Freedom Rider: Nazis Attack Iran
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
"Iranian evil doing will be asserted on a daily basis and the call for mass killing will begin."
Americans take great offense when their actions are compared to those of Hitler's Germany. When Democratic Senator Richard Durbin correctly stated that interrogation methods used at Guantanamo were akin to those used by the Nazis or Pol Pot's Cambodia, he was vilified by Republicans and Democrats alike. He was eventually forced to make a public retraction on the Senate floor. God forbid that Americans should be compared to Nazis.
Americans can complain all they want, but last week their representatives in the United States Senate, Durbin included, returned to the worst days of brazen American savagery. The Senate began the process of killing millions of Iranians.
Senator "Holy" Joe Lieberman wants war with Iran. His sick dream is now on the road to becoming reality because of an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act that he sponsored. The amendment states as fact that American soldiers have been killed and wounded by Iranian attacks in Iraq and requires periodic intelligence reports of Iranian activity in Iraq. The fix is already in, as the old saying goes. Every report will assert that Iran is behind every bombing, shooting or report of bad weather in Iraq. The amendment passed unanimously, 97-0.
"Every report will assert that Iran is behind every bombing, shooting or report of bad weather in Iraq."
The legislation passed in part because cowardly Democrats wanted wiggle room and required a statement that they were not authorizing war. No matter. Iranian evil doing will be asserted on a daily basis and the call for mass killing will begin. Senators like Clinton and Obama will make long, tortured, Ivy Leaguish speeches claiming that they don't really want to kill millions of people, but gosh darnit, they just have no choice. Iranians must begin dying in large numbers.
The previous rationale for attacking Iran just wasn't working well enough. The endless screeds about dangers to Israel were themselves dangerous to Israel. It is hard to argue that Israel doesn't tell America what to do if Israel's security was given as the principle reason for waging a new war. A new, bigger lie was in order.
Reports of Iranian responsibility for the deaths of U.S. troops are accepted by no one outside of the Bush White House. They are uncritically reported in the media, especially in the New York Times. Just as all of the Iraqi resistance is now falsely identified as al-Qaeda, now every killing of an American soldier will be blamed on Iran.
"Even Senators who voted against occupying Iraq will inevitably give the thumbs up to nuking millions of Iranians."
The unanimous vote means that even Senators who voted against occupying Iraq will inevitably give the thumbs up to nuking millions of Iranians. There is literally no one representing the American people who will say no to this call for mass murder. Clinton, Obama, Biden and Dodd made certain that they were in Washington instead of Iowa or New Hampshire. Their votes were needed to keep the war machine chugging along and the campaign checks in the mail.
Just as Joe Lieberman stoked the fires of war in Washington, Avigdor Lieberman, a member of Israel's parliament, claimed that NATO gave Israel permission to attack Iran. Lieberman is quite an outspoken racist who has called for the mass killing of Arabs living in Israel. It is an odd coincidence that he made his claim just as the American Lieberman got his ducks in a row to begin the countdown.
The Nazi comparison is accurate even when applied to Israelis or to American Jews like Joe Lieberman. They can be called fascist if they promote fascist ideology. The two Liebermans shouldn't be allowed to use the suffering of their own people to mask their own evil doing. It wouldn't be the first time that members of an oppressed group gladly joined the ranks of oppressors if someone else was the oppressee.
"Their biggest fear is incurring the wrath of the Israeli lobby and their check bundling supporters."
The world will ask Americans what they knew and when they knew it. Did they know that Iranian president Ahmedinejad never said Israel should be "wiped off the map?" Did they know that Israel is a nuclear power under no threat from Iran? Did they know that the U.S. is holding Iranian diplomats hostage? Ironically, outright lies and deliberate omissions in government and in the corporate media will allow most Americans to truthfully say they had no idea their government had turned them into war criminals.
Politicians can make no such claim. They are cowards. Their biggest fear is incurring the wrath of the Israeli lobby and their check bundling supporters. They also know that it is easier to call for war. Telling the American people to think for themselves is a tall order, especially if doing so means that the press will dismiss or ignore them, thereby ending their political careers or making them irrelevant if they manage to stay in office.
Just ask Richard Durbin. He learned his lesson. Truth telling gets you nowhere. It is much easier to kill millions of people. No one in a position of power demands an apology for that.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley' maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.
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