Opposing war on Iran

Duncan "Atrios" Black comments about the fake story last week on how the Iranian Parliament had voted in a Nazi-type law requiring non-Muslims to wear special identifying clothing: What's Next? 05/22/06

One demonstrably false scary Iran story gets shot down rather quickly, though it of course will remain in circulation in wingnuttia and elsewhere forever. More stories will come which won't be as easy to shoot down. And the problem is, of course, that Iran doesn't have an especially pleasant government so people like me find ourselves in the unfortunate position of appearing to defend people who aren't necessarily great examples of humanity when all we're doing is trying to figure out what the truth is.

The brought to mind a couple of things for me. One is that those of us who are critical of the current buildup for war on Iran are never going to be able to refute the prowar claims point for point. Nor should we. At some point, arguing over this or that detail creates the illusion that they are serious enough to be treated as real reasons for war.

And, in any case, there is no moderate or liberal equivalent of the Republican "Mighty Wurlitzer" Noise Machine: AEI and the rest of the rightwing think-tanks; FOX News and its kissing cousins in the mainstream press; the exile groups being funded by the Pentagon and who-knows-who else to gin up "black ops" stories like the one last week; Rush and Michael Savage and the rest of Republican hate radio. As well as fundamentalist Christian radio, where the command against bearing "false witness" takes a lower priority than, "Thou shalt cheer for all wars that Republican Presidents tell you to cheer for".

Secondly, those of us who are opposed to starting unjust and unnecessary wars, which an attack on Iran under current conditions would surely be, are not defending the Iranian regime by doing so. We're opposing unjust and unnecessary war and killing. And defending the United Nations Charter, international law and American law that all forbid preventive war. Of course, the loonies who have convinced themselves that American liberals admire Islamic theocracy will keep on saying things like that until something else happens to change their warped view of reality. But what's new about that?

| +Save/Share | |