AIPAC formed a group called “Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran”. The assumption is that Iran is “BAD” and should be treated as a pariah nation. AIPAC presumes that Iran should be held inferior to such heroes of human rights as Israel. It presumes that Iran shouldn’t be allowed to sign and support the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as it has. For AIPAC, it is kosher to assassinate Iran’s physicists and wreck its computers. As far as AIPAC is concerned, it is within Israel’s rights to launch a unilateral attack on anything nuclear within Iran if it so chooses. For AIPAC, Iran must be bad. After all, it resists Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. It calls for political change in Palestine, change that Israel resists, so it must be “BAD”. Iran has no nuclear weapons, but it still must be “BAD” according to AIPAC. It hasn’t slaughtered Palestinians, but it still must be “BAD” according to AIPAC.
On the other hand, it is AIPAC’s view that any killing that Israel does has been “GOOD” and must be “GOOD”. To say otherwise and accuse Israel is not simply to be supportive of human rights, or possibly anti-Zionist, but also possibly to be branded as that old enemy that went out of fashion in the 20th century with the Third Reich or at least has been thoroughly discredited and meets with not a fiber of serious intellectual support: anti-Semitic. If one is not to risk being accused of hating Jews or even hating oneself if one is Jewish, one must by this perforation and shredding of logic, by this muddling of distinct ideas, support Israel and all of its genocidal and expansionist policies in all important respects. One must regard nuclear weapons in Israel’s hands as inherently “GOOD” too.
APIAC has launched ads using this new group. One of these popped up on a web site I went to this morning. It asked whether a country (Iran) that has violated 20 international agreements can be trusted. The “documentation” is here. The so-called violations are accusations, not proven facts and not self-evident. The charges are way overdone, much exaggerated, and trumped up. It’s a phony indictment.
What meaning does it have to charge Iran with not having top-notch governance or not having eliminated human trafficking? Is Iran really out for genocide because its former president made some sort of quote that has been widely and wildly misinterpreted, mistranslated and repeated endlessly? What meaning does it have to accuse Iran of chemical weapons hanky-panky when Israel is not a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention and Iran is?
Even if they were not baloney, or not all baloney, or half-truths, or fractional-truths, or not mainly unproven accusations and exaggerations, one has to ask how long a list of similar charges one could bring against many other countries in similar social, political and economic situations.
What would an indictment against the U.S. look like? It would easily be as long, indeed much longer, and the charges would be far more tangible, serious and actually have happened. Shall we lead off with the unprovoked attack on Iraq? Shall we include the 14-year war that began by bringing down Afghanistan’s existing government? Dare we mention the U.S. support for attacking Libya under false pretexts and reducing the country to warring factions, sources of weapons and bases for terrorists; and that has destabilized neighboring countries to boot? Shall we mention genocidal sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq?
Who trusts the U.S. when an ally one day becomes an enemy the next day as Gaddafi found out?
In a one-on-one comparison, which state would look more trustworthy, the U.S. or Iran?
11:00 am on August 14, 2015
