and marriage reforms and an enforced policy of de-Islamization vis-à-vis the promotion of socialism. Amin, in particular, built upon Khan's reforms with even more radical legislation for Afghanistan's conservative Muslim society, such as universal education and equal rights for women.

    As the Soviet and Afghan militaries fought against the Afghan mujahideen, which had been bolstered by military aid from the Muslim world and the Western Bloc, the country rapidly destabilized, resulting in widespread civilian casualties and the creation of millions of refugees, most of whom fled to Pakistan and Iran

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  • [–] 5 points 4 days ago (3 children)
  • [–] 3 points 4 days ago (2 children)

    This photo is from the late 60s, so 25 years before the Taliban was created.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 days ago (1 child)

    Because US intervention began with the Taliban. 🙄

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago

    If you want to only look at the US intervention in Afghanistan holistically, then sure, you can make an argument that overall it has been negative, especially given the disastrous pull-out.

    But to me a "case of Western intervention" is not the complete history of one country's interactions with another - it can be divided into separate cases. US funding of the mujahideen was one case, and the US overthrow of the Taliban was another case. Not disconnected cases. But maybe this explains a point of view that you hadn't considered when you wrote your original comment.

    The other issue here is that when you responded on US intervention in West Germany you seemed only to really focus on Operation Paperclip. But viewed from further out, that didn't really impact the BRD significantly in comparison to the huge effort put towards rebuilding.

    It strikes me though that probably you didn't mean quite so absolute a statement, which to me seems outlandishly, unrealistically strong. There's no way you've done the level of historical research necessary to really conclude that with any great confidence, right? Surely you've seen a lot of instances of harmful interventions and concluded, "they're all, or at least mostly, harmful"? Maybe that'd be a statement a lot of people could agree with.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    I think you have to look at overall outcomes not what it was like under the occupation. In Afghanistan things were probably slightly better in the larger population centers during the occupation for the average person and especially for women. In the rural settings things were worse from the constant skirmishes. And as we saw basically everything was reversed as soon as the troops left.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 days ago (23 children)
  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago

    Japan's economy is collapsing precisely due to American intervention. The US decided that Japan was doing too well, and so made it destroy its own economy.

    West Germany would have never existed if it wasn't for the US. It was a decision made strictly with the goal of dividing and weakening Europe.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago (18 children)

    Japan, who gets yen bailouts at US worker expense every other year; West Germans just helped the USA hide Nazis via Operation Paperclip.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 days ago (17 children)

    Are either of those worse than the non-US-intervention alternative? How would it have been better for ordinary Japanese citizens for the totalitarian imperial government to be left in charge (and without US aid)? How would it have been better for ordinary German citizens to be hit with a second Treaty of Versailles instead of the Marshall Plan?

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  • [–] 0 points 4 days ago (1 child)

    Without US-intervention, Imperial Japan was a regional superpower.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago

    No, I mean after the US beat them in the war, would ordinary Japanese citizens have been better off if the US hadn't helped the country rebuild?

    Japan, of all countries, categorically doesn't get to be lumped in with "intervention" given that they famously attacked the US, not the other way around.

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  • [–] -3 points 4 days ago (13 children)

    The Marshall Plan was horrible for those under it's subjugation. Versailles was also USA rubbish.

    Japan wouldn't have been needlessly nuked and the white man's burden doctrine seriously needs to be, since it's ever only a wealth and resource extraction policy.

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  • [–] 8 points 4 days ago (12 children)

    The Marshall Plan was horrible for those under it’s subjugation.

    LOLWUT? Are you seriously going to try to pretend average Germans weren't better off after WWII than they were after WWI (because treating them the same as after WWI would've been the other option)?

    Japan wouldn’t have been needlessly nuked and the white man’s burden doctrine seriously needs to be, since it’s ever only a wealth and resource extraction policy.

    I can't parse this sentence. Did you omit a word?

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (11 children)

    No, I said it correctly.

    From: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/the-united-states-of-war/paper (I'm sure you can search it up, if you CBA):

    "In geopolitical terms," writes historian Alfred McCoy, the United States "became history's most powerful empire because it was the first, after a millennium of incessant struggle, to control 'both ends of Eurasia,' " with bases from the British Isles through Southeast Asia to Japan. To guard the empire, the U.S. military had 2.6 million active duty troops; 2,650 ships and 7,195 Navy combat aircraft; 15,000 Air Force fighters, bombers, and transport aircraft; and nuclear weapons ready for launch from the air, the land, and the sea.9 The growing nuclear weapons arsenal of the Soviet Union played some role in the base proliferation: more U.S. bases meant more targets and dispersed forces. The growing fear of a nuclear-armed Soviet Union likewise played an important role in governments agreeing to a U.S. presence. "Viewed from one perspective, this was an act of [U.S.] benevolence," writes foreign bases expert Amy Holmes. The United States was providing protection. On the other hand, other nations were ceding a significant degree of sovereignty to the United States (while also turning themselves into targets for Soviet missiles).10

    In Portugal "the supersensitive question of Portuguese sovereignty was constantly being raised before our negotiators," reported Col. Lawrence C. Coddington, Air Force Deputy Assistant for Air Bases. "Every point of issue revolved around the question of sovereignty and were [sic] resolved only after lengthy discussions on many proposed drafts." Coddington acknowledged that "the agreement as written does not meet the ultimate in Air Force desires." But, he continued, "it must be kept in mind that the Air Force cannot hope to achieve its desired ultimate in operating rights in small foreign countries purely because of that country's jealousy over its sovereignty."11

    The sensitivity of the Portuguese government about its loss of sovereignty was common among countries hosting U.S. bases. The rapid requests for the Yankees to leave after World War II revealed this. Even with growing fears of a clash between East and West, base negotiations were often difficult. Generally, they revolved around the degree to which U.S. forces would enjoy "extraterritoriality"—that is, the extent to which U.S. forces would be free from local laws, free from local prosecution for committing any crimes, and free to conduct military operations without restraint or consultation with the host nation. In other words, negotiations focused on how much effective sovereignty the U.S. military would have on foreign soil and thus how much sovereignty a host country would give up. Even with the United States' closest allies, such as Great Britain, sovereignty would long remain a "focus of tension," especially when it came to crimes committed by troops.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago* (5 children)

    the white man’s burden doctrine seriously needs to be _____

    There's supposed to be a verb after that.

    Also, I have no idea what the fuck you're trying to prove with those three paragraphs, since they don't even mention ordinary Japanese citizens once. Remember, the argument you're trying to prove is that ordinary Japanese citizens would not have fared worse if the US hadn't helped Japan rebuild and transition to democracy after WWII.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (4 children)

    Shared verb. The topic you took issue with was the Marshall Plan. Are you high?

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (3 children)

    Oh, so you were trying to address the part about Germany, not Japan. I assumed the latter because I didn't expect you to go back to item one after starting to respond to item 2.

    It also didn't help that your three paragraphs didn't have anything to say about ordinary German citizens either.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (4 children)

    You didn't respond at all to the challenge that US interference in West Germany was overall positive, via comparison to the post-WWI circumstances, which would likely have been replayed.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (3 children)

    I'm glad an attempted genocide of communists, Jews, LGBTQ, Roma and others were averted, while also noting that only a few Nazis were stopped, and the bulk funneled into the USA, UK, Canada, Argentina, and other states. Germany is not in great shape and finds itself kissing the bigger boot for fear of retaliation.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (2 children)

    What you seem to be saying is that you don't really like the outcome, because Nazi affiliation shouldn't have been ignored in Operation Paperclip. That's fair enough, and I think there are a lot of people who would agree. But that's not really what this is about - nobody is objecting to the idea that US intervention could have been better - they (and I include myself) - are objecting to the idea that it was negative. That you reply in this way, which avoids the fundamental question of whether it was overall positive or negative, implies to me either that you realise there's a problem with your original statement, or that you think any intervention that isn't perfect is in fact negative.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (4 children)
  • [–] 4 points 4 days ago (3 children)

    Libya had better conditions under Qadaffi

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