State Dept. to Twitter: Keep site up in Iran
washingtontimes.com
washingtontimes.com
Full disclosure: I was born and raised behind the iron curtain so I've thought a lot about autocratic regimes and network theory.
It's very difficult if not impossible to stop a human wave revolution. Even if the police have guns and the protesters don't, it is usually impossible to stop, regimes just topple.
Violent regime change by small groups of people also happens, but I want to concentrate on the classic thrown off by the populace scenario.
To keep a population down, to have a police state and stay in power you need some percentage X of that population to function as police.
To do it by brute force requires such a large X that it's hard to function as a state, see North Korea.
But you can get away with a much smaller X if you can disrupt the formation of a human wave. And the best way to do that is fear, intimidation and preventing the flow of information.
That's why police states spy on their people and control the media. Parades are for propaganda, except they can also turn to bad, see Romania and Ceauşescu.
The spying is not about getting everyone who's dissatisfied with the regime. It's about getting at least some of the super links, and intimidating the rest.
Controlling the media is about preventing synchronization, you want to prevent EVERYONE going out on the street at the same time.
So no braking news, or reports of demonstrations. If there are large demonstrations anywhere, you definitely don't put that on TV, much less live TV. Even industrial accidents are suppressed and then slowly leaked over time, days.
You just don't want to give anyone a reason to panic. Controlling a populace like that is very much like crowd control, it's even somewhat similar to how you control an animal that could kill you if it got spooked, like a horse.
That control occasionally slips. Soccer is huge in the rest of the world and soccer matches are live even in autocratic regimes. And usually that's not a problem.
Except when a soccer riot at live soccer match starts a revolution.
Interestingly, I recall hearing that North Korea would not show the South Korean team's games in the soccer world cup live.
And what Iran is doing is very smart. Evil but smart. Shutting down Facebook and youtube is smart. Why they left Twitter open is anyone's guess.
Breaking up the crowds while they are still small, announcing fake rallies is poisoning the information well.
Given how important information is to regime change, I am stunned the CIA has not done more to make Facebook unblockable, or at least difficult to block. Or airdropped encrypted satellite cell phones on the crowds.
I am surprised and depressed there aren't free information distribution tools being made and given away by the NSA, CIA, etc to everybody living in autocratic regimes.
It saddens me to think this is because they fear those tools could be used against friendly dictators.
Watching the brutality of the police in Iran, how they beat people, students, women, anyone, I keep thinking to myself:
Iran needs soccer hooligans. Iran needs semi-pro, British, well organized, taking-hooliganism-as-a-serious-hobby, with many years experience hooligans. And lots of them. Why are we not parachuting them into Tehran?
You can also watch the crowds react, flow around blockades or confront them when numbers are on their side.
And the police go from bullies to running away as fast as the balance of numbers changes.
Watching has been painful, but Iran is after all the nation that used the human wave attack in the Iran-Iraq war, so I can't help but expect that to happen to the current regime soon.
I'll have to respectfully disagree. As a general rule I find distasteful, the idea of handing control of a nation that is a stone's throw away from having nuclear arms over to guys whose idea of protest is to stand on rooftops screaming Allahu-Akbar while burning buses.
I'm just saying.
Judging by the silence out of Washington and London I would bet there are a lot of people seeing the same thing. Even more are sitting around tables talking about the outcome of the last student led pro democracy revolution in Iran. Some are even remembering our history helping promising, bright young pro democracy students in the middle east. You know . . . like Osama Bin Laden.
I think that message has been communicated to the Iranian opposition though, given the peaceful nature of the marches today. Especially when contrasted with the behavior of the opposition marchers on previous days. Still, some of us have some legitimate concerns. And, judging by the upvotes, some of us have short memories.
However, it doesn't matter what I think, or even who won or lost. A lot of people there obviously don't believe the results of the election, and they are vigorously demanding further proof. That's their right and I see the whole thing as a fairly healthy process. Regardless of who ends up the victor, a large number of people are demonstrating that they deeply care about the matter, and won't be intimidated by the state - this is a good thing, IMO.
Time for the rest of the world to just stand back and let Iran decide its own future.
"Time for the rest of the world to just stand back and let Iran decide its own future"
What is being discussed by the OP, and on this thread however, is how to help the protesters. I was giving my reasons for a careful consideration of the consequences of helping these particular protesters. Let's be honest and admit that people here are discussing something other than self rule. And it is my opinion that whenever we start talking like that, things go horribly wrong. Perhaps now, perhaps twenty years from now, but they do go wrong.
Or perhaps you don't consider CIA airdrops of encrypted satellite phones interference?
What I objected to was (what sounded like) your position that helping pro-democracy agitators we like is OK, but those we do not like (your mention of Allah Akbar was telling), we should not support. I disagree rather strongly with that sort of side-picking. Your mention of nukes was also a red herring - what does that have to do with anything? We're either pro-democracy or not. In this case, however, I think we should just wait it out.
I also objected to your claim that OBL was once aided as a pro-democracy agitator; this is very far from the truth. He was aided to strategically undermine the USSR, nothing to do with democracy. However I agree that the USA should learn a lesson from its experience with him - hands off unless you're willing to go all the way, and the USA is not.
Then we agree on non interference. Which is the material point.
Just some points in the way of precision . . .
I am as vehemently opposed to helping Tibetan pro democracy agitators as I am to helping Iranian pro democracy agitators. Or, more accurately, I believe that the pro democracy agitators that we "like" should be left to sink or swim as well.
Also, I disagree on your assertion that passive support should be offered to pro democracy movements. It is "side picking" of the sort you said you disagree with. Then again, it might be illustrative to ask you whether you would want Twitter to forego their maintenance if Ahmadinejad's followers were using it to organize their rallies? I strongly suspect that the State Department would have made a call of a different nature to Twitter under the circumstances that question postulates.
In any case, in the end, we screw up passive interference as well. Anyone care to hazard a guess at what Facebook and SMS have in common? Their communication channels are, by default, private. Either the Facebook friends list or the mobile phone address book has to be accessed to send a message. And then only the receiver will get it. Interesting, is it not, that the communication channel that is by default public has been left unfettered through all of these disruptions.
Are you implying that the form of intervention being advocated will restore that trust?
They didn't leave Twitter open. Iranians are using proxy servers, and switching between them rapidly as proxies get blocked.
If we're not doing anything here, I will be very disappointed. What I would like to see is the United States leading the world in proclaiming that we're not going to tolerate this sort of crap. I do not mean dropping bombs.
I DO mean doing "little" things like encouraging ISPs to set up proxies for Iranian bloggers to use. (The ones set up by individual hackers seem to get shut down just as quickly as they start getting used).
I just feel like there are non-violent things that we could do to show our support for those that do not what Ahmadinejad in power.
One concrete thing the US could do is run up GSM relays on warships already in the Gulf...
Also - helping "inferior" (in they opinion) races/nations? Not likely.
In fact, it would probably be even more effective to claim foreign involvement without any evidence at all. If they make the case using the Twitter story many people would quickly dismiss it as a weak theory. If they, instead, make bold claims and then are unable to substantiate them due to national security reasons it can't be disputed.
http://kheirkhah.ir/media/Image/Weblog%202/Keyhan-ehtics.jpg
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/17/state-asks-t...
The day seems to have changed. (Perhaps their CMS updates the url as a side effect of saving an update that happens on a new day?)
Remember the Orange Revolution and Yushchenko (the acid-on-face guy) in Ukraine not so long ago?
Quote: 'an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing…'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
The situation in Iran, esp. the reaction to the Twittering, strikes me as the exact same thing, especially given the US history in the region covertly bringing down the democratic government of Mossadeq. Israel and therefore America want to destabilise Iran at any cost. They don't want democracy, they want a 'friendly' democracy -- that's the key.
It's been going on covertly and not-so-covertly for a long time:
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2002/09/12/Netanyahu_US_should_a...
Why did the CIA plan and execute a coup against the democratically-elected Hugo Chavez, and attempt to overthow the legitimate democracy in Venezuela? How can it be justified from a non-Machiavelian (i.e. moral) worldview? Can it? The crazy thing is, the US subverts democracy in the name of democracy.
Can you make such a case for opposing overwhelming foreign intervention in Venezuela? No. Therefore our meddling there was wrong.
Not the same as Russia/Ukraine. We were opposing a takeover in Ukraine.