Jurriaan Maessen
Prisonplanet.com
June 29, 2009
In a recent policy paper published by the influential Brookings Institute, the authors propose almost anything to guarantee dominance of Persia by the new world order, including bribery, lying, cheating and mass murdering by an all-out military assault of Iran. The paper ‘Which path to Persia: Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran’ is just one of many recent and not so recent examples of the firm intent of the globalists to engage Iran militarily and acquire its natural resources in the same effort.
The group of authors- a cozy little convergence of globalists- contemplate four separate options on ‘how to deal with Iran’ in the cold bureaucratic language that poses as scientific but is really nothing more than the intelligent musings of a calculating psychopath. The first option, ‘Dissuading Tehran’ through diplomatic means is being discussed as something tried, tested and discarded. The second option, ‘Disarming Tehran’ covers several ways of rallying the ‘international community’ around the globalists’ intentions. In the third part, ‘Toppling Tehran’ the warmongering increases as the writers contemplate both covert and overt military action against the Islamic republic of Iran. In the fourth and last section, ‘Deterring Tehran’ the option of ‘containment’ is elaborated upon. The proposed final strategy predictably involves all of the above mentioned options, in roughly the same order of appearance.
To ensure the cooperation of surrounding countries, the authors propose bribery as an effective tool. After the authors assert that ‘it may be necessary to cut some deals in order to secure Moscow’s support for a tougher Iran policy’, the authors continue with their ‘brainstorming’, advising a widespread bribery campaign in order to ensure international cooperation in regards to Iran:
‘Other countries also will want payoffs from the United States in return for their assistance on Iran. Such deals may be distasteful, but many will be unavoidable if the Persuasion approach is to have a reasonable chance of succeeding.’ And further on: ‘To be successful, a Persuasion approach would invariably require unpleasant compromises with third-party countries to secure their cooperation against Iran.’
This means the US will have to cut all kinds of deals with dictators, bloodthirsty local tyrants and other corrupt kings of Arabia- even facilitating them with weapons. Besides rallying the ‘international community’ around the Anglo-American establishment with the help of these ‘unpleasant compromises’, the paper stresses it will also be necessary to persuade the Iranians themselves to topple their government (page 39):
‘Inciting regime change in Iran would be greatly assisted by convincing the Iranian people that their government is so ideologically blinkered that it refuses to do what is best for the people and instead clings to a policy that could only bring ruin on the country.’
But the authors underline the necessity of creating a favourable climate for the transnationalists in which to operate.
‘(…) any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper international context (…) The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer- one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down. Under those circumstances, the United States (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians “brought it on themselves” by refusing a very good deal.’
Here the authors seem to abandon even the facade of civility as they proceed. Even though the authors put these vile warmongering words in quotes, they cannot mask the mindset. They mean to rally the ‘international community’ through bribery and deceit- as a steppingstone towards military strikes. The path toward such military strikes will be made smooth by economically strong-holding surrounding countries, forcing them to accept western military action as well as the justifications for it without question.
Military action. This is as acutely on the mind of the current chickenhawks, as the invasion of Iraq was on that of the neocons in the last couple of decades. Apparently, the authors feel compelled to give a justification for the bravura of their manuscript.
‘We chose to consider this extreme and highly unpopular option partly for the sake of analytical rigor and partly because if Iran responded to a confrontational American policy- such as an airstrike, harsh new sanctions, or efforts to foment regime change- with a major escalation of terrorist attacks (or more dire moves against Israel and other American allies), invasion could become a very “live” option.’
As the geopolitical feeding frenzy increases, the authors clearly begin to lose their cool as they begin to talk about the real plan behind all this elaborate brainstorming, reflecting the long-term agenda of the globalists for whom they work:
‘Like Iraq’, the authors state, ‘Iran is too intrinsically and strategically important a country for the United States to be able to march in, overthrow its government, and then march out, leaving chaos in its wake. (…) Iran exports about 2.5 million barrels per day of oil and, with the right technology, it could produce even more. It also has one of the largest reserves of natural gas in the world. These resources make Iran an important supplier of the energy needs of the global economy. Iran does not border Saudi Arabia- the lynchpin of the oil market- or Kuwait, but it does border Iraq, another major oil producer and a country where the United States now has a great deal at stake.’
And exactly in line with their masters tendency of using false flags, they allow themselves the luxury of speculating openly about a possible ‘provocation’ to escalate things to the point of armed conflict.
‘(…) it is not impossible that Tehran might take some action that would justify an American invasion. And it is certainly the case that if Washington sought such a provocation, it could take actions that might make it more likely that Tehran would do so (although being too obvious about this could nullify the provocation). However, since it would be up to Iran to make the provocation move (…), the United States would never know for sure when it would get the requisite Iranian provocation. In fact, it might never come at all.’
Now that would be a great disappointment, wouldn’t it. Under the headline ‘The Question of a Provocation’ on page 66, the authors press the point even further:
‘With provocation, the international diplomatic and domestic political requirements of an invasion would be mitigated, and the more outrageous the Iranian provocation (and the less that the United States is seen to be goading Iran), the more these challenges would be diminished. In the absence of a sufficiently horrific provocation, meeting these requirements would be daunting.’
Reminiscent of the Pearl Harbor-quote by raving neocons pre-9/11, the authors continue imagining how excellent it would be to have an Iranian-sponsored terror attack within the US to trigger war and march off toward Iran. During all this, the authors are aware how unlikely it is that Iran would actually commit such an attack on American soil (probably because they know who is usually responsible for such mass terror attacks):
‘Something on the order of an Iranian-backed 9/11, in which the plane wore Iranian markings and Tehran boasted about its sponsorship.(…). The entire question of “options” become irrelevant at that point: what American president could refrain from an invasion after the Iranians had just killed several thousand American civilians in an attack in the United States itself?‘Regarding the question of international support for an US invasion of the Islamic Republic, the Brookings people lament:
‘Other than a Tehran-sponsored 9/11, it is hard to imagine what would change their minds.’
The same goes for their plans in regards to that old favorite of the elite, covert psychological warfare, in order to subdue a sovereign nation. In chapter 7 of the manuscript, called ‘Inspiring an Insurgency’, it examines the possibility of propagandizing the Iranian people into helping out the globalists lute their nation:
‘The core concept lying at the heart of this option would be for the United States to identify one or more Iranian opposition groups and support them as it did other insurgencies in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Kurdistan, Angola, and dozens of other locales since the Second World War. The United States would provide arms, money, training, and organizational assistance to help the groups develop and extend their reach. U.S. media and propaganda outlets could highlight group grievances and showcase rival leaders.’
Isn’t that a familiar sight? Could one way to ‘highlight’ group grievances be to mass distribute the death of a poor woman and then claim it’s all thanks to Twitter?
All this hinting at another false-flag attack underway and prepping the international community for a future invasion of Iran is becoming increasingly serious as the warmongering is being stepped up. This is the time to fix our eyes upon these globalists and their think tanks. If their blatant arrogance permits them to openly publish their bloodthirsty musings, we should be vigilant enough to pass this knowledge around lest we have another 9/11 on our hands.
Source: http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2009/06_iran_strategy/06_iran_strategy.pdf
Showing posts with label iranians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iranians. Show all posts
Monday, June 29, 2009
Iran’s Presidential Elections, Islamic Populism and Liberation Theology
by Prof. Akbar E. Torbat
In Iran’s presidential elections, on June 12, 2009, the incumbent president Mahmud Ahmadinejad won a landslide victory. His main contender Mir-Hossein Mousavi could only secure about one third of the votes. The following is an explanation of what has happened and why Ahmadinejad has gained popularity to be reelected despite the Western media showing him differently.
Iran’s Presidential Elections 2009
A day before the election, the Iranian political activist Nasser Zarafshan said “a Ukraine-type velvet revolution” is in the cards to be played by the West in order to dominate Iran. A well financed high-tech campaign using YouTube, Facebook and twitter on the Internet and text messaging communication was underway in Iran. Yet, these means of communication are only known to a small fraction of Iran’s population. In addition, thousands of expensive posters, CDs, and other items prepared by pro-Mousavi green camp quickly flooded the streets of Tehran. The Western Media and especially the Farsi Language television programs such as the Persian BBC and Voice of America had potent impacts on the so called “reformists” or the neoliberal candidates’ supporters, but not Ahmadinejad’s constituencies that are masses not affected by such modern propagandas. The Western media boasted Mousavi’s image without knowing much about who he was. Obviously, he could not be painted as “Iran’s Gandhi” as some Western reporters ridiculously touted. Mousavi is not a charismatic leader and does not have an impressive record. In fact he was an Islamic fanatic when he became prime minster. He helped to shut down the Iranian universities for three years in order to launch the so called “Cultural Revolution”. Also, during his repressive premiership, thousands of Iranian political prisoners were executed. He has been out of politics for about 20 years and has not been socially active. He does not have broad view of what is happening in the world and especially in the neighboring countries.
In this election, behind the scene, the former president Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani was the key architect of Mousavi’s election campaign and the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei backed Ahmadinejad. Rafsanjani wishes to dominate the Islamic regime’s political structure replacing the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who is at the top echelon of the clerical regime. Rafsanjani is very wealthy and is the most favorite cleric by the West. He does not seem to mind letting the West control Iran’s oil resources in exchange for ruling Iran by himself. In the past, people have called him “King Akbar”. In such situation, if he succeeds, the Islamic Republic could be turned into a Persian Gulf type monarchy or sheikhdom instead of a Western democracy as is dreamed by some Iranian political elites. However, Rafsanjani has been under pressure because of his corruption in arms purchases during Iran-Iraq war and the money he and his family members received to give oil contracts to the French oil company Total and his roles in ordering political assassinations of many of dissidents at home and abroad. Before the elections, Mousavi’s campaign spent conspicuously in the city of Tehran under the banner of Green color. Where he got the money from is an unanswered question.
The Presidential candidates in Iran are vetted by a twelve member body that is called Council of Guardian. In this election only three candidates from within the Islamic regime were selected by the Guardian Council to contest Ahmadinejad; the other nominees were not allowed to run. In the election, the incumbent President faced the last Iranian prime minister, Mir-Hossein Mousavi; a cleric and a former Parliament speaker, Mehdi Karroubi; and a former senior military commander, Mohsen Rezaei. However, none of the three contenders were delivering any new agenda on how to deal with the countries’ problems; they only criticized what the incumbent president had not done well in their view. Nearly 40 million Iranians or 85% of the eligible voters participated in the election. This was the highest turnout in ten presidential elections held in Iran. The official results as announced on June 14 by the Interior Ministry were: Ahmadinejad 24.5 million (63.62%), Mousavi 13.2 million (33.75%), Rezaei 0.67 million (1.73%), and Karroubi 0.33 million (0.85%) of the votes. The invalid votes canceled were 0.40 million (1.4%). The Spokesman for the Interior Ministry Ali Asghar Sharifi-Rad said the results were accurate and the representatives of all candidates had been present at the polling stations and signed off the final tallies.
Disputing the Election Results
Surprisingly, some well known Iranians became tools of Western media propaganda during and after the elections. An Iranian professor at Columbia University, an Iranian academic in the Hoover Institution, and a well known Iranian filmmaker residing in France were among many who jumped the bandwagon to claim the election was rigged. None of them showed any credible evidence to prove how a candidate who had more than 10 million votes compared to his main contender was not legitimately elected. Many filled the media with false claims, saying genuine results could not be declared as fast as they had been by the Iranian media. They misled the public because in reality about 3 hours after the poles were closed, Iranian media started announcing the election results of only 20% of the votes counted, and that was followed with more up-to-date data until the final tallies were announced at a later time. At the end, the announced results in favor of the incumbent were close to what had been predicted by several respected polling agencies (for example see The Washington Post June 15) in the runoff to the elections.
The three candidates who did not have any credible evidence for the alleged rigging asked for annulling the elections from the very beginning. They never wanted a recount because their representatives had been present at the polling stations and had already signed off on the results. They knew the numbers were not on their side as was largely predicted. In the following days, the main contender, Mousavi, brought his supporters to the streets of Tehran, the only major city he had won, to pressure the regime for annulling the results. This did not prevent millions of Iranians from coming out to the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities to express their support for the status quo versus the West campaign to put its most favorite candidate who was Rafsanjani’s proxy in power. After a few days of protests in the streets of Tehran in which a number of people were killed; on June 19 in a powerful speech at Tehran University, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei called for an end to street protests and assured the public that the government by no means had betrayed the votes of the nation. He blamed the Zionists and the Western powers, “specially the malicious British government”, for the post election protests and the riots.
Ahmadinejad's Populism
In 2005, Ahmadinejad advocated populist economic policies during his presidential campaign, which included “putting oil money on impoverished peoples’ dining table (Sofreh).” As a result, he gained strong grassroots’ support from urban poor and rural dwellers. Ahmadinejad became the first enduring non-cleric president who wanted to pursue the initial goals of the revolution that included economic justice and political sovereignty. When he became president, he implemented some small-scale development projects, including building hospitals, bridges, roads, and schools in the rural areas, financed by the oil money. Ahmadinejad gained support from underprivileged Iranians who favor his economic justice program. He was also supported by those who believe he has promoted Iran’s technological and defense progress. There are about three million impoverished women in Iran who weave carpets in their homes. Ahmadinejad brought a law to give them full insurance. Also, Ahmadinejad initiated distribution of some government-owned enterprises’ shares called “Justice Shares,” to redistribute state wealth to the low income Iranians. Justice shares are mutual fund shares of the state-owned enterprises that are privatized.
The election in Iran depicted a class struggle between those who live comfortably in modern urban centers and want Western style social life versus impoverished people in rural areas and smaller cities who seek better life in the traditional Islamic culture. The former had strong support from the West for social change, while the latter relied on the status quo in the country. The affluent Iranians do not like Ahmadinejad but the urban poor and those in the rural areas love him. As has been reported by the Christian Science Monitor, Ahmadinejad is greeted like a rock star when he visits small cities and rural Iran.
Some university professors and student groups do not like Ahmadinejad because they consider him to be an Islamic fanatic. In December 2005, Abbasali Amir Zanjani, a cleric was appointed the Chancellor of Tehran University. The appointment caused strong backlash from the intellectuals and the university students against the President. Zanjani was finally replaced in February 2008 by an economist Farhad Rahbar. Also, early forced retirement of a number of professors in Tehran University caused wide student protests. Tehran University is the first university established in Iran and has been historically the center of intellectual activism. As a result, Ahmadinejad became unpopular within some circles of Iranian intellectuals. But that has not affected his popularity among the majority of lower-middle class and impoverished Iranians.
Radical Islam and Liberation Theology
Ahmadinejad has been able to make alliance with some countries in Latin America. Latin America’s Catholic Church and radical Islam have something in common. Both religious movements have support of the masses to challenge domination of their countries by the Western imperial powers. There is a similarity between radical Islamists in Iran and the supporters of liberal theologians’ movements in Latin America. They both have common ideology to resist the West hegemony. Liberation theology, originated in Catholic Church, emphasizes effort to bring justice to the poor and oppressed. Liberation theology uses democratic socialism as a political theory to combat poverty. Radical Islam similarly uses political aspects of Islam as a force for creating national liberation and economic justice. Ali Shariati is known to be the first Islamist thinker who merged Islam political ideology and liberation theology. He was influenced by Frantz Fanon and Che Guevara, but unlike them who rejected religion in supporting national liberation, Shariati tailored Iran’s Islamic ideological roots as a means to mobilize masses for national liberation. However, Shariati was against clerical rule. He died mysteriously before the revolution in 1977, widely believed to be a victim of the Shah’s secret police (Savak) assassination. He did not live to see the clerics dominating political leadership in Iran.
Ahmadinejad pursues the same brand of Islamic radicalism as Shariati. He has been able to use religion to challenge the hegemony of the West as the liberation theologian leaders have done in Latin America. In this context Ahmadinejad joins similar brand of political figures such as Luiz Lula da Silva of Brazil, Hugo Chavez Venezuela, Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa, and Bolivian President Evo Morales who enjoy popularity among the Roman Catholic Church followers. However, there is an important distinction between the Islamic Republic and the Latin American governments. The Islamic Republic is a quasi-theocracy run by the clerics, while the Latin American countries are secular republics that are only supported by the Church. In the past, some Muslim political leaders have advocated Islamic Socialism. Examples are: Mohamed Ali Jinnah and Zulfakar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan, and Jamal Abdul Nasser in Egypt. Ahmadinejad too has strived for a socially just Islamic State in Iran. It remains to be seen whether he can succeed.
Akbar E. Torbat (atorbat@csudh.edu ) teaches at the College of Business Administration and Public Policy, California State University – Dominguez Hills. He has published a number of articles in scholarly journals concerning Iran. He received his Ph.D. in political economy from the University of Texas at Dallas.
In Iran’s presidential elections, on June 12, 2009, the incumbent president Mahmud Ahmadinejad won a landslide victory. His main contender Mir-Hossein Mousavi could only secure about one third of the votes. The following is an explanation of what has happened and why Ahmadinejad has gained popularity to be reelected despite the Western media showing him differently.
Iran’s Presidential Elections 2009
A day before the election, the Iranian political activist Nasser Zarafshan said “a Ukraine-type velvet revolution” is in the cards to be played by the West in order to dominate Iran. A well financed high-tech campaign using YouTube, Facebook and twitter on the Internet and text messaging communication was underway in Iran. Yet, these means of communication are only known to a small fraction of Iran’s population. In addition, thousands of expensive posters, CDs, and other items prepared by pro-Mousavi green camp quickly flooded the streets of Tehran. The Western Media and especially the Farsi Language television programs such as the Persian BBC and Voice of America had potent impacts on the so called “reformists” or the neoliberal candidates’ supporters, but not Ahmadinejad’s constituencies that are masses not affected by such modern propagandas. The Western media boasted Mousavi’s image without knowing much about who he was. Obviously, he could not be painted as “Iran’s Gandhi” as some Western reporters ridiculously touted. Mousavi is not a charismatic leader and does not have an impressive record. In fact he was an Islamic fanatic when he became prime minster. He helped to shut down the Iranian universities for three years in order to launch the so called “Cultural Revolution”. Also, during his repressive premiership, thousands of Iranian political prisoners were executed. He has been out of politics for about 20 years and has not been socially active. He does not have broad view of what is happening in the world and especially in the neighboring countries.
In this election, behind the scene, the former president Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani was the key architect of Mousavi’s election campaign and the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei backed Ahmadinejad. Rafsanjani wishes to dominate the Islamic regime’s political structure replacing the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who is at the top echelon of the clerical regime. Rafsanjani is very wealthy and is the most favorite cleric by the West. He does not seem to mind letting the West control Iran’s oil resources in exchange for ruling Iran by himself. In the past, people have called him “King Akbar”. In such situation, if he succeeds, the Islamic Republic could be turned into a Persian Gulf type monarchy or sheikhdom instead of a Western democracy as is dreamed by some Iranian political elites. However, Rafsanjani has been under pressure because of his corruption in arms purchases during Iran-Iraq war and the money he and his family members received to give oil contracts to the French oil company Total and his roles in ordering political assassinations of many of dissidents at home and abroad. Before the elections, Mousavi’s campaign spent conspicuously in the city of Tehran under the banner of Green color. Where he got the money from is an unanswered question.
The Presidential candidates in Iran are vetted by a twelve member body that is called Council of Guardian. In this election only three candidates from within the Islamic regime were selected by the Guardian Council to contest Ahmadinejad; the other nominees were not allowed to run. In the election, the incumbent President faced the last Iranian prime minister, Mir-Hossein Mousavi; a cleric and a former Parliament speaker, Mehdi Karroubi; and a former senior military commander, Mohsen Rezaei. However, none of the three contenders were delivering any new agenda on how to deal with the countries’ problems; they only criticized what the incumbent president had not done well in their view. Nearly 40 million Iranians or 85% of the eligible voters participated in the election. This was the highest turnout in ten presidential elections held in Iran. The official results as announced on June 14 by the Interior Ministry were: Ahmadinejad 24.5 million (63.62%), Mousavi 13.2 million (33.75%), Rezaei 0.67 million (1.73%), and Karroubi 0.33 million (0.85%) of the votes. The invalid votes canceled were 0.40 million (1.4%). The Spokesman for the Interior Ministry Ali Asghar Sharifi-Rad said the results were accurate and the representatives of all candidates had been present at the polling stations and signed off the final tallies.
Disputing the Election Results
Surprisingly, some well known Iranians became tools of Western media propaganda during and after the elections. An Iranian professor at Columbia University, an Iranian academic in the Hoover Institution, and a well known Iranian filmmaker residing in France were among many who jumped the bandwagon to claim the election was rigged. None of them showed any credible evidence to prove how a candidate who had more than 10 million votes compared to his main contender was not legitimately elected. Many filled the media with false claims, saying genuine results could not be declared as fast as they had been by the Iranian media. They misled the public because in reality about 3 hours after the poles were closed, Iranian media started announcing the election results of only 20% of the votes counted, and that was followed with more up-to-date data until the final tallies were announced at a later time. At the end, the announced results in favor of the incumbent were close to what had been predicted by several respected polling agencies (for example see The Washington Post June 15) in the runoff to the elections.
The three candidates who did not have any credible evidence for the alleged rigging asked for annulling the elections from the very beginning. They never wanted a recount because their representatives had been present at the polling stations and had already signed off on the results. They knew the numbers were not on their side as was largely predicted. In the following days, the main contender, Mousavi, brought his supporters to the streets of Tehran, the only major city he had won, to pressure the regime for annulling the results. This did not prevent millions of Iranians from coming out to the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities to express their support for the status quo versus the West campaign to put its most favorite candidate who was Rafsanjani’s proxy in power. After a few days of protests in the streets of Tehran in which a number of people were killed; on June 19 in a powerful speech at Tehran University, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei called for an end to street protests and assured the public that the government by no means had betrayed the votes of the nation. He blamed the Zionists and the Western powers, “specially the malicious British government”, for the post election protests and the riots.
Ahmadinejad's Populism
In 2005, Ahmadinejad advocated populist economic policies during his presidential campaign, which included “putting oil money on impoverished peoples’ dining table (Sofreh).” As a result, he gained strong grassroots’ support from urban poor and rural dwellers. Ahmadinejad became the first enduring non-cleric president who wanted to pursue the initial goals of the revolution that included economic justice and political sovereignty. When he became president, he implemented some small-scale development projects, including building hospitals, bridges, roads, and schools in the rural areas, financed by the oil money. Ahmadinejad gained support from underprivileged Iranians who favor his economic justice program. He was also supported by those who believe he has promoted Iran’s technological and defense progress. There are about three million impoverished women in Iran who weave carpets in their homes. Ahmadinejad brought a law to give them full insurance. Also, Ahmadinejad initiated distribution of some government-owned enterprises’ shares called “Justice Shares,” to redistribute state wealth to the low income Iranians. Justice shares are mutual fund shares of the state-owned enterprises that are privatized.
The election in Iran depicted a class struggle between those who live comfortably in modern urban centers and want Western style social life versus impoverished people in rural areas and smaller cities who seek better life in the traditional Islamic culture. The former had strong support from the West for social change, while the latter relied on the status quo in the country. The affluent Iranians do not like Ahmadinejad but the urban poor and those in the rural areas love him. As has been reported by the Christian Science Monitor, Ahmadinejad is greeted like a rock star when he visits small cities and rural Iran.
Some university professors and student groups do not like Ahmadinejad because they consider him to be an Islamic fanatic. In December 2005, Abbasali Amir Zanjani, a cleric was appointed the Chancellor of Tehran University. The appointment caused strong backlash from the intellectuals and the university students against the President. Zanjani was finally replaced in February 2008 by an economist Farhad Rahbar. Also, early forced retirement of a number of professors in Tehran University caused wide student protests. Tehran University is the first university established in Iran and has been historically the center of intellectual activism. As a result, Ahmadinejad became unpopular within some circles of Iranian intellectuals. But that has not affected his popularity among the majority of lower-middle class and impoverished Iranians.
Radical Islam and Liberation Theology
Ahmadinejad has been able to make alliance with some countries in Latin America. Latin America’s Catholic Church and radical Islam have something in common. Both religious movements have support of the masses to challenge domination of their countries by the Western imperial powers. There is a similarity between radical Islamists in Iran and the supporters of liberal theologians’ movements in Latin America. They both have common ideology to resist the West hegemony. Liberation theology, originated in Catholic Church, emphasizes effort to bring justice to the poor and oppressed. Liberation theology uses democratic socialism as a political theory to combat poverty. Radical Islam similarly uses political aspects of Islam as a force for creating national liberation and economic justice. Ali Shariati is known to be the first Islamist thinker who merged Islam political ideology and liberation theology. He was influenced by Frantz Fanon and Che Guevara, but unlike them who rejected religion in supporting national liberation, Shariati tailored Iran’s Islamic ideological roots as a means to mobilize masses for national liberation. However, Shariati was against clerical rule. He died mysteriously before the revolution in 1977, widely believed to be a victim of the Shah’s secret police (Savak) assassination. He did not live to see the clerics dominating political leadership in Iran.
Ahmadinejad pursues the same brand of Islamic radicalism as Shariati. He has been able to use religion to challenge the hegemony of the West as the liberation theologian leaders have done in Latin America. In this context Ahmadinejad joins similar brand of political figures such as Luiz Lula da Silva of Brazil, Hugo Chavez Venezuela, Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa, and Bolivian President Evo Morales who enjoy popularity among the Roman Catholic Church followers. However, there is an important distinction between the Islamic Republic and the Latin American governments. The Islamic Republic is a quasi-theocracy run by the clerics, while the Latin American countries are secular republics that are only supported by the Church. In the past, some Muslim political leaders have advocated Islamic Socialism. Examples are: Mohamed Ali Jinnah and Zulfakar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan, and Jamal Abdul Nasser in Egypt. Ahmadinejad too has strived for a socially just Islamic State in Iran. It remains to be seen whether he can succeed.
Akbar E. Torbat (atorbat@csudh.edu ) teaches at the College of Business Administration and Public Policy, California State University – Dominguez Hills. He has published a number of articles in scholarly journals concerning Iran. He received his Ph.D. in political economy from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Soros, the CIA, Mossad and the new media destabilization of Iran
James Corbett
The Corbett Report
June 24, 2009
It’s the 2009 presidential election in Iran and opposition leader Mir-Houssein Mousavi declares victory hours before the polls close, insuring that any result to the contrary will be called into question. Western media goes into overdrive, fighting with each other to see who can offer the most hyperbolic denunciation of the vote and President Ahmadenijad’s apparent victory (BBC wins by publishing bald-faced lies about the supposed popular uprising which it is later forced to retract). On June 13th, 30000 “tweets” begin to flood Twitter with live updates from Iran, most written in English and provided by a handful of newly-registered users with identical profile photos. The Jerusalem Post writes a story about the Iran Twitter phenomenon a few hours after it starts (and who says Mossad isn’t staying up to date with new media?). Now, YouTube is providing a “Breaking News” link at the top of every page linking to the latest footage of the Iranian protests (all shot in high def, no less). Welcome to Destabilization 2.0, the latest version of a program that the western powers have been running for decades in order to overthrow foreign, democratically elected governments that don’t yield to the whims of western governments and multinational corporations.
Ironically, Iran was also the birthplace of the original CIA program for destabilizing a foreign government. Think of it as Destabilization 1.0: It’s 1953 and democratically-elected Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadegh is following through on his election promises to nationalize industry for the Iranian people, including the oil industry of Iran which was then controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The CIA is sent into the country to bring an end to Mossadegh’s government. They begin a campaign of terror, staging bombings and attacks on Muslim targets in order to blame them on nationalist, secular Mossadegh. They foster and fund an anti-Mossadegh campaign amongst the radical Islamist elements in the country. Finally, they back the revolution that brings their favoured puppet, the Shah, into power. Within months, their mission had been accomplished: they had removed a democratically elected leader who threatened to build up an independent, secular Persian nation and replaced him with a repressive tyrant whose secret police would brutally suppress all opposition. The campaign was a success and the lead CIA agent wrote an after-action report describing the operation in glowing terms. The pattern was to be repeated time and time again in country after country (in Guatemala in 1954, in Afghanistan in the 1980s, in Serbia in the 1990s), but these operations leave the agency open to exposure. What was needed was a different plan, one where the western political and financial interests puppeteering the revolution would be more difficult to implicate in the overthrow.
Enter Destabilization 1.1. This version of the destabilization program is less messy, offering plausible deniability for the western powers who are overthrowing a foreign government. It starts when the IMF moves in to offer a bribe to a tinpot dictator in a third world country. He gets 10% in exchange for taking out an exorbitant loan for an infrastructure project that the country can’t afford. When the country inevitably defaults on the loan payments, the IMF begins to take over, imposing a restructuring program that eventually results in the full scale looting of the country’s resources for western business interests. This program, too, was run in country after country, from Jamaica to Myanmar, from Chile to Zimbabwe. The source code for this program was revealed in 2001, however, when former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz went public about the scam. More detail was added in 2004 by the publication of John Perkin’s Confessions of an Economic Hitman, which revealed the extent to which front companies and complicit corporations aided, abetted and facilitated the economic plundering and overthrow of foreign governments. Although still an effective technique for overthrowing foreign nations, the fact that this particular scam had been exposed meant that the architects of global geopolitics would have to find a new way to get rid of foreign, democratically elected governments.
Destabilization 1.2 involves seemingly disinterested, democracy promoting NGOs with feelgood names like the Open Society Institute, Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy. They fund, train, support and mobilize opposition movements in countries that have been targeted for destabilization, often during elections and usually organized around an identifiable color. These “color revolutions” sprang up in the past decade and have so far successfully destabilized the governments of the Ukraine, Lebanon, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, among others. These revolutions bear the imprint of billionaire finance oligarch George Soros. The hidden hand of western powers behind these color revolutions has threatened their effectiveness in recent years, however, with an anti-Soros movement having arisen in Georgia and with the recent Moldovan “grape revolution” having come to naught (much to the chagrin of Soros-funded OSI’s Evgeny Morozov).
Now we arrive at Destabilization 2.0, really not much more than a slight tweak of Destabilization 1.2. The only thing different is that now Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media are being employed to amplify the effect of (and the impression of) internal protests. Once again, Soros henchman Evgeny Morozov is extolling the virtues of the new Tehran Twitter revolution and the New York Times is writing journalistic hymns to the power of internet new media…when it serves western imperial interests. We are being asked to believe that this latest version of the very (very) old program of U.S. corporate imperialism is the real deal. While there is no doubt that the regime of Ahmadenijad is reprehensible and the feelings of many of the young protestors in Iran are genuine, you will forgive me for quesyioning the motives behind the monolithic media support for the overthrow of Iran’s government and the installation of Mir-Houssein “Butcher of Beirut” Mousavi.
The Corbett Report
June 24, 2009
It’s the 2009 presidential election in Iran and opposition leader Mir-Houssein Mousavi declares victory hours before the polls close, insuring that any result to the contrary will be called into question. Western media goes into overdrive, fighting with each other to see who can offer the most hyperbolic denunciation of the vote and President Ahmadenijad’s apparent victory (BBC wins by publishing bald-faced lies about the supposed popular uprising which it is later forced to retract). On June 13th, 30000 “tweets” begin to flood Twitter with live updates from Iran, most written in English and provided by a handful of newly-registered users with identical profile photos. The Jerusalem Post writes a story about the Iran Twitter phenomenon a few hours after it starts (and who says Mossad isn’t staying up to date with new media?). Now, YouTube is providing a “Breaking News” link at the top of every page linking to the latest footage of the Iranian protests (all shot in high def, no less). Welcome to Destabilization 2.0, the latest version of a program that the western powers have been running for decades in order to overthrow foreign, democratically elected governments that don’t yield to the whims of western governments and multinational corporations.
Ironically, Iran was also the birthplace of the original CIA program for destabilizing a foreign government. Think of it as Destabilization 1.0: It’s 1953 and democratically-elected Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadegh is following through on his election promises to nationalize industry for the Iranian people, including the oil industry of Iran which was then controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The CIA is sent into the country to bring an end to Mossadegh’s government. They begin a campaign of terror, staging bombings and attacks on Muslim targets in order to blame them on nationalist, secular Mossadegh. They foster and fund an anti-Mossadegh campaign amongst the radical Islamist elements in the country. Finally, they back the revolution that brings their favoured puppet, the Shah, into power. Within months, their mission had been accomplished: they had removed a democratically elected leader who threatened to build up an independent, secular Persian nation and replaced him with a repressive tyrant whose secret police would brutally suppress all opposition. The campaign was a success and the lead CIA agent wrote an after-action report describing the operation in glowing terms. The pattern was to be repeated time and time again in country after country (in Guatemala in 1954, in Afghanistan in the 1980s, in Serbia in the 1990s), but these operations leave the agency open to exposure. What was needed was a different plan, one where the western political and financial interests puppeteering the revolution would be more difficult to implicate in the overthrow.
Enter Destabilization 1.1. This version of the destabilization program is less messy, offering plausible deniability for the western powers who are overthrowing a foreign government. It starts when the IMF moves in to offer a bribe to a tinpot dictator in a third world country. He gets 10% in exchange for taking out an exorbitant loan for an infrastructure project that the country can’t afford. When the country inevitably defaults on the loan payments, the IMF begins to take over, imposing a restructuring program that eventually results in the full scale looting of the country’s resources for western business interests. This program, too, was run in country after country, from Jamaica to Myanmar, from Chile to Zimbabwe. The source code for this program was revealed in 2001, however, when former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz went public about the scam. More detail was added in 2004 by the publication of John Perkin’s Confessions of an Economic Hitman, which revealed the extent to which front companies and complicit corporations aided, abetted and facilitated the economic plundering and overthrow of foreign governments. Although still an effective technique for overthrowing foreign nations, the fact that this particular scam had been exposed meant that the architects of global geopolitics would have to find a new way to get rid of foreign, democratically elected governments.
Destabilization 1.2 involves seemingly disinterested, democracy promoting NGOs with feelgood names like the Open Society Institute, Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy. They fund, train, support and mobilize opposition movements in countries that have been targeted for destabilization, often during elections and usually organized around an identifiable color. These “color revolutions” sprang up in the past decade and have so far successfully destabilized the governments of the Ukraine, Lebanon, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, among others. These revolutions bear the imprint of billionaire finance oligarch George Soros. The hidden hand of western powers behind these color revolutions has threatened their effectiveness in recent years, however, with an anti-Soros movement having arisen in Georgia and with the recent Moldovan “grape revolution” having come to naught (much to the chagrin of Soros-funded OSI’s Evgeny Morozov).
Now we arrive at Destabilization 2.0, really not much more than a slight tweak of Destabilization 1.2. The only thing different is that now Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media are being employed to amplify the effect of (and the impression of) internal protests. Once again, Soros henchman Evgeny Morozov is extolling the virtues of the new Tehran Twitter revolution and the New York Times is writing journalistic hymns to the power of internet new media…when it serves western imperial interests. We are being asked to believe that this latest version of the very (very) old program of U.S. corporate imperialism is the real deal. While there is no doubt that the regime of Ahmadenijad is reprehensible and the feelings of many of the young protestors in Iran are genuine, you will forgive me for quesyioning the motives behind the monolithic media support for the overthrow of Iran’s government and the installation of Mir-Houssein “Butcher of Beirut” Mousavi.
Neo-Cons Are Cheerleading For A Terrorist Who Helped Kill Hundreds Of U.S. Marines
The new “patriotism” - Phony conservatives throw their support behind Butcher of Beirut who directed bloody terror campaign against U.S.
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The horrible irony to arise out of the riots and protests in Iran is that many Neo-Cons and phony conservatives, in their unified effort to enthusiastically embrace the Anglo-American establishment’s agenda for regime change, are cheerleading for a brutal thug who directed a terrorist campaign that killed hundreds of U.S. Marines in the 1980’s.
This once again proves that slack-jawed Neo-Con twits, ditto-heads for phony conservative media whores like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, have no loyalty whatsoever to America, but only to the corrupt power structure which they like to believe they are a part of.
Apparently, the new form of ‘patriotism’, the new incarnation of ’support the troops’ - is to support someone who helped massacre hundreds of U.S. troops just two decades ago.
We are referring of course to Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the former Prime Minister of Iran who directed the bloody attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983. Sold by the media and hailed by Neo-Cons as the avatar of Iranian democracy, Mousavi was also “fingered Mousavi for the 1988 truck bombing of the U.S. Navy’s Fleet Center in Naples, Italy, that killed five persons, including the first Navy woman to die in a terrorist attack,” reports CQ Politics.
Regarding the Beirut bombings, which killed 220 U.S. Marines, CIA Middle East field officer Bob Baer wrote in TIME Magazine that Mousavi, “Dealt directly with Imad Mughniyah,” who ran the Beirut terrorist campaign and was “the man largely held responsible for both attacks.”
As Paul Craig Roberts writes, “The American media’s one-sided and propagandistic coverage of the Iranian election has made an American hero out of the defeated candidate, Mousavi.”
This charade has been vigorously amplified by phony right-wingers. As Raw Story notes, Neo-Cons have sided with the opposition against the boogeyman Ahmedinajed, to the point of grunting with delight at scenes broadcast by Fox News of police being beaten to a pulp by rioters. This makes for an odd contrast to their usual sentiment, towards anti-war protesters in the U.S. for example, for whom their newly found concern about police brutality towards demonstrators goes out of the window.
Similar feigned concern for demonstrators is being played out by TV talking heads across the networks. Take this former CIA agent for example, who informs Wolf Blitzer of his worries about how the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are treating protesters, warning that dissidents will be “disappeared”.
Oh the irony! For it was the CIA that trained the brutal Savak security force, copying techniques used by the Nazis to train the Gestapo, following the CIA’s overthrow of the democratically elected Mosaddeq government in 1953. Savak engaged in the systematic torture, disappearance, and execution of thousands of the new puppet regime’s opponents before the 1979 revolution, all with the blessing of the United States government.
Neo-Cons and establishment media figures have also seized upon the tragic death of “Neda” as another reason why regime change is needed, aghast at shocking scenes of an innocent women dying. This new found emotion at the sight of Middle Easterners bleeding to death on the streets was strangely absent during “shock and awe” and the eight year combined occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, during which hundreds of thousands have died in similar circumstances.
In a Free Republic thread about possible CIA involvement in Iran - which is a proven fact and not even up for debate - “Freepers” express their desire to see a little more meddling by way of CIA support for the opposition and the demonstrators - presumably by way of more money for Al-Qaeda offshoot terrorist groups like Jundullah and Mujahedeen-e Khalq to carry out more bombings and kill more people as part of the CIA’s now public destabilization program in Iran.
Of course, the talking heads, the establishment media whores, and the Neo-Con morons don’t really give a shit about the protesters or the opposition in Iran and indeed probably want them to be beaten and suppressed so that their real cause can be advanced - the demonization of the current Iranian government in the eyes of the world and a greasing of the skids for military invasion on behalf of the U.S., Britain and Israel.
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The horrible irony to arise out of the riots and protests in Iran is that many Neo-Cons and phony conservatives, in their unified effort to enthusiastically embrace the Anglo-American establishment’s agenda for regime change, are cheerleading for a brutal thug who directed a terrorist campaign that killed hundreds of U.S. Marines in the 1980’s.
This once again proves that slack-jawed Neo-Con twits, ditto-heads for phony conservative media whores like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, have no loyalty whatsoever to America, but only to the corrupt power structure which they like to believe they are a part of.
Apparently, the new form of ‘patriotism’, the new incarnation of ’support the troops’ - is to support someone who helped massacre hundreds of U.S. troops just two decades ago.
We are referring of course to Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the former Prime Minister of Iran who directed the bloody attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983. Sold by the media and hailed by Neo-Cons as the avatar of Iranian democracy, Mousavi was also “fingered Mousavi for the 1988 truck bombing of the U.S. Navy’s Fleet Center in Naples, Italy, that killed five persons, including the first Navy woman to die in a terrorist attack,” reports CQ Politics.
Regarding the Beirut bombings, which killed 220 U.S. Marines, CIA Middle East field officer Bob Baer wrote in TIME Magazine that Mousavi, “Dealt directly with Imad Mughniyah,” who ran the Beirut terrorist campaign and was “the man largely held responsible for both attacks.”
As Paul Craig Roberts writes, “The American media’s one-sided and propagandistic coverage of the Iranian election has made an American hero out of the defeated candidate, Mousavi.”
This charade has been vigorously amplified by phony right-wingers. As Raw Story notes, Neo-Cons have sided with the opposition against the boogeyman Ahmedinajed, to the point of grunting with delight at scenes broadcast by Fox News of police being beaten to a pulp by rioters. This makes for an odd contrast to their usual sentiment, towards anti-war protesters in the U.S. for example, for whom their newly found concern about police brutality towards demonstrators goes out of the window.
Similar feigned concern for demonstrators is being played out by TV talking heads across the networks. Take this former CIA agent for example, who informs Wolf Blitzer of his worries about how the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are treating protesters, warning that dissidents will be “disappeared”.
Oh the irony! For it was the CIA that trained the brutal Savak security force, copying techniques used by the Nazis to train the Gestapo, following the CIA’s overthrow of the democratically elected Mosaddeq government in 1953. Savak engaged in the systematic torture, disappearance, and execution of thousands of the new puppet regime’s opponents before the 1979 revolution, all with the blessing of the United States government.
Neo-Cons and establishment media figures have also seized upon the tragic death of “Neda” as another reason why regime change is needed, aghast at shocking scenes of an innocent women dying. This new found emotion at the sight of Middle Easterners bleeding to death on the streets was strangely absent during “shock and awe” and the eight year combined occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, during which hundreds of thousands have died in similar circumstances.
In a Free Republic thread about possible CIA involvement in Iran - which is a proven fact and not even up for debate - “Freepers” express their desire to see a little more meddling by way of CIA support for the opposition and the demonstrators - presumably by way of more money for Al-Qaeda offshoot terrorist groups like Jundullah and Mujahedeen-e Khalq to carry out more bombings and kill more people as part of the CIA’s now public destabilization program in Iran.
Of course, the talking heads, the establishment media whores, and the Neo-Con morons don’t really give a shit about the protesters or the opposition in Iran and indeed probably want them to be beaten and suppressed so that their real cause can be advanced - the demonization of the current Iranian government in the eyes of the world and a greasing of the skids for military invasion on behalf of the U.S., Britain and Israel.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Neda Death Footage: Poster Child For A Million More Tragedies?
Establishment media falls over itself to broadcast footage showing death of young Iranian protester, yet completely refused to show victims of Iraq and Afghanistan wars, not to forget Israel!
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, June 22, 2009
Western establishment media organs are tripping over themselves to broadcast tragic footage showing the death of a young Iranian woman allegedly at the hands of pro-Ahmadinejad forces in an effort to rally international opinion against the government of Iran, a stark contrast to their complete and total refusal to broadcast footage of the hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children killed in Afghanistan and Iraq by U.S. and UK troops.
Neda Agha-Soltan has become a poster child for the CIA-sponsored color revolution in Iran after tragic and shocking scenes of her death were uploaded to You Tube the day after she was gunned down in Tehran on Saturday.
Soltan is being hailed as a “martyr” and “the face of the Iranian protests” by major western media outlets in emotional news reports such as the following CNN piece.
The hypocrisy is almost impossible to stomach. Hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children have been slaughtered in similar fashion by coalition forces during the bombardment and occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan, and many of these deaths have been caught on camera. And yet the establishment media has blindly refused to broadcast any of it. Indeed, it could be claimed that the footage of Neda’s death has already been broadcast more times by the corporate media than the thousands of victims whose deaths were caught on film in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last eight years.
There’s no doubt that Neda’s vivid and shocking death is tragic to witness and a terrible loss for her family. However, the repercussions of the video circulating the globe via You Tube and its propaganda-driven exploitation by the west to demonize the Iranian government could have tragic consequences for many more innocent Iranians in the years to come.
The propensity for western governments to manufacture or exploit intensely emotional stories such as Neda’s death, and tragic events involving young women and children in general, in order to hoodwink populations into supporting phony wars of “liberation” has been proven time and time again.
One of the stunts used to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American people was the alleged capture and mistreatment of young female POW Jessica Lynch, who the Pentagon claimed went down in a blaze of glory in an attempt to throw off her captors and was subsequently “rescued” by U.S. forces. Lynch later revealed that the Pentagon concocted a Rambo fable around her image and that she actually never fired her weapon and was treated very well by Iraqi doctors who released her back to the U.S. military without incident.
The first invasion of Iraq was preceded by a similarly manufactured fable perfectly designed to tug at the heart strings and create a sense of outrage that won over a hesitant population into supporting a war.
Following the (US approved) Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, an American PR company called Hill & Knowlton was paid $10.7 million by a Kuwaiti front group to devise a campaign to win American support for the war. Stories soon began to emerge of brutal Iraqi soldiers removing babies from incubators in Kuwait hospitals. A firestorm of outrage spread across the western media and the population demanded that something be done, completely unaware of the fact that the whole story had been completely manufactured with the intention of creating that exact reaction.
Despite the fact that the Neda video shows nothing other than the sudden death of the woman after she was shot in the heart, the BBC, which the Iranian government has repeatedly accused of fomenting riots by means of bias and false reporting, quotes in a report today the woman’s fiance Caspian Makan, who states;
“Eyewitnesses and video footage of shooting clearly show that probably Basij paramilitaries in civilian clothing deliberately targeted her.”
The unedited video offers no evidence whatsoever for who killed Neda. For all we know it could have been the Al-Qaeda terrorists that the CIA has been funding to destabilize Iran. It has not even been established whether Neda was killed by a rooftop sniper or a passing motorcyclist, and yet the BBC is carrying matter-of-fact explanations of her death based on nothing more than conjecture without any clarification whatsoever.
This follows an embarrassing faux pas last week when the BBC was forced to issue a retraction of a photo they originally claimed represented a pro-Mousavi rally, when in fact the image was taken at a pro-Ahmadinejad demonstration.
The tragic death of Neda Agha-Soltan and its vivid capture on film is already being used as a propaganda tool by American, British and Israeli media outlets to harden western opinion against the Mullahs in Iran and grease the skids for a future invasion.
If we don’t heed the lessons of history and understand how sophisticated PR campaigns are routinely crafted around such events by western governments in collusion with their establishment media fronts, then the tragic death of Neda will be the catalyst for a million more tragedies in the years to come - the only difference being that you won’t see the deaths of those victims being broadcast on the BBC, Fox News or CNN.
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, June 22, 2009
Western establishment media organs are tripping over themselves to broadcast tragic footage showing the death of a young Iranian woman allegedly at the hands of pro-Ahmadinejad forces in an effort to rally international opinion against the government of Iran, a stark contrast to their complete and total refusal to broadcast footage of the hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children killed in Afghanistan and Iraq by U.S. and UK troops.
Neda Agha-Soltan has become a poster child for the CIA-sponsored color revolution in Iran after tragic and shocking scenes of her death were uploaded to You Tube the day after she was gunned down in Tehran on Saturday.
Soltan is being hailed as a “martyr” and “the face of the Iranian protests” by major western media outlets in emotional news reports such as the following CNN piece.
The hypocrisy is almost impossible to stomach. Hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children have been slaughtered in similar fashion by coalition forces during the bombardment and occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan, and many of these deaths have been caught on camera. And yet the establishment media has blindly refused to broadcast any of it. Indeed, it could be claimed that the footage of Neda’s death has already been broadcast more times by the corporate media than the thousands of victims whose deaths were caught on film in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last eight years.
There’s no doubt that Neda’s vivid and shocking death is tragic to witness and a terrible loss for her family. However, the repercussions of the video circulating the globe via You Tube and its propaganda-driven exploitation by the west to demonize the Iranian government could have tragic consequences for many more innocent Iranians in the years to come.
The propensity for western governments to manufacture or exploit intensely emotional stories such as Neda’s death, and tragic events involving young women and children in general, in order to hoodwink populations into supporting phony wars of “liberation” has been proven time and time again.
One of the stunts used to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American people was the alleged capture and mistreatment of young female POW Jessica Lynch, who the Pentagon claimed went down in a blaze of glory in an attempt to throw off her captors and was subsequently “rescued” by U.S. forces. Lynch later revealed that the Pentagon concocted a Rambo fable around her image and that she actually never fired her weapon and was treated very well by Iraqi doctors who released her back to the U.S. military without incident.
The first invasion of Iraq was preceded by a similarly manufactured fable perfectly designed to tug at the heart strings and create a sense of outrage that won over a hesitant population into supporting a war.
Following the (US approved) Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, an American PR company called Hill & Knowlton was paid $10.7 million by a Kuwaiti front group to devise a campaign to win American support for the war. Stories soon began to emerge of brutal Iraqi soldiers removing babies from incubators in Kuwait hospitals. A firestorm of outrage spread across the western media and the population demanded that something be done, completely unaware of the fact that the whole story had been completely manufactured with the intention of creating that exact reaction.
Despite the fact that the Neda video shows nothing other than the sudden death of the woman after she was shot in the heart, the BBC, which the Iranian government has repeatedly accused of fomenting riots by means of bias and false reporting, quotes in a report today the woman’s fiance Caspian Makan, who states;
“Eyewitnesses and video footage of shooting clearly show that probably Basij paramilitaries in civilian clothing deliberately targeted her.”
The unedited video offers no evidence whatsoever for who killed Neda. For all we know it could have been the Al-Qaeda terrorists that the CIA has been funding to destabilize Iran. It has not even been established whether Neda was killed by a rooftop sniper or a passing motorcyclist, and yet the BBC is carrying matter-of-fact explanations of her death based on nothing more than conjecture without any clarification whatsoever.
This follows an embarrassing faux pas last week when the BBC was forced to issue a retraction of a photo they originally claimed represented a pro-Mousavi rally, when in fact the image was taken at a pro-Ahmadinejad demonstration.
The tragic death of Neda Agha-Soltan and its vivid capture on film is already being used as a propaganda tool by American, British and Israeli media outlets to harden western opinion against the Mullahs in Iran and grease the skids for a future invasion.
If we don’t heed the lessons of history and understand how sophisticated PR campaigns are routinely crafted around such events by western governments in collusion with their establishment media fronts, then the tragic death of Neda will be the catalyst for a million more tragedies in the years to come - the only difference being that you won’t see the deaths of those victims being broadcast on the BBC, Fox News or CNN.
Iran election: Guardian Council admits vote was flawed
The admission was made as the main presidential challenger, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, implored supporters to renew street protests in Tehran on Monday and defy the threat of a brutal crackdown by the security forces.
Organisers of the campaign to overturn the result of the June 12 election, which gave Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent president, a landslide victory said demonstrations must continue after petering out on Sunday.
The campaign called on people to march with black candles or turn on the lights on their cars during an afternoon rally.
The calls came as the Guardian Council, the body charged with reviewing the contested election, said it had concluded an investigation but would not be overturning the result. Its spokesman, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, said the number of votes collected in 50 cities was more than the number of eligible voters but the discrepancy was not sufficent to account for Mr Ahmadinejad's margin of victory.
Mr Mousavi reiterated his backing of the protests at the end of a tense weekend in which at least 10 people were killed in the Iranian capital. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave the greet light to the repression when on Friday he declared the protests were illegal.
But Mr Mousavi said: "The country belongs to you ... protesting lies and fraud is your right."
The former prime minister warned supporters of the danger ahead, and said he would stand by the protesters "at all times". But he would "never allow anybody's life to be endangered because of my actions" and called for pursuing fraud claims through an independent board, not the Guardian Council.
A former president, Mohammad Khatami, backed the call. "Protest in a civil manner and avoiding disturbances in the definite right of the people and all must respect that," he said.
Meanwhile the authorities released the daughter of another former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani. Faezeh Hashemi was detained while travelling to a Mousavi rally on Saturday. Officials said she and several other relatives were held for their own safety.
Iran's foreign ministry lashed out at foreign media and Western governments. Its spokesman Hasan Qashqavi accused them of "a racial mentality that Iranians belong to the Third World".
"Meddling by Western powers and international media is unacceptable," he said.
Meanwhile, the authorities in Bahrain shut down a newspaper after it published a claim that Mr Ahmadinejad is of Jewish origin.
Samira Rajab, an MP made the allegation in Akhbar Al-Khaleej and the paper, the Gulf state's oldest, was found guilty of violating the country's press code.
Organisers of the campaign to overturn the result of the June 12 election, which gave Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent president, a landslide victory said demonstrations must continue after petering out on Sunday.
The campaign called on people to march with black candles or turn on the lights on their cars during an afternoon rally.
The calls came as the Guardian Council, the body charged with reviewing the contested election, said it had concluded an investigation but would not be overturning the result. Its spokesman, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, said the number of votes collected in 50 cities was more than the number of eligible voters but the discrepancy was not sufficent to account for Mr Ahmadinejad's margin of victory.
Mr Mousavi reiterated his backing of the protests at the end of a tense weekend in which at least 10 people were killed in the Iranian capital. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave the greet light to the repression when on Friday he declared the protests were illegal.
But Mr Mousavi said: "The country belongs to you ... protesting lies and fraud is your right."
The former prime minister warned supporters of the danger ahead, and said he would stand by the protesters "at all times". But he would "never allow anybody's life to be endangered because of my actions" and called for pursuing fraud claims through an independent board, not the Guardian Council.
A former president, Mohammad Khatami, backed the call. "Protest in a civil manner and avoiding disturbances in the definite right of the people and all must respect that," he said.
Meanwhile the authorities released the daughter of another former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani. Faezeh Hashemi was detained while travelling to a Mousavi rally on Saturday. Officials said she and several other relatives were held for their own safety.
Iran's foreign ministry lashed out at foreign media and Western governments. Its spokesman Hasan Qashqavi accused them of "a racial mentality that Iranians belong to the Third World".
"Meddling by Western powers and international media is unacceptable," he said.
Meanwhile, the authorities in Bahrain shut down a newspaper after it published a claim that Mr Ahmadinejad is of Jewish origin.
Samira Rajab, an MP made the allegation in Akhbar Al-Khaleej and the paper, the Gulf state's oldest, was found guilty of violating the country's press code.
Iranian leadership feud too close to call
Iran's intensifying political crisis remains dangerously unpredictable. It's still too early to determine if the bitter feud within Tehran's political establishment will lead to a revolution against Iran's Islamic government that so many foreigners hope for, or eventually burn out.
Caution is advised. Much of the opinions we are getting on Iran's current crisis come from bitterly anti-regime Iranian exiles, "experts" with an axe to grind and U.S. neocons yearning for war with Iran. In viewing the Muslim world, westerners keep listening to those who tell them what they want to hear, rather than the facts. President Barack Obama properly stated he would refrain from being seen to meddle in Iran's internal affairs. He did the right thing by apologizing for the U.S.-British coup that overthrew Iran's democratic government in 1953.
But Washington also has been actively attempting to undermine Iran's Islamic government since the 1979 revolution.
The U.S. has laid economic siege to Iran for 30 years. Recently, Congress voted $120 million for anti-regime media broadcasts into Iran and $60-75 million in funding for opposition, violent underground Marxists and restive ethnic groups such as Azeris, Kurds and Arabs under the "Iran Democracy Program." Pakistani intelligence sources put the CIA's recent spending on "black operations" to subvert Iran's government at $400 million.
While the majority of protests we see in Tehran are genuine and spontaneous, western intelligence agencies are playing a key role in sustaining them and providing communications, including the newest method, via Twitter.
Repress
The Tehran government made things worse by limiting foreign news reports and trying to cover up or brutally repress massive protests.
We also hear a lot of hypocritical humbug from western capitals. Washington, Ottawa, London and Paris accused Iran of improper electoral procedures while utterly ignoring their autocratic Mideast allies such as Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which hold only fake elections and savage any real opposition.
U.S. senators, led by John McCain, blasted Iran for not respecting human rights. That's pretty rich after they just voted to bar the public release of ghastly torture photos from U.S. prisons in Iraq.
Iran is a weird hybrid of repressive theocratic state and democracy. Its political powers are fragmented to prevent re-emergence of another despotic shah. At least Iran holds elections and allows often fierce political debate, though it often bars candidates. Its recent electoral turnout was an impressive 85%.
Popularity
There are many questions about Iran's vote, of which incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won 60. But however much foreigners may detest Iran's abrasive, incendiary elected leader, he remains widely popular at home thanks to his populist programs, generous subsidies and ascetic lifestyle. He is particularly popular among farmers, the poor, pensioners, the military and religious people. Pre-election polls that showed him headed for a big win may have been right.
Ahmadinejad's chief rival, the more moderate-sounding Mir Hossein Mousavi, is also a conservative who backs Iran's nuclear program. He is supported by Iran's young, many of whom are fed up with obscurantist restrictions imposed by the religious establishment.
In the wings, veteran politician Ali Akbar Rafsanjani is waiting to pounce. He heads the Assembly of Experts, which theoretically has the power to unseat Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Machiavellian Rafsanjani might yet emerge the winner of the current crisis.
Dangerous decision
Ayatollah Khamenei is not a strong leader. He now faces the dangerous decision of whether to crack down on spreading protests, call a recount or a new election, any of which would undermine his authority. Khamenei's best hope is for a political compromise between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. But he could end marginalized by a secular government.
Reuters reports Israel's intelligence chief, Meir Dagan, thinks Ahmadinejad will win out. Mossad boss Dagan reportedly worries that if Ahmadinejad falls, there will be less international pressure on Iran to end its nuclear programs. He is probably correct.
Other Mideast nations will look at Iran and conclude giving democratic rights is downright dangerous and must be avoided.
eric.margolis@sunmedia.ca
Caution is advised. Much of the opinions we are getting on Iran's current crisis come from bitterly anti-regime Iranian exiles, "experts" with an axe to grind and U.S. neocons yearning for war with Iran. In viewing the Muslim world, westerners keep listening to those who tell them what they want to hear, rather than the facts. President Barack Obama properly stated he would refrain from being seen to meddle in Iran's internal affairs. He did the right thing by apologizing for the U.S.-British coup that overthrew Iran's democratic government in 1953.
But Washington also has been actively attempting to undermine Iran's Islamic government since the 1979 revolution.
The U.S. has laid economic siege to Iran for 30 years. Recently, Congress voted $120 million for anti-regime media broadcasts into Iran and $60-75 million in funding for opposition, violent underground Marxists and restive ethnic groups such as Azeris, Kurds and Arabs under the "Iran Democracy Program." Pakistani intelligence sources put the CIA's recent spending on "black operations" to subvert Iran's government at $400 million.
While the majority of protests we see in Tehran are genuine and spontaneous, western intelligence agencies are playing a key role in sustaining them and providing communications, including the newest method, via Twitter.
Repress
The Tehran government made things worse by limiting foreign news reports and trying to cover up or brutally repress massive protests.
We also hear a lot of hypocritical humbug from western capitals. Washington, Ottawa, London and Paris accused Iran of improper electoral procedures while utterly ignoring their autocratic Mideast allies such as Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which hold only fake elections and savage any real opposition.
U.S. senators, led by John McCain, blasted Iran for not respecting human rights. That's pretty rich after they just voted to bar the public release of ghastly torture photos from U.S. prisons in Iraq.
Iran is a weird hybrid of repressive theocratic state and democracy. Its political powers are fragmented to prevent re-emergence of another despotic shah. At least Iran holds elections and allows often fierce political debate, though it often bars candidates. Its recent electoral turnout was an impressive 85%.
Popularity
There are many questions about Iran's vote, of which incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won 60. But however much foreigners may detest Iran's abrasive, incendiary elected leader, he remains widely popular at home thanks to his populist programs, generous subsidies and ascetic lifestyle. He is particularly popular among farmers, the poor, pensioners, the military and religious people. Pre-election polls that showed him headed for a big win may have been right.
Ahmadinejad's chief rival, the more moderate-sounding Mir Hossein Mousavi, is also a conservative who backs Iran's nuclear program. He is supported by Iran's young, many of whom are fed up with obscurantist restrictions imposed by the religious establishment.
In the wings, veteran politician Ali Akbar Rafsanjani is waiting to pounce. He heads the Assembly of Experts, which theoretically has the power to unseat Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Machiavellian Rafsanjani might yet emerge the winner of the current crisis.
Dangerous decision
Ayatollah Khamenei is not a strong leader. He now faces the dangerous decision of whether to crack down on spreading protests, call a recount or a new election, any of which would undermine his authority. Khamenei's best hope is for a political compromise between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. But he could end marginalized by a secular government.
Reuters reports Israel's intelligence chief, Meir Dagan, thinks Ahmadinejad will win out. Mossad boss Dagan reportedly worries that if Ahmadinejad falls, there will be less international pressure on Iran to end its nuclear programs. He is probably correct.
Other Mideast nations will look at Iran and conclude giving democratic rights is downright dangerous and must be avoided.
eric.margolis@sunmedia.ca
Iran: fear of foreign plotters may be justified
by Simon Tisdall
Long-term instability in Iran is an alarming prospect for western countries keen to resolve disputes over the country’s nuclear programme and other contentious issues. But continuing political weakness in Tehran is also likely to produce the opposite effect — increased regime concern about external attempts to interfere, destabilise, and exploit its vulnerabilities. This paranoid trend threatens unpredictable, even dangerous consequences - but may be justified.
Pinning blame for Iran’s post-election turmoil on malign foreign enemies is already under way among so-called principalist, conservative factions. The pro-Ahmadinejad Keyhan newspaper on Tuesday denounced plots by “politically bankrupt dictators” to thwart the popular will. “The hopes of the imperialist triangle (America, U.K. and the Zionist regime) for a crawling coup d’etat in the Middle East and revival of the dead Middle East plan have been dashed,” it declared.
Javan newspaper was similarly acerbic. “Today democracy slogans have become a lever to provoke, interfere and overthrow,” it said. “By announcing results in the presidential elections that did not benefit their favourite candidate ... some foreign media such as BBC Persian [service], al-Arabiya, Fox News, CNN and some French media have started a new wave to create social and political division and cause riots.”
In largely cautious responses to Friday’s polls, Barack Obama’s administration has been careful not to feed the fires of xenophobic resentment. “It’s up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be. We respect Iran’s sovereignty and want to avoid the U.S. being the issue inside of Iran,” Mr. Obama said. But Iranian officials say U.S. protestations of non-interference would be more credible if the White House cancelled a $400m Bush era covert programme, authorised in 2007, which they say was intended to destabilise Iran, with the ultimate aim of regime change.
According to the journalist Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker last year, covert operations by the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command were used to support the PJAK Kurdish dissident group in northern Iran, the disaffected ethnic Arab minority in Khuzestan in the south-west, and militant Baluchi Sunni Muslim separatists in the south-east, bordering Pakistan.
While not officially acknowledged or disavowed in the U.S., the covert programme has been repeatedly linked by Iran to ongoing violence, bomb attacks and assassinations in all three areas, as well as to the main external opposition group, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, which is allegedly funded and armed by the U.S. Iran also occasionally claims to have evidence of involvement by Israel’s Mossad spy agency and British intelligence.
Although the problem can be overstated, Iranian leaders of all political complexions have reason to worry about the so-called minorities question in a country comprising multiple ethno-linguistic groups, namely Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, Turkmen, Armenians, Assyrians, Jews and Georgians. Recent reports from Iranian Kurdistan, for example, speak of 100 or more checkpoints being erected by Revolutionary Guards and the shelling of PJAK positions inside northern Iraq.
Iranian officials have linked the recent suicide bombing of a Shia mosque in Zahedan, in Sistan-Baluchistan, to U.S., British and Israeli support for the Jundullah Sunni Muslim separatist group. A failed attempt last month to blow up a domestic airliner in Ahvaz, in Arab Khuzestan, brought similar claims.
Iran said on Tuesday that members of a foreign-backed “anti-revolutionary group” responsible for fomenting unrest and armed with bomb-making materials had been arrested. Intelligence minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said the group “wanted to achieve its goal through explosions and terror and in this connection 50 people were arrested ... They were supported from outside the country.” Given the current uproar in Tehran, the temptation for the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and President Ahmadinejad to deflect attention by hitting out at real or imagined foreign enemies, for instance by indirectly re-targeting U.S. forces in Iraq or causing problems for NATO forces in Afghanistan, is growing dangerously. But even such extreme measures may not work.
The moderate Seda-ye Edalat newspaper wasn’t swallowing the regime’s line about external threats on Tuesday. “Why does the government not let the people protest peacefully?” it asked. “Why do we always want to call Iranian protesters a group of hooligans bribed by foreigners to sabotage everything?”
Long-term instability in Iran is an alarming prospect for western countries keen to resolve disputes over the country’s nuclear programme and other contentious issues. But continuing political weakness in Tehran is also likely to produce the opposite effect — increased regime concern about external attempts to interfere, destabilise, and exploit its vulnerabilities. This paranoid trend threatens unpredictable, even dangerous consequences - but may be justified.
Pinning blame for Iran’s post-election turmoil on malign foreign enemies is already under way among so-called principalist, conservative factions. The pro-Ahmadinejad Keyhan newspaper on Tuesday denounced plots by “politically bankrupt dictators” to thwart the popular will. “The hopes of the imperialist triangle (America, U.K. and the Zionist regime) for a crawling coup d’etat in the Middle East and revival of the dead Middle East plan have been dashed,” it declared.
Javan newspaper was similarly acerbic. “Today democracy slogans have become a lever to provoke, interfere and overthrow,” it said. “By announcing results in the presidential elections that did not benefit their favourite candidate ... some foreign media such as BBC Persian [service], al-Arabiya, Fox News, CNN and some French media have started a new wave to create social and political division and cause riots.”
In largely cautious responses to Friday’s polls, Barack Obama’s administration has been careful not to feed the fires of xenophobic resentment. “It’s up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be. We respect Iran’s sovereignty and want to avoid the U.S. being the issue inside of Iran,” Mr. Obama said. But Iranian officials say U.S. protestations of non-interference would be more credible if the White House cancelled a $400m Bush era covert programme, authorised in 2007, which they say was intended to destabilise Iran, with the ultimate aim of regime change.
According to the journalist Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker last year, covert operations by the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command were used to support the PJAK Kurdish dissident group in northern Iran, the disaffected ethnic Arab minority in Khuzestan in the south-west, and militant Baluchi Sunni Muslim separatists in the south-east, bordering Pakistan.
While not officially acknowledged or disavowed in the U.S., the covert programme has been repeatedly linked by Iran to ongoing violence, bomb attacks and assassinations in all three areas, as well as to the main external opposition group, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, which is allegedly funded and armed by the U.S. Iran also occasionally claims to have evidence of involvement by Israel’s Mossad spy agency and British intelligence.
Although the problem can be overstated, Iranian leaders of all political complexions have reason to worry about the so-called minorities question in a country comprising multiple ethno-linguistic groups, namely Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, Turkmen, Armenians, Assyrians, Jews and Georgians. Recent reports from Iranian Kurdistan, for example, speak of 100 or more checkpoints being erected by Revolutionary Guards and the shelling of PJAK positions inside northern Iraq.
Iranian officials have linked the recent suicide bombing of a Shia mosque in Zahedan, in Sistan-Baluchistan, to U.S., British and Israeli support for the Jundullah Sunni Muslim separatist group. A failed attempt last month to blow up a domestic airliner in Ahvaz, in Arab Khuzestan, brought similar claims.
Iran said on Tuesday that members of a foreign-backed “anti-revolutionary group” responsible for fomenting unrest and armed with bomb-making materials had been arrested. Intelligence minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said the group “wanted to achieve its goal through explosions and terror and in this connection 50 people were arrested ... They were supported from outside the country.” Given the current uproar in Tehran, the temptation for the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and President Ahmadinejad to deflect attention by hitting out at real or imagined foreign enemies, for instance by indirectly re-targeting U.S. forces in Iraq or causing problems for NATO forces in Afghanistan, is growing dangerously. But even such extreme measures may not work.
The moderate Seda-ye Edalat newspaper wasn’t swallowing the regime’s line about external threats on Tuesday. “Why does the government not let the people protest peacefully?” it asked. “Why do we always want to call Iranian protesters a group of hooligans bribed by foreigners to sabotage everything?”
Sunday, June 21, 2009
BBC accepts their Psy-Op deceiving millions
The crisis over the Iranian election has been our lead story for most of the week. As with all our coverage, we have been careful to report what both Ahmadinejad and Mousavi supporters are saying. Similarly, we have taken care to label the pictures we use, explaining what they are of.
BBC News story Obama refuses to 'meddle' in Iran. However, on Wednesday 17 June we made a mistake in a picture caption published on BBC News online. In the story Obama refuses to 'meddle' in Iran, we mistakenly stated that a Getty agency picture of a pro-Ahmadinejad rally was a pro-Mousavi rally.
Some blogs, including WhatReallyhappened.com, are pointing out that the LA Times used a similar photograph which showed President Ahmadinejad waving to supporters. The Getty pictures we received did not show Mr Ahmadinejad.
When a reader contacted us about it, we checked our caption and corrected it. We're sorry for the mistake and have added a note explaining the correction to the story.
Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated Color Revolution?
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Counterpunch
Saturday, June 20, 2009
A number of commentators have expressed their idealistic belief in the purity of Mousavi, Montazeri, and the westernized youth of Terhan. The CIA destabilization plan, announced two years ago (see below) has somehow not contaminated unfolding events.
The claim is made that Ahmadinejad stole the election, because the outcome was declared too soon after the polls closed for all the votes to have been counted. However, Mousavi declared his victory several hours before the polls closed. This is classic CIA destabilization designed to discredit a contrary outcome. It forces an early declaration of the vote. The longer the time interval between the preemptive declaration of victory and the release of the vote tally, the longer Mousavi has to create the impression that the authorities are using the time to fix the vote. It is amazing that people don’t see through this trick.
As for the grand ayatollah Montazeri’s charge that the election was stolen, he was the initial choice to succeed Khomeini, but lost out to the current Supreme Leader. He sees in the protests an opportunity to settle the score with Khamenei. Montazeri has the incentive to challenge the election whether or not he is being manipulated by the CIA, which has a successful history of manipulating disgruntled politicians.
There is a power struggle among the ayatollahs. Many are aligned against Ahmadinejad because he accuses them of corruption, thus playing to the Iranian countryside where Iranians believe the ayatollahs’ lifestyles indicate an excess of power and money. In my opinion, Ahmadinejad’s attack on the ayatollahs is opportunistic. However, it does make it odd for his American detractors to say he is a conservative reactionary lined up with the ayatollahs.
Commentators are “explaining” the Iran elections based on their own illusions, delusions, emotions, and vested interests. Whether or not the poll results predicting Ahmadinejad’s win are sound, there is, so far, no evidence beyond surmise that the election was stolen. However, there are credible reports that the CIA has been working for two years to destabilize the Iranian government.
On May 23, 2007, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito reported on ABC News: “The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell ABC News.”
On May 27, 2007, the London Telegraph independently reported: “Mr. Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”
A few days previously, the Telegraph reported on May 16, 2007, that Bush administration neocon warmonger John Bolton told the Telegraph that a US military attack on Iran would “be a ‘last option’ after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed.”
On June 29, 2008, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker: “Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.”
The protests in Tehran no doubt have many sincere participants. The protests also have the hallmarks of the CIA orchestrated protests in Georgia and Ukraine. It requires total blindness not to see this.
Daniel McAdams has made some telling points. For example, neoconservative Kenneth Timmerman wrote the day before the election that “there’s talk of a ‘green revolution’ in Tehran.” How would Timmerman know that unless it was an orchestrated plan? Why would there be a ‘green revolution’ prepared prior to the vote, especially if Mousavi and his supporters were as confident of victory as they claim? This looks like definite evidence that the US is involved in the election protests.
Timmerman goes on to write that “the National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars promoting ‘color’ revolutions . . . Some of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.” Timmerman’s own neocon Foundation for Democracy is “a private, non-profit organization established in 1995 with grants from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), to promote democracy and internationally-recognized standards of human rights in Iran.”
Counterpunch
Saturday, June 20, 2009
A number of commentators have expressed their idealistic belief in the purity of Mousavi, Montazeri, and the westernized youth of Terhan. The CIA destabilization plan, announced two years ago (see below) has somehow not contaminated unfolding events.
The claim is made that Ahmadinejad stole the election, because the outcome was declared too soon after the polls closed for all the votes to have been counted. However, Mousavi declared his victory several hours before the polls closed. This is classic CIA destabilization designed to discredit a contrary outcome. It forces an early declaration of the vote. The longer the time interval between the preemptive declaration of victory and the release of the vote tally, the longer Mousavi has to create the impression that the authorities are using the time to fix the vote. It is amazing that people don’t see through this trick.
As for the grand ayatollah Montazeri’s charge that the election was stolen, he was the initial choice to succeed Khomeini, but lost out to the current Supreme Leader. He sees in the protests an opportunity to settle the score with Khamenei. Montazeri has the incentive to challenge the election whether or not he is being manipulated by the CIA, which has a successful history of manipulating disgruntled politicians.
There is a power struggle among the ayatollahs. Many are aligned against Ahmadinejad because he accuses them of corruption, thus playing to the Iranian countryside where Iranians believe the ayatollahs’ lifestyles indicate an excess of power and money. In my opinion, Ahmadinejad’s attack on the ayatollahs is opportunistic. However, it does make it odd for his American detractors to say he is a conservative reactionary lined up with the ayatollahs.
Commentators are “explaining” the Iran elections based on their own illusions, delusions, emotions, and vested interests. Whether or not the poll results predicting Ahmadinejad’s win are sound, there is, so far, no evidence beyond surmise that the election was stolen. However, there are credible reports that the CIA has been working for two years to destabilize the Iranian government.
On May 23, 2007, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito reported on ABC News: “The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell ABC News.”
On May 27, 2007, the London Telegraph independently reported: “Mr. Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”
A few days previously, the Telegraph reported on May 16, 2007, that Bush administration neocon warmonger John Bolton told the Telegraph that a US military attack on Iran would “be a ‘last option’ after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed.”
On June 29, 2008, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker: “Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.”
The protests in Tehran no doubt have many sincere participants. The protests also have the hallmarks of the CIA orchestrated protests in Georgia and Ukraine. It requires total blindness not to see this.
Daniel McAdams has made some telling points. For example, neoconservative Kenneth Timmerman wrote the day before the election that “there’s talk of a ‘green revolution’ in Tehran.” How would Timmerman know that unless it was an orchestrated plan? Why would there be a ‘green revolution’ prepared prior to the vote, especially if Mousavi and his supporters were as confident of victory as they claim? This looks like definite evidence that the US is involved in the election protests.
Timmerman goes on to write that “the National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars promoting ‘color’ revolutions . . . Some of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.” Timmerman’s own neocon Foundation for Democracy is “a private, non-profit organization established in 1995 with grants from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), to promote democracy and internationally-recognized standards of human rights in Iran.”
Iran's PRESSTV Versus America's CNN
If you still believe that CNN’s 12-hour straight coverage of Iran is about democracy, then Hitler was my mom!
Here’s is Ahmed Quraishi who shows you, with pictures, how CNN & BBC, the leaders of the Am-Brit media, were caught lying.
Just when the Iranian protesters decided not to defy their government's ban on street trouble, CNN and the rest of the American media went into an overdrive today to provoke the Iranian protesters, and especially mislead the younger ones into creating a situation that could result in bloodshed.
In twenty years of watching CNN, I have never seen it stoop so low as it did today.
The question is: If an American or British newspaper or TV network's agenda begins to eerily resemble that of CIA or MI-6 [the Am-Brit enterprise], does this mean that these custodians of media independence are actually government mouthpieces?
Obviously, the US government and the CIA will not let this opportunity in Iran slip out of hand. Remeber that the CIA, the NSA and other American spy agencies were given millions of dollars for covert operations targeting Iran under Bush. These programs are still operational and have not been cancelled by Obama. Once there is violence, all you need to do is to unleash local agents connected to foreign elements, coupled with massive media propaganda to encourage chaos in order to create maximum trouble and instability for the government in Iran.
The US government and CIA are already using Afghanistan to insert terrorists into eastern parts of Iran.
CNN today was no different than any state-run TV channel in a dictatorship in central Africa or the Middle East. And it was funny. I mean really. CNN never devotes more than 10 or 15 minutes in extreme cases for even the most important world leaders, and here it was devoting nonstop hours to endless drivel by 'Iran experts' some of them quite literally full of s**** and a majority of them wasn’t even able to give intelligent answers. Most of whom had nothing new to say but CNN wanted to create a worldwide hype to keep Iran's government under the spotlight. CNN editors allowed many unimpressive speakers to sit and speak for hours. But since there was nothing to "cover" today in Iran, CNN resorted to "creating" a crisis, manufacturing a hype about something that wasn't even happening: the 'expected' turnout of protestors defying the government.
Protestors largely stayed indoors. But CNN kept insisting that something was happening. For special effect, CNN used old footage to mislead the international audience about the size of today’s protestors.
Obviously I can't imagine that it is any of CNN's business to keep the protests alive and prevent them from dying out. But it is certainly the interest of the US government and the CIA.
So there is only one explanation to what CNN was doing:
To encourage the younger protestors to come out and defy the security and risk deaths so that CIA could stoke more trouble.
CNN also directly attacked PRESSTV, Iran's dynamic international English-language TV news channel. CNN anchors were apparently told to disparage PRESSTV calling it a 'government mouthpiece'.
Mouthpiece, eh? Compared to what? FoxNews, which spent the last eight years working as a mouthpiece to Bush? Or CNN and BBC that often become one with their governments when it comes to foreign policy and military aggression?
If CNN's agenda appears to mirror that of US government and the CIA, with no questions asked and no room for the opposite viewpoint, doesn’t that make CNN a government mouthpiece too?
How about CNN and New York Times and others airing and printing absolute lies about Iraq's nuclear program in order to convince the world that an invasion was necessary? And then when everything turned out to be a ruse created by CIA and MI6 and promoted by CNN, NYT and others as truth, do we see the Am-Brit free media apologizing for becoming government puppets?
When nothing happened on the streets in Tehran most of the day today, CNN anchorwoman Rosemary Church kept announcing with emphasis and with Broadway-dramatism, "There is a tense calm" in Iran.
Ooooh.
But my personal favorite was this line, "A very balanced reporting" or "a very balanced analysis" that Ms. Church repeated whenever a biased one-sided reporter or 'expert' finished his or her rant on Iran.
There were two exceptions in the CNN coverage coming from two journalists: Christian Amanpour and Jonathan Mann. Both refused to turn off their professional instincts and blindly follow the instructions from the newsroom.
Ms. Amanpour surprised everyone at one point when she inadvertently exposed CNN's hypocrisy by telling her interviewer Rosemary Church that it was important to underline that a majority of Iranian protestors stayed away today after the government warning.
And then Amanpour said that most of the videos that CNN kept showing throughout the day today were old footage. Amanpour appeared to be emphasizing that viewers need to be told that CNN was playing footage from yesterday and the day before and that there were no crowds on Tehran's streets of the size being shown in the footage.
Amanpour’s comment seemed to have struck Ms. Church smack in the face. She appeared dumbstruck for a minute. It was almost as if she knew [from the instructions she must be receiving thru an earphone from the newsroom] that she was not supposed to say these things and expose CNN's game plan.
Then Jonathan Mann also violated the script and at one point stopped to ask CNN to replay a rare video that came out of Tehran today. The fresh video showed a handful of protestors, certainly fewer than ever before.
Mann inquired from his biased commentator that he wasn't able to see the streets in previous videos because of the huge number of protestors. But the new video showed empty streets barring a few kids. Again, the commentator, who was pro-American Iranian, was dumbfounded.
Here's another fine evidence of who is motivating CNN and other 'Am-Brit independent international media outlets':
CNN did not go into overdrive until quite late in the day when it became clear that the protests were dying down. My guess is that some people within the US government freaked out at this. Someone might have said [probably at Langley], 'If the protests die down, that's it. Find a way to keep the momentum and encourage the kids there to come out on the streets. Let's push the Iranian security into a murderous mishap.'
And suddenly CNN goes into a nonstop one-sided ethically-questionable coverage. I am sure that simultaneously CIA's Iran desk must be busy in 'quiet outreach' through Facebook and Twitter and through their assets on the ground in Iran.
It is time that the Am-Brit 'international media' realize that many people outside Europe and America can see through their machinations, the way they gang up on certain countries or on certain issues that hide other interests of the Am-Brit combine. We've seen this happen so many times, in Georgia and elsewhere, that it stands exposed.
To me this has nothing to do with democracy and human rights. Sure, the Iranian government has problems and it has opponents within the Iranian populace. So it’s not a big deal if a few of them gather in Los Angeles and Washington in small demos. What IS a big deal is how the Am-Brit media has rushed to play a strategic game disguised as journalism. This is the same Am-Brit media that continues to produce CIA and MI6 agents hiding as accredited journalists. The latest example is of an Iranian woman who was sent back to Iran as an American journalist so that she could get in touch with her former colleagues in a sensitive government department and obtain secret documents. She was caught with those documents. And now we have two American journalists from Korean descent sent to North Korea for the same purpose, espionage. All three spies found major American news organizations ready to give them the cover of an accredited journalist so that CIA could use them for espionage. This is the state of the Am-Brit media that sets the world news agenda.
This episode should also serve as a lesson for Iran. The Iranian government actually helped Washington and London invade Iraq and Afghanistan and supported the two invasions on military and intelligence levels. The hope was that somehow this will convince Washington and London to accept the Iranian government and start working with it.
Today, the Iranian government learns the lesson the hard way.
And the Am-Brit media can be and is manipulated by the governments in London and Washington just like anywhere else. The best part of it, of course, is that the US State Department gets to issue grade reports about how other countries fare on media freedoms.
The Am-Brit media had been exposed during the false campaign against Iraq in 2003. But people have short memories. Iran's elections in 2009 should serve as a welcome reminder on the performance of the Am-Brit media.
And these elections should also become a permanent signpost for CNN's amazing fall.
P.S.: Google and Facebook are speeding up Persian translations of their sites and BBC rushes to find other satellites to beam into Iran. Wow. Even companies feel for democracy and are willing to go the extra mile for the sake of democracy in Iran! Last question to all the buffoons who still think this is about democracy: How come we don't see Russian, German, French, Singaporean, Indian or Israeli companies feeling the pain for democracy? Why is it that only Am-Brit companies are at the forefront of the fight for Iranian democracy?!!
http://aq-lounge.blogspot.com/2009/06/presstv-versus-cnn.html
In my personal opinion this is very sad day for Muslims & Iranians all over the world. Iran was the only Islamic country left with unity in them & its not anymore. Zionists have funded nicely & they are the ones to get applaud for their victory yet again in dividing & ruling. But what is this so called Muslim Ummah of 1.5 billion full of ignorant inferiority complex animals doing????except fulfilling their desires????Obviously you can't expect anything from Pakistani journalists/anchors (bunch of fans of Cheap Justice/sharif/zardari-BB/india/musharraf) but still Iran really needs help today from against this zionist propaganda, could anyone from 1.5 billion think of any way to go against this psy-op????
Here’s is Ahmed Quraishi who shows you, with pictures, how CNN & BBC, the leaders of the Am-Brit media, were caught lying.
Just when the Iranian protesters decided not to defy their government's ban on street trouble, CNN and the rest of the American media went into an overdrive today to provoke the Iranian protesters, and especially mislead the younger ones into creating a situation that could result in bloodshed.
In twenty years of watching CNN, I have never seen it stoop so low as it did today.
The question is: If an American or British newspaper or TV network's agenda begins to eerily resemble that of CIA or MI-6 [the Am-Brit enterprise], does this mean that these custodians of media independence are actually government mouthpieces?
Obviously, the US government and the CIA will not let this opportunity in Iran slip out of hand. Remeber that the CIA, the NSA and other American spy agencies were given millions of dollars for covert operations targeting Iran under Bush. These programs are still operational and have not been cancelled by Obama. Once there is violence, all you need to do is to unleash local agents connected to foreign elements, coupled with massive media propaganda to encourage chaos in order to create maximum trouble and instability for the government in Iran.
The US government and CIA are already using Afghanistan to insert terrorists into eastern parts of Iran.
CNN today was no different than any state-run TV channel in a dictatorship in central Africa or the Middle East. And it was funny. I mean really. CNN never devotes more than 10 or 15 minutes in extreme cases for even the most important world leaders, and here it was devoting nonstop hours to endless drivel by 'Iran experts' some of them quite literally full of s**** and a majority of them wasn’t even able to give intelligent answers. Most of whom had nothing new to say but CNN wanted to create a worldwide hype to keep Iran's government under the spotlight. CNN editors allowed many unimpressive speakers to sit and speak for hours. But since there was nothing to "cover" today in Iran, CNN resorted to "creating" a crisis, manufacturing a hype about something that wasn't even happening: the 'expected' turnout of protestors defying the government.
Protestors largely stayed indoors. But CNN kept insisting that something was happening. For special effect, CNN used old footage to mislead the international audience about the size of today’s protestors.
Obviously I can't imagine that it is any of CNN's business to keep the protests alive and prevent them from dying out. But it is certainly the interest of the US government and the CIA.
So there is only one explanation to what CNN was doing:
To encourage the younger protestors to come out and defy the security and risk deaths so that CIA could stoke more trouble.
CNN also directly attacked PRESSTV, Iran's dynamic international English-language TV news channel. CNN anchors were apparently told to disparage PRESSTV calling it a 'government mouthpiece'.
Mouthpiece, eh? Compared to what? FoxNews, which spent the last eight years working as a mouthpiece to Bush? Or CNN and BBC that often become one with their governments when it comes to foreign policy and military aggression?
If CNN's agenda appears to mirror that of US government and the CIA, with no questions asked and no room for the opposite viewpoint, doesn’t that make CNN a government mouthpiece too?
How about CNN and New York Times and others airing and printing absolute lies about Iraq's nuclear program in order to convince the world that an invasion was necessary? And then when everything turned out to be a ruse created by CIA and MI6 and promoted by CNN, NYT and others as truth, do we see the Am-Brit free media apologizing for becoming government puppets?
When nothing happened on the streets in Tehran most of the day today, CNN anchorwoman Rosemary Church kept announcing with emphasis and with Broadway-dramatism, "There is a tense calm" in Iran.
Ooooh.
But my personal favorite was this line, "A very balanced reporting" or "a very balanced analysis" that Ms. Church repeated whenever a biased one-sided reporter or 'expert' finished his or her rant on Iran.
There were two exceptions in the CNN coverage coming from two journalists: Christian Amanpour and Jonathan Mann. Both refused to turn off their professional instincts and blindly follow the instructions from the newsroom.
Ms. Amanpour surprised everyone at one point when she inadvertently exposed CNN's hypocrisy by telling her interviewer Rosemary Church that it was important to underline that a majority of Iranian protestors stayed away today after the government warning.
And then Amanpour said that most of the videos that CNN kept showing throughout the day today were old footage. Amanpour appeared to be emphasizing that viewers need to be told that CNN was playing footage from yesterday and the day before and that there were no crowds on Tehran's streets of the size being shown in the footage.
Amanpour’s comment seemed to have struck Ms. Church smack in the face. She appeared dumbstruck for a minute. It was almost as if she knew [from the instructions she must be receiving thru an earphone from the newsroom] that she was not supposed to say these things and expose CNN's game plan.
Then Jonathan Mann also violated the script and at one point stopped to ask CNN to replay a rare video that came out of Tehran today. The fresh video showed a handful of protestors, certainly fewer than ever before.
Mann inquired from his biased commentator that he wasn't able to see the streets in previous videos because of the huge number of protestors. But the new video showed empty streets barring a few kids. Again, the commentator, who was pro-American Iranian, was dumbfounded.
Here's another fine evidence of who is motivating CNN and other 'Am-Brit independent international media outlets':
CNN did not go into overdrive until quite late in the day when it became clear that the protests were dying down. My guess is that some people within the US government freaked out at this. Someone might have said [probably at Langley], 'If the protests die down, that's it. Find a way to keep the momentum and encourage the kids there to come out on the streets. Let's push the Iranian security into a murderous mishap.'
And suddenly CNN goes into a nonstop one-sided ethically-questionable coverage. I am sure that simultaneously CIA's Iran desk must be busy in 'quiet outreach' through Facebook and Twitter and through their assets on the ground in Iran.
It is time that the Am-Brit 'international media' realize that many people outside Europe and America can see through their machinations, the way they gang up on certain countries or on certain issues that hide other interests of the Am-Brit combine. We've seen this happen so many times, in Georgia and elsewhere, that it stands exposed.
To me this has nothing to do with democracy and human rights. Sure, the Iranian government has problems and it has opponents within the Iranian populace. So it’s not a big deal if a few of them gather in Los Angeles and Washington in small demos. What IS a big deal is how the Am-Brit media has rushed to play a strategic game disguised as journalism. This is the same Am-Brit media that continues to produce CIA and MI6 agents hiding as accredited journalists. The latest example is of an Iranian woman who was sent back to Iran as an American journalist so that she could get in touch with her former colleagues in a sensitive government department and obtain secret documents. She was caught with those documents. And now we have two American journalists from Korean descent sent to North Korea for the same purpose, espionage. All three spies found major American news organizations ready to give them the cover of an accredited journalist so that CIA could use them for espionage. This is the state of the Am-Brit media that sets the world news agenda.
This episode should also serve as a lesson for Iran. The Iranian government actually helped Washington and London invade Iraq and Afghanistan and supported the two invasions on military and intelligence levels. The hope was that somehow this will convince Washington and London to accept the Iranian government and start working with it.
Today, the Iranian government learns the lesson the hard way.
And the Am-Brit media can be and is manipulated by the governments in London and Washington just like anywhere else. The best part of it, of course, is that the US State Department gets to issue grade reports about how other countries fare on media freedoms.
The Am-Brit media had been exposed during the false campaign against Iraq in 2003. But people have short memories. Iran's elections in 2009 should serve as a welcome reminder on the performance of the Am-Brit media.
And these elections should also become a permanent signpost for CNN's amazing fall.
P.S.: Google and Facebook are speeding up Persian translations of their sites and BBC rushes to find other satellites to beam into Iran. Wow. Even companies feel for democracy and are willing to go the extra mile for the sake of democracy in Iran! Last question to all the buffoons who still think this is about democracy: How come we don't see Russian, German, French, Singaporean, Indian or Israeli companies feeling the pain for democracy? Why is it that only Am-Brit companies are at the forefront of the fight for Iranian democracy?!!
http://aq-lounge.blogspot.com/2009/06/presstv-versus-cnn.html
In my personal opinion this is very sad day for Muslims & Iranians all over the world. Iran was the only Islamic country left with unity in them & its not anymore. Zionists have funded nicely & they are the ones to get applaud for their victory yet again in dividing & ruling. But what is this so called Muslim Ummah of 1.5 billion full of ignorant inferiority complex animals doing????except fulfilling their desires????Obviously you can't expect anything from Pakistani journalists/anchors (bunch of fans of Cheap Justice/sharif/zardari-BB/india/musharraf) but still Iran really needs help today from against this zionist propaganda, could anyone from 1.5 billion think of any way to go against this psy-op????
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