[Seen above, Anglo-American-Israeli Fever Dream of Annihilating Tehran]
So I was half-watching the NewsHour last night. It's one of the very few programs on the teevee I ever watch, and generally speaking, I tune out and do other things whenever Gwen Ifill or Judy Woodruff do their comedy stylings as hostesses. Ifill is such a suck-up to Power (as she conceives of it) and Woodruff is a Right Wing Freak (though she tones it down on PBS), but I digress.
The topic was Iran's acceptance of the deal that it was offered last fall to transfer its low enriched uranium stockpiles out of the country in order to delay or avoid some sanctions.
Iran "blinked" as it were.
You would think the US of A -- and the media -- would be high-stepping and twirling their batons like mad and the Obama Administration would be sending out Hillary or Rahm or Axelrod to do all the shows and crow Triumph.
But no.
Oh, far from it.
Instead, Judy had a couple of neo-con drones on to bemoan the fact that the deal Iran accepted (with the considerable help and encouragement of Brazil and Turkey) should have been taken off the table a long time ago, and this is just terrible. We're doomed!
Isn't that special.
Judy's question to the drones: "What's going on here? What -- what is this deal about Turkey and Brasil [her lips curled with distaste] working out an arrangement with Iran? What do they get -- what does each side get -- out of this?"
Of course they go into a mutual tailspin, rending their garments and covering themselves with ashes, because...
What?
Well, so far as I can parse it, this deal was worked out behind the scenes between the high contracting parties: Brazil, Turkey, and Iran, without the help and assistance of the Big Powers, US, EU and Russia. Although apparently Brazil and Turkey were authorized by the Big Powers, through the UN, to do just what they did, they did what they did without the direct participation of the US State Department, and they concluded the agreement without the knowledge of State or any other Stakeholder -- and that's what all the pissing and moaning in Washington is about.
That and the fact that Everyone Who Matters is utterly convinced of Iran's Nuclear Perfidy and wants desperately to nuke Tehran and Isfahan to teach those Wogs a lesson they will never forget and cow the Muslim masses into ultimate submission to their Anglo-American-Israeli and EuroWeenie masters.
It's a revenge fantasy they won't let go of.
Setting aside the Israeli need to exact revenge on the Iranians (for what, it's not exactly clear since Israel and Iran have frequently collaborated on Mischief and Perfidy), the American government's grudge against Iran is obvious enough: revenge for the humiliation of 1979. Why anybody else would need revenge against Iran is one of the Great Mysteries.
The loud and persistent drumbeat of War against Iran is apparently grounded in the fantasy or the fear that Iran is trying to gain the capability to make nuclear weapons!!!! Iran is trying to make... the Bomb!!!! Maybe so, but there is not a shred of concrete evidence of it, and yet Israel and the United States consistently behave as if it is Proven Fact, and not just their mutual hysteria.
It's Cheney's One Percent Doctrine still ruling the roost in DeeCee.
What's up with that?
My objection to the segment on the NewsHour, apart from my crabbiness at Woodward on principle, was that it was so skewed to neo-conism, without the slightest acknowledgment that there is any other point of view. It was propaganda, pure and simple.
"No contribution for you, PBS!" But then, I haven't contributed to them for many years.
Watch the NewsHour segment:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/international/jan-june10/iran_05-17.html
Then take a look at Russia Today's news report below. World of difference, eh?
Israel has 300 nukes, from what I've read. Though, who knows?
ReplyDeleteWe have, what? 15,000?
This is a little like the obese parent slapping his child for eating chocolate, as that obese parent stuffs his own face with candy bar after candy bar.
This isn't rocket science. Well, I guess it really is. But countries around the world have learned that having the bomb is a sure fire way of preventing a sudden "regime change".
Naturally, nations want to pursue that. If we would mind our own business, we might find other nations far less hungry for an arms race.
Iran has been playing this whole thing rather well. The immediate reaction in Washington (and Jerusalem?) to the deal worked out by Turkey and Brazil was frankly panicked and hysterical. The rush to get a New Sanctions Resolution through the Security Council looks like a really desperate move, and all of Hillary's marching around With Paper In Hand looks pretty pathetic.
ReplyDeleteIran agreed to most of what the "World" wanted -- which is the way they've been playing this all along -- and the "World" went into hysterics.
And so the Mullahs sit back and say, "The Americans, they still crazy. Just look."
And everyone else with a brain says the same thing.
My own suspicion is that Iran already has a Bomb, at least one, perhaps more, solely for self-defense, and all this hoo-hah over their nuclear program is so much rattling of sabers for domestic consumption there and in the US/Europe/Israel where the Ruling Classes seem to be quite comfortable with the Iranian Ruling Class. As long as the oil flows, what's to worry, right?
And if Iran does have the capability of deterrence, good. It can help keep the bloodthirsty Israeli freaks in line.
But it was clear that Brazil and Turkey got ahead of themselves in doing the deal and presenting it to the World -- before they'd checked with Mom and Dad in DeeCee.
Makes sense. I didn't realize they had jumped the gun.
ReplyDeleteSorry about that.
;>)
I think it's clear that America is the world's most dangerous nation now, and it's supreme bully. Israel isn't chopped liver, either.
But one thing I think "the left" often gets wrong is to think globally when it apportions blame. I have known and worked with Iranians for decades. Listening to them, reading about their nation, studying its history, tells me that their government is horrifically bad. The folks at Dissent, while getting a little bit complacent in recent years, and never having really understand the New Left well, get one thing right.
The left can be very doctrinaire when it comes to "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
As in, it often becomes too easy for leftists to think of nations that are defiant in the face of American bullying as being good and true and wonderful themselves. It's almost a knee-jerk reaction. If they're fighting American imperialism, they must be good.
Of course, I'm oversimplying things. But it's something "the left" should recognize. Sometimes you don't have a bad guy and a good guy. Sometimes all of the actors on the stage are rotten.
Indeed.
ReplyDeleteI have no truck with Iran's current religiously insane government -- any more than I did with the former murderous and repressive government of the Shah. But their government and who governs them and how is something for the Iranians to work out, preferably with as little interference from the likes of the CIA and the State Department as possible.
And for the Iranians, interference in those workings has been the name of the game for many a long and grinding year.
But in the scheme of things, the Mullahs and their little jumping dog of a President have been threading this needle between the Demands of the World and their own national and political interests remarkably well. While skewering the World for being such hypocrites and assholes. They have been playing this game since the Revolution, and they get better (in the sense of slicker) at it all the time.
For example, Iranian diplomats are just astonishing at making American "diplomacy" look like ham-handed stupidity and bullying, to be charitable. One reason I think Israel is so hysterical about the "Iranian Threat" is because the Iranians make them look like fools so often.
Persian Perfidy goes back a long way. I seem to recall the Ancient Greeks got into periodic anti-Persian frenzies when the spirit moved them... ;-)
But that aside, it seems to me that a certain level of continuing "tension" between the parties is in the interests of all concerned. Much as the continuing tensions of the Cold War were in the interests of all the parties -- well, except those who were being periodically slaughtered in proxy wars. If it were not so, I think Iran would have been one of the first of the neo-con war-targets rather than the penultimate.
But then, I've seen real black helicopters too!
=8-0
Re: Black helicopters
ReplyDeleteJust so it's clear what I'm prating about here: I've lived near military bases most of my life, and from time to time, black helicopters have shown themselves in the skies overhead. They appear to be military craft but they are painted solid dull black. Sometimes I've seen them on the ground -- on the bases.
So it was with some surprise that while I was in New Mexico in March, I saw a formation of black helicopters flying over my rural neighborhood. I had heard helicopters in the sky a few times previously, but I hadn't seen them. When I did see them, I was driving a couple of miles away from the house and had an unobstructed view toward the south. There they were, plain as day, black as coal. Hm, I thought.
There is no nearby military base. The closest one is about 40 miles west in Albuquerque over a mountain range -- and I have seen black helicopters on the ground there.
I have asked around about them. Nobody quite understands what's going on, but the story seems to be that the helicopters are doing training flights out of a small municipal airport not far away. They take off from the airport, loudly chopper around for a while, and then return to the airport. Usually there's a formation of three, but sometimes there are four. Their range isn't entirely clear, but they seem to go about 20 miles in each direction, flying low over inhabited areas and rising over range land. They do not go all the way to the mountains in any direction so far as anyone can tell, and there are mountain ranges north, east and west. Nobody knows why they're using the local airport, nor do they know who is in charge of the black helicopters. But most people I've talked to about them are really annoyed because they are really loud.
Nuke'em now!
ReplyDelete