The United States and Iran
On Jan 3, 2020, at 3:11 PM, Morton K. Brussel <mkb3@icloud.com> wrote:
Equating Iran’s actions in the middle east, where it resides, to those of the U.S. where it is a war making foreign power, is a mealy mouthed response to the American assination. If Iran did likewise we would have immediate murderous mass attacks on Iran. Marianne is like too many others, without the courage to recognise what has been happening for so long now in the Midddle East.—mkbOn Jan 3, 2020, at 1:22 PM, Alice Slater <alicejslater@gmail.com> wrote:Sent from my iPhoneBegin forwarded message:From: Marianne Williamson <contact@marianne2020.com>
Date: January 3, 2020 at 2:02:25 PM EST
To: Alice Slater <alicejslater@gmail.com>
Subject: The United States and Iran
Reply-To: contact@marianne2020.com
Dear Alice, We cannot as responsible citizens look away from what’s happening with Iran right now.
When Saddam Hussein was in power in Iraq, Iraq and Iran spent years at war with each other. In a strange way it was helpful to the United States that Iran had its hands full dealing with Iraq. One of the unfortunate consequences of our deeply irresponsible invasion of Iraq was that it emboldened Iran.
Iran has been a very active player in Middle Eastern politics, and not in ways that are helpful to the United States to be sure. The withdrawal of the U.S. from the Iran Nuclear Deal strengthened the hand of the hardliners there, making their activities in the region more dangerous. Recently the United States led attacks against Iran’s network in Iraq in response to the death of a US contractor at the hands of Iranian-backed militias, which in turn led to an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. In response to that, President Trump ordered the assassination of one of Iran’s highest military commanders, Qassem Soleimani.
The killing of Soleimani is extremely serious, and will almost certainly cause a significant reaction from Iran. It’s not that Soleimani was a good man; he was not. But that’s not what this is about. It’s about the wise versus unwise, responsible versus irresponsible use of military power.
Now the president has called for deploying 3,000 more troops to the Middle East. Make no mistake about it, this is an extremely dangerous moment for our country and for our world.
Every American must realize that war with Iran would be catastrophic. When anybody tells you that we’re going to go over there and handle the bad guys, whoever they are and wherever they are, remind them of Vietnam and remind them of Iraq.The cowboy-like imagery employed by warmongers in both cases is dangerous and insane. War in Vietnam was irresponsible and tragic; war in Iraq was irresponsible and tragic; war with Iran could be irresponsible, tragic, and possibly cataclysmic.
How did we get to this? We certainly can’t blame it on our Founders. According to the Constitution, the president must seek congressional approval before declaring war. Yet after 9/11, Congress passed—and continually authorizes—the National Defense Authorization Act, giving the president broad powers to do whatever he thinks necessary to “fight terrorism.” The NDAA is an absurd abdication of congressional authority, and the sweetest gift possible to the military-industrial-complex.
Today the administration is going into overdrive trying to justify Soleimani’s assassination. One argument is that he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans in Iraq; remember that our invasion was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans in Iraq. They’re also claiming that there were imminent attacks being planned against the United States. That, I do not doubt. So we should thwart any such attacks, of course! But killing Soleimani will only ensure more of them. American military and civilian personnel were already at risk in the region, and now they are only more so. Please hold them in your thoughts and prayers today.
I assume there are reasonable people in the American defense establishment trying hard to reign in the more reckless impulses of our president now. One can only imagine what’s going on behind the scenes. Let’s all of us do whatever we can to take a stand for responsible behavior on the part of our country. Call your Representatives and Senators to say “NO” to war with Iran.
I will be monitoring this situation as closely as possible, and will give you my thoughts as things develops. Please check my social media platforms for regular video updates.
Prayers for peace,
Marianne
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Here in Minnesota, some of us are going to attempt a large multi-banner display over Hwy 94 in St. Paul in a few hours with attached large banners.
I just posted the following on both FB and Linked In:
What General Wesley Clark reported way back after 9-11 of Pentagon plans was that it would only take five years to get US-NATO wars launched on all of the Mideast countries, the last being Iran, when in actuality it has taken 18 1/2 years for the neocon/lib warhawks of BOTH parties to accomplish this.
But by pushing the reality star and his Christian Zionist entourage back into war on Iraq and Iran now, the pro-Israel and Saudi neocons-neolibs are now actually thwarting the Brzezinski-Kissinger type global chessboard hegemony “realpolitik” strategists who long ago called for a pivot to make Russia and China the top enemies of US-NATO.
In any event, the risk of a planet and human race-ending WWIII is at its highest ever. And if anyone survives to chronicle the sordid history, he or she will realize that the planetary destruction was all due to the insane hubris that blinded ordinary people and led to their US-Israel Empire leaders’ notion of obtaining “full spectrum dominance” over the world by launching illegal wars of aggression.There is unrefutably good reason that world leaders made wars of aggression illegal after both WWI and WWII.
"Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best." --Edward Abbey
limitless life 