I think lately, Iran has been aggressively seeking tourism. Perhaps USA Today was making a gesture of peace? Anyway, it’s just 1 day of the year they devoted their travel section to Iran. No biggie.

Norman Blitzer on November 10, 2008 at 11:18 am

There is a whole literature about the idiocy of travelers, and their failure to exercise critical judgment. All the nitwits who visited the Land of Socialism in the 30s when we recognized the Soviet Union (sic). Then Cuba in the 60s. A lot of people have visited China in the last couple of decades. These are completely impressionistic people who are so self-centered they just think of their own comfort, or ‘open-mindedness’, and not about what the country is doing. Kind of like the Government. China is our friend; Taiwan is an outcast — Syria is our friend, now along with Iran, and Israel is an outcast. ut we’ve become a nation of bubbleheads.

c f on November 10, 2008 at 11:28 am

A young college student sits in Iran’s most notorious jail today because of nonsense like this.In the last year 5 Americans have gone missing in Iran. From Caskets And Rape:
“It remains to be said that the fate of women in the prisons of the Iranian Islamic Revolution is worse than the fate of men. It is not necessarily because women are less resistant and less tolerant to torture, but because women are considered from the theological perspective of the Iranian regime to be an element of seduction, and their bodies a place of evil and impurity. The torture of a woman’s body may take the form of rape. Despite the necessity of secrecy that imposes itself in these cases, some women political prisoners have dared to speak up in their memoirs about the torture and rape they were subjected to. However most of the women either were not given the chance to talk or have chosen not to talk. In fact, raped women were often executed. A woman’s rape is frequently the last act that precedes her execution. This is explained by the rule in Iranian political prisons that the sentence of execution cannot be carried out if the woman is a virgin. Since there is a theological belief that if a woman dies a virgin she will go to heaven, the politically active virgin is forced to “marry” before her execution and thus to insure she will go to hell. She is forced to “marry” the hangman who will carry out her execution.. This marriage is conducted as a legitimate and official contract which includes, among other things, an estimated dowry. This “dowry” is subsequently paid to the family of the victim; it simultaneously becomes the equivalent of an official notification that she was executed.”
http://www.aljadid.com/reviews/0942tarabishi.html

Pat on November 10, 2008 at 11:30 am

“welcoming” and “await[s] intrepid Westerners.”…at the end of a rope or a chopping block.
Intrepid? More like stupid.

Jeff_W on November 10, 2008 at 11:35 am

OK, I just read that piece of garbage and we are going to hear much more of this the next 4 years.
*********************************
From the article, “When an American tourist asks whether she’s worried airport inspectors will confiscate the Sex and the City DVDs stuffed into her carry-on, she shrugs.
“Iranians are like sugar in water. We can blend in to survive,” says Golsa Fouladinejad. “In Iran, we live in two very different worlds: public, and behind closed doors.”
**************************************
Can you imagine if this happened anywhere in the U.S.? Loud would be the cry from the ACLU, but it’s amazing how people turn marshmallow soft when it’s one of our enemies.
I’d be surprised if the Army or other armed services will be allowed to wear our colors or wave the flag in 2 years?
Repeat after me for 4 years, “We are the world, we are the children….”

Jeff_W on November 10, 2008 at 11:51 am

I have a “destination & diversion” for Laura Bly. How about a nice trip to HELL! How’s that sound, Laura?!

Yiddish Steel on November 10, 2008 at 1:39 pm

NB wrote:
[Perhaps USA Today was making a gesture of peace?]
Why would a newspaper, something that is supposed to report the news and not make it, do that?
Based on this and his other comments, I think I spot a troll …

I_am_me on November 10, 2008 at 1:56 pm

Those guys on the motorcycle are so gay. That’s a perfect travel ad for the Advocate.

spiffo on November 10, 2008 at 1:57 pm

A welcoming Iran: Open arms, abundant history and kidnappings galore for ransom cash or your head for the Jihadi movement await intrepid westerners!

RadicalRightWinger on November 10, 2008 at 4:09 pm

This just turns my stomach. Are we going to turn into a nation of Neville Chamberlains?

mplumb on November 10, 2008 at 5:33 pm

Are they joking when they say not all women wear hijabs? I remember some underground Iranian blogs around a year ago spotlighting the behavior of the “morality” police. I think it might have been on this site too. Anyway, these “women” police would go around and arrest other women whose hijab’s were not worn properly or who wore clothing that was deemed “too tight.” The male morality police would arrest men who did not sport the uni-brow.
Even wikipedia documents how the hijab is mandatory for every woman or “women may face caning up to 74 strokes for failing to observe hejab. In this recent crackdown, the authorities have arrested many citizens throughout the country. Not only have women been taken into custody for their hair being uncovered on their foreheads and tight clothes that show body shapes, For men they need to cover from knee to their waist as according to Sharia Even a foreign journalist was detained because the photograph on her press card was indecent.”

Minnie Mouse on November 10, 2008 at 6:11 pm

Another excerpt from an article.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/nobel-prizewinner8217s-warning-over-iran8217s-brutal-morality-police-13507771.html
Zahra Bani Yaghoub was sitting on a park bench chatting to her fiancÈ when Iranian religious police arrived and arrested the couple. They were carted off to jail and held in separate cells. The fiancÈ was released but the body of Ms Bani Yaghoub, a 27-year-old doctor, was delivered to her family two days later.

Minnie Mouse on November 10, 2008 at 6:16 pm

Can we say, “Iran is nearly bankrupt?!”
The oil money is drying up, so what better than to lobby a failing US newspaper to intice stupid folks into the fox’s den.
Didn’t Chicken Little do that?

bhparkman on November 10, 2008 at 11:17 pm

I say let them go. The people stupid enough to go over there are not the kind of people that I would associate with anyway.

Ford Jones on November 11, 2008 at 9:04 am

I agree with Ford Jones Let them go. If people are that stupid, let them go and be executed over there. Hell if anyone really wants to go I say we help pay for the flight It would be one way to get rid of some of the lower forms of life in America.

mfee01 on November 12, 2008 at 9:36 am

Please. Be my guest. Go. Gute Reise. Have a wonderful trip.
BUT……….. if these sick puppies for some reason decide to arrest you and/or hold you hostage, please know that the rest of us – comfortable back here in the good old U.S. of A. -aren’t going to lose even a wink of sleep over your sad misfortune.
You’re on your own.
America First

lewpring on November 12, 2008 at 12:24 pm

Come on! Iran is great place to visit, extraordinary and full of people who are happy to see you, to help you and invite you to their homes. Not as in US.

Paula Tripordie on February 17, 2011 at 5:14 am