Trump, the US Congress and the Labor Hierarchy Supports this War on Iran. The American People Don't

Source: Al Jazeera

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired
HEO/GED

 

The US rogue regime and its settler colony in the Middle East continues to carpet bomb Iran after assassinating the country’s political leadership with a direct missile attack. Such precision is made possible through the cooperation of the US tech industry moguls. The technology that could save human lives and advance human civilization is used to murder millions at unprecedented levels as it sets the world on fire. 

 

There are over 1000 Iranians killed, mostly civilians, among them over 150 children after the US bombed a school. In order to maximize damage and the human toll, that was a “double tap” hit. The first missile is followed by a second aimed at rescuers or the survivors.  “There is a continuous, sustained campaign across the country that is not sparing any region, city or area,” Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall reports from Tehran, adding,  “…. we know 300 children and adolescents have been hospitalised … with more than 6,000 [people] wounded,”.

 

The UN reports that between February 28 and March 1, an estimated 100,000 people fled Tehran due to the conflict. The longer this goes on, many Iranians will flee to neighboring countries whose services are already strained by refugees from the US invasion of Iraq and the Syrian and Lebanon crises, two countries that Israel is bombing as I write.

 

Refugees will likely head northward in to Europe where they will face anti-immigrant and racist assaults from right wing forces, like Britain’s Farage and the Reform party. The cause of immigrants flowing in to Europe from the Middle East (West Asia) is due to US and Israeli aggression in the region. I have no sympathy with those Europeans whining about immigration when the point of departure is not asking themselves why so many refugees arrive at their shores when the reason is obvious. 

 

The US has bombed their homes, they have none to return to. And the US is supported in this imperialist aggression by the UK, France and Germany in particular. Both Canada and Australia (other settler states) back the US Congress in these wars.

 

The Gulf states, also creations of western colonialism, particularly of the British kind, are led by semi-feudal families that are also armed to the teeth by the US in order to defend themselves primarily from an explosion from below. It is the revolutionary potential of the Arab masses these corrupt regimes fear most not Israel. They haven’t forgotten how quickly US dictators fell during the Arab Spring in 2011. Ben Ali in Tunisia was one of the first and even Hillary Clinton’s “family friend” Hosni Mubarak was forced out. Obama stuck with him as long as he could but he became too much of a liability in the end as the movement from below grew.

 

Only two countries in the world supported this illegal war against Iran, Israel and its patron the US. And only one in four Americans support it according to a March 1 Reuters/IPSOS poll.  I’ve spoken to a number of people over the past few days who all admitted that the situation is very distressing for them and it’s not only the cost of the war and what that means for us as far as prices go, but a genuine concern for human life. Just as the Mullahs don’t really speak for the Iranian working class, the sexual deviant in the White House and the gangster capitalists in the US Congress don’t speak for us.

 

The overwhelming source of stress I find is that people I spoke to felt completely helpless and unable to do anything about it. This mood exists in the US in general as people’s living standards and material conditions continue to deteriorate. I don’t need to go in to too much detail again here, but the country’s infrastructure is crumbling and the lack of health care, affordable housing and the absence of any real mass transit, particularly in the west and California where I live, means people sometimes have to commute three to four hours a day to get to one of their two or sometimes three jobs. 

 

There is so much anxiety over the insecurity people face day in day out and they are sick of the forever wars the US conducts. These wars would not be supported if Americans died in any significant numbers; of course one death is too many and hell for the family that experiences it. “Thank God for air power “, one person said. Many people try to avoid the news altogether as for the most part we get the usual propaganda of how everyone hates us, how the Iranians were threatening to invade and other such nonsense. Millions are tired of this and don’t believe it. I often say to clerks in stores, or in other interactions with people when the increased cost of living comes up, that we can’t spread peace and democracy around the world and not expect to pay for it. I almost always get a wry smile as no one believes that’s what the US is doing.

 

But where do people turn to for an answer?

 

The Democratic Party is despised and no opposition party at all, particularly when it comes to foreign policy. There are Democrats speaking out but as far as elections go, both parties are despised and in national elections some 100 million simply opt out. Only one in four registered voters voted for Trump. Throughout the world, most governments are pursuing policies that the majority of their populations oppose.

 

Organized labor and its national body the AFL-CIO, has some 14 million members, affiliated to it, a low union density but nevertheless, workers in all the crucial industries (barring tech) are organized. Communication, transportation, the docks, retail and so on. I think the weapons manufacturers are organized as well. But the trade union hierarchy, supporters of the Democratic Party and capitalism in these workers’ organizations, are silent on foreign policy and such issues as the misnamed defense budget.

 

I went to the AFL-CIO’s web page to see what its main page might say about the bombing of Iran and the disastrous effect that has had on the region and the entire world; the dangers are real. We could see the use of a nuclear device especially if the fascist Apartheid regime in Israel feels it is losing ground as they are mad enough to use one . I have included screen shots of what I saw at the AFL-CIO’s website. The moribund clique that sits atop organized labor are also complicit in US imperialism’s wars of aggression against much weaker and former colonial countries. 

Yes, calling Congress will sort it out.

No mention of where our money goes or that it funds mass murder. The trade union bureaucracy is living in another world

I love the women's hockey team and glad they've unionized but really.

It’s staggering really to think that a mass murderer like Netanyahu, wanted by the world’s foremost court, and Donald Trump, a convicted felon, con man and serial rap*st have teamed up to inflict horror on a nation of 98 million people and is supported by the UK, Australian, German and Canadian governments, western European colonial powers basically.

 

I am convinced that here in the US the mood for change is strong like any other nation, the face of America that people around the world sees is not us; is not the people I have lived with and worked alongside for 51 years. The discontent has been fostering a long time. The absence of any real alternative, including the complicity of the AFL-CIO heads (The dogs that never bark I call them) is one of the major reasons for the rise of Trump and the right wing. There are 20 million or more Evangelical Christian who think the crisis in the Middle East is Biblical prophecy and their God will return and whisk them up to heaven. Yes, this is in the most advanced capitalist nation on earth in the 21^st century.

 

It will take a mass movement of millions to make any serious change to US war imperialism’s war mongering and sooner than later is preferable because there are forces that will use nuclear weapons. But I am convinced the working class, not just in the US, but throughout the world will rise to the occasion and fulfil the task that history has set for us. 

 

The alternative is the end of life as we know it as if a nuclear war doesn't push us over the cliff, climate catastrophe will.