Voices of the Disappeared

And the oft-repeated charge of them being anti-government propagandists doesn't hold up well either, since:

a) We who have been writing about their reports have typically cross-referenced their reports and secured independent verification multiple times; and

b) Most of the things that were reported by Twitter account users have been strongly borne out by actual events. In fact, their reliability has been far greater than the predictions and reports of bloggers from elsewhere (regardless of their track records and/or notoriety) or even the ever-timid mainstream media.

I think the ill-founded notion that these Twitter users are all Israeli <em>agents-provocateurs</em> has been pretty thoroughly discredited by now.

The first article that put this myth forward suggested that the leading Twitterers from Iran were controlled by the freakin' Jeruasalem Post of all things.

The idea was ludicrous anti-Semitic crap then, and it's ludicrous anti-Semitic crap now. Likely cobbled together by the Ministry of Culture.

So, yeah, maybe there are some propagandists out there. We should all watch what message we're repeating, and on behalf of whom.

In case you don't recall it, here is the source of that particular bit of propaganda and disinformation, which is just as clearly meant to smear Israel is it was to discredit the movment.

the entire view that there was US interference in the recent Iranian unrest to anti-Semitism,

Nope. The regime's propagandists are not just relying on anti-semitism, but also the xenophobia of the more majority of the Ahmedinejad-Khamenei axis' supporters. Anti-semitism is just one of the ham-handed tactics, as it has been for many years now.

There is plenty of evidence that the US has been intent upon subverting the Iranian regime for years now, and it has absolutely nothing to do with anti-Semitism.

Half-right. I agree that the U.S. has been intent on subverting the Iranian regime. For many years more than you suggest. The first one they subverted was Mossadegh's. But I have not seen any evidence that the students - who are the main engine of this revolution - are being manipulated by anything more than a desire to be done with brutal repression.

It's too bad you didn't read all the way to the bottom of your linked source, as you would have read this:

Incorrect assumption, and facts not in evidence. In fact, I have read that particular article several times before rejecting it as a piece of propaganda only slightly more believable than the regime's contention that the BBC killed Neda. Just because someone puts in a disclaimer doesn't let them off the hook. I don't care if the writer of that article is half-Martian, the intent of it was to imply that Israeli interference was the main driver behind the unrest. As for pointing the finger at the far-right in Israel as opposed to anywhere else, that's disingenous bull@!$%#. First of all, that was put only in the disclaimer; meanwhile the writer was blaming it on the JPost....hardly an organ of the zionist hard-core. And given the context and the target audience? Yeah, I'd call it anti-Semitic.

I consider your above posts a contemptibly blatant attempt to try and vilify those who have called the US on its meddling in Iran and who have exposed its propagandists/agent provocateurs.

You can consider it what you wish. There is no Saeed Mortazavi ready to punish you for what you consider. I do observe, though, that the people most vocal in promoting the idea that the U.S. has been 'meddling' are the Iranian state security apparatus. And I have to wonder why anyone would choose to support that side in this conflict.

I haven't failed to do anything, nor have I switched to anything. I really have little or no interest in convincing people who don't see the meritorious nature of the events that are taking place here, as you are making clear that you don't. I am merely trying to tell you what I believe, and as far as I know, I'm still entitled to believe what I wish. If you don't agree with me, you're entitled to that, too.

Don't fret: although I have seeded that article, the link goes to the source, not my column.

I don't know why I should fret about that...?

Okay, I read the article at the link. I found its analysis of the election results, essentially insisting that Ahamdi probably did win the election, to be laughable in the extreme and barren of understanding, which I found curious from an agency seemingly so representative, and I was gearing up for a detailed rebuttal of most of their so-called 'facts' (such as their point that three weeks before the election, Ahmadi had a lead...so?)

Until I dug a bit more and found out what they are representative of....(which fits, when you think about it).

CASMII Scam: IRI Lobby in Disguise:

Through CASMII, segments of the left and the anti-war movement in the United States have channeled their critique of the war and the current US administration to support the most radical elements of the Iranian regime. These American personalities and groups have clearly crossed the line and have become ardent advocates of one of the most notorious dictatorships of the modern history, with no regards for the Iranian people, the prime victims of these dictators.

CASMII, among other PR activities, regularly organizes trips for such groups in US to visit Iran. Upon their return, CASMII arranges orchestrated PR charades of the kind we often see from totalitarian regimes. The lead figure in organizing these trips is CASMII's president Rostam Pourzal. He is a radical anti-American and pro-mullahs regime individual, living in the United States. In an article, Pourzal invites the Americans to visit Iran:

Iran's New Diplomacy by Tourism
"It is past midnight and the news is keeping me awake with joy. After a quarter century my country of birth, Iran, is easing (undeclared) travel restrictions this week for the citizens of my adopted home, the United States. The Iranian government has announced even a $20 incentive for any travel agent who books a tour to Iran for a U.S. citizen. The unprecedented public welcome extended to American tourists is only the latest in a series of overtures from Tehran. Earlier this year Iranian authorities quietly upgraded America from "the Great Satan" to the friendlier "Global Arrogance" in their rhetoric."

Several groups have been handpicked and sent to Iran. Their trip diaries are both laughable and disgraceful. They remind me of one of the cold war era visits to the Soviet Union. The returned visitors praised Stalin and the joyful Gulags.

Recently, when the mullahs' wave of public mass hangings was condemned by international community, Phil Wilayto, who led the latest "People's Peace Delegation to Iran" responded to "these fallacious allegations against the Iranian regime":

American peace delegate to Iran responds to Daily Telegraph propaganda
"Yes, Iran has the death penalty, and uses it. But not nearly so often as the United States government, which also now has the largest prison population in the world, both in terms of absolute numbers and as a percentage of the population. Neither did we see any evidence of deep, mass anger with the Iranian government. We talked with Iranians from a wide range of occupations and social classes. People grumble about their economic situation, but most seem to blame the U.S.-imposed sanctions. Not everyone is happy with the religious and social restrictions, but that discontent seems to be mainly among the middle class, a distinct minority in Iran. The vast majority of the people are lower-income, and those are the ones who have benefited the most from the Revolution. For example, unlike in the U.S., health care is free, as is education. Women must cover their hair, arms and legs, but 60 percent of university students are now women, as are 30 percent of doctors. And most women we saw chose [emphasis is mine!] to wear the more conservative chador, the tent-like black veil, as opposed to the more secular manteau and head scarf."

But what do we expect from the "intellectual" traveler admiring women's ability to choose, when the tour guide (Rostam Pourzal) professes:

What Really Happened in Tehran on June 12? (Rostam Pourzal)
"Equal rights for women are actually not as popular in Iran as we wish … I was stunned during a recent visit to Iran to find that President Ahmadinejad is quite popular among women from all walks of life."

Such paradisiacal land is naturally guarded by peaceful soldiers like those in Switzerland as reported by another visitor:

Friendly American Encounter with Revolutionary Guards
"Both our delegation members and the (Revolutionary) Guards were visiting one of the famous wind towers in the ancient desert oasis city of Yazd. One of the guards asked us where we were from. When we said "USA," the whole crowd broke into smiles, waved their hands and began saying "Welcome!" and "friends!" … On the other hand, the administration of President George W. Bush is escalating its campaign to demonize Iran, its government and now its soldiers."

Ardeshir Ommani, one of the CASMII's main collaborators was so excited that he held several meetings to talk about his return from Iran. He wrote an article summarizing his experience titled "Iran today is a work in progress":

A return to Iran (Ardeshir Ommani) "The same with electricity: the streets of all cities and the main roads are brightly lit. The light poles of the electric lines run everywhere. Traveling along the highway between Esfahan and Shiraz, we were surprised to see workers with water trucks busily cleaning the dust and soot off the road signs and light reflectors to ensure safety of the travelers. What a change from 25 years ago!

Each family in the smaller rural farming village of Saman has a refrigerator. Some have clothes washers and dryers. Almost all have televisions. The living space per person seemed greater than in some New York apartments.

Healthcare is provided to all children, pre-natal care to pregnant women and care to senior citizens, all at no cost. Teams of nurses and doctors and primary healthcare personnel regularly visit the rural clinics, ensuring that the local municipalities properly provide services."

Returning from such a wonderful land of prosperity could be very painful. Another visitor explains her erotically agonizing goodbye:

Seeing the "real" Iran
"..by the time of my departure back home I was in love with the culture (both public and private worlds I witnessed) that I wept on the plane. The Japanese woman sitting next to me rolled her eyes and assumed that I was leaving behind a sexily spicy hot Iranian man. Perhaps this is true. I was dragged apart from a realm so attractive, unique! Iran was hotter than Casanova for me."

The essence of CASMII's campaign is probably best expressed by another visitor:

The real Iran... as I saw it
"We were treated to the best lamb briyani dinner by the mayor of Esfahan who reminded us that public relations begins and ends with people".

Hassan Daioleslam

cannot include vilifying all those with whom you disagree as anti-Semitic or supporters of the Iranian regime, which is what you are doing here.

Well, clearly I believe that this statement mischaracterizes 'what I am doing here'. If you think otherwise, please feel free to report the CoH violation to the staff, and they will take the appropriate action. Problem solved.

Perhaps you haven't been kept in the loop

Nope.

t's also very convenient to dismiss and ignore the facts instead of trying - and failing - to discredit them directly.

Well, now, there's the thing. You've already made up your mind that I would fail to discredit the so-called "facts", so why would I be foolish enough to bother trying? To be honest, I have better things to do than waste my time trying to convince you that the regime in Iran is brutal, dishonest and suppresses democracy. If you cannot see that from everything that's happened over the last month, there is no hope that humble old me will have any success. I simply decline to play that game.

I don't know why you even brought up the question of the speed of the vote count, as I don't recall mentioning it. Since the regime has already admitted that they received many more votes than there are people in Iran, I fail to see any value in pursuing the question of the legitimacy of the election further.

Finally, at the end of the day, I frankly don't even care if the election was legit or not. This is a criminal regime, put into place and maintaining its position by brute force and suppression, and regardless of the motives behind any shadowy alleged 'masterminds' whether they be the CIA, the Jerusalem Post or the reptilians from Zeta Reticuli, I would support the legitimate aspirations of the women, children, elderly and students of the Green Revolution.

As I said before, I frankly cannot understand why anyone would willingly serve as an apologist for the brutal Khameneite totalitarian dictatorship that is today's Iran (but not tomorrow's).

I don't know if you do or not, but if not, I don't see what your issue is here. If you don't support them, you should be pleased to see them toppled and the Iranians freed from their yoke of oppression, regardless of whether some of us have been providing moral support and how to treat the effects of Basiji acid burns.

Yet somehow, in all your comments, you seem to feel quite the contrary, implying -- just as the Ministry of Culture and the Republican Guard and Khamenei have -- that the entire movement is born of foreign agitators and state-sponsored meddling. (And if it isstate-sponsored, their frigging late with my cheque, dammit.)

And if you do support the regime, I'm sorry, but you're simply on the wrong side of history.

changing one bad situation for anotherchanging one bad situation for another

Once again, you've made your mind up in advance what the outcome will be, just as you did the success of any argument I might make that runs counter to your own viewpoint.

You may be concerned, as you claim, with human rights. But you don't seem very interested in the viewpoints of other humans. So, maybe it's just an intellectual exercise for you. So you can call it refusing to engage or whatever you want....but I do have better, and more constructive things to do than try and enlighten someone whose mind is clearly closed on the subject. This has already been a huge waste of my time.

it indicates that you don't know what happened in Iran

Hahaha.

Mousavi & company represent the financial elite. They do not represent moderate democracy. They were approved by the regime you loathe so much. They're not for liberalisation.

Jesus. Do you even know who Hossein Ali Montazeri is?? Your understanding about Iran is hopelessly outdated if you think the Mousavi/Montazeri/Karroubi/Khatami bloc is approved by the regime. Do a little bit of research, and then perhaps your "beliefs" will have more legitimacy - and hopefully your perpsective will become less clouded by whatever is interfering with it so much. And by research, I mean something more than watching CNN a couple of times a week.

A few more observations.

Alkimija said @#1.6:

The only actual events that I've seen which were reported in Twitter seemed to be reported in the media at approximately the same time.

Dead wrong. This may be some of the reason for your jaundiced and incorrect view about a lot of what's going on. It's possible that you haven't "seen" much in Twitter, otherwise you'd not how patently untrue this statement is. As just one example among many, on the Saturday following election day, Iranian Twitterers were reporting millions of people on the streets, and confirming their account by posting Twitpics taken from cell phones. Meanwhile, CNN was parroting Iran's state-run Press TV propaganda about there being no protests. "Nothing to see here...move along". CNN, and every other MSM outlet, were a minimum of 12 hours behind the actual events, and very often 24 hours behind. If you have actually paying any attention at all to the online coverage - Twitter and elsewhere - you'd have a clue about this.

As an "independent" source, Twitter sucks.

You don't seem to understand how journalism works either. Twitter isn't a source, it's a medium. The people who are posting on Twitter are the sources. And actually, the sources we've been using have been borne out far more often than the talking heads on CNN and others, who've been consistently wrong since the beginning. Still, we have been careful about noting what is confirmed and what is not, and specifying when a source is trusted or not. We have also been cross-comparing reports from a number of sources with whom we are familiar, to validate the reports from individual sources. Where the MSM started out blindly transmitting the regime's state-run media message, we have been hearing something from individuals on the ground, and then looking for three or more other unrelated sources to get confirmation. THAT is what's known as independent verification.

gent provocateurs, propagandists, almost certainly,

Yeah? Show me which ones. With Twitter handles, please. If they're all the ones I've been using, I'll stop posting on Newsvine immediately and forever. Otherwise your allegation is utterly baseless and uselessly unspecific. All you are saying is that the U.S. has a policy of propaganda and destabilization regarding states it regards as hostile. Which would be a @!$%#ing genius observation if it were anything different than what we've all known since at least the 1950s.

Now guess who's rolling their eyes?

I'm rather sick and tired of posting links to have them ignored: it's an offensive waste of my time.

Sadly, you are not in a position to enforce what people do and don't do with their personal time. You may be offended if you wish, but if you are really concerned that people are voting with their feet, you may wish to re-examine your position and the way in which you communicate it.

Now that you've failed to link those who've been calling the US on its meddling in Iran with anti-Semitism, you're switching tactics to trying to link those with that position to support for the Iranian regime: non sequitur.

From this comment, I wonder if you understand what a non-sequitur is. Or a tactic. To suggest that supporting the regime and anti-Semitism could be cognate is not a non-sequitur of any sort. Just to remind you, the regime is not exactly a fan of Israel.

Here's something that may help you to understand things a bit better. Inasmuch as I am not the biggest fan of the MSM, now that the 'breaking' component of this story is slowing down, they are starting to catch up. This WaPo article's analysis reaches some of the conclusions that we who've been intently following the story came to two or three weeks ago.

Tipping Point in Tehran: A Gathering Opposition Faces a Weakened Regime

The New Left is a de facto coalition of disparate interest groups that found common cause in anger after the election. The name comes from opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who was considered leftist as prime minister in the 1980s, and the opposition's goal is to open up the rigid theocracy.

Its organization, tools and strategy are weak, but it is the most extensive coalition since the 1979 revolution. The New Left includes former presidents, cabinet ministers and members of parliament as well as vast numbers of young people (the dominant demographic), the most politically active women in the Islamic world, white-collar professionals and inflation-sapped laborers.

Hmm. "leftist", "open up the theocracy", "vast numbers of young people", "politically active women", "professionals", "laborers".

Hardly sounds like the CIA-sponsored, big business boogeyman that you are attempting to conjure up. Sounds much more like the broad based coalition of opposition that we have been suggesting it is.