Sorry, Iran

Did you know that the United States shot down a civilian Iranian airplane in the summer of 1988, killing 290 innocent passengers and crew, including 66 children?

On July 3, 1988, near the end of the Iran-Iraq war, the U.S.S. Vincennes, a U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser, destroyed the commercial aircraft as it flew its usual flight path over the Strait of Hormuz from Bandar Abbas, Iran to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates – over Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf.

In 1996, a settlement was reached in the International Court of Justice obligating the U.S. to pay $61.8 million – an average of $213,100 per passenger – in compensation to the families of the Iranian victims. But the U.S. has never apologized or admitted responsibility for the deaths, which included citizens of India, Pakistan, Italy, Yugoslavia and the United Arab Emirates in addition to Iran.

Looks like not all who commit terrorist acts are brown-skinned Muslims with towels on their heads.

Did you know that the current GOP presidential candidates are being asked if, as president, they’d attack Iran in order to foil its nuclear ambitions? The current front-runner, Mitt “Flip-Flopper” Romney, pledged that Iran “would never obtain a nuclear weapon” during his presidency and he’d have no problem using military force. (Herman Cain demonstrated a surprising devotion to geography by stating that it’s not ‘practical’ to attack Iran because it has mountains.)

Did you know that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said “it’s the policy of this administration that Iran cannot be permitted to have a nuclear weapon and no option has ever been taken off the table” and that Vice President Joe Biden has publicly stated that Israel, Iran’s Number One enemy, has the right to attack Iran?

Did you know that back in 2003, Iran proposed negotiations with the United States with everything on the table, including its nuclear technology, but Dubya refused?

Did you know that India has had nukes since 1974 and has refused to sign an international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)? Or that Pakistan has had ‘em since 1998 and has refused to sign the NPT? Or that Israel has had ‘em since 1979 and has refused to sign the NPT?

How come these countries can have nuclear weapons (and refuse to sign the NPT) but Iran can’t? Surely it has the right to defend itself. Is Iran more of a threat to the U.S. than Pakistan – which harbored Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of September 11, for ten years – or North Korea, which has had ‘em since 2006, or Russia, which has had ‘em since my mother was a nine-year-old schoolgirl?

I used to chat online with a young woman from Tehran who opened my eyes about Iran. (I referenced her in a post back on June 30 entitled, “On Independence Day.”) She taught me that contrary to what I was led to believe by my government and media, Iranians aren’t ignorant, savage, America-hating terrorists. The Iranian people love Americans and they want peace, she told me. Our governments and politicians are the problem.

Our online conversations took place before Iranians took to the streets to protest the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June of 2009. Ahmadinejad’s opponents all claimed the election had been rigged and the results manipulated. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians protested in Tehran, Shiraz, Mashhad and throughout Iran. Protestors were killed – the shooting death of 26-year-old Neda Soltan in Tehran by a member of the government militia on June 20 received worldwide attention and further galvanized the movement – and arrested by the thousands.

Courtesy Hamed Saber

Seeing the citizens of Iran risk their lives to stand up for themselves, to fight for fair elections and justice and truth, impressed me a lot, especially as compared to my fellow Americans who hadn’t yet gotten off their couches to protest class warfare at Wall Street and elsewhere. I gained even more respect for the Iranian people and a new level of intolerance for those who inaccurately represent Iran or kiss Israel’s ass. (You hear me, Joe Lieberman?)

As we know from our experience with Iraq – weapons of mass destruction, anyone? – neocons and warmongers will create their own facts to bend or hide the truth as needed. Hopefully the GOP’s unyielding commitment to fiscal responsibility will prevent government hawks and wingnuts from adding the Islamic Republic of Iran to the list of sovereign countries made to suffer from costly U.S. military aggression.

Sources: ABC News, Warisacrime.org, Washington Post, Thinkprogress.org, Consortiumnews.com.