Iran: The Propaganda Never Stops
By Timothy V. Gatto
13 March, 2009
Countercurrents.org
I never cease to be amazed at American news. I watch a few outlets, just to see if they ever mention anything about the rest of the planet. Except for earthquakes, floods, threats against the US and plane crashes, if we didn’t have maps and globes, we wouldn’t know that there is a world outside the U.S., Mexico and Canada (unless we are in a war somewhere). I realize I’m being a bit facetious when I write about how ignorant our news outlets have become, but the fact is that I’m much closer to the truth than not.
Sometimes I ask myself why our media doesn’t cover the events taking place in other countries. Most Americans don’t know that Iceland, a prosperous country a couple of years ago, went completely bankrupt. There were riots in the streets and this hardly made the mainstream media. There are other things that don’t make news in the media even though it affects us all. Call me a conspiracy believer, but I figure that the government would rather have Americans know little or nothing about the real world. This way, if we end up going to war with another nation, they can spin it just the way they want to.
You can always tell when our government wants something from another nation. The first clue is that we hear much more about the country on the news. It seems that suddenly, a nation that becomes a “place of interest” and gets a thorough look by the media. The history, the resources, the plight of the people and its global importance (especially to the United States) becomes paramount. Countries we turned a blind eye to, nations that were ignored while starvation and genocide were taking place, instantaneously become the center of attention the minute the first drop of oil is pumped out of a proven oil reserve.
It need not be oil, it could be gold or other precious metals, it could (like Afghanistan) be a perfect place to build an oil and natural gas pipeline, or it could be situated in a strategic area so that we could have more control over the real estate in the area.
A few nations come to mind as I write this. Venezuela with its oil fields, Bolivia with its natural gas, Iraq with its large proven oil reserves, Afghanistan that could host the perfect pipelines from Kazakhstan and the Caspian Sea and surrounding areas, and now Sudan which has become Africa’s third largest oil producing nation. http://www.afrol.com/articles/21889 Even Somalia has sparked the interests of both the U.S. and China
http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/
forum/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/15.
Of course, Iran is the country that a not only produces vast quantity of oil, but it is strategically placed is such a way that it could stop much of the oil from the Middle East, from flowing to the west. The cover story that the United States uses to gain support for a possible invasion or military strike against Iran, is that someday, sometime, the Iranians could produce a nuclear weapon. The truth is, if Americans really want to pull themselves away from the mind-numbing effects of their “network news”, common sense tells us that if Iran did indeed build a nuclear device, where would they use it? If people could just ignore the rhetoric for just a brief moment and look at the facts, what country would be the target for this bomb? Would it be Israel? It’s` just about common knowledge that the Jewish State has between 300 and 600 warheads and a delivery system to compliment it.
Would Iran attack the United States that has over 18,000 nukes? I guess that if you add the hysteria that is part and parcel of our view of Islam, Iran’s first strike capability is entirely plausible. However, if one were to look at the facts, Iran is a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty that gives countries that sign the agreement the right to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel in the same way that Brazil, China, Japan, Canada Great Britain, India, Pakistan and a host of other nations are already doing. Not only did they sign the NPT, the IAEA has been given open, unfettered access to Iran’s nuclear program. Still, Israel and their surrogates in Congress continue to scream bloody murder just because Iran seeks to build a nuclear facility.
With all of the oil on hand in Iran, why does it need nuclear fuel? The sad truth is that Iran is more interested in selling their oil than they are in using it for domestic consumption. Iran actually imports its heating fuel and gasoline to heat their homes and power their vehicles.
Even though Iran has not fought a war for conquest in over two hundred years, our government, our media, our politicians and our “ally” Israel continue to beat the war drums and cast Iran in the harshest light possible. We forget that Iran gave us permission to use their airspace to engage the Taliban and Al Quaeda and provided information as to the whereabouts of their leaders. This stopped when George Bush included them in his “axis of evil”. Way to go, George.
The rhetoric has got to stop and this nation needs to take a sober, second look at all that is transpiring in the Middle East. This isn’t just something we should do, it’s essential to our national security as well as how we conduct ourselves morally.
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