The last few weeks tensions have mounted in the Persian Gulf as the US and Israel hold war games in the Iranian’s backyard. With the threat of an oil embargo and other sanctions which almost always leads to war I think it’s time we had a reality check here. I’m sure that I’ll get emails from the Israel is always right crowd calling me an anti-semite among other things but that just goes with the territory of telling the truth to those that can’t handle it.
First, why are we going to war and why the sanctions? Well if you listen to all the hawks and chicken-hawks(mostly chicken-hawks) including 3 of the 4 remaining GOP candidates for President, it’s because Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program.
But let’s examine this a little more closely. What actual proof and I mean concrete proof do we have that such a program exists? I will remind readers to think back to before the beginning of the Iraq war and all the talk about Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction. Intelligence was wrong and some even manipulated to look like something it wasn’t.
Of course once the invasion began and the CIA and DIA came out saying most of the WMD intelligence was severely flawed and mostly false then the Bush administration and the corporate media spun a new reason for the war, human rights. We were told what a butcher Hussein was but we skipped over the parts where Hussein actually existed and gained his power by being friends with the US with people like Donald Rumsfield. We’ll talk about this in detail a little later.
if you get a chance to read the new IAEA report that the west is using as an excuse to go after the Iranians it is important to read the wording carefully. Terms such as likely, possibly, leading indicator, possible indications are being used in the report yet when the presstitutes of the corporate media report this as news they’d have you believe it’s a slam dunk. And why won’t the IAEA allow a more transparent review of the evidence by other nuclear experts. After all, if the evidence is there you shouldn’t be afraid to show it to these experts, right?
We’ve seen the government’s talking heads spin it their way to fit their agenda but let’s look at it from a different point of view also. After all before rushing to war is it not our moral obligation to determine the justness of such war? (sorry evangelical hypocrites, I know that part is over your head)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PfuciW1us0
Ok let’s go further on the nuclear thing. We have countries such as India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel..yes Israel, that have not signed on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and have nuclear weapons. We are not only not calling for economic sanctions on these four countries but consistently provide them with foreign aid from tax payer funds. This hypocrisy is one of the reasons we have so many enemies in the world and people don’t like us. Of course the politicians continue to try and convince you that its because we are free and wealthy. Really, only an imbecile really believes that theory and of course the average American republican neocon voter is imbecilic so that stands to reason that a part of this country swallows this line hook line and sinker.
Iran having signed on to the Biological Conventions Treaty and Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty and The Nuclear Non Proliferation treaty has as such agreed to be against nuclear weapons. As a matter of fact the Ayatollahs of Iran created a Fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons saying the use of such weapons are against the religion of Islam.
As mentioned, having signed onto the NPT the Iranians have a right to enrich uranium which they are doing. They claim they are enriching uranium to 5% which is consistent for nuclear power generation. In order for nuclear weapons uranium enrichment must exceed 90% so this should be fairly easy to verify. But has the IAEA done so? No it has not.
Yet the US finds itself allied with a country that by all accounts already is involved in a covert war with Iran. This ally is Israel and our own ally refuses to sign onto the Non Proliferation treaty and also refuses to allow IAEA inspectors into it’s own country to view it’s nuclear program.
Once again do you see the hypocrisy of the west in this regards? We are applying sanctions to one country for not complying yet we ally and reward this ally country that has an even worse record for compliance than the nation we are sanctioning.
This my friends is one of the main reasons we are disliked in the Islamic world and it is also why we are not trusted. Not because we are free.
Let’s look at our own history with Iran and you might understand how they feel about us. In the 1950s Iran had a democratically elected President, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh made a mistake by nationalizing Iran’s petroleum industry which up until then had been controlled by British Oil companies. As is usually the case the corporatists of Great Britain and the US could not have their empire type control taken away and launched an operation to get rid of Mosaddegh and install someone they could control which ended up being the Shah of Iran.
This coup de tat did two things for the US, it gave them the share of Iranian oil interests and it also kept the USSR out of Iran. However the shah who many Iranians viewed accurately as a puppet of the US and the west used his secret police to create a police state and oppress many Iranians and for sure any Iranian that questioned US/ Iran ties. Finally the Iranian people had enough of the US backed police state and had their own revolution in 1979 and I am sure many of you had read about the Iran hostage crisis back then. This was the blowback to us by supporting a dictator that oppressed his own people and why many Iranians dislike and don’t trust the US.
But the US wasn’t done as they turned a blind eye to Iraq then invading Iran in 1980. As a matter of fact we then threw our support behind the Iraqis and our good friend Saddam Hussein who eventually used chemical weapons he procured from the US on the Iranians and on the Kurds.
Would you trust a country that you had a history with such as this? Now are you beginning to see the real reason the Iranians dislike the US?
In closing here are some questions I think our congress needs to ask before we have any armed conflict with Iran or even the application of sanctions which almost always leads to armed conflict.
First there needs to be an open debate on why we are allied with a nation with nuclear weapons that refuses to sign the nuclear non proliferation treaty and refuses to allow IAEA inspectors into it it’s country while we seek conflict with a country that has allowed inspectors and has signed the treaty.
Next we need to debate why we are going after Iran yet we are not demanding the same of India, Pakistan and North Korea with the same threats of economic sanctions, embargoes and the threat of armed invasion. Shouldn’t everything be on the table with these countries?
Next we need to evaluate the Iranian threat. Iran has not in modern times invaded any country. Yet the US and it’s Nato allies have seen fit to invade countries with a pre-emptive war doctrine that has proved to be based on incorrect intelligence. It should also be pointed out that the US government carried out these pre-emptive wars in a way that makes them unconstitutional and thus illegal according to our own laws and also international laws. Now I’m sure many of you neocons are screaming about the US following international law and how we as a sovereign nation have to do what we do in our interests right? Well why then do we want to invade another sovereign nation for doing something in its best interest?
I think the debate should include that whether the US wants Iran to have a nuclear that it is their right as a sovereign nation to have one. How can we as a nation expect the world to recognize our sovereignty while we refuse to recognize other countries sovereign rights also. Every single congressperson had better have a good reason for this before voting for war.
Let’s face it no one wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Personally I wish no country had them because the use of them will be the end of our world as it exists today. I think everyone should destroy their nukes. But we all know that isn’t going to happen. And until everyone gives theirs up and until Israel gives theirs up I don’t see how we can expect Iran to stop their program if one exists.
The mere way we treat Iran right now versus the way we treat India, Pakistan , North Korea and Israel is proof and shows dramatically why Iran would want a weapon. Other countries have to respect you when you have them. The US and Russia, China and other Nato countries all had nuclear weapons. Not just in storage but on launch pads and targeted on specific targets. This was termed Mutually Assured Destruction and most nuclear weapons advocates point out is why they were never used. Shouldn’t Iran have this same assurance? And might this assurance actually result in parties in the mid east realizing the same thing that the US, China and USSR did during the cold war? That the danger of nuclear conflict resulted in diplomacy and agreements rather than nuclear conflict and the destruction of our world?
These are things that require a full debate before going to war with any country but especially Iran. It is my opinion that we will not have this type of debate because neither the world bankers who actually control our government and hence our military and the neocons who believe in war with everyone to build their dream empire will allow a debate. Because if they do, going to war will not be able to stand up to a full debate.
But just the same, we as citizens should demand what our founders gave us as a form of government. And we should stand up and demand it being followed that took an oath to do so and we should take those that refuse to follow and keep their oath and put them in jail after removing them from office.
Agree or Disasgree? You tell me.
