Circle Of Clowns Playing With Fire:

    The GOP's Warmongering on Iran

By Bill Fletcher, Jr
NNPA Columnist
March 14, 2012

http://www.seattlemedium.com/news/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=112861&sID=34&ItemSource=L

It is difficult to watch the spectacle of the
Republican primaries and not agree with whoever it was
that originated the description of those candidacies as
nothing more or less than a `circle of clowns.' At each
moment one or the other candidate seems to go deeper
into the swamp, whether through denigrating science,
attacking women or attempting to ridicule President
Obama for supporting college education.

With this evolution of the campaign it feels as if we
are going deeper and deeper into a new dark age with
mysticism, fear, militarism, racism and misogynism as
the defining characteristics.

What never ceases to amaze me is the manner in which
these politicians have, with the exception of the
right-wing libertarian Ron Paul, jumped up and down on
the band-wagon in favor of war with Iran. In concert
with an element of the Israeli political establishment
and their supporters in the USA, they have been beating
the drum for military strikes against Iran as a means
of stopping the alleged efforts of Iran to achieve a
nuclear weapon.

Never mind that no one has been able to establish that
the Iranians are doing anything more than they
propose?to develop nuclear power for peaceful
purposes?and never mind the fact that Israel possesses
nuclear weapons, is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty, and assisted apartheid South
Africa in constructing weapons of mass destruction.
Never mind the fact that retired and current US
military officials (and actually substantial numbers of
Israeli military officials) oppose any discussion of
military strikes on Iran, seeing such strikes as
nothing short of foolhardy.

The circle of clowns ask us to ignore this and to
proceed forward with a disastrous war with Iran. This,
all based on the crazy rhetoric of the Iranian regime
and the possibility of what they might be able to do.

Think about it this way. Let?s say that you had a
neighbor who did not like you. You go and buy a gun
because you are a hunter. Your neighbor concludes that
you bought the gun to get them, so they come into your
house and kill you. Besides you being in a grave, where
do you think that this would end? How many
courts?unless race were involved?would ever go for an
argument that it was fine to attack you because the
neighbor thought that you might attack. Yet this is the
same logic that the circle of clowns are operating on
and this must be repudiated.

While it appears that President Obama is not interested
in, at least for now, a war with Iran, he has fallen
over himself to demonstrate his loyalty and support to
Israel. This is unsettling; US foreign policy should
not be based upon supporting Israel on everything that
they do. For that reason, if the voices of the people
of the USA are not heard loud and clear, the banter
from the circle of clowns may prevail and we could be
looking at events that will spiral out of control.

_________________

Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a Senior Scholar with the
Institute for Policy Studies, immediate past president
of TransAfrica Forum, and the co-author of Solidarity
Divided.

___________________________________________

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