|
while Honduran leaders toady to the U.S. and are serving corporate and Pentagon interests here. Democracy and honest, transparent, fair elections are completely irrelevant to our government, from what I can see. They blatantly pick and choose "friends" and "enemies" with no consideration whatsoever to the state of democracy and civil and human rights within a country.
It's rather disgusting the number of crooked governments that "fix" elections or outright tyrannies that the U.S. supports. Voting by a bullet in your head in Colombia. No voting at all for women in Saudi Arabia. Hinky vote counting in Afghanistan and Mexico. A rightwing military Junta-run 'election' in Honduras. Dirty tactics in Costa Rica to get CAFTA approved. A "free trade for the rich" alliance with China, one of the more undemocratic countries on earth. The U.S. has a long history of this. It often supports the worst governments, giving utterly hypocritical lip service to democracy and human rights.
And countries like Venezuela that have far better election systems than our own--fair, honest, transparent, certified by every international election monitoring group--get vilified as "dictatorships," against the plain facts, and against all reason.
This is how I see Iran. First of all, Iran is the most potentially progressive country in the Middle East, outside of Israel. They have a long a rich cultural heritage, and a long history of dislike of the Arabization of their society. They are not Arabs. The U.S. (also England and Israel) did them a great injury in the mid-1950s, by destroying their new, post-WWII democracy, because their first president--a war hero--wanted to nationalize the oil, in order to benefit the poor (like many South American countries today). He was overthrown by the U.S. & brethren who installed the horrible "Shah of Iran," who inflicted 25 years of torture and oppression on the Iranian people. When the Iranians finally got rid of the "Shah," they adhered to the religious mullahs who had helped them to do so, by granting them a sort of monarchical status, as their security against further U.S. interference. They have created some democratic institutions and procedures, but ultimately the mullahs rule--and this has some bad social consequences including the continued oppression of woman (not nearly as bad as Saudi Arabia, but still a lot of restriction). Meanwhile, Israel acquired nuclear weapons, and, recently, the U.S. cruelly bombed, invaded and has been cruelly occupying their neighbor, Iraq, and also did considerable saber-rattling at Iran during the Bush Junta. They are also adjacent to Pakistan, another nuclear power, whom they have concerns about. Iran is afraid of losing its independence and of being attacked. That is their main motive for wanting to acquire nuclear weapons. I don't think they have any intention whatsoever of attacking Israel or any other country. As to the 'fixing' of their recent election, if they did that (--and I am really not familiar enough with the facts to make a judgment of it), it was probably because the mullahs think they need a strong, aggressive leader to fend off attacks.
Honduras' junta leaders--and the U.S. in its behavior around the junta--have no such excuses. President Zelaya was/is entirely peaceful and so are the leaders of all surrounding and nearby countries, except Colombia-- a festering cauldron of corruption, fed by $6 BILLION in U.S. military aid, and which the Pentagon is about to turn into a sort of 'South Vietnam' for its aggressive plans in the region. U.S. intentions in Honduras have been completely dishonorable, in my view.
I don't mean to excuse election fraud in Iran, if it occurred, nor their more low level support for armed groups that harass Israel (whatever may be true about that--I really don't trust our media and sources of information on anti-Iran items). I don't see any evidence of Iran having territorial ambitions nor a particularly militaristic attitude. They seem to me to be in a defensive mode--trying to protect their independence and right to self-determination. Iran has never attacked anyone (except maybe very indirectly Israel), but they were attacked, viciously, by Iraq (wherein the Bushwhacks of the Reagan era--Rumsfeld, Cheney and others--armed both sides, encouraging them to annihilate each other, probably as part of a long term plan to invade Iraq and then Iran). Iran has a lot of legitimate grievances against the U.S.
Honduras, on the other hand, has a long and bloody history of being a US stepping stone to terrible aggression against their neighbors--Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and other countries--and those very same kinds of people--fascists, murderers, torturers and acolytes of the US military and US corporations--have crushed the democratic aspirations of the Honduran people, and violently exiled the best president they've ever had. All with the complicity of the US government, under Barack Obama (or is it under Robert Gates? --hard to tell). (I'm still not sure whether Obama is helpless or complicit, on Honduras, but I'm tending toward complicit.)
The US reviles Iran for what they say was a stolen election and rough treatment of protestors, yet it is completely silent on what President Zelaya said are at least a hundred murders of anti-coup activists in Honduras, not to mention other forms of brutal repression and this holding of a so-called election under martial law. And it tolerates even more vile repression in Colombia, and touts Colombia as some sort of example of democracy! It is just mind-boggling. And now Hillary Clinton comes out and threatens Brazil and Venezuela for daring to establish their own sovereign relations with Iran, and says they had better beware of the "consequences." What on earth does she mean? What on earth is she doing threatening these countries--channeling Dick Cheney?
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
