If we bombed Iran would there be no more foreclosures?

Damn! Those Iranians have us surrounded

On my daily hike yesterday I came upon three guys about my age, 50's 60's on one of the trails.  One of the guys spoke to me about the big dog and how he looked like a sheep.  He had an accent and that always sparks my interest.  I figured he was from the Middle East/Mediterranean area but wasn't sure other than he didn't look like an Arab.

"Are you from Greece?" I asked.

Right away, I noticed a bit of apprehension and nervousness which gave me a clue as to his origins.

"No, were from Iran." he replied.

Iran is now the great Satan.  Not communism, not Somali warlords, nor Yasser Arafat, no longer Osama Bin Laden but Iran.  This despite Iran not having invaded another country in who knows how long and suffering terrible consequences of the US/Sadaam Hussein  war waged against the nation during the 1980's; a war that cost Iran some quarter a million of its youth.  This war was very important to US capitalism as its ally, Saddam was fairly reliable at that point in suppressing democracy and the trade Unions in Iraq while a weaker Iran was beneficial to US corporate interests in the region.  US capitalism sent the CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt to Iran and orchestrated the coup that overthrew the secular democratic government of Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 that installed the murderous Shah whose oppressive regime eventually led to the rule of the Mullah's.

It was bad enough for Iranians in the US during the Iran hostage crisis of the Carter years, but with US capitalism's propaganda machine on full throttle, it's not hard to see why my hiking friend might be a little cautious.  Just a couple of days ago, "Iran blamed as US toll in June hits 2-year high" read a headline in the San Francisco Chronicle reporting on the three soldiers killed in Iraq on Wednesday.  They were killed by a rocket attack at a US base near the Iranian border which  brings to 15 the number of troops killed this month and 4,466 since the war began in March 2003.

The "mounting US death toll" can "now be directly attributed to the growing sophistication of the weapons that insurgents and Iranian backed militia" are using the report argues. (my added emphasis)

However, covering their asses they continue, "officials caution" that they have "no evidence" that the Iranian president or the Iranian government is ordering these militias to attack US troops. But they "believe" Shiite militias are being trained by Iran's revolutionary guard.

No worries, when they need evidence it will appear. If Iran isn't training them, which it could be, after all, it is in their neighborhood, the US propaganda machine will create it.

Firstly, I ask my fellow American workers to consider this: given the history of British and US meddling in the affairs of this region, from the massacring of Iraqi's fighting British occupation in the 20's (strafing them by air was quite popular) to the US occupation in the present as well as the theft of oil from the region by US multinationals and the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Iran, might the presence of US military installations on Iran's border with occupied Iraq not be a reason for concern for Tehran?  Is it a "friendly" gesture for another imperialist country to surround a former colonial one with its massive military might?  I don't think the presence of Iranian bases on the southern banks of the Rio Grande would go down too well over here.

This report in the US mass media might have some credibility among its US readers who sadly have had the history of their government's role in this region, particularly in Iran, denied them by the most censored mass media in the advanced capitalist economies, but to the vast majority of the world's workers it is seen for what it is, pure propaganda. 

Here is that statement by Barack Obama again that I put on yesterday:

“We’re a nation that brings our enemies to justice while adhering to the rule of law, and respecting the rights of all our citizens.  We protect our own freedom and prosperity by extending it to others.  We stand not for empire, but for self-determination... and when our union is strong no hill is too steep, no horizon is beyond our reach... we are bound together by the creed that is written into our founding documents, and a conviction that the United States of America is a country that can achieve whatever it sets out to accomplish.”  Barack Obama

No one with a shred of objective decency believes this.  It reminds me of John Bolton talking about how the US is not an "imperial" nation in his defense of the US occupation of Iraq on BBC TV.  How the US is there to help.  The workers of the world hear from a small section of US society, the mouthpieces of the few thousand unelected people that control the society and its public face or voice. The costs of their actions have terrible consequences domestically. There is the loss of more than 4000, mostly young American workers.  The elimination of social services, jobs and the important things in life in order to pay for imperialist wars. For the direct victims of these wars, the devastation of their countries and a catastrophic loss of life ensues as they are deprived of self determination and control over their own natural wealth and societies.

The voice of John Bolton and Barack Obama is not voice of the vast majority of Americans I believe. We have no vehicle through which to express ourselves to the world.  We have to change that.