Ernie Said It
by Charley Reese
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese400.htm
Ernie Hemingway explained the problem many years ago. The first
thing politicians do to hide their mismanagement, he said, is inflate the
currency; the second thing they do is go to war.
Our currency has been inflated and we are at war. The demonization
of the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which you saw take place in New
York City and on American television, is just the first step in preparing the
country for a third war.
The president of Columbia, Lee Bollinger, disgraced himself.
Instead of introducing his invited guest speaker, he launched a tirade of abuse
and insults. Obviously, he was in hot water with some of Columbia's big donors
for inviting Ahmadinejad and chose that petty, shabby way of trying to
ingratiate himself to the school's angry sugar daddies. All Bollinger succeeded
in doing was making Ahmadinejad look good in comparison with him.
Whether you agree with Iran's president or not, he's the wrong guy
to try to demonize. First of all, he is not a dictator. He is an elected
president with very little power. He has to get past the legislature, and the
real power rests with the senior cleric, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei
controls foreign policy and is commander in chief of all of Iran's armed
forces. The legislature rejected nearly all of Ahmadinejad's recommendations
for ministers. When he tried to allow women to attend soccer games, the clerics
overruled him.
The claims that Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust and has called for
the destruction of Israel are false. He has called for regime change, which is
something American politicians do every time they find a country whose policies
they disagree with. Regime change is a change of government, not genocide. As
for the Holocaust, he said it raised two questions: Why put people in prison
who question details of the official version, which is what several European
countries do? Why should the Palestinians be made to pay for it? Both are good
questions.
How American politicians can call Iran a dangerous country and
claim that it poses a threat to the U.S. is a mystery. On second thought, it is
not a mystery. It just tells you that the politicians think you and I are so
stupid that we will fall for the exact same parade of lies and exaggerations
that was used to justify the war against Iraq.
Think for yourself. Iran has no nuclear weapons, and its military
is designed for defense. It has no offensive capability - no air force, no navy
to speak of. Israel, on the other hand, is usually ranked as the fifth most
powerful military state on the planet. It has more than 200 nuclear weapons and
a superb air force.
Iran has said it has no desire to attack Israel or any other
country. It has said its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and that it
has no desire for a nuclear weapon. The head cleric has issued a fatwa against
nuclear weapons. And there is not one shred of evidence that Iran is pursuing a
nuclear weapon.
Just remember the lies told to you before Iraq: that Saddam Hussein
was pursuing a nuclear weapon; that he had enormous stockpiles of chemical and
biological weapons. The only thing he really had was oil. That's why we went to
war, and that's why the administration wants to go to war with Iran.
I've heard some politicians say that Ahmadinejad has "blood on his
hands." Well, our $40 billion worth of intelligence cannot even determine if he
was involved in the taking of the American embassy back in 1979. As for blood,
American politicians have far more Iranian blood on their hands. We overthrew
Iran's democratic government and installed the Shah and his secret police. We
sided with and assisted Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran. Tens of thousands
of Iranians are dead because of America's foreign policy.
We truly have a corrupt and incompetent government in Washington.
Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.
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