The role of the Western media in the few weeks before and in the aftermath of the elections is illuminating.

These same outlets traditionally act as enablers to Washington’s agenda, a role notoriously on display in the lead-up to the Iraq war.

In November 2005, Egypt held elections for its parliament. The elections were held in three stages so they could be easily managed by the regime.

When the opposition led by the Kefaya (Enough) Movement and the Muslim Brotherhood scored impressive gains in the first stage, the government initiated a crackdown by beating and arresting the opposition candidates and organizers.

Thousands of Egyptians took to the streets in protest of the government’s intimidation tactics and manipulation of the elections.

Western TV networks provided scant coverage of these events, and never covered the massive protests or crackdown by government authorities.

Furthermore, earlier this year, during Israel’s 22-day onslaught on Gaza, millions of people around the world, including tens of thousands in the U.S., protested daily the brutality of the Israeli military machine against the defenseless civilians.

Despite the fact that over 1,400 people were killed and over 5,000 injured - one third of whom were children- there was hardly the wall-to-wall coverage given to the protests in Iran.

The biased performance of the mainstream media in reporting the Iranian elections can be illustrated through the coverage of the over-votes.

Soon after the elections, it was reported that a major proof of fraud was that the participation rate exceeded 100 percent in many districts.

The clear implication was that the authorities were so sloppy in their election tampering that they simply stuffed the ballot boxes.

Had media outlets consulted any experts on Iranian elections, they would have discovered the simple explanation. In Iran, there is no requirement to vote in a designated district.

People do not carry a voter registration card like American citizens. Each voter has a voting book allowing him or her to vote anywhere in the country. After voting, the book is stamped and the index finger is inked to ensure that no one can vote more than once.

This fact was not unique to this election. In many previous elections, many districts had a high turnout when compared to the number of registered voters in that district because many Iranians had voted there while traveling or during their summer vacations.

The example of the over-votes, not only demonstrates gross negligence by the media, but also deliberate deception.

On June 22, Abbas Kadkhodaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s Guidance Council (GC), the official body in charge of investigating all 646 complaints filed by the defeated candidates, held a press conference. He gave details about the complaints under investigation by the Council.

Kadkhodaei explained that the main complaint filed by Mousavi related to the elections was that the number of over-votes existed in as many as 170 cities, potentially affecting more votes than the margin between the top two candidates.

Kadkhodaei then presented the GC’s preliminary findings, which showed that such over-votes existed (as they had existed in previous elections), but in no more than 50 cities across Iran, affecting no more than three million votes. In other words, there were no more than three million voters who had voted outside their districts.

He emphasized that, with 11 million votes between the top two candidates, even if all three million votes were to be excluded (although there is no valid reason to do that), clearly the outcome of the elections would not be affected.

But within minutes the German News Agency followed by Reuters, reported that the GC “admitted” that there were an excess of three million votes in 50 cities.

This left the listener and reader with the impression that these were fraudulent votes, rather than valid votes for people voting outside their districts like the spokesman explained.

This report was instantly placed on the front pages of every major Western news media websites. The deception continued and made the front page of every major Western paper the following day.

Opposition groups have relied on Internet communication technology such as text messaging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and political blogs during their protests.

In fact, Secretary Clinton took the unusual step in asking Twitter to change its maintenance schedule to accommodate Iran’s time zone and allow opposition groups the ability to utilize it.

What is striking is that most of the postings were in English, not Persian, begging the question: who was the target audience of these tweets?

Similarly, why were the protesters holding signs saying, “Where is my vote?” in English, rather than the language spoken by the voters of Iran?

But a study by the website, charting stocks, concluded that during three days after the election, the overwhelming majority of Tweets (over 30,000), were manipulated through a handful of accounts; all created within one day of the elections on June 13.

It is interesting to note that only 0.6 percent of Twitter accounts are used by Iranians (as compared to 44 percent by Americans).

In a recent interview with the BBC on June 19, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the foreign policy icon and ultimate insider, exposed Washington’s deep involvement in the Iranian affair.

Dr. Kissinger said, “If it turns out that it is not possible for a government to emerge in Iran that can deal with itself as a nation rather than as a cause, then we have a different situation.”

Translation: if our preferred candidate did not emerge a winner after using all our soft power…

He continued, “Then we may conclude that we must work for regime change in Iran from the outside.”

Translation: then the U.S. (or perhaps Israel) may have to resort to hard power, meaning military strikes.

He then added, “But if I understand the president correctly, he does not want to do this as a visible intervention in the current crisis.”

Translation: Whatever President Barack Obama is doing in Iran, he wants to make sure that Washington’s hand is invisible. More...

tags: iran  cia  interference  propaganda