Iranian military general and soldier-killing terrorist operative Qasem Soleimani -- a Martin Luther King-level figure? That was one of several oleaginous propaganda-type comments about Soleimani, killed last week in a drone strike on Trump’s orders, heard on the Tuesday edition of the New York Times podcast The Daily, titled “Why Iran Is in Mourning.”
The Daily isn't just a podcast -- since a year ago, it also airs on many NPR stations -- a natural partnership of liberal media bias.
Host Michael Barbaro chatted with Times reporter Farnaz Fassihi as she discussed the state funeral of General Soliemani: “He was being celebrated as a national hero but also as a religious martyr and a saint....Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recited the Muslim prayer of the dead on Gen. Soleimani’s coffin. In the middle of the prayer, several times, he paused and Ali Khamenei cried, and the crowd also wept very loudly with him.”
Fassihi continued: “When I asked [opposition activists] why are you there, why are you going [to the funeral], the response was, Gen. Soleimani protected our national security, he transcended politics, he was a national hero. And I was talking to some young people who had attended his funeral and I spoke to a 22-year-old young man, a university student and I asked him ‘why are you at the funeral?’ And he said, knowing Gen. Soleimani was out there made me feel safer, he was like a security umbrella above our country. And that’s a sentiment that I heard over and over.”
The Times liked that quote so much they made it the Twitter teaser for the podcast (greeted with obloquy in the comments). Of course, an authoritarian regime has powers to encourage participation in mass anti-American protests like the funeral.
Host Michael Barbaro followed up excitedly: “What you’re describing feels like the kind of unified national outpouring that is reserved for a small handful of figures in any country, I mean, a beloved president, a civil rights leader like Martin Luther King in the United States -- not for what our colleagues have described as a general who specializes in covert operations in Iran.”
Later Fassihi explained why Trump’s move would backfire: “I think the White House probably thought that it was taking out a military commander that may not very popular with ordinary Iranians, that there’s been a lot of discontent in November against the government and that maybe Iranians would support this decision...But what we’ve seen is that the U.S. has effectively turned Gen. Soleimani into a martyr.”
Is “discontent” the best Fassihi can do? Reuters reported 1,500 people were killed by the regime Soleimani was so vital during those protests in November.
Later, Barbaro commented on Trump’s action: “But perhaps they didn’t understand something that’s equally as important, which is what he meant in the hearts of Iranians.”
Fassihi is making a name for herself on NewsBusters, tweeting a link to a Soleimani poetry reading and for a front-page story insisting Soliemani “was almost universally admired and had near cult figure status.”
