MEANWHILE, IN IRAN

Posted at 8:35 a.m. ET

My Iranian dissident friend, Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, and her techno-whiz husband and political commentator husband, Elio, have written a tough piece exposing the disgusting behavior of Code Pink, whose pinkish leaders recently visited Iran to grovel before the dear leaders.  Expect more of this kind of thing as the new administration takes office:

On Wednesday, November 26, a 39-year-old woman, Fatemeh Haqiqat-Pajouh, was hanged, together with nine male prisoners, in Tehran’s infamous Evin prison. In 2001, Fatemeh had killed her husband while he was attempting to rape Fatemeh’s then-14-year-old daughter, Zahra, born from a previous marriage. She was given a stay of execution twice in the past by Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the head of the Islamic judicial authority of Iran. Twice she was returned to her cell from the gallows in light of public and international protest.

Just cultural characteristics.  That's all.  Nothing to see here.

On a per capita basis...Iran is by far the number one country in the world to administer death sentences to its citizens.

Why should that stop death penalty opponents on the extreme left?

A few days before Fatemeh’s execution, Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, two wealthy American women and co-founders of Code Pink, arrived in Tehran on a “citizen diplomacy” trip.

And...

Benjamin and Evans wrote daily accounts of their trip to Tehran on their blog — and wasted not a word on poor Fatemeh or on the tragedy of women’s rights in Iran under the mullahs and their Sharia laws. Benjamin and Evans portray a rosy and unrealistic situation, where Iranians of all social classes and political persuasions welcome them enthusiastically, share their anti-war sentiments, and desire for peaceful and loving relations with the U.S. and all nations. Medea Benjamin, who lived for seven years in Cuba calling the Castro dictatorship “a paradise on earth..."

Medea Benjamin appears on TV in the United States often.  None of this background is ever brought out.  If someone mentioned the Cuba years, that someone would immediately be accused of "McCarthyism."

Benjamin and Evans, Code Pink women, have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to political campaigns, including to those of Democrats Obama, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, and Republican-cum-truther Ron Paul. They can afford to travel to Tehran, stay in one of the best hotels, and cozy up to the same regime that put Fatemeh and so many other women and children to death. Jodie Evans candidly admits on her daily blog report that she and Benjamin had introductions to people they cannot meet because it would upset the government, the same government which gave the consent to visit Iran. She is so eager to please her hosts that she thinks she will be able to keep her scarf on much more than the last trip, as, she admits, “we are all on our best behavior.”

Pathetic.  Utterly pathetic.  These are Lenin's "useful idiots," carried to an extreme.

It is revolting to even consider the self-aggrandizement of these women in contrast to the self-stifling required of Iranian women today. Benjamin and Evans should have stayed in Iran, where they might learn something about freedom.

Here, here!

Obama’s position is not an enviable one when it comes to having to deal with the Code Pink pest; in accepting these frivolous women’s bundles of campaign contributions and by offering to hold direct and unconditional dialogue with the mullahs, he has put himself in the position of having to deliver. If he goes along with Code Pink’s demand he stands the chance of alienating Europeans who have finally begun to see the mullahs for who they really are and, at least verbally, are taking them to task as well as resisting the call for dialogue without precondition.

Yes, it's true.  In certain areas the Europeans are actually getting tougher than we are. 

What we have here is a group, Code Pink, that has benefited enormously from the willful blindness of the mainstream media.  If Code Pink were right wing, its entire history would be examined in impeccable detail.  But it is a leftist group; therefore, no questions are asked.  After all, we don't want to crush dissent, do we?  We don't want to go back to the Red Scare, do we?

And that's the argument.  And that's how Code Pink gets away with it.

December 26, 2008.