The Voice of America has become Voice of Tehran (With the Obama Administration's Blessing)

American Thinker ^ | 07/07/2010 | Ed Lasky

[SeekAndFind]

Fresh from declaring NASA's mission to be outreach towards and glorification of Islam, comes news that the Voice of America-long a beacon of hope to oppressed people around the world-has become a big mouthpiece for the mullahs via with the administration's "help."

From the superb Investors Business Daily editorial page:

Voice of America's mission is to promote U.S. interests abroad, which includes freedom in Iran. But VOA's Persian newscast has been hijacked by pro-Tehran broadcasters.

The Obama administration's sole strategy for defanging the Ahmadinejad regime is talk and more talk. Only, the propaganda that VOA is piping into Iran is helping the regime - thanks to deep-seated bias in favor of Tehran by Persian editors and producers whose salaries are paid by American taxpayers.

They've banned stories that cast the regime in a negative light, such as last year's violent postelection crackdown on protesters in Tehran. They even refused for several days to air video footage of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young Iranian woman whose murder became an international cause celebre.

More, VOA has retaliated against broadcasters who've complained it's too soft on the Iranian regime. One popular Persian-speaking broadcaster lost her anchoring job, having been demoted by a managing editor who happens to be the son of one of the Iranian mullahs.

Elham Sataki, former Washington-based anchor of VOA's "Straight Talk," says she was a victim of an effort to silence her pro-American, pro-democratic-reform views. She's now suing her boss - Ali Sajjadi, executive managing editor of VOA's Persian News Network - and other VOA defendants for millions.

On VOA/PNN's show "Static," Sajjadi admitted his father is an Iranian mullah. And in response to a question from a viewer, he trashed the Iranian opposition movement by saying that it was not his job to support the opposition. Sajjadi added it doesn't need support since it gets "a lot of grants these days" - grants being regime code word for CIA money.

Recent reporting flaws have prompted calls from Congress for an investigation of VOA's Persian desk. "We implore you to investigate the anti-American rhetoric reported to be coming from Voice of America - Persian," Rep. Trent Franks earlier this year wrote President Obama. The letter was signed by 68 other lawmakers.

Seems like an administration that tramples our Constitution, violates creditor rights, issues executive orders to do end runs around legislation, bullies past any sort of opposition, can snap its fingers and repair the Voice of America so it broadcasts the truth and no Persian propaganda, mullah-style. That won't happen because the Obama administration seems to like the Voice of America's new direction-even more towards the dark side.

Not so coincidentally, the station has given valuable airtime to Trita Parsi, the head of the de facto Iranian lobby in America  (the National Iranian American Council, or NIAC) and a man entangled in efforts to increase Iranian influence in Washington-and reportedly doing so while skirting federal laws.

A person who served on his group's advisory board, John Limbert, now occupies the Iran chair at the State Department -- after Dennis Ross "left" (or was forced out through machinations of the NIAC). The Washington Times reports:

On April 1, VOA gave airtime to Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), which has received millions of dollars in federal funds to promote democracy in Iran. Mr. Parsi expressed various odd positions, such as that Israel prefers to have hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power in Tehran, that members of the Obama administration know sanctions won't work but pursue them only as a bargaining position, and - most strangely - that even if Iran succeeded in establishing a democracy, the United States would nevertheless keep sanctions in place. VOA gave Mr. Parsi preferential treatment by banning callers while he was on the air even though he appeared on a call-in show; those who later took issue with his views were quickly cut off.

Mr. Parsi was the subject of an investigation by the Senate federal financial management subcommittee, which revealed that most of the federal funds received by NIAC were not used for their intended purpose and that he was working with a regime-controlled front posing as an Iranian nongovernmental organization. These and other developments have generated buzz in the pro-democracy Iranian blogosphere that VOA has become a pro-mullah outlet.

But it gets worse, and the administration has its fingerprints all over this scandal.

Apparently, Tehran is jamming signals of the Voice of America-perhaps even the pro-mullah broadcasts aren't subservient enough. The VOA wrote a note of protest over the jamming but Obama's National Security Council intervened to block that expression of displeasure (so it is fine for Tehran to jam American broadcasts designed-at least theoretically, if not in practice-to help support pro-democracy reformers in Iran) and, failing in that quest, worked to water down that protest.

At least three Republican Senators have a problem with that type of jamming and interference. The Washington Times continues:

Republican Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Sam Brownback of Kansas sent a letter to Broadcasting Board of Governors Executive Director Jeffrey N. Trimble on March 9 noting that such White House intervention constitutes "serious violations of U.S. law, policy and tradition related to the editorial independence of the taxpayer-funded" board of governors.

The White House intervening on behalf of the mullahs; who ever would have thought that would occur?

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Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left
by David Horowitz

Amazon Book Review:
"Vastly Illuminating!" September 25, 2004
By Kat Bakhu

"I had long wondered why people on the Left had the propensity to speak more positively about people who would slit their throats than they do about their own country, which affords them more freedom and opportunity than anywhere else. David Horowitz has answered that question thoroughly and convincingly in his Unholy Alliance. Where I felt bewildered and confused, I now feel crystal clear. Unholy Alliance is such a great book.

It begins with the leftist movements at the beginning of the 20th Century, and works its way up to the present day, exploring the anti-American attitude of these movements in detail. Horowitz shows that the enemies of the US back then are largely the same group today, operating under the same misperceptions, making the same mistakes, and pursuing the same impossible utopia.

Individual chapters are included on the Patriot Act (I was persuaded that it is a GOOD thing); the democratic flip-flop on Iraq once G.W. Bush implemented what they agreed with Clinton needed to be done; the driving components of the current anti-war movement; as well as chapters on individual personalities who are major spokespeople of the Left. Horowitz covers a lot of ground, and he covers it concisely and clearly. Unholy Alliance is richly informative without ever being boring or plodding.

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Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left -by David Horowitz
Not all dissent is equal, and Americans whose actions are calculated to give aide and comfort to the butchers who murdered 3,000 innocent people on September 11, 2001 are not patriotic at all... they are, in fact, quite the opposite.

$18.00 from David Horowitz's website, FrontPageMag.com:
(click on 'Bookstore' near the top of the page)
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[YankeeReb]

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From National Public Radio (NPR):
August 29, 2006
"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been visiting countries such as China, Iran and Russia as part of an effort to build a 'strategic alliance' of interests not beholden to the United States. He considers the United States his arch enemy.":
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5729764
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From CBS-News, July 29, 2006:

Chavez Vows To 'Stand By Iran'
After Oil Talks In Tehran, Venezuelan Leader Called 'Brother' By Ahmedinejad

"Chavez pledged that his country would 'stay by Iran at any time and under any condition,' state television reported. Ahmadinejad said he saw in Chavez a kindred spirit." "'We do not have any limitation in cooperation,' Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying. 'Iran and Venezuela are next to each other and supporters of each other. Chavez is a source of a progressive and revolutionary current in South America and his stance in restricting imperialism is tangible.'":
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/29/world/main1847331.shtml
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President Obama and Venezuela dictator Hugo
Chavez at the 2009 Summit of the Americas in Trinidad.
Note the "soul bro" handshake. (my caption)

Obama, Chavez shake hands at Americas Summit:
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2009/04/17/2698451-obama-chavez-shake-hands-at-americas-summit
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Russia's Medvedev hails "comrade" Obama

Associated Foreign Press (AFP) ^ | April 2, 2009 | Anna Smolchenko

"Russia's Dmitry Medvedev hailed Barack Obama as "my new comrade" Thursday after their first face-to-face talks"

http://www.france24.com/en/20090402-russias-medvedev-hails-comrade-obama

April 1, 2009:
"Obama, Medvedev pledge new era of relations":
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090401/wl_afp/usrussiadiplomacynuclear_20090401152002

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From the Sino-Russian Joint Statement of April 23, 1997:
"The two sides [China and Russia] shall, in the spirit of partnership, strive to promote the multipolarization of the world and the establishment of a new international order."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/HI29Ag01.html
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"Joint war games are a logical outcome of the Sino-Russian Friendship and Cooperation Treaty signed in 2001, and reflect the shared worldview and growing economic ties between the two Eastern Hemisphere giants."

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed092605a.cfm
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From the Russian News and Information Agency:
July 27, 2006
"'I am determined to expand relations with Russia,' Chavez, known as an outspoken critic of what he calls the United States' unilateralism, told the Russian leader, adding that his determination stemmed from their shared vision of the global order.":
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060727/51913498.html
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“We are creating a new world, a balanced world. A new world order, a multipolar world,” Chavez told reporters during a visit to Communist China, one of many. His “new world order” includes [RUSSIA], China, Iran,... and a significantly weakened United States, he explained.

Resurgent Communism in Latin America
by Alex Newman, March 16, 2010:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/south-america-mainmenu-37/3122-resurgent-communism-in-latin-america?tmpl=component&print=1&layout=default&page=