Slashdot Mirror
Iran Cracks Down on Internet Sites
Dan Brickley writes "It appears that Iranian ISPs have been ordered to block a large number of popular Web sites, including weblogging, community, chat and email services. Web (particularly weblog) use has been increasing rapidly in Iran, with 64000+ weblogs published by Iranians via various sites. As of today, if the news is correct, the majority of these may be inaccessible to their authors, as will the email (eg. Yahoo) services they use to communicate with friends, colleagues and family worldwide. See stop.censoring.us and hoder.com for more details. The newly expanded blocks include PersianBlog, Blogger and the Google-hosted Orkut 'social networking' site, where Iranians come third after Brazil and USA, representing 7% of all users. How can we get our Iranian friends back in the Web?"
We could invade and liberate them. We're right next door. Then the Iranians could write about how happy they are on their blogs.
Complete control of information is required to stay in power. Lets hope that the people can get around this.
They can use a proxy to surf the web.
.01 cent
just my
Go take a look at blogger some time. Seriously. There are a zillion blogs on there now, it updates so fast that you could post your own blog and not make it to the "Latest Updates" page and catch your post before more than 500 new items scrolled it off the screen.
If everyone has a voice, no one really has a voice. Any single voice will be drowned out by many thousands of "Gee, this is my blog, I thought it would be a good idea to start one because my cat is so cute. I'll post pictures of my cat and I love Jesus."
The main thing is that the Iranians have access to medical information, educational information, and worldwide news outlets. None of those are being squashed, even by the fundamental, right-wing Muslim leadership. They know that having good quality information is key to improving the quality of life in their country.
Dissent is the only thing prohibited, but I doubt there is any country in which real dissent is permitted.
I wouldn't be surprised if a fair number of Orkut users don't miss their "Iranian friends" as much as you might thing. There's been a lot of bitching about them and the Brazillians from the English-speaking Orkut users. Can't say whether the complaints have any merit or not, but I've heard them in more than one place.
"The Internet reacts to censorship as damage and routes around it." - John Gilmore (frequently misattributed to Howard Rheingold)
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Corporations would never stand for blocking of site sthat they could advertise on.
If such an asinine action were ever undertaken by the US government, I can only hope that the corporations wouldn't be needed to do something about it. Of course, this sentiment presumes that at least part of our government is still "of the people."
How can we tell them not to censor the web when we censor just about everything here at home. I mean, yes, the web is pretty well uncensored in the US, but TV isn't, and neither is radio. In fact, there's no free non-censored medium in America. You have to pay for Internet, Cable, Satellite TV, or Satellite Radio in order to have the right to free speech in a country who's first amendment to the constitution guarantees that right. How can we expect Iran to have free speech/expression if we don't really even support it?
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
I'll bite.
Invasion is one solution. I do not favor it as being "the" solution, but you know, when I look back on Bush's last four years, I am firmly convinced he invaded the wrong country. Hussein was a wussy. Easy pickings. I would have voted for Bush if he had invaded any other member of the Axis of Evil. Iraq? Bah.
Of course, the cards have been laid down, and we have a far more dangerous regime to worry about because it was felt more expedient to settle old scores than deal with the issues that are relavent today, like Iran and N. Korea's ACTIVE development of WMD's, rather than Iraq's now proven theoretical development of such weapons.
Sorry for the rant. I had a bad week.
--- Journals are boring; Go to my web page instead
July 1999. The mullahs slapped them down. Hard.
Interestingly, Iran was the only middle eastern country to have spontaneous pro US demonstrations after 9/11/2001.
Short answer: Who cares?
The conventional wisdom is that the Iranian people overthrew the Shah back in the late 1970s, when his regime became too secular and too iron-handed. They then established an Islamic republic, under the ayatollahs.
A few years later, when there were still Iranian students in US colleges and universities, the students whose predecessors had been frantically demonstrating against the Shah were themselves frantically demonstrating against Ayatollah Khomeini and his cronies. Some things don't change.
When, and if, the Persians decide they are sick and tired of oppressive government in the name of religious purity, they will remember how to fix that problem. Until they do that, it is THEIR problem, not ours.
Well, just bomb them into democracy. This worked in Vietnam, Korea and Iraq, so I guess another campaign of liberation and christening by our American friends will do the trick once more.
The rest of the population would just like to live their lives. Go to work, have kids, homes, watch TV, go to church/mosque...like the rest of the world. But they can't, because of that small, vocal, armed minority of asshats.
Are you an American, or do you just share the same gene that tells you when something can't be easily fixed the best solution is to blow it up? As opposed to the rest of the world that would rather just sit on their collective thumbs at the UN and that their empty resolutions will work without having to enforce them? Sorry, but I'm tired of people ragging on the US. We're so evil because we liberated Iraq from an evil dictator (I'll abstain from the use of the world invasion.) and now we're also providing the largest chunk of relief money/logistical support to South Asia. Damn Americans!!! Always fighting for freedom and pumping money into areas that need help. F*** off, and God Bless America!
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
I guess none of you have ever lived under a Theocratic government. When I said We have been fighting for the past 10 years of our lives, I was reffering to the Iranian Student Movement not me by myself. I am just heading to university. "In The United States of America" Maybe this might help you understand a bit better about Ahura Mazda (Ahoo-raa Maz-daa).
That's funny. The thing is, when we had a secular, nationalist named Mossadegh, we didn't have a problem. Bt of course, a democratically elected governmented could not be tolerated by your wonderful government. So the US stepped in and overthrew Mossadegh, replacing him with the Shah who began the start of a repressive regime that was quoted by Amnesty International as having the worse human rights record to date.
No wonder any Islamic movement could have gained any popularity. Anything strong and opposed to the Shah was and is still better. However, you imposed that decision on us in the first place. Moreover, your government supported the Iraqis in invading Iran, which strengthened Khomeini's hand while our brothers and sisters perished.
And after all that, you have the nerve to say that it's just our problem, and not yours?
Why are these ISPs trying to get rid of paying customers again? I'd bet that a large percentage of their users would have no use for the Internet without blogs and such.
Because the government is forcing them to. I'm sure the ISPs don't want to do this, but when a government fears a loss of power due to the rampant flow of information, they need to do something to stiffle that flow of information.
Remember how China blocked google? Now google censors itself so that the Chinese government will allow it to continue (or at least it was censoring itself... maybe it's been opened back up?)
Hey Dan, Michael, let me give you a little hint: You can't. Or, as Stalin once said of the Pope, "How many divisions does Slashdot have?"
The Islamofascist Mmullahs ruling Iran have made it quite clear they're immune to such chimeras as "international pressure." What are you going to do, impose sanction? Yeah, that worked so well with Saddam.
Given a regime where critics of the regime have to flee for their lives, and where they executed retarded rape victims for the "crime" of having sex, what makes you think any actions short of armed revolution will get their Internet access back? Who are they going to listen to? Kofi Annan? Get real.
There are only two things which might actually allow Iranians to get back their Internet freedoms:
1. A full-scale liberation invasion by U.S./coalition troops, a very difficult and probably quite bloody task, or
2. A "decapitation" strike that takes out the Islamist religious leadership, possibly some high level military assets, and probably as much of their illegal nuclear weapons infrastructure as we can locate.
The chances of either being undertaken right now are slim, and the chances of the majority of Slashdot digirati support such a move are close to zero.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
As a point of information, Iran was a democratic country up until the government decided to nationalise the oil industry. This was too much for the West to tolerate. The democratic leader Muhammad Mussadegh was overthrown by the CIA and replaced with a Western puppet dictator - the Shah.
These are essential facts for understanding why aggressive nationalism plays such an important role in Iranian affairs.
I dunno if Bush would go for it. After all, I'm not sure if there's oil to conquest in Iran (like the only reason there was a "war" -read, slaughter- in Iraq)? We gotta find an excuse for the monkey to cash in on it, first.
I think a country needs to "liberate" itself. The US had numerous bloody wars to get to the point to where its at. If enough people are against a topic in a country, they need to overthrow the powers that be themselves, that's all there is to it. Same thing goes to the whole "woman being battered" in a few of the middle eastern countries. Sure, I think its wrong, like anyone. But that's *my* belief, not necessarily theirs. These people have a whole set of beliefs that they have, too. They've been living with it for quite a long time. If a number of people wish to change things, they must do it *themselves*, not rely on the support of a country halfway around the globe that should be taking care of its own problems instead of spending billions overseas. If they do it right, they'll change things for the better and the beliefs just might stay around for awhile.
Iran is a different case. Their revolution has been much more recent. I'm not sure how popular the government is in Iran-but I suspect their ruling group is larger than in the old Soviet Union. Also, I expect the Iranian government is willing to maintain itself in ways the old Soviet Union was not.
However, the technologies have changed too. For example, wireless internet technology has advanced quite a bit. If there is popular resistance to the Iranian governments internet regulations, technologies like Mesh networks might be rather difficult for the Iranian government to be effectively control.
If folks want to really do something, creating technologies that governments have trouble regulating may be the route to help here-however, it isn't just Iran that has issues in this respect. A net the Iranian government can't control, is one no government can control.
For those that often post of the US as a "totalitarian" state, please consider that we can post just about any damn thing we like anywhere on the internet. There is no government control of what you read or post. (There may be government monitoring, but that is a different story...)
Even in places like Iraq where some consider us a "dictator in residence" please note that anyone can run a blog any way they like, without censorship. Even if they are critical of the US in the region!
Please, before you post again about what a facist government the US the the terrible repressions US citizens suffer take a look at places like Iran with real repression. The US has some annoying laws that have been passed but we are a LONG ways from being a truly repressive place.
I know I'll just get flamed eight ways from Sunday for posting this, but it simply had to be said. In order to protect my own sanity (and free time) and encourage other posts I'll encourage other more silent people to come out of the shell and respond to any flamers I might get.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The UK controlled all of Iran's oil resources prior to Mossadegh. After the CIA overthrew Mossadesgh, the US received 40% of Iran's oil revenues in compensation.
As for nationalizing oil resources, every country in the Middle East has done that since 1953. Despite this fact, the big Anglo-American oil companies still make huge profits from their involvement in Middle Eastern oil.
i am really beginning to think some people's brains are just wired differently than mine. here is a subject matter everyone seems to agree on: censorship is wrong, and here we have an egregious example of it from the iranian government
and yet i scan the comments here and what do i see? anti-american sentiment
how does that work?
is the usa a friend of iran? does the censorship by the us government not look like a molehill in your mind compared to the mountain of that going on in iran?
i honestly cannot fathom how some people think: iran does something evil... therefore, let me criticize the usa
i'm not saying the usa doesn't deserve criticism, not at all: the usa does plenty wrong that needs to be examined and castigated
but what i am saying is that criticizing the usa in the context of what iran does is simple, pure lunacy. it's alternately hilarious and horrifying to me how some people can have so little understanding of concepts like: perspective, scale, context
people really have to stop obsessing about the usa. no, really, you look like a fool. a fair criticism of blindly pro-american people is that they are obsessed with the usa. but some of the posts here only prove to me that the same obsession lives in the heart of anti-american sentiment too, to the same level of monomaniacal stupidity
guess what pro-american and anti-american people: there is more to the world than the just usa. really. the world does not revolve around the usa. for real. there are other cultures and peoples and governments out there. no, really. the world does not orbit the united states. for true.
you'd think this simple painfully straightforward observation would be dumbfoundingly patently obvious and stating it would a cause for laughter and going "duh!" but then you read some of the comments in this thread. it's absolutely mystifying the obsessive one-dimensional idiocy of those talking about the usa in this thread. when the story is about the abuses of the iranian government?
utterly dumbfounding, this one-track obsession. please, some of you need to wake up. some of you need to ditch the fashionable propaganda of the times and try thinking for once
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why does the religion of peace need special instructions on how to act civilized?
You mean like 10 Commandments or something? Why do Christians need this?
Why is the religion of peace directly responsible for 28 out of the 30 violent conflicts raging in the world today?
Hmm, really? Please enumerate them. Christianity seems to have its hand in a lot of them too.
Why is the religion of peace responsible for the vast majority of chattel slavery in the world today?
Really? Care to cite a source? BTW, the Southern Baptist Conference was pro-slavery throughout the civil war. There is NOTHING in the Bible condemning slavery - in many places slavery is condoned. Are you sure slavery is something inherent to a religion, or is it more likely poverty and economics?
Why is the religion of peace responsible for the vast majority of terrorism in the 20th and 21st Centuries?
The same reason Christianity was responsible for it in the preceeding 18 centuries. Because. Now, if you would care to substantiate this allegation, I'm all ears. The IRA, FARC and ETA have killed a lot more people in those centuries than Islamic terrorists but they just haven't been getting the press coverage since 9\11...
Why are the practitioners of the religion of peace routinely slaughtering unarmed practitioners of every other religion wherever they can get away with it?
I think what you meant to say was "SOME practitioners". Again, this can equally and justifiably be said of Christianity as well. When the Army of God or Eric Rudolph kills abortion doctors or some blond-haired, blue-eyed boy next door blows up 168 people in a federal building, you don't seem to blame all Christians or all Americans do you?
Why does the religion of peace call for the murder of anyone who converts from the religion of peace to another religion?
Oh you mean like these guys? Yeah, your right...what kind of sick religion is THAT?
Why do so many of the believers of the religion of peace look forward to the opportunity to rape 72 virgins in heaven if they die while killing innocent women and children of other religions? Is it a god they worship, or just sex? If a god, then shouldnt heaven have more to do with him than their libidos?
Would you care to show where it says ALL muslims share this belief? Or have you been watching too much Fox News...The Church of the Creator thinks that the White Race was Gods true choosen people and can even quote the Bible to back it up...doesn't make it so and doesn't mean All Christians think that way. Don't mistake the beleifs a a sick minority with the whole religion.
Why do the leaders of the religion of peace routinely issue fatwas (death warrants) for anybody who questions their holy book of peace and their holy prophet of peace?
You mean like Christianity did for hundreds of years upto the begining of the 19th century...Catholic AND protestant? Think of about 5 centuries of Jews and witches being burned at the stake. Better yet, read up about the murder of Hypatia in Alexadria. You know its is bad, but again, if Jerry Falwell claims that 9\11 happened because America pissed of your God doesn't mean ALL Christians think like that...
Why is the religion of peace responsible for the sexual mutilation of millions of little girls and the savage oppression of women?
But sexual mutilation of infant boys is ok then? Christianity has not exactly been a beacon of equality for women either, save the last 40 years of so...
Why did millions of the practitioners of the religion of peace laugh, cheer and dance in the street because 3,000 innocent men, women and children were murdered by seventeen men who supposedly hijacked the religion of peace? And why dont the real practitioners of the religion of peace condemn the supposed hijackers of their religion? Why th
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
I'm pretty sure the loss of a few blogs is less damaging to the average Iranian than the loss of their life, which is something that's bound to happen if the US try another one of their 'liberation' stunts. Look at Iraq, where people are still dying nearly everyday because of Islamic militants setting off car-bombs to kill American troops and Iraqi 'collaborators'. Do you really want that to happen in Iran for the sake of a few blogging sites? At least with Iraq, Saddam had a proven track record of genocide against his own people, so perhaps the Americans had a good reason to invade, but the fact is there is still bloodshed of innocent people going on nearly everyday. With Saddam you can turn round and say "but he killed thousands of Kurds, that's far worse than what's going on now". What are you going to say about Iran when the death toll continues to climb long after Bush declares 'victory'? Are you going to complain about how those evil dastardly Iranians stopped their people reading John and Jenny Doe's blog post about how their toddler's potty-training?
As for executing a retarded rape victims, that's not much worse than the US executing people found incompetent to stand trial, people suffering from severe mental illness and people professionally adjudged to have the mental age of an 11-year-old child. I could probably find more, but I remember that press release distinctly and had it bookmarked. Admittedly those people had committed crimes rather than been the victim, but it's really not that big a step. Lastly, don't get me started on the 'illegal nuclear weapons infrastructure' comment - you've got the biggest nuclear stockpile in the world, who are you (as a country) to call any other nation's nuclear infrastructure illegal? Does DRM come on tactical warheads now? Seriously, this is no reason to be blowing up anyone - it's just not worth it... and doesn't China have the 'Great Firewall of China' and executions for frivolous crimes? Oh, I forgot, they're too big for good ol' George Dubya to go after.
George W. Bush: Always picking on the little guy.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
Ok I am glad everyone all of a sudden cares this much about the bloggers in my country. But a few facts.
* I can't get to hoders website right now but I don't belive that anyone has verified the web blocking.
* While blogging is popular in Iran it's not the next great revolution. It's a way for people to talk, browse for porn and do all the other things most college students do in the US.
* The Iranian people are capable of figuring out a government for themselves. When theycouldn't take the Shah anymore they dealt with him.
* As the student demonstrations showed a few years ago the regime still has a lot of backers, eventually Iranians will figure out what they really want and how much they care about fighting for it.
In the meantime you can get a list of some english blogs written by iranians over at http://blogsbyiranians.com/
it appears to be down at the moment since I suspect it's hosted at hoders server but there is always the google cache if you want to look at it right now.
Vidi, vici, veni. (I saw, I conquered, I came)
>> Why did millions of the practitioners of the religion of peace laugh,
>> cheer and dance in the street because 3,000 innocent men, women and
>> children were murdered by seventeen men who supposedly hijacked the
>> religion of peace?
> Why do anti-Muslim bigots keep clinging to this Urban myth? The
> "video" of which you allude was of about 30 people in the Occupied
> West Bank. Some of the videos shown on Fox later turned out to be
> library footage of Palestinians celebrating the 1993 peace accord,
> NOT a celebration of 9\11.
Wrong.
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/cnn.htm
Only on
In a country where speaking against crime is considered taboo and females are kept in veils, exercising your right to speak and communicate is a 'crime' in itself. As far as I understand, these 'islamists' who control the Government wants to check the spread of 'westernisation' in their country. This is not restricted to Iran only. Even in countries like Pakistan, government exercises strict control on communication media.
You want free access to the web and media in Iran. The Iraninans will have to kill all the mad turbans off. You have to remember this is a counrty where they hang 17 yearold girl with a mental age of 8 because her parents sold her into sex slavery.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
using domestic violence as an example... you're a few decades out of date.
It USED TO BE in the US that the woman had to press charges against the man in order for the police to make an arrest. I know this not only from a law enforcement background, but from personal experience.
One of my next-door neighbors growing up was a terrible alcoholic and wife-beater (he was also a physician. What a disgrace to the profession... but I digress). I can't remember how many times we called the police, because we could hear him beating her (things breaking, screaming, thuds, etc). The guy used to beat the living tar out of his wife... bruises, black eyes, cuts... I've seen better-looking barfight victims. She, however, would never press charges, and the guy got off every. single. time. We could have "minded our own business," but we felt an obligation to do something. I was but a lad, so I couldn't understand the dynamics involved... Needless to say, all their kids, save one, are now in prison.
It took decades, but a sea change eventually took place. These days, Domestic Violence is a crime not only against the individual, but against the state. This allows the police to make an arrest whether the victim wants it or not.
Sometimes the situation is bad enough, or the people co-dependent enough, that they literally need help to get out of their situation. I'm well aware of how that sounds... so spare me the vituperation for being patronizing. That said, I don't think the Iranian people would resent being free... and any way we could assist them in that effort is arguably the right thing to do.
Of course, it goes without saying that we'd probably be ahead to first exhaust less-violent means of assistance.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I've been going through the comments and most of what I read is about invading Iran because they're censoring the net. How is that any better?
Can we criticize censorship without bringing an invasion into the equation? And heck a few years ago, I remember a time where many around here made comments favorably or unfavorably towards one US policy or another and yet the anti-american label was rarely used to reply to such comments.
people really have to stop obsessing about muslim countries. the world doesn't revolve around them. there are other cultures and peoples and governments ou there.
It really stinks. You criticize something in a foreign country, all of a sudden they wanna invade it. You say something bad about a US policy and you're labeled as anti-american. wth happened?
Hmm...
The president tells me that we have freedom. That we love freedom. That others hate freedom. That we must force them to embrace freedom. That we must make those who choose to live their lives differently understand what freedom is all about.
That's good enough for me.
Your "freedom" of speech might cause people to doubt that. It would actually hurt freedom. You don't want to do that, do you?
Are you a freedom hater?
1. A few of your rebukes cite past historical sins in christian societies ("our" societies) as analogies to the the acts of radical moslems coming from the respective societies ("their" societies).
A common argument made by many apologists is that "they" as a society are still evolving and going through the same problems we went through. To back up this argument "our" past errors are cited. Of which certainly we know quite a few. (BTW how much do we (or even they) know of their past? Is is openly dealt with?)
While it may be interesting discussing the merits of this theory, it begs the question: does that mean "they" are less capable then us, inferiour even? That we give them some leniency, kindly treat them the way we treat confused and troublesome children?
To the point: does that mean we don't criticize them the same way we critizes our own religions, our own politicians and our own clergy? We don't hold them up to higher standards?
I certainly hope not. I would hope that they don't either.
For this reason we as individuals should not refrain from criticizing failings of others and hold our standards to everyone equally high.
2. You cite a few examples of extremists in our societies, show that we have our own bad apples. Again a good point, maybe it would be good to just run a tally to see if we have the same density of extremists as they do...
But it shows a fault in their societies themselves: these kinds of opinions and actions do not come out of nowhere. People in their vincity know and tolerate this interpretation of Islam and maybe even their actions. Of the violent examples (IRA, ETA) you stated, I would assume that "our" offenders had to conceal their identies. They had to be carefull not to be discovered or betrayed. One just doesn't have the impression that radical islamic terrorists worry much about being betrayed by people that know of their opinion and deeds.
3. All comparisons you make are only qualititave comparisons not quantitative. To "sexual mutilation of millions of little girls and the savage oppression of women" you counter "sexual mutilation of infant boys" (you certainly mean sexual abuse by very sick clergy men in the US, you certainly aren't speaking of circumcision are you?)
It would be laughable to assume the numbers could be compared. Also in the US the church is being held responsible (morally as well as legally) for the sick deeds these men have made and the almost equally sick decisions the church has made to hush-hush it over the decades. This owning up to mistakes does not take place in their societies.
4. Your rebuke to the point concerning the videos was shown to be false in the above poster: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/cnn.htm
5. Concerning Oklahoma City, the Pope and the Archbishop. They sent their condolences (search it with google, I did). I can imagine the Pope sends his condolences each time a catastrophy happens. Dito the Archbishop. But I am also certain that had the bomber cited "The Christian-Catholic God" as being his moral compass that the Pope would have publicly condemned this man. As would have all christian priests in their churches. Openly, they would have gone to great efforts to avoid any possible misunderstanding and to make clear that they have absolutley no sympathies for this kind of act. Unfortunately to often moslem-arab imams are the moral compasses and inspiration for terrorists. Why is it so hard to hear all other imams publicly condemning this? If these people have hijacked their religion why are they not publicly shunned and denounced? How is it that these people can use their churches for their agitational-inspirational meetings? Where is the public opposition?
Why do they not insist that it not be called 'jidah' anymore? 'Jidah' means 'struggle' for the faith in oneself and with
______________________________________________
sigamajig...
I'm the sr. sysadmin for Anonymizer and we have a contract with VOA to provide free proxy service to Iran.
/. with it...Rob hates me). Added features for the Iran proxy is full time SSL, URL encryption, Farsi language support, and we switch the proxy website about once a month (every time the Iranian government blocks us). We perform checks on the service from within Iran to see if our site is actually blocked (yes, it works), and we maintain a database of all known e-mail addresses that we can detect as being located in Iran. Every time we switch the proxy site we send an e-mail informing them of the new free proxy location so the citizens of Iran can find it. The sites are also broadcast via radio and TV into Iran by the VOA. To be honest, we're usually about a day behind the blocks, due mostly to time zone differences.
It's based off of PrivateSurfing (which you can try out for free at the Anonymizer homepage, sorry you can't surf
The systems that run the Iran proxies are dedicated and used quite heavily. Much more than any of the servers that we have for everything else. The loadav is pretty high, and we're working on upgrading them in the next few months to increase capacity.
Most of our customers are under NDA so I don't mention where I work much, but the VOA is one of our very few public contracts due to it's anti-censorship nature.
No, just because he's brainlessly reciting US-fascist government propaganda. There's no opinion present in that post with which to disagree -- just evidence of successful zombiefication. I'm sure he'll make ideal cannon fodder, just like the Muslim suicide terrorists he might end up fighting. The sad thing is, he has a lot in common with them.
The opinion stated is that he's been brainwashed. Believe me, you're not speaking in fact when you say that. I could say that you sound exactly like every other extreme left wing nut running around the US, because they all like to use the words "brainwashed", compare the US government to fascism (which you obviously have NO clue what fascism is, if you believe the US is behaving in that way), and questioning the moral convictions of someone who genuinely wants to see a better world. You should be ashamed of yourself to even question whether or not he genuinely believes in making the world a better place, regardless of his method, because at least that attitude is the right way to start. "Wait and see" is not an appropriate way of making change.