September 27, 2007
by Cliff Carson
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George Bush and his minions have been pushing hard to start a war with Iran. The National Media have not joined to question his motives even though the last such run up ended with the United States invading Iraq in a war seemingly with no end that was rushed to initiation based on lies and patriotic drum beating. And the Iraq war has no hint of what a successful conclusion might be nor is there a definition of victory or when it is won. The Iraqis still alive in Iraq will know. Most of them will not have been born when it started.
"Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac."
--George Orwell
Basically using the familiar scare tactics similar to the Iraq justification, it seems that today's propaganda claims the need to go to war with Iran is to protect us from the Iranian Nuclear Threat- isn't that what was said about Iraq? But what threat? Iran doesn't have any atom bombs, neither did Iraq, and Iran doesn't have any infrastructure to build one, and beginning where they are at this moment in their nuclear industry, they could not have any bomb within the next 6-7 years - even if they try to build such a weapon. Which the IAEA says is not the focus of the Iranian nuclear policy at this time. Remember that when United States Corporations were building Iran's Nuclear Industry, it was all AOK.
So what and who will profit from a war with Iran? I suspect it will be the same bunch that is continuing to profit from Iraq. As long as Bush and the boys can get patriotic Americans to get riled up from their propaganda campaign, they can count on an environment that will allow us to see a repeat of Iraq. To recount: 5 years, 4000 American Soldiers dead, almost 30,000 wounded, a Trillion dollars squandered so far, a million dead Iraqis, over four million Iraqis have left Iraq, Iraq destroyed, what is it that we the common person in America have gained from this immoral war? And Bush and his Administration want to start the next one ASAP. The love of money is the root of all evil.
And remember Iraq wasn't a party to 9/11. Then of course neither was Iran. In fact Iran co-operated with the United States in Afghanistan because Iran has been a victim of Terrorism that would dwarf what happened on 9/11. Iran hated the Taliban. And the Neo-Cons. Remember it was the United States that got Saddam to invade Iran as punishment for overthrowing the United States puppet dictator, the Shah of Iran. And the Neo-Cons were complicit in overthrowing Iran's President Mohammad Mossadaq in 1953. What was the reason then? To get Iran's Oil.
What will be the reason to invade Iran this time? To get Iran's Oil. Why did we invade Iraq? To get Iraq's Oil. Why did we fight the Soviets in Afghanistan? To control the Oil flow from the Caspian Sea area. Who made money off all these forays? - Not America's common citizens. Who paid for it? America's common citizens. Who died because of the greed? Nobody that would ever profit from the oil!
With the visit of Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to the United Nations here in America, I have become very aware of the Public Relations campaign being pushed by the current Republican Administration to demonize Iran. The most common conduit is to denigrate the Iranian President and to claim that Iran is providing weapons to the Iraqi insurgents to kill Americans.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is represented by the mainstream media as an uneducated madman who is likely to invade his neighbors and the United States, plus he calls for the destruction of Israel. And watching Washington Journal this morning (Tuesday 26th of September), Front page after Front page of our supposedly leading Newspapers spoke of his evil intent and ignorance. The newspaper reports dwelt on his "reputation", his views against gays, his denial of the Holocaust, and his insult to America for wanting to visit the 9/11 site.
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I may have shared the media assessment about Ahmadinejad and Iran if I hadn't done three things: (1) I watched on C-Span the unedited interview by the 60 Minutes reporter- It lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes instead of the edited approximately 10 minutes actually televised by CBS, (2) I watched on C-Span the unedited speech to the Columbia University students instead of relying on the CNN snippets I caught during their "News" presentations, and (3) I watched the live telecast on C-Span of the speech he gave to the National News gathering. Had I not seen these three things with my own eyes I would have never known what Ahmadinejad actually said, because it certainly can't be found in the mainstream media publications and TV reporting.
For those who didn't do what I did, the themes he actually pursued were (1) Dialog with the United States and all other Countries concerning the current rhetoric being spewed out by those who want to start a war against Iran, (2) The history of Iran's invading of other countries (As long as the United States has existed, Iran has not invaded another country) but Iran has previously been invaded and/or terrorized by those who today want to start a war with them (3) he discussed his views concerning Israel, its creation, and he asked this question-"If the Holocaust occurred in Germany, and he admitted it did, then "why, he asked, do the Palestinians have to pay for the crime committed in Europe?", "What he asked, did the Palestinians have to do with the Holocaust?" (4) He stated that there was no Homosexuals in Iran "Like you have in America", this was reported as "There are no Homosexuals in Iran" by the mainstream media. Big laugh ensued. He alluded to the fact that Homosexuality is a sin in Islam. News for Christians-So is it a sin in Christiandom. Finally he was represented as having a 5th grade education and by inference that Iranians are ignorant.
I did a search and found that Ahmadinejad has a PhD in Engineering and during my search I also read the letter that he sent Bush in 2006. I recommend that everyone read this letter in its entirety (Google Ahmadinejad letter to Bush 2006). It is most enlightening. And it was an invitation to Bush to peacefully settle any issues between Iran and the United States. I heard, Bolton?, state on TV that it was rejected by the White House without reading it. I don't know if that is true or not, but I would hope it isn't.
The real question is why mainstream media goes along with this characterization. I came away with a far different view of Ahmadinejad than that the minion media portrayed. He stated that if we have meaningful dialog we won't have war. He pointed out that the United States and Friends (Specifically mentioning Britain) used a pretext of WMD to invade Iraq and now that the war has gone sour, those same groups, he says, want to blame the problem on others. I think I have to agree with him on this. The run up on Iran is so very familiar with the run up on Iraq.
Demonize, create a straw man threat (Nuclear Weapons), claim suppression of the indigenous peoples, and claim the moral high ground. Then use these themes and a complicit media to incite the American public and start a War. We Americans will always rally around patriotic needs and that is as it should be, but I think we need to be very careful when we are asked to rally around an Agenda designed to start a war especially when given by Bush and the bunch since they lied us into Iraq. If we are not being attacked, we need to be absolutely sure of the facts given by the known warmonger-Bush. Iraq should have taught us that lesson.
If we don't learn from past lessons we meet the definition of ignorant. We need to put a stop to this war before it starts. Write your Senators and Representatives. And in 2008 if they haven't stopped Bush, vote every incumbent out. Their replacements need to see what happens when the elected ignore the people. That is a sure fire way to stop this slide into non-representative government.
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Cliff Carson [send him email] is a freelance writer and Populist Party contributor.
