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CSUSB professor comments on Iranian leader saying Europe is committed to U.S. sanctions and cannot be trusted
Press TV
Sept. 27, 2019
David Yaghoubian, CSUSB professor of history, appeared on a segment about Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who said that Iranians should give up all hope of European help against unilateral U.S. sanctions. The Trump administration imposed them on Iran after it pulled the U.S. out of the multi-national agreement regarding Iran’s nuclear program, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as a way to pressure Iran back to the negotiating table to craft what President Donald Trump called a better deal.
The United Kingdom, France and Germany, however, have said they have been trying to preserve the agreement with Iran.
“Despite their flowery language or their supportive words in international forums, European political elites have been taking the side of the scofflaw rogue bully, the United States, and essentially enabling the continuation of American abuse of international law and of the United Nations, due to their inaction,” Yaghoubian said.
Khamenei said that Iranian officials who were negotiating with the three European nations contend that they have not fulfilled any of their commitments, which is why they should not be trusted.
See the segment online at “Iran leader warns Europeans must not be trusted.”
Some Hong Kong protestors’ attitude for ramping up violence worries CSUSB professor
CNN
Sept. 27, 2019
Thousands of young people like Jim have spent the summer on the front lines of Hong Kong's longest sustained protests since the city returned to China in 1997. Their movement started in opposition to the bill but quickly snowballed into a grassroots, decentralized crusade for universal suffrage and independent inquiries into alleged police misconduct.
They want to be able to able to choose their own leader, who is currently appointed by a Beijing-dominated panel.
The scenes have grown increasingly violent throughout the summer. The streets of one of the safest cities in the world now regularly become battlegrounds with police firing rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse illegal demonstrations. …
The most extreme protesters want this to go further -- they want to take on the Chinese military. They're not scared by reports that the People's Armed Police, a paramilitary force, had been temporarily deployed across the border in Shenzhen. Nor are they worried about Beijing and Hong Kong sounding the alarm over 'signs of terror.'
They've embraced a philosophy of 'if we burn, you burn with us,' a phrase popularized by 'The Hunger Games' books.
These attitudes worry extremism expert Brian Levin.
Levin, who runs the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, said using violence -- even as a limited and calculated tool -- can have dangerous consequences.
'When some expression of violence is tolerated, that can unravel quite quickly. And when it does, it gets worse for everybody,' he said.
Read the complete article at “'Burn with us': How a summer of protest pushed young Hong Kongers to the edge.”
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