Barack Obama Pulls a 180 on America and Iran

Iran never did anything to deserve our wrath; they are not a threat. Israel on the other hand is acting like a rogue terrorist state, and Obama is on their team.

Salem-News.com photo cover art by Austin King. The inset photos are all from Iran and have been graciously supplied to me by a series of friends in Iran acquired through MySpace. These are the faces the U.S. politicians so quickly talk about attacking if the United States ever foolishly proceeds to launch unilateral military action on Iran.

(SALEM, Ore.) - Losing faith is an awful thing, but that is what is happening right now in a lot of American households over Barack Obama. It took about the same amount of time for this young challenger from Illinois to secure the Democratic nod as it did for him to start acting like a dangerous, short-sighted man with his regard to Iran and Israel.

I think we're in trouble as a nation. What the media and our politicians have accused Iran and its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of doing with regard to nuclear aspirations is not true. It is tragic.

If Ahmadinejad is such a rotten egg, why was he so motivated to lay flowers down in honor of the people who died on September 11th? Why was Teheran's candlelight observation of that American national tragedy the second largest in the world? That is because the people of Iran are good, they do not wish harm on the United States, but they have every reason to fear the U.S. with their hearts.

I have taken the time to become friends with a large number of people in Iran on MySpace. It is something any American could do if they wanted to have a look at what is going on there through the eyes of the local Iranian people. What I have learned is that they are very westernized, in spite of the reports that cast them as otherwise. There is discrimination toward women ever since the Revolution, but most do not live in fear and one said at least it is, "not as bad as what Saudi women have to deal with." I included this part to simply indicate that my understanding of Iran and its current status is coming from real people.

I also spent two months in Afghanistan covering the war and I have a pretty good idea of what real discrimination toward women looks like in the Islamic world. News reports in the U.S. tend to overblow the severity of the ill treatment of Iran's citizens, while discounting the rotten treatment the U.S. has in store for tens of thousands of combat weary U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan in the Veteran's Administration. That unfortunately is only one example of where we have fallen down as a nation and society. The economy, gas prices, out of control corporations gouging and paying CEO's as much as a hundred times more than the hard working employees that allow them to even operate; these are areas where U.S. citizens are abused by their government.

Problems Between Iran and Western Nations

Our government during the Eisenhower years was persuaded by the British to overthrow the democratically educated Iranian President. This happened in 1953 because Iran put its foot down over being ripped off by western oil companies for several consecutive years. That is all. Our CIA kidnapped and retrained the Shah and put him in as a puppet leader who allowed the western oil companies to continue to rape Iran over its oil. By 1979 it was over. The Revolution happened and they overthrew the leader that was friendly to all of the greedy western influence.

Another way to say this, is that literally all of the problems we have with Iran today were caused by our own governments who refused to pay Iran fair market value for its oil, prices that England agreed upon but would not honor. Obama apparently either knows little in the way of actual history, or he knows it and dismisses it.

Now we learn in recent weeks from former President Jimmy Carter, that Israel has, all this time, been sporting a collection of nuclear weapons that any rogue dictatorship would envy.

Yet as Carter brought Americans into the fold of knowledge, people all over the non western world shook their heads and rolled their eyes at Americans, yet again. In truth, the word has been out that Israel has nuclear capabilities since 1986. But here in the states, FOX News had a heyday with it, implying that Carter really let the cat out of the bag for the first time.

Then people like Barack Obama jump on the bandwagon. Now I admit that he probably would not be where he is without taking this role; many Americans are snowed into thinking that Iran is a danger and they are going to go on believing that no matter what is placed in front of them. Obama knows that, and he wants their vote, so he is now a threatening political force toward Iran.

Pure Propaganda

All the while McCain, Bush, now Obama and always FOX News, crank up the effort to scare innocent and gullible Americans. They want you to hate the people in the pictures accompanying this article, but I have a feeling you won't. Implications about the Iranian President saying all kinds of things that he did not say are commonplace at FOX, they also want you to believe the women have little freedom. Again, a photo is worth a thousand words, and these are a small fraction of the photos in my possession at this point from Iran.

At best, they are misinterpretations; worst case scenario: FOX News has, on multiple occasions, deliberately and deceptively stretched words from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This network and these politicians don't work for the benefit of Americans.

Israel is a violent and unpredictable nation that wants it all and in turn wants even more. Israel attacked a clearly marked U.S. ship, the U.S.S. Liberty during the Six Day War in 1967. Apparently the outrage among Americans and the death and serious wounds inflicted on U.S. Navy sailors that day was, in the bigger picture, a small matter to both nations. Nonetheless, it is sad and clear proof that Israelis are capable of killing Americans.

Iran on the other hand, is the country that we have been mad at since 1953 because they won't sell their oil cheaply enough. In reality they just didn't want to be ripped off any longer, they had endured it at the hands of the British Anglo Oil Company for years. There really is little more to it. The United States historically treats leaders of nations like this poorly.

Any student of modern history knows that the Vietnam War could easily been avoided by simply standing up to the French and not financially supporting their re-occupation of Vietnam in the late 40's, in the exact same timeframe as the formation of Israel which we have funded to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars over the years while Americans gradually have grown to have less and less.

This all leads us back to a President who negatively affected the course of history on many levels; Harry Truman, but that is too broad to go into here. Just remember that he was completely supportive of the terrorist tactics that cleared occupied Palestinian neighborhoods for the settlement of Israel, and he refused to even talk about allowing Vietnam to have national autonomy after WWII.

Defining Real Interests

If the question is, why are we so damned scared all the time? It is because of our half century plus blind support of Israel and a complete and total void of sincerity. That nation has lied and lied and our country has lied endlessly and that combined with our national media's reluctance to report real facts about the status of the world, may actually bring us to the brink of existence. Obama's switch stance is more than alarming, perhaps he means none of what he has said about other significant issues. A few months ago he spoke "of the tragic plight of the Palestinians". Today he looks like another bully who is editing the information to meet his needs; another driven politician with little regard to the lives he threatens to remove.

Aijaz Amhad, Senior News Analyst with The REAL News, a news organization I strongly suggest all people dial into, has been going over all of this material in a series of reports that are a clear and concise reviews of current world affairs.

He has the courage to pose the question: what legal or moral authority does the west have to declare that Iran can not have nuclear power, or even nuclear weapons, in the first place?

Americans will jump up and down and pound their fists, but they fail to understand that the guys who call the shots for the rest of the world, meaning the western nations, make huge and obvious mistakes. They command obedient military forces to sometimes kill countless thousands of innocent people in the name of freedom, and we have an extremely limited understanding of our own nation's role in causing all of the problems in the first place by following along with a British "Colonization approach" to political diplomacy in Iran.

Here is something else; Iranians like Americans. They have a country that is very different but it is sound and functioning and while there are criticisms of its internal policies, many undoubtedly valid, there is no reason to view this nation as a threat. Perhaps if Israel keeps attacking its neighbors the way it does, then someday it could bring retaliation from Iran. But the odds are very good that it would be defensive in nature.

Even former Secretary of State Robert Gates admitted this on December 5th 2006, during his Confirmation Hearings, when he made this statement:

"While they (Iran) are certainly pressing, in my opinion for a nuclear capability, I think they would see it in the first instance as a deterrent. They are surrounded by powers with nuclear weapons-- Pakistan to the east, Russia to the north, the Israeli's to the west and the us in the Persian Gulf."

Did U.S. media let that part about Israel and nukes just slip by in December of '06? FOX News should start watching those national statements, they must not be watching them now.

Enough is Enough

He does not have a solid plan in place or a timeline for getting out of Iraq, and he hasn't talked enough about the fact that our troops are in short supply in Afghanistan regarding both equipment and people. Why does Obama suddenly want to be the guy talking about sending our tired military forces into yet another bloody and death filled war when they are tired and damaged? It is nothing any good American would ask for. After all the support we have felt in our hearts for Obama, there are plenty of us right now feeling like the rug has been pulled out from under our feet.

We may be fairly screwed. Apparently the news of Israel having nuclear weapons has been reported a thousand times in other nations, and most Americans have the Internet, yet they don't know.

The news about Israel's nuclear capability was first revealed by an Israeli scientist, Mordechai Vanunu, in 1986. The news broke in an article in the Sunday Times. Israel secret police from Massaud kidnapped Vanunu and took him back to Israel where he spent 11 years in solitary confinement, four years in a regular prison system and then was finally released in 2004. Convicted of treason and espionage, it was never suggested by Israel that he was lying. It seems like everybody except maybe him was lying all along; he just wanted to expose those lies from Israel and he paid dearly for that honesty.

Scarier than McCain?

Part of Obama's warmongering rhetoric is even worse and more dangerous than that of John McCain. At the recent AIPAC conference, Obama made clear statements about what he sees as his political priority. He supports "secure, recognized defensible borders for Israel." It may sound just fine, but for most people in that part of the world, this term "defensible borders" means that Israel should retain parts of the occupied West Bank to expand the territorial state of Israel and achieve its vision of "defensible borders."

Obama says Hamas has no legitimacy and is a terrorist organization. But it is a fact that Hamas represents a group of people who have been greatly persecuted by the Israelis. "There is no room at the negotiating table for terrorist organization, that is why I opposed elections in 2006 with Hamas on the ballot." Israel has reportedly kidnapped and killed a number of Hamas legislators.

Conversely to what Obama says, an Israeli newspaper. HAARETZ, recently reported that 64% of Israeli's are in favor of talks with Hamas. That means that Obama's words of war are not even in sync with the majority of Israel's people and there are so many there who want only peace and are more than willing to negotiate.

Many understand why things are the way they are and they have sympathy for Hamas and the Palestinian people who have suffered so much since the inception of Israel. As the descendants of those who survived the Holocaust, they do not want to see their country in an oppressive role over other, disadvantaged people. Many are hoping that Obama mellows in his anti-Iranian rhetoric and that Hamas is given its due. There appear to be few choices for anyone if democracy has any play in it.

Aijaz Amhad with The REAL News put it this way: "Senator Obama's recipe for such situations is simple; if a political party that you don't like is popular enough to win a majority, the best thing is not to allow such a party to participate in the elections. Dictators around the world would love that formula."

Like Iraq, Iran has a population that is not exclusively Islamic. This girl is an Orthodox Christian from the northern part of Iran

Obama says he would never allow Hamas to be at the negotiating table either. With language borrowed from Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush, Obama said emphatically that he "will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel."

But even tough talking John McCain is not directly threatening Iran with military action. Ahmad reasons that Obama's political speech writers simply chose to take McCain's position and ratchet up the threat and tone toward Iran. Obama goes so far to suggest the possible forming of a coalition of the willing outside the purview of the UN for imposing the sanctions on Iran that McCain proposes.

Obama said at AIPAC that he wants to "isolate the Iranian regime, expand financial sanctions, and boycott firms associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard."

He also talked about other unilateral sanctions that would hurt the people of Iran, such as, "Targeting Iranian banks and Iranian assets." Obama says he still sees the possibility of diplomacy with Iran, but the idea of actually meeting Iran's leaders has apparently vanished, too bad. That was one of the very reasons we supported him at Salem-News.com. We feel like we have been through a bait and switch game and the Presidential race hasn't even started yet.

Obama is running down the list of demands on Tehran and talking tough and even suggesting we attacked the wrong country in 2002. What kind of a nation have we become to continually punish the people who complained about us ripping them off when they were far less significant back in the 50's?

It is clear that Obama is saying we should have attacked Iran and not Iraq. That is what Israel thought the United States should have done also in 2002. Obama would use American soldiers as pawns to kill for Israel. Again, who will he work for if elected?

Aijaz Amhad, Senior News Analyst with The REAL News summarized it with this quote in his recent report: "There was once a Barack Obama who talked used to talk about direct and unconditional talks with adversarial countries in pursuit of peace. Now we have tough diplomacy, tough sanctions to cripple Iranian economy and society, tough demands on all the basic issues that Iran must accept, while the military threat stays on the table. Sounds a lot like the policies the U.S. pursued in the run-up to the Iraq war. The main difference seems to be that Bill Clinton made sure the sanctions against Iraq were approved by the Security Council while Bush tried to persuade the Security Council to approve invasion as well. This remaking of Barack Obama now seems complete. He can now go out and meet John McCain on his own ground. With liberalism like this, who needs neocons?"

I have a habit of mistakenly typing "Omama" and having to correct it. Maybe somebody has been trying to tell me something. Just remember what to do when Israel or Obama or any world leader decides to let those lied about nukes fly into murderous oblivion: kiss your children and tell them good bye.

Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. Today, in addition to his role as a war correspondent in Afghanistan where he spent the winter of 2006/07, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website, affiliated with Google News and several other major search engines and news aggregators. Tim's coverage from Iraq that was set to begin in April has been delayed and may not take place until August, 2008. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com