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Andrew Sullivan, who has done a very good job of linking the various internet postings in the Iranian civil strife, said this amusing and absurd video was “why Obama was watching his words” on Iran. If that is valid, and this crude anti-American propaganda is effective, then it hardly matters what an American government says, the people are so paranoid and gullible. (There is evidence to support this contention.)
We see the government video quite differently. The video shows that the Iranian government is very concerned about “secret messages” coming in over satellite TV, and about the use of the internet for subversive purposes. The video makes the point that if you plot against the government you will get caught because the government has spies everywhere.
The creepiest element is that the bad guy (pro-American) in the film gets caught because his sister rats him out by calling 113, the national hotline to the secret police. Question: if a government is that paranoid and its security apparatus is deployed against the people in such a gross and obvious way, why should we be concerned that pointing out the truth offends them?
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:41 am
These kind of home grown terrorist exist to some extent in every country and there are probably also propaganda films warning of them everywhere too. Therefore, I don’t believe this video proves anything special about Iran to support either Andrew Sullivan’s point.
On Obama’s silence: They are blaming the U.S. now even though he is so soft on them that he can almost be considered a regime apologist. So, the excuse that he does not want the U.S. to be blamed for interfering is just plain old lameness and cowardice in the face of bullies. Maybe someday we will oppose a regime that likes us and will not blame us, then he can shine with confidence.
June 23rd, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Some sanity from Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan’s primary speech writer and Special Assistant:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is among other things a Holocaust denier, has in effect been rebuked by half his country, and through free speech, that most painful way to lose your reputation, which has broken out on the streets. He can no longer claim to speak for his people. The rising tide of the young and educated seems uninterested in reflexively hating the West and deriving their meaning from that hatred.
To refuse to see all this as progress, or potential progress, is perverse to the point of wicked. To insist the American president, in the first days of the rebellion, insert the American government into the drama was shortsighted and mischievous. The ayatollahs were only too eager to demonize the demonstrators as mindless lackeys of the Great Satan Cowboy Uncle Sam, or whatever they call us this week. John McCain and others went quite crazy insisting President Obama declare whose side America was on, as if the world doesn’t know whose side America is on. “In the cause of freedom, America cannot be neutral,” said Rep. Mike Pence. Who says it’s neutral?
Mr. Obama was restrained, balanced and helpful in the crucial first days, keeping the government out of it but having his State Department ask a primary conduit of information, Twitter, to delay planned maintenance and keep reports from the streets coming. Then he made a mistake, telling the New York Times in terms of our national security there is little difference between Mr. Ahmadinejad and his foe, Mir Hossein Mousavi, which may or may not in the long run be true but was undercutting of the opposition.
What now? Americans, and the West, should be who they are, friends of freedom. Iranians on the street made sure they got their Twitter reports and videos here. They trust us to spread the word through our technology. A lot of the signs they held were in English. They trust us to be for change and to advance their cause, and they’re right to trust us.
Should there at this point, more than a week into the story, be a formal declaration of support from the U.S. government? Certainly it’s time for an indignant statement on the abuses, including killings and beatings, perpetrated by the government and against the opposition. It’s never wrong to be on the side of civilization. Beyond that, what would be efficacious? It must be asked if a formal statement of support for the rebels would help them. And they’d have a better sense of it than we.
If the American president, for reasons of prudence, does not make a public statement of the government’s stand, he could certainly refer, as if it is an obvious fact because it is an obvious fact, to whom the American people are for. And that is the protesters on the street. If he were particularly striking in his comments about how Americans cannot help but love their brothers and sisters who stand for greater freedom and democracy in the world, all the better. The American people, after all, are not their government. Our sentiments are not controlled by the government, and this may be a timely moment to point that out, and remind the young of Iran, who are the future of Iran, that Americans are a future-siding people.
June 24th, 2009 at 4:14 am
Ms Noonan mostly states the obvious. This is not leadership and never gets tough things done. Reagan’s great success in this area was the result of his audacious willingness to say what made the enemies of freedom uncomfortable and gave people hope that they were not alone. It fired up freedom seekers far beyond what he was aiming at. But maybe all Obama is aiming at is that conditions-free meeting with Ahmadinejad. That will not go well anyway, so I really don’t agree with the strategy even if it works. Those Iranian patriots have already decided this is worth dying for, they just don’t want to die for nothing which is what WE will get from this regime as well.
June 24th, 2009 at 8:28 am
Twitter’s expected downtime for their maintenance was 1 hour. It was re-scheduled to occur at 1:30 am Tehran time.
I think Obama is trying to get a free boost as he is really trying to do a little as possible.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/collaboration/?p=655