If All Lives Matter, Lift U.S. Sanctions Against Iran to Curb the Spread of Coronavirus (2020)

rashid-2013-self-portrait1I’d like to put to the test the moral commitment of every Amerikan who jumped on and rode the “all lives matter” bandwagon.

After enduring an unbroken history of violent abuse and indifference, and systemic summary killings at the hands of cops and cop wannabes, Many blacks in Amerika united around the protest slogan “Black lives matter.” Instead of recognizing the social privilege that insulates much of white society from such outrages, and uniting with Blacks to help protect their lives, many whites joined in a counter-slogan “all lives matter,” pretending to interpret “Black lives matter” as meaning only Black lives were meaningful.

Now if Amerikans genuinely believe all lives matter, then they must join in demanding that sanctions by their government against Iran and other less developed countries be lifted in the face of the growing coronavirus pandemic.

 

 AMERIKA’S TRUE DESIGNS AGAINST IRAN

U.S. sanctions against Iran and its leading role in the war between the West and the Islamic world have nothing to do with curbing ‘terrorism,’ but is a struggle by the West to instill capitalism in the Asian countries that are dominated by Islamic theocracies that reflect pre-capitalist, semi-feudal political economies.

But furthermore, it’s a struggle to dominate natural gas and oil reserves such as in the Caspian Sea region, Iraq, Iran, etc.

Fossil fuels are the lifeblood of modern industrial capitalist economies. Whoever rules the world’s oil and gas supplies, rules the world’s fuel market, rules the entire world economy. That’s why the U.S. invaded Iraq. Iraq has the world’s second-largest supply of untapped oil deposits-next to Saudi Arabia, with whom the U.S. is already in bed.  But Saudi Arabia has had the power to manipulate America and often does because it has veto power over its oil-it can create artificial shortages that can shock the world oil market and drive already astronomical prices through the roof, as OLPEC did in the 1970s.

The U.S. went into Afghanistan in 2001 because it was after the untapped natural gas supplies in the Caspian Sea-the world’s largest natural gas deposit.  They wanted to build a pipeline through Afghanistan and other Asian countries, straight through to the European market.  February 12, 1998, John J. Marescas, UNOCAL’s Vice President, made a bid before a subcommittee of the House Committee on International Relations to build that pipeline and called for the removal of the Taliban and the establishment of an “internationally recognized Afghanistan government” to be set up in its place (1).

Iran and its grip on the Middle East has been the U.S.’s main impediment to controlling the region.  They actually wanted to target Iran from the outset and wanted to take Iraq and Afghanistan to set up staging areas on Iran’s borders to invade Iran from two fronts.  But their plans and predictions that Iraq was going to fall to U.S. designs with no resistance fell through.

America has remained active in efforts to destabilize Iran and isolate it by stirring up internal dissent and increasing sanctions against trade with other countries.  And its fear of Iran developing nuclear capabilities is not based on fear of an Iranian nuclear attack, but rather of Iran being able to defend itself from an American attack.

 

American Sanctions Are Genocidal in the Face of COVID-19

U.S. Sanctions directly impact Iran’s ability to access resources needed to test, treat, and arrest the spread of the novel coronavirus and generate artificial famine, disease, and poverty.  A growing protest movement is already underway, with marches in solidarity with Iran.

The outcome of such fascistic sanctions is known by U.S. officials and deliberate.  We’ve seen it before, and we’ve seen U.S. officials gloat at the deadly effects on innocents-on innocent children no less.

Recall the 1991 Gulf War where America deliberately destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure, bombing its sanitation and water treatment facilities, hospitals, etc. (blatant war crimes).  Then set up militarily imposed embargos that prevented Iraq from receiving food, medicine, and other basic supplies its people needed to survive in the face of a shattered infrastructure.

The U.N. documented that over a half million Iraqi children, average age 12, died as a result of these sanctions by just 1996.  On “60 Minutes” U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright acknowledged this carnage and smugly stated it was “worth the price” of imposing U.S. domination over Iraq (2).

Where were all those “all lives matter” Americans when their leaders were killing all these innocent Iraqi children (by any reckoning, 500,000 Iraqi children killed is genocide rivaling the Jewish Holocaust)?  Where indeed are they now as Iran suffers under similar sanctions as COVID-19 spreads?

Let’s put these proclamations to the test and demand that U.S. sanctions against Iran be lifted.

Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win!
All Power to the People!

 

1.     John Maresca’s full statement to the legislative subcommittee was posted at; http//www.house.gov/international_relations/105th/ap/wsat212982.htm

2.     Ramsey Clark et al., Challenge to Genocide: Let Iraq Live (Washington D.C: International Action Center 1988)

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