Who killed Neda Agha-Soltan?
By Eric Verlo
NOT MY TRIBE - 6/22/2009 2:30AM MDT - 15 Comments
The video footage is shocking. An attractive young woman watching the demonstrations in Tehran is struck by a sniper’s bullet and dies before several video cameras. The tragedy is projected unto Facebook and Youtube, with advocates hoping it will galvanize (American) public support for the brave reform movement in Iran. News accounts blame “Basij snipers” on the rooftops. Other protesters have been killed in confrontations with Iranian riot police, without the benefit of video witnesses, much like two million Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis et al. Poor 27-year-old bystander Neda Soltani stood at the quite improbable convergence of bullet and camera –correction– cameras. I don’t have to suggest the scene was staged; whether or not the triggerman was an American is immaterial.
Think about just the improbability of your seeing this video. When was the last time the mainstream press has circulated a snuff film? The average person is embarrassed to watch a person die. It’s exploitive. Even when America was fixated on beheaded hostages, our television gatekeepers refused to broadcast the footage. Many horrific war killing moments have found their way unto Youtube, which antiwar activists could only hope would find wider distribution, if only to bring home the inhumanity of our soldiers’ deeds. It never happens.
The western press is running with this story because it demonizes the apparently naked inhumanity of Islam. Muslims stone women, hang gays, look: the bastards shoot their own people arbitrarily. Curiously our media doesn’t make hay with the hapless victims of US snipers.
The Neda Soltani snuff footage hit internet shores prepackaged with a smiling mug, and a name that translated means “the voice.” Could a casting director have picked a better title character to represent Iran’s repressed? The western press is even poised to outdo the Muslims in indignant piety, already lauding Neda as a martyr, whom we are informed should launch a thousand Shiite funeral processions. Western pundits compare Neda to the first Shiite martyr, the grandson of Mohammed himself.
Of course, also showing excessive Islamic sensitivity, western reporters readily dismiss the vanishing of Neda’s body, to the Muslim tradition of hasty burials. For the record, in case you missed it, Neda dies onscreen from an apparent gunshot. We do not see the bullet strike, nor now can anyone habeas corpus.
If the scenario was acted entirely, given the success with which the girl’s face is being made into an icon, young Neda’s life is probably as utterly expendable now as already depicted. You think you’re mourning Neda now, imagine her fate if this is a hoax.
OR the gunman could just as well have been a US black-op hit-man who had his eye on the videographers approaching innocent Neda. The US military has long admitted that special forces are already operating in Iran. If the Iranian forces are shooting civilian protesters, what’s the harm of helping them out where there’s a camera ready?
When we’re not meant to see it, the soldiers shoot the cameramen too.
It could be the work of Moussavi henchmen, who are our henchmen.
The Green Revolution, or TwitterTM Revolution, rebranded a “Social Media Revolution,” is a fabrication of the US pro-democracy agents working to destabilize Iran. They are hard at work in Cuba, in Venezuela, in Bolivia, and everywhere regimes threaten US globalization by enslavement. Remember the Orange Revolution? Any movement that is color-coded is the work of organizers reading US how-to manuals or attending OTPOR training seminars.
Where are the international voices decrying election fraud in Iran? No one other than the US and its stooges is asserting that populist leader Ahmadinejad did not win by a landslide. Only Iran’s urban middle class has taken to the streets of Tehran. And to protest what? Their minority standing in Iran?
The reformists in Iran are protesting democracy, not the failure of democracy. They are protesting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hard line against irreligious western economic and colonial policies which traditionally benefit the secular urban elite. “Pro-Democracy” is neoliberal for pro-capitalist plunder.
See: Shah’s Son Backs Iranian Protesters.
Like the “dissidents” of Cuba, the Green greenback-seekers are marching on the CIA’s dime, and being meted the fate of foreign provocateurs. I have no doubt the majority are idealists and are well-intended, but like the Kurds who rose against Saddam Hussein, the US has set them up for slaughter, the sooner to motivate western support for military aggression against their evil regime.
Our media pundits point out that the protest banners are written in English, a sign that the Iranians are desperate to appeal to American viewers. They dismiss Iranian accusations of the demonstrations being US-backed as pure paranoia, and ignore the most simple explanation behind the English slogans, and the websites and networks amplifying the message to English speakers: these materials are being crafted by USAID advisers. This is a propaganda campaign aimed at Western ears, to call for regime change in Iran.
Neda’s Theme is tried and true: Jessica Lynch, Roxana Saberi, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, Neda Salehi Agha Soltan. Onward Christian Soldiers.
The American public won’t believe another fiction about Kuwaiti babies dumped from incubators, or of Belgian children impaled on the bayonets of the evil Hun. So Madison Avenue has upped the amperage. Today’s television armchair adjudicators have to see innocent young women snuffed on film before our eyes. Provided to us by a press too otherwise prurient to show us the mass of death we deal everyday.
The Iranians in the streets, and poor pretty Neda, are being sacrificed by heartless US strategists. I doubt even an errant Iranian bullet can match the American military for cruelty.
Tags: Basij, Cuba, Euna Lee, Facebook, Film, Iran, Islam, Jessica Lynch, Kurds, Kuwait, Laura Ling, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Media, Military, Neda Agha Soltan, Neda Soltani, Otpor, Pakistan, Propaganda, Revolution, Roxana Saberi, Saddam Hussein, Shiite, Tehran, Twitter, Venezuela, youtubePosted: June 22nd, 2009 under Headlines.
Comments: 15
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Comments
Comment from Tony Logan
(IP: 190.66.174.127)
Time: June 22, 2009, 12:58 pm
We are wise to question the American corporate media line about a society the US government may soon go to direct war with. Besides the reality that there is no evidence the Iranian election results ever were forged or falsified, the smell of the usual US Pentagon style propaganda blitz simply stinks of shit, like it always does.
The Pentagon and its backers want the US public to be coaxed into yet more war and financial welfare for the military industrial complex. It is as simple as that. Media commentator Jack Bratich examines the US elite push this last week, of this sappy wave of love for ´democracy´elsewhere. Always elsewhere….
See… Iran, Social Media and the Rise of Genetically Modified Grassroots Organizations- The Fog Machine at http://www.counterpunch.com/bratich06222009.html
Comment from Mikhael
(IP: 68.174.246.169)
Time: June 27, 2009, 7:34 am
“The western press is running with this story because it demonizes the apparently naked inhumanity of Islam. Muslims stone women, hang gays, look: the bastards shoot their own people arbitrarily…”
Wow, you guys are funny. The only possible explanation is that the corporate media is demonizing Muslims, eh? What short memories you have, too. Did you forget the mass executions and persecutions of the Iranian left? Thousands of members of the Tudeh Party (Iranian Communists) were murdered by their erstwhile Islamist allies against the Shah in purges through the 1980s. But in your ridiculous zeal for any demagogue that spouts some anti-Western rhetoric, you’ll overlook the crimes of the ayatollahs against your fellow travelers.
You should remember that avowed Commies like yourselves wouldn’t last long in the Democratic Islamic Republic.
Comment from ghazal
(IP: 90.194.40.155)
Time: June 27, 2009, 7:00 pm
Interesting,
But I think it is most likely that the person who shot her was from mojahedineh khalgh, the monafegh terrorist organization. Everyone seems to be forgetting that they regularly try to kill as many people as possible.
After all they are supported by the Americans and the Europeans, and some of their leaders are being interviewed on major news channels.
Comment from H
(IP: 137.110.161.109)
Time: June 27, 2009, 10:20 pm
I have seen people being beaten and killed by basiji milita, and those guys dont look like CIA agents at all
Comment from Tony Logan
(IP: 190.32.53.152)
Time: June 28, 2009, 6:11 am
Mikhael speaks some truth here but utterly fails to realize that just because the Left is persecuted in ‘Islamic Iran’ gives Leftists no reason at all to all fall in step marching behind the reactionary war propaganda of the US and British governments.
You can certainly be opposed to both and still realize that the main enemy for antiwar activists in these 2 countries is their own utterly despicable imperialists at the helm of the US Empire. Mikhael is one of those who simply always seem to get lost in cheerleading always the latest war moves of his own gangster elites. Fool.
Comment from hasan
(IP: 89.165.21.91)
Time: July 4, 2009, 9:37 am
basij militarys were closing their eyes and killing people so easy.
we (people of iran) see them when they shoot directly to their people
they are always LIE , LIE , LIE , LIE Why?
we know that why, becuse fill them with some religious thing
i just said them please think just think and for a minuts dont think about cheating us(people of iran)
Comment from Eric
(IP: 75.77.32.42)
Time: July 4, 2009, 10:36 pm
FYI,
“Hasan” is speaking for the (people of Iran) from an IP in Amsterdam.
Comment from retards
(IP: 99.231.211.103)
Time: July 6, 2009, 10:35 am
Yep, only the U.S is capable of doing evil! The Iranian people would never rise up against their dictators unless it was the dastardly Americans and Zionists stoking the flames! A girl was caught dying on Camera, so it MUST have been a C.I.A trigger man (or maybe it was Mossad?)
You guys are a fuckin joke
Comment from Tony Logan
(IP: 190.184.38.68)
Time: July 6, 2009, 11:12 am
When you can´t say anything meaningful, then just write ´you guy´s are a joke´instead. And who is ´retarded´here?
And YES a girl was caught on camera dying, but we should never think about why it is THIS girl, of all those dying around the planet, that we in the US are told to focus on? What a sheep you are, Retard. Baa….
Comment from Emily
(IP: 67.249.12.23)
Time: January 16, 2010, 11:00 am
Islam is a terrorist ideology. Muslims not only kill each other but are the largest group of individuals that commit genocide.
Comment from Pilarerecto
(IP: 168.103.252.214)
Time: January 16, 2010, 1:57 pm
Wrong! Emily, it is the Christians that most commit genocides around the globe. RU one of those hate filled Muslim haters trying to get a lynch mob going? I think you probably are. KKKer RU.
Comment from Ali
(IP: 132.205.167.142)
Time: April 9, 2010, 9:33 pm
Has the identity of the Neda’s killer been revealed? How do we know it’s the basij? Who is sponsoring all these movements going out on the streets and calling for freedom? Why now? and why not years ago?
Wake up for God’s sake! This is the same damn conspiracy theory that gets run by the USA each time they want to prepare their people for another war. Ahmade Najad can end all this mess by just making one call to Obama and agreeing to restore relations with Israel, and end his support to resistance movements in Lebanon and Palestine. Next day he’ll turn in to USA’s most favored ally.
Comment from Bruce
(IP: 130.71.83.39)
Time: May 21, 2010, 7:14 am
The Mossad I think is probably behind the Neda killing.
There is not really even real evidence of fraud in the election either. The real fraud in the middle east is Israel’s settlement policy and their claims to have stopped. Israel is where the focus should be, and that seems to be what Obama is focusing on!!
Iran is a fake issue! Also, be sure to vote Obama in 2012.
Comment from Pilarerecto
(IP: 97.112.136.24)
Time: May 21, 2010, 11:01 am
Bruce, haven’t you heard? It is the Obama Administration that is leading the war call against Iran. And YES, Obama is ‘focusing’ on Israel. Focusing on helping them start this new war together with the US government. Now, can you tell me why it is so hard for liberals to focus on what’s actually going on?
Comment from Bruce
(IP: 130.71.227.56)
Time: June 10, 2010, 5:05 pm
It’s not hard for me at all to focus on what is going on. Obama rebuked Israel over the settlements issue and that clearly shows he is being even handed in the middle east. Obama is NOT trying to start a war with Iran. I think that BUSH was trying to, but since Obama has taken office I have come to realize that Iran seeking nuclear weapons is an issue, and Obama is being measured in his response (unlike Bush).
Just watch president Obama’s youtube addresses. He explains all of this.
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