Funding
Democracy Or War?
By
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
22 December,
2007
Countercurrents.org
The
‘Iran Democracy Fund’ was recently awarded $60 million.
There seems to be neither rhyme nor reason to this re-appropriation,
especially since more than two dozen Iranian American and human rights
groups appealed to Congress to eliminate the program given that the
program had backfired, undermining democracy efforts in Iran and leading
to wider repression of activists. It therefore begs the question why
the United States would deliberately waste tax payers’ money while
causing hardship on aspiring democrats in Iran?
Perhaps the
answer lies in the lead up to the Iraq invasion.
Post 9/11,
Mr. Bush’s core agenda was Iraq, but for this he needed the American
people on board. Their reluctance to go to war had to be overcome. To
this end, it was necessary to promote a policy that was altruistic.
The American public were made to believe that war was necessary to defeat
evil.
The Iraq
agenda was so important to the Bush administration that the White House
had even formed “an interagency” ‘Iraq Public Diplomacy
group’ comprised of NSC, CIA, Pentagon, State and USAID staffers.”
The Iraq Public Diplomacy Group created the ‘Iraqi Voices for
Freedom’ - voices which spoke of Saddam’s brutality and
torture, while they made themselves available for interviews, especially
to foreign press (non-American). In addition to this, a public relations
firm, the Rendon Group, helped create the Iraqi National Congress (INC)
in order to promote ‘the democratic voice of Iraq’. This
firm helped President Bush sell the war to the public by linking Iraq
to al-Qaeda and presenting Saddam Hossein as an imminent threat. They
repeatedly linked Saddam and the shocking pictures of the Twin Towers
with Saddam Hossein, where there was no link,; but this was accomplished
by sheer repetition. False allegations of his capability to launch WMD
in 45 minutes was imbedded in the minds of the masses by showing video
clips of 1988 chemical attack on the Kurds of Halabja in an attempt
to convince people that an attack against Saddam was to defeat evil.
What is more
telling is that concurrent with the INC, a Committee for the Liberation
of Iraq (CLI) was formed by a group which called itself ‘distinguished
Americans who wanted to free Iraq from Saddam Hossein’s rule’.
The distinguished members of CLI had close links to the Project for
the New American Century and the American Enterprise Institute, a think
tank that shaped the Bush foreign policy (CLI members were involved
with Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG) prior to Operation
Desert Storm . Let us be reminded that the idea of “babies thrown
from incubators" story of Gulf War I, was the creation of a P.R.
firm; Hill & Knowlton – which was of course false).
The CLI does
indeed have many distinguished members; Richard Perle, Bernard Lewis,
William Kristol, Randy Scheunemann, Newt Gringrich, John MacCain, James
Woolsey, and the list goes on, but not to be left out, former secretary
of state, George P. Schultz. Prior to the Iraq invasion, Shultz was
Bechtel's senior counsel and director . Fiercely pro-war group with
close ties to the White House, he made it clear that the ouster of Saddam's
regime was not enough, and that it was necessary 'to work beyond the
liberation of Iraq to the reconstruction of its economy." Shultz
not only used his political influence to help bring this war about,
“but key Bechtel board members with advisory positions to the
Bush Administration, helped ensure that Bechtel would receive one of
the most lucrative contracts for rebuilding what they had helped to
destroy”
It was not
the first time that Bechtel had been given a lucrative contract in Iraq.
According to the Haaretz, Hanan Bar-On, the former deputy director-general
of the Foreign Ministry, confirmed that during the mid 1980s, Israel
was involved in talks on a plan for an Iraq-Jordanian pipeline to the
Red Sea port of Aqaba. Among the participants in these talks was Donald
Rumsfeld, then an adviser to U.S. president Reagan ( and at the time
of the Iraq invasion two, secretary of defense). The American corporation
Bechtel was slated to build the pipeline . These talks were taking place
as Saddam Hossein was dropping chemicals on his own people and his neighbors,
the Iranians. In 1985, the deal was called off as Hossein had concerns
about the safety of the pipeline going through Israel.
The question
to ask is why did Congress approve the Iran Democracy Bill when it means
more crack down on the pro-democracy movement?
The devious
NIE report is intended to link Iran with a WMD program. The message
is to make the masses believe Iran has deviated from the civilian program
and that it is a threat to world peace. With the funding, the U.S. government
is deliberately sending the Iranian government into a fit of paranoia
believing that it has every intention of undermining it – which
of course it does. The natural reaction of the Iranian government is
to ensure it foils the American plans – as such, it curbs liberties
at home even more. America successfully aborts the aspirations of democrats
– once again.
As Brian
Eno argues, American P.R. companies who have already "preconditioned
the emotional landscape," will indulge in "large-scale manipulation
of language," and help to "create an atmosphere of simmering
panic where American imperialism would come to seem not only acceptable
but right, obvious, inevitable and even somehow kind" Mr. Bush’s
plan, along with those who have managed to hold U.S. foreign policy
and the interest of United States hostage, to attack Iran.
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