WW editor to Iranian people:
'U.S. propaganda is candy-coated poison'
Workers World Editor Deirdre Griswold was asked by
Hossein Mirshaki of the Iranian daily Resalat to comment on
U.S.-Iranian relations. She wrote the following remarks on June
13.
I have seen news reports here in the last day
that indicate some people in Iran were incited by a satellite
television program originating in Los Angeles, U.S.A., to
demonstrate against the regime. The news we get, and I don't
know if it is true, says that some young people who have
grievances against the Iranian government look to the United
States as an ally in their struggle.
I have no way of knowing if these people are merely naive or
if there is a more sinister explanation for what has happened.
But, as someone born in the United States and having lived here
all my life, I welcome the opportunity to say a few words to
the Iranian people about the role of the U.S. government in the
world today.
First, it should be understood that while the U.S. holds
regular elections, this political process does not produce a
government representing the majority of the people. U.S.
"democracy" is thoroughly corrupted by a relatively small class
of super-wealthy people who literally buy political power.
Their vast fortunes come from exploiting people and resources
not just in the United States but around the world. This class
of plutocrats spends hundreds of billions of dollars on the
elections and also finances the many foundations, think tanks
and other unofficial bodies that train political leaders to act
in its interests.
George W. Bush became president through extraordinary
manipulation of the voter rolls. His party made a systematic
effort to eliminate African Americans, Haitian Americans and
older voters in Florida. He lost the popular vote but was
declared the victor by the Supreme Court in a 5 to 4
decision.
Political, diplomatic and military leaders move back and
forth between top corporate/banking positions and the
government.
The present Bush administration is especially packed with
representatives of the oil industry and the military-industrial
complex. It came into office determined to promote a broad
agenda of intensifying U.S. domination over the post-Cold War
world, and especially in the oil-rich countries of the Middle
East, including both Iraq and Iran.
Two important documents spell out this orientation: (1) the
"Defense Planning Guide" written in March 1992 by Dick Cheney
and Paul Wolfowitz, who are today Vice President of the U.S.
and Assistant Secretary of Defense, respectively, and (2) the
"National Security Strategy" document issued on Sept. 20, 2002,
by the present Bush administration. This second document also
laid out a doctrine of "preemption," that is, that the U.S. has
the right to attack other countries not because they have done
anything but because they MIGHT commit hostile acts sometime in
the future. This doctrine, which became the official policy of
the United States, is a violation of all international law with
respect to war and peace.
Now the U.S. government has carried out an unprovoked war of
aggression against Iraq, killing thousands of civilians,
destroying museums and libraries containing irreplaceable
artifacts from thousands of years of history, and leaving much
of the country without a functioning water supply, electricity,
hospitals, schools or places of work. Before the war, the Bush
administration said it would help the Iraqi people set up a
"democratic" regime. This has not happened in even the smallest
way. At present, U.S. troops are bogged down in a brutal,
colonial-style occupation of Iraq. They are killing people
every day, invading their homes, neighborhoods and mosques. And
every day there is more proof that the Iraqi people, of all
political persuasions and faiths, want the U.S. out and are
determined to resist the occupation. This bloody war was not
waged to liberate the Iraqi people, but to take their oil and
impose a regime completely controlled from Washington.
The Bush administration is in the process of deporting
thousands of Muslims and Arab people from the U.S., and has
grossly violated the civil liberties of many more by rounding
them up and detaining them for many months without charges and
without access to families or attorneys.
It is holding nearly 700 people captured in Afghanistan and
other countries, some as young as 13 years of age, in barbaric
cages at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, where it denies
them any legal rights and refuses to abide by the Geneva
conventions regarding prisoners of war.
Yet it dares speak to the world in the name of "freedom" and
"democracy"!
President Bush in his infamous "Axis of Evil" speech in Jan
u ary 2002 singled out Iraq, Iran and the Demo cratic People's
Republic of Korea as enemies of the U.S. Anyone who lives in
any of these countries should take this threat very seriously.
It was telling the world that the U.S. government reserved the
right to attack them at any time.
Are there any restraints on the aggres sive plans of this
administration? Yes, there are. Millions of people worldwide
have demon strated their opposition to the war plans of the
U.S. and Britain. That includes the largest anti-war
demonstrations in the United States since the era of the
Vietnam War.
The demonstrations did not stop the war from happening, but
they helped change the political climate. Both the Bush and
Blair administrations are now on the defensive over having lied
to the people about Iraq's alleged "weapons of mass
destruction." The heroic resistance inside Iraq is tying down
U.S. troops so that they cannot be sent elsewhere. There is
even a struggle within the Pentagon over whether or not they
have sufficient troops to be able to maintain the occupation of
Iraq and project their military power in other parts of the
world.
The U.S. rulers also have to worry about the economy and the
war. This year the government deficit (the difference between
income and expenditures) is expected to rise to over four
hundred billion dollars ($400,000,000,000). [In the United
States, unlike much of the rest of the world, the word
"billion" equals a thousand million.] President Bush recently
raised the legal limit on the accumulated government debt by
one trillion dollars (that's a million times a million). The
total U.S. government debt now (June 13, 2003) stands at
$6,602,706,000,000 and is rising every second. [See
www.publicdebt.treas.gov/ opd/opdpenny.htm] This averages out
to a debt of nearly $100,000 for a family of four! This
criminal debt has been imposed on the working people of the
United States by the billionaires who control our corrupt
government.
This extraordinary figure reflects the huge costs of
military spending as well as a decline in revenues, because at
the same time as this military buildup, the politicians have
been cutting taxes on their wealthy backers. There can be only
one result: further slashing of social services needed by the
people. It also means that interest payments to the banks to
service the national debt will skyrocket, requiring a painfully
higher level of taxes on working people in the future. This is
a recipe for a social explosion.
It boils down to this: A war cannot be won with weapons
alone, no matter how powerful they are. It requires the
surrender of the target population, and the support of the
people inside the would-be conquering nation. The people of
Iraq are not surrendering, they are fighting back. Millions of
people in the U.S. and around the world who value national
sovereignty and peaceful development are rejecting U.S. empire
and neocolonialism, are rejecting "regime change" imposed from
without by war, subversion or economic sanctions.
U.S. propaganda directed to the youth of the Third World is
nothing but candy-coated poison. Young and old, all over the
globe, need to come together to resist those in Washington who
dream of dominating the Middle East and the world. Solidarity
with the people of Iraq, Iran, North Korea and any other
country threatened by the Pentagon must be at the top of our
agenda.
Reprinted from the June 26, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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