Debra Sweet / The World Can’t Wait
(July 29, 2019) — This is a mobster talking: Politico, July 22, 2019:
“If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I could win that war in a week. I just don’t want to kill 10 million people,” Trump said. “I have plans on Afghanistan that if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth,” the president continued. “It would be gone. It would be over in — literally in ten days. And I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to go that route.”
Then, why is he talking about doing so? This is the thug who deployed “the Mother of All Bombs” in Afghanstan in April 2017: “The US military, at Trump’s order, dropped an 11-ton bomb on Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan. It is being called the ‘mother’ of all bombs — the largest bomb dropped in any war since the United States nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No to wars for empire and no to the ‘mother’ of all bombers, the Trump/Pence Regime . . . . It is an escalation only one step away from full-scale nuclear war on a nation on which our government has been waging war for 16 years.”
Trump follows in the steps of G.W. Bush, who invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, despite the country, and certainly the population, having no responsibility for 9/11. U.S. drove the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime from power, and installed a widely hated, pro-U.S. “Islamic Republic.” And Trump also follows in the steps of Barack Obama whose surge in 2009/10 raised the number of civilian deaths.
The U.S. has never succeeded in defeating the Taliban or stabilizing the country and the U.S. air and ground war has continued ever since. By August 2016, some 111,000 people had been killed and over 116,000 injured. More than 31,000 of the dead were Afghan civilians (see Update on the Human Costs of War for Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001 to mid-2016).
Now the U.S. is negotiating a settlement with the Taliban. The current Afghan government is not included – but the Saudis and the Emiratis form part of the conferring team!
As U.S. threats against Iran escalate, continuing U.S. manipulations affecting the lives of the Iraqi people continue to escalate as well creating horrendous possibilities of ongoing war.
IRAN: Who Is the Real Threat?
Question 1-
What country in the Middle East refuses to confirm or deny that it has a nuclear weapons program and refuses to sign the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty?
Question 2-
What country agreed to be monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and has repeatedly opened up its country to IAEA inspectors?
Question 3-
Which country’s prime minister has been attempting to persuade members of his cabinet to make a pre-emptive military strike against a neighboring country?
Question 4-
True or False:
“The International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.S. have provided evidence that Iran is attempting to obtain nuclear weapons.”
Question 5-
The IAEA severely criticized which country for falsifying information on Iraq and Iran’s nuclear programs?
Question 6-
According to the UN Charter and Nuremberg Tribunal, what is the gravest war crime of all?
Question 7-
Which is the one country on the planet that has actually used nuclear weapons against a civilian population?
IRAN: Who Is the Real Threat?
Answer 1: Israel has not signed the treaty and does not publicly admit it has nuclear weapons, although the fact that it does is common knowledge. Iran has signed the treaty and does not have a nuclear weapons program.
Answer 2: Iran
Answer 3: Israel
Answer 4: False – neither have provided any evidence that Iran is attempting to obtain nuclear weapons.
Answer 5: United States
Answer6: Attacking a country which hasn’t attacked you. This is called a war of aggression, which “contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
Answer 7: The United States, which bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagaski during WWII, killing between 150,000–246,000 people within just the first 4 months, half within the first 24 hours.
How did you answer these questions?
How do you think many Americans would answer these questions?
In addition to sanctions, there have been targeted assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and a U.S. surveillance drone was discovered in violation of Iranian sovereignty and airspace.
Let’s be clear, no matter what you think about the Iranian government; the real aggressor in the Middle East is Israel and the United States.
Now that you know, what will you do?
U.S. intervention in Iran has a long history. Take this quiz and then share it with friends, colleagues and family. Download it here and print it for your use.
As U.S. imperialism intensifies under the Trump/Pence Regime, our War Criminals Watch project has been following some of the key players. The latest for whom we have a bio up on the site is Mike Pompeo.
There is also a downloadable poster here for your use at the next demo.
You might also want to take along these posters of current Trump/Pence officials as well: Bolton and Trump. For further info, check out their bios too: Bolton and Trump. If you are interested in these, you might want to sneak a peak at Nancy Pelosi’s bio and poster. She has been there for years since she didn’t object to waterboarding under Bush and said back then too that impeachment was off the table.
Debra Sweet is the director of The World Can’t Wait
