by Henry D. RoseThe U.S. and Israel, the “most aggressive” nations in the world, routinely commit crimes against international law and civilized norms. Yet they feel quite comfortable in claiming moral authority in the community of nations. Meanwhile, “freedom fighters are branded as terrorists,” and “resistance to oppression is deemed divisive and futile.” Black America understands U.S. barbarity from direct experience. “For the African-American people, the battle cry must be: No War on Iran!”
Beyond Science Fiction: Europe’s False Claims to
Civilization and the Coming Attack on Iran
by Henry D. Rose
“The leading aggressors in modern history claim to be the keepers of humanity’s highest ideals.”
The Twilight Zone and Star Trek have nothing on current global realities. No sci-fi writer could construct a more bizarre, topsy-turvy, inside-out world than the one we live in. Nations that for half a millennium enslaved, colonized, oppressed and exploited the rest of the world continue to assume moral authority over planetary discourse. The leading aggressors in modern history claim to be the keepers of humanity’s highest ideals, justifying their predatory behavior through a kind of moral jujitsu. Language is mangled beyond recognition. Freedom fighters are branded as terrorists, resistance to oppression is deemed divisive and futile (re Star Trek’s Borg), great powers “liberate” the peoples of lesser nations by massacre and invasion, in which civilian lives are efficiently excised through “surgical strikes.” (The doctor is insane!) Institutions that wrecked the world’s economy get bailed out while the masses are left to fend for themselves; the nations that warmed the globe call the shots on global warming; and people who invaded and displaced another people are the victims of aggression. Things get blurry when robbers run the joint. Europeans counsel the formerly colonized that it is “counterproductive” to dwell on injustices done to their ancestors, as if ill-gotten white wealth is unrelated to darker people’s current miseries. One needs a stubborn memory and keen sense of historical continuity to wade through the fog. As Dorothy said to Toto, “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” But if you don’t watch out you may end up in Tehran.
“Institutions that wrecked the world’s economy get bailed out while the masses are left to fend for themselves.”
The US and its sidekick Israel (not quite sure who runs whom it that relationship) are the First Couple of this distorted order. These two white settler nations represent the beginning and end of physical European expansion. Both were founded upon a “jacking” of the 1st order. In the case of the US it was genocide against the Native American peoples. With Israel it was the expulsion of the Palestinian people and the taking of their lands. Together, these nations are the most aggressive in the world, regularly launching “defensive actions” that kill thousands, “protecting” themselves against people who are no threat. The objective is world and regional dominance.
Orwell could have written the script for the U.S.-Israel buddy movie. The US claims the title of the world’s “greatest democracy” and denies ever having been an aggressor nation, despite multiple invasions of other countries over the past thirty years (Lebanon, Panama, Grenada, Iraq twice, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, military ops in Haiti, etc). Washington’s never ending undeclared wars on the African-American, Native American, and Latino peoples within US borders is just part of the basic structure of American society, as is the war on the poor. The US acts as the “cop on the beat” for global capitalism and white domination.
“The Zionist state demands that its right to remain a state for Jews-only is the point of departure for any political discussion.”
Israel’s aggression is rooted in the constant need to diminish (if not erase) the humanity of the Palestinian people. This is reflected in the uprooting of olive trees; the years of invading and bombing Palestinian refugee camps; the targeted killing (assassination) of political activists; the taking and diverting of water on Palestinian lands; the constant incursions into Gaza, the world’s largest open air prison; the tragedy of Jenin; the starvation and isolation of Arafat at the end of his life; and the destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure. The Zionist state demands that its right to remain a state for Jews-only is the point of departure for any political discussion. For the Palestinian people this means they must accept the right of the pre-Israeli Jewish people to dispossess them, and Israeli Jews’ right to build their nation on the site of the crime. The rest of the world is expected to honor the deal.
The trick has been to make Israel synonymous with the salvation of the Jewish people. It then follows, according to this logic, that if one opposes Israel, the nation-state, then one supports the oppression of the Jewish people. The same logic allows Israel to claim self-defense when it engages in blatant aggression.
it is an absurd construct. The English changed the immigration laws in Palestine without the consent of the Palestinian people. The English then invited European Jews to immigrate to Palestine. The Palestinians are criticized for not accepting the 1947 partition that would lead to them loosing 53% of their lands to European Jews who they did not invite to their lands. The unwillingness to accept being robbed by Europe is a crime and the people that do not accept it are criminals. Not.
“Without the protection of nuclear weapons, Iraq was invaded.”
Iran is the next target in the sights of the expansionist settler states. In the US, the white-led Right beats the war drums. Iran has had the temerity to embark upon a path of independent nuclear development. The US establishment fears that if Iran gains a nuclear weapon the Iranians will be impossible to control, at least by military means. Israel despises Iran for supporting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has fielded a variety of critiques of Israel. His attacks on Jews as a group are problematic, but his claim that Israel should have been created among the Europeans that oppressed the Jews is morally defensible. The Iranians looked at the two nations that ex-President Bush called the Axis of Evil and how differently they have been treated. Without the protection of nuclear weapons, Iraq was invaded.The nation’s president was hunted down and hanged, his sons shot down and killed. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed by the US invasion, substantial parts of the population have been dispersed, and the country is very much under the thumb of the US. When the US talked the Axis of Evil stuff to North Korea, leader Kim Jong-il called South Korea and Japan and said, “Tell Bush don’t start no mess and it won’t be no mess.” The difference between Iraq and North Korea was nuclear weapons. Have a weapon and survive, don’t have one and be subject to invasion, capture, and execution.
For the African-American people, the battle cry must be: No War on Iran! The Iranians have done nothing to the African-American people. In fact, when the Iranians won their revolution and took over the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, one of their first acts was to free all the African-Americans captives. This act of solidarity with Blacks was an acknowledgment of one oppressed people to another oppressed people. It is time for Black folk to return the gesture. No Iran attack from the US. No support for an Israeli attack on Iran.
Henry D. Rose has more than twenty years of experience working in various aspects of human services and human rights. Mr. Rose is chair and founder of Blacks for Social Justice, the publisher of Chin Check newsletter, and a member of People’s Organization for Progress. Mr. Rose cofounded Genesis Shule (a community school in Newark). He has lectured on a variety of civil rights, human rights, and community based issues.
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