On July 3, 1988, the United States shot down an Iranian jetliner killing 290 innocent passengers. A missile was fired from the Vincennes, a U.S. navy destroyer patrolling the gulf. Sea of Lies – What Really Happened?
The Americans have maintained that this was all a very innocent mistake, or, more likely, the result of provocative, confusing actions by Iranians. I can’t see how a reasonable person would accept that explanation, when the U.S. government itself acknowledged that it had lied about several critical elements of the story, including the alleged location of the Vincennes when it fired the missile: it was inside Iranian territorial waters.
What you had was some trigger-happy ugly American captain, William Rogers, who thought it would be just splendiferous to shoot down something, anything, please! There were other Americans involved, including the captain of an aircraft carrier who made it clear that he thought Rogers was being willfully reckless and provocative and stupid.
Rogers was never punished. By golly, they gave him and his crew a medal. I’m not kidding.
Now, if you were a reasonable person, and not emotionally vested in America the Great and George Bush the magnificent, wouldn’t you think, well, the Arabs might have a reason to be suspicious of our intentions in the Middle East.
Add to that a couple of other pertinent facts.. Egypt is not a democracy. They are America’s friend, however, and more than happy to torture people for George Bush. Jordan is not a democracy. Libya is not a democracy. Saudi Arabia is not a democracy.
The Palestinian Authority was elected fair and square, but America won’t talk to their leaders because— well, they elected the wrong leaders.
It is very hard to explain why, if America wants to bring democracy to the middle east, it doesn’t urge Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Libya to hold fair elections. Are fair elections too much to ask? About simply taking a mild step or two towards democracy by, say, not locking up and torturing your political opponents?
We know why.
We know the real reason why.
And that’s why we know the real reason why America is now trapped in Iraq. It was never about freedom or democracy or Saddam. Never.
But — let’s be fair– I’m not sure that Bush knows it was never about democracy.
But Dick Cheney knows.