disgruntled minorities are not the best sources of information regarding the source of their disgruntlement. Such people are, naturally, extremely biased, and perhaps the worst sources of information you can get. (Lepus Rex)

That's why we always preferred PRAVDA to reports from exiled Russians, RENMIN RIBAO to reports from exiled Chinese reporting of tortures and why we never believed AN PHOBLACHT reporting RUC assaults and that's why we never believed reports from exiled Iranians telling about cruel treatment in the prisons of the Shah. Never trust minority reports.

The real and main reason why most of us (including me, of course) believe one source of information rather than the other is not from how many people this information comes, but simply how congruent the new information is with what we already believe to be true.

Life is sometimes more complicated than our ideologies allow for.

What Dianavan writes about Al Qaeda getting a hold (and recruiting) in Iran is wrong (unless you let the word 'Al Qaeda' cover all religious fundamentalists from anywhere in the Muslim world). What she writes about exiled Iranians' opinions, on the other hand, is corroborated by my personal experiences with them (two, actually, and both Muslim and no future relations to me).

It is a country with a dismal record on human rights, far worse than most other countries in this world, knows no religious freedom except on paper, tortures freely, knows nothing remotely similar to freedom of speech, and so on.

Just because one country happens to be on Bush's hit list doesn't make all reports about the atrocities and violations of human rights in this country wrong.

Wolfgang