Your flag decal won't get you into Heaven anymore
They're already overcrowded from your dirty little war
Now Jesus don't like killin', no matter what the reason's for
And your flag decal won't get you into Heaven anymore
– John Prine
The new year finds our military area and families facing new dangers after the recent assassination of Iran's Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, a leading political figure close to the Iranian leadership. Some will opine that Trump did us a favor in eliminating a dangerous enemy and “terrorist.” The record does not corroborate this. A brief look at the history of our relations with Iran tells a very different story.
It was our country that decided to forcefully remove Iran's elected president in 1956 and to install one of the world's most brutal dictatorships in its place. That was the “Shah” whose bloody, torturous grip on Iran lasted over 20 years. It wasn't Iran that applied a punishing economic stranglehold on our country because it was displeased with our leadership choices or energy policies – again, the other way around. It wasn't Iran that instigated and supplied an invasion against us including chemical weapons attacks. Yep, again that was our government supplying Iraq with the deadly weapons and pushing them to attack Iran. So next time you hear about Persians calling us the “great Satan” and being our enemy, consider the real history, as well as the source.
Our use of a previous Iraqi regime to attack Iran with chemical weapons is something Iranians have not forgotten, They have a Museum of Peace dedicated to remembering this and many Iranians still bear the scars and injuries of that war. They have good reason to be involved in Iraq to prevent a recurrence and to protect their own national security. They have also been active in fighting and defeating ISIL terrorism.
The reality is that General Suleimani's stop in Iraq on his way home from Lebanon to pressure the Iraqi congress to demand removal of US troops was known in advance. Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi stated that he was due to meet the General Suleimani for talks that had been agreed to at Trump’s request. Trump's arrogant, criminal blunder has achieved Suleimani's agenda and further isolated the U.S. in the region and world.
Though it would have been shocking to past presidents as it should shock us today, the power to assassinate people around the world is not new to the Presidency. The power of the Executive has expanded enormously since the 1980's often working in league with the CIA. There have been many US interventions over the past half century which have attempted and succeeded in removing leaders our country deemed unfavorable through highly dubious legal or ethical means, from electoral meddling and punishing economic sanctions to orchestrated coups and invasions.
Ronald Reagan launched bombing raids in 1986 targeting Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Obama finished the job leaving Libya a chaotic, war torn disaster. We have seen the removal and imprisonment of Panama's president Noriega for refusing to join our “contra” efforts to destabilize and reconquer Nicaragua. The military coup in Honduras, overseen by Obama, continues to include the killing of dissidents and the creation of refugees. The recent ascension of extreme-right leadership in Chile, Brazil and Peru (with our assistance) and the bloody coup in Bolivia are continuations of this pattern of meddling and regime change around the world – often with terrible consequences such as the burning of the Amazon Rainforest. Obama incorporated and ensconced the presidential power to kill with a regular weekly “kill list' and drone assassinations. He even targeted US citizens overseas. Many, if not most drone killings included innocent families and children.
Trump is continuing a policy of assassination set in place by previous administrations but he differs in carrying out an agenda devised, not by the CIA but by the Saudis, Israel and the UAE. Trump has been moving troops and weapons to the region in large number over the last few months and just sent another 3,000 military personnel to Kuwait. Though Trump has apparently been reeled in by his advisors and has backed off from an all out attack on Iran, the danger remains. Trump's march to war has been assisted by Congress (including a majority of Democrats) who recently handed an additional record $700 billion to the Pentagon. I remain disappointed that my representative, Bobby Scott, voted for this. The assassination of a high-level political operative is a way of pushing us into a disastrous new war in the mid-east in which there are no “good guys” and from which there can be no winners. The predictable media cheer-leading for war has already begun with the neocons of the last illegal and disastrous war based on lies being cited as “experts.” Most of them have deep ties to military industries that stand to profit by this even at the expense of thousands of lives including our loved ones in the military. This again makes our military-centric area a target.
I'm glad that Senators Kaine and Sanders have submitted bills demanding Congressional oversight and a stop to this disastrous and ill-thought aggression. We the People must also speak out against another devastating criminal war. The planet cannot afford another war and we who bear the costs have better priorities like addressing the expanding climate catastrophe, adapting our infrastructure to inevitable changes, funding access to healthcare and education. The push for war remains a welfare program to underwrite the weapons and military industry at an expense beyond rational comprehension or moral justification. The truth is that preventing climate change from inflicting cataclysmic damage to our ecosystem, threatening much of life on earth and civilization as we know it, cannot be accomplished unless we also demilitarize our foreign policy, end interventionist wars and break the grip that both the fossil fuel industry and the military-industrial complex have on our federal budget, foreign policy, economy and government.
I recently attended the founding meeting of a local “Coalition for Peace and Planet” which recognizes the inseparability of war and climate destruction. Their Principles of Unity state: The Hampton Roads Coalition for Peace and Planet is an alliance of peace and environmental groups in the Hampton Roads region whose mission is to educate, organize and mobilize our supporters in nonviolent opposition to war and environmental destruction.“ This is a non-partisan group whose alliance members so far include the Tidewater Democratic Socialists of America, the Norfolk Catholic Worker, the Green Party of Hampton Roads and non-affiliated citizens. We hope you join in this important effort. The Coalition for Peace and Planet can be found on facebook.
A lesson president Trump makes obvious is the need to roll back the power of the presidency, to return the power to declare war to Congress, and to re-establish a balance of power between the constitutional branches of our government. Before we begin massive bombings of cities, oilfields and nuclear reactors, can we get an ecological impact statement? We must support the cooler heads and consider actual impacts of our actions on the region and world. One has to ask -- especially of the media -- if anything at all been learned from the last 20 years, or for that matter, the last 60?
We all have a stake in this not only for the safety of our loved ones who may be sent to kill and be killed unjustifiably but as a city and region. As a major military center, we are ground zero. We bear the danger of presidential war-mongering. We need to be heard and to stop this tragedy before the already volatile middle-east explodes on all of us. Writing letters to the paper and to your congressional representatives can help, as can pubic protests and unified citizen demands for peace and ecological sanity.
