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Attack on Iran: Morality Lost
in the Garden of Deceits
B
y Abbas
B
akhtiar
ccun.org,
September 23, 2007
Cry
"Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war (Julius Caesar Act III,
Scene I). The call for war against
Iran
was issued
by no other than Mr.
B
ernard
Kouchner the foreign minister of
France
, a country
with the motto of
Liberty
, Equality
and Fraternity.
France
the home of
Voltaire and Rousseau is now calling for war against a country that has
never threatened France or its neighbours.
France
a nuclear
power with illustrious colonial past is urging others to be aware of the
dangers that nuclear weapons pose.
From
the other side of the
Atlantic,
we hear the
same cries for more war, death and destruction. As though the death of
650,000 Iraqis was not enough, we are urged to prepare ourselves for another
war. We are told that by killing more civilians, creating more refugees,
destroying more bridges, power plants,
sc
hools,
hospitals and factories we are going to be safer and live better lives.
Recently
Mr. Greenspan told us what we already knew: namely that
Iraq
was invaded because of its oil.
This of course was not the first time that we heard this and it certainly
will not be the last either.
B
ut who
cares? Here we see President
B
ush and his
allies illegally attacking and destroying a country, making millions
homeless and starting a civil war without a slightest sign of remorse. They
went to steal the na
tu
ral
resources of
Iraq
and they
did it and are doing it. And now they want more. Yesterday it was
Iraq
; tomorrow
it will be
Iran
and the day
after it will be
Venezuela
. When the
president of the world’s only superpower acts like a thief, what
protection is there for the rest of the world? The very same people that
brought us the
Iraq
tragedy are
using the same excuses to repeat their misdeeds again.
In
late August, “
Iran
and the
Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency released a plan laying out a
step-by-step timetable of cooperation with the goal of resolving by December
issues that have been under investigation for four years. Agency officials
have praised the timetable as a breakthrough and
Iran
’s
president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Tuesday said the investigation into his
country’s nuclear activities was now closed.”[[i]]
This
agreement was hailed as a success by the IAEA and UN. The problem with this
agreement is that it takes away the excuse needed by
B
ush and Co
to implement their strategy of strangling
Iran
and get
their hands on
Iran
’s oil and
gas. Na
tu
rally, just
like the case in
Iraq
, they have
dismissed the agreement saying that it was not enough. Then the talk of war
intensified, with US,
Israel
and then
France talking loudly about an even
tu
al attack on
Iran
. The main
aim of these shrill voices is to take the people’s attention away from the
IAEA-Iran agreement and back to some illogical talk of
Iran
’s threat
to the world.
It
is said that if you tell a lie big enough and often enough, people will even
tu
ally come to
believe you. Having used this tactic in
Iraq
with some
success, they believe they can do it again. They believe that people will
even
tu
ally come to
believe that
Iran
is a
serious threat to the world and grudgingly accept another war. And the good
thing about this is, so they believe, that this time they don’t even have
to produce any evidence of wrongdoing by
Iran
. They just
have to say that they have prevented
Iran
from
acquiring nuclear weapons in the “fu
tu
re”. Very
logical, isn’t it?
The
fact that these same countries posses lots of nuclear weapons is irrelevant,
so we are told. We are to believe that
Israel
,
Pakistan
,
India
, US,
UK
,
France
,
China
and
Russia
are all
exception to the rules. Other countries that enrich Uranium are also
exceptions. It is only
Iran
with its
vast na
tu
ral
resources that is a danger to the world peace and prosperity.
Israel
has over
200 nuclear weapons and last year was involved in one of the most savage
attacks on
Lebanon
. She also
recently bombed
Syria
. Yet we
hear no protest from the so called “civilized world”.
Pakistan
, a
dictatorship, with its tremendous security problems (Taliban, Al Qaeda, etc)
has nuclear weapons and is awarded F16s. India tested nuclear weapons and
was awarded trade and nuclear technology transfer agreements.
What
is the moral lesson from all of this? There is none; the law of the
jungle rules. Those who can steal will steal. Those who can rape will do
so with impunity. There is no punishment for the strong; it is the weak that
has to pay. Meanwhile we pretend to believe all their lies and keep hoping
for cheaper oil and higher share prices; otherwise we have to face our own
complicity in their crimes. After all who elected them and who re-elected
them? Our very silence makes us an accomplice.
As
you read this, you should think about all those Iraqis who have been killed,
the 2.5 million Iraqis who had to flee the carnage in their country and a
similar number of internal Iraqi refugees.
You
should think about all the lies that you have been told and ask yourself
these questions:
Do
I want another war like
Iraq
?
Can
I stay silent and accept more killings and destruction?
Is
it OK for the powerful to commit armed robbery?
If
one finds it difficult to answer these questions, then perhaps one should
follow what
B
ertrand
Russell said: “We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side: one
which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but
seldom preach”.
Dr.
Abbas
B
akhtiar
lives in
Norway
. He is a management consultant
and a contributing writer for many online journals. He can be contacted by
e-mail at:Bakhtiarspace-articles@yahoo.no
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