Rah-e-Sabz claims that a recent “political education” event at an Iran army barracks had to be cancelled when hundreds of soldiers starting coughing, apparently when the speaker criticised the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri. Commanders have asked for a list of the dissident coughers.–From Enduring America.
http://www.rahesabz.net/story/8284/
THE REGIME’S DILEMNA IS GROWING
The troops are drawn from the same public the regime persecutes. That can’t be helped. It is soldiers’ families, friends, neighbors, acquaintences and even their clerics, if pro-reform, who become the regime’s victims too. Soldiers also had their votes stolen on June 12 by the Khamenei-Yazdi-Janatti-Taeb–Jafari plot.
Soldiers and civilians alike are finding unique ways to send the same message of scorn for this regime and its leaders. Expect this tactic to spread as other soldiers learn about it and chuckle at the news. The tactic is equivalent to clever things oppressed civilians do to freely express themselves (writing slogans on currency or filling walls with anti-coup graffiti).
CAN THE REGIME MAKE SOLDIERS STOP “SUSPICIOUS COUGHING?”
OPTION #1: Pro-regime officers can arrest all soldiers who do it.
Downside: The arrested will outnumber those arresting them.
OPTION #2: Pro-regime officers can arrest a few soldiers to intimidate the rest.
Downside: This tactic hasn’t worked on civilians so why should it work on the miitary? Why shouldn’t the results be similar: creating sympathy for the opposition and more contempt for the regime, radicalizing the coughers, driving opposition in the ranks underground, etc.? The latter is especially dangerous in the case of soldiers. Meanwhile one can always flatten an officers tires, pour sugar down a military vehicle’s gas tank, etc.
OPTION #3: Increase political reeducation further.
Prediction: It will be no more effective than elementary school brainwashing attempts (children are de-conditioned by radicalized family members as soon as they get home) or university re-education.
You Tube contrains plenty of examples of what happens to regime apologists wh try to tell their outrageous lies to the regime’s student/victims (loud slogans, table pounding) they simply shut up and flee the room to laughter and jeers. The sole effect is to cheer the oppressed and demoralize spokesmen assigned to defend what is inherently indepensible. What could be more psychologically painful to a social animal than repeated doses of mass scorn that confirm one’s pariah status? That also explains why so many offspring of regime big shots and thugs often join young peers in opposition protests. To defend the regime these days is a futile as praising a chld molestor.
TALENT IS BEING PURGED EVERYWHERE–INCLUDING THE MILITARY
–In every university regime dullards replace qualified professors and Yazdi-style clerics or Basilj thugs become university presidents.
–In every courtroom zealous defense attorneys are sent to jail if they serously try to defend the regime’s critics. Judges with any sense of fairness or justice are displaced by millionaire Larinjani types to make certain that protestors are found guilty and given ludicrous sentences.
–In the army and IRCG well-bribed political scumbags like Jafari) replace real and competent officers believe in serving Iran and its people. The latter are labeled “politically unreliable” and forced into early retirement.
–Corruption, brutality and injustice are everywhere and so public that soldiers and public alike can’t help noticing. Only the bribed corrupt and naive can have faith in ther Islamic Republic and its Supreme Mugabe anymore.
WHY DOESN’T KHAMENEI SIMPLY MURDER A FEW HUNDRED THOUSAND TO QUIET THE REST?
Everyone knows by now that Khamenei has no moral scruples and hardly represents Islam. He’d give the population the Khmer Rouge treatment in a minute if he thought the troops would go along. His officers have already infomed him what he can expect so he must be practical.
Iran’s officer class will have good reason to fear the troops if it supports mass slaughter of the opposition. In Vietnam, soldiers often fragged such types by tossing a gernade into their tent at night or “accidentally” shooting them full of holes during combat. The attitude of troops toward such officers is best captured in a WW II film directed by Robert Aldrich–“Attack.” I strongly recommend it to anyone who identifies with the Iranian opposition, especially soldiers.
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If the above story contains any additional details, I wouldn’t know it because my only languages are English and French (the latter partly self-taught). I’d be particular interested in a translation of another item from Ayande News which seems to have have quite a few interesting items these days, though in Farsi and arabic script. It is a analysis of why diffferent hard liners may be trying to bring down the regime:
