There are now multiple, reliable reports of the government of Iran using rape, multiple times, as a deliberate way to emotionally and psychologically destroy jailed protesters.
Bizarrely, the hard left is still having a argument as to whether the government of Ahmadinejad should be supported either because it supposedly opposes imperialism or because the US sometimes does horrid stuff, as witness Mumia dancing around the issue before proclaiming that outsiders should do nothing. Gosh, that’s certainly a stirring defense of freedom and liberty, isn’t it? Just sit back and say and do nothing.
The Iranian government is paranoid not because they are crazy, but because many remember the U.S. and British supported coup.
And although the corporate media has pronounced the notion ‘loony’ that the U.S. has supported the anti-government protests, in truth the U.S. has supported anti-government terrorism against Iran.
All of which has nothing to do with the recent protests in Iran which were homegrown and which the US clearly had little if anything to do with. And note how Mumia excuses the behavior of Iran because of past actions of the US.
Iranians must decide the form their government will take: not the U.S., nor the British.
The Iranian people will decide whether the ungodly repression they face will stall them, or spur them on to demand more than the change of faces at the top.
Notably absent here is any call for people outside Iran to protest the actions of the Iranian government. On that, Mumia is utterly silent. Perhaps he suffers from the quaint delusion that the enemy of my enemy must be a friend.
Both on Iran and with the current financial crisis, the hard left in the US, Britain, and Europe has been almost entirely absent from action. No solidarity statements. No organizing. No protests. Just crickets, really.
