Re: black books
If you think this is an example, then you’re really reaching. Zunes
advocates “regime change” in Iran done by Iranians, not foreigners. I
suspect what annoys you is that he’s referring to you as one of the
credulous bloggers and editors, while curiously failing to name MRZine.
You forgot to quote this paragraph:
In apparent recognition of this trend, Congress last year approved
$75 million in funding for an administration request to support
various Iranian opposition groups. However, most of these groups
are led by exiles who have virtually no following within Iran or
any experience with the kinds of grassroots mobilization necessary
to build a popular movement that could threaten the regime’s
survival. By contrast, most of the credible opposition within Iran
has renounced this U.S. initiative and has asserted that it has
simply made it easier for the regime to claim that all pro- democracy groups and activists are paid agents of the United States.
So you really have nothing.
Doug
On Sep 9, 2007, at 10:18 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
In other words, you can’t offer up a single name. Posts that repeat this smear will go straight to the trash.
If you need an example, take these curious paragraphs from Stephen Zunes, which curiously fail to name “certain Western nongovernmental organizations.”
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/rw/4456 The United States and “Regime Change” in Iran Stephen Zunes | August 7, 2007
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
In an effort to head off such a popular uprising and discredit pro-democracy leaders and their supporters, Iran’s reactionary leadership has been making false claims, aired in detail in a series of television broadcasts during the third week of July, that certain Western nongovernmental organizations that have given workshops and offered seminars for Iranian pro-democracy activists on the theory and history of strategic nonviolent struggle are actually plotting with the Bush administration in offering specific instructions on how to overthrow the regime. On several occasions, Iranian authorities have arrested and tortured these activists, forcing them to sign phony confessions allegedly confirming these allegations.
Some Western bloggers and other writers, understandably skeptical of U.S. intervention in oil-producing nations in the name of “democracy,” have actually bought into these claims by Iran’s hardline clerics that prominent nonviolent activists from Europe and the United States—most of whom happen to be highly critical of U.S. policy toward Iran—are somehow working as agents of the Bush administration. These conspiracy theories have in turn been picked up by some progressive websites and periodicals, which repeat them as fact. The result has been to strengthen the hand of Iran’s repressive regime, weaken democratic forces in Iran, and strengthen the argument of U.S. neoconservatives that only military force from the outside—and not nonviolent struggle by the Iranian people themselves—is capable of freeing Iran from repressive clerical rule.