For me, any sensible discussion of Iran must accept a number of facts. I will set these out as Set A and Set B. Both sets are true. But ideologues of the right routinely discount Set A, while ideologues of the left routinely discount Set B. That is why most debate on Iran is inane.
Set A
Iranian Islamic fundamentalism allied to fierce anti-Americanism was born from CIA intervention to topple democracy and keep in power a ruthless murdering despot for decades, in the interests of US oil and gas companies
Iranian anti-Americanism was fuelled further by US support for US friend and ally Saddam Hussein who was armed to wage a murderous war against Iran, again in the hope of US access to Iran’s oil and gas
The US committed a terrible atrocity against civilians by shooting down an Iranian passenger jet
Iran is surrounded by US military forces and has been repeatedly threatened to the extent that the desire to develop a nuclear weapon is a reflex
There is monumental hypocrisy in condemning Iran’s nuclear programme while overlooking Israel’s nuclear weapons
Set B
Iran is governed by an appalling set of vicious theocratic nutters
Iran is not any kind of democracy. It fails the first hurdle of candidates being allowed to put forward meaningful alternatives
Hanging of gays, stoning of adulterers, floggings, censorship and pervasive control are not fine because of cultural relativism. Iran’s whole legislative basis is inimical to universal ideals of human rights.
Iran really is trying to develop a nuclear weapons programme, though with some years still to go.
There are two very good articles on the current situation in Iran. One from the ever excellent Juan Cole. I would accept his judgement on the elections being rigged.
http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/class-v-culture-wars-in-iranian.html#comments
The other from Yasamine Mather, which puts it in another perspective.
http://www.hopoi.org/articles/elections%20June%202009.html
I am not optimistic about the outcome of the popular protest.
eddie,
Newspeak? Is this meant to be comedy?
For tyranny, despotism and moral bankruptcy Israel really takes the biscuit.
Don’t fancy their religion much either. It’s a licence to steal and murder, isn’t it? I mean their RELIGION says it’s OK. Pretty dodgy God they’ve got if you ask me.
“..people like you, if you had any decency, should support those people in Iran who want freedom.”
People like me? hmmm, ok.
What makes you think I’m not decent? As it happens, I’m a very decent bloke.
Just because I think it’s morally wrong to shout ‘rigged’ about the Iranian elections, when we can’t even bring our own leaders to task for their corruption, lying, murder, back-room deals, subversion, ignorance (should I go on?) doesn’t make me indecent. I would argue to the contrary, especially when our non-elected leader installs Ivan bloody Lewis.
Where’s our democratic system?
(oh sorry? is this it? the fact I can air my views? – don’t make me laugh)
Interesting news that Khamenei has ordered an investigation into allegations of rigging:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8101098.stm
If Khamenei were deceived by Ahmadinejad, to get his support, and if, when he found out, he didn’t appreciate having been used, that would explain this development.
I read it that Khamenei had asked the Council to consider the complaints that had already been lodged by two of the losing candidates. I think it is unlikely that Ahmadinejad deceived the supreme leader.
What may be significant is that Rafsanjani has called a meeting of the Assembly of Experts – a body which has the power to remove Khamenei.
@anon at June 15, 2009 6:01 PM
“For tyranny, despotism and moral bankruptcy Israel really takes the biscuit.
Don’t fancy their religion much either. It’s a licence to steal and murder, isn’t it? I mean their RELIGION says it’s OK. Pretty dodgy God they’ve got if you ask me.”
With you on the Israyhell bit, but I very much protest at what you say the Religion is at fault.
It isn’t. What is at fault is the man made perversions and rotten distortions in variousa places in the man made Talmud and apparently the Zohar (which I’ve not read).
The Judaic divine guideance is a mercy to treasure to mankind. It’s just a pity those toxic elements of the invert their divine teachings.
DON’T mix Judaism with Zionism. Your mergance of them shows very poor understanding or an ill planned comment.
Abe Rene,
That is BBC talk, the reality is as in here;
http://tinyurl.com/mxdlce
Also the DOS (denial of service) attacks on farsnews.com (semi-official news agency) which carries damning articles on Rafsanjani and his front man ie Moussavie.
http://tinyurl.com/koby4m
HappyClappy,
I was left feeling the BBC news at 6pm on radio 4, was making great use of the lack of pictures!
It left them free to report the ‘riot’ was anywhere between 100,000, to 2 million; according to eye witnesses, which must exclude the BBC.
When digital becomes exclusive, my next radio better come with a bucket of salt.
It’s amusing how so many of you are in a quandary over Iran. You don’t know what to make of it do you? Is it a popular revolution or is the CIA at work? Perhaps you need a grown up like Craig to tell you the party line. Look at the SWP website or Press TV. Nothing. What’s happened is that many of you have sold your souls to the devil, aligning yourselves with islamist groups and other neo-nazis on the basis that my enemy’s enemy must be my friend. Well you are deceived. Look at the mpacuk website today and their hounding of a Lesbian schoolteacher. Look at Galloway and his alliances within Respect. This is disgraceful behaviour. Once you ditch your principles your morals go with them. Can’t you just accept that Iran is ruled by a vicious backward-looking regime and that the mass of the people want reform and freedom, especially the 50% that has lived under the tyranny of the morality police for the past few decades. It’s not a difficult choice to support them. Make it.
JimmyGiro,
This is line with BBC remit for propaganda, the lunatics are indeed running the asylum for sure.
http://tinyurl.com/notdz7
The link is to a good article on the shenanigans of Rafsanjani.
The Gucci Crowd forming the support base of the Moussavie camp can be pretty vocal but that is just about the extent of their influence.
However the deeper implications of the unholy alliances between the neocons of the varying nationalities give rise to the question; is this hullabaloo designed to derail Obama’s vision of the middle east?
eddie at June 15, 2009 9:00 PM
As Edo so eloquently outlined;
“whatever it is you’re trying so desperately to defend; Ideology, self righteousness, the state of Israel, Zionism, whatever, you’re so blatantly transparent only someone as indoctrinated as yourself would fail to notice.”
Therefore, eddie, you have nothing of any value to add to the debate, would you kindly get lost and spam somewhere else?
I repeat: the West is right now responsible for the vast majority of the violent death in the world. The West is waging and fuelling wars across the globe. The military-political regimes of he West support the most vicious dictators and kings who run police states with the active help of the West. I thought that this website demonstrated that. Craig Murray resigned because the West (specifically, the UK) was supporting a police state and was gleaning power through torture. Then tell me truly which regime might best be depicted as, ‘the devil’?
The military-political regimes of the West do not care about the freedom of anyone. They are interested only in power, wealth and tribe. No amount of disinformation or misinformation by web-log or other media straw-men or agents will dispel this very simple fact. People know now. Knowledge cannot be taken away.
Eddie
Talking of vicious, backward looking regimes, the retro-imperialism of Thatcher’s 18 years and New Labour’s 13 years is now looking as weak as dishwater and as unsavoury. Those of us who celebrated the destruction of British colonialism by two world wars have understood, as you have not done, that hubris is always followed by a fall.
The present government has its back against the wall after being held to ransom by the Zionist bankers. It will stage a series of false flag operations in the coming pre-election months to divert attention from its criminal wars in Iraq and Afghan-/Pak-istan. But the cat is already out of the bag. You know you talk crap and you know that the majority of people in the UK are fed up with this sort of attitude.
Knowing the desperate measures this government has stooped to in the last few years, anybody who travels on the London underground while the government is in this panic mode, has got to be mad. The next false flag operation has got to be Mega and convincing. If I was you I’d move to Norwich and post your comments in felt tip pen in the corner of the piggy posters.
Quote: “Can’t you just accept that Iran is ruled by a vicious backward-looking regime”
eddie,
you vicious, ignorant, hate-filled little tub of Zionist shyte. For you:
Deepak Chopra ?” San Francisco Gate Chronicle June 15, 2009
If you have been tempted to buy into the portrayal of Iran as a reckless, terrifying country, please take the following quiz. Each item requires a Yes or No answer:
Yes or No, Iran has the most advanced stem cell research in the Mideast.
It has an active in vitro fertilization program.
The state subsidizes surgery for transsexuals.
Iran has a Jewish member of parliament and a Jewish hospital in downtown Tehran.
Iranian state television recently ran a 22-part series dramatizing the Holocaust, including the man known as Iran’s Schindler, because he saved 4,000 to 5,000 European Jews by giving them Iranian passports.
The answer is “Yes” to everything on this list. Which serves to remind us of the subtle power of brainwashing. Even if you call yourself left-liberal, it’s hard to resist the toxic media image of Iran. This image has been fed to us for thirty years, ever since the Iranian hostage crisis. Since then, the right wing has fueled it without letup while the mass media and even the left have passively acquiesced.
All the contrary facts on my list came from watching a refreshingly open segment on NBC’s Dateline news magazine. In the same program, one learns that two-thirds of Iran’s population consists of people under thirty. This massive baby boom is coming of age feeling the need to break the shackles of the old religious hardliners. As a group, their feelings toward the United States are decidedly positive. Going behind the scenes, the NBC crew found a leading filmmaker who is a woman, as well as the country’s foremost AIDS doctor and activist. The latter pushed through a program for training AIDS patients in new jobs and providing clean needles for drug addicts.
It’s a shock to learn all this, but also a huge relief. During the Cold War we were given a warped view of ordinary Russians, who in the end were the major force in bringing down the rigid Communist regime. That regime, like the theocrats in Iran, grew out of touch with ordinary life. Today Iran has a double identity. Ultimate power and the ability to punish resides with the mullahs and ayatollahs. Outside their reach is a modern, secular, Westward-looking society. Between the two forces there is no real contest if you take the long view. The mullahs aren’t going to win. As secular society rises, it will make sane choices for itself.
I think President Obama knows this, and he is backed by a new generation in this country that is sick of demonizing Iran. The bad things still exist. A demagogue like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can prosper in a state where “Death to America” is a regular part of mosque services. An Iranian nuclear weapon may be unstoppable. For all that, it’s good to keep a sane, optimistic view of a society that isn’t so far from Western values as the right wing wants us to believe. Let’s hope the forces for modernization win some key political and social battles soon. In the meantime, young lovers stroll hand in hand in the parks outside the capital, despite the mullahs who forbid them to show public affection. They may not dare to kiss in downtown Tehran, but that’s only for today. Tomorrow it will be different.
Good, except I find little credence that Iran is still looking for Nuclear Weapons. Aside from the International Energy Agency reports and Western Intel both agreeing that they are not, I think the reason is rather more pragmatic:
Surrounded by Nuclear powers as they are, it makes no sense to provide your enemies with the golden excuse to attack you. We have Israel of course, who have at least 150 warheads, although there seems to be an unspoken agreement in the media never to mention this, then we have US client state Pakistan and of course India – for whose loyalty several major powers are vying.
Next we have puppet state Iraq, whose permanent (enduring – apparently) US bases surely include tactical nukes. On top of this we have the various US, UK and French naval fleets and bases dotted about the region, and finally, not too far away, there is of course both Russia and China.
In addition, I wonder how much of the human rights abuses accusations levelled at Iran are exaggerated or propagandised? Certainly Saudi Arabia is worse. Of course it has to be recognised that much of the oppression of the Society is related to the theocratic nature of the regime, rather than Ahmadinejad’s government, who are not the true ruling power in Iran, but answer to the Islamic Clergy.
The truth of course, is that a removal of external antagonism towards Iran (including internal covert destabilsation), would reduce the paranoia and oppression of the regime, allowing political freedom to flourish. But since when have the Western powers responsible for Iran’s current agitation ever cared about that?
To June,
Really good posting, but I wouldn’t be too optimistic about the attitude of Obama.
As Noam Chomsky recently observed in a reply to an email I sent him (he always replies, apparently),
Obama’s “olive branch” comes down to “follow our orders and we’ll deign to talk to you” (meanwhile threatening force in violation of the UN Charter)
Obama’s rhetoric is usually better, but the underlying policy is the same or even worse than his predecessor, and it’s interesting to note that his recent speech in nasty puppet state Egypt contained passages lifted almost word for word from one of Dubbya’s speeches, who curiously enough, didn’t live up to the promises therein.
http://www.distantocean.com/2009/06/the-habit-of-skepticism.html
Craig,
Well put.
Just one point and it isn’t small.
Iran is a theocracy where the Supreme Leader has fatwaed the production, possession or use of nuclear weapons.
He has condemned them as gravely sinful.
Abominable though many of their beliefs and practises are, these Ayatollahs are straightforward and honest.
Iran is NOT in the process of developing nuclear weapons nor even a nuclear weapon manufacturing facility.
@ Gerard Mulholland.
I was going to write that myself.
“It has gone largely unnoticed in all the coverage of Iran’s resumed nuclear fuel enrichment operations, but an official statement issued by the Islamic republic at the emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna Aug. 9 [2005] noted that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons.” – source http://www.ww4report.com/node/929 (includes partial test of Iranian statement)
Although I’d likely reject your relativisism: “Abominable though many of their beliefs and practises are”
Hullo Craig,
On what do you base your belief that Iran has a nuclear weapons programme? Apart from the media asserting that it’s so? Aren’t we watching history repeat here? Iraq was going to get bombed come hell or high water – what was that quote? – ‘The intelligence was being fixed around the policy’? Sure enough, the bloc-media were unanimous in telling us the Iraq had WMD’s. Lo and behold, not a sausage. All of the ‘evidence’ we were presented with was concocted. The Niger documents were out and out forgeries, not that this scandalous story was of any interest to the bloc-media of course.
And here we are doing it again with Iran for Christ’s sake. Have a read of any Israeli online newspaper article about Iran and check out the comments. These are the most bloodthirsty people you’ve ever seen. ‘Death to all Iranians!’, ‘Fire the nukes now!’ ‘Turn Iran into a sheet of glass!’, etc. etc. ad nauseam. There’s your policy. Now all the bloc-media has to do is fix the intelligence around it. And they are. These assertions of nuclear weapons (best we avoid the old discredited expression ‘WMD’s’) are just that – assertions. Not a single piece of credible evidence has been presented.
Not forgetting the head of Iran’s church issued a fatwa against nukes. Does that not mean anything? Or do we only make a fuss about fatwas when it suits us? Ha ha ha, sure of course! In this vein, Iran might just be the single most lied about country in the world. Ahmadinejad did NOT call for Israel to be wiped off the map. He merely looked forward to the zionist regime disappearing in almost exactly the same fashion that Reagan looked forward to the Soviet regime doing likewise. Reagan gets lionised, Ahmadinejad cops calls for his death. Abysmal. Me, I’m with Ahmadinejad – I look forward to a Middle East free of zionism too.
Otherwise, good comments. We’re obviously witnessing another George Soros-style colour coded revolution. Green this time is it? Yeah, whatever. $400M will buy you a lot of rock concerts.
As for nuts and bolts, all the early polls showed Ahmadinejad getting a big majority. Then he gets one and the bloc-media declares it’s a fraud. Frauds are easy to spot. When the election outcome is wildly at odds with the initial polls it’s odds-on there’s fraud. Never mind the US media explaining their election outcome was like this because straw polls are notoriously inaccurate. Absolute bullshit! Straw polls are famously accurate and measurably so. Iran has hand-counted paper ballots, all done in the open with scrutineers and everything. And the US wants to cock an eyebrow at Iran’s elections!
Otherwise those mobs in the street are the kids of those who supported the Shah, who was head of one of the most vicious regimes a people has ever been subjected to. Should they get into power it will certainly be against the will of the minority, and as such they will only be able to govern by way of death squads, torture, and fear. The US did it before and they’d loooove to do it again. And they are doing it again!
And sure enough, the media is doing their bit and lying their sick arses off. On the subject of Iran (amongst many others, sure), if you assume that whatever the media tells you is a complete lie and that the truth lays 180 degrees in the other direction, you’ll probably be on the money. Honestly, we’ve seen it all before.
And I note that the ever tiresome Eddie is back. Eddie, you told us you were leaving and not coming back. Was that just you being wishy-washy or is it a tactic from the official Mockingbird guide book? You’d tell us the truth wouldn’t you? Ha ha ha ha.
Otherwise mate, wouldn’t you feel more at home in the comments section of the Jerusalem Post? They’d love you there! No need for your measured shows of exasperated politeness in hell hole. You can get all kinds of Nietzschean there – festival of cruelty ain’t in it! C’mon Eddy, embrace the blood lust! It’ll give you a woody!
The news about Khamenei issuing a fatwa against the development or use of nuclear weapons certainly throws anew light on the matter. Regarding the credibiity of such a fatwa, there are conflicting articles on the internet. For example here are two, respectively sympathetic and sceptical. It would be interesting to know what readers make of these respective viewpoints:
http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050412130710.kizyij2s.html
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_29293.shtml
A rough comparison between the theoretical Islamic, and the existing World Order. The resources available to the Pentagon to dominate the world and maintain an anti-Islam, or Zionist, system are 50% of the US’ government revenues. That is made up of taxes from those who are taxed, and capital invested voluntarily in the Zionist financial system from people who are not taxed. Call that half of the world’s GDP. So it takes a quarter of the world’s resources to maintain a system that opposes Islam. 25% of the total.
Islamic law requires the payment of just 2.5% of surplus capital to maintain an Islamic world order. Why is it so much more efficient? Because belief in God and a desire to worship Him is built into the hearts of human and all other beings. God provides for all his created beings, but under the present system, 25% of those resources are being harnessed by a tiny number from the sect of Zionism to prevent the rest of the world sharing those resources in an equitable way of distribution.
At a time of scarcity of resources, it’s time for honest people to decide to dispense with them.
Plenty of ad hominem abuse as usual but no meaningful responses. I don’t know how many times I have to repeat that I am not a Zionist but it obviously fulfills some kind of psychological need in some of you to have a hate figure that you can abuse.
Nobody, a million people on the streets of Tehran calling for freedom and an end to dictatorship and all you can do is call them the children of the Shah and claim it’s some kind of CIA plot. Your comments are disgraceful. People are being shot there right now.
Nameless person who listed all the wonders of Iran (ops for transsexuals etc) – I completely agree with you, but then Hitler made the trains run on time and brought full employment to Germany, so your comments prove nothing. Orwellianuk skulking over from the little cult at media lens – what a lucky boy to get an e mail from the great dissembler Chomsky. Did you wet your pants? Your name is still a disgrace.
Iran: Some Dots You May Want To Connect
Moon of Alabama
Sunday, Jun 14, 2009
Editor’s Comment: Before you start connecting the dots, consider this: The attempt to discredit the elections and cause instability in Iran look very much like a scheme we’ve seen before – directly out of the CIA playbook. We’ve seen this pattern in so many elections in Venezuela, for example, I swear that even the Chavistas would be disappointed if it doesn’t reappear next time around. After all, a little drama does add some excitement in elections where consistent landslide victories are won by presidents like Chavez and Ahmadinejad. So here we go again – the old Langley one, two, three:
Groom an opposition candidate to run against the guy you hate, pay him well and line up your media to back him.
During the campaign, sell him as the savior of the bourgeois opposition who lost their money in the revolution. Use your own pollsters and media propaganda to convince his followers that they are going to win by a wide margin.
When your guy loses, scream “FRAUD!” It’s akin to yelling “FIRE!” in a crowded theatre, inflaming all those disappointed bourgeois counter-revolutionaries. Get them out on the street, setting fires, playing the victim, waving flags, ready-to-go placards, banners, women crying in front of CNN cameras and men yelling angrily into Christiana Amanpour’s microphone. Only this time, they’re ready to burn their own flag instead of the U.S. flag. I tell ya, it makes great TV for a western audience. (Incidentally, don’t take Christiana’s reports too seriously. The Amanpours, like many Iranian expats, led a privileged life under the Shah of Iran and lost their ill gotten wealth as a result of the Iranian revolution in ’79. Naturally, Christiana was very upset. Later, she married James Rubin, an arch-Zionist, and regained her status, good money and even some fame, this time as a CNN reporter in service to the empire.)
Mir Hussein Mousavi followed his script, declared to his followers that the election was invalid instead of graciously accepting defeat. CIA’s shill, Manuel Rosales, did exactly the same thing in Venezuela when he lost large to President Chavez in 2006. The opposition came out and banged their pots and pans, then went home to bed. When Ahmadinejad reached out to Mousavi and his followers, offering to give them a part in the new government, Mousavi rejected the offer. Folks, these are not exactly marks of a real statesman, ready to lead a nation.
Yes, they’ll succeed in smearing Iran and marring this election in the minds of those who prejudged them before they took place. The CIA/Mossad duo can be proud of the pain and confusion they’ve caused in Iran and worldwide. Now they’ve got some video of some angry Iranians to show their bosses for a pat on the head. But if they think that they can destabilise Iran by getting a few thousand Iranians out on the streets of Teheran, they’re even dumber than I thought.
Manucher Ghorbanifar
Mir Hussein Mousavi
Indeed, connect the dots below, get acquanted with Manucher Ghorbanifar and find out a little more about Hussein Mousavi, the U.S.-backed candidate before you buy the western media line about fraud in the 2009 Iranian election.
– Les Blough, Editor
——————————————————————————–
June 14, 2009
Some Dots You May Want To Connect
Moon of Alabama Editorial
…In any ordinary business, Manucher Ghorbanifar would cut an implausibly mysterious figure. Officially, he has been a shipping executive in Tehran and a commodities trader in France. By his own account he was a refugee from the revolutionary government of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, which confiscated his businesses in Iran, yet he later became a trusted friend and kitchen adviser to Mir Hussein Mousavi, Prime Minister in the Khomeini government. Some U.S. officials who have dealt with Ghorbanifar praise him highly. Says Michael Ledeen**, adviser to the Pentagon on counterterrorism: “He is one of the most honest, educated, honorable men I have ever known.” Others call him a liar who, as one puts it, could not tell the truth about the clothes he is wearing. The Murky World of Weapons Dealers, Time Magazine, Jan. 19, 1987
…On or about November 25, 1985, Ledeen received a frantic phone call from Ghorbanifar, asking him to relay a message from the prime minister of Iran to President Reagan regarding the shipment of the wrong type of HAWKs. United States v. Robert C. McFarlane, Walsh Iran Contra Report, 1985
…Franklin, along with another colleague from Feith’s office, a polyglot Middle East expert named Harold Rhode, were the two officials involved in the back-channel, which involved on-going meetings and contacts with Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar and other Iranian exiles, dissidents and government officials.
…The administration’s reluctance to disclose these details seems clear: the DoD-Ghorbanifar meetings suggest the possibility that a rogue faction at the Pentagon was trying to work outside normal US foreign policy channels to advance a “regime change” agenda not approved by the president’s foreign policy principals or even the president himself. Iran-Contra II?, Washington Monthly, September 2004
…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 Finding was focused on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.” Preparing the Battlefield, The New Yorker, July 7, 2008
…The Ukrainian Orange phenomenon was modeled quite explicitly on the example of the Rose Revolution, which featured a disputed election, massive youth-oriented street protests, and plenty of subsidies from U.S. government agencies. The ‘Color’ Revolutions: Fade to Black, Antiwar, September 29, 2006.
…The Pentagon and US intelligence have refined the art of such soft coups to a fine level. RAND planners call it ‘swarming,’ referring to the swarms of youth, typically linked by SMS and web blogs, who can be mobilized on command to destabilize a target regime. Color Revolutions, Geopolitics and the Baku Pipeline”, Engdahl, (no date)
…Even before the count began, Mousavi declared himself “definitely the winner” based on “all indications from all over Iran.” He accused the government of “manipulating the people’s vote” to keep Ahmadinejad in power and suggested the reformist camp would stand up to challenge the results.
…”It is our duty to defend people’s votes. There is no turning back,” Mousavi said, alleging widespread irregularities. Iran declares win for Ahmadinejad in disputed vote, Associated Press, June 13, 2009
Thanks for the last two snippets, they tally very well with what is known about the Vienna incident during the early nineties.
This leaves the question, was Mousavi involved in the US contra scandal, or was he just doing ‘his thing’?
History Repeating Itself…
http://tinyurl.com/yuv62m
“The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people,” wrote Ken Ballen, president of Terror Free Tomorrow: the Center for Public Opinion, and Patrick Doherty of the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation.”
“They pointed out that their opinion poll, carried out between May 11 and May 20, “showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin?”greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday’s election.”
“The two specifically rebutted claims by Mousavi supporters that the fact that as an ethnic Azeri he failed to win a larger share of the Azeri vote proved that the totals were rigged. The poll, they said, showed that Azeris also favored Ahmadinejad 2 to 1 over Mousavi.”…
http://tinyurl.com/mk73vv
Eddie,
If you want meaningful debate, start by using rational thought and common sense in you contributions.
It’ll come with time, if you persevere.
JJ
Exactly. This is a refreshing reminder of the underlying dynamics. Thank you, whoever you are, for posting the info.
The effect of the mainstream media firestorm is to induce a kind of psychosis so that it becomes difficult to think clearly, difficult to challenge ‘received wisdoms’ and ‘common sense’. It is akin to PR marketing strategy – no accidnet, for as one might expect, input form psychologists underpins both political and commercial propaganda techniques.
There is also the very real phenomenon, about which I talked earlier this year, of people being paid to seek out and disrupt ant-establishment and especially anti-Zionist blogs; as anyone who has read my material, I am not obsessed about this, it is simply an observation of the lobbying, realpolicking and manipulation engaged in by the Israeli state and its associated propagandist organisations. Current target: Iran.
Remember, this is psy-ops and I-ops we’re dealing with. I am almost certain that Craig Murray’s blog, for some time, will have been a target of such infiltration. The aim? To manipulate public opinion at all levels in order to distract people from learning and recognising the truth.
For an imbecile, Eddie does get people’s backs up. He is a troll, seriously deranged and a bigot. Lets Ban him !
Most of you people are an absolute fucking disgrace. A million brave people demonstrating on the streets of Tehran against a rigged election, for freedom and democracy and you call them CIA stooges. A fascistic government that has blocked telephones, internet and satellite links in a bid to retain its power. How far have you fallen? Have you no morals, no principles left?
I suppose it is no surprise, after the events of the past few years when we have seen people like your pal Galloway ally themselves with some of the most unsavoury elements in British society. We are all Hizbollah now, eh? Indeed, left and right join together in praise of fascism. Disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful.