Iranian Students: America’s Hidden Ally
Students in Tehran risk their lives to demand freedom and democracy. Will we stand beside them or let them down?
The United States’ best ally in the war against radical Islam is the one that the State Department either refuses to see or chooses to ignore: the people of Iran. Anti-mullah sentiment is widespread in the country, particularly among the women and the youth, who courageously stand up to the regime that can beat, jail, and torture them without fear of reprisal or punishment from the international community. Yet, even when facing the personification of evil, the Iranian people stand strong and are in search of allies in the West to broadcast their message.
The recent events at Amir Kabir University in Tehran serve as a testament to this fact. On February 21, students began a large sit-in, amounting to 500 protesters, according to the Iranian who sent me a report on the event. The photos and footage sent to me confirmed that large crowds were present. The protest was sparked by the regime’s detention of four student activists who had begun a hunger strike while in prison, the banning of five other students from the university’s premises, and the decision by the government to bury the coffins of soldiers from the Iran-Iraq war at the university. The regime has used this tactic in the past to suppress the freedom of movement in Iran, as it is illegal to “disrespect” these burial grounds by having large gatherings that don’t pay tribute to their sacrifice. It also gives the mullahs’ henchmen a reason to drop in without warning.
Chanting things like “Students will die but never bow down” and “Death to dictatorship,” the protesters clearly identified themselves to the regime’s spies. According to the report sent to me, 20 students were disciplined by the university and the families of some of the protesters received threatening phone calls.
Undeterred, the protesters continued their demonstrations into a second day and then into a third day. According to the Iranian who sent me the information, 60 student protesters were injured by the regime’s forces, of which 20 were in “very bad” condition, and 120 students, including 30 females, had been arrested.
Amil Imani, an Iranian democratic activist in the U.S., writes that the website of the university’s newsletter also reported on the clashes during the protest, describing how “chest-beating mourners brought the martyr coffins yesterday morning. Before the parade, security forces, Basiji campus police, Revolutionary Guards, plain-clothed intelligence officers, armed vigilantes known as Ansar-e Hezbollah (a violent Islamist organization under the unofficial sway of the supreme leader), and even the fire brigade gathered inside and around the university compounds.”
“The security forces and vigilantes used clubs, tear gas sprays, iron knuckles, knives, and other weapons in order to wound the protesting students. At least 25 have been arrested and nine hospitalized with knife wounds and other injuries so far, and the fighting continues as we speak. Another student slogan repeated on the website: Ansar commits the crime, the leader supports it,” Imani quotes the newsletter as saying.
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Ryan Mauro is the founder of WorldThreats.com and the director of intelligence at the Asymmetrical Warfare and Intelligence Center (AWIC). He’s also the national security researcher for the Christian Action Network and a published author. He can be contacted at TDCAnalyst@aol.com.
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21 Comments
1. Marc Malone:When they begin to protest against Islam, rather than the government, then I’ll get interested. Until then, they are Islamists waiting to happen. We could help them and live to regret it.
Mar 4, 2009 - 12:45 am 2. typos_R_us:What Marc said. Ryan, Islam is the problem, the Mad Dog Mullahs are just a symptom. Ask any medical doctor about the difference between curing the disease and treating the symptoms.
Mar 4, 2009 - 4:10 am 3. LogicalUS:In this case the Rx is the same. JADM’s will treat the symptom AND cure the disease.
Put down the Mad Dog Mullahs, just as you would any other rabid animal, then JDAM the Mosques that preach Jihad. I lived and worked for a decade in the Islamic Crescent. Muslims will see the destruction of their places of worship by the west as the will of Allah and a message from Allah to change their ways. After all, If Allah wasn’t pissed with the Mad Dog Mullahs, he would stop the West, or at least provide Muslims with the tools to do so.
The students ( Taliban, to use the word in it’s precise meaning)) you so admire are the next generation of Mad Dog Mullahs. This cycle has been going on for almost 1400 years. Lets end it this go-a-round.
Obama and his leftist nuts have turned their back on oppressed people worldwide in the name of “peace”. They seek accommodation with oppressive governments in classic pacifist appeasement.
The great spread of liberty begun by President Bush has been sharply shut down by this Leftist. I suspect his mentors have taught him well that humanity is really NOT up to all that liberty and freedom and need the control of totalitarians like their beloved Soviets. Ayers is a profound admirer of Chavez, Lenin and Castro while Wright loves Hamas and Hezbollah.
Amazing really that Liberals harbor the delusions of supporting liberty and freedom.
Mar 4, 2009 - 5:39 am 4. Craig:“Students in Tehran risk their lives to demand freedom and democracy. Will we stand beside them or let them down?”
Uh..is this a trick question? Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are rolling out appeasements faster than Al Gore in a buffet line.
Mar 4, 2009 - 6:30 am 5. Anonymous:Man my friend was there. He lived in my town for 3 years, his mom parents were Iranian and came over pre-911 for business and he went to high-school with me. The pictures he sent were pretty cool.
Mar 4, 2009 - 6:53 am 6. Hugh:Support freedom for Iran ..http://www.activistchat.com/blogiran/
Mar 4, 2009 - 7:31 am 7. NWMA:The people of Iran are lovers of freedom. We need to support them anyway we can. You have mullahs and wakos with the guns and money waiting for a well jumping butt boy to end the world. The Farsi are a great people, some of the very best Americans are from there.
This is a fact.
Mar 4, 2009 - 8:42 am 8. Anonymous:Yo Dawg,
Dis is like some serious insied dope stuff. Ryan is ma faverit writer guy who writes things. I revewed his book on amazon becuz it is soooooo good.
Piece
Mar 4, 2009 - 3:43 pm 9. WestGuard:Let’s not forget that during the recent Israeli Gaza offensive that 70,000 of these freedom seeking Iranian students offered to be suicide bombers against Israel.
Or was that just propaganda created by the Ahmadinejad regime?
Mar 4, 2009 - 6:30 pm 10. Robo:American policy makers will never want any American government stand against Islamic regime in Iran. They in fact started Islamization of the middle east themselves with Libyan Moamar Qadafi and continued with Pakistan in 1976 and then Iran in 1979. This trend continued with creation of Islamic republic in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. American policy maker elite supported Islamization of Turkey in the name of democracy and have been insisting on Islamization of Egypt since a long time ago. So if anyone thinks that American governments are interested in helping anyone fight Islamic fundamentalists then you should think again!
American military industries have sold over 2 trillion dollars of conventional weapon junk to three of Arab nations in Persian Gulf since the war between Iran and Iraq broke out. This matter has grown worse after Americans passed the blue print for making A bomb to Iranian government through a covert operation in an IAEA meeting. AS a result of unstability in the region, the control of oil price has been smoothly transfered from OPEC to Texas while most Americans blame others for the high gas prices! The story is not as simple as it looks my friends. Islamic regime in Iran serves the purpose for some people both in US and Europe and if US government ever wanted to stop Islamists, it would never move against Saddam. As far as the style of “democracy” which is inspired and propagated by US and its allies for middle east nations, … just give me a break!
Mar 4, 2009 - 7:03 pm 11. Sk8 Punk:Iranians are amazing people. Don’t confuse the Persians with others in the Islamic world. They really do want western style freedom. It’s just that no one in the west gives a damn.
Mar 4, 2009 - 7:47 pm 12. harry:http://rebelsk8.blogspot.com/
Post 10 Robo:
Mar 4, 2009 - 8:04 pm 13. Robo:Get help. Even the left couldn’t make up better conspiracy theories. Can you show some proof? Real proof, not opinion.
Harry, post #12
If you can explain this:
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=6300
or: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/jan/05/energy.g2
and tell me what is the true reason that so called “intelligence” agency and highest authorities in US administration should do such things then I will give you all the explainations in this world! Have you ever wondered why representative of American administration told the former president of Pakistan that they would bomb Pakistan to stone age if they did not cooperate? Go read this in the book written by Parviz Musharaf, the former president of Pakistan. Conspiracy is not theory my friend and if everything is in such rosy harmony then good for you but remember that during the same period that Libya was “enemy” of United States, an official of US government and brother of President Carter (Billy was his name), spent time there and received money from Qadafi for whatever reason. This matter was even apparently investigated by some people in congress but did not go anywhere. I don’t care about leftist conspiracy theories (whatever that means) but you can not close your eyes on many facts which are all around you and expect to have a clear view of everything! You need to do a little homework my friend.
Mar 5, 2009 - 4:42 am 14. NWMA:. Sk8 Punk:
Iranians are amazing people. Don’t confuse the Persians with others in the Islamic world. They really do want western style freedom. It’s just that no one in the west gives a dam
Not true, some of us love the Persian people and it’s rich culture as we do any people that only want a better life through hard work. Ask anyone from Iran and they will tell you what makes America great is the opportunities. That’s why obama is such a threat to our nation. He is a communist.
Mar 5, 2009 - 6:20 am 15. typos_R_us:Harry, Robo is basically correct, at least as far as his facts go. Carter letting the Shah go was a SERIOUS mistake. One reason he did that was because the CIA, which put the Shah in power, had a change of the guard and the new CIA types thought that the Shah was playing footsie with the Soviets and he needed to go. Khomeni was thought to be a Ghandi like figure by Carter and the CIA mavens of that period.
http://www.thefinalmovebeyondiraq.com/2007/07/jimmy-carter-radical-islams-ally.html
The idea was to remove the Shah and replace him with some old monk type figure-head. The US trained general were supposed to actually run things. Like most CIA ops, it didn’t quite work out that way.
Mar 5, 2009 - 5:09 pm 16. Robo:Unlike Robo I don’t think the US efforts in the Middle East reflect malice, just incompetence. Actual US meddling in the Islamic crescent started long ago, shortly after the US created itself. It got serious in 1942. FDR considered WW2 as an excellent opportunity to end the European colonial system, which we did. When the US landed in North Africa, the first thing they did was pass out million of copies of the Atlantic Charter, which was the US-UK agreement the UN was based on. Basically it promised freedom to all the European colonies. It fired up revolutionary types all across North Africa. It led to Algeria getting rid of the French and Egypt tossing out the Brits.
That would have been good IF Truman ( the worst President EVER, worse then Peanut Carter) had followed up on it and provided the Arabs with some sort of Democratic government.
Truman was out manuvered by State and the Marshal type program to help the Arabs into Democracy was aborted.
Then came Ike and the Dulles boys took over.
Things went downhill from there. Current CIA and State bureaucrats are mostly pro-Arab. The Usurper has no more chance of out maneuvering them then my 2 year old grandson does of hitting a Nolan Ryan fastball.
Typos, post # 15,
I am sorry but you are exactly on the same track as the other guy. The problem is that it was not Carter or General Huyser who helped in coming of Khomeini and establishment of Islamic regime in Iran. If you study declassified documents of CIA and state department, you could clearly see that Khomeini was a known figure since start of his appearance in Iran’s politics in 1963. Carter was no saint to wish a “holy man” to rule in Iran! This is all nonsense! The whole story was about oil because 1979 was the deadline for oil consortium (including 6 American oil companies) to get out of Iran according to pressure by previous regime of Iran.
There is ample amount of evidence even in declassified documents of US government to give you a clear picture on that. The article that you posted is a very superficial story and is probably part of the funny game of democrats vs republicans and has no real substance. A similar article was published recently stating that Nixon and Ford had contributed to coming of Islamic regime in Iran and even that is not completely true! Let’s just say, it was a “bipartisan” operation to bring a “holy man” for the sake of oil, in which CIA was just an empty shell to mislead observers while the real work was done by DIA and US Naval Intelligence organization!
Mar 5, 2009 - 7:00 pm 17. Marie Claude:seems that Robo corroborates what it is said here too
http://www.iran-resist.org/article3972.html
Mar 6, 2009 - 2:07 pm 18. typos_R_us:US Naval Intelligence organization!
Yep, I was right there on the edge of it. You see OIL as the prime factor but the players didn’t. It was who controlled the OIL that mattered. So the prime consideration was what the Soviets were up to. Plus taking Iran would give the Soviets their long cobeted warm water port.
Mar 6, 2009 - 4:09 pm 19. Robo:Look at a globe of earth from the top. The CCP was surrounded. The best place for them to do a breakout was Iran. That was of greater concern then OIL. Plenty of OIL. Despite all the dire predictions, we haven’t run out yet. Improved technology makes OIL available today that wasn’t available 30 or 40 years ago.
Remember this was 10 years before the Soviet collapse. IIRC in 1979, the USA was the worlds #1 OIL producer. The DOE knew that wouldn’t last so ME OIL was seen more as a subject for the future. Which is now. The prime consideration at that time was the cold war.
The USA has been messing around in the third world since day one. I blame the Department of State.
The usurper will have to start a war to fix the economy. I just wonder where he will start it. Since he is a coward, I expect it to be some 3rd world country.
I agree that cold war was an important factor but whether it was prime consideration or not is subject to debate. Iran was in much more stable condition as a non-communist nation prior to 1979 rather than after that and the threat of communism and soviets was very close to non existent if not totally absent. In regards with the issue of cold war and soviets, it was refusal of previous Iranian regime of cooperation with west to support Afghan mujahedin in western region of Afghanistan which added to the reasons that western nations, with leadership of United States, decided to destroy previous system. This came after creation of Islamic republic in Pakistan and then creation of Taliban movement with the help of Ben Ladin and based on proposition and under supervision of Mr. Brezezinski. But the issue of oil existed long before that and since early 1960’s that Iran had increased pressure on oil companies to agree with bigger share of oil revenue for Iranians.
It is very true that cold war and refusal of Iranian government in cooperating with west to bring soviets to its knees in Afghanistan (giving a Vietnam to Soviets, as Mr. Brezezinski put it) played a role but I don’t believe anyone in the west was worried that Soviets would make such move in Iran like they did in Afghanistan (at least there is no sign of such concern in any of the communication documents of western governments) to reach to warm waters. Considering the advancements in naval technology, I don’t believe soviets really needed any warm waters since long time ago but that drum had been beaten by British continuously to justify their colonialistic ambitions in that region. Even oil was not a big attraction for soviets as they had much bigger oil reserves in the territories under their control in central Asia and Ghafghaz region. In fact, oil in those regions played a big role in decision by western governments to make their determining move to break the soviet union and it paid off! American oil companies are now busy making money in the same territories which were part of soviet union not very long ago!
Mar 6, 2009 - 6:14 pm 20. Arik:Nonsense to all of you. The only movements who have successfully overthrown governments, Iran included, had a dedicated cadre of well-trained trigger pullers. This is not India or the Civil Rights movement. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. will mow down any opposition I guarantee there won’t be any student willing to shoot back.
Mar 7, 2009 - 10:02 am 21. typos_R_us:“threat of communism and soviets was very close to non existent if not totally absent.”
We know that now. In the 70’s they didn’t.
Arik, not sure we are on the same wavelength here.
The CIA has overthrown several governments. mostly in the 50’s and 60’s. Read all about it;
http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/church/contents_church_reports.htm
It was established policy by the Dulles brothers, who ran State and the CIA as a two headed monster.
Mar 7, 2009 - 10:06 pmIf you really want to read up on the nitty gritty details, find ” The Armies of Ignorance” by Willaim R, Corson.
He covers operation ‘Red Cap’ in considerable detail. Nothing on the web about the real Red Cap. The NSA ran a web spider and pulled it all down. All that is left is the cover story. The Church Committe, which is referenced in the URL above, had some Red Cap stuff, IIRC about the CIA ops in Chile, Lebanon and Spain, but not all of it has been declassified yet.