Feb. 8, 2007: Senator Tom Coburn (R, OK) today released a bombshell report, finally saying out loud what many of us have been whispering for years:Voice of America's Persian Service TV broadcasts are actually harming U.S. national interests by giving "a significant amount of airtime to guests and content that undermine U.S. policy on Iran, often even supporting the propaganda of the Islamic Republic of Iran." For more, including links to Sen. coburn's documents, go here.
Coburn's letter to President Bush cited the egregious coverage of the president's State of the Union speech where a former Islamic Republic of Iran diplomat, Mansour Farhang, opined unopposed that U.S. policy in Iraq has "no connection to reality," and the VOA anchor, Setareh Derakhshesh, told Iranian vieweres that "America opposes the President."
Coburn also released a full translation of the State of the Union coverage, which he commissioned from outside sources after requesting repeatedly of Broadcasting Board of Governors chairman Ken Tomlinson to provide English-language transcripts of Persian broadcasts.
A report on VOA and Radio Farda coverage produced by the Iran Steering Group, a bipartisan coalition in Congress, concluded that "neither station is a primary source of news for Iranians." It pointed out that "Radio Farda frequently uses Islamic Republic news sources - official or those affiliated with the regime," even though Radio Farda was supposed to be a "freedom radio" presenting Iranians with information they could not acquire inside Iran.
During the war in Lebanon this past summer, for example, VOA Television repeatedly interviewed top Hezbollah leaders (who appeared regularly on Iranian State television) and broadcast their harangues on a U.S. government network into Iran.
Perhaps the most stunning comments, however, were made by Hoover Institution scholar Abbas Milani, who has been called to testify recently as an "expert" on the pro-democracy movement in Iran by Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
In a segment devoted to Iranian human rights abuses, Milani was asked this question:
VOA: Dr. Milani, how can a country that violates human rights be a defender of international human rights?Without missing a beat, Milani responded: "I think that what you are saying is 100% correct, that is why the US is in a problematic position because of this. An America that has the Guantanamo Bay jail in it, an America in which minorities, blacks, have suffered from legal deprivations, without a doubt has international issues with regards to this. However, the reality is that with all these violations, America has other advantages. Throughout Iran's history, even though there were the likes of [the coup in] 1953, there are tens of other examples where AMerica has tried to establish democracy... But in total, we have to analyze the sum total of all of this, despite these shortcomings, and despite what I think is America's shameful record of violation of human rights laws, despite all that, I think America's interests lie in establishing democracy in the region. Ms. Rice spoke about this, I think."
VOA: Thank you very much, Professor Milani. Of course, the country I was referring to as the violator of human rights which cannot be a defender of international human rights was the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Kenneth R. Timmerman is Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran.