Slashdot Mirror
The State of Iran's Ongoing Netwar
An anonymous reader writes "Following disputed elections in Iran, opposition groups and activists have turned conventional protests into a major threat to the ruling government. The low-intensity protest movement is rapidly becoming the first true netwar of the 21st century. Opposition protesters have shown that within a few hours or less, the information technologies that are the mainstay of modern society can become its weapons, as well.
This article examines the current situation in Iran and the part played by new media technologies and strategies, showing how far the theory and practice of netwar has advanced since the concept first emerged in the late nineties."
The West thinks in binary terms: free/not-free.
Life is more complicated than that.
When we find someone obstructing our interests, we round of millions of useful idiots to begin clamoring for "freedom," and use that to passive-aggressively unseat the regime.
All while we are increasingly banning our own freedoms here in the West, and might be better off with a goal of "an organized, thoughtful society" instead of the nebulous "freedom."
Futurist Traditionalism
Actually, what you describe is indeed what happened in Iraq (with only marginally quibbling differences).
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Everyone who thinks they are helping by siding with the Iranian opposition has a very poor understanding of Iranian politics. It doesn't matter whether it's from the government or whether it's from regular Western citizens, helping the opposition figures does not help the United States in any way. It just puts a different face on the same anti-Western government. The difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi is on economic policy not foreign policy. What makes you think that if they opposition was successful in their political ambitions that they would become pro-American? Did they become pro-Israel after Israelis sold them weapons during the Iran Iraq war?
The 1st such war involved Estonia and Russia (and its sympathizers). The war was sparked by the moving of a bronze statue of a Russian soldier on April 27, 2007. Russians in both Russia and elsewhere were outraged. According to the article published by "The Guardian", "The [Internet] attacks have been pouring in from all over the world, but Estonian officials and computer security experts say that, particularly in the early phase, some attackers were identified by their internet addresses - many of which were Russian, and some of which were from Russian state institutions."
Computerworld published an article about the incident. The Estonian government convicted an ethnic Russian (living in Estonia) of the crime. However, other cyber thugs (working for the Kremlin) also contributed to the attack, but these criminals live outside Estonia and are beyond the reach of its justice system.
Note that Estonia was part of the democratization wave that swept Eastern Europe around 1990. The Kremlin had brutalized and occupied Estonia for about 45 years. If an Estonian had opposed the occupation, Russian "security" forces would have killed him. Thousands of Estonians died at the hands of the Russian occupiers.
Despite this decades-long tyranny, the Estonians revolted against their Russian occupiers and established a liberal Western democracy and a free market in 1991. That is how people act when they truly want freedom and free markets.
By contrast, in 1979, after the Iranians overthrew the despotic government supported by Washington, the Iranians immediately established a brutal Islamic theocracy. That is how people act when they reject both freedom and free markets.
Cultures are different. Estonian culture and Iranian culture are different. The Iranian people are 100% responsible for creating a brutal theocracy. They are 100% responsible for the terrorist acts funded and conducted by Tehran.