Stoopid Stuff

Does the Truth even Matter Anymore?

Iran, by all reports, is not developing nuclear weapons, but rather a civilian nuclear power industry. You would not know it by reading the statements of the American political leadership.

Iran can become a constructive actor in the region if it stops threatening its neighbours and supporting terrorism.
--Hilary Clinton, United States Secretary of State

What? Who is doing the threatening here? Not a week goes by where powerful figures in the US and/or Israel don't have open, casual discussion reported in the press about starting an unprovoked war against Iran. Is that threatening war, or is that terrorism? Either way, it seems to demonstrate a bit of a double standard. But somehow, American and Israeli leaders have the chutzpah to accuse Iran of threatening their neighbors. Oh, and with thousands of nuclear weapons, neither developed under any international oversight at ALL, both the US and Israel have decided that Iran may not join the nuclear club, even as India and Pakistan and, in perhaps the most egregious case of flaunting the non-proliferation regime, Israel, have developed weapons and missiles and warheads and yet, somehow they maintain their status as responsible players in the global order. How could it be that they are willing to threaten nuclear war on their neighbors, where Iran does not, and yet continue to be viewed as reasonable stewards of the global peace?

And then there's that whole pesky issue around human rights and torture. The US used to have a strong position on the moral high ground, with an uncompromising stance on the treatment of suspects and POWs and the unquestioned limits imposed by the rule of law. Not so much, anymore. The US has been shown to be every bit the hypocrite on human and detainee rights that the Soviets, the Chinese and our dear friends the Saudis and Egyptians are. Speaking one thing, but in a time of fear and extremis, reverting to our most base instincts and hurting and killing people out of a hopeless, terrified rage and an inability to find a place of safety and comfort. Sad, all too human, but not what we claim to be about. When fear causes us to throw our most profound values over the side, we reveal to all that our values were never that important in the first place. That the only reason we were able to hold that moral high ground was that war and mass violence is never visited on our homeland, and as soon as it was we became everything we ever said we hated and would never be.

So what is America now, today? A sad empire, an increasingly authoritarian and militarized society, torn apart by the same kind of ethnic hatreds we are so prepared to cluck over in other, less "developed" nations? Some kind of giant mutant, strong and deadly, but mentally and morally challenged, with the majority of our citizens unconvinced of either evolution or global climate change, but willing to embrace unconditionally a sixteen hundred year old peasant's tale of supernatural power and impossible events?

We hear repeatedly that the primary role of a national government is to protect the nation and her citizens from attack. If this is true of the United States government, is it not equally true of the Iranian government? And if so, and the goal is to discourage Tehran from developing powerful weapons that might be used as a deterrent to an attack, wouldn't it be much more effective to STOP THREATENING TO ATTACK? In who's imagination would continued threats be an effective method to cause an adversary to take fewer defensive measures? That wouldn't even make sense to a third grader.

Indeed, in the course of merely considering the glaring hypocrisy represented by ongoing American and Israeli threats of war, of bombing, of "covert action" and "regime change", the thing that becomes most obvious is that the goal is clearly not one of peaceful coexistence. No, the only logical goal of all the sanctions, saber-rattling and unreasonable demands is to end up, at some point, in a state of war. It appears that the Obama administration has decided that the time for that war is in the future rather than now, but when you observe smart people taking what appear to be stupid and counterproductive measures, you must apply Occam's razor and accept the obvious assumption, that they want what they seem to be working towards.

The American war culture can't see any downside in starting another war, because America is so powerful and remote that none of the destruction and horror of yet another war will be felt by her citizens. No thought will be given to the desperate suffering of the innocents under the bombs, for they aren't us, they are not even LIKE us, and their deaths cannot interfere with our shopping malls and TV shows.

So be it. But rather than making up wild stories about who is threatening who, and who has the power to unleash industrial - scale death and suffering, let us understand clearly that we are starting yet another unprovoked aggressive war out of our own vast pool of fear, ignorance and hubris. Let us describe it as what it is, not a defense of our way of life, but a crime committed in our name. The world has turned a blind eye to our deceit in the name of massive violence for a long time. History will record the names of the butchers...

posted by mikey @ 11:00 AM