Severe damage to Gandhi Hospital in Tehran after U.S. and Israeli airstrikes. (Creative Commons photo, Tasnim news agency. Source.)
[I try to avoid "politics" here --- you can get plenty of that everywhere else --- but given the longtime antiwar stance of both Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, it seems false to simply ignore what's going on with the U.S. and Israel's attack on Iran and the ensuing war.
I am often not on the same page as Tom Woods, the conservative-leaning libertarian, but he's always been good on antiwar issues, his latest email is worth quoting at length. So here is an excerpt. -- The Management.]
This sh** is out of control.
The Wall Street Journal just released an op-ed called "An Urgent Need to Contain Turkey." Subtitle: "If the Iranian Regime Falls, Beware Ankara's Regional Influence."
It's echoing a former Israeli prime minister, who let us know a few days ago that Turkey "is the new Iran."
Turkey, a NATO member, is now the new Iran.
I am not looking forward to when you and I have to endure, in 2029: "Sure, everybody knows the Iran war was a fiasco, but there was no way we could have known that even though everyone tried to explain it to us. But it's urgent that we go after Turkey. That will be completely different. Not on board? You're an America hater!"
I wrote on my other list today that my Twitter feed has become almost intolerable, overrun by talking-point so-called arguments in favor of this Iran operation.
It's all one-liners that very suggestible people heard on TV:
(1) "They've been at war with us for 47 years" (in response to this one, Glenn Greenwald correctly comes back with: we've been in a war with Iran for 47 years but no prior American presidents remembered to wage that war against Iran or even mention to the American public that we've been in a decades-long war with Iran until about six days ago when Israel wanted to attack them?);
(2) Iran would have had a nuclear bomb two weeks from now if we hadn't acted (I don't hear this one so much because nobody really believes it);
(3) although we've been at war for 47 years, this is not actually a war and we shouldn't call it that because Speaker Mike Johnson told us not to, even though if anyone did these things to the United States we would of course describe them as acts of war, and even though up until the Iran intervention we all agreed that Speaker Mike Johnson was a lying weasel.
Ronald Reagan did the right thing in 1983 when the US Marine barracks was bombed and he got out of there, though of course Lindsey Graham and assorted other lunatics are implying that Reagan -- Reagan! -- was a wimp because he didn't respond with a rampage throughout the region.
You will have to forgive my impertinence -- I have a habit of asking questions that send a hush through cocktail parties -- but why the hell was there a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut to begin with?
"USA! USA!" does not count as an answer.
None of this benefits the average American. That's not to say absolutely nobody benefits, but you and I are not among the beneficiaries, I regret to inform you, dear reader.
[More here, with a link to subscribe to the newsletter. You can view the official website. Here is antiwar.com. Reason Magazine is good on this issue, here is an example from Nick Gillespie.]
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