Opposing "Both Sides" In This War Is Crazy Imperialist Nonsense, And Other Notes
People tell me, “It’s possible to oppose this war AND oppose the Iranian regime. You can denounce BOTH.”
Sure you can. But you shouldn’t.
You should not do this. You should not be a pro bono Pentagon propagandist in the middle of a US war of immense consequence. You should not do the hasbarists’ job for them. Make them do their own job themselves.
This war already has a huge number of propagandists screaming “REGIME BAD” at the top of their lungs in order to ensure that the slaughter continues. You don’t need to add your voice to the chorus, and you shouldn’t. You should not help them manufacture consent for more human butchery. You should be using your voice solely and exclusively to end the butchery your government and its allies are inflicting on human beings.
All your “REGIME BAD” sloganeering accomplished was paving the way to the carnage you see before you today. Your self-righteous denunciations of the Iranian government failed to expand the rights of a single Iranian woman or LGBTQ individual. All you accomplished was helping to grease the wheels for a war of unfathomable horror, ensuring that all Iranians now live under more fear and misery than ever before.
If you live under the western empire, you have an ethical obligation to use your voice responsibly in that context. You don’t get to just irresponsibly feed into an active war propaganda campaign by regurgitating the same regime change narratives about an empire-targeted country as the US and Israeli governments, and then pretend this doesn’t make you culpable for the consequences of your actions. If your words help grease the wheels of the war machine, then you bear partial moral responsibility for what the war machine does with your assistance.
You don’t get to just pretend that responsibility doesn’t exist. The families who are being torn apart with the help of your pro bono war propaganda efforts do not care about your anarchist or Trotskyist “all tyranny is equally bad” political philosophy or how good your virtuous purity posturing makes you feel about yourself. All they experience is the consequences of your actions.
As a westerner, your one and only duty is to oppose the depravity of the western empire. That’s your only job. Don’t lean out the window of the Empire of Perpetual Bloodlust to wag your finger at empire-targeted countries in the global south. It’s obnoxious.
Curb the murderousness of your own government and its allies. THAT’S your job. If you get your job done, THEN come talk to me about how bad and wrong some random government in west Asia looks to you. Until then, shut the fuck up and do your job.
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Everyone’s always telling me to mind my own business and write about Australia instead of the war in Iran. Meanwhile Australia has added to its already extensive involvement in this war by sending war machinery to help defend against Iranian missile strikes in the United Arab Emirates.
So Australia isn’t just joining another American war, we’re also defending the fucking UAE — one of the most evil countries on earth. All that carnage you’ve been seeing in Sudan? That was backed by the UAE. Those emaciated kids you were seeing in Yemen a few years ago? Starved by the UAE in collaboration with Saudi Arabia, with the backing of the US and its allies. It was bad enough when we were selling these freaks mountains of weapons, now we’re actively defending them from the consequences of their ally’s unprovoked attack on Iran.
Our alliance with Washington poisons the soul of this entire continent.
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The 2015 Iran nuclear deal was working fine; anyone who says otherwise is a lying warmonger. Trump and his handlers torched the JCPOA in 2018 because it was the primary obstacle preventing them from getting to the war that is currently happening.
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Iran is reportedly preparing to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz to block shipping, which will surprise nobody who knows anything about why the US empire held off on waging this war in the first place.
Sean McCarthy writes on Twitter, “For literally 45 years US planners have discussed this exact scenario and always decided against war with Iran for this reason. It took an incredible combination of blackmail, graft, lobby money and end time prophecy lunatics for Israel to make the US commit imperial suicide.”
This is what’s so crazy about all this: every reason it was a bad idea to go to war with Iran in the past is still a very valid reason why it’s a bad idea to go to war with Iran.
It didn’t surprise anyone when Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz; they always knew that would happen if this war started.
It didn’t surprise anyone when Iran started destroying US military assets in surrounding Arab states; they always knew that would happen if this war started.
It didn’t surprise anyone that Iran would dig in and rely on its powerful military and invasion-proof terrain to repel a US-Israeli offensive; they always knew that would happen if this war started.
None of this is catching anyone who knew anything off-guard. It’s playing out exactly how leaders, military officials and analysts on both sides have always said it would.
Nothing changed about the reasons not to attack Iran. All that’s changed is Washington’s willingness to try putting a very bad idea into practice.
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I think "F*ck America" or "F*ck this stupid country" as one of my first thoughts upon awakening each morning, and I'm American. That you would express simiar sentiments during sex doesn't surprise me at all.
I admire your clear mindedness. Thank you. It’s crazy how people are saying Iran started all this. Or they say well they killed x thousand of their own people. Still doesn’t give the US the right to attack them though. The US kills its own people every day. Does it give the rest of the world the right to attack the US? I wish we had the guts though. We have more legitimate reasons, considering what the US has done in the name of “democracy”.