WHEN IRAN WAS JUST A SONG...

...by A Flock Of Seagulls, everything was great. But now we're doing reconnaissance for a coming invasion? All because Bush thinks that since he wasn't thrown out on his ass, his policies must be right and he doesn't have to be held accountable for anything he does?

What in the hell has human history come to? All this hullabaloo about "democratizing" the Middle East or, in the case of Iran, keeping them out of the "nuclear club." Everyone (and by everyone, I mean mainstream pundits) insists that Iran must never be allowed to get nuclear weapons. And they say that because they want us to believe that Iranians are crazy, bloodthirsty, demonic people who hate our freedom and that Iran will pass out nuclear weapons to "terrorists" like Tic Tacs.

But that's the exact opposite of the reason that we don't want them to have nuclear weapons. We don't want them to have nuclear weapons so that we can push them around and make them give us oil at a reasonable price or whatever else we want. And Israel wants us to help keep them at bay, which would be very difficult to do if they have the bomb.

The Bomb

Which country is the only one ever to have actually used a nuclear bomb against another country? The fucking United States, of course! That's why other countries are so frightened of and intimidated by us (one of the many reasons, anyway). And that's after the firebombing of Tokyo and 67 other Japanese cities (every time I watch The Fog Of War, I get more out of it). We are mean motherfuckers who'll cut your throat, tear out your heart, set your body on fire, cut off your limbs, disembowel you, and cut off your dick and stuff it in your mouth just to show you how badass we are.

So what I'm saying is, the Iranians, the "insurgents," and every other country are telling their people how crazy we are, how bloodthirsty we are, how greedy we are, how Satanic we are. And they're not wrong. They've got plenty of evidence in their favor--Iran 1953, Chile 9/11/73,
and so forth and so on.

They've got just as much dirt on us (if not more) as we do on them. None of us are righteous. And hell, now that I think about it, we're using nuclear weapons right now in Iraq and Afghanistan. Chris Matthews and Larry King and Sean Hannity don't talk about it much if at all, but it's happening. They don't blow up whole cities in one blast, but they are weapons made out of what is basically nuclear waste, and we're blowing them up and scattering pieces of these things all over Iraq.

What We Should Do

What we should do is leave the Middle East the hell alone. Let them be. And I don't mean just not invade or not bomb them, I mean don't disturb them. Treat them as neighbors and friends, not as commodities or "markets" or anything like that. Fuckin' help 'em out. Give 'em money. Send them good things, like food and medicine and advanced technology. Because then they'll go "Man, we don't wanna mess with the U.S., man, they're cool. They gave us these cool computers and now we aren't all so hungry and sick anymore because of the food and medicine. Man, let's just leave them alone, man. Allah be praised!"

But Bush and company want Armageddon, they want the end times, they want to provoke World War IV or V or whatever number the neocons think we're up to now. And we, you and I, have to stop them. I don't know how, I'll be honest with you. But we have to stop this craziness--maybe if we deprogrammed Bush like the guy in "A Clockwork Orange" got deprogrammed. He'd have to watch "Fog of War" and Fahrenheit 9/11" on a loop with his eyelids forcibly held open until his homicidal tendenices melted away. That wouldn't be torture, after all, according to Alberto Gonzales and company...

End The War

But I'm serious. What can we do to end this war and prevent the next one they have planned. I can't remember the story exactly, but supposedly FDR was once approached by a citizen or a citizen's group or something. They told him what they wanted him to do about their issue and he was sympathetic, but felt that the time wasn't right for some reason. So he told them that if they wanted him to do something about it, they would have to make him, by creating the political conditions under which he could address their grievance.

And that's what we've gotta do. Living here in the Deep South it doesn't seem like there's that much that I can do. But I think there are a few things...having a blog and writing letters to the editor is a start. Like Jello Biafra says, "Become the media." That's a starting point at least...

Just remember, Sept. 11 didn't change a goddamn thing, and don't let anyone tell you differently. The rules of logic and diplomacy and rationality still apply. Just because 3,000 people were killed in one day doesn't give us the right to go and kill 100,000 civilians and rattle the saber at everyone else...In this "post-September 11th world" the "equation" hasn't changed, it's exactly the same: (diplomacy + aid) empathy = peace.