 Top gunned down
Mastermind of the Nojeh coup attempt
Mahmoud Ghaffari
July 22, 2004
iranian.com
His left eye was gouged out, leaving an empty socket, his body
was riddled with bullets, and his entire torso was black and
blue from torture. This was the scene the wife of the late Brigadier
General Saied Mehdiyoun saw, when she was summoned to reclaim the
body of this great patriot. In fact she had to pay a dollar for
every bullet used to murder him, so that his executioners
could
replace their inventory!
This is the scene replayed thousands of times in the Great Islamic
Republic of Iran, during the first few years of the revolution
and ominously still continuing to today.
Last week is the 24th anniversary of the Nojeh coup
attempt [See: Nice
try], masterminded by this outstanding highest
ranking officer of the Imperial Iranian Air force and many other
patriots
who lost their lives in the clutches of the Islamic fundamentalists.
Any one, who remembers the events of those days, can only draw
one conclusion; that the events of the world for the next twenty
years were shaped by such animalistic and terrorist acts. We all
kept quiet, solemnly dowsed in our own sorrows for the lost lives,
but could never imagine, that a group of about 2000 backward clerics,
can do such damage and cause so much mayhem, because of their blind
and unsubstantiated faith in religion.
Heroes like Mehdiyoun are not amongst us any more, but imagine
what Iran would be like today, had the heroic acts of this man
and the hundreds like him who tried to save Iran from the clutches
of abysmal tyranny would have succeeded.
Mehdiyoun was the son of a wealthy Tabriz merchant. He started
his professional life as a dentistry student and for some reason
or another switched over and joined the Imperial Iranian Air force.
He moved through the ranks and became one of the handful of "Top
Gun" F-4 Phantom fighter pilots. Schooled at a US Air Force
base in Alabama, during the late 50's and early 60's,
his star was on the rise through out his military career.
He was one of the few that
the Imperial sovereign could trust. He was considered one of the
top 5 commanders of the Air Force. His tenure in the Air Force
took him to command positions for the Shahrokhi 3rd tactical air
base in Hamadan, and Vahdati 4th Tactical air base in Dezful. His
final command position was Commander of the Air Defense
Command, or "Padafande Havaie".
Mehdiyoun
was a loyal officer, one who had taken an oath to protect and
serve the unity of Iran and serve his sovereign to the last drop
of blood. This concept unfortunately is foreign to the zealots
running Iran to the ground at the moment. Such loyalty and sacrifice
stems back to the time of the Great Persian Empire and the Immortal
guards of Cyrus the Great.
 When His wife was signing the papers to release his lifeless
body, a revolutionary guard present at his execution recounted
that he
never renounced his beliefs. When he was asked to kneel and
get ready for his execution, he responded with, "I will never
kneel in front of you ..."
Right or wrong, good or
bad, we have to agree that commitment, dedication to excellence
and the love of Iranian soil drove many of these heroes of
Iran's great past. They may never be duplicated and until
such time that the Islamic Republic is ruling Iran the armed forces
will never be restored to its glorious level it had attained under
the leaders of the past. We can concur, that if the Freedom Fighting
Forces of the US decide to liberate Iran, many if not all the officers
currently serving the regime will abandon their posts in a fraction
of the time it took the Arab thugs to do so in Iraq.
I had the honor of knowing this man and experienced first hand
his devotion to his oath of office. He was always forthright and
candid, and I think that had to do with his Azeri upbringing, and
it was his assertiveness and command of those reporting to
him, that made the Monarch take a liking to this man.
 I have been a sideline observer of the events
inside Iran. Now in the post 9/11 world, I can see why actions
by the likes of Mehdiyoun are so much part of world
history -- not only Iran's. Had his heroic effort been successful,
it would have propelled the world and its inhabitants into a much
more benign existence. All of us, be it Americans, Iranians and
members of other national boundaries, should salute these heroes,
as they were set to change the face of history in a more positive
wake.
.................... Say
goodbye to spam!
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Top gunned down
