Today marks the first day of spring as well as the first day of Persian New Year (year 1392). It also coincides with Obama’s trip to Israel and his meeting with Netanyahu and other Israeli officials. For the occasion of this meeting and the tenth anniversary of invasion of Iraq by US forces (of a few days ago), an article is published by Juan Cole in Informed Comments, stating with one other reason for the invasion, something that many of us never knew about. The article discloses many documents representing the involvements of Israeli government in persuading US to attack Iraq. One of these documents is a quotation from a news article published in Jerusalem Post on March 10, 2003: “…the foreign ministry has received reports from the US telling Israelis to cool their jets because ‘the US media’ is portraying Israel as ‘trying to goad the administration into war.’” Whether Israelis coaxed US government, the article endeavors to make a case in support of it. All we know is that the administration ultimately attacked Iraq under the pretense of “weapons of mass destruction”, which proved to be a lie. Coincidently, the same type of slander (as weapons of mass destruction) has been used, this time by the legislators instead of the administration. It is claimed that Assad used chemical weapons on the rebels. This is of course a prelude to a more direct training and arming Syrian rebels (who have been covertly supported and armed by the military in the past two years).
US presidents’ unconditional support of the occupiers has resulted Israelis bold dismissal of all international laws of expansion, genocide, and apartheid, as well as lack of any consideration of humanity. Obama has proven to follow the same policy of servitude to this small nation, and using the Zionist government as a bully in the Middle East, in order to keep puppet governments of the region on check. Any government that refuses to bow before the super power, even in words if not in deeds (such as the present regime in Iran) will be dealt with militarily. This has been the destiny of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and will probably be Syria’s future. Therefore, it is expected that Obama’s negotiation with Israel will focus on two main subjects; how to quite Palestinians, and how to disable Iranians nuclear capabilities. It is interesting to see Obama’s four minutes message on YouTube congratulating Iranians on their New Year celebration, three minutes of which was devoted on threatening Iranian government! The puzzling question for some people is why the US and Israel should targets Iran. US policy is to support dictators who submit to her wishes, and topple democratic governments to be replaced by despots and tyrants. Choice of such dictators in the Middle East and North Africa has been Al-Qaida and other fanatic Islamists. Considering that the present regime in Iran came into power by a green light from the US, and it has both characteristics of dictatorship and Islamist, the objection to this regime is a big question. The answer is a multitude of many facts, which is the subject of another article. The short answer is the nature of the regime that originally presented itself as anti-imperialist, and has never been able to separate itself from it, although anti-imperialism has only been a slogan from very beginning. Most of the administrations (especially the ones after Khomeini and particularly the present administration) have dutifully followed all the wishes of the US government with regards to IMF and The World Bank, and other economical colonizing tools of the US government in international scene. Another problem of Iranian government for the US is its instability, and the chance that someone more moderate (such as Musavi) takes the power. There are other reasons for the US and mostly Israelis to topple Iranian regime and replace it with puppets such as the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, whatever the reason is, Israel is more eager to disable Iran of all its military capabilities, as it is underway with Syria, and become the only superpower (militarily) in the region. They are ‘goading’ US (to use the same phrase) for an attack on Iran, and that is one of the main reasons for Obama’s trip.
Yesterday, my daughter told me about a series of WWII literature one of her school teachers shared with students. “Some of those ads and announcements were so funny.” she said “For instance, in order to encourage people to use less petroleum which was badly needed for the war machine, there was a picture of someone sitting next to Adolf Hitler, along with a caption that anyone who uses too much gas is a friend of Hitler!” I told her about the power of the government in manipulating people through propaganda, demonizing, slander, and creation of fear. 21st century started with the attack of the extremist Christianity on the militant Islam. This paved the road for Western governments with the leadership of the US, England, and Germany, to abolish Habeas-Corpus and Magna-Karta, primary protection anyone ever had against governments. As the Islamists were created and supported by the Western nations at the outset, they started working together again in order to replace secular governments in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria, after popular uprisings against dictators, some of which had been longtime US clients. However, the phrase “Moslem Terrorist” was established in the minds of many Americans. Cold war and a Soviet nuclear attack were used prior to that. Taliban, Saddam Hussein, Al-Qaida, Melasovich, Noriega, Marcus, Shah, Hitler, and many others were systematically demonized in media when they no longer served the purpose or they were not in line with American expansionism. Today, US media is completely in the hands of a few rich and powerful, fueled by the government with Neoliberal doctrine. From Afghanistan (when CNN was not the total mouthpiece of the government) to Syria, US policy is diligently dictated by the media and fed into American public, who are used to believing it, no questions asked! Even when the media was not monopolized and did not necessarily follow the Right-Wing’s policies, manipulating the public was at the top of the agenda.
Edward Bernays, featured by Adam Curtis in his 2004 movie ‘Century of the Self’ was a genius in the art of public manipulation. In his research company, he cleverly used Sigmund Freud’s (his uncle) analysis of human conviction in imprinting a marketing idea in people’s mind; in a manner that those people would believe the idea originated from themselves. He also used new trends and progressive ideas as marketing tools. For instance, he contracted a project for Phillip Morris to expand their markets. Noam Chomsky observed manipulating strategies through a different lens, which he called “Manufacturing Consent” in a book with the same title. He viewed that our government had instruments at its disposal to disseminate a false belief that its detested plans had received popular consent. Military actions against sovereign states, considering the largest worldwide anti-war demonstrations prior to military assault on Iraq, were undertaken under such pretense. Naomi Klein, with her famous book “The Shock Doctrine” viewed tactics of achieving acquiescence from a different angle. It appears present austerity measures worldwide, by taking away every social program governments have had in their budgets for many decades (most of which had already been paid by people in taxes and deductions) under attack by the well-funded bureaucrats leading majority of Western governments, are following the same doctrine. Right-Wing is supported financially by the wealthiest individuals who can manipulate voters, buy government officials, and hire the brightest of the elite to plan and organize domination. Obama who has cut more social services and popular benefits than his predecessor, is labeled a liberal, and sometimes socialist, in order to be intimidated into their plans. To confuse those who had so much hope in Obama, who is killing hundreds through drones or open wars in a daily basis, was awarded with a Nobel Peace prize! Now that he has accepted their total submission, he is going back on the plan of attacking Iran along with Israelis, as a new year present to Iranians.
