"Bad Intelligence" - "Americans, it would seem, are the ideal audience for propagandists...", page 4

Originally posted by dirk d
Siroos

Thanks for the post. Great work, far more than I could piece together at once but very true. Im glad that someone else see the real goals of this "war." As for Iran, Im sure you have a good picture of the current state but to add. I have been in Iraq for about five months now and seen a large unreported funding and support network for insurgents by Iran. One has to asume the US nows about it, right? Well we(army) arent doing a thing about. Its not even on our radar. Whats that about? Im not saying we are directly supporting Iran but we sure aren't working asgainst its will on this point. Its like the US government needs unrest here in Iraq to support a growth in forces that will only be used to lock down Iran in the future.

Dear Dirk - It's hard for me to believe that Iran would support the insurgents. Iran has much more to gain from the largely Shia controlled Iraqi government since it consists of many pro-Iranian elements. The insurgents are also very anti-Iranian as they largely consist of 1) Pro-Saddam loyalists 2) Anti-Shia Sunnis 3) Anti-Iranian and anti-Shia Al Qaida supporters. What kind of evidence have you seen that makes you conclude of Iran's involvement? I'm curious to know since you are there.

It's also hard for me to believe that the Iranian regime would engage in such a risky venture, since the U.S. could use it as a very good reason to attack Iran. One thing is for sure - Althoug the U.S. covertly supported and favored the current Iranian theocracy in the past, that is certainly not the case anymore. The Iranian regime was beneficial for the U.S. as long as it kept Iran in the dark. But with the years as it grew more progressive and pragmatic, the U.S. also grew more and more uneasy with it. For example, the U.S. virtually ignored the Iranian opposition' s calls for U.S. condemnation of Iran's human right's violations. I know, because back then I was in the Iranian opposition. The U.S. paid more attention to flies than to us. And yet in those days - the days when the revolutionary ideals where still burning with passion, and the radicalism of the regime matched it - repression was wide spread. Nobody in Iran dared to utter a word about politics. In the homes of people, they had art paintings or family portraits hanging on the walls with Ayatollah Khomeini's picture on the back of it, so that if someone knocked on the door, they would quickly turn the portrait or painting around so that the Ayatollah's portrait would show. Family members where afraid of each other as children were taught in school to spie on their own parents and siblings! That's the kind of repression we had back then.

Today, in comparison, restrictions as far as how women and men should dress are FAR, FAR less rigid. Iranian women dress fashionably and just throw a loose fitting scarf around their head. They wear makeup, high heels, tight fitting clothes and hold the hands of their boyfriends. In the past the so called "morale police" would scare the hell of people. People would run in panick as they spotted a jeep of the "morale police" and they would seek refuge in shops or cinemas, etc. I the past they would stop cars in the streets of Iran's cities and search for audio casette tapes of "unsuitable music", or they would ask for a marriage license if you were accompanied by a female in your car. Any violations could bring severe punishments. No such things anymore in today's Iran. If you would pick up an Iranian newspaper in Iran today, you will find how common it is for the editors and journalists to openly criticize many of the policies of the government in the harshest manners - In those days such things were unheard of.

So it's very disturbing to see that the U.S. TOTALLY ignored the Iranian opposition in those days when we really had reason to oppose the regime because of its immense repression, and today when Iran has changed so much for the better and become a much, much more open society, and a society where the citizens are enjoying more and more democratic and political freedoms than ever before - a time when so many Iranians feel so much hope for a better future and a real democratic, free and developed Iran - at such a time the U.S. shows its determination to harass Iran, to attack and invade Iran or to change the regime in Iran.

You can compare Iran today to the Soviet Union of Ghorbachov, and Iran back then to the Soviet Union of Stalin. If we compare the U.S. behaviour to Iran during these two different periods to the two periods of stalinism and the perestrojka of the Soviet Union, it would as if the U.S. kept quiet and ignored the Russian anti-communist opposition during the Stalinist era, but threatened Ghorbachov's reform friendly Soviet Union with a military attack, invasion and regime change as the official policy of the U.S. towards the Soviet Union of Ghorbachov, and a full scale support of different anti-Soviet dissident groups! That's a very good comparison actually.

As Iran today has achieved tremendous progress in developing the country and has great and very realistic ambitions of transforming Iran into a very vibrant and advanced country - economically, industrially, scientifically and culturally, the U.S. has adopted a direct and GENUINE confrontational and hostile stance towards Irain and is determined to undermine her in one way or another, or to replace the regime with a puppet regime similar to those in Jordan, Kuwait, UAE, Turkey, etc.

IF there is any kind of Iranian involvement in Iraq's insurgency, I'm certain that it is not the policy or actions of the Iranian regime, but possibly of certain very radical elements within the establishment who are not following the official line of the Iranian regime.

[edit on 1-5-2005 by Siroos]

[edit on 1-5-2005 by Siroos]