Fake wars and Fake movements

This is exactly what the reformallah("reformist") in Iran is doing. Fighting the hardliners without fighting the ideology that drives them. Islam is the religion that was formalized by interpretation of the Koran and the traditions of Muhammad into the Islamic law in the eighth and ninth centuries. The Islamic law IS Islam, and it hasn't changed in any essentials since then. For reformer's Peaceful Islam to come into existence, actual Islam, defined by the sharia, would have to be dismantled. Why aren't millions of moderate muslims outraged about the recent stoning in Iran?

Thanks to Nana for the inspiration.

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Islamic Republic and Product Differentiation

So, you thought Islamic clergies don't understand the concept of market engineering? You thought wrong. Let me explain.

In marketing, product differentiation is the modification of a product to make it more attractive to the target market. This involves differentiating it from competitors' products as well as one's own product offerings.

The changes are usually minor; they can be merely a change in packaging or also include a change in advertising theme. The physical product need not change, but it could. The major sources of product differentiation are as follows:

.Differences in quality or design among output (product)
.Ignorance of buyers regarding the essential characteristics and qualities of goods they are purchasing
.Pervasive sales promotion activities of sellers and, in particular, advertising
.Possibility of developing significant product differentiation through advertising is greatly enhanced for so called “gift goods” or “prestige goods”
.Differentiation in the locations of sellers of the same good where the product fills no technical function but rather can satisfy many different sort of personal needs or uses (psychological or physical).

The objective of this strategy is to develop a position that potential customers will see as unique. If your target market sees your product as different from the competitors', you will have more flexibility in developing your marketing mix. (Source Wikipedia)

Islamic (Khomeinists) ideological/political goods are mainly available in two brands (style) in the Islamic Republic: The Reformers and the Hardliners. However, the Islamic republic has launched a new product differentiation campaign outside of its borders and the target audience is mainly the Western Consumers, or more appropriately, the 'useful idiots' in the West. The Islamic Republic has been successful in developing unique product differences with the intent to influence demand in naive democratic societies. One of them is an oxymoron called "Islamic feminism" and the other is "Reza Aslan", theologian turned military strategist and political pundit. His former classmate elaborates on what I'm trying to get across:

Religion is a business whereby they sell you a product. . .describing its features in a language one cannot understand (usually Latin, Arabic, or Hebrew or just poorly written English in some cases). Then they charge you for the "product" now (with all sorts of fine print and restrictions that could give a contracts lawyer a hard-on), and promise delivery after death. . .and they can do all of this without even having a refund policy!

Hell if Nordstrom sold shoes like that it would be out of business in 2 days!

Now that's a true testament to the sales ability of theologians all over the world. In fact I think if Nordstrom hired some theologians in the Salon Shoes Department, Charles David boots would be flying out the door 50 at a time!

I mean look at Reza Aslan as a great example of a theologian turned political pundit (truly a great guy, aside from our differences on religion, his being nice I mean seriously).

One day he is sitting next to me in a class called "The Theology of Marriage" and he can barely speak five words of Persian/Farsi to me (let's not get our collective panties in a bunch on the Persian vs. Farsi argument)... and the next thing I know a few years later (who is counting but around ten) he's in Turkey (the country, not the bird that was on my Thanksgiving table) as an expert on the Middle East!

He's standing next to Anderson Cooper, commenting on Iran's nuclear policy... and exchanging notes with General Marks on American military strategy in Iraq on satellite!

Last I recall his book's title was basically "La Elaha El Allah" in English (that's a phrase you hear frequently when you ask for a price break on gojeh sabz (tasty snack) from a street vendor in Tehran)! (Or when your cat gets on your nerves by meowing too much)

How did he insert the bit on the NPT and military strategy into his religious studies major?!

They weren't teaching military strategy at Bannan Hall on the third floor where the Religious Studies Department was!! Military Strategy was way across the campus by the ROTC area!

Insofar as I know he doesn't even know what zoghal akhteh (delicious snack) is, so how did he become an expert on Iran and its nuclear policies on Anderson Cooper and Bill Maher?

Theologians. . . they're so good at bullshitting -- even we lawyers look at them with awe (only because we thought we had the market monopolized)!

Reza aslan in his latest piece in Los Angeles Time prescribes his pearls of wisdom on how we can make nice with the Islamic colonizers occupying Iran.(Note, he can barely speak Persian) Here are some uninformed tidbits tailor-made for the 'useful idiots':

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. For that to happen, Iran will have to meet certain conditions. It must stop sending arms to Hezbollah. It must cease meddling in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And it must pursue a more constructive role in stabilizing Iraq.

Everything he says is true but not the whole truth (lying by omission). He is using 3 propaganda techniques: 1- Half truth 2-euphemism, 3-deception via mislabeling.

The First half-truth appears when he only stresses "Sending Arms to Hezbollah". He selectively decided not to mention the training and social and infrastructural funding that started 25 years ago with no adverse reaction from the west. Then, he uses an innocuous word such as "meddling" in Israeli-Palestinian conflict to substitute that for funding, training, and arming Hamas. This propaganda technique is purely designed to deceive by mislabeling and misinforming. In his last sentence he employs all three mentioned above techniques simultaneously. Using "More constructive" has a positive connotation. Since Iran has been playing a "constructive role" in Iraq 'so far', then all required is to do itsy bitsy more of the same. If you don't call that a lie via mislabeling and misinformation, I don't know what else to call it. He then carefully chooses the word "stabilizing". I guess killing Americans, Kurds, and Iraqis by funding and training Shia militia death squads (and recently Sunni militia) in his Islamic republic's dictionary means "stability-inducing ingredients". Then, he repeats his tired meme like a mindless and dutiful parrot stating some very obvious truths but not the entire truth:

But the U.S. has conditions of its own to meet before it too can be considered a reliable negotiating partner. Most important, it must once and for all abandon its policy of actively pursuing regime change in Iran. This policy has only strengthened the hand of Iran's clerical regime, accelerated its nuclear program, helped justify its repression of political opposition and fostered its paranoia against internal and external threats.

Well, Mr. Aslan thinks the U.S is not a trustworthy negotiating partner. On what criteria does he base this assessment of unreliability? Why does regime change should weigh in at all in negotiating over stopping a terrorist, hostage taking and America-hating nation-state from obtaining the deadliest weapon known to man? Does he think the U.S. is obtuse enough to give life-time warranty to a nation whose very existence depends upon international terrorists production, destruction of the West and "ignorant" modernity? Does he think the Islamic republic is a reliable partner when stoning of women and temporary marriages are referred to as “age of enlightenment and charity” and modernism and human rights as “evils of ignorant West”? Not to mention, the IR has been continuously talking behind close doors with the U.S. for the past 27 years, and contrary to conventional wisdom, the warmongering hardliners (Ahamdinejad and IRGC) are not waiting in the wings to talk. If that were true, Iran would not be imprisoning, forcing false confessions from and otherwise seriously mistreating Iranian American activists, scholars and engagement advocates, all for political effect.

No wonder Sheema declined Fox New's invitation who had previously invited Reza Aslan as an "expert" on Iran.

Source: Propaganda and Debating Techniques

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Jockeying for power, Truth or Politics, Form or Function

Translation From a blogger from Iran (I will not provide a link for security reasons):

The discussion in the Opposition camp outside of Iran divides the Iranian power elites into two groups:

1. Some say the variances and the duality or dichotomy that exists among the ruling factions in the regime is a deceptive and orchestrated ploy or tactic to distract and keep the Westerns busy while they are being made a fool out of.

2.The other group say that there are fundamental differences in existance among the ruling factions.

That, to what extent, these assumptions are accurate; I will discuss them perhaps in a new light:

One of the interesting items that is clearly evident and on display on many occasions is that there is a lack of unified and unanimous messages. There are several voices, meaning that in the Islamic Republic, we don’t see a centralized power.

In the era of cunning, deceitful, and ill-disposed khomeini, the ultimate say was always his and anything he said was the absolute command.

But today, anything that occurs in Iran raises different voices from different corners of the power elite. Reactions are different and sometimes so contradictory that the laypersons ask each other :”Is the government so polarized and chaotic that they can’t unify and coordinate their decisions and messages before they express them publicly??”

We have seen many times that one of the government official says something and another one says completely the opposite. For example, Ali Larijani when a reporter asked him in Iraq whether the Islamic Republic going to participate in the Sharm-al-Sheik Conference in Egypt, Larijani replied, “NO”. Then the reporter told Larijani that President Ahmadinejad announced two hours ago that Iran will participate in the Conference, he kept silent and proceeded to pass by the reporters with anger.

This phenomenon has occurred a thousand times in the past. For this reason, the West does not trust the regime. Westerners until the very end of ex-president Khatami’s term were kept distracted by ironic and fanciful novelties (curios) such as “Dialogue Among Civilizations” crap and were hoodwinked for a while.

The West and the westerners only discovered and realized the conspicuous and egregious infightings within the regime, when Mahmood ,the monkey, came to power. The speech of Mohsen Rezai, God father of IRGC about Ahmadinejad in this context is very interesting to mention. He said, “The Iranian nuclear train has not only breaks but also it has “reverse Gears” and he continues to say, Ahmadinejad is our ‘Six-hand power’. The speech was a loaded and significant with multi-level meanings:

But the most disappointing of all is that the primary sufferers and victims of these policies and animosities are ultimately the Iranian people. Please read my analysis carefully:

There are two groups in the country that have usurped the power: 1. the reformers and 2. The hardliners. These two reflections intensely criticize each other . And each one blames the other for their abysmal failure in running the country. Along with these two main groups, there are hundreds of other auxiliary groups in the country who are all obedient either to one of these two main ruling powers. And some are more extremists and some are more moderate.
But Still when you look at these two groups you realize the bitter truth: All of these groups are all followers of the revolution principles and Islamic constitution and Khomeinist Islam and are obedient to the Supreme Rule of the Velayt-e-Faqih.

All of them respect the principles of revolution and the Khomeinists Islam. And none of them are ready to move the slightest bit to turn and reverse these principles. And unfortunately all of them result in actions against the will of the people.

The only factor that causes their infighting is the ‘style’ and the manner in which they deem ruling the people and the country to their own taste and liking.

Different administrations have been in power in Iran, some more extremists and some more moderate. Ex-president, Khatami, with his so-called reforms illustrated how in secret and behind closed doors perpetrated kidnapping of and invented the serial and chain murder of intellectuals, scholars and writers, censoring the internet, and the brutal suppression of student uprising and the phenomenon of the civilian-cloth- wearing paramilitary and many other painful issues.

On the surface, all of this heinous crimes was attributed to pressure groups and Khatami’s incompetence in standing up to them, but as we found out, they were all done with the full approval of Khatami.

The future of Iran is painful and vague but ultimately bright and will benefit the people. Even so, at what price? How many will be victims and prisoners of this regime and will suffer and lead lives of hopelessness, wasted potentials, and utter wretchedness in a huge prison called Iran? And for how much longer?

The Islamic Republic can reach a compromise and negotiate with the West but this will not change anything for the ordinary enslaved masses and it might even make their lives harder than it is right now.

If The Islamic Republic does not reach a compromise with the West, then ultimately, war is inevitable and definite.


And in this way, people will be killed and bombed.

Sanctions and the cat an mouse play will eventually harm the regular people also!!!

Tomorrow, the reformers can take the power back but because in principle, they believe in the Islamic constitution and they are followers of Velayat-e-Faqih (Supreme Rule of the Supreme Leader) and Khomeinists Islam, and in reality, in action and deeds nothing will change and nothing will improve for the benefit of the people. And the reformists too, in order to stop and prevent the uprising of the fed up masses inevitably will show decisiveness for if they don’t, people will take advantage of the open political climate and will rush in to get their country back and THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS TO THE SURVIVAL OF THE REGIME.

When the dam breaks, you can’t hold it with a broom.

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Mainstream Media & Islamists

Mainstream Media & Islamists
Exclusive: The Mainstream Media: Islamist Facilitators

Via: Plateau:

I believe that Islam cannot be reformed, at least not easily. In order to reform Islam, one must alter the basis for its belief system and ideology, which include the Koran and Hadiths, as well as the character and deeds of its Prophet (who was radical, activist, political and violent, especially, after he moved to Medina). Since the common conviction, both among radicals and so-called moderates, is that one cannot go against the word of God or Allah as written in the Koran, I simply do not see how Islam can become a purely spiritual religion – historically and since its inception, Islam has always been associated with politics & violence.

To be fair, I also note some Muslims declaring that the application of what is written in the Koran (which is codified, for the lack of a better term) is very much a matter of interpretation by qualified Muslim theologians.However, I do believe that Political Islam can be & should be reduced in influence and stature. It is only in this context that, perhaps, one can speak of ‘moderate’ versus ‘radical’ Muslims. For the sake of clarification, I define those Muslims who want to see State & Religion separated, do not wish to impose Sharia or Islamic laws upon societies and those who prefer to practice their faith privately and quietly, similar to any other religion, as “Moderate” Muslims.

On the other hand, those hell bent on enforcing Sharia law, who believe in ‘offensive’ Jihad, take a hostile approach, even surreptitiously, and believe in all aspects of Political Islam are “Radical” Muslims or Islamists.Although Islam's transformation must be initiated by Muslims and their theologian, we in the West can either reinforce & give voice to “moderate” OR “radical” Islam through our efforts.

A significant and powerful contributor in this instance is the Mainstream Media.Finally, a note on Islamic Republic: Firstly, I choose not to refer to Islamic Republic as "Islamic Republic of Iran" because it is a misnomer - the Government does not represent the People and elections as previously mentioned here are a sham. Secondly, I reiterate that the Reformists camp in Iran, apart from superficial liberties that they would like to give to the people in order to mollify the populace, are part & parcel of IR structure & regime. Their efforts, regardless of Ahmadinejad, will only prolong the existence of the regime, not topple it.

These reformists in Iran are unlike Gorbechev of USSR. The main difference between the reformists and hardliners in IR is their approach, not the core ideology. I consider any faction within IR as Islamist & Radical, unless and until they, in substance, clearly prove otherwise.

Here is an extract of the above article:

"In this riveting, damning exposé by FSM Contributing Editor M. Zuhdi Jasser, the mainstream media is identified as one of the most significant reasons why moderate Muslim voices are utterly silenced in America. You won’t want to take this outrage sitting down!

The PBS censorship of Islam vs. Islamists highlights one of the major obstacles to hearing the Moderate Muslim Voice."

For more on the nature of the so-called Reformist in the Islamic Republic, read "Dances With Foxes", here.

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