Some Talk about Iran...

The warmongering George W. Bush spent last week touring around the Middle East, pounding his chest, desperately trying to drum up support to invade yet another country. I guess some people just are incapable of learning. Since Bush labelled Iran as part of the 'axis of evil' in 2002, he has been trying to spook the American people and those around the world into believing that Iran is not only a threat to global security but will instigate WWIII. Now desperate in his last year of office (366 days - but who's counting) and running out of time, he is ratcheting up the attack lingo, enforcing sanctions and once again fabricating stories, as with the speedboat incident in the Strait of Hormuz, just like he did with Iraq. If this could not potentially cause another humanitarian disaster (in exchange for oil), his behavior would almost be comical. The thing is, the Iranian government is no savior, but their threat, I seriously doubt is to the American people.

A couple days ago, I went to see the animated film "Persepolis," a movie which in black and white two dimensional imagery poetically recounts the story of the coming of age of young girl, Marjane Satrapi in volatile and oppressive pre- and post-revolutionary Iran. Having studied some Iranian history in the past and chatted with some Iranians who have left Iran like Marjane does, I was reminded by this movie that the Iranian government is perhaps a much bigger danger to their own people than the world at large. For decades the West has been manipulating Iranian rulers and government for control of
Iran's oil supplies at a high cost to its people; then there was ten years of an incredibly brutal war with Iraq that left a one million people dead; thousands of activists and intellectuals have been mercilessly tortured and executed; the Iranian people continue to endure a complete lack of basic political and personal freedoms, extreme censorship and the subjugation of women....

How will the U.S. bombing of these people make the world safer?

I read a statistic in Monocle the other day that shocked me - "America's military spending is only just matched by that of the rest of the world combined." That fact gives me little comfort but it might help explain a few things.