I'm forwarding an e-mail I received from my friend (with her permission provided the ENTIRE e-mail is posted, not excerpts). My friend grew up in Iran and fled when she was a young adult.

Hello Friends;
The media is deluged with what seems like an endless flow of talk about Ahmadinejad's recent visit to Columbia and the UN and all the fallout etc... There has been endless comment and counter-comment, juicy invective tossed back and forth between the usual suspects, the representatives of the Left, the stewards of the Right... all who have little investment in the issue other than, TALK!

As a person who has sat across the interrogation table (in a dank, decrepit prison cell) from an Ahmadinejad type--one cannot be sure who it is, the eyes are bound--let me comment on all the hoopla.

Ahmadinejad and the Pasdaran (revolutionary guards) and Baseej (volunteer civilian army) are guilty of crimes far more serious than rhetoric against the Jews and verbal belligerence of varying sorts. Not to make light of the denial of the brutal killing of six million people, rather, pointing to the fact that their guilt consists of committing some horrendous deeds and not just misreporting the history of others. What did they do? They took over a country by a brutal, violent coup--a country that was on the brink of breaking free from years of dictatorship, no less--a coup that involved 'eliminating' every voice raised against them: by filling prison cells with high-school kids, college students, teachers, grandmothers, factory workers, doctors and nurses and engineers and college professors... Putting some of them in front of the firing squad, mothers that had just delivered their babies--they didn't want to execute pregnant women--children, elderly men and women... They created a state of terror that matches that of Stalin, Pol Pot, Pinochet... They set up recantation and 're-education' camps throughout the country and subjected their dissidents to beatings (with cables on the soles of feet), isolation chambers that they called 'coffins,' for months on end--most of hte victims went crazy--hunger and medical neglect--many ended up losing kidneys and mobility in their limbs--and psychological torture of taking their children or elderly parents hostage and beating them--all in all a nightmare of a take-over that spanned nine year, took many thousands of lives--we don't exactly know how many, the graves are unmarked and periodically bulldozed to make it impossible for mourning relatives to attend them. Family members are intimidated into keeping mum...This is all common knowledge in Iran. The trials were often televised. The atmosphere of terror and intimidation drove the best of society, the educated and constructive forces, out in droves. The exodus is still continuing. The hell these thugs have created is intolerable. Some of these atrocities are documented by human rights groups in various obscure publications. But the bulk of it is still uncovered. Refer to Arvand Abrahamian's (CUNY) Tortured Confessions. The best books on the subject, the prison diaries of some very brave souls, one of them titled The Simple Truth written by a woman named M. Bradaran (published in Germany), have not been translated into English. It's about time that they were.

What is so ironic about the line-up in the anti-pro Ah-nejad camps in the outside world is that the target of the Islamist regime was, for the most part, the Left. What they looked for in their ransacking of houses were words like 'liberation' and 'class struggle' and 'economy.' 'Liberals' and 'Leftists' were enemy. High officials in the interim regime, the first post-revolutionary prime minister (and his cabinet) and the first elected president were accused of the crime of 'Liberalism,' of criticizing their frenzied empty radicalism. High-school kids trying to emulate Che and Castro, the sympathizers of the Fedaii--whose efforts consisted of reading and distributing some banned newspaper or owning cassette tapes of revolutionary Chilean songs--became the target for their target practice. Some of these kids gave their young, innocent, hopeful lives to the firing squads rather than succumb to the humiliations of the TV show trials and recantation camps. How is it now, that the best friends of Ahmadinejad are Daniel Ortega and Hugo Chavez? Is there no shame left in this world?

In this country the line-up, of course, has to do with that famous GWB and his infamous war. Understandably; no one wants the repeat of that fiasco in Iraq, least of all a person like me. What people forget, or are unaware of, is that Iran was invaded. It was a proxy war, the dirty deed was left to the regional thug Saddam and his mercenary army, but to the witnesses on the scene such as myself, there was no doubt about the instigators and the backers. It was obvious from the weapons used (brand new American made and Saudi bought AWACS), the intelligence shared, the general strategy... You didn't need that famous handshake from Rumsfeld to know who was behind Saddam's war against Iran.

Here's the other irony. And this one is a doozy. If it weren't for that war the Pasdaran and the Baseej and the Ah-nejad gang would not have had such an easy time of taking over the country. Their most effective rhetoric against their dissidents was the war. The war was their excuse to brand the slightest opposition to their tyrannical seventh century rule as 'fifth column forces,' and aiders and abettors of the enemy. The war was their tool to create the culture of death: filling park fountains with red dye, making daily rituals of martyrdom celebration and blood and gore worship, designating the cemetery the focal point of their urban construction project. The whole country was awash in their death and self-flagellation and ear-piercing lamentations. At the same time that they were sending teen-age sons of their holy flock to sweep mines with their flesh, their firing squads and gallows were busy killing their opposition, the 'warriors against god,' their god, that is, the one who needs rivers of blood for survival. At one point, when the supreme leader Khomeini was on his deathbed, they took the rest of the prisoners in a hall and asked them one question. The wrong answer got the prisoner sent to the gallows. "Was your father a practicing Moslem?" If yes, then according to their 'Islam' the prisoner deserved to die, for he/she had had ample opportunity to seek the correct path and had failed to do so. The supreme leader wanted to make sure he had left no loose strings behind.

In short, there was so much death around, the value of life got diluted. This is their accomplishment: they downgraded life. And the war helped them accomplish this incredible feat. It was the preview to the Iraqi scenario. Now there is talk of another war against Iran by various parties. Everyone seems to be eager to get in line. The French elected a brand-new president just to cut in line, it seems. Nothing would solidify Ahmadinejad's position better than war, or even just the hanging threat of it. This is their life-line, what they draw blood from--literally. Twisted, bloody, frenzied, self-sacrificing patriotism is what has kept them in power. Why you think they provoke such media saturated situations? They are fake martyrs. True martyrs are no longer with us. These people get their entire legitimacy from the blood of the departed. The ones they talked into departing. They invoke it in their daily rhetoric. Now the entire West has banded together to supply Ah-nejad and Co, the Khameneii Ayatollahship, its blood-letting raison d'etre. What folly!

The wise would do well to do one thing against these people: Ignore them. Turn the cameras away. Don't fuel their vanity, don't feed their narcissism. Focus attention instead, on the people of Iran. Their pain. Their miserable citizenship under the rule of these thugs. They say they have a free society, challenge them. Have them conduct an election without the 'vetting' process. Don't go easy on them because they say they represent Islamic culture. They represent themselves only. World history is brimming with petty tyrants pretending piety. Hold these guys to the bar like you would Rasputin. Challenge them to allowing a free press, to emptying their prisons, to allowing free forums for discussion. Send people over there. Watch them.

What is most distressing today is that politics has been reduced to sport. There is an assumption that the line-up could only support two opposing teams. You are either with GWB or with Ahmadinejad. It is puerile, unsophisticated, vulgar politics. Real life is complicated. To my experience with the politics of the region, Ahmadinejad and GWB play on the same team, just different positions. They keep the region in constant turmoil, the people miserable and needy, and peace at bay.

Still, as a person who sat across the thug in that interrogation room, the words of Bollinger, the president of Columbia, was, the way we say in Farsi, 'coolant on my burning heart.' It was about time this guy got a taste of his own medicine. And I don't just say that because Columbia pays the mortgage.

Mana;

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