Can You Keep a Secret? The media silence on Iran.

National Review Online ^ | August 7, 2002 | Michael Ledeen

[Dog]

America openly siding with the people against the mullahs would only make things go faster.

Bush already gave a speech in June on the subject. Siding with the Iranian people..

[Grampa Dave]

Amen, brother. I would single out the NY Slimes as the ring leader for close to a century of pushing anti America/American various isms.

The NY Slimes ignored the mass murders that the Communists inflicted upon their own country men starting with Lenin.

The NY Slimes ignored or posted on page 34 and further back what the Nazis were doing to the Jews in Germany and Europe.

The NY Slimes often made the communist Russians and Chinese into heroes after WWII or ignored the mass murdering of their own people and innocents in countries overtaken by the communist thugs.

The NY Slimes ignored the mass murders in SE Asia by the communist dictators.

The NY Slime helped to make a petty criminal governor of Arkrazy to become president. Then the NY Slimes worked 24/7 to keep him in office during the impeachment messes.

As in this thread, the NY Slimes made the Islamakazi Mullahs of Iran who for two decades preached Death to America/Americans into invincible demons.

The NY Slimes supports the PA's in Israel and condemns the Israelis when they act in self defense.

The NY Slimes now ignores the mass rebellion inside of Iran as it does not fit their view of news or agendas.

The NY Slimes has been controlled for close to a century by very dangerous people who hate America.

[Grampa Dave]

This is excellent and needs to be repeated:

Coverage of dissent against the Iranian govt. would not confirm anti-Americanism. Therefore it is omitted and deemed unimportant by the media, and the chatty circles they look to for guidance.

The Mullahs have made "Death to America" a centerpiece of their power and ideology. Their religious rites have been transformed into hate sessions against "America" and the West. They call for our destruction, Khomeini called for us to be conquered. But this is ignored by our media. Why? Because the Mullahs are foreign and hate America, therefore they are privileged with legitimacy, and a feeling that they are "right." If they reported the Mullahs' beliefs closely, and the dissent in the country, this would only undermine the anti-American narrative structures they tailor their reporting with. Therefore this information is ignored or omitted.

Sometimes the news is to big to ignore, lest the media loses even more credibility. One solition for the politically correct is to spin some blame on America. Like throw away lines that Iranian reformers are stifled because of what Bush said in such and such speech. Besides salvaging an anti-American angle, this thinking is arrogant, narcissitic, and self-important - denying that the "other" has any nefarious or malicious motives and actions other than those responsive to America or the West, and that "we" control all events that are deemed "negative."

There will be no Iranian coverage. The asperations of the majority of Iranians may be similar to what the media elites feel for themselves and embrace. But this fellow-feeling is less important than maintaining anti-American narratives, or at least hanging on to them. Reportage about the region is around 90% about the identity-feelings of the reporter, not the feelings of the reported. Euro press, around 98% from what I can tell.

[untenured]

No.....Ledeen is the only one reporting this story.....

But it seems that even non-Western media in places like India are not reporting this. I find that strange. I wonder where Mr. Ledeen is getting this information?

[Dog]

From inside Iran...

[Dems_R_Losers]

Yes, and the Washington Post ran a disgusting op-ed a few days ago by some idiot former diplomat, saying that the U.S. blew it by being so heavy-handed in this statement (it was not a apeech, but a Letter from President Bush to the People of Iran, read in Farsi over the Voice of America), because it provoked an immediate backlash and crackdown by the government. But as we see from Mr. Ledeen's invaluable reporting, this crackdown has only escalated the popular protests! The Bush Administration is playing this exactly right, IMO. However, I still wish the media would report on it. I am going to send a lengthy e-mail to Howard Kurtz at the Post about this.

[jpl]

You nailed it. When most people over 30 years old think of Iran and the mullahs, the first thing they think of is the 444 day hostage crisis. Then they're reminded of gas lines. Then they remember just how much Jimmy Carter sucked, and why we elected Ronald Reagan president. Needless to say the media would rather not have the people thinking about such things.

[Shermy]

If I knew I was going to make second edition, I might have done some editing in the first place.

:)

[Grampa Dave]

I'm in total agreement with you.

First of all if Reagan had been president, the Islamakazis would have never taken that our embassy.

If they had, he would taken out their entire leadership. It would have been really easy then. You saw how fast they released our embassy people after he was elected and a few select messages went from him to them about what he would do if our people were not released when he became president.

I believe that Carter was an agent/traitor bought out by the Opecker Princes to set up the Islamakazi Mullahs in Iran, to destroy our CIA, deball our military and to set up the Green Enviral Organizations to make us more dependent on Opecker Oil. Carter never saw an Islamic Kamakazi or communist despot leader that he didn't love, adore, make friends with and support.

How did this unknown and terrible governor of Georgia become our president? Again thanks to the NY Slimes, DC Compost and of course: ABCNBCCBS, the mediots made him the guy to vote for.

If he had been re elected, we would not be here. President Reagan saved us.

[knighthawk]

If the Islamakazi Mullahs are dethroned and become heads on pikes

When this happens the balance of power will shift, no more support of terrorism from Iran will affect Hamas and Hezbollah. Also the other countries will fear it will also happen there.

But it may take a while. The radicals are very powerful and not afraid to use every use of violence to stop the people from gaining freedom.

[Grampa Dave]

Your reply needed no editing!

This has really evolved into a great thread!

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[Miss Marple]

Well, the adantage to this press blackout is that when Iran falls, the President can go on television in prime time and announce it. Then everyone will be asking WHY DIDN'T WE KNOW ABOUT THIS? WHAT IS THE PRESS DOING?

At least I hope that is what happens.

[monday]

"We should be trumpeting this news, and doing anything we can to help the people of Iran in taking back their country from the theocracy. "

We cannot help. As much as the Iranians hate their regime... if any faction were to call America an ally they would lose all suport from the populace. America has been villified in the middle east for too long for perceptions to change quickly.

This is why the people in countries whos gov'ts have good relations with the US, hate us the most. All middle Easterners have contempt for their gov'ts. Our best bet is to stay out of it. People want freedom, but not if it comes with the US's help.

As the saying goes.."You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

[Eala]

I was also wondering why the press has been so quiet on other issues,makes on wonder doesn't it.

It's standard operating procedure for the lying leftist press, and has been for a long time.

I have video footage from a rally held in downtown Seattle almost 11 years ago. You'd think a bagpipe band, a couple hundred marchers, flanked by motorcycle cops, and addressed by a former state supreme court justice among others, would make it into the (local) media, but the protest was not PC, so the media were silent.

Or almost. There were maybe a dozen anti-fur protesters nearby and they did make it on-camera. (The groups overlapped -- I was told that one channel intentionally blurred out the larger group's signs, making it look like they were part of the anti-fur protest.)

Saw it happen again this year at the Seattle Rally in support of Israel. Not a peep out of the media.

[MeekOneGOP]

Can You Keep a Secret? The media silence on Iran.

Excerpt:

When I first came to Washington I met what I took for a hopelessly cynical man who asked me to define a secret. I stumbled, and he said that a secret was when you called a press conference and nobody reported what you said.

Apparently the media of the entire Western world have applied this standard to the dramatic events in Iran, because on Monday massive demonstrations were held in the country's major cities, from Tehran to Isfahan, Tabriz, Mashad, and others. The regime responded with unprecedented violence. There was widespread street fighting. More than 1,000 people were arrested. Several were apparently killed. Even late on Tuesday conflicts were ongoing in Khorassan, and not a single word appeared in a major Western publication, or on the news wires, or on any television broadcast of which I am aware.

So we have a new historical phenomenon: an invisible, unknown, and therefore secret revolution is under way in Iran.

Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.

[Eala]

Iran is one of the media darlings of the left wing maggot mediots, who control the media in America.
They set up the overthrow of the Shah of Iran by the Mullah Islamakazis during the Carter years

Partially correct. There was more than one faction trying to oust Reza Shah. The main division was between the mullahs and the Soviet-supported Left -- and of course, the latter had their support from their fellow-travellers here. But by the time of the Carter years, matters were beginning to get into the final downward spiral.

[Eala]

Arrgh. Meant to add that there was a struggle for power after, and the mullahs won.

[Eala]

Iran is the mother of all terrorism

I thought that was Saudi Arabia; or maybe the House of Saud is just Daddy Financier.

[theophilusscribe]

Here's some more news:

News Hungry Iranians Turn To Internet

TEHRAN, Iran, Aug. 6, 2002  (CBS/AP)

Internet cafes are popular with young Iranians and have spread across a country where the state media is closely controlled by the conservative clerical establishment.

(REUTERS) With dozens of their newspapers banned, Iran's reformists are turning to the Internet as a new arena for their struggle with the Islamic Republic's conservative establishment.

Since President Mohammad Khatami came to office in 1997, Iranian newspapers have been one of the main battlegrounds between his pro-reform allies and their hard-line rivals.

More than 80 publications have been banned in the last two years since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sparked a crackdown by branding liberal newspapers "bases of the enemy." Dozens of pro-reform journalists have been jailed.

But at least five Iranian news-based Web sites have been opened by Khatami supporters in the last 10 days, two of them in place of the recently banned daily newspapers Bonyan and Norouz.

"Technology always wins, and therefore the closure of reformist newspapers is useless when there is the Internet," said a journalist who works for one of the sites.

The newly founded Web sites offer a wealth of news, analysis and opinion as well as "behind-the-scenes" revelations for news-hungry Iranians.

"I used to read Bonyan, when they closed it down I started to read Norouz, again they closed that down, now every day I go to the closest cybercafe and read news on the reformist Web sites," said Ali, a 26-year-old student.

Hard-liners who control state television and radio and a host of newspapers say new sites should be banned.

"These sites pass the limits, spread lies and it seems there is no control on them," one hard-line daily said.

But Internet cafe owners are happy.

"These new sites have improved our business. I believe the number of people coming in to check these sites shows what people really want," an Internet cafe owner in northern Tehran said.

The cafes are popular with young Iranians and have spread across a country where the state media is closely controlled by the conservative clerical establishment. There are some 1,500 Internet cafes in the capital, with more in other major cities.

Iran is a relative latecomer to Internet use, largely due to official fears of Western cultural inroads and information published by exiled political opposition groups.

But the sector has seen a rapid growth in recent years, catching officials off guard. The number of users has shot up and the Internet remains largely unregulated.

"Having a news-based Web site is much easier than opening a newspaper, the Internet is vaguely mentioned in the press law, but opening a site does not require official permission," lawyer Ahmad Akhlaghi said.

"Having a Web site is cheaper and safer. Now reformists are one step ahead of hard-liners," analyst Morad Veysian said.

Many publishers face financial problems because their newspapers were closed down just as they were about to start recouping their initial investments.

"Hard-liners normally closed the reformist dailies on their 100th publication to put more economic pressure on the publisher," said a journalist for one of the Web sites.

"But the sites don't have such problems and most of the jobless journalists now work for them."

THEY SHOULD COME TO FR!!!! :o)