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Money Can’t Buy Us Democracy
NYTimes ^ | August 1, 2006 | AKBAR GANJI

Posted on 07/31/2006 9:53:31 PM PDT by humint

IN February, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asked Congress for $75 million to help Iran’s democratic opposition. In Iran, her request was widely discussed in the news media and in opposition circles. It became particularly controversial after an article in The New Yorker on March 6 suggested that this money might be used in an attempt to change the regime in Tehran with the help of Iranian democrats, particularly those living abroad. ...

What we need in our fight for freedom is not foreign aid but conditions that would allow us to focus all of our energies on the domestic struggle and to rest assured that no one is encouraging the regime’s oppression. We need to know that no one is providing the regime with new technologies for filtering the Internet, and that no one is making deals with the regime that give it financial support or psychological succor. ...

The American policy of confronting the Iranian regime’s nuclear adventurism is correct. But the rationale for opposing this adventurism should not be that the mullahs oppose the West and the United States. The West’s double standard on nonproliferation is not defensible. The entire Middle East must be declared a nuclear-free zone. Opposition to the dangerous process that has begun in the region — a process that the Islamic Republic has helped turn into a crisis — must be based on a more general call first for regional, then for global, nuclear disarmament. ...

The best help the world can offer us is to listen to the different voices of our society, and when forming a policy toward Iran or an image of its people, do not reduce our country to the regime that rules it most brutally.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: dos; iran; rice
Akbar Ganji, an investigative journalist, is the author of a forthcoming collection of writings on Iran’s democratic movement. This article was translated from the Persian.
1 posted on 07/31/2006 9:53:32 PM PDT by humint
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To: humint


2 posted on 07/31/2006 9:58:12 PM PDT by humint (...err the least and endure! --- VDH)
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To: humint

I seriously doubt the Founders would have given money to other countries to help them fight their governments.


3 posted on 07/31/2006 9:58:38 PM PDT by TeenagedConservative
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To: humint

I seriously doubt the Founders would have given money to other countries to help them fight their governments.


4 posted on 07/31/2006 9:58:56 PM PDT by TeenagedConservative
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To: humint
Akbar Ganji is a great hero whose name has been publicly mentioned by President Bush as someone treated horribly by the Iranian regime. The world's elites yawned, considering the source.

I don't 100% agree with his Op/Ed. To my mind, it should have waxed more Natan Sharansky. But it is excellent for this to appear in The New York Times. Now maybe the world's elite will be a little more cognizant of the freedom movement.

5 posted on 07/31/2006 10:01:42 PM PDT by NutCrackerBoy
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To: TeenagedConservative
I seriously doubt the Founders would have given money to other countries to help them fight their governments.

Why? They solicited assistance from the French.

6 posted on 07/31/2006 10:04:02 PM PDT by humint (...err the least and endure! --- VDH)
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To: humint
IN February, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asked Congress for $75 million to help Iran’s democratic opposition.

Way to go Rice!

7 posted on 07/31/2006 10:06:41 PM PDT by coconutt2000 (NO MORE PEACE FOR OIL!!! DOWN WITH TYRANTS, TERRORISTS, AND TIMIDCRATS!!!! (3-T's For World Peace))
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To: humint

Haha, I suspect that only worked one way. Washington specificly said we were not to get involved in foreign entanglements.


8 posted on 07/31/2006 10:07:57 PM PDT by TeenagedConservative
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To: humint
Money Can’t Buy Us Democracy

For a second I thought "Wow, the Times is coming out against Corzine?"

9 posted on 07/31/2006 10:10:59 PM PDT by Darkwolf377 (http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_04.htm)
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To: NutCrackerBoy
I don't 100% agree with his Op/Ed. To my mind, it should have waxed more Natan Sharansky. But it is excellent for this to appear in The New York Times. Now maybe the world's elite will be a little more cognizant of the freedom movement.

I agree with you. Ganji lacks moral clarity in this work. It is not altogether clear why the Iranian government let this particular former political prisoner jet set around the planet. Add to that, he's got the nuclear issue dead wrong. His story is however an effective focal point to raise awareness about Iran.

10 posted on 07/31/2006 10:12:06 PM PDT by humint (...err the least and endure! --- VDH)
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To: TeenagedConservative
Haha, I suspect that only worked one way. Washington specifically said we were not to get involved in foreign entanglements.

Certainly he did, shortly after the birth of these United States but how relevant is that warning under the auspices of globalization? Washington, as other founders, warned of threats too their young republic. Those alarms must be tempered with contemporary context as well.

11 posted on 07/31/2006 10:17:22 PM PDT by humint (...err the least and endure! --- VDH)
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To: humint
[ Money Can’t Buy Us Democracy ]

Of course it can.. Democracy is all about money. Democracy is MOB RULE... and Mobs are about money.. other peoples money..

Democracy is the source is socialism and socialism is about money..

12 posted on 07/31/2006 10:22:42 PM PDT by hosepipe (CAUTION: This propaganda is laced with hyperbole..)
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To: A. Pole
ARTICLE: What we need in our fight for freedom is not foreign aid but conditions that would allow us to focus all of our energies on the domestic struggle and to rest assured that no one is encouraging the regime’s oppression.

The Iranian government, through its constitution and its acts, defines itself by oppressing the Iranian people. It is not necessary to encourage oppression when every institution in that system is oppressive. One need only express this fact anywhere in the world to feel the regime's reprisals. Its intolerance of criticism touches legitimate journalists from all corners of our planet. Once facts critical of the dictatorship are published… forget about getting a journalist Visa to visit.

13 posted on 07/31/2006 10:32:30 PM PDT by humint (...err the least and endure! --- VDH)
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To: TeenagedConservative
Washington specificly said we were not to get involved in foreign entanglements.

Because he knew young America had a small, uncondensed population and was vulnerable to expanding and competing European empires. But that idea doesn't really work in today's world.

The founding fathers were not necessarily isolationists, as evidenced by the Monroe Doctrine.

14 posted on 07/31/2006 11:27:41 PM PDT by pcottraux (It's pronounced "P. Coe-troe.")
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