My major criticism of this article is that there is almost NO MENTION of the Israeli involvement and cheerleading and provocation when it comes to Iran.
The U.S. has long had Iran virtually encircled as a result of
the American occupation of Afghanistan on Iran’s Eastern border, its invasion
of Iraq on its Western border, its NATO ally Turkey hovering on Iran’s
Northwestern border, some degree of military relationship with
Turkmenistan on Iran’s Northeastern border, and multiple U.S. client states
sitting right across the Persian Gulf (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and
Bahrain, where the massive U.S. Fifth Fleet is
stationed).
Additionally, some combination of the U.S. and Israel has
bombarded Iran with multiple acts of war over the last year, including
Meanwhile, top American political officials from both parties
are actively demanding that
an Iranian revolutionary cult be removed from the list of Terrorist
organizations (just coincidentally, they’re all on the cult’s payroll).
In the past decade, the U.S. and/or Israel have invaded, air
attacked, and/or occupied Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya,
Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (to say nothing of the
creation of a worldwide torture regime, a system of “black site” prisons around
the world to which people were disappeared, and a due-process-free detention
camp in the middle of the Caribbean Ocean where many people remain encaged for
almost a full decade without charges).
During this same time period, Iran has not invaded, occupied or
air attacked anyone.
Iran, to be sure, is domestically oppressive, but no more so ~
and in many cases less ~ than the multiple regimes funded, armed and otherwise
propped up by the U.S. during this period. Those are all just facts.
But ~ despite all of
these facts ~ all serious people in the U.S. know that Iran is the Aggressor,
the Modern Nazis, a True Menace, while the U.S. and Israel are its innocent
peace-loving victims.
Today, Iran claims that
it took down an American drone flying over its country (either by shooting it
down or overtaking its control system).
Iran has made similar claims
before, but this time the U.S. admits it
last week lost a drone flying over what it claims was Western Afghanistan (not
Eastern Iran). Between the intense wall of secrecy behind which the U.S.
government operates and the less-than-reliable nature of the pronouncements
from both governments, we’ll likely never know what happened for sure.
In any event, this is yet
another case of increased tensions between the two nations, and it’s thus time
for yet another round of Those Evil,
Provocative, Aggressive Iranians (because, of course, no
peace-loving nation ~ such as the U.S. ~ would ever dare shoot down an Iranian
drone if it flew over their soil; in fact, just imagine the massive retaliatory
response that would be triggered if Iran were found to be flying drones over American soil, let
alone simultaneously killing U.S. scientists, causing explosions on U.S. soil,
backing U.S. Terrorist groups, and launching cyber attacks on U.S. nuclear
facilities, all while occupying Canada and Mexico with more than 150,000
troops).
In light of these
belligerent U.S. actions and threats ~ along with seeing how the U.S. treats
countries without a nuclear capability versus those who have one ~ nothing is more rational than
Iran’s wanting a nuclear weapon.
Given the extensive
violence and aggression the U.S. has perpetrated, and continues to perpetrate, on
numerous countries in that region, one might think that not even our political
culture could sustain the propagandistic myth that it is Iran that is the
aggressor state and the U.S. that is its peace-loving victim.
But, of course, one who
thought that would be completely wrong. Not only is it a widespread belief, but
it’s virtually mandated orthodoxy. But none of that should be at all surprising
or confusing, given that 66 years ago, George Orwell ~ in his 1945 Notes on
Nationalism ~ explained exactly the warped form of
thinking that creates this mindset:
All nationalists have the
power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts.
A British Tory will
defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of
inconsistency.
Actions
are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does
them, and there is almost no kind of outrage ~ torture, the use of hostages,
forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery,
assassination, the bombing of civilians ~ which does not change its moral
colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.
The nationalist not only
does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a
remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
I’ve cited that passage before, but it really does
explain so very much (and that form of thinking extends beyond nationalism to
all tribal loyalties). It’s how a country that has repeatedly invaded,
occupied, bombed, and killed civilians in numerous other nations over the last
decade can look at a country that has done little or none of that (but has been
practically surrounded by all that aggression) and be convinced: they are the Evil aggressors and must be stopped
at all costs.
UPDATE: One
other point: whenever you dare to suggest a comparison between the United
States of America and whatever country happens to be the New
Hitlers of the moment, you
get accused of moral relativism.
That has always struck me
as so bizarre, because moral
relativism actually refers to precisely what Orwell described: “Actions
are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does
them, and there is almost no kind of outrage ~ torture, the use of hostages,
forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery,
assassination, the bombing of civilians ~ which does not change its moral
colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.” As Rudy Giuliani said when asked if
waterboarding is “torture”: “It depends on who does it.” That is moral relativism.
UPDATE
II [Mon.]: Echoing The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg and The New
York Times‘ Roger Cohen, National Journal‘s Michael Hirsh asks today: “Has
the war with Iran already begun?”, and writes:
Two incidents that
occurred on Sunday ~ Iran’s claim of a shoot-down of a U.S. drone, and an
explosion outside the British embassy in Bahrain–may have been unrelated. But
they appear to add to growing evidence that an escalating covert war by the West is under way against Iran, and
that Tehran is retaliating with greater intensity than ever.
Asked whether the United
States, in cooperation with Israel, was now engaged in a covert war against
Iran’s nuclear program that may include the Stuxnet virus, the blowing-up of
facilities and the assassination or kidnapping of scientists, one recently
retired U.S. official privy to up-to-date intelligence would not deny it.
By accident or not, it’s entirely possible the covert war could
escalate into a real one, experts say.
Where is the authority to
wage a covert, unauthorized war against Iran?
That question, of course,
matters little, because American political culture accepts that the President’s
power should be unfettered in these areas no matter what that old, tired,
quaint, obsolete Constitution says.
It’s just extraordinary
how little concern is raised over the fact that the U.S. ~ to some degree or other
~ is clearly waging a covert war against Iran.
Copyright Salon.com
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