Response to: "Iran: Riding the 'Green Wave' at the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and Beyond" by Edward S. Herman and David Peterson
Comment posted by Jack DuVall:
This article distorts a line that it lifted from an op-ed article that I co-wrote six years ago, in order to try to prove a point contrary to what we meant. Our article, linked above, argued that the Iranian people “have the drive, the intelligence, and the capability” to mount their own resistance against the repressive regime which then (and now) tortured and killed dissidents, and “outside factors have never been decisive.” Instead, our article was quoted to support the opposite conclusion, namely, that Iranians needed and received U.S. assistance for the recent “green movement.” Then as now, Mr. Ackerman and I have consistently argued that only entirely indigenous resistance, inspired by local grievances and fueled by home-grown strategies and tactics, could be successful. Contrary to what Herman and Peterson have suggested, we have never endorsed external “destabilization,” and there was no cynicism in our criticism of pro-democracy programs in the West, which I agree have sometimes resorted to support for covert action. The only thing we’ve ever been for is global dissemination — to people in all countries suffering from oppression and injustice — of the knowledge of how to use civil resistance to fight for their rights, as they and only they see fit.
This article distorts a line that it lifted from an op-ed article that I co-wrote six years ago, in order to try to prove a point contrary to what we meant. Our article, linked above, argued that the Iranian people “have the drive, the intelligence, and the capability” to mount their own resistance against the repressive regime which then (and now) tortured and killed dissidents, and “outside factors have never been decisive.” Instead, our article was quoted to support the opposite conclusion, namely, that Iranians needed and received U.S. assistance for the recent “green movement.” Then as now, Mr. Ackerman and I have consistently argued that only entirely indigenous resistance, inspired by local grievances and fueled by home-grown strategies and tactics, could be successful. Contrary to what Herman and Peterson have suggested, we have never endorsed external “destabilization,” and there was no cynicism in our criticism of pro-democracy programs in the West, which I agree have sometimes resorted to support for covert action. The only thing we’ve ever been for is global dissemination — to people in all countries suffering from oppression and injustice — of the knowledge of how to use civil resistance to fight for their rights, as they and only they see fit.