Anti-American operatives at VOA's Iranian service

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A music video mocking democracy and heaping scorn on the United States is the product of staffers for the Voice of America's Farsi language service to Iran. The VOA employees used several terrorist propaganda video clips showing IED attacks on American humvees and armored vehicles in Iraq.

The title of the video is "DemoKracy." (Click here to view the video if the YouTube image is not visible above.)

Produced by an obscure Swedish-Iranian band called Abjeez, the music video is themed in and around a TV newsroom, with the anchor and a reporter, played respectively by Safoura and Melody Safavi, mocking the United States and democracy.

The "reporter," shown at right holding the microphone in the first part of the video, is the VOA employee, Melody Safavi, whose married name is Arbabi. This blogger has learned that VOA fired her after an Iranian former political prisoner filed a complaint to Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes, but her husband Saman Arbabi, who directed the video, reportedly is still on VOA staff.

The video includes pictures of civilian casualties, grieving women and wounded children, Iraqi and American coffins and funerals, and a weather map of the Middle East showing bombs dropping on every country in the greater Middle East, from Sudan and Egypt to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Three nuclear bomb-style mushroom clouds are superimposed over the part of the map depicting Iran. The video closes with an archival aerial photo of a nuclear weapon test in the desert.

Abjeez has produced the video in several languages, though viewer statistics on YouTube show few people worldwide have accessed the video. Nevertheless, the production raises questions about the editorial judgment of VOA personnel, and whether US taxpayers should have such individuals on the payroll to wage the war of ideas against Islamist extremism.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which governs VOA, has long denied problems with its controversial Iran services. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) has been raising concerns for a year about the broadcasts to the Islamic republic, but the BBG and State Department were dismissive. Last spring, this blogger also submitted a set of written questions to outgoing Under Secretary of State Hughes at the request of a senior aide, and received a written response that ignored or evaded the answers. It's time for BBG and State to catch up with the new leadership at RFE/RL and tackle the larger problems of US broadcasting into Iran. 

Comments

[RHG]

It's unfortunate that you confuse a knee-jerk acceptance of U.S. actions in Iraq with being "anti-American." This VOA employee was, in fact, demonstrating one of the things that makes America great: its ability to tolerate and accept free speech as a fundamental right of all free people. This VOA employee might even support the ideals of the United States but may object to the way the Bush administration has pursued them. Her objections to the kind of "democracy" the U.S. has pushed on Iraq seem to me to be extremely reasonable and logical. You present this as a war of ideas, but it is challenging to accept that the U.S. has anything like democracy in mind, if the end results of our worldwide efforts are governments like the one we've installed in Iraq, or supported in Pakistan, or the elections whose result we objected to in the Palestinian Territories.

Tragically, although I suspect we both share the same sense of idealism about what makes the idea of America great, I feel that the policies you espouse, through their inherent injustice, push the people of the world ever farther away from those ideals.

[mohammad]

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[Payam]

"...have such individuals on the payroll to wage the war of ideas against Islamist extremism."

What do you mean by this? Are you implying that VOA/Abjeez are Islamist extremists? Because if you are, you my friend are assuming that every Iranian is a Muslim, and therefore an extremist. Hopefully I just misread that line.

[kurosh]

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[Iranian_Freedomlover]

In response to RHG, lecturing us about the freedom of speech, I should say that, my friend, there's a limit in it, when it comes to issues of national security. In other words, would you advocate broadcasting stuff that the Iranian terrorist regime is spreading on their TV, Satellite, and media? I should also add that nobody says that what this administration has done is benefiting the America's interests, or in no way is peaceful, but those of you who keep bashing Bush, or other US policies in regards to countries such as Pakistan, remember, you're siding with a regime which has committed countless atrocities and murders in Iran, and is trying to spread their disease to the whole region. I know, because I come from that country, and mind you, I love Iran, and don't advocate starting another war. At the same time, I can't stand people who are using American taxpayers' money to spread Islmist regime's agenda, at the VOA. VOA should give a chance and a voice to those Iranians who are struggling for democracy and freedom in their homeland instead. Right now the interests of the whole world, including the US, Europe and the Iranian people rests on changing this bloody regime.

[vahid]

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[vanak]

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