Here are many pieces on Iran's election, several of them laying out the current evidence that it was stolen by Ahmadinejad--a massive vote theft that the US media (both mainstream and left/liberal) is reporting, since Iran, being one of our official enemies, is fair game, so that it's okay to nail the crimes against democracy committed there.
But a selective outcry over that election theft, implying that such things "can't happen here," isn't just dishonest. Such humbug also is itself an actual crime against democracy, because it tacitly helps keep the truth about our rigged democracy concealed, so that our election thieves walk free, and the rigging can go on and on. So, in saying NO to Ahmadinejad's election theft, we also must say NO to the hypocrisy that would decry such foul play there, and only there. And in standing up for those Iranians who are defying that Islamist coup, let's also recognize them as our allies in the global struggle for democracy. What we need now (as I have said before, and will keep saying) is a global conference on election fraud--a conference to be hosted here, so as to make clear that the USA is not immune to what ails places like Iran (and Mexico, and Pakistan, and Kenya, and Armenia, and Russia, and Thailand, and so on), but is itself severely stricken--indeed, largely crippled--by that illness.* MCM *This illness is no less debilitating for Obama's victory: a win that was in fact far greater than we think, since millions of his voters--seven million at least--were disenfranchised on Election Day. p.s. Please pay particular attention to the pieces by Brad Friedman, Juan Cole and Stephen Zunes below. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/13/iran-election-ahmadinejad-wins-president>http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/13/iran-election-ahmadinejad-wins-president http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8060304.stm http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/443348 BRAD BLOG ALERT June 13, 2009 <http://www.bradblog.com/> <http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7224> <http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7224>Iran's 2009 Election Results Suggest Massive Fraud...Just Like Ohio's in 2004 Without citizen oversight and transparency, 'faith-based' elections threaten democracy no matter where they are held... It sounds a lot like Ohio 2004. A less than popular old-line incumbent facing massive public demonstrations against him and in favor of his main progressive challenger promising reform; polls that suggest a swell of support for the challenger; unprecedented turnout on Election Day; long lines at polling places; paper ballot shortages and names missing from voter rolls; widespread rumors, concerns and evidence of voter intimidation and vote-rigging, all accompanied nonetheless by a general feeling among the populace that the incumbent has been turned out, only to learn from officials, late on Election Night, that the incumbent has been declared the winner of a second term. The most substantive difference from Ohio 2004, however: the declared winner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is said to have defeated his main opponent Mir Hossein Mousavi by a 63% to 34% "landslide", instead of the razor-thin margin seen in Ohio (and across the popular vote in the rest of the nation). In Iran, a result of anything less than 50% + 1 for the leading candidate would have triggered a national runoff election. The other main differences between Iran '09 and Ohio '04: New York Times is already asking "Landslide or Fraud?" this morning; in Iran, supporters of the challenger are taking to the streets; and the challenger himself has already called the election results a "fraud"... FULL STORY: <http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7224>http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7224 <http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=18znMDfqE1XSHQb1%2BWbkmgAP3z7LKQJN>Has the Election Been Stolen in Iran? By Stephen Zunes, AlterNet If it is true that Ahmadinejad's victory is fraudulent, it'll be a dream come true for those pushing a more confrontational approach with Iran. <http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Di0KLX%2Fut2QkrnxCnaBULwAP3z7LKQJN>Read more ยป <http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/stealing-iranian-election.html>Stealing the Iranian Election Top Pieces of Evidence that the Iranian Presidential Election Was Stolen 1. It is claimed that Ahmadinejad won the city of Tabriz with 57%. His main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is an Azeri from Azerbaijan province, of which Tabriz is the capital. Mousavi, according to such polls as exist in Iran and widespread anecdotal evidence, did better in cities and <http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1901667,00.html>is popular in Azerbaijan. Certainly, his rallies there were very well attended. So for an Azeri urban center to go so heavily for Ahmadinejad just makes no sense. In past elections, <http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/2009613121740611636.html>Azeris voted disproportionately for even minor presidential candidateswho hailed from that province. 2. Ahmadinejad is claimed to have taken Tehran by over 50%. Again, he is not popular in the cities, even, as he claims, in the poor neighborhoods, in part because his policies have produced high inflation and high unemployment. That he should have won Tehran is so unlikely as to raise real questions about these numbers. [Ahmadinejad is widely thought only to have won Tehran in 2005 because the pro-reform groups were discouraged and stayed home rather than voting.) 3. It is claimed that cleric Mehdi Karoubi, the other reformist candidate, received 320,000 votes, and that he <http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/2009613121740611636.html>did poorly in Iran's western provinces, even losing in Luristan. He is a Lur and is popular in the west, including in Kurdistan. Karoubi received 17 percent of the vote in the first round of presidential elections in 2005. While it is possible that his support has substantially declined since then, it is hard to believe that he would get less than one percent of the vote. Moreover, he should have at least done well in the west, which he did not. 4. Mohsen Rezaie, who polled very badly and seems not to have been at all popular, is alleged to have received 670,000 votes, twice as much as Karoubi. 5. Ahmadinejad's numbers were fairly standard across Iran's provinces. In past elections there have been substantial ethnic and provincial variations. 6. The Electoral Commission is supposed to wait three days before certifying the results of the election, at which point they are to inform Khamenei of the results, and he signs off on the process. The three-day delay is intended to allow charges of irregularities to be adjudicated. In this case, Khamenei immediately approved the alleged results. I am aware of the difficulties of catching history on the run. Some explanation may emerge for Ahmadinejad's upset that does not involve fraud. For instance, it is possible that he has gotten the credit for spreading around a lot of oil money in the form of favors to his constituencies, but somehow managed to escape the blame for the resultant high inflation. But just as a first reaction, this post-election situation looks to me like a crime scene. And here is how I would reconstruct the crime. As the real numbers started coming into the Interior Ministry late on Friday, it became clear that Mousavi was winning. <http://www.djavadi.net/2009/06/13/an-electoral-coup-in-iran/>Mousavi's spokesman abroad, filmmaker Mohsen Makhbalbaf, alleges that the ministry even contacted Mousavi's camp and said it would begin preparing the population for this victory. The ministry must have informed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has had a feud with Mousavi for over 30 years, who found this outcome unsupportable. And, apparently, he and other top leaders had been so confident of an Ahmadinejad win that they had made no contingency plans for what to do if he looked as though he would lose. They therefore sent blanket instructions to the Electoral Commission to falsify the vote counts. This clumsy cover-up then produced the incredible result of an Ahmadinejad landlside in Tabriz and Isfahan and Tehran. The reason for which Rezaie and Karoubi had to be assigned such implausibly low totals was to make sure Ahmadinejad got over 51% of the vote and thus avoid a run-off between him and Mousavi next Friday, which would have given the Mousavi camp a chance to attempt to rally the public and forestall further tampering with the election. This scenario accounts for all known anomalies and is consistent with what we know of the major players. <http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/13/iran/>More in my column, just out, in Salon.com: "Ahmadinejad reelected under cloud of fraud," where I argue that the outcome of the presidential elections does not and should not affect Obama's policies toward that country-- they are the right policies and should be followed through on regardless. The public demonstrations against the result don't appear to be that big. In the past decade, reformers have always backed down in Iran when challenged by hardliners, in part because no one wants to relive the horrible Great Terror of the 1980s after the revolution, when faction-fighting produced blood in the streets. Mousavi is still from that generation. My own guess is that you have to get a leadership born after the revolution, who does not remember it and its sanguinary aftermath, before you get people willing to push back hard against the rightwingers. So, there are protests against an allegedly stolen election. The Basij paramilitary thugs and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards will break some heads. Unless there has been a sea change in Iran, the theocrats may well get away with this soft coup for the moment. But the regime's legitimacy will take a critical hit, and its ultimate demise may have been hastened, over the next decade or two. What I've said is full of speculation and informed guesses. I'd be glad to be proved wrong on several of these points. Maybe I will be. PS: Here's the data: So <http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=98012§ionid=351020101>here is what Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli said Saturday about the outcome of the Iranian presidential elections: "Of 39,165,191 votes counted (85 percent), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the election with 24,527,516 (62.63 percent)." He announced that Mir-Hossein Mousavi came in second with 13,216,411 votes (33.75 percent). Mohsen Rezaei got 678,240 votes (1.73 percent) Mehdi Karroubi with 333,635 votes (0.85 percent). He put the void ballots at 409,389 (1.04 percent). End/ (Not Continued) posted by Juan Cole @ <http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/stealing-iranian-election.html>6/13/2009 12:15:00 PM --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. 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