In a must-read editorial, the Wall Street Journal corrects its brethren MSM on the identity of the thugs who just stormed the British embassy in Tehran — breaking windows, burning the British flag, ransacking offices, trashing a portrait of the Queen, and terrorizing the staff. The Journal notes that the attack was not impromptu. “Police stood by, and Iranian state television broadcast events live.”
But, continues the editorial, “By some strange reflex, Western media insisted the attackers were ‘students.’ To Iranians who know better, they were the basij militia, the regime’s first line of defense. These thugs were called out to brutally put down the 2009 Green Revolution, a genuine student-led uprising.”
Exactly. So what was this strange reflex that caused so many members of the Western media — including CNN, CBS, ABC, the BBC, USA Today, the NY Daily News and even Fox — to describe them as “students”? I’m no mind reader, but I’m skeptical that in this case it was anything as deliberate as some sort of multicultural, values-neutral bias. More likely it was something at least as bad, and maybe worse. My guess is that they let Iranian propagandists do their thinking for them, pulling the “student” label straight off the Iranian broadcasts of the event.
Courtesy of the web site of Iran’s embassy in the UK., no less, one can find right now a link to an account of the mob assault on the British embassy in Tehran. It’s a writeup by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting service (IRIB News), in which the main point seems to be, quite specifically, to cast the basij as students — starting with the headline: “Angry IRI students enter British embassy.” Every single one of the six short paragraphs in this brief account then features the label “students.” Here’s the text (boldface mine):
A group of Iranian students, indignant by Britain’s hostile policies towards the Islamic Republic entered its embassy compound in Tehran Tuesday evening.
The students forced their way through the police forces into the embassy.
The students hurled Molotov Cocktails and stones into the embassy compound in Tehran and broke the building’s windows.
Other students removed the British flag and hoisted IRI flag in its place.
The students were chanting slogans including Labbeik Ya Hussein (O, Hussein, we are ready to answer your call for assistance), in reference to the second Shii Imam’s call for assistance in Ashura events.Scores of students were in the embassy compound while many more were gathering in front of the embassy. They were installing flags, designated with ‘Ya Hussein’ over the walls of the embassy.
Subtle, it ain’t.
Also read: Obama’s Pathetic Statement on the Iranian Storming of the UK Embassy
Two things were drummed into the media some thirty years ago. One was the notion of these thugs being “students” and everyone assumed they were true Iranian patriots who put Iran’s culture first. Secondly we had the Hezbollah Party in Iran being accepted as Iranian representatives in UN and elsewhere whilst they were killing Iranians. No one treats them like the Taliban.
The instant I read news of the storming of the British embassy in Tehran, I knew instinctively that the “students” were the government’s thugs. Nothing “spontaneous” happens in Iran without premeditation or direction by the the mullahs and the Eleven-and-a-Half Imam’s permission, order or encouragement.
This is especially egregious because just two days ago, a day prior to the Iranian attack on the British Embassy, the Iranian Parliamnet voted to expel the British Ambassador from Tehran, and Western Media should have been fully aware of this fact:
Iran Parliament Votes To Expel British Ambassador
http://www.theindependentbd.com/international/asia/81965-iran-parliament-votes-to-expel-british-ambassador.html
The press also preferred to parrot Pakistan’s propaganda 100% in the NATO incident which killed 27 Pakistan military (terrorists). The facts aren’t all in, but one Pakistani general admitted that Pakistan fired first on NATO forces, perhaps thinking they wer under attack, or perhaps working in conjunction with the terrorists to provide fire cover for their retreat. In any event, given the treacherous snake behavior of Pakistan, you’d think the Western pess would at least have an iota of skepticism, but they go first with our enemy’s propaganda, and then bury the truth by dribbling it out after the fact. The narrative is set in the beginning, and therefore never really gets corrected.
I still hear the terrorists who attacked the US embassy in 1979 referred to as “students” in current recounting, proving how deeply the first version of coverage colors history thereafter. They were Muslim terrorists then, they are Muslim terrorists now, they will always be Muslim terrorists.
And worst of all, since 9/11 enemy propaganda has totally colored every bit of coverage and reportage on Islam and Muslims. Terms like “moderate Muslim”, “religion of peace”, “lone wolf terrorist”, and “Islamophobia” are all enemy propaganda designed to deflect our attention away from the terrorist doctrine of Islam and the Muslims who perpetuate it. Our media treasonously has advanced this seditious propaganda relentlessly, as if they are simple extensions of the enemy’s war against us.
We have been betrayed by almost every intellectual, politician, and media figure in this war. No wonder Islam and its champions are ascending in every sphere including in the White House. We are already completely subverted by Islam from within by these Western traitors.
If anyone ever needed a better example of how far south of reality Western media has fallen, this is a prime-time revelation. I mean, honestly, is there not one independent mind working for any Western news organization? It makes one think high school newspapers have a better handle on events in Iran than the high-paid follow-the-leader reporters currently enjoying their moment out from under their rocks. How lazy can you get. Pick up on a feed from an Iranian state broadcaster and repeat it word for word as intended … actually, that’s worse than lazy, that’s incompetence. But apparently according to current jouralistic standards, acceptable. Fox News TV may have unaccountably fallen for the ruse, but Fox’s WSJ didn’t, once again proving to be America’s first line of defence against the MSM’s preoccupation with fiction.
I doubt that the MSM is being complicit with the Iranian regime, they are simply being lazy. No attempt at actual reporting.
Actual reporting would put their “access” at risk. Remember Eason Jordan and Iraq?
What is Helen Thomas’s take on this?
Whether it was “students” or the basij militia, it was still a mob. And nobody does mobs better than the Muslims. Anywhere in the Muslim world it seems that you can whip up a mob on a moments notice. Mobs to invade embassies, mobs to burn an American flag, mobs to celebrate 9/11, mobs to stone people, mobs to hang gays, mobs to protest against Jews, mobs to protest against dictators, mobs to protest against monarchs, mobs to adopt even stricter versions of Sharia Law (as in Libya and Egypt), even mobs to kill other mobs. Muslims are showing that they are incapable of doing anything else but have mob rule, which is what they have done for centuries. Even the “arab spring” was born out of a mob. And let’s see where that leads us. This is what Muslims do best, so we should not be surprised at what happened in Tehran. And, as history shows, they will never get beyond it. Never.
Probably the same reason why the media portrays OWS as peaceful protesters even though they are not.
In the eyes of out MSM, the protesters are always right unless they are the TP protesting Obama.
Hey wait! Doesn’t Taliban mean students?
I was going to point out the same thing. Taliban means Student.
Any questions?
Yes, the media made a unified stand calling the Taliban ‘students’ way back in the days of liberation of Afghanistan from the Soviets. The media has since then been stuck on stupid, failing to question relevant facts and trends when a handy (and misleading) label is close at hand.
The MSM also assured us in 1979 that the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran was accomplished by ‘students’.
It was obvious that the ‘Students’ were sponsored by the Iranian government. But that doesn’t change the fact that the
sanctions are working.
That’s the key here. Anyone pounding the war drums will be the usual suspects in the run-up to the Iraq debacle.We’ve been to the circus; seen the puppet show.
Ben, the sanctions are designed to stop Iran from developing an atomic bomb. In that respect they are definitely NOT working.
I challenge any left wing moonbat or RINO to cite one situation in modern times when SANCTIONS have ever worked. You cant and you know it sanctions are just the moonbats and Lame stream EneMedia sops so they can think they are actually accomplishing something.
I’m not a RINO or a leftwing moonbat but I recall that some people insisted that sanctions were the cause of South Africa abandoning apartheid and allowing “one man, one vote”.
There may well be better alternate analyses though; I haven’t looked.
So last month the Israeli embassy was sacking in Egypt
This month the British embassy was sacked…
Might I suggest a treatment for this issue?
The embassy’s grounds are considered sovereign, would not a demonstration of the power of .556 green tipped nato rounds be an EXCELLENT teaching tool?
I am sure the pile of “students” would be high enough in 10-20 minutes to ensure a nice wall like effect…
Call me crazy? Sure…
But the REASON the moslems do what they do? They are sure the west is a bunch of pussies…
And I do choose my words carefully…
Kick them in the teeth with a real kick? And they will learn…
Just as Pavlov.. He worked with islamists for decades in his “conditioned response’ theories
Who says they were students is exactly the right question. Good point! I had the same reaction watching, on the news, a Pakistani rent a mob the other day. Almost all women and not very animated. The few men there were doing all the screaming and yelling.
Maybe the British should consider a student exchange. Some SAS representatives, out of Sandhurst, perhaps doing post graduate studies.
Nostalgically recalling their own anti-war street demonstrations of the 1960s-1970s, the Left and its media, no doubt, thinks,”Oh. Isn’t that just what we used to do. Kinda cute, actually.”
It is propagandistically brilliant that Iran would choose to employ the sleight-of-hand label, “students” for an American readership which believes attaining a university education to be the highest goal to be achieved by its own children. We should remember that misdirection is a stage magician’s greatest tool.
I was there myself, posing a “Bassiji”.They were certainly not students. Why? An Iranian real student; the ones who have passed the real difficult “Admit-ion Test” and not pushed into the universities by Intelligence Department or the Revolutionary Guard Corp recognize The Queen Elizabeth’s picture. The guy who was holding it up on the wall shouted,”See! The pictures of women with no Hijab(= Vail) is all over the place. This must be a rich and high class pros…..”
Now you see the lowest strata of lampoons.
“Ben, the sanctions are designed to stop Iran from developing an atomic bomb. In that respect they are definitely NOT working.”
1) Stuxnet arrythmically destroyed the centrifuges -FACT
2) The Drums of War are being hammered by the usual suspects..(Ledeen, et al) FACT
3) ‘nijad rallies his proxies (students) to rattle the Brits cage with a Khomeini hail mary at their Embassy
Why are they disingenuously pimping the facts, if they have a solid case?
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/11/matthew-gould-and-the-plot-to-attack-iran/
Benjamin writes:-
“Ben, the sanctions are designed to stop Iran from developing an atomic bomb. In that respect they are definitely NOT working.”
1) Stuxnet arrythmically destroyed the centrifuges -FACT
2) The Drums of War are being hammered by the usual suspects..(Ledeen, et al) FACT
3) ‘nijad rallies his proxies (students) to rattle the Brits cage with a Khomeini hail mary at their Embassy”
So tell us Benjamin does YOUR drivel prove that Iran has given up seeking and working on the BOMB. Of course it doesn’t Ben is right and you are just a deluded moonbat.
Ooops Benjamin and Ben are one and the same . It should read Bob from Virginia is right and you are a deluded moonbat Ben.
Of course you didn’t read the link Pragger. It’s your predilection .
At one time the Mughals of India, sometimes closely associated with Iran, made up new words in hybrid Urdu for romantic poetry and Iran has done the same but ala Orwell.
Thus “students” is Mullahspeak for paid thugs; lingerie is Mullahspeak for the “devil’s panties”; “prostitute is parsed out to mean “woman waiting for a bus where none pass,” etc.
One can only hope their “Boy Scouts” have made little progress with their anthrax-filled tunnel to America.
geegads MSM! it’s not like we haven’t seen this before. Iran has been PROVEN to use the ‘student’ uprising cover in a, you know…., PRIOR INCIDENT!
as purveyors of useful, accurate and timely information the MSM is as useful as liberal economist
Had Jimmy Carter attacked Iran when their goons held our diplomats hostage Iran wouldn’t be the problem it is now. I HOPE the Brits take action to CHANGE the regime in Iran.
Uh, not to put too fine a point on it, but –he did.
Remember the failed Delta Force effort in the desert? Yeah, it was a small effort. But the US military was in disarray back then.
The U.S. Military was not in disarray, President Carter was that ‘disarray’ of which you speak!
Correct me if I’m wrong but when Ahmedinajad (sp?) suddenly appeared as the victor of the second last Iranian presidential election, didn’t the MSM themselves dig out an old picture of a “student” leader from 1979 who appeared to be Ahmedinajad? I don’t know if they ever confirmed that one way or the other. Heck, I don’t know if one of our ever-so-dilligent journalists even bothered to ASK him if his uncanny resemblance to one of the old “student” leaders was just a coincidence….
If we study the footage of the new batch of “students”, we may see the man who is president of the Islamic Republic of Iran in another 20 years….