{"id":156307,"date":"2020-03-16T12:00:58","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T12:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=156307"},"modified":"2020-03-13T13:58:16","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T13:58:16","slug":"iran-and-the-us-holy-code-book-of-double-standard-morality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/03\/iran-and-the-us-holy-code-book-of-double-standard-morality\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran and the \u2018US Holy Code Book of Double Standard Morality\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

10 Mar 2020 – <\/em>On January 3, 2020, the U.S. military, following President Trump\u2019s orders, killed Major General Qassim Suleimani, respected leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Groups\u2019 Qud Force.<\/p>\n

I never understood the morality of foreign policy, but I\u2019m getting the hang of it, thanks to the little-known pocket manual \u201cThe U.S. Holy Code Book of Double Standard Morality.\u201d\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

According to U.S. Code, U.S. troops\u2019 killing of Suleimani is honorable because he\u2019s considered responsible for killing Americans, but if Iranians were to kill his American equivalent, the CIA director, whose role in killing is not subject to evaluation, it would be reprehensible.<\/p>\n

Similarly, crippling Iran with sanctions is considered sensible.\u00a0 Consider what the 1990-2003 sanctions did to Iraq:\u00a0 By 1997, 500,000 children had died from malnutrition.\u00a0 Sewage spilled into rivers, causing typhoid and dysentery epidemics.\u00a0 Tens of thousands of Iraqis and their livestock died from lack of medicine.\u00a0 Crime soared.\u00a0 Families drank contaminated water and ate bread of flour and wood dust in homes without electricity.<\/p>\n

U.S. Code says such sanctions are for the best, but similar sanctions against Americans for the illegal coups, torture, drone attacks, invasions, and other international crimes of their unbridled government would be heartless.<\/p>\n

U.S. possession of 4,000 nukes, we are told, ensures security, as does U.S. contamination of Afghanistan, Iraq, and U.S. troops with radioactive depleted uranium.\u00a0 With the exception of an alarmed John F. Kennedy\u2019s adamant opposition, Israel\u2019s secret possession of an estimated 80 nukes has also been considered a blessing.\u00a0 Iranian nuclear development, however, is reckless.<\/p>\n

According to U.S. Code, the British Balfour Declaration\u2019s granting a homeland to Zionist Jews in Palestine was benevolent, but Britain\u2019s goal of limiting Zionist immigration so as not to displace peasant Arabs was malevolent.<\/p>\n

Zionists\u2019 forceful displacement or killing by 1949 of 1 million Arabs is dismissed as benign.\u00a0 Moreover, the Jewish extremist organizations that terrorized Britain during WWII for trying to limit Zionist immigration – the Stern Gang led by Yitzhak Shamir and the Irgun led by Menachem Begin \u2013 were evidently so chivalrous that both leaders became Israeli prime ministers.\u00a0 But anyone, including Iranian-supported Hamas, who militantly supports the Balfour Declaration\u2019s forgotten pledge to protect non-Jewish Palestinians\u2019 rights is a terrorist.<\/p>\n

During both World Wars, the Allies\u2019 invasions of neutral Iran for oil and railroads were noble-minded. \u00a0And while Iran\u2019s failure to willingly open its borders to help the Allies was deemed self-centered, U.S. failure to open its borders to help thousands of Jews escape Nazi extermination was considered only prudent to preserve American jobs and Protestant culture.<\/p>\n

In the 1950s, profit-seeking foreign corporations who dominated Iran\u2019s economy were kind, while Iranians who tried to remove foreign infiltration were selfish.\u00a0 Consequently, U.S. engineering conglomerate Overseas Consultants Inc.\u2019s lucrative plan, represented by future CIA Director Allen Dulles, to develop Iran for the Shah was enlightening, but Mohammed Mossadegh\u2019s popular nationalist movement that rejected funding for the plan was lowdown, as was his 1951 nationalization of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.<\/p>\n

U.S. Code maintains that the CIA\u2019s 1953 toppling of the highly popular Mossadegh by bribing newspapers to publish anti-Mossadegh articles, paying mullahs to condemn Mossadegh, developing a network of anti-Mossadegh military commanders, buying an Iranian mob to create a pro-Shah parade, paying gangs to terrorize Teheran, and killing 300 Iranians in the process was clever, as was the U.S. government\u2019s re-installing the Shah with his oppression, greed, and massive procurement of U.S. weapons.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Iranian students\u2019 taking Americans hostage in 1979, with one student shouting, \u201cWe will teach the CIA not to interfere with our country,\u201d was inappropriate.\u00a0 And while Saddam Hussein\u2019s 1990 invasion of the oligarchy of Kuwait was inexcusable and warranted the one-sided slaughter of a US counterinvasion in 1991, his 1980 invasion of Iran and use of chemical weapons were convenient and merited US assistance.<\/p>\n

U.S. Holy Code instructs us that while some killing is bad, other killing is good.\u00a0 U.S.-supported Israel\u2019s killing of Arabs is good.\u00a0 Iranian-supported Hezbollah\u2019s killing of Israelis is bad.\u00a0 U.S.-supported Saudi Arabia\u2019s killing of Houthi Yemenis is good.\u00a0 Iranian-supported Houthi Yemenis\u2019 killing of Yemenis is bad.<\/p>\n

Militarily surrounding Iran \u2013 with U.S. troops and bases to the East in Pakistan and Afghanistan, to the North in Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, to the West in Turkey, Iraq, and Kuwait, and to the South in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman – is something that Iran should serenely take in stride.<\/p>\n

But the U.S.S.R.\u2019s planned deployment of missiles in Cuba in 1962 is cause for WWIII, and the potential for North Korean missiles to reach the U.S. coast is justification for enormous alarm if not a U.S. invasion.\u00a0 According to Holy Code, those who do not allow themselves to remain vulnerable to U.S. attack are only proving their malice.<\/p>\n

9\/11 was appalling when terrorists killed 3,000 primarily U.S. civilians, but the killing of more than 300,000 Mid-Eastern civilians and more than 250,000 Mid-Eastern opposition forces in post-9\/11 US war zones only brings us closer to worldwide justice, harmony, and freedom.<\/p>\n

Iran, like some U.S.-funded allies, has a despicable problem of internal oppression and torture.\u00a0 But let\u2019s look at international behavior.\u00a0 Has Iran ever done to the U.S. and Britain what they\u2019ve done to Iran?\u00a0 Did Iran ever invade them?\u00a0 Did it topple a U.S. president?\u00a0 Did it train U.S. internal security forces as the CIA trained the Shah\u2019s brutal SAVAK?<\/p>\n

So why does any U.S. politician have the right to condemn Iran as aggressive and deserving of attack?\u00a0 By what logic can any U.S. politician insist that the U.S. has proven its right to retain sovereignty and possess nuclear weapons while Iran has not?<\/p>\n

When has Iran ever harmed another nation more than it has been harmed itself? <\/em><\/p>\n

But U.S. Holy Code says that line of reasoning is irrelevant.<\/p>\n

While Iran\u2019s strict oppression, systematic torture of Iranian prisoners, and funding of militants abroad are deplorable and hurt Iranians by depleting Iran\u2019s budget, the U.S. depletion of the American budget by spending trillions on invasions, committing coups, establishing black sites abroad, dismissing judicial rights prior to arrest and imprisonment, ignoring all rights prior to execution, terrorizing the Mid-East with drones, funding dirty wars in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, and exporting U.S. weapons worldwide is high-minded.<\/p>\n

Above all, U.S. Holy Code declares:\u00a0 Muslims seeking to base their government upon the Sharia – often in reaction to corruption and oppression – are nothing but crazy extremists whose interpretation of religion provokes them to behave with violent cruelty.<\/p>\n

But we can rest assured that U.S. presidents, policymakers, and occupation leaders who feel convinced their coups and invasions are blessed by God and their nation is specially created by God with a mission to bring freedom and light to the world \u2013 these noble Americans advocate violence that has a divine purpose, like the violence of those U.S. troops who, prior to brutally attacking Fallujah, were told by their navy chaplain the absurd logic that they, like Jesus entering Jerusalem, are tools of mercy, in a spiritual battle to break the bounds of Hell.<\/p>\n

What I find most troublesome about Double Standard Morality is that when morality is determined by the identity of the actor and not the act, you\u2019ve got a cruel case of selfish immorality and a dangerous sense of divinely inspired self-righteousness that hamstring our ability to ever achieve understanding and peace with the enemy.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t think too hard about all that.\u00a0 Just keep your thinking shallow, swallow what you\u2019re told, and soon you won\u2019t resist the U.S. Holy Code.<\/p>\n

Sources:\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

500,000 Iraqi children died from malnutrition –\u00a0 Dilip Hiro, Iraq:\u00a0 In the Eye of the Storm, <\/em>p. 143.<\/p>\n

Results of sanctions on Iraq, 70,000 died from lack of medicine, livestock – Hiro, Iraq:\u00a0 In the Eye of the Storm<\/em>, pp. 8-10, 15.<\/p>\n

Eating bread with wood dust during sanctions \u2013 Deborah Ellis, Children of War:\u00a0 Voices of Iraqi Refugees<\/em>, pp. 44-45.<\/p>\n

Israel \u2013 estimated 80 nukes \u2013 online<\/em> – Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, \u201cStatus of World Nuclear Forces,\u201d Federation of American Scientists, current update November 2018, https:\/\/fas.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

1 million Arabs displaced or killed \u2013 William Cleveland, A History of the Middle East<\/em>, pp. 245, 255.<\/p>\n

Irgun and Stern Gang – Cleveland, op. cit.<\/em>, pp. 253, 257-60, 263<\/p>\n

Balfour Declaration \u2013 Cleveland, op. cit., <\/em>p. 244<\/p>\n

Overseas Consultants Inc. 7-year plan for $650 million \u2013 Stephen Kinzer, The Brothers, <\/em>p. 119-23.<\/p>\n

1953 Iran coup \u2013<\/p>\n

Michael Oren, Power, Faith, and Fantasy, <\/em>pp. 507, 510-11.<\/p>\n

William Blum, Killing Hope, <\/em>pp. 68-69.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kinzer, The Brothers, <\/em>pp. 145-46.<\/p>\n

Iranian nationalization of oil – Hiro, Holy Wars, The Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism,<\/em> p. 154-55<\/p>\n

Shah spent $19 billion on weapons 1973-78 \u2013 Thomas G. Paterson et al., American Foreign Policy:\u00a0 A History Since 1900, <\/em>pp. 617-18.<\/p>\n

US training SAVAK beginning in 1957 – Paterson et al., op. cit., <\/em>pp. 617-18<\/p>\n

Iranian student quote – Paterson et al., op. cit., <\/em>p. 618<\/p>\n

Interesting paper on skewed US media coverage of 1979 hostage crisis – Monica Coscia, \u201cThe Fateful Fifty-Two:\u00a0 How the American Media Sensationalized the Iranian Hostage Crisis,\u201d Boston College, August 20, 2016, https:\/\/www.e-ir.info\/2016\/08\/20 and https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

US troops entering Fallujah \u2013 breaking the bonds of Hell – Robert Kaplan, \u201cFive Days in Fallujah,\u201d The Atlantic, <\/em>July\/August 2004, https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com.<\/p>\n

Saddam Hussein\u2019s use of chemical weapons on Iraqis – Epstein et al., op. cit., <\/em>p. 168.<\/p>\n

More than 300,000 Mid-Eastern civilians killed, more than 250,000 opposition forces killed since 9\/11 from US War on Terror \u2013 online<\/em> at Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, Brown University, Costs of War Project, chart with statistics November 13, 2019, by Neta Crawford and Catherine Lutz<\/p>\n

US troops and bases surrounding Iran \u2013 Tim Murphy, \u201cThe price of US global policing,\u201d Brown Alumni Magazine, <\/em>November\/December 2018; also double-checked on other online sources.<\/p>\n

As examples, US policymakers who have believed their policies have been following God\u2019s path have included President Wilson, the Dulles brothers, President Bush Jr., and occupation proconsul L. Paul Bremer III.<\/p>\n

_________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Kristin Young Christman is a contributing author to the forthcoming anthology <\/em>Bending the Arc:\u00a0 Striving for Peace and Justice in the Age of Endless War (SUNY Press, June 2020).\u00a0 She has degrees in Russian, Slavic languages, and public administration from Dartmouth College, Brown University, and the University at Albany.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What I find most troublesome about Double Standard Morality is that when morality is determined by the identity of the actor and not the act, you\u2019ve got a cruel case of selfish immorality and a dangerous sense of divinely inspired self-righteousness that hamstring our ability to ever achieve understanding and peace with the enemy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":119750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[1126,1050,742,923,70],"class_list":["post-156307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-iran","tag-sanctions","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}