Originally posted by BUG_EAF322
they only sended thousends of kids with a key around their neck over some mine fields.
But anyway the state after the sjah is young so the chance is big they gonna make a mistake and start or provoke a war.
Sorry to say this, but you know nothing about iranian history.
So "They" sent kids in the minefield.
Do you know the circumstances of these years and what happened in Iran?
Iran was attacked by an invasion force of arabs of Saddam.
Saddam thought that he could get an advantage because Iran was weakened after the revolution. Most of the high ranking imperial officers have fled Iran or were executed or were in prison facing execution (like one of my uncles).
The army, once one of the best armies in the region, was in an extreme bad shape.
Saddam didnt wanted to conquer whole Iran. His target was the SW-iranian province Khusistan. The arabs call this province "Arabistan", because the arab minority of the iranians live in this province. So Saddam expected an arab solidarity when he came like a arab liberator.
The iranian army was in full retreat. But the iranian arabs also fled or resist instead of cooperating with their arab borthers from iraq.
Saddam was so angry about this "treason" that he ordered that every town in the conquered area has to be razed.
Like the Nazis in the occupied eastern territory one iranian town after the other was destroyed. But in the wetsern media in these days Saddam was shown as the good guy and the Iranians as the monsters.
Facing this massacre the iranians build special troops to support thje reorganizing regular army. One of these troops was the Pasdaran guard, which operated as a fanatical storm troop. Another was the Basidj - a badly trained force made of yioungsters who were highly motivated.
There is a region in the Khuzistan province where hundreds of iraqi tanks were destroyed. This defeat of Saddams attack force was the start of the end of iraqi occupation forces in Iran. For every of these tank 6-8 Basidji had to sacrifice themself.
You can make fun of these "kids with keys around their necks" but in these days Iran had no other choice than to use this method to defend itself.
The whole world was watching when the arabs of Iraq were destroying the iranian towns in the occupied zone and killed the civilians.
Also the so called civilized world even accepted that 150000 iranian soldiers and iraqi civilians were killed by gas weapons.
The iranians managed to kick out the arab invasion force from iranian territory.
Despite embargos.
Despite Saddams gas weapons.
Despite the massive weapon help for Saddam.
But Iran had to pay a high price for this. The youngsters who marched through the minefields or who stormed ill-equipped against enemy tanks and iraqi defense posts died in ten thousands.
But they were true patriots and not hiding like cowards in national guard units while the nation had to fight a bitter war against an enemy.
