MEDIA/ADG
REPORTS IRAN
CRITICISM
OF US EMPIRE
COMPILED BY DICK BENNETT FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, and ECOLOGY
(#11 Oct. 8, 2011; #12 Jan. 31, 2012; #13 Feb.
22, 2012; #14 Feb. 26, 2012; #15 March 17, 2012; #16 April 12, 2012; #17 May
21, 2012; #18, July 9, 2012; #19 August 13, 2012; #20 Sept. 10, 2012; #21, Dec.
14, 2012; #22 March 5, 2013; #23 Nov. 12, 2013; #24 March 5, 2014; #25 January
17, 2015; #26, July 28, 2015; #27, June 3, 2018; #28, June 21, 2019; #29, July
11, 2019; #30, July 19, 2019; #31, July 25, 2019)
(Local
action in Fayetteville, Arkansas: Toward stopping Iran war and imperialism, we
are currently holding weekly peace protests every Saturday at 11 A.M. in front
of Washington County Courthouse. Please join us. If temp. in 90s drink water before, during,
and after.)
CONTENTS: OMNI’S IRAN NEWSLETTER #31, July 25, 2019
Continuation of Analysis of Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Reporting Iran by Dick Bennett
Published Commentary
on US Imperialism
Contents of #30
TEXTS
Analysis of NADG Reporting of US Aggression Against Iran July 19-23, with
assistance from Inside Iran by Medea
Benjamin
D-G Staff. “US.
Warship in Gulf Downs Iranian Drone.
Trump Calls U.S. Response –Self-Defense.” NADG
(7-19-19). [ Imagine an Iranian warship in Tampa Bay shooting down a US
surveillance drone. Imagine too the
warship was an amphibious assault
vessel like the USS Boxer. And imagine
the ship was accompanied outside the Bay by the full complement of a Carrier
Strike Force (like the one led by the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln presently in
the Arabian Sea). Now can you imagine
US Central Command not sending out a
surveillance drone? And imagine Iranian
news media describing the incident as part of the US “raising tensions” by
threatening Iranian forces and interests in the Gulf of Mexico. And throw in imagining four Iranian B-52
long-range bombers and Patriot air defense missiles to Cuba and Venezuela. And, no imagining now, remember how close to
violent war the two nations came when on June 20, Trump ordered a retaliatory
military strike in retaliation for Iran shooting down a US Navy drone, but
called it off at the last moment. The
authors of the report, the D-G Staff, do not imagine how all of this might look
to the Iranians.]
D-G Staff. “Iran Claims to Seize Now-silent U.K.
Ship. Incident Adds to Tensions in
Persian Gulf” 7-20-19. [During the 19th c., Russia,
Britain, and France were rivals in taking over various Iranian resources. “…one with monumental consequences, came in
1901, when Iranian rulers signed over the exclusive rights to drill for oil” to
a British businessman….the first step in what became the U.K. takeover of
Iran’s oil resources.” From this time
forward, dislike of “foreign concessions” and of Iran’s rulers’ failure to
defend the nation’s sovereignty grew among the populace. Medea Benjamin, Inside Iran (2018).]
|
Stan Choe and Damian Troise (AP). “Iran Tensions, Fed Rate Worries Send Stocks
Lower.” 7-20-19. 2D. [
“Iran Tensions” is a common US mainstream media (MM) coverup of the causation
agency chain. The “tensions” didn’t just
appear, but began when the US/CIA overthrew the democratically elected Iranian
government under Mossadegh. A tit for
tat relationship ensued, which was reinforced when Pres. Trump arbitrarily and
unilaterally canceled the nuclear agreement between the countries. More recently, the UK seized an Iranian
vessel, the US shot down an Iranian drone, and the Iranians seized a British
and a Liberian vessel.]
D-G Staff.
“Britain Puts Iran on Notice.”
7-21-19.
The 3rd paragraph includes two important
reminders: in June the US came “to
within minutes of a military strike against targets in Iran,” and “a fifth
of the world’s crude oil supply is shipped from the Persian Gulf through the
Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Iran.”
Tough talk from Britain regarding “further measures”—a freeze on Iranian
assets, pushing the EU and UN to reimpose sanctions.” Britain’s Foreign Secretary also defended “British-assisted”
seizure of Iran’s supertanker earlier this month as “legal” because vessel
suspected of breaching EU sanctions on oil shipments to Syria. In contrast, Iran’s Foreign Minister labeled
the seizure “piracy,” and its Guardian Council justified its seizure of a
British tanker as “reciprocal action.”
Other Iranian agencies explained the seizure differently, which we have
seen before resulting from the three main sources of power in Iran. Trump, France, Germany sided with
Britain. “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
said…that the U.S. isn’t willing to talk with Iran until it acts like a normal
country.” [This statement seems so
hypocritical or ignorant, given US’s own history, that one wonders if Pompeo even
attended high school, though of course the true history of imperial US in the
Middle East is not taught there.] Pompeo
also said “Iran has shown ‘no signs’ it wants to change direction on its
nuclear and missile programs.” [Maybe he
suffers from short-term memory loss.
Iran did change direction under the deal signed under the Obama
administration by accepting strict, verifiable limits on its uranium enrichment
program.] To add to the extremely heavy
force being gathered surrounding Iran [the Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, etc.],
“the U.S. Central command” began “putting in place ‘a multinational maritime
effort’ called Operation Sentinel that
would ‘increase surveillance of and security in key waterways in the Middle
East to ensure freedom of navigation in
light of recent events in the Arabian Gulf region” [British marines seizing the
Iran tanker at Gibraltar July 4?!).
Robert Burns (AP).
“Wary of Iran, U.S. Dusting Off 1990s Saudi base, Shoring Up
Defenses.” 7-21-19. More quotations followed by comment. [The first is the term “defenses.” Iran is on the defense, not the US, which has
surrounded Iran with a dozen military bases and nuclear armed submarines and
planes, enabling the US to have already programmed for annihilation all of Iran’s
Revolutionary Guard’s bases. One of the
best acts for peace for all of us would be the total replacement of the word “defense,”
repeated endlessly in the official Orwellian vocabulary of war, and its replacement by the word offense.
“Tensions with
Iran have spiked since May when President Donald Trump’s
administration said it had detected increased Iranian preparations for possible attacks on U.S. forces and interests in the Persian Gulf area. . . .This movement of forces provides an additional deterrent, and ensures our ability to defend our forces and interests in the region (translation: oil) from emergent credible threats,’ Central Command said.“ “With Iranian military threats in mind, the United States is sending American forces” to a Saudi air base—al-Kharj, now the Prince Sultan air base-- that was a hub of US air power in the ME in the 1990s. [It was this US presence in SA that caused SA citizen bin Laden to hate the US and to mastermind flying US planes into the Trade Towers in 2001.] [George Orwell would have enjoyed citing much of this report on the massive US armed squeeze of Iran presented as defense: war is peace.]
administration said it had detected increased Iranian preparations for possible attacks on U.S. forces and interests in the Persian Gulf area. . . .This movement of forces provides an additional deterrent, and ensures our ability to defend our forces and interests in the region (translation: oil) from emergent credible threats,’ Central Command said.“ “With Iranian military threats in mind, the United States is sending American forces” to a Saudi air base—al-Kharj, now the Prince Sultan air base-- that was a hub of US air power in the ME in the 1990s. [It was this US presence in SA that caused SA citizen bin Laden to hate the US and to mastermind flying US planes into the Trade Towers in 2001.] [George Orwell would have enjoyed citing much of this report on the massive US armed squeeze of Iran presented as defense: war is peace.]
D-G Staff. “In
Recording, U.K. Warship Urges Iran to Let Tanker Go.” 7-22-19.
Details of the seizure, some historical events leading to the seizure, and “U.K. Response” are crowded into this report derived from AP, Bloomberg News, and NYT sources. Benjamin in chapter 1 of Inside Iran recounts the long struggle by the Iranian people to regain Iranian sovereignty. A momentous episode in this history is the coup that overthrew Mossadegh in 1953 engineered by the CIA and UK spy agency M16. Mossadegh’s National Front Party had created the National Iranian Oil Company to negotiate with the British to purchase the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. (precursor to BP). When the British refused, Mossadegh nationalized the company. (A big deal; the British had profited by hundreds of millions of dollars each year, and the British Navy depended on Iran’s oil for 85 percent of its fuel.) The larger issue was control of Iran’s oil by Western powers. In June of 1953, US Secretary of State John foster Dulles unveiled the plot to overthrow Mossadegh. The actual British and US arranged coup occurred on August 19 when a mob paid for the by the US took over the streets and Sherman tanks surrounded key buildings.
Details of the seizure, some historical events leading to the seizure, and “U.K. Response” are crowded into this report derived from AP, Bloomberg News, and NYT sources. Benjamin in chapter 1 of Inside Iran recounts the long struggle by the Iranian people to regain Iranian sovereignty. A momentous episode in this history is the coup that overthrew Mossadegh in 1953 engineered by the CIA and UK spy agency M16. Mossadegh’s National Front Party had created the National Iranian Oil Company to negotiate with the British to purchase the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. (precursor to BP). When the British refused, Mossadegh nationalized the company. (A big deal; the British had profited by hundreds of millions of dollars each year, and the British Navy depended on Iran’s oil for 85 percent of its fuel.) The larger issue was control of Iran’s oil by Western powers. In June of 1953, US Secretary of State John foster Dulles unveiled the plot to overthrow Mossadegh. The actual British and US arranged coup occurred on August 19 when a mob paid for the by the US took over the streets and Sherman tanks surrounded key buildings.
“Relations
between Iran and the United States were permanently damaged, as the U.S.
government was now seen as yet another duplicitous power, in cahoots with the perfidious
British who had constrained and thwarted Iran’s independence and sovereignty
for 150 years.
By contrast,
Mohammad Mossadegh is remembered by his people as a national leader in the mold
of India’s Gandhi….”) (p. 27).
Given such a
history, not the Supreme Leader, the Revolutionary Guard, nor the Parliament
and Prime Minister were prepared to listen to any UK warship.
D-G Staff. “Britain
Seeking Mission in Gulf. Goal to Protect
Ships from Iran.” 7-23-19, 1A. 2A.
Let’s see it from the other side’s pov.
Let’s see it from the other side’s pov.
Tehran Republican
Guard Democrat-Gazette. “Iran Seeking
Mission in Gulf of Mexico. Goal to
Protect Ships from US.” (7-23-19).
Middle Eastern
governments plan to develop and deploy a “maritime protection mission” to
safe-guard shipping in the Gulf of Mexico following US seizure of an
Iranian-flagged tanker as it approached the Port of Texas City, a major deepwater port
at Galveston Bay. Its
location on the bay, which is used by the Port of Houston and
the Port of Galveston, puts Texas City in the heart of one of the
world's most important shipping hubs.
Briefing Iran’s
Parliament, Iran’s President accused the US of “’an act of state piracy’ that
must be met with a coordinated international reaction.” The US Secretary of the Department of War suggested
the Iranian New Century was seized and taken to the Port of Galveston in
response to Iran’s role in seizing a US oil tanker, the Deep Driller, in the
Gulf of Ormuz. Iran’s President
countered that under international law, the US had no right to stop the Deep
Driller or to board it. The President
said Iran’s allies will play a major role in keeping shipping lanes open, for
one-fifth of all global crude exports pass through the Gulf of Mexico from both
US and Mexican ports. . . . [I have
barely begun. Will one of you satirists
carry on?]
Apr 23, 2019 - TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly ... Iranian parliament labels entire US military as terrorist ...
meets with Pakistani Prime
Minister Imran Khan in
Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 22, 2019. ...
D-G Staff. “Iran Claims 17 Arrests of Spies Linked to
U.S.” 7-23-19.1A, 2A.
Quotations followed by my comments:
“Iran said”: [Media around the world far too frequently over-generalizes, making agency difficult to impossible to identify. Let’s remember that Iran has 3 tiers of gov: at the top religion, the Supreme Leader and Guardian Council; under the Supreme Leader the military Revolutionary Guard; below the Supreme Leader the government bureaucracy performing all aspects familiar to gov responsibility, with a parliament (Iranian National Assembly) and a prime minister (recently I noticed that the government and the guard each had its own navy). Any time an article says that “a nation” said something, I register the writer’s obfuscating laziness.]
Quotations followed by my comments:
“Iran said”: [Media around the world far too frequently over-generalizes, making agency difficult to impossible to identify. Let’s remember that Iran has 3 tiers of gov: at the top religion, the Supreme Leader and Guardian Council; under the Supreme Leader the military Revolutionary Guard; below the Supreme Leader the government bureaucracy performing all aspects familiar to gov responsibility, with a parliament (Iranian National Assembly) and a prime minister (recently I noticed that the government and the guard each had its own navy). Any time an article says that “a nation” said something, I register the writer’s obfuscating laziness.]
After labeling
the accusation of spying “’another lie’ from Iran,” Pres. Trump added “that his
interest in negotiating with the country is waning.” [I expect that anyone who is reading this
newsletter would reply that it’s incomprehensible for Trump to repudiate the
lengthily negotiated treaty between the US/Pres. Obama and the gov of Iran and
then to declare his interest in negotiating “is waning.”]
Trump…called
the Iranian claim about the spies ‘totally false.’” [But why should we believe such an
accusation, when Trump has been repeatedly exposed as a pathological liar? (Google Donald
Trump liar lies to find an “avalanche of lies”.)] And he supported his accusation by describing
Iran as “’a Religious Regime that is Badly Failing and has no idea what to
do.’” [But how do these derogations support the accusations? And who caused it to be “Badly Failing”? (See Inside
Iran, chapter 7, “The Iranian Economy After Decades of Sanctions.”) ]
Trump also said
he was waiting for “Tehran” “to agree to negotiate new limits on its nuclear
program and other activities.” [By
“new” we must assume he meant more
restrictive (or why would he have blamed Pres. Obama for allowing the
“disastrous” 2015 nuclear accord?), yet the accord restricted Iran to enriching
its uranium to below 4% (far from weapons grade) and to a stockpile of 661, both of which limits the UN Inspection Commission has
repeatedly verified were performed and maintained.
I have covered
Trump’s questionable comments in the first 14 paragraphs in a sizeable report
of 39. Will one of you take over?]
Suddenly on the
24th the NADG stopped
reporting on the Iran War, so I will break off too.
Criticism of US Global
Aggression
Contents:
Iran’s right to have a
nuclear energy program.
The US invasion of
Afghanistan brought not peace but death and starvation.
David Vine’s book, Base Nation.
“Stop Imperialist Warfare”
by Abel Tomlinson.
The U.S.-Iran
standoff can only end when the U.S. accepts Iran’s right to have a nuclear
energy program. mronline.org
(7-24-19).
The
U.S. objection to Iran is not based on international law, but merely based on
its political objectives. This is clearly illustrated by open U.S. support for
nuclear energy and nuclear weapon development in India; and nuclear weapon
stockpiling in Israel, which the U.S. has always fully backed.
The war on Afghanistan has been ugly. Death is one
consequence of war—2019 has been the deadliest year for civilians since the
United States first began to bomb Afghanistan in 2001. Starvation is
another—according to the UN, half of the population will need food assistance
over the course of this year. Source
Base Nation: How U.S. Military
Bases Abroad Harm America and the World by David Vine.
From Italy to the Indian Ocean, from Japan to Honduras, a
far-reaching examination of the perils of American military bases overseas
American military bases encircle the globe. More than two
decades after the end of the Cold War, the U.S. still stations its troops at
nearly a thousand locations in foreign lands. These bases are usually taken for
granted or overlooked entirely, a little-noticed part of the Pentagon’s vast
operations. But in an eye-opening account, Base Nation shows
that the worldwide network of bases brings with it a panoply of ills—and
actually makes the nation less safe in the long run.
As David Vine
demonstrates, the overseas bases raise geopolitical tensions and provoke
widespread antipathy towards the United States. They also undermine American
democratic ideals, pushing the U.S. into partnerships with dictators and
perpetuating a system of second-class citizenship in territories like Guam.
They breed sexual violence, destroy the environment, and damage local
economies. And their financial cost is staggering: though the Pentagon
underplays the numbers, Vine’s accounting proves that the bill approaches $100
billion per year.
U.S. MILITARY BASES ABROAD, 2015
As of 2015, the United
States controlled approximately 800 bases outside the fifty U.S. states and
Washington, D.C. The sheer number of bases as well as the secrecy and lack of
transparency of the overseas base network make any graphic depiction
challenging.
Notes:
Department of Defense, “Base Structure Report Fiscal Year 2014
Baseline”; Robert E. Harkavy, Strategic Basing and the Great
Powers, 1200-2000; Michael J. Lostumbo et al., “Overseas Basing of
U.S. Military Forces”; Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire;
Nick Turse, TomDispatch.com; Craig Whitlock, Washington Post,
GlobalSecurity.org; news reports.
Praise for Base Nation
“U.S. national security
policy rests on the assertion that 'forward presence' contributes directly to
global peace and security. In this powerful book, David Vine examines,
dismantles, and disproves that claim. He demonstrates that America's sprawling
network of overseas bases imposes costs—not only financial but also political,
environmental, and moral—that far exceed what the Pentagon is prepared to
acknowledge. Base Nation offers a
devastating critique, and no doubt Washington will try to ignore it. Citizens
should refuse to let that happen.”
Stop
Imperialist Warfare by Abel Tomlinson, July 21, 2019
We
must stop lying to ourselves and our children. Dozens of U.S. wars and coups were
not in honest self- defense, or to spread “freedom” and “democracy.” These lies
are made obvious when one studies history, and knows the U.S. has overthrown several
democracies, and installed, supported and armed numerous dictators.
The coups are overwhelmingly waged for corporate imperialist interests, for
profits for the richest few.
Perhaps
the most persuasive voice in describing U.S. imperialism is the highly
decorated General Smedley Butler. Way back in 1933, Butler
blew the whistle on corporate empire:
“I
spent 33 years (in the) Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from
Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I (was) a high
class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street… I was a racketeer, a
gangster for capitalism...I helped make Mexico (safe) for American oil interests in
1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank
boys…I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the
benefits of Wall Street….I helped purify Nicaragua for (Brown Brothers banking)
in 1909-1912…I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar
interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its
way unmolested.”
Fast
forward to recent history, and see the U.S. empire has grown to over 800 foreign military bases in over
80 nations, and has neared total world domination. Most governments,
whether democracy or dictatorship, have become subservient to U.S.-enforced
corporate imperialist interests. When a given government stands up too
strongly, like nationalizing key resources,
that is the cue for regime change.
Imperialist
warfare is not only military assault or CIA covert operations, but also economic warfare such as sanctions.
We know sanctions often prove deadly to civilian populations. Just recently,
sanctions were found to have killed over 40,000 civilians in
Venezuela. In the 1990s, the New York Times reported
Bush-Clinton sanctions killed 500,000 Iraqi
children.
On
national television, Lesley Stahl interviewed Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright about these sanctions. Stahl asked, “We have heard that a half million
children have died…that’s more children than died in Hiroshima…is the price
worth it?” Albright calmly replied, “We think the price is worth it.” Her statement
displays an utter lack of conscience, and brings to mind a choice psychological
term.
My
political awakening was triggered by 935 documented lies about
Iraq’s nonexistent WMD and connections to 9-11. These lies led to a textbook
definition of not just a war crime, but the “supreme international crime,” which killed over a million humans,
wasted trillions of taxpayer dollars, and other ongoing horrors. That war had nothing to
do with freedom, and everything to do with imperialism and oil.
Since
Iraq, imperialist coups or attempted coups have been waged on several more
nations, including Libya, Honduras, Ukraine, Venezuela, Syria, etc. The most
catastrophic coup du jour on the menu is Iran. General
Anthony Zinni warned, “If you liked Iraq…you will love
Iran.” The “best” case scenario is, like Iraq, killing another
million people and wasting trillions more. The worst case scenarios are
unspeakable.
We
must stop the lies and imperialism. Most people correctly see slavery was
deeply immoral, and we must now realize imperialism is equally evil. What is
imperialism but a love of money so extreme that it demands killing people?
About 75 percent of
Americans consider themselves Christians. Perhaps it is time to re-read
Matthew, “No one can serve two masters…You cannot serve both God
and money,” and Timothy, ” For the love of money is the root of all evil.”
(Local action in Fayetteville, Arkansas:
Toward stopping Iran war and imperialism, we are currently holding weekly peace
protests every Saturday at 11 A.M. in front of Washington County Courthouse.
Please join us.)
CONTENTS: OMNI’S IRAN NEWSLETTER #30, July 19, 2019
I. Northwest
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Reporting Iran: Analyzed April-July 2019 by Dick
II. National Newspapers Examined by FAIR: Shupak
and Cho
III. General Criticism of US Aggressions against
Iran
LTE from ARKie Reg Edwards
Veterans Against War
Petition to Congress
Essay Against Sanctions by
Dan Cohen
History of Iran, the 1950s
by Heather Gray
IV. Dick’s Newsletters on Iran 2011-Present
END IRAN REPORTING BY ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE,
JULY 2019, and additional published criticism of US Imperialism, July 25, 2019
