Larry Beinhart: Report From Iran: Should We Really Bomb These People?

[babylonsister]

Report From Iran: Should We Really Bomb These People?

By Larry Beinhart, AlterNet. Posted April 5, 2008.

The author explains, "Iranians are among the most gracious and hospitable people I've ever met."


I'm in Shiraz, on the way to Esfahan.

It's good to get out of gray, smoggy Tehran, one of the least photogenic cities in the world, where black is the new black, from the hejabs on down.

One of the attractions of Shiraz is the tomb of Hafez, a Persian poet from the 14th century. It's thronged at night. Iranians bring flowers, then stand or kneel beside the sarcophagus and recite his poems. My personal reaction is, this is how writers should always be treated.

Iranians are among the most gracious and hospitable people I've ever met.

The question, of course, is whether we should bomb these people?

In America today, we tend to see things in Manichaean terms. That is, we divide things into absolute opposites, light and dark, good and evil, us and them.

We could, if we went back far enough, blame that on them. The word Manichaean refers to the Persian prophet Mani (from around 250 AD). The whole notion of good and evil, with man in the middle, having to make a choice, then rewarded and condemned in an afterlife, goes back to an even earlier Persian prophet, Zoroaster, from around 1,000 BC. Those ideas entered Judaism during the Babylonian exile and the liberation of the Jews by Cyrus the Great of Persia, and from there into Christianity.

There are still Zoroastrians and Jews in modern-day Persia, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

These are people with a rich and varied history. A very humanistic history.

The question is, why should we bomb these people?

more...

http://www.alternet.org/audits/81100/?page=entire

[AlertLurker]

1. The strange thing is:

There is still a LOT of PRO-USAMERICAN sentiment in Iran right now. This seems strange to me, though, given the Mossadeq/Shah/Islamic Revolution/Hostage Crisis, but from what I read, young people especially, are, for the most part pro-USA.

There is a LOT of ANTI-Ahmedinajad sentiment in Iran right now, as well - he's NOT going to be re-elected.

Why the USA would want to make this worse by an attack is just beyond me...