Iran, Ahmadinejad, Columbia, and the Right Wing

I’m having a right wing kind of day – I was just driving and listening to talk radio. It’s amazing how they control the dialogue and have commandeered just about every outlet. And the “left” responds within the framework that the right wingers construct.

Today Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is going to speak at Columbia University – it’s probably going on right now. It’s a smart move on his part. The U.S. noise machine has made him into a caricature, a demon, as they do so often with official state enemies. By coming here and talking, Ahmadinejad is going to confuse some people. They are going to find him reasonable and well-spoken, and able to stand up and defend himself and his country in the face of a torrent of right wing invective.

It won’t make a difference, of course. This is Monday. On Tuesday, the righties and the talking heads and canned voices will be back at it again. Ahmadinejad, the real person, will slip back into the shadows, and Ahmadinejad, the U.S.-created demon, will take center stage again.

I was remembering this morning an incident back in 1989. The U.S. was gearing up to attack Panama, but lacked a valid reason. President Manuel Noriega, a former CIA operative who had fallen into disfavor, gave a speech in that country in which he said that the climate was so poisoned that it was as if his country and ours were at war. U.S. headlines said “Noriega declares war on U.S.!” And indeed a war followed. We made sure of it.

The term “jingoism” was coined at the turn of the twentieth century to describe that kind of journalism. We’ve had quite a bit of it in our history.

So when I heard that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had called for Israel to we wiped off the face of the map, I was suspicious. This could be American jingoists at work again.

It’s interesting. Indeed, he did give a speech. He said that “Zionism” is the West’s apparatus of political oppression against Muslims. He says the “Zionist regime” was imposed on the Islamic world as a way to ensure U.S. domination of the region and its assets. That’s pretty much true – the U.S. has supported the USS Israel all these years because Israel minds our business for us, using weapons we give them to police Arab (and Persian and Phoenician) peoples of the region. In return, we give Israel a free hand to do as they please with Palestinians or with real estate acquisitions. Quid pro quo. Ahmadinejad expressed hope that in the future the regime occupying Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time.

That’s aggressive, for sure, like Bush saying he wants regime change in Tehran. Only, we’re allowed to say such inflammatory things, they are not. And I note that Ahmadinejad used the word “Zionism”, which is the international political movement that was behind the creation of Israel. Broadly defined, it is the force behind Israel’s warlike foreign policy towards its neighbors, and oppression of Palestinians. But the State of Israel is a done deal – if Iran were to launch a scud missile in its direction, Iran would vanish.

So Ahmadinejad did call for regime change in Tel Aviv. But did he say he wanted to see Israel “wiped off the map”? That’s what has been reported here and repeated ad nauseum. No, he did not say that. That was an American Israeli invention. Propaganda works.

I’ve been watching closely, trying to figure out if the U.S. is going to attack Iran. They’ve no cause, of course, but that is of no matter. Prior to any attack there is always a demonization campaign, or “putting a face on the enemy”, as they say. It’s hard to hate a whole people, easy to hate an evil man. Ahmadinejad is our guy. Give a dog a bad name, then you can beat him.

I knew that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the object of scorn, but until listening to news and talk radio this morning, I was not aware of how effective the propaganda campaign has been. Right wingers are frothing. It’s ugly. Score another for the Bushies.

Some times the right wing in this country is a little more noisy and unreasonable than I can tolerate. Today is one of those days. This post qualifies as a rant. Today I’ve got no patience for righties. Don’t even try me.