A disturbing report is coming out of Jerusalem today. Certainly Israel has every right to pay close attention to the goings-on in Iran and in this particular story one sees why.
A deliberately anonymous member of Iran’s paramilitary Basiji militia has spoken out about his role in the recent election protests. But even more disturbing than his perspective of the abuses is his sharing earlier experiences with the group. Experiences which, from his account, appear to have been commonplace.
In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a “wedding” ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard – essentially raped by her “husband.”
When questioned about expressing regret for his participation in this heinous abuse, he said “I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their ‘wedding’ night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die.
“I remember hearing them cry and scream after [the rape] was over,” the Basiji member said. “I will never forget how this one girl clawed at her own face and neck with her finger nails afterwards. She had deep scratches all over her.”
As the golden sun melts in the cool, clear blue summer evening sky and the hush of evening at last begins to override today’s activities, it is easy to imagine that such things cannot happen here. But there is a fine line between deliberately blind obsession and zealotry, and when that line is crossed by enough people it doesn’t take much for one of the few evils in this world – egotistical power mongers – to sweep away individual rights in favor of their tyrannistic agenda.
We in America think ourselves too “civilized”, perhaps, to find ourselves enslaved as are the Iranian people. We are far too clever and far too sure of our Constitutional right to freedom to fall victim through such primitive means as force and bloodshed. It is this smugness, this surety, however, that is our greatest danger for it stands to be our collective undoing. It explains why someone with absolutely no legitimate experience, a background that is questionable at best, and decidedly immoral if not outright criminals for friends now sits in the Oval Office. Deliberate blindness combined with ears eager to listen to soaring cadences but unwilling or unable to hear the words, the lies, became an obsession that has created real and imminent threats to our very – and very wonderful – way of life. In the same way that the Basiji twist the laws of the Islamic Republic to suit the government’s needs, so, too, do we see such twists of American law as the Obama administration takes over car companies, funnels money to organizations like Goldman Sachs and ACORN, appoints a science “czar” who supports what basically amounts to eugenics, and pushes economically unsustainable ideas like cap & trade and health care (-less) reform.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Often such reactions are unforeseen consequences. As the government expands exponentially under the spurs and whips of the Obama administration, so constrict our individual freedoms, much as a noose tightens around the neck of the prisoner only moments from execution. Once our most basic freedoms have been stripped from us by virtue of a majority zealotness, the day when the government feels empowered and emboldened enough to use force against American citizens won’t be far behind. And it will bring with it such horrors as are being documented today in Iran.
I find no coincidence in Barack Obama’s support of Ahmadinejad. Nor anything the least acceptable in his cozying up to Chavez or in his continuing dismissal of the people of Honduras and their constitution. As the truth of the literal and figurative cost of Obama’s big plans for “reform” become more and more clear and his popularity plummets inversely, his words become more and more mean and so we begin to see the cracks in the mask. Behind it is a man who would be king but one who lacks even the most rudimentary understanding or legitimate sense of noblesse oblige. Sacrifice is not a part of his nature, only the overwhelming need for control.
And all I can think is, “I hope he fails”.