Iran Election Irregularities Update

As of this posting, still no reply back from MSNBC.com. Of course, I'm not surprised.

However, Diego Jimenez tweeted me this link to a BBC Q&A article on the election.

First off, here are the reasons for claims of voting irregularities:


"The way the result was announced was very unusual. It came out in blocks of millions of votes, in percentages, rather than being announced province-by-province as in past elections.

And as the blocks of votes came in, the percentages for each candidate changed very, very little. That suggested that Mr Ahmadinejad did equally well in rural and urban areas. Conversely, it suggested that the other three losing candidates did equally badly in their home regions and provinces.

This overturns all precedents in Iranian politics and there has been no explanation, despite repeated questions, from the authorities.

It is all very suspicious. But it does not necessarily mean there has been widespread electoral fraud. For example, a group of international pollsters did an independent telephone survey three weeks ago which suggested a two-to-one level of popular support for Mr Ahmadinejad over Mr Mousavi, with the other candidates on less than two percent each."

So, we have international pollsters predicting an Ahmadinejad win. We have suspicious circumstances with questions going unanswered. And we have the fact that there may not necessarily have been widespread electoral fraud.

We also have two powerful leaders with many followers vying for a top parliamentary position. As numerous commentators (and Pres. Obama) have said, Ahmadinejad and Mousavi's policy positions are, in effect, not much different from each other.

Could this be a case of a sore loser using the power of his popularity and multitude of followers to gain the upper hand? From the same BBC article:

"But there are two things happening at the moment. There are the street demonstrations and then there is a tense power struggle between leading figures in the ruling elite as well."

Two leading, elite rulers are struggling for power. What would make Mousavi not pull the "voting irregularity" and "fraud" cards out to use in his favor? Especially when he is well-aware of Ahmadinejad's global unpopularity and the effect global media will have on promoting his view of the election, however inaccurate it may be?

The fact that 99% of the coverage has been on protesters and virtually none on actual election statistics, pre and post polling, and vote-count evidence may signal that Mousavi's bluff has turned into a trump card.

Where is investigative journalism when you need it?

Iran Election, Iran Corruption, Iran Questions

I watched a video here, about Ahmadinejad's win over Mir Hossein Mousavi, and then read the article. I also read this one and can't help but think we're not getting the full story for some reason. Here's the analysis and what I mean:

Why is not the main focus of these articles on the actual, factual discrepancies Mousavi has in claiming that this election was a "charade?"

Why is Mousavi the only one slighted? The BBC article says: "Four candidates contested the election, with Mohsen Razai and Mehdi Karroubi only registering about 1% of the vote each."

So, what about Razai and Karroubi? Do they feel the election was tainted? Why are these two presidential candidates not questioned on this and given a voice; one or two sentences even?

Instead, it's about people protesting. "Thousands" according to the BBC article. And only in Tehran. Is no one protesting anywhere else? And exactly how many is "thousands?" Do they not have an accurate count? Why or why not? And who's doing the counting? In my opinion, these articles seem biased on the side of the protesters, something that does not happen when people protest in this country, but more on that later.

Ahmadinejad, in the aforementioned article, says that the foreign media has been helping to rile people up. Why is that angle not explored? Why not analyze the media coverage over this event and really investigate what he's saying? I mean, you can only prove him wrong, right? So, why isn't this done?

Next, according to the BBC's Iranian affairs analyst, the "margin of the win was so wide [for Mousavi] that it made a lot of people suspicious." OK, what does that mean? The margin of the win? What margin, how, and set forth by who? I don't know why these questions, many of which could be answered in a sentence or two, are missing from a major news organization's coverage of an election so interesting as this one.

The analyst goes on to say that, "Millions of people, especially the young, voted for change through the ballot box and by peaceful means and now there is shock and disappointment."

Again, what does this mean? How many millions? Why is this "news" article so vague? Where is the author getting this data from? Many millions in this country voted for change through the ballot box and by peaceful means in 2000 and 2004 and were similarly shocked and disappointed.

I just don't see any evidence how, exactly, the protesters have a legitimate grievance here. And I'm not saying there isn't one, I'm saying the media has not reported on what that might be. We have an official result: 64% for Ahmadinejad versus the 34% for Mr Mousavi, but that's it.


Fast forward two days. It's now Monday the 15th of June and here is the lead article from MSNBC.com on the situation in Iran. Again, no mention of what is actually corrupt in the election. All they mention is "voting irregularities." We had those here in 2000 and 2004 also. Why would you make no mention of what these voting irregularities are? Isn't the main thrust of this entire situation?

Maybe there is a media slant. Hardly any of the First World countries like Ahmadinejad. Continual focus on rioting and beating and one-liners and protest messages (which could be covered in another blog - so I'm not ignoring them as insignificant - it's just not the focus of the article here) could be used to let viewers think that those protesting have a legitimate cause they are fighting for. First and Third World countries can use propaganda. The BBC and CNN are no exceptions.

Of course the censorship is of grave concern and lends no credence to Ahmadinejad, but the censorship is not the cause of the protests - it's a reaction to it. So why not say what that cause is?

What are the voting irregularities? What is the evidence of fraud?

** Just called NBC news and was told that they would research the answer to these two questions and get back to me. I'll keep you posted.


One last thing: Check out this story on how there never was a significant ideological difference between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Holding Feet to the Fire

Last night was a telling night in primaries across Ohio and Texas. Much air-time and hot air was wasted on whether or not Hillary or Obama should concede defeat were either to not win these two battleground states. Back and forth go the talking heads, arguing and debating on how many delegates and superdelegates there are voting for who and why and where and what the hell is going on?! Really. I mean, where is substance and issues and background on these two candidates?

I found some here. Watch this video of a CBS news clip regarding the time Hillary Clinton served on the Board of Wal-Mart. Yep, the anti-union, sweatshop-laden, mom & pop shop destroying, women-hating Wal-Mart. (They'll pay for Viagra, but not birth control). How ironic that once Hillary decides to run for President, her views change and she's now pro-labor, pro-American-made goods, and pretty much for everything Wal-Mart is against. Just one more reason I'm quite leery of Hillary and won't be voting for her.

Here's an informative and humorous look at sweatshop & child labor: Pranktivism.



I'm a big proponent of the truth. Therefore, things like this and this, really piss me off. If the Iraq war really is the defining war of our time, so vitally important that our government makes sure we are really terrified of Al Qaeda Islamo-fascist, freedom-hating, Arabs, then why are these two twins and the Five Brothers allowed off the hook? Mitt Romney said, in August of last year, "it's time, in my view, for the people of America to show a surge of support, including our leaders in Washington, for these families and for the troops."

Oh, ok. Just support the troops and their families; those willing to live with the death or mutilation of their loved ones, and all is good...I don't have to actually sacrifice anything myself. I support the troops and life is good because I'm not one of them....is that it Mitt? I'm glad you lost, buddy.



Questions, questions, too many questions:

Wasn't this supposed to happen? Here is an article from January of 2003 - two months before we invaded the innocent country. "I don't think they're planning as far as I know to use Iraqi oil to pay for the invasion, but they are going to use it to pay for the occupation." Oh, really?


Why doesn't this make headline news? Whether they're lying or not - we could hold their feet to the fire, couldn't we? Then again - we like being the bully on the block - where we have a little less than 10,000 nuclear warheads. And we want more!

Why do we think we're smarter than mother-nature; smarter than an evolutionary biology that has been continually perfecting itself over millions and millions of years?

When does karma assert itself?

The New York Times reported today that all 16 American intelligence agencies say Iran ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003. That's almost five years ago...

On August 17, 2004, John Bolton, then Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security said during a speech at the Hudson Institute, "Iran is pursuing two separate paths to nuclear weapons, one that would use highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and one that would use plutonium."

A report here, from McClatchy Newspapers on November 4, 2007, says that President Bush and Vice-President Cheney speak of Iran's nuclear weapons program as fact:

"I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," he said Oct. 17 at a news conference.
"Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions," Cheney warned on Oct 23. "We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

I was watching CNN this morning and there were various reports about the above cited New York Times article and the fact that all United States spy agencies agree that Iran has not tried to make nuclear weapons since 2003. Amazingly, none of these news stories I saw even mentioned the fact that Bush and Cheney have very recently said just the opposite. Where is the accountability and the outrage at being lied to yet again?

How can these "journalists" devote an amazing amount of time to Hillary Clinton's cackle on various TV news magazines, but not question the Executive Branch's assertions of Iranian nuclear capability when it flies in the face of a National Intelligence Estimate? Should this not be another nail in the coffin of the Bush Administrations' credibility?

Sorry State of Affairs

The Democrats were elected to end the war. They have not and will not. This is part of the problem with a two-party system. I am not ideologically aligned with the Republicans and I'm maybe half-way aligned with the Democrats. I don't respect either party - so who am I to vote for? Many people share this sentiment, including Greens, Libertarians, and Constitutional party members. Back to the war and Democrats: they say they do not have enough votes to stop the war - and I have yet to know about one instance where a reporter has called them on their bullshit. Not one reporter... save Paul Krugman here:

"But the truth is, Democrats have all the votes they need to stop the war — if they are willing to use the power given them by the Constitution to block the supplemental funding bill unless it includes a deadline for bringing the troops home. As Norm Ornstein told me: “Whatever the White House sends to the House is constitutionally merely a suggestion.” The prerogative to bring a funding bill to the floor rests entirely with the majority — which, in case Democrats have forgotten, is theirs. As for the Senate, Democrats there would only have to find 41 votes to block the supplemental funding bill."





I can't say this enough: if you have not read 1984 by George Orwell - GO READ IT!! It will help highlight the ways in which our liberties and freedoms (that we take for granted) are being "legally" taken away from us.

Why do I bring this up? Because the Bush Administration is trying very hard to get the American people supportive (through terrorizing us) of a war with Iran. The same methods used to scare (terrorize) its own citizens into a war with Iraq are being used again. Bush and Co. say that Iran could develop a nuclear bomb in a few short years. However, "the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Sunday he had no evidence Iran was working actively to build nuclear weapons and expressed concern that escalating rhetoric from the U.S. could bring disaster." You can read the full article concerning Mohamed ElBaradei, who leads the International Atomic Energy Agency here.






This is a very good example of profound slavishness to the Bush Administration's hatred of regulation, fairness, and objectivity. "Ms. Nord, the top official for consumer product safety, opposes provisions that would increase the maximum penalties for safety violations and make it easier for the government to make public reports of faulty products, protect industry whistleblowers and prosecute executives of companies that willfully violate laws."





If we do not take action on this like, yesterday, life as we have come to know it is going to be radically altered - probably forever. And it won't be pretty.

"Humans are changing the Earth's climate so fast and devouring resources so voraciously that the survival of the world's ecosystems and of humanity itself is at stake, a new UN report says. The 570-page Global Environment Outlook, published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), paints a dire picture of planet-wide death and degradation. With more than six billion people, Earth's population is now so big that "the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available," the report warned, adding that the global population is expected to peak at between 8 and 9.7 billion by 2050."

It's laughable to the point of insanity that our country is hyper-focused on immigration, gay marriage, and abortion rather than the fact that we are destroying that which gives us nourishment and life.





The United States has military troops in about 135 countries around the world. If that's not the tentacles of empire, I don't know what is. How many countries have troops in our country? How many foreign militaries have bases in our country? That's why I must applaud Ecuador for being fair and balanced in this regard.

And so it goes...

I kept hoping that the world community would do something about Myanmar. Isn't this exactly what we're told, over and over again, that this is what the United States fights for? Isn't this why we have the United Nations and peacekeeping forces? Wasn't the fourth (or fifth or sixth) reason for invading Iraq to bring democracy to a people who really really wanted it?

I don't remember any Iraqi's holding demonstrations in the streets of Baghdad. I don't remember thousands of Imam's peacefully protesting Saddam's government. Yet this past week we've had a military junta killing journalists while having destroyed over 3,000 villages and forcefully relocating people. In addition, today it was reported that "thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle."

Why don't we see a Colin Powell up in front of the UN showing samples of satellite photo's like these? Here is a population literally dying for democracy - and the world's "leaders" only action is to say how bad it is. That's like a teacher standing on the playground watching a bully beat up someone while all they do is say how wrong the bully is acting.

In one of my recent blogs, I was wrong in saying that oil was a reason we weren't doing anything about Myanmar. It's because of oil that we aren't doing anything:

"Diplomats and analysts say Myanmar's resources, including natural gas and oil fields that foreign companies are vying to tap, make many nations reluctant to impose economic sanctions or other measures as punishment for the bloody assault on pro-democracy demonstrators."




MUST READ ARTICLES -------------------------------

1. More "progress" from the Iraqi government.

"Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is orchestrating a campaign of persecution against political rivals "even worse" than Saddam Hussein's reign of terror, his predecessor has claimed."



2. Money. Profits. Definitely more important than morals, values, or human life.

" For the time being, General Dynamics has the best of both worlds: strong demand for jet aircraft, and healthy sales of combat equipment even with a troop reduction in Iraq."



3. We used to be great once. What the hell happened?

""If we were to strike Iran it should be accompanied by an effort at regime change ... The US once had the capability to engineer the clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back," he said."



4. Whoops...sorry. We still are great at selling weapons. And number one at locking people up.

"The United States maintained its role as the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world..."



5. I wish we would do something like this here.

"A landmark case upholding the citizen's right to non-polluted air could lead to local governments in Germany being held responsible for the health of their constituents and the cleanliness of their immediate environment."




6. Leaving out history here.


How come we write this: "Iran and the U.S cut off diplomatic relations in 1979 after Iranian militant students seized the U.S. Embassy and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days." ...which is true and accurate, but leave out the fact that we overthrew their democratically elected government in 1953 and that that's a big part of the reason leading up to hostage taking?

History the Media Neglects

The drums are getting louder...Bush, Cheney, and their war machine's fear-mongering about the imminent threat from Iran are all over the news. (Why wasn't Iran an imminent threat when Iraq was an imminent threat?).

All of a sudden, Iran is the new Iraq, they want nuclear weapons that Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea, and the U.S. have, and they're supposedly training Iraqi's - a people who are their religious enemies.

They are enriching uranium which can be used for two things: 1. nuclear power and/or 2. nuclear weapons. The funny thing is that Iran has signed the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which allow it to enrich uranium for nuclear power.

In any event, aside from the very astute Ron Paul, I have yet to hear any politician or major media news outlet bring up the history between Iran and the United States. My presumption is that when one does this, it becomes easy to see that we bear a lot of the fault for the Middle East in Crisis.

Excerpts from the main story (1) in this month's edition of Adbusters tells the tale simply:

1953: After an economic blockade and the presence of British warships in the Persian Gulf failed to break Mohammed Mossadegh's will, the British government persuaded the incoming Eisenhower administration to send in the CIA. (Mossadegh was a liberal democrat who believed fervently in national independence - Time magazine's Man of the Year - and was democratically elected as Prime Minister in 1952). A CIA operative named Kermit Roosevelt helped bring about this cautionary note in an official CIA report: "Possibilities of blowback against the United States should always be in the back of the minds of all CIA officers involved in this type of operation."


1954: Anglo-Iranian (Oil) changes its name to British Petroleum and regains its assets, but must share its monopoly with American oil companies. Mohammed Reza Shah is restored to the throne with help from the American-trained SAVAK secret police who torture and disappear even the most timid of dissidents. (Mossadegh had nationalized Iran's oil industry in 1951).


1971: The Shah throws himself a $100-million party at Persepolis to commemorate the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian Empire...the party must be held behind barbed wire, guarded by men with machine guns as protests erupt at Tehran University.


1979: After enduring a long reign of terror, a broad-based popular revolution overthrows the Shah. Five million Iranians crowd the streets of Tehran to welcome the revolution's symbolic leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, on his return from exile in Paris.


November 1979: Fueled by the belief that the U.S. is about to launch another coup after allowing the Shah to take refuge there, militant students seize the American embassy in Tehran, holding 52 hostages for 444 days. Ayatollah Khomeini, who was not involved in the hostage-taking, nevertheless lends his support and uses the distraction to consolidate power. Students piece together hundreds of pages of secret documents outlining the extent of former American control of Iran and its plans to destabilize the new regime.


1980: President Jimmy Carter orders a hostage rescue operation that goes terribly wrong. With Carter's popularity plummeting, Ronald Reagan wins a landslide victory in the presidential election. The hostages are released six minutes after Reagan is sworn in, contributing to allegations that his emissaries secretly negotiated to extend the hostage-taking until after the elections.


1983: Saddam Hussein, who invaded Iran in 1980 with the quiet encouragement of the U.S., has begun to use poison gas on Iranians on an almost daily basis. According to the Washington Post, "The administration of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague."


1983: Donald Rumsfeld visits Saddam Hussein in Baghdad as special envoy of Ronald Reagan to discuss common interests and Iraqi oil shipments. Rumsfeld was previously involved (along with Dick Cheney) in promoting the development of Iran's nuclear program under the Shah.


2005: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, is elected president of Iran. Within days of his election, the country announces it is proceeding with uranium enrichment.


2007: As Iraq descends into chaos with 700,000 Iraqis dead, the U.S. administration issues a troop "surge" in hope of regaining control, and makes the unusual argument that Tehran is arming anti-US insurgents - most of whom are Sunni and traditional enemies of the Shia Iranians. In January the U.S. raids an Iranian consulate in Kurdish Iraq, capturing low-level Iranian diplomatic staff; Iraqi troops working for the U.S. later capture an Iranian diplomat in Baghdad. Soon after, Iran captures 12 British sailors on an intelligence mission in disputed waters. The sailors are released a day after the Iranian diplomat, who claims to have been tortured by the CIA, is returned to Iran.


2007: U.S. fleet carriers gather in the Persian Gulf; Mohammad ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, announces that a military attack on Iran would be "an act of madness," and stresses that nonproliferation efforts are undermined as long as the "big boys" - such as the U.S. and Israel - are permitted to have nuclear weapons. The U.S. president authorizes the CIA to engage in covert operations to destabilize the Iranian regime.

In the media coverage, comparisons to the 1953 CIA regime change in Iran are nowhere to be found.





1. Campbell, Deborah Iran vs. The United States of Amnesia; Adbusters #73, Volume 15 Number 5; 2007.

You Can't Keep Keepin' Us Down

The more I hear Ron Paul talk and the more I see the MSM ignore him, the more I know he's onto something and the more I truly respect him. I don't know if I'd vote for him because some of his Libertarian views are just too far of a stretch for me to take, however, he's smart, articulate, full of integrity and has a firm grasp on the issues -- which is a lot more than I can say for any other Republican candidate and quite a few of the Democratic ones. I'd like to include those from the Green, Libertarian, or other third parties in this discussion, but for some odd reason, we in this country like to limit our freedom of representational choice to two sides of the same coin.

Outstanding Ron Paul at the recent Republican Debate can be seen here with some transcripts and a blog by Eric Garris about it here.



Now this (and this) has been making me smile all day. I truly love good ol' fashioned checks and balances. Let's hear it (finally) for some democracy in the USA!



This just really amazes me. It amazes me not only that the MSM doesn't report on this, but that Congress allows it to happen. If you have this revolving door of people who work for the government, then go work for major corporations, then back to the government - are they really going to represent the people and do what is in our best interest? Or are they going to bend over backwards to please those who gave them these cushy loyalty jobs?



I get a very dark, sinister feeling about this. (Another Eric Garris blog - the original story is here.) Bush has already admitted that his plan is to keep troops in Iraq up to, and hopefully after, he leaves office. Iraq is without question a gigantic illegal and immoral disaster. Maybe some quick strikes on Iran will help bolster the GOP's chances for a favorable outcome in 2008. We wouldn't bomb people just to win elections...would we?




Kudo's to Sony (and Japan) for pushing the limits and boundaries of human ingenuity. This is just awesome! Our imaginations are the only boundaries to our creativity.

That's why not for one second do I buy into this crap that Bush & Co keep polluting our national discourse with regarding CO2 limits and reduction: It'll hurt the economy or Other nations pollute, too! What are we, only the greatest nation when it comes to bombing people? News flash - creating new energy resources through research, development, and productions WILL CREATE NEW JOBS AND HELP THE ECONOMY! Why is no one throwing this back at Bush when he repeats the same tired lies?