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Louis: >You are making an amalgam between CIA agents I made no mention of "CIA agents" whatsoever. The MEK are not "CIA agents" but they are certainly receiving funding from the CIA to help destabilize and overthrow the Iranian regime. People can collaborate with the CIA by providing information without being "CIA agents." >supporters of the overthrow >of clerical rule in Iran, the Green movement--which is led by a faction of >the clerical dictatorship, The Green movement may be led by a faction of the clerical leadership (or it may in fact really be led by organizations being funded and even organized by the CIA, as in the various "color revolutions", who were merely throwing their support behind more "moderate" members of the clergy as a way to advance their aims - history and/or Wikileaks will tell), but whatever the case, the reason this movement received the full-throated (and much more) support of Western imperialism is because of their belief/hope that such a change would lead to a regime in Tehran which was no longer charting an independent course, but rather one more complaint with Western demands. But this is besides the point. Liberals and many radicals are also fully behind the Green movement. So the question of where that movement was going is irrelevant; the question is only, are there radicals with enough enmity for the Iranian regime that they would actually side with or even help the U.S. government in its attempts to overthrow that regime? I say the answer is yes (without the slightest implication about these particular three radicals). >the hikers who were not even in Iran That is a HIGHLY dubious assertion. http://lefti.blogspot.com/2010/06/american-hikers-arrested-in-iraq-not.html >and god >knows who else. What do you think that the hikers were trying to do? Dig a >hole from Iraq to Iran so that CIA agents could smuggle Twitter accounts >into the country? Or copies of Madeline Murray's atheist tracts? What *I* think, based on the evidence that *I* have, is that they were hikers with extremely poor judgment. However many people no doubt also think, based on the evidence that *they* have, that Alan Gross was in Cuba merely to "help the Jewish community" and had no nefarious purpose whatsoever. The point being that I obviously couldn't even begin to speculate on what they might have been up to if they were really up to "no good" (about which again, I have not the slightest evidence). It's enough, I think, to know that the U.S. IS trying to overthrow the Iranian regime, is employing a wide variety of covert (and overt, obviously) means to do so. Some of those means we have some knowledge of, like the MEK, others of which we undoubtedly have no knowledge of. Could some American hikers, if not these particular hikers, be part of some such plot? I don't see how I could rule such a thing out. And I certainly can't rule it out based on the fact that the hikers were social justice activists. Eli Stephens Left I on the News http://lefti.blogspot.com ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
