Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia (Demonizing Iran)
September 24th, 2007 Posted in Of InterestToday the consensus is that Iran is “evil”, Ahmadinejad is a hate-monger and madman, Iran is an exporter of terrorism and is arming insurgents against American troops. Of course, Iran wasn’t a “terrorist nation” when Reagan sold it arms, but needless to that’s far too distant history for the American establishment to appreciate. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Among the ironies here: that Iran has not attacked another nation for more than a century; that the United States helped Saddam Hussein kill an incredible number of Iranians; that while the United States has persecuted a murderous war in Iraq, it sis not wars but words that Americans find so offensive. Glenn Greenwald reminds us just how stunning all of this is, especially the shameful acquiescence of the American press. Part of that acquiescence means accepting hook, line, and sinker, bogus claims to the effect that finding Iranian-made parts in IEDs means that Iran is waging war against the United States (which is to say, Iran is responsible for any smuggling across its border, when Americans have a miserable record of keeping arms away from insurgents, including U.S.-bought supplies). Add the outrageousness of the claim that Americans ought to be able to invade countries at will and then claim that they have been attacked if arms cross from a neighboring country, over the porous border that they have created, because of the chaos that they have created. Finally, need we mention that Iran supports the Shiite government in Iraq, and that Americans are almost always attacked by Sunni insurgents, not by the Shiites Iran would be supplying? Iran and United States are, ironically, essentially on the same side.
Lets refresh ourselves on recent history to appreciate the full force of all of this:
- 1953: Eisenhower has the CIA overthrow the prime minister of Iran and install a repressive puppet regime
- 1979: This puppet regime, the Shah, is overthrown during the Islamic Revolution
- 1980-1988: In repayment, the United States supports Saddam Husein’s war against the Iran and his use of chemical weapons (”WMDs”), which killed 500,000 to a million Iranians
- 1987: Not afraid to play both sides against each other, worried about Saddam’s strength, and needing to raise cash for other blood sports, the Reagan administration illegally sold arms to Iran
- 1992: Almost completing this turnaround, the United States attacks Iran’s enemy, Saddam Hussein
- 2003: Completing this turnaround and helping Iran reach its greatest point of strength, the United States removes Iran’s enemy, Saddam Hussein, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, displacing millions more, and effectively destroying an entire coutnry
Despite this history, the American establishment expresses no remorse for their complicity in Iranian suffering, or the recent killing of hundreds of thousands and the destruction of an entire country. They reserve all their energy for the words of Ahmadinejad–or for the highly prejudicial and arguably false translations of his words, despite the fact that Iranian Jews enjoy more rights and representation in Iran than Palestinians do in Israel. He is compared to Hitler–not, because like Bush, he is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands–but because he understandably dislikes the occupation of Palestine. And a great stir is made as to whether he should speak at Columbia–in fact, more outrage is expended by the establishment press on whether his words should be allowed on American soil than was expended over whether American bombs should fall in Iraq. And in exercising themselves about these words, they are untouched by the irony of the United States own bloody involvement in Iran, and completely unimpressed by Iran’s relative pacifism in the face of all these onslaughts. They are utterly credulous towards the notion that Iran has become an “exporter of terrorism around the world” because of its natural alliance with anti-Israeli resistance or Shiite factions in Iraq; and despite the fact that al Qaeda is an enemy of Shiites and Iran; and despite the fact that this definition of Iran implicates both Reagan and Reagan Administration henchmen such as Michael Leeden as having traitorously shipped weapons to terrorists, when Iran was engaged in precisely the same types of sympathies and alliances at that time. Finally, they are not phased by the total inconsistency of American policy–the rapid and inexplicable switching of allegiances in order to foment one disastrous war after another; it takes almost no effort to bring the press and the American people to their intellectual knees–just a touch of demonization, the hint of a new enemy.
See Juan Cole for some sanity.
