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tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of innocent people, who have no more control over their government than we do.
Bombing Iraq did not kill Saddam. He was later hung by the Bush-installed puppet government. But it DID kill a hundred thousand people, according to the British doctors' report--people who had no more control over their government than we do, people who were innocent of any crime--and the subsequent U.S. occupation and continued warfare has killed twice that many, if not more (estimates run to one million).
These numbers do not even count the permanently injured and the sick, and massive numbers of refugees--as well as the victims of on-going civil chaos and lack of services. The total toll is in the millions.
This is what war does. And to start a war, with no provocation, is the most heinous crime in human history.
The demonization of Ahmadinjad--the mouthy "president" of Iran, who actually has little power--is a preliminary to what will be a heinous crime against humanity, if it occurs. The people of Iran--who have harmed no one, who have invaded no one--no more deserve to suffer massive loss of life, and the chaos and horror of war, than did the Iraqi people. And the beneficiaries of such an attack--the war industry, global corporate predator oil giants--are few, indeed, and are among the fascist entities who oppress us all.
I was hoping that Ahmadinejad, despite his reputation, would speak in common sense terms about the obvious Bushite/war profiteer plan to attack his country, and the history of western interference in Iran, which can give the Iranian people no confidence that the U.S. is well-intended now.* Instead, he provided fodder for the warmongers--with non-sensical statements like, there are no homosexuals in Iran, and mumbling on about religion and spiritual science (hell, he sounded like the Catholic Church--'no homosexuals here--we're all holier than thou'--except for widespread molestation of little boys), and, once again, trying to explain what he questions about the Holocaust (which it would take a roomful of Farsi translators to explain clearly, but which once again apparently got garbled up in Ahmadinejad's rambling speaking style**). All in all, a miserable performance, easy to use as yet more excuse to slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and steal their oil.
We must learn to understand what such "demonizations" are about--what their true goal is: to kill HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE, steal their resources, violate their sovereignty, destroy their aspirations, and prevent them from opposing global corporate predation. The personalization of a conflict--whether it's Ahmadinejad, Saddam Hussein, or Hugo Chavez--or, for that matter, whether it's Max Cleland or John Kerry--is a TACTIC of war profiteers and THEIR corporate news monopolies that IGNORES everyone else involved: the millions of people who will be harmed by war, or by lies.
Don't buy into it. And do look to the weapons of oppression, by which our will, as a people, is being thwarted. Primary among them is the recent takeover of our election system, by rightwing Bushite corporations, using "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code to "count" all our votes, with virtually no audit/recount controls. THAT is how we have ended up with El Stupido as president, Genghis Khan as vice president, and a 'Democratic' Congress that votes for war, in the teeth of SEVENTY PERCENT opposition among the American people. It is not the only tool of oppression, but it is the 'coup de gras'--the final blow--against democracy in the United States. It is the thing we MUST find the way to change, if we are going to save this democracy.
Wars are not fought by the 'chickenhawks,' as we know. They force others to implement their greedy and murderous plans. A war for oil is not justified. A war to dominate the Middle East, for Israel's sake or anyone else's, is not justified. War is ONLY justified if you are ATTACKED, and the Bushites' and others' efforts to smear over WHO attacked the U.S. on 9/11, to include Iraqis and Iranians--when the purported hijackers were Saudi Arabian--is just one of the ways that these 'chickenhawks' are hijacking us and our young peoples' lives and our military and our treasury. It is Stalin's "Big Lie."
We may not like the religious regime in Iran. That is no excuse to attack the country and slaughter HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of innocent people. We may not like its current spokesman--Ahmadinejad--and we may (and do) have legitimate objections to human rights violations in Iran. That is no excuse to attack the country and slaughter HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of innocent people. The character of Ahmadinejad--in so far as he reflects the character and likely future actions of his government--is a DIPLOMATIC consideration, not an excuse for war. How many people has Ahmadinejad killed? How many has Bush killed? The score is about 0 to one million. WHO is the bad guy? The one who merely mouths off, or the one who actually commits genocide?
And who, currently, are the possessors of weapons of mass destruction? The U.S. and Israel. Not Iran. For OUR leaders to jump to the conclusion that a country that has invaded NO ONE, but that seeks nuclear power and nuclear weapons, is going to attack anyone with such weapons, some day, and to therefore use any and all excuses to demonize its leaders, and to perpetrate an attack that will kill HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE, is a SYMPTOM of OUR loss of democracy.
That's what it is. It should instruct us about US. It means absolutely nothing as to Iran, and its government's intentions, and its people. The demonization of Ahmadinejad, and the saber-rattling and war planning against Iran, are OBLIVIOUS to the PEOPLE of Iran--just as U.S. foreign policy, right now, is oblivious to the people of the United States.
There is NO justification for an attack on Iran. Zero. Zilch. If it occurs, it will be a heinous crime--not to mention the final nail in the coffin of American democracy.
It is NOT Ahmadinejad whom the U.S. would be attacking. It is the PEOPLE OF IRAN. Recognize the game. And please don't play it.
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*(The U.S., U.K. and Israel destroyed Iran's democracy in 1954, and inflicted the Iranian people with 25 years of torture and oppression under the horrible Shah of Iran. WE pushed the Iranian people into the arms of the mullahs, because Islam provides communal strength in the face of fractured and destroyed civil order. The Iranian people are the potentially most progressive people in the region. WE destroyed their progress. They are one of the few peoples in the region who are NOT ruled by fatcat sultans and sheiks in collusion with the Bush Cartel, and who receive some benefit from their only natural resource, oil. Our corporate rulers would slaughter and impoverish them. It's no wonder they want nukes to defend themselves, and look to the Ayatollah for guidance.)
**(As I understand it, Ahmadinejad says that the Holocaust is no excuse for Israel's oppression of the Palestinians, and that the aftermath of the Holocaust--the creation of the state of Israel, a homeland for the Jews--was unfairly inflicted on Middle Eastern people. (Why didn't we carve out a section of Texas for Jewish refugees, and displace Americans for that purpose?) His first point is valid (if this is what he means). The Holocaust is most certainly one of the reasons that the American people support Israel, with American corporate news monopolies and politicians, in turn, using this laudable sentiment for ill purposes--for "bust our balls" military budgets, and for unquestioning support for Israel, even when its rightwing government is wrong and is oppressing others. Who profits from the Holocaust? War profiteers in both countries. This is not the same thing as saying the Holocaust didn't happen, or is exaggerated. Those are absurd arguments, which some Muslims--subject as they are to propaganda from THEIR war profiteers and mullahs, just as we are from ours--may believe, but which no reasonable and educated people believe. Fact: 50% of the American people still believe that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 (even though 70% now oppose the Iraq War/Occupation). (Whatever Americans believe about 9/11 and Iraq, some 30% of us must believe that it was minor involvement and not worth a war, and/or maybe some now believe that the Iraq War is CREATING more terrorists, because of Bushite ill intentions and mismanagement. In any case, it's odd pair of statistics.) We can therefore understand Muslims believing THEIR politicians' myths. We are no better, as to such myths. But whether Ahmadinejad really believes that the Holocaust didn't happen, or has been exaggerated, is not really firmly known. His point SEEMS to be that Israel uses it as an excuse to get massive military aid, and to get away with serious human rights violations.
(On the second point, however, he seems stuck in the past, way back in 1948, as if Israel's continued existence can still be questioned--because it was unfair THEN. Israel is a reality. It cannot be undone. And the reason for placing it in Palestine, and not Texas, is that it really is the original home of the Jewish people. They have as much natural right to be there, as Islamic Palestinians do. No question at all that geopolitics were involved--oil, for instance--and also prejudice (the U.S. and Europe not wanting any bigger influx of displaced Jews). But the Jews' claim is just as legitimate as that of Native Americans, and native Latin Americans. White Europeans are permanently installed here now, but we owe the people whom our ancestors relentlessly slaughtered and oppressed, and stole the land from. Similarly, Israelis owe the Palestinians--a conflict that continues to rage, with anger and violence on both sides. But Israel not existing is not one of the choices, any more than our government and society could just cease to be, in favor of native rights. I think it's strange--and telling--that some Muslims are still thinking in terms of these old arguments--a symptom, perhaps, of the insularity of male-dominated, fundamentalist Muslim thought. But I think it is a big mistake to extrapolate from that belief system, to an intention by Iran, or any other Muslim country, to militarily attack Israel and try to wipe it out. Bush/Cheney and their insane flirtation with Armageddon is more likely to cause Israel's demise than anything else. What would China or Russia do, if we attacked Iran--a major oil source for them? They wouldn't likely attack the U.S., but they might well attack Israel in retaliation--not to mention the jihad that a U.S. attack on Iran would inspire throughout the Muslim world. Just because some Muslims have some strange, and, to us, illogical beliefs, and a sense of ancient injury, does not a war make--unless you deliberately make it a war, which is what our corporate rulers and war profiteers are doing.)
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