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July 21, 2005

Peaceful Regime Change In Iran

Dr. Jerome Corsi is, with his long-time friend John O'Neill, co-founder of the organization SwiftVets for Truth, which tipped the 2004 United States presidential election in favor of George Bush. He is the co-author of the book Unfit for Command, and author of Atomic Iran. He is also the founder of the Iran Freedom Foundation. With a doctorate in political science from Harvard, he has shown himself to be a powerful analyst of current events, and has a deep background in understanding of political movements.

Recently, personnel from the American Daughter Media Center interviewed Dr. Corsi, and we asked him how peaceful regime change could be accomplished in Iran. He described his foundation's activities with the opposition parties in Iran as being modeled after the organization of American labor unions. We were stunned by the brilliance of this idea, and by the powerful parallels.

Historically, labor unions in the United States developed organizations and methodologies to protect workers from exploitive corporate ownership. Jerry Corsi draws on this model to suggest strategies for accomplishing peaceful regime change in countries around the world that are currently dictatorships and tyrannies.

We have video or audio of the entire half-hour interview available at American Daughter. Here is the transcript from his remarks on "Peaceful Regime Change:"

Dr. Bickel: Dr. Corsi, I see bumper stickers all the time that say "war is not the answer." Is there a way in these countries, Iran and others, to really win their freedom without having to go to war?

Dr. Corsi: Ah, yes, there is. I think we've seen it happen. We've seen it happen in Poland. We've seen it happen in the Ukraine. In Lebanon, people in the streets protesting governments that are illegitimate, extensive human rights abuses.

The people in these countries come to a point where they don't want to take it anymore. They reach a point of desperation. They've had abuses. They see no future for themselves or their families. And they decide that they are going to protest, that finally they're going to say "enough."

Now it takes a lot to get to that point, because these countries operate on fear. A person can get killed or arrested just for speaking out, let alone protesting in the streets. They can lose their jobs. They can have their children thrown out of schools. Horrible things can happen to them just for protesting.

So that it takes a methodology where we've got to work with the dissident structures of people who speak the language. People who have left the countries are frequently in touch by email, fax, cell phone to people within the country. And even money can be sent in to support the dissidents--sending computers, printers so that they can communicate, cell phones. We've got to create the infrastructure almost at a community level.

In my background, when I was a kid my father was at the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. He was an executive and he helped to create the United Transportation Union, one of the largest transportation unions in the world. And I spent my young years understanding how community organization was done.

Within a labor union you work within local lodges. And when a family needs help you get it to them. Whether that's money, medicine, whatever is needed. The union takes care of the workers in the union. People end up thinking that they're really working as much for the union as for the company. That kind of local organization happens, that local sharing of ideas and support among people. That's when peaceful revolution starts and governments are overthrown.

I walked the two hundred miles of the Iran Freedom Walk to express that solidarity. I can see a day where people in fifty countries will walk, maybe even on 9/11. There's a group called March Against Terror organizing on this principle. When people in fifty countries walk--hundreds of millions of people walking across the face of the earth--there'll be no tyrant left who can stand that moral power.

Ronald Reagan showed it. What it took to bring down the Soviet Union was not missiles or guns. It took him to stand there and say, "Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall!" It took his courage to say that the Soviet Union was an evil empire and he determined that he wanted it gone...this evil government destroyed and gone. Not dealt with, or contained, or worked with, but eliminated. And not eliminated through a war but by the people themselves.

That's where I see the future. I think in the next few years, the next generation, people are going to realize that within their own hands, within their own power, is the ability to determine their lives. And people all over the world...I've traveled all over the world...people want the same thing whether they're Vietnamese or Iranians or Cubans or Africans or wherever they're from. They want to have children, have families, fall in love, grow old, work reasonably, die in their own beds with the family around them--loved. They do not want a war. They do not want tyranny. They don't want oppression. People all around the world have these same basic needs and desires.

If we focus there that's were the world can build just societies that are self-determined by people, not ruled by tyrannies, not oppressed by criminals. We've got to get rid of these criminal mafias who are ruling these countries today. When the world sees through it, these criminal dictators are going to look like jokes. And I think as they do get ridiculed and eliminated the world will be glad to be rid of them peacefully. That's what I pray for.



Posted by at July 21, 2005 11:02 AM






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