Guilt By Jon Stewart
While spending 118 days in an Iranian prison accused of being a “Western spy”, Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari, who at the time was in Iran working for Newsweek, tells of the most bizarre moment of his captivity and torture at the hands of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,
One day my interrogator told me that, ‘We have video evidence of you working as a spy,’ and then when he put the DVD of The Daily Show in the laptop, I just thought, ‘Oh my God.’
The myriad of arguments against torture aside, do pro-torture advocates really want to place themselves in the same camp as folks who can’t tell that The Daily Show is satire? If there is a more relevant argument to demonstrate why the mindset of folks who support torture is not worthy of American ideals and values, I’ve not seen it.
In all seriousness, though, Bahari’s full interview with CBC’s Nancy Durham (sorry, not able to embed it) is well worth the thirty-eight plus minutes of your time.
The comment that most caught my attention was when Bahari said that it was important that the West engage Iran so Iran understands there are consequences to its decisions. Think about that for a moment: a man who was imprisoned and tortured for 118 days on clearly fictional charges of espionage, who was told regularly that he would be executed without ever having the chance to see his unborn child, whose mind and spirit became so strained that he seriously contemplated suicide thinks that engagement with Iran is the right course of action.
Perhaps the “Obama is an appeaser because he wants to engage countries like Iran” meme will ease up a bit in light of Bahari’s commentary. Or perhaps they think Bahari himself is a pro-appeasement Manchurian candidate set loose by the Iranian government. Maybe they saw it on the Colbert Report…
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23 comments
I’d be a lot more optimistic about “engagement” with Iran if its proponents had some plausible idea of what it is supposed to accomplish.
We want to destroy the Iranian nuclear program. We have other concerns as well but care much less about them. Under what scenario can we end or disable the Iranian nuclear program or get anything else we’re interested in through diplomatic engagement?
Scott
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
“Under what scenario can we end or disable the Iranian nuclear program or get anything else we’re interested in through diplomatic engagement?”
None that I can think of but I’m sure that if Obama would just throw Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a pizza party they could work things out.
As far as Maziar Bahari, if he was stupid enough to go back then he got what he deserved.
Scott H. Payne
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:33 pm
As far as Maziar Bahari, if he was stupid enough to go back then he got what he deserved.
Scott, are you honestly suggesting that Bahari deserved to be illegitimately imprisoned and tortured because he was in Iran reporting on the disputed elections that have lead to a popular uprising against the government you are so keen nuke? I mean, are you truly and seriously making that argument publicly?
Dan Miller
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Is destroying their nuclear program really the only thing we’re interested in from Iran? There are other bad outcomes we want to avoid (e.g. war between the US and Iran, war between Iran and Israel) that might be just as terrible, if not worse, than Iran becoming a nuclear power. If talks can help us avoid those bad outcomes (or even guide us to some good outcomes, like mutually beneficial trade) it’s well worth it.
Scott
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:17 pm
“Is destroying their nuclear program really the only thing we’re interested in from Iran?”
Right now, yes. After that I could couldn’t care if the country dried up and blew away.
Dan Miller
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:19 pm
You really think it would be worth going to war with Iran to prevent them from having a nuclear weapon?
Koz
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:23 pm
I dunno, we’re not the only player in that game. I do think it’s unlikely we’ll go to war with any other casus belli.
Scott
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Actually I’m hoping the Israelis will save us the trouble, b/c I don’t think Obama has the stones to really protect this country. The problem which the Iranians is that they are not predictable which is what makes them so dangerous, especially with nukes. Once they prove they have a nuke they will probably feel emboldened to step up their proxy attacks around the world as they will believe they will be untouchable.
Dan Miller
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Presumably you’d be on board with invasions of Pakistan and North Korea as well? They’re certainly just as “unpredictable”.
Scott
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Invade, no, that is what nukes are for. Pakistan is nominally an alley and the NK train left the station with Clinton. Right now it is much easier to destroy the Iranian program.
Dan Miller
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:03 pm
So why is the deterrence solution inappropriate for Iran? It certainly seems a lot cheaper and more attractive than a ground invasion followed by a protracted occupation.
Koz
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Ok, let’s note deterrence is not the same as diplomatic engagement. In fact, it could very well end up being that deterrence = bombing. Ie, we bomb Iran, and they are deterred from building nukes. Even forgoing military options, deterrence could involve sanctions and interdictions, in which case we will be collaborating with the major industrial powers, not the Iranians themselves.
Evan
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
“Right now, yes. After that I could couldn’t care if the country dried up and blew away.”
There’s an enlightened view of one of the oldest civilizations in the world. Iran’s ruling elite is a wannabe theocracy that cares about nothing more than holding on to power. They do not live up to their stated revolutionary aims, let alone those of Islam or morality.
This does not mean you condemn or ignore an educated and meaningful country with millions of people, a vibrant culture and a significant role in the Middle East both culturally and politically.
All that aside, the best thing to come out of Bahari’s interviews was the stuff on NJ:
“A torture session in Iran took a strange turn when an elite policeman told his captive, a Newsweek reporter, that he believed New Jersey must be heaven on earth. […] The guard seemed to believe sex and alcohol can be enjoyed easily in New Jersey. “I think the words ‘New Jersey’ sounded to him like the most American place that you can be in your life,” said Bahari, who was held captive for 118 days in an Iranian prison. “He hated me and he was jealous of me at the same time because I had been to New Jersey.”
Scott
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Evan why not wake up? Recently that oldest civilization tried to ship around 300 tons of weaponry to Hamas. When they start behaving like civilized people we should treat them as such.
Evan
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:50 pm
The civilization and its citizens did not ship 300 tons of weaponry to Hamas – the government did. As such, this calls for sanctions, diplomacy, isolation…any number of tactics/strategies.
It does not call for nuking the populace, or wishing a major regional player would just turn to dust.
Scott
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:58 pm
“The civilization and its citizens did not ship 300 tons of weaponry to Hamas – the government did.”
Well I’m sure that fine distinction would mean all the difference to someone killed by those weapons. I mean it would certianly make me feel better had one of my loved ones been killed.
I didn’t mean nuke the people, just the weapons facility. As for drying up and blowing away, I meant that if they didn’t have nukes I could care less what they do or if we ever talk to them.
North
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Scott ol’ boy. A quick heads up. Nukes wouldn’t even scratch the places the Iranians have sequestered away their program. The heat, radiation and blast of a nuke would be relatively ineffective against the deeply buried and hardened bunkers the Iranians are using. In fact it’s an open question as to if even our state of the are (non nuclear) bunker busters could break in. That’s setting aside the fact that the Iranian anti-air system is far from toothless.
Scott
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Maybe from an air bust, (which is how most nukes are planned to be used to damage the most surface area) I think a delayed ground burst would do the trick nicely. However, a ground burst would cause a bit more fallout as surface material is vaporized and sucked into the fireball.
Mark Thompson
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:24 pm
“The guard seemed to believe sex and alcohol can be enjoyed easily in New Jersey. “I think the words ‘New Jersey’ sounded to him like the most American place that you can be in your life,” said Bahari, who was held captive for 118 days in an Iranian prison. “He hated me and he was jealous of me at the same time because I had been to New Jersey.”
Clearly, this man had no understanding of New Jersey’s asinine liquor laws, which make it impossible to buy even beer or wine from anyplace other than a “package goods,” err, liquor store. (Wegman’s, however, has managed to find a way around this in recent years, it would seem).
Jaybird
November 23rd, 2009 at 6:55 pm
You’ve heard stories about how Dallas brought down Communism?
Maybe The Sopranos will bring down Islamic Fundamentalism.
“The myriad of arguments against torture aside, do pro-torture advocates really want to place themselves in the same camp as folks who can’t tell that The Daily Show is satire? ”
I would guess that most pro-torture folks don’t understand that; probably half of them cheer the Colbert Report.
chris
November 24th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Look at the interview with pro-torture advocate Cliff May back in the spring. Sub-humans like May don’t seem to care, as long as they get their talking points out to as many people as they can.