Salam Alaikum Brother

Haven't Iran and Iraq already paid enough?

The German Website Speigel.de used this photo, but captioned it "We must stop Iran from developing Nuclear weapons before it's too late", showing the ongoing misunderstanding, that Iran has no interest in nuclear weapons.

(SALEM, Ore.) - Are you familiar with this daily greeting in the Mideast? "Salam alaikum" means peace be with you. Along with the return saying, "Walaikum Assalam" - and also with you, it is spoken millions of times a day in the Arab world.

What do you say when you meet a stranger or friend on the street? I'm sure you will say that the greeting varies somewhere between 'What's up' and 'How's it going' or maybe the all time classic, 'hello', but you probably won't wish that person peace in their life. In the United States most people of the straight or conservative molds would find that weak, and even... liberal.

I find it ironic that the people of a nation supposedly based on freedom and all of the other keywords that make you get that little welt of pride in your throat, would comprise a society that is diametrically opposed to the idea of stating 'peace' in public. What does it say for us?

As we move from the fiasco of the war in Iraq, through the increased tempo of a bloody war in Afghanistan, world political leaders and the media itself, continue to call for a war with Iran^[1].

The shambled philosophy that the United States is somehow fighting a war on terrorism, is part manipulative lie. That is exactly what is also taking place each time the words about Iran's ambitions to have "nuclear weapons" start flying from the mouths of these people who are fairly termed, warmongers. There is hardly a veteran among them, what does that say?

Most of us expected Obama to set more things straight than he has. Instead, he is working from the same angle as so many of his Republican predecessors^[2].

We published a video and report from Anthony Lawson yesterday that shows how Obama, along with Brown and Sarkozy, are delivering words to the world about Iran that are specifically not true^[3]. Obama claims that Iran is in violation of international law, when in fact Iran contacted The International Atomic Energy Agency, which is charged with monitoring nuclear and atomic developments six months prior to when it needed to.

Certain factions in the United States have it in for Iran, but aside from the attack on the U.S.S. Stark, this nation has never raised a hand toward the U.S. off their own soil. Nobody forgets the hostages, nor do they fully comprehend Persia's history.

Those same Americans who call for blood don't seem to know or realize how badly the British and American governments ripped Iran off in the years following WWII, by pilfering the Persian oil^[4].

When Iran's president talked about nationalizing the country's oil in the early 1950's, British and American forces entered Tehran, took out the president for good, and kidnapped the Shah who the U.S. returned to Iran after a few months of reeducation in a CIA facility, to be an American puppet leader for Iran. That lasted until the Islamic Revolution and in 1979, the Shah was out.

It is true that the kidnapping of American hostages in '79 absolutely brewed anti-Iranian sentiments here, but eventually the hostages were returned.

In retaliation, the United States has taken several steps against Iran. One was to blow an Iranian airliner packed with men women and children, to smithereens. It was a direct and blatant case of targeting and murdering civilians in an act of revenge.

The U.S. government came up with several stories before finally confessing to the mistake.

According to a report George C. Wilson, Washington Post Staff Writer in 4 July 1988^[5].

"A U.S. warship fighting gunboats in the Persian Gulf yesterday mistook an Iranian civilian jetliner for an attacking Iranian F14 fighter plane and blew it out of the hazy sky with a heat-seeking missile, the Pentagon announced. Iran said 290 persons were aboard the European-made A300 Airbus and that all had perished.

"'The U.S. government deeply regrets this incident,' Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference.

"The disaster occurred at mid-morning over the Strait of Hormuz, when the airliner, Iran Air Flight 655, on what Iran described as a routine 140-mile flight from its coastal city of Bandar Abbas southwest to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, apparently strayed too close to two U.S. Navy warships that were engaged in a battle with Iranian gunboats.

"The USS Vincennes, a cruiser equipped with the most sophisticated radar and electronic battle gear in the Navy's surface arsenal, tracked the oncoming plane electronically, warned it to keep away, and when it did not, fired two Standard surface-to-air missiles.

"Navy officials said the Vincennes' combat teams believed the airliner to be an Iranian F14 jet fighter. No visual contact was made with the aircraft until it was struck and blew up about six miles from the Vincennes; the plane's wreckage fell in Iranian territorial waters, Navy officials said.

"Iranian vessels and helicopters searched for survivors, but there was no indication last night that anyone survived what apparently is the sixth worst aviation disaster. Iranian television broadcast scenes of bodies floating amid scattered debris.

"It was the first time any U.S. military unit had shot down a civilian airliner. It occurred almost five years after a Soviet fighter pilot shot down an off-course Korean Air Lines Flight 007, killing 269 people."

The United States has supported Israel for over 60 years, and that country today is increasingly being seen as genocidal in its military action toward Palestinian civilians. Many of our writers at Salem-News.com believe it is Israel that is most solidly behind the calls to attack Iran today, based on a series of lies about nuclear weapons that don't exist and never did. In fact Israel is in possession of hundreds of nuclear weapons illegal under International Law^[6].

Western countries have put Iraq and Afghanistan through a meatgrinder, and these political forces who never send their own kids to war, want more. They know we can't handle the needs of our current veterans, we couldn't adequately take care of the Vietnam generation, and two out of three wars we have started since then continue.

After killing hundreds of Iranian citizens in the airliner, the U.S. funded its ally Saddam Hussein to invade Iran, thus launching the Iran/Iraq War and the Iraqi military has its ass handed to it in a basket.

That war lasted from 1980 to 1988, and once again the United States was not on the winning side.

So, in retaliation for the hostages who were taken, and all returned alive, the U.S. is at least partly responsible so far, for:

• Ripping Iran off in oil profits with the UK in post-WWII years
• The forced removal of a democratically elected president in 1953
• Illegally killing 290 non-combatants in the Iranian Airbus airliner
• Half a million Iraqi and Iranian war deaths
• Years of direct lies about Iran having nuclear ambitions

When our writers suggest that Israel is trying to coax the United States and England into a war with Iran, it is done so with great factual basis. Some U.S. politicians are so dedicated to Israel, like Joe Lieberman, that they don't seem to be able to see straight. There are no thoughts for America in any discussion of another unilateral war, particularly if you are talking about Iran.

References:

• ^[1] Oct-21-2008: Distorting Obama's Views on Israel By Stephen Zunes - Special to Salem-News.com
• ^[2] Feb-15-2010 Iran and The International Bureau of Double Standards - Anthony Lawson for Salem-News.com
• ^[3] Dec-30-2009: Israel Rules: Paul Craig Roberts - Special to Salem-News.com
• ^[4] Jun-11-2007: Lieberman's Demands for War in Iran are Cowardly - Op-Ed by: Tim King Salem-News.com
• ^[5] July-4-1988: Navy Missile Downs Iranian Jetliner - By George C. Wilson - Washington Post Staff Writer
• ^[6] May-29-2008: Carter Reveals Israel's Possession of 150 Nuclear Weapons - Tim King Salem-News.com

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

You can write to Tim at this address: tim@salem-news.com.

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With almost 25 years of experience on the west coast and worldwide as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor, Tim King is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine who follows stories of Marines and Marine Veterans; he's covered British Royal Marines and in Iraq, Tim embedded with the same unit he served with in the 1980's.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from traditional mainstream news agencies like The Associated Press and Electronic Media Association; he also holds awards from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs; and was presented with a 'Good Neighbor Award' for his reporting, by the The Red Cross.

Tim King reporting from the war in Iraq

Tim's years as a Human Rights reporter have taken on many dimensions; he has rallied for a long list of cultures and populations and continues to every day, with a strong and direct concentration on the 2009 Genocide of Tamil Hindus and Christians in Sri Lanka. As a result of his long list of reports exposing war crimes against Tamil people, Tim was invited to be the keynote speaker at the FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) Conference in Baltimore, in July 2012. This is the largest annual gathering of North American Tamils; Tim addressed more than 3000 people and was presented with a traditional Sri Lanka ‘blessed garland’ and a shawl as per the tradition and custom of Tamil Nadu

In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.com since the new format designed by Matt Lintz was launched in December, 2005. Serving readers with news from all over the globe, Tim's life is literally encircled by the endless news flow published by Salem-News.com, where more than 100 writers contribute stories from 23+ countries and regions.

Tim specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide; and maintains that the label 'terrorist' is ill placed in many cases; specifically with the LTTE Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, where it was used as an excuse to slaughter people by the tens of thousands; and in Gaza, where a trapped population lives at the mercy of Israel's destructive military war crime grinder. At the center of all of this, Tim pays extremely close attention to the safety and welfare of journalists worldwide.