Mousavi was responible for execution of 5,000 political dissidents?

[kbqr]

Run time: 01:54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzEV1VlYrwQ   Posted on YouTube: June 23, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: June 23, 2009 By DU Member: kbqr Views on DU: 1960

 
Democracy Now! interviews Iranian American independent filmmaker and journalist Kouross Esmaeli. At the end of the clip he mentions that, while serving as Prime Minister of Iran, Mousavi was responsible for the killing of 5,000 political dissidents.

To watch the entire interview: http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2009/6/22

[MNDemNY]

1. WTF?? Did you think that the supreme ruler, who hand picked ALL Pres. Candidates picked a reformer?

Really?

[jefferson_dem]

2. The Iranian struggle isn't about Mousavi.

With all due respect.

[PatrynXX]

21. Originally it was, but then became bigger.

Mousavi has also changed over the years and isn't the thug he used to be. Some people change and some don't. Do I trust the guy? Probably not, but right now he's the good guy because thats who the people voted for.

[kpominville]

22. Correct - It is about Democracy

This is about the people of Iran getting a legitimate election, not about one particular candidate.

They are doing what we Americans should have done after the stolen election in 2000.

[JDPriestly]

24. How can the election be legitimate if all of the candidates are vetted by the

supreme leader? Same here, how can our elections be legitimate if all candidates are in fact vetted by the press, i.e., the owners of the main-stream-media?

[MinM]

3. Raw Story: Mousavi said to have role in bloody 1980s attacks

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/06/mousavis-role-1980s-attacks-beirut/

[Turborama]

4. And your point being?

That he'd be a worse president than Ahmendinijhad?

has anyone else noticed the increase of anti-Mousavi threads that have been popping up on DU over the past 24 hours?

[kbqr]

6. Interesting response

Why do you think the 5000 executions don't matter? Who were these people he had executed? What would their youtube moments look like?

I didn't mention Ahmadinejad. But I am concerned about the fact that few seem to care about who Mousavi is.

What about the rights of the people he executed?

What about the freedom of speech and rights of Salman Rushdie against whom Mousavi backed the fatwa calling for his death?

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/18/iran.moussavi.profile/index.html

[non sociopath skin]

8. Most of the leaders of the interim regimes which marked the end of Stalinism ...

... were tainted by some degree of complicity with the old regime.

But a revolution has to start somewhere. And that somewhere is often "somewhere within" ...

The Skin

[Democracyinkind]

10. Nobody cares about that, it's inconvenient, so please leave it out.

Also, you shouldn't mention that Mousavi and his outfit - people like Ghorbanifar - were the Iranian counterparts in Iran-Contra. Since nobody here really understands what Iran Contra was that doesn't matter either, though.

And of course our involvement with the Jundullah Militias, whom we prop up since at least 2006/2007, isn't something people like CNN's Amanpour - whose billionaire sha-crony family had to flea Iran 1979 - are going to tell you. The Jundullahs are something like the Contras of the middle east. They had a nice bombing campaign going against poll stations and mosques the last months. Very classy.

Bottom line. Mousavi good, background info bad. Of course now I have to put a disclaimer in: I would totally support a genuine Iranian revolution. I wish the people of Iran the brightest future, may they bring it to themselves one day. But as I have learned during the 90's, it's no good lending support to a manufactured Revolution - all it does is shift some elites, what I, and I guess the majority of DU too want is a genuine empowering of the people of Iran, so that they can choose their own destiny. It's no good if they die on the streets in support of puppets, if they choose to do so, they should do it for the sake of themselves, something I guess allot of the people are doing. I don't see either Mousavi or Ahmadinejad as a viable candidate to achieve that end. I had hopes for Rafsanjanji, but as it goes with billionaires, they're never quite worth their salt.

Let's hope that something better than Mousavi comes out of this. The courage of the people in the cities in Iran is to be admired - let's hope they'll get something out of this. And never forget that the Demonstrators are a minority, albeit one with legitimate concerns and views, for the most part.

[kbqr]

17. Inconvenient, indeed

Seems to hit a nerve. Geesh.

To the comment about people suddenly asking questions about Mousavi . . . it's called reflection. Everyone got swept up in the emotion of the 'twitter revolution,' and now I assume some of these people, like myself, are now asking the questions of what exactly has happened.

I, too, followed everything on twitter with excitement and saw those tweets repeated on the front page of Huffpo and Drudge and broadcast on every network. I assumed it all to be accurate until I read Robert Fisk (not exactly known for his love of Ahmadinejad) who was in Tehran and who debunked a lot of what had by then become retweeted tens of thousands of times over:

"Robert Fisk’s World: In Tehran, fantasy and reality make uneasy bedfellows"

http://bit.ly/cteO1

His article caused me to stop and reflect and to start asking some questions and to investigate a bit more. I wanted to know who, after all, I was cheering and who I was jeering.

Didn't mean to commit a thought crime.

[AsahinaKimi]

25. I found this statement by Robert Fisk to be... amazing.

And those nuclear arms? How many of us reported a blunt statement which the Supreme Leader and the man who ultimately controls all nuclear development in Iran made on 4 June, just eight days before the elections? "Nuclear weapons," he said in a speech in which he encouraged Iranians to vote, "are religiously forbidden (haram) in Islam and the Iranian people do not have such a weapon. But the Western countries and the US in particular, through false propaganda, claim that Iran seeks to build nuclear bombs – which is totally false..." ~~ Rorbert Fisk

:wow:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-in-tehran-fantasy-and-reality-make-uneasy-bedfellows-1710762.html

Has anyone posted his article on DU?

[Turborama]

18. Good disclaimer

The sarcasm during the intro, not so much ;-)

The last paragraph was good too but it's quite possible the demonstrators are a manifestation of a deeper malaise felt throughout the country and this discontent goes deeper than the election results. There are also widely reported fissures at the top, too.



(edited to fix typo)

[Democracyinkind]

20. Absolutely.

I believe the Demonstrations or shall I say the Demonstrators are a manifestation of a deeper malaise. absolutely. There's plenty of malaise to go around over there, agreed. I think the critique isn't that there isn't any genuine grass roots resistance to the election results rather that the movement is artificially propped up (like in eastern europe in the 90's) and that the people who are now sitting themselves on top of that resistance aren't really a better choice.

I'm with the people of Iran. Whatever they want. I'm just not so sure we can clearly discern at this point and thru this perspective what that exactly is.

[Turborama]

23. I was going to add

"Only time will tell", but for some reason left it out.

[Turborama]

26. Talking of resistance...

What do you make of these guys? Is the part I put in bold for real or would they be just as bad, if not worse?

The People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI, also MEK, MKO) (Persian: سازمان مجاهدين خلق ايران sāzmān-e mojāhedin-e khalq-e irān) is a militant Islamic socialist organization that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic government of Iran.

Founded in 1965, the PMOI was originally devoted to armed struggle against the Shah of Iran, capitalism, and Western imperialism.<1> The group officially renounced violence in 2001<2> and today it is the main organization in the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an "umbrella coalition" parliament-in-exile that claims to be dedicated to a democratic, secular and coalition government in Iran. The group has had thousands of its members for many years in bases in Iraq, but "they were disarmed in the wake" of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and "are said to have adhered to a ceasefire."<3>

Considerable controversy surrounds the issues of whether the NCRI is merely a front group for the PMOI<4><5>; whether the NCRI is involved in terrorism, or if it is "a legitimate dissident organization fighting for democracy in Iran"<6> whose Western accusers are attempting to use as a bargaining chip in negotiation with its enemy the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The PMOI's armed wing is, or was, called the National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA). The Iranian government officially refers to the organization as the Monafeqin (literally, "Hypocrites"), maintaining that PMOI is not truly Islamic.<7>

The United States, Canada, Iraq, and Iran have designated the PMOI a terrorist organization.<8><9> On January 26, 2009, the Council of the European Union agreed to remove the PMOI from the EU terror list. The group said it was the outcome of a “seven-year-long legal and political battle”.<10><11><12><13>

The PMOI and the NCRI claim to have provided the United States intelligence on Iran's nuclear program in 2002, and 2008.<14> <15>

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Mojahedin_Organization_of_Iran#Designation_as_a_terrorist_organization

Their homepage:http://ncr-iran.org/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/

Edited to add this vid of them at camp Ashraf: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXdSTTmCYsM

Camp Ashraf's Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Ashraf

[Democracyinkind]

29. forgot the link

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/062409.html

[YOY]

9. All by folks with few posts and IP addresses from a certain part of the world...

You'll forgive me if I treat them with all the respect I would treat our homespun Theocrats.

[DeeBunker]

5. Can You Say ....

Violent Resistance vs Non-Violent Resistance ??

[zbdent]

7. finally, a shred of evidence to equate the "tea-baggers" with the Iranian protestors

who want this guy in ...

[Wizard777]

11. Nice sound Byte. Do you have the FULL clip of the FULL statement?

Also just because a Country goes through an upheaval. Do you think criminals cease to exist in this? Does the uprising make the death of Neda any less a murder. Is that murderer any less deserving of death?

[kbqr]

13. Link to full interview is in the post

But here it is again: http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2009/6/22

[Reform]

12. Mousavi in the presidential debate said

he would "slaughter" Americans if they were to interfere with Iran's search for nuclear power
History bad, present day bad.
But it sounds like he's for more womens rights so i suppose its a step if you wanna put it that way.
BTW these protest groups using a suicide bombing is not a good approach for their cause.
Regardless POWER TO THE PEOPLE

[Turborama]

16. What suicide bombing?

Who did it? There's no evidence of one happening apart from what Iran's state run media put out.

[aquart]

14. Yeah. It's not a secret.

He's not a leftist. But the crowd doesn't believe he will put women in jail for their nail polish.

[Wizard777]

15. Iran as a whole is very conservative. Even the people in the streets are conservative.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWg3b15ITS8">They are fighting for an expansion of their conservative values.

[kbqr]

19. Nice

Thanks for the song.

[GRITtv]

27. What Happened in the Iranian Election?

This is quite useful:

http://www.counterpunch.org/amin06222009.html

[Turborama]

28. The Ayatolla's Flawed Logic

So is this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x457698