Democracy Now on the Crimes and Mass Murders of President George H.W. Bush

The Friday before last, former president George H.W. Bush, the father of former president George ‘Dubya’ Bush, finally fell off his perch at the age of 94. Like Monty Python’s parrot, he had shuffled off this mortal coil and joined the choir invisible. He was an ex-president, and well and truly. He was buried with due state honours last Wednesday.

And the press and media fell over themselves to praise him to the rafters. If you believed them, you would have thought that America had lost a statesman of the stature of the ancient Athenian politico, Pericles. Or that he combined in himself the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson, Maddison and the rest of the Founding Fathers.

He wasn’t. He was the successor to Ronald Reagan and a former head of the CIA, and had been involved with shady dealings, dirty, proxy wars and invasions in Latin America and Iraq, that had cost thousands their lives, while thousands others were tortured by the dictators he supported. And domestically he was responsible for racist electioneering and a highly discriminatory drugs policy that has resulted in the massive disproportionate incarceration of Black American men.

Mehdi Hasan on George Bush Senior

He was a disgusting creature, and Mehdi Hasan wrote a piece in the Intercept describing just how disgusting and reprehensible he was. In the piece below, he also appeared on Democracy Now! to talk to host Amy Goodman about Bush senior and his legacy of corruption, murder and terror.

Bush was elected president in 1990. He was a former director of the CIA, and served from 1981-89 as Reagan’s vice-president. Despite calling for a kinder, gentler politics when he was vice-president, Bush refused to tackle climate change, saying that the American way of life was not up for negotiation, defended future supreme court justice Clarence Thomas even after he was accused of sexual harassment. He was responsible for launching the first Gulf War in Iraq in 1991. During the War, the US air force deliberately bombed an air raid shelter in Baghdad killing 408 civilians. The relatives of some of those killed tried to sue Bush and his deputy, Dick Cheney, for war crimes. The attack on Iraq continued after the end of the war with a devastating sanctions regime imposed by Bush, and then his son’s invasion in 2003.

The Invasion of Panama

In 1990 Bush sent troops into Panama to arrest the country’s dictator, General Manuel Noriega on charges of drug trafficking. Noriega had previously been a close ally, and had been on the CIA’s payroll. 24,000 troops were sent into the country to topple Noriega against Panama’s own military, which was smaller than the New York police department. 3,000 Panamanians died in the attack. In November 2018, the inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on Washington to pay reparations for what they considered to be an illegal invasion.

Pardoning the Iran-Contra Conspirators

As one of his last acts in office, Bush also gave pardons to six officials involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. This was a secret operation in which Reagan sold arms to Iran in order to fund the Contras in Nicaragua, despite Congress banning the administration from funding them. Bush was never called to account for his part in it, claiming he was ‘out of the loop’, despite the testimony of others and a mass of documents suggesting otherwise.

The Collapse of Communism and Neoliberalism

Bush’s period in office coincided with the collapse of Communism. In the period afterwards, which Bush termed the New World Order, he was instrumental in spreading neoliberalism and the establishment of the NAFTO WTO treaties for international trade.

Hasan not only wrote for the Intercept, he also hosted their Deconstructed podcast, as well as a show, Up Front, on Al-Jazeera English.

The Media’s Praise of Bush

Goodman and Hasan state that there is a natural reluctance against speaking ill of the dead. But they aren’t going to speak ill of Bush, just critically examine his career and legacy. Hasan states that as a Brit living in Washington he’s amazed at the media hagiography of Bush. He recognizes that Bush had many creditable achievements, like standing up to the NRA and AIPAC, but condemns the way the media ignored the rest of Bush’s legacy, especially when it involves the deaths of thousands of people as absurd, a dereliction of duty. He states that Bush is being described as the ‘anti-Trump’, but he did many things that were similar to the Orange Buffoon. Such as the pardoning of Caspar Weinberger on the eve of his trial, which the independent special counsel at the time said was misconduct and that it covered up the crime. And everyone’s upset when Trump says he might pardon Paul Manafort. Bush should be held to the same account. It doesn’t matter that he was nicer than Trump, and less aggressive than his son, he still has a lot to answer for.

The Iran-Contra Scandal

Goodman gets Hasan to explain about the Iran-Contra scandal, in which Reagan sold arms to Iran, then an enemy state, to fund a proxy war against a ‘Communist’ state in South America despite a congressional ban. He states that it was a huge scandal. Reagan left office without being punished for it, there was a Special Council charged with looking into it, led by Lawrence Walsh, a deputy attorney general under Eisenhower. When he looked into it, he was met with resistance by Reagan’s successor, Bush. And now we’re being told how honest he was. But at the time Bush refused to hand over his diary, cooperate with the Special Counsel, give interviews, and pardoned the six top neocons responsible. The Special Counsel’s report is online, it can be read, and it says that Bush did not cooperate, and that this was the first time the president pardoned someone in a trial in which he himself would have to testify. He states that Bush and Trump were more similar in their obstruction of justice than some of the media would have us believe.

Iraq Invasion

They then move on to the Iraq invasion, and play the speech in which Bush states that he has begun bombing to remove Saddam Hussein’s nuclear bomb potential. It was done now, because ‘the world could wait no longer’. Because of Bush’s attack on Iraq, his death was marked by flags at half-mast in Kuwait as well as Washington. Hasan states that Hussein invaded Kuwait illegally, and it was a brutal occupation. But Hasan also says that Bush told the country that it came without any warning or provocation. But this came after the American ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, told Hussein that American had no opinion on any border dispute with Kuwait. This was interpreted, and many historians believe, that this was a green light to Hussein to invade.

Bush also told the world that America needed to go into Iraq to protect Saudi Arabia, as there were Iraqi troops massing on the border of that nation. This was another lie. One reporter bought satellite photographs of the border and found there were no troops there. It was lie, just as his son lied when he invaded twelve years later. As for the bombing of the Amariyya air raid shelter, which was condemned by Human Rights Watch, this was a crime because the Americans had been told it contained civilians. Bush also bombed the civilian infrastructure, like power stations, food processing plants, flour mills. This was done deliberately. Bush’s administration told the Washington Post that it was done so that after the war they would have leverage over the Iraqi government, which would have to go begging for international assistance. And this was succeeded by punitive sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. It all began on Bush’s watch.

Racism, Willie Horton and Bush’s Election Campaign

They then discuss his 1988 election campaign, and his advert attacking his opponent, Michael Dukakis. Dukakis was attacked for having given a weekend pass from prison to Willie Horton, a Black con serving time for murder, who then went and kidnapped a young couple, stabbing the man and repeatedly raping the woman. This was contrasted with Bush, who wanted the death penalty for first degree murder. The advert was created by Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes, who later apologized for it on his deathbed. This advert is still studied in journalism classes, and until Trump’s ad featuring the migrant caravan appeared it was considered the most racist advert in modern American political history. Atwater said that they were going to talk about Horton so much, people would think he was Dukakis’ running mate. Bush approved of this, and talked about Horton at press conferences. And unlike Atwater, he never apologized. Roger Stone, whom Hasan describes as one of the most vile political operatives of our time, an advisor to Donald Trump and Nixon, actually walked up to Atwater and told him he would regret it, as it was clearly a racist ad. When even Roger Stone says that it’s a bad idea, you know you’ve gone too far. But the press has been saying how decent Bush was. Hasan states he has only two words for that: Willie Horton.

In fact, weekend passes for prison inmates was a policy in many states, including California, where Ronald Reagan had signed one. Hasan calls the policy what it was: an attempt to stoke up racial fears and division by telling the public that Dukakis was about to unleash a horde of Black murderers, who would kill and rape them. And ironically the people who were praising Bush after his death were the same people attacking Trump a week earlier for the migrant caravan fearmongering. It reminded everyone of the Willie Horton campaign, but for some reason people didn’t make the connection between the two.

Racism and the War on Drugs

Hasan also makes the point that just as Bush senior had no problem creating a racist advert so he had no problem creating a racist drug war. They then move on to discussing Bush’s election advert, in which he waved a bag of crack cocaine he claimed had been bought in a park just a few metres from the White House. But the Washington Post later found out that it had all been staged. A drug dealer had been caught selling crack in Lafayette Square, but he had been lured there by undercover Federal agents, who told him to sell it there. The drug dealer even had to be told the address of the White House, so he could find it. It was a nasty, cynical stunt, which let to an increase in spending of $1 1/2 billion on more jails, and prosecutors to combat the drugs problem. And this led to the mass incarceration of young Black men, and thousands of innocent lives lost at home and abroad in the drug wars. And today Republican senators like Chris Christie will state that this is a failed and racist drug war.

This was the first in a series of programmes honouring the dead – which meant those killed by Bush, not Bush himself. The next programme in the series was on what Bush did in Panama.

Dark Rock and Bush: The Sisters of Mercy’s ‘Vision Thing’

I’ve a suspicion that the track ‘Vision Thing’ by the Sisters of Mercy is at least partly about George Bush senior. The Sisters are a dark rock band. Many of front man Andrew Eldritch’s lyrics are highly political, bitterly attacking American imperialism. Dominion/Mother Russia was about acid rain, the fall of Communism, and American imperialism and its idiocy. Eldritch also wanted one of their pop videos to feature two American servicemen in a cage being taunted by Arabs, but this was naturally rejected about the bombing of American servicemen in Lebanon. Another song in the same album, ‘Dr Jeep’, is about the Vietnam War.

‘Vision Thing’ seems to take its title from one of Bush’s lines, where he said, if I remember correctly, ‘I don’t have the vision thing.’ The song talks about ‘another black hole in the killing zone’, and ‘one million points of light’. It also has lines about ‘the prettiest s**t in Panama’ and ‘Take back what I paid/ to another M*****f****r in a motorcade’. These are vicious, bitter, angry lyrics. And if they are about Bush senior, then it’s no wonder.

RT Forced to Register as Foreign Agent, But AIPAC and John Podesta Go Free

This is another very interesting piece from RT America’s Lee Camp. Camp is a comedian and the presenter of Redacted Tonight, a satirical show that uses comedy to take a deep, critical look at American politics and current affairs. In this piece, Camp shows the double standards behind the recent decision to force RT America to register as a foreign agent under FARA, while the real foreign lobbying groups of the type the Act was set up to regulate, AIPAC and John Podesta’s lobbying organisation, are allowed to get away free.

FARA was set up in the 1930s to force lobbyists working for Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and imperial Japan to register with the American treasury, so they could have their government sponsors identified, and would have to reveal their sources of incomes.

Camp then states that AIPAC is Israel’s foreign lobby arm in the US. This shouldn’t be controversial: it’s exactly how AIPAC describes itself, as Camp shows with the masthead from their webpage. It says ‘America’s Pro-Israel lobby’. He then produces a quote about how AIPAC is the most powerful lobbying organisation in America, or at least, more powerful than other very well-organised and funded groups like the gun lobby.

He also plays a piece from former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, describing how, before she had even taken up her seat in Congress, AIPAC sent her a document they wanted her to sign pledging her support. She replied that before she would, she’d have to read about the issues first. She then states that she learned that the operatives for the Israel lobby control women’s organisations, environmental organisations, peace organisations. Every aspect of the political process is controlled by people associated with the Israel lobby.

Camp then goes on to describe how $705 million was given to Israel by America in the latest military budget. And AIPAC has solidly been behind, and indeed urging America on in its wars in the Middle East. AIPAC pushed for the Iraq invasion. They pushed for the war in Syria. They also met with a Democrat party thinktank, the Centre for American Progress, to suppress rumours by their own journalists that AIPAC is pushing for war with Iran.

AIPAC also flexes its clout at the UN. Here there’s a clip of US ambassador Nicky Haley, speaking at an AIPAC gathering, talking about how they got the UN to withdraw a report that made the ‘outrageous’ – but entirely correct claim – that Israel is an apartheid state. And then the UN Secretary General resigned. She also shows how she’s absolutely fine with people wanting to impose sanctions on North Korea and Syria, but really doesn’t see why they should be imposed on Israel.

Camp then points out that AIPAC are actively trying to make it illegal to promote the boycott of Israel, a move that is supported by around 50 senators.

He then goes on to describe the origins of AIPAC. It was set up by a former member of the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs, who then worked for the American Zionist Council. In 1962 the AZC was ordered by Robert Kennedy to register under FARA and open up their financial records. In December the AZC’s president, Rabbi Irving Miller, asked for a delay. In January the following year, 1963, AIPAC was founded. Then in March the AZC’s lawyers claimed that the Council should not have to register. They then continued to delay and stonewall sending in the required paperwork. The efforts to force AIPAC to register seem to have ended with the deaths of JFK and Robert Kennedy. Basically, AIPAC never got round to registering. In 1967 AIPAC applied for federal tax exemption. This was granted and backdated to 1953. In 1986 the lobbyist then began creating political action groups, in direct contravention of its tax-exempt status.

Camp explains that AIPAC’s purpose is pro-Israeli propaganda, termed ‘hasbara’, a word which literally means ‘explanation’. This is to get America to ignore Israel’s war crimes. Which, as Camp points out, doesn’t mean that all Israelis are terrible people. America commits war crimes, and he likes some Americans. AIPAC is responsible for trying smear those who criticise and protest against Israel as anti-Semites. But despite their best efforts, a growing number of young and older people around the world are standing up for the Palestinians. For the first time a bill for Palestinian human rights has been introduced into Congress. It was introduced by Representative Betty McCollum, and seeks to prevent the US from funding the detention and prosecution of children in Israel’s military courts. And of course, AIPAC are trying to crush it.

Camp makes the obvious point that if FARA was set up to control and regulate foreign lobbyists, then AIPAC is precisely the type of foreign lobbyist it is set up to regulate.

He then moves on to talk about John Podesta and the lobbying organisation he set up with his brother, Tony. John Podesta was one of Hillary Clinton’s aides. It should have registered with FARA, but didn’t, when it was lobbying on behalf of the Russian-owned company, Uranium One, from whom it collected $180,000 in fees in 2012, 2014, and 2015.

Camp then goes on to point out that this all shows that the decision to force RT to register as a foreign agent is entirely political. It’s a way to further suppress and marginalise dissenting voices like Chris Hedges and Jesse Ventura, and reinforce the stories about Russian interference. This is a story concocted by the Democratic National Convention so that it doesn’t have to look at its own corruption. The oligarchy running the country know that they don’t have the solutions to working peoples’ problems, and so are forced to resort to trying to push dissent further to the margins, and force people into an even smaller space of acceptable opinion.

Camp then points out that RT has not broadcast Russian propaganda. It has covered the Dakota pipeline, police brutality and Camp himself covered electoral fraud last year. It has even won an Emmy award for its coverage of the Occupy movement. He ends by stating that it looks like propaganda only if you buy into the corporate bullsh*t coming from CNN.

I’m not sure, but I wonder if Cynthia McKinnon was the Black, Green party politico, who lost her seat because she wouldn’t kowtow to AIPAC. When she refused to follow their line, they smeared her as an anti-Semite, and poured their funding into her political rivals, so that she would lose the election.

AIPAC are a nasty, bullying organisation that is utterly ruthless in trying to shut down any criticism or dissent about Israel. But it certainly does not speak for the majority of Jewish Americans. According to polls, American Jews tend to be politically liberal, and traditionally have been utterly indifferent to Israel. They were always far more keen to build lives for themselves as equal and respected citizens of the US. Just as they have been in Britain and very many other countries. Hence the determination of Zionist groups like the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism to give the false impression that hatred of Jews in Europe is at the same level as Germany just before the Nazi seizure of power. And that all Muslims, or nearly all Muslims, are also bitter anti-Semites and a threat to western democracy.

However, as Camp points out, an increasing number of people are becoming more critical of Israel, including young Jewish Americans. Many of them have become even more hostile to the country after going there on the ‘heritage’ tours that the country sponsors amongst American Jews to gain their allegiance and goodwill. The Jews, who have been so alienated from Israel, include those, who have been victims of anti-Semitism. Clearly the experience of being a victim of prejudice and abuse is not leading Jewish American young people to wish to support the abusive Israeli state.

Donald Trump Attacks Media Hosts and Company Directors in Meeting

This more evidence of the authoritarian, Fascistic nature of Trump’s planned regime. In this piece from Secular Talk, Kyle Kulinski talks about how Donald Trump called a private meeting yesterday, attended by 30 to 40 media executives and TV hosts, in which he attacked them, giving them a dressing down. Amongst other criticisms and remarks, he told the head of CNN that he hated his network. Kulinski states that he also believes that the media deserved this lambasting, as they have done a horrible job of reporting the news. However, this is extremely dangerous, as he is treating the media as if he owned it. The system instead is intended to be structured so that the media can hold the government to account. Trump clearly intends to stop this, and Kulinski predicts that the media will buckle. All the supposedly ‘principled’ Republicans, who swore they’d never support Trump, will fall into line, as will the Democrats, once Trump starts tweeting angrily at 3.00 A.M. in the morning, and Democratic senators start finding themselves flooded with calls from angry Trump supporters. Kulinski states that he’s not necessarily opposed to that tactic, as he’d play rough if he was present to get his legislation through. But this is dangerous as it will affect how the media report the news. They will, he predicts, soft-pedal on criticising Trump, even if it is only subconsciously.

Kulinski is absolutely right to compare this meeting with the treatment of the press in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, like Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy or the former Soviet Union. But it’s also becoming increasingly common in western democracies. Berlusconi and Sarkozy, the premiers of Italy and France, both exercised highly authoritarian control over the state media, sacking executives, news anchors and performers who dared to criticise them. A similar control has been attempted in Britain through successive governments interfering in the running of the BBC, for instance, and threatening either to privatise it or cut the licence fee in order to gain its general compliance. And then there’s the way Maggie Thatcher bullied the media. Thames Television lost its broadcasting licence because of the documentary, Death on the Rock, which showed the shooting of an IRA terror squad was a planned assassination. The terrorists had been tracked all the way through Spain into Gibraltar, and could have been picked up at any time without bloodshed. The documentary outraged Thatcher so much that she effectively destroyed the company, which was replaced by Carlton. She also had the Beeb pull an edition of Panorama, entitled ‘Maggie’s Militant Tendency’, which argued that the Tories had been infiltrated by members of the Fascist Right.

Despite his protestations to the country, Trump is very much a Fascist with a very thin skin and a desire to control and suppress contrary viewpoints. This has to be fought. As Kulinski points out, a free press and media is one of the cornerstones of democracy. But if Trump successfully bullies the establishment media, more people will turn to alternative sources of information, like the various alternative news shows on YouTube, such as Kulinski’s own Secular Talk, The Young Turks, Sam Seder’s Majority Report, the Jimmy Dore Show and so on. Mind you, YouTube have also threatened to demonetarise those shows, which they consider too radical.

This might throw America back into the same conditions as the former Soviet Union, where dissenting opinion was ruthlessly suppressed. In which case, the only recourse will be to copy the Russians there as well and start setting up the samizdat underground presses to bypass official censorship. I don’t think the situation will ever become that bad, at least, not in the foreseeable future. But it is a danger, and the threat of some state political interference in the allegedly free media is very real.

The Young Turks on People Seen in Klan Robes with Pro-Trump Placards

More Fascism from the Trump campaign. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian in this segment talk about the sightings in Nevada of a couple of men dressed in KKK outfits waving pro-Trump placards. The pair have naturally been condemned by several respectable politicians. They show a tweet from Senator Aaron Ford and another politico expressing their contempt for the pair. Uygur is careful to state that he’s unsure whether they really are Trump supporters, or are actually anti-Trump protestors trying to troll the tousled Nazi. In one of the photos it’s actually unclear whether or not they’re actually white. The hands of one of the men look Black, though this could simply be due to the lighting in photograph. It’s taken into the sun, so the men’s fronts are actually in shadow.

They also make the point that although these may be protestors, who are careful to hide their faces because they know they’ve probably taken a step too far, Trump’s supporters are still very extreme. They point to a poll which says that 70 per cent of Trumpistas would like the Confederate flag to be flying in South Carolina above the state legislature, and 38 per cent wish the South won the American Civil War. They naturally ask the question of how unpatriotic and un-American that is. They point out that the polling company inclines a little to the Democrats, but over all was the most accurate in predicting the results of the presidential election. And then there’s the Yougov poll which found that 20 per cent of Trump supporters, and 13 per cent of Americans generally, feel that Lincoln should not have given the executive freeing the South’s slaves during the War between the States. They also hedge this with one or two caveats, as they note that Republican voters hate presidential executive orders. The previous questions had been about how they felt about Obama’s orders, and so this could already have biased, or worked them up to condemn Lincoln’s historic orders. But even so, it’s an horrendous statistic, and the stats as a whole show how Trump’s campaign has deeply divided the nation.

Uygur goes on to say that he feels that the Klansmen in the photo aren’t really Trump supporters, because they’ve kept their faces covered. Trump supporters don’t do that. They’re open about their racism and their identities. He states that it’s because Trump is unashamed about the racist language he uses. Other Republican candidates are just as racist. Ted Cruz is actually trying to pass a law banning Muslims from the US. He’s not just talking about it, as Trump is. However, Trump doesn’t use the coded language that the others use to disguise their racism. He talks about it flatly, and is proud of the way he does so. Uygur makes the point that he’s the result of Fox News and the way the Right generally has legitimised racism and the demonization of foreigners and minorities. And Trump has turned this on the other Republicans. Marco Rubio was born in Florida, but Trump has even asked whether he was really born in America and should be running in the election.

They begin the show by being careful about whether or not Trump’s actually racist, noting that he’s distanced himself from the couple of Neo-Nazi messages he retweeted. Even so, the fact that he agreed with the message twice without looking at where it came from suggests that he’s too eager to accept information and support from this quarter.

Vox Political: Thatcher Was Urged to Levy Poll Tax on the Homeless

This piece from Mike over at Vox Political shows not only what utterly contemptible villains were in Maggie Thatcher’s government, but also how they were blissfully unaware that their wretched tax reforms undermined the basis of civilisation itself. Just as their successors are doing now.

Recently declassified documents released from the National Archives show that Thatcher’s Welsh Secretary, Peter Walker, wanted to impose the ‘Community Charge’ not just on those with homes, but also the homeless. He was afraid that if they were exempt, then people would start sleeping on the streets to avoid paying it. Mike says of this

Obviously Peter Walker was scum and the Poll Tax was a disaster – but worse people than him are running the Conservative Government now.

The idea of charging homeless people a tax on property is clearly ridiculous but that wasn’t the point Walker was trying to make.

He wanted to ensure that every last penny was squeezed from the poorest people, in order to support Conservatives and Tory voters who no doubt needed the money to clean the moat in their duck pond or suchlike. He’s further afraid that the intervening years have made people more susceptible to Tory lies, not less, and that they’ll be taken in the next time they peddle another fraudulent scheme.
See http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2016/02/19/margaret-thatcher-was-urged-to-make-homeless-people-pay-poll-tax-by-senior-cabinet-minister/.

It’s a truly grotty piece of legislation, but what has been missed is the way that it effectively threatened to destroy part of the fabric of society. If people cannot afford to pay a tax, so that they are forced to leave their homes and sleep rough, then you’ve effectively dealt a blow to civilisation. The very word after all comes from the Latin civilis, a city. It’s part of the reasons why Rome fell: the taxes became so great, urban citizens could no longer afford to pay them. The senatorial aristocracy all moved away to avoid paying their whack, and the burden of taxation fell to the free poor, who couldn’t. As a result, they too moved into the countryside. The result was that in the Third Century AD there was rising inflation and a declining number of urban tradesmen – the bakers, butchers, cobblers, carpenters, smiths and so on that form the industrial and commercial life of cities. The Romans tried to stop this steady migration of tradesmen away from the cities by making certain trades hereditary, setting up a caste system rather like Indian. Unlike India’s, it didn’t work. And so the empire tottered on to its doom as the barbarians invaded.

Not that you’ll hear this from the Tories, including classicists like Boris Johnson. Oh, Boris admires the early Roman Empire with its small bureaucracy, but you won’t hear him talk about how, like now, the Empire fell because the senatorial super-rich decided to escape paying taxes by fleeing to their country estates, just as the super-rich today try to shirk their financial responsibility to society by registering their companies offshore. And they really, really won’t want to talk about how they shifted the tax burden on the free Roman poor, just as today’s working and lower middle classes are also required to make up the tax deficit left by the rich.

No, to them, the real threat to western civilisation comes from an influx of foreigners, just like the Romans had during the barbarian invasions.

But their tax policies and continuing impoverishment of the poorest sections of society are undermining our society and weakening it, quite apart from its complete absence of any morality. These are people, who will grind down the poor to the extent it’ll bring down society itself, just to be that little bit richer.
Complete amoral psychopaths.

Iran’s Anti-War Rhetoric and the Reality: Republicans Really Want War with Iran

Yesterday’s I newspaper reported that the Iranians’ supreme leader had returned to making hostile speeches about America. The article stated

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has accused the United States of creating “myths” about his country’s capability for nuclear weapons. The highest authority in Iran said: “They created the myth of nuclear weapons so they could say the Islamic Republic is a threat. No, the threat is America itself.”

The Islamic Republic’s attitude towards America, and the language it uses about the Land of the Free, has always been extremely hostile. Back in the 1980s and 1990s America was ‘the Great Satan’, and the regime staged mass demonstrations with protestors chanting ‘Marg Bar Amrika’ – ‘Death to America’.

This time, however, the Iranians are right. The Republicans in America and Israel’s Netanyahu have been lying about Iranian nuclear capability in order to provoke a pre-emptive strike against Iran. I’ve reblogged a report from The Young Turks about Netanyahu’s speech to the UN in 2012 arguing that the Iranians were on the brink of creating a nuclear bomb that was totally false. The Iranians had no such capability and no such ambitions. Mossad had told Netanyahu this. So had Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security service, and the chief of the Israeli armed forces.

I’ve also put up another video from The Young Turks on a speech by Sheldon Adelson, a multimillionaire donor to the Republican party, also stating that the Iranians were developing nuclear weapons. In his speech, Adelson makes the monstrous suggestion that America should threaten Iran with a nuclear strike unless they comply and close down their nuclear programme. If the Iranians refuse, they should be punished with a nuclear attack. The Americans should first drop a nuclear bomb on an uninhabited area to demonstrate the seriousness of their intentions. If the Iranians still went ahead and refused to comply, Adelson recommended that the next bomb should be aimed at Tehran, the nation’s capital.

Absolutely unbelievable.

But unfortunately, the Republican’s rhetoric of nuclear strikes has not diminished. In the report below, The Young Turks discuss a campaign video made by a Republican organisation against Rand Paul, for siding with Obama about trying to solve this issue with the Iranians through negotiation. Again, there’s the scaremongering about a possible Iranian nuclear attack on America.

The report doesn’t stop there. It also discusses the comments made about Rand Paul by other members of the Republican party, who also don’t think he’s sufficiently pro-war. Like a Republican senator from Texas, who states that Rand Paul needs to show his willingness to launch a nuclear attack on a Muslim country, in order to show his fitness for the presidential office. He qualifies his bloodthirsty demand by saying, ‘I don’t know how he would do this’. This does not diminish the enormity of the Repug’s demand. Here’s the video.

Nobody should be threatening anyone with nuclear annihilation. The world’s come far too close before to total nuclear Armageddon. If there’s one thing that should definitively rule out somebody from entering the Oval Office, it should be the willingness to use nuclear weapons.

After the Fall of Communism, for a brief moment it looked like the world would be safe. The terrible arms race between NATO and the Warsaw Pact was over. Nuclear missiles were being scrapped and the silos abandoned. The world and its billions could look forward to a brighter future, without the fear of a terrible death, and the absolute end of the planet.

Now it seems the Republicans are taking us back in that direction. Their extreme belligerence to Iran and by extension, the entire Islamic world, is taking us back to the era of the Cold War. It’s a betrayal of the dreams of peace that generations of campaigners, politicians and ordinary people had living for decades under the shadow of the bomb.

Iran also has its hard-liners, who also want a chance to fight a war against the Great Satan. And the Ayatollah Khamenei is a brutal tyrant, whose regime stifled any kind of humanitarian progress or change. In this instance, however, he’s right about the Americans and their scaremongering in order to provoke yet another war.