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Commentators are “explaining” the Iran elections based on their own illusions, delusions, emotions, and vested interests. Whether or not the poll results predic
by bint 17y ago
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.”
--> http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts06192009.html http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts06192009.html
Yep, a full blown infowar is what we have here.
- Devilboy 17y agoThat's what I don't understand: Weeks before the election several polls (including ones by Western newspapers) predicted a 2 to 1 win for Ahmadinejad. These predictions were all fairly uncontroversial as far as I could tell. Now suddenly everywhere I look there's stories about young photogenic Iranians getting shot at while protesting the election results. I keep hearing about claims that the election was rigged but so far I've not seen anything concrete. The only way I can make sense of this is by assuming infowar / agent provocateur / other covert tactics employed by the USA. Iran has been a thorn in the side of America's middle-eastern foreign interests for a long time, and poking holes in it's democratic process is an important step. I can't even visit Reddit at the moment, every second story is about Americans getting angry at Ahmadinejad.
- ellyagg 17y agoSorry, did I miss something? Protesters are being shot and killed in Iran, right? American progressives haven't deluded themselves to the point where they think this is just as likely to happen in today's America as it is in Iran, have they?
- siavosh 17y agoi think the reason some people are throwing around the cia/black-ops hypothesis is that all they've ever heard about iran is in the last couple years. which basically meant pursuit of nuclear weapons and a holocaust denying Ahmadinejad. but i think it might help to put the whole thing in a broader context. what we're seeing right now is another chapter of the iranian revolution. it's been a long story that it started in '79. and these protests themselves are morphing from simply an electoral protest to one that is a continuation of the student protests during khatami's presidency a decade ago. america has had zero to no presence in iran, much less any tangible way of 'destabalizing' the regime. the money the cia has been throwing at this problem for the last decade has been at things like VOA (voice of america radio broadcasts inside iran) or tacit moral support for minority separatists in iran. this is not to deny that the west has huge stakes on the outcomes of this, as evidenced by the US government's intervention with the twitter downtime thing and the significant media coverage, or maybe even fake twittering and blogging. but given the choice of whether an autocratic paranoid regime has rigged the vote to suppress its young population OR a secret cia operation is pulling the levers of what by all accounts seems like an organic grass roots social uprising--i choose the former.
- earl 17y agoAll of the election polls that I'd seen predicting a 2-1 win also had 40-60 percent of the respondents not responding. That they all broke for Ahmadinejad seems... unlikely.
- bilbo0s 17y agoHello, I am putting together information on the Iranian elections for a report I am doing on the political risks of international investment. The information that I have collected thus far indicated that the highest rate of non respondents in the indicated polls was 43%. That was the rate for the Washington Post poll. Would it be possible for you to share the polling data with me for the polls with non respondent rates higher than 43%. That data would be EXTREMELY helpful to me.
- fuzzmeister 17y agoThis recent news flash seems to give more solid evidence of electoral tampering: "Iran's Guardian Council says the number of votes collected in 50 cities surpass the number of people eligible to vote." Since the Guardian Council is a highly conservative organization, it can be reasonably surmised that any possible fraud would have to be rather significant for them to make a statement about it. To read a highly detailed analysis of the election, and signs that it could have been stolen, read this recent piece from The Economist: http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13856232&source=hptextfeature http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displayStory.c...
- siavosh 17y ago"Chatham House and the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Saint Andrews said that in two conservative provinces, Mazandaran and Yazd, the number of votes cast exceeded the number of eligible voters." "The study also said that the official results suggest Mr. Ahmadinejad won the support of 47.5 percent of those who backed reformist candidates in 2005. The study's authors called that figure "highly implausible."
- dflock 17y agoThis is the original study from Chatham House & The Institute of Iranian Stuides, St. Andrews Uni: http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/14234_iranelection0609.pdf http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/14234_iranelection0609....