Topic: Iran
You know? One of the trickiest and most subjective things can be eye witness testimony.
I have NO doubt the Embassy Hostages are convinced beyond any doubt that this man was one of their tormentors.
I am also well aware from personal experience how tricky Post Traumatic Stress Triggers can be. My own experience has been a situation close but not the same can trigger and episode, where you do not exactly remember events you actually re-experience them.
That said, I find it hard to understand, why he would deny that event in his past if it were true.
Being at the Embassy in Tehran at that time, would be like a Bolshevik being on the Aurora or taking part in the Storming of the Winter Palace.
One could make the claim that it would be denied for present political concerns, but why would it have been hidden and denied for all these years when in that Society, that experience would give one a claim to Herodom?
He insists he was not there
and several known hostage-takers - now his strong political opponents - deny he was with them.
His website says he joined the Revolutionary Guards voluntarily after the revolution, and he is also reported to have served in covert operations during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
That Ahmadinejad was involved in those events goes without saying.
In 1979, Ahmadinejad
was the head representative of IUST to the unofficial student gatherings that occasionally met with the Ayatollah Khomeini. In these sessions, the foundations of the first Office for Strengthening Unity (daftar-e tahkim-e vahdat), the student organization of which several members behind seizure of the United States embassy which led to the Iran hostage crisis, were created. Ahmadinejad became a member of the Office of Strengthening Unity. Before the seizure of the embassy, Ahmadinejad had suggested a simultaneous or similar attempt against the Soviet Union embassy, but was voted down, resulting in independent pursuit of the idea by its proponents.
US embassy siege
As a young student, Ahmadinejad joined an ultraconservative faction of the Office for Strengthening Unity, the radical student group spawned by the 1979 Islamic Revolution and staged the capture of the US Embassy.
According to reports, Ahmadinejad attended planning meetings for the US Embassy takeover and at these meetings lobbied for a simultaneous takeover of the Soviet Embassy.
To my mind being on the planning committee is more involvement than being a Guard at the Embassy, but I guess it is not as dramatic.
The Bulk of my view was influenced by an article on
Benador Associates
founded by Eleana Benador, is located in New York City as well as in Paris and London. However, the activities of the firm are expanding throughout the American continent, as well as in Europe and the Middle East.
Each of our experts is nationally and internationally recognized on issues of the Middle East and national security, among others. We are confident each of them makes your event, radio or television show a unique one
A source which does NOT have a reputation as an Apologist for Fascist Thugs in the Mideast. Amir Taheri, is a leader in the struggle against International Extremist Jihadism.
WHO ARE THE MEN IN THIS PHOTO?
Gulf News
July 4, 2005
Even before the polls had opened in Iran's recent presidential election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the eventual winner, was at the centre of controversies regarding his past
AP
This November 9, 1979 photo shows one of 60 US hostages being displayed to the crowd outside the US Embassy in Tehran by Iranian hostage takers
He makes no secret that he is a professional revolutionary, having spent all his adult years in the service of the Khomeinist movement.
But was he the chief interrogator of American diplomats held hostage during the occupation of the United States Embassy in Tehran in 1979-80? And was he involved in the assassination of three dissident Kurdish leaders in Vienna in 1989?
On the basis of research in the past few days, it is almost certain Ahmadinejad was not directly involved in the US embassy episode.
But it is equally clear he was present when the three Kurdish leaders were gunned down by a hit-list from Tehran.
The allegation that Ahmadinejad was one of the hostage-holders at the American embassy is based on an Associated Press photo unearthed and published by a pro-Rafsanjani website hours after the election.
In it a bearded youth, holding the arm of a blindfolded American, is identified as Ahmadinejad. But anyone with the slightest understanding of morphology would realize the man in the photo is not Ahmadinejad.
The man in the photo has almost slanted eyes with eyebrows that point upwards. Ahmadinejad, however, has almond eyes with almost drooping eyebrows.
In any case the man in the photo has already been identified as Jaafar Zaker, one of the student leaders during the embassy raid.
Zaker's younger brother Mohsen told journalists in Tehran last Saturday that he recognized his brother who died in the Iran-Iraq war in 1984.
The second youth seen in the photo has been identified as one Ali Ranjbaran who was executed for his alleged links with the Mujahedin Khalq Islamic Marxist group.
That Ahmadinejad was not personally involved in the hostages drama is also borne out by his denials.
The occupied US Embassy in Tehran became a seeding ground for a new generation of radicals thirsting for action to gain revolutionary credentials.
Of the 400 or so students involved in the operation, nearly half died in the eight-year war against Iraq. The rest had differing fortunes. A few dozens were executed after being linked with leftist groups.
Some, like their ideological mentor, the dentist Habiballah Peyman, lapsed into an eclipse produced by disillusionment.
Others, however, used the episode as the centrepiece of their CV to claim senior posts in the new regime.
Maasumeh Ebtekar, the group's spokeswoman, operating under the code-name of "Sister Mary", became Assistant to the President for Environmental Affairs under Mohammad Khatami.
Reza Shaikh Al Islam, known to the hostages as "the tooth" and regarded as the most vicious of the captors, became deputy foreign minister and ambassador to Syria.
Mohammad-Reza Khatami, a brother of President Khatami, became a vice-speaker of the Islamic Majlis (parliament).
Mohsen Kadivar transformed himself into an ideologue for the self-styled "moderate" wing of the establishment.
Javad Zarif became ambassador to the UN. Abbas Abdi, Hashem Aghajari and Bijan Abidi joined the regime's loyal opposition. The remaining occupy high places in the Khomeinist nomenklatura.
Not personally involved
They all assert that Ahmadinejad, although a member of the Central Committee of the so-called Office of Consolidating Student Unity (OCSU) at the time, was not personally involved in the holding of the hostages.
It is almost certain that had Ahmadinejad been involved, he would have trumpeted the fact as part of his "glorious" Khomeinist background..
Instead, he has always said that he was opposed to the embassy raid because he saw it as a manoeuvre by the pro-Soviet left to provoke a clash with the United States and force the new regime into Moscow's arms.
Iranian author Amir Taheri was the editor-in-chief of Kayhan, the most important Iranian daily under the Shah. He is also a member of Benador Associates.
The rest of this article deals with the assassination of Kurdish dissidents in Vienna in
1989.
Correction for the record I originally researched this topic a couple of months ago and in posts and emails recently, I mistakenly stated that the Kurdish Hit took place in Switzerland, I was WRONG in that statement
If there are doubts about Ahmadinejad's involvement in the embassy raid, his presence at the killing of the Kurdish leaders in Vienna on 13 July 1989 is an established fact.
Ahamdinejad was wounded in the shoot-out and spent a day in a Vienna hospital before being whisked out of Austria with a diplomatic passport.
Iranian author Amir Taheri was the editor-in-chief of Kayhan, the most important Iranian daily under the Shah. He is also a member of Benador Associates.
Now I got into a little flurry on this subject over at
Cao's Blog
I presented from memory some of the above and the responce was.
If you can?t understand what it is I?m trying to say, I?m sorry?but don?t call me ?emotional? when you?re not being logical and examining the facts.
You?re measuring a lying terrorist scumbag by your own standards (saying he isn?t guilty because he hasn?t admitted his guilt) and Arab terrorists do not fit within our standards of thought. Obeidi wrote about that in his book when he was able to get what he asked for from the American University.
These guys don?t tell the truth; they LIE to further the cause of Jihad and Islam.
That?s not ?emotional?, that?s ?FACT?.
If you?re not familiar with that you should monitor what Robert Spencer writes over at Jihadwatch.
I am familiar with Jihadwatch, but I also prefer the testimony of Secular MidEasternors such as Taheri and Heggy and others.
I fail to comprehend where I dissolve this man of any guilt. But somethings he DID and somethings he did NOT do.
That in one instance memory may have played false with some of our fellow Americans held hostage all those years ago, in no means absolves him of a just label as a Brutal, Oppressive, Murdering, Torturing Fascist Thug, It just means that in this instance he was one of those who planned and directed it but did not engage in hands on activities.
Now if someone wants to disagree with the above and has verifiable sources we can discuss?
I welcome the input, my aim is to find the reality of a situation, not to defend an intellectual turf,
I will try not to descend to ad hominen attacks and if you have pc problems or are maybe tired and thumb fingered when you post?
I value substance over form any day.
"There is something wrong with your spacing, what?s the matter, did the cut and paste not work very well?
tsk tsk"
Actually I was very tired and having PC problems.
Happens. LOL
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Updated: Sunday, 3 June 2007 7:19 AM CDT