Rational Grounds

Not only do [the Iranians] use the full panoply of physical and psychological horrors on their captives, but they then send the victims back into their homes and neighborhoods for brief periods of "parole" or "medical leave," so that their friends and families can see with their own eyes the brutal effects of the torture. [...]

Thus, when a victim uses his time outside the torture chambers to call for the people of Iran to act against the regime, it warrants our attention. If the West had leaders willing to openly challenge the mullahs, or if the organizations who pretend to champion "human rights" were worthy of their own mission statements, we would know the names of these brave Iranians, and we would give them, and the Iranian people more broadly, the kind of support they deserve.

You will not have read about [Akbar Ganji] in your daily newspaper, or seen his face on your evening news broadcast, nor will you have heard about him from the Department of State - which has a considerable bureaucracy devoted to the advancement of human rights - nor from the White House, nor from the self-promoting entrepreneurs of the likes of Human Rights Watch or the intellectuals and elected representatives who call for President Bush to "talk to" the mullahs in order to "resolve our disagreements."

I'm not sure if he's outright lying or just misinformed, because if Mr. Ledeen had bothered to do a quick newsgoogle on the subject he would have found an article on the subject from the daily newspaper the New York Sun as the second link. Grouped with that article is one from Reuters' Alertnet:

Iran: Judiciary Tries to Jail Dissident Again 08 Jun 2005 21:45:27 GMT

Source: Human Rights Watch

(New York, June 9, 2005)--The Iranian Judiciary should immediately rescind its order to reimprison Akbar Ganji, an investigative journalist and one of the country's leading dissidents, Human Rights Watch said today.

Oops! But hey, the New York Sun doesn't get a lot of circulation outside of right-wing New York enclaves, and who really notices those Reuters articles anyway? What we're looking for is some big media outlet with a national reputation reporting on this. Like the Washington Post:

"The free election we have here is a mere play, because we've got a person at the top who has absolute power," said Akbar Ganji, a reformist leader just freed from five years in prison. Ganji spoke in his modestly furnished living room, looking vibrant if a bit thin from the hunger strike that preceded his release Monday.

One more trip to Google found the State Department similarly unfairly maligned. From the report on US Policy Toward Iran, as delivered to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 19th:

The United States believes the future of Iran should be democratic and pluralistic. We support those who wish to see Iran transformed from a rigid, intolerant theocracy to a modern state. [...]

Iran suffers from a deficit of freedom. The regime’s human rights record remains abysmal and the government continues to commit numerous, serious abuses, including summary executions, disappearances, torture and other inhumane treatment. In the late 1990s, elements of Iran’s secret services murdered a number of intellectuals and oppositionists. In 2000, a courageous journalist named Akbar Ganji was imprisoned for uncovering the truth and reporting it in his newspaper. Since Ganji was imprisoned, many journalists and even webloggers have been taken into prison where they have been abused and threatened. [...]

In fall 2004, for a second year in a row, the United States co-sponsored and actively supported a Canadian resolution at the UN General Assembly condemning the human rights situation in Iran.

So what have we learned here? Well, for one, never believe anything that Michael Ledeen says unless you heard it from another source you trust. But perhaps more broadly, never believe anything you read without verifying it.

I know that's a bit of a cliche. Everybody knows you can't believe everything you read, right? And yet we do, time and time again, either out of laziness, or perhaps a desire that the story be true, or just because we're overwhelmed with the daily flow of information. It's far too much psychological strain to take every printed statement of fact on a contingent basis, subject to later verification that rarely comes. After a while we just kind of tell ourselves, "They wouldn't be allowed to say it if it weren't at least sort of true, right? Somebody would stop them. Yeah." And we go about our business, our crisis of cognitive dissonance fading in the thicket of daily life.

How do we get on top of these things?