Obliterate Iran?


Hillary Clinton, in last week's debate in Philadelphia, said that she as President would "wipe out" Iran if it attacked any country under a security umbrella she favors establishing in the Middle East. On an ABC interview she said we could "totally obliterate Iran." What this brought immediately to mind was some Persian friends, and the conversations we had about daily life in Iran among the average secular upper middle class. It occurs to me that if some crazy fuck dropped a bomb on Iraq, which is certainly under our security umbrella, my old friends could be vaporized by a mass murder bombing that would make the Twin Towers look like a warning shot.

What it also brought to mind of course is that the people in the Twin Towers died as a result of actions by a government they would probably not have chosen if they'd had the choice. The choice is largely illusory when no candidate who would cut the pentagon budget significantly, and withdraw U.S. forces from foreign lands, would generally survive a primary process.

When I think of my friends -- a brother and sister -- I remember them as funny, sophisticated people, who related how people in Tehran have parties in their houses, to avoid the dour eyes of the faithful. If they have to wear head coverings and conservative dress on the streets, they have on their western clothes, including mini skirts (and probably a snake skin jacket if it could be found) underneath. They have about as much love for their blowhard right wing trigger happy leaders as I have for ours. I would sure hate to be hit by a nuclear bomb because of something George Bush or Dick Cheney did. To them a knowledge of the past is probably something their attorneys advise them against.

So what occurred to me that we are missing in this scenario is that there is not a border, where on one side of it people have a certain attitude, and on the other side there is a different attitude, so that you can attack the "enemy" with a nuclear bomb. It doesn't work that way. There are some right wing zealots in America who are a lot like Ahmajinadad. They might not say evil and untrue things about Israel, but they will stay evil and untrue things about France, or San Francisco. And there are liberal and easy going people in Iran who have absolutely no interest in fighting with anybody over being "right" about some stupid ideological position.

The right wing conservatives have a lot in common with each other and the progressive, secularized people have a lot in common with each other. The idea of just dropping a bomb on Iran and wiping out the people is terrorism, pure and simple. It is the targeting of innocent civilians as a military strategy.

The enemy, in Iran, in America, and in Israel, is this kind of officially sanctioned terrorism. Statements like that made by Clinton demonstrates how insidious terrorism really is. She would not think of herself as committing an act of terror if she wiped out my friends and their families. They would simply be collateral damage in a larger policy war. And here we can see why we have to move from top down power structure to bottom up power structure. That is why it is so essential that we elect Obama, and not Clinton.

The ultimate top down power structure is the atomic bomb. It is the most exclusively held top down threat. If we do not behave according to the wishes of those who hold the nuclear arsenal we can be wiped out, as in vaporized, with the planet rendered uninhabitable but what the hell? We showed them we meant business.

Obviously the optimum solution to the problem would be if the people who are willing to kill anybody over an ideological position could wipe out each other, and speed up the evolutionary process a bit. But they always use innocent people as a human shield.

When Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote "The Grand Chessboard," he observed that:

“Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization."

In other words, if the power was coming from the bottom up, from democratic instincts, we would not be interested in the kind of imperial mobilization exemplified by the occupation of Iraq, nor would we have been interested in destabilizing Iran back in 1953 when we destroyed their fledgling democracy as a favor to (what became) British Petroleum, and in the process created the power vacuum into which the radical clergy, predictably, moved. There is a saying that you cannot forgive those you have grievously wronged. I think it is true. It would be ironic if we ended up murdering millions of Persians because of the radicals who gained power when we betrayed the fledgling democracy of the emerging middle class.

The big divisions in the modern world are not clashing national or ethnic boundaries, but the division between those who rule top down, with force, and those who wish to change that to a bottom up, truly democratic rule of justice and equality. This kind of rule (based in respect for the individual instead of the institution) would attempt to apply the natural laws of relationship between individuals to the relationship between groups. For example, if somebody in my neighborhood gets an automatic weapon and shoots a bunch of Jewish people outside the synagogue because he thinks they're the source of his problems, the ideal response isn't to drop a bomb on my neighborhood and kill everybody. It is to bring the person responsible up on charges.

That is why there has been an effort to establish an International Criminal Court. This would allow the world community to judge when a leader is committing criminal acts, and bring him or her up on charges. But the Bush Administration has not only refused to join this International Court, it punishes any other nation which does join. America in the 21st century is the sworn enemy of any international system of justice which could address exactly the type of scenario Senator Clinton is addressing, and a mechanism which would avoid (a further) descent into barbarism.

And it should be obvious that instead of capturing and trying the criminals responsible for 9-11, the Bush Administration realized that the sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being which can be used to override the democratic impulse was in their hands, and they could use it for imperial mobilization. Senator Clinton voted "aye." She aided and abetted the imperial mobilization.

Now, what Clinton is advocating is pure and simple terrorism. There is no justification for wiping out millions of innocent people because of the actions of their leadership. True democracy is in fact inimical to military adventurism. True democracy comes from the bottom up, from the people. We haven't had that for many years, because for the people to control the government, they have to fund their own candidate. The money is the energy the candidate has. That is why Obama is the only viable candidate for real change.

There are no honorable bargains involving qualitative merchandise,

like souls, for quantitative merchandise like time or money.

So…piss off, Satan, and don’t take me for dumber than I look.

As an old junk pusher told me:

“Watch whose money you pick up.”

(William S. Burroughs)

Posted: Tue - April 22, 2008 at 03:34 PM