"The president called the disaster “painful for all Iranians.”"
This takeaway should tell us that boundaries, politcal and otherwise, should not harden or skew our views of humanity.
I visited Iran in 2015 to attend a U.N. Safe Schools Initiative and came to understand their deep concern for the safety of school children. One that was/is supported by investments by their government to the tune of over $7 billion. Yes, they have successes and failures, but they have not ignored a basic understanding that all school children deserve to be in safe buildings...they are the future.
I appreciate the many photographs accompanying this and your more recent article Mr. Erdbrink. Keep up this good work.
Military planners watch how other nations respond to national emergencies to judge how well managed, organized and prepared those countries are. A response to a natural disaster is a pretty good indication of how well organized their armed forces are too. Military planners are evaluating Iran's response to this earthquake disaster. This evaluation is even more important in light of Donald Trumps repeated bellicose threats to declare war on nations that he doesn't like. Iran is one of those nations. But this also brings up another point and that is how are other nations around the world interpreting Americas disastrous and shameful response to the natural disaster in Puerto Rico. Think about you strategic thinkers.
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Tragedies like these awake the wonder in us. They also make us feel lucky that we did not suffer a similar fate. It is easy to remain geographically and physically isolated from the earthquake and more so from its human connection.
Planet earth is a vessel navigating a sea of uncertainty. If it is not a hurricane or an earthquake that hits us it is our own foolish power of conflict that causes the damage. Inserting God and prayer in the formula feels good, but is foolish. We are a product of accidental evolution, not the result of divine intervention and design. Once we admit that reality, it is easier to accept the loss as the best we can be and move on. If we fall for the other version, nothing could be more evident that a big heavenly mistake has been made and there is nowhere else we can go.
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A map showing the location of towns hardest hit would have been much appreciated.
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And despite Iran making clear it's wish to wipe Israel off the map, Israel has once again offered it's assistance to Iran to help it's people after the quake. Once again Iran prefers the politics of hatred over its people and has turned them down. Nuff said........
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Netanyahu: "So I am proud to announce tonight that a few hours ago I directed that we offer the Red Cross medical assistance for the Iraqi and Iranian victims of this disaster..."
Maybe Netanyahu, like Trump, is a little too proud of himself. The politics or pride/hatred are two sides of the same coin.
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You are dead wrong Greenie. Iran is not a country of hatred, it is a country that has been attacked and had their democratic government overthrown by the U.S. CIA in 1953 when we installed our puppet Shah to protect our and British petroleum dollars. Google it and learn the correct history, not what you hear from ignorant U.S. politicians like Trump and Cruz.
Further, Cuba offered on more than one occasion to supply medical assistance to the US during hurricane disasters and was turned down by the U.S. Does that mean we prefer politics of hatred? Maybe?
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Though you are right about Iranian people. They are people like rest of the world with universal humanity values, warm hearted and guest friendly but you are dead wrong about history. Only an educated man can summarise Iran's complicated history into one paragraph. Calling Shah puppet is dead wrong. He was never puppet and was very autonomous leader. He only made mistakes when he listened to Carter advice on the verge of revolution. Puppet was a propaganda word introduced by CIA to refer to Shah to buy credit for CIA and US! you speak like my great grandma who was never to school talking about Iranian politics. Read some books about Iran for dummies rather than CIA one paragraph and two words... then talk about Iran history
There was a time when, after a natural disaster elsewhere in the world, an American President would be one of the first leaders to offer condolences and assistance. Regardless of our diplomatic relationship at the time, he would set aside his own minor accomplishments and tribulations, and reach out as another human being.
There was a time.
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what devastation. where’s the international relief fund?
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The Iranians said that they wanted no outside help. They're a paranoid state and feel that any type of capitulation almost deems them to a compromise of a sort. The best example that the Iranian use in not showing any sign of need and equating it to a weakness is that of Lybia: when Lybian got out of the building of nuclear weapons and consequently saw their big man Khaddifi go into a quick demise.
That is the very same logic North Korea's Kim is using as well as the big guy himself, Volodya Putin. Both feel they are left with no choice as the US has shown itself a little too fond of regime change lately.
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