(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Brainwashed by a barrage of media hype, malevolent misinformation and persuasive propaganda such as the above quote from the FOX News foreign affairs analyst and self-proclaimed representative of the “Iranian parliament in exile,” Americans cling tenaciously to carefully crafted myths about their country, democracy, freedom, human rights, Iran and Islam.
And the U.S. media, perhaps more than any other factor, is responsible for perpetuating these farcical fantasies, which assert that the United States is a democracy that stands for human rights and supports others in their struggles for freedom. Americans are taught that “moderate” Islam might be OK but nevertheless, Muslims everywhere must be carefully watched since, as the media has intimated, radical Islam is guilty of fostering terrorism. And Iran, a Shiite Muslim nation, is threatening the stability of the “international community” with their nuclear program.
Myth 1: The U.S.is a democracy with a government accountable to its citizens
The United States has what I like to refer to as “decorative democracy.” In fact, the so-called “Founding Fathers” were extremely fearful of the chaos and instability that could result from pure democracy. James Madison wrote that “democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”Hence, Article 4 Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution guarantees a “Republican Form of Government” to the states; the word democracy does not even appear in the document.
Americans don’t even have the right to directly elect their own president. Article 2 Section 1 prescribes that the President shall be elected by state-appointed electors while Article 1 Section 3 states that the Senators were to be “chosen by the Legislature” of each state. Only representatives were to be directly elected by those people specified in Article 1 Section 2. By contrast, the president of Iran is elected by popular direct vote, and over the history of the Islamic Republic, up to 10 candidates have run for the office in a single election. While Iranian law requires the president to have a doctoral degree, only one U.S. president had a Ph.D. - Woodrow Wilson.
Myth 2: The U.S. supports democracy and freedom in the Middle East
In the forefront of “democratic” countries supported by the U.S. in the Middle East is Saudi Arabia, perhaps one of the most repressive regimes on earth yet a close U.S ally and a platinum-rated customer of the U.S. war industry. Saudi Arabia has an abysmal human rights record, not to mention a dictatorial monarchy that openly supports a virulent form of extremist Islam known as Wahhabism, which openly condemns Shi'a Muslims as heretics. And with U.S.-backed, Saudi-inspired Salafists trying to break into the Iranian charge d’affair’s office in Cairo while shouting “don’t normalize relations with Iran,” it would also appear that the U.S.-Saudi axis is busy stirring up anti-Iranian sentiment in Egypt.
While claiming to have brought democracy to Iraq, the U.S. also brought Iraqis Saddam in the first place. The CIA assisted Saddam and the Ba'ath regime in their 1963 coup by providing lists of suspected communists to Ba'athists to aid their bloody purges that killed thousands of Iraqis. To make matters worse, at the end of the Persian Gulf war, the U.S. allowed Saddam to unleash his predominantly Sunni Republican Guards upon the Shi’ites crushing a budding rebellion and killing tens of thousands of them; over 70,000 fled to Iran.
Throughout the Middle East, the people themselves have risen up against U.S.-supported dictators in what has been dubbed the “Arab Spring” starting in Tunisia and spreading to Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. As a result, U.S. “damage control” efforts to suppress democracy in the Middle East went into overdrive.
* First, the U.S. allowed its Saudi “allies” to invade Bahrain, home of the U.S. Fifth fleet, to crush peaceful democratic protests against the dictatorial ruler, Hamid bin Aissa Al Khalifa. In exchange, the Saudis manipulated the Arab League into supporting a NATO (read the Pentagon’s European military wing) invasion of Libya.
* Next, the U.S. acted to contain the democratic revolution in Egypt. While the brutal dictator Hosni Mubarak was toppled, the new “Islamist” president of Egypt, Muhammad Morsi, appears to have sold out to the West judging by Washington’s gift of F-16 fighter jets and support as long as he remains “committed to the democratic process.”
* Then, fearing that the democratic revolutions would spread, the U.S. cut a deal with Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh for the transfer of power from Ali Abdullah Saleh, the corrupt ruler of Yemen who had given the U.S. free reign for drone strikes, to his deputy, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
* Finally, Syrian President Bashar al-Asad was placed on the U.S hit list since he is perceived as an ally of Iran and Hezbollah, and because of his ardent anti-Zionist stand.
Since the U.S and its Zionist ally could not crush the Lebanese Shi’a resistance movement in 2006, U.S.-Saudi Wahhabi proxy forces from Qatar armed by the West were called in to create a “civil” war with the main victims being the Syrian people. The Arab League has even had the audacity to hand Syria’s seat over to the “opposition” that is, U.S.-approved puppet regime “in exile,” which recently opened an embassy in Qatar. Like the Blacks and Native people in the U.S. at the time of the constitution, Syrians are being denied a voice in their own future.
So while claiming to support democracy, the United States is clearly laboring hard to squelch democratic movements both at home and abroad. As Glenn Greenwald writes, “Indeed, there is virtually an inverse relationship between how democratic a country is in the Muslim world and how closely allied the US is to it.” By Greenwald’s criterion, Iran is the most democratic country in the region!
Myth 3: The United States stands up for human rights, justice, and the dignity of all people
Article 1 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” In contrast, Article 1 Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution is very specific in regards to who will be represented in government: free Persons (read white landowners); Blacks count as 3/5 of a person and Native Peoples are excluded.
Concerning human rights, justice and the dignity of people, the United States:
* was established on the blood of some 10 million (up to 18 million according to some scholars) Native human beings;
* has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with young Black males six times more likely to be in prison than young white males, and non-whites comprising 65% of inmates;
* has repeatedly used torture, water boarding, sleep deprivation, humiliation, stripping, hooding, and other cruel, inhuman and degrading tactics in its Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and other prison camps elsewhere;
* has an economy that has caused at least 10 recessions since WWII, some 50 million Americans to subsist on Food Stamps, at least 3.5 million homeless people, a shrinking middle class, and the widest income disparity among the so-called Western Democracies;
* has some 50 million Americans without any medical coverage whatsoever, has no universal health care plan for its citizens, who spend twice as much per capita on medical care as do citizens of other Western nations with national health plans;
* spends some $700 billion a year on war, almost as much as the military spending of the rest of the world combined, while politicians insist universal health care is too costly;
* affords corporations legal personhood, giving them much greater influence in elections and with members of Congress than ordinary citizens;
* and, has the most heavily armed society in the world with 90 guns per 100 citizens, and buys over half the world’s annual output of small arms. India is a far distant second with 4 guns per 100 citizens.
By the above facts, it should be clear that the U.S. is not concerned with human rights, justice and the dignity of people within its borders, much less elsewhere.
Myth 4: A nuclear Iran threatens the entire international community
Iran is a peaceful nation that has not attacked any country since 1738 when Nader Shah invaded India, while the United States, like its Zionist ally, has been at war almost continuously since its inception. As one Pakistani colleague of mine said of Iranians, “I don’t think they are capable of hate.” And yet, the United States, a country that first used nuclear weapons in 1945 and still maintains a huge 5000+ warhead arsenal, along with their nuclear-armed Zionist ally, accuse Iran, which does not have a nuclear weapon, of posing the “greatest threat to world peace.”
Iran has been targeted by the U.S. since 1953. The Shah, who perpetrated unspeakable abominations against his own people with his secret police force the SAVAK, was in fact installed in 1953 by a CIA coup that ousted the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadeq. This U.S.-supported tyrant killed tens of thousands of his fellow countrymen while Americans turned blind eyes which were only opened to the reality following the U.S. Embassy seizure in November of 1979 by understandably outraged Iranian students.
What followed was 34 years of increasingly hostile U.S. economic sanctions, support for Saddam's war against Iran, the downing of an Iranian airliner en route from Bandar Abbas to Abu Dhabi killing all 290 people on board, and U.S. invasions of neighboring countries Iraq and Afghanistan, forcing millions to seek refuge in Iran. And now there are more sanctions, outrageous charges against Iran's peaceful nuclear program and threats of military attacks.
A recent study concluded that strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities could kill 85,000 Iranians, who are already suffering under sanctions that fail to distinguish clearly between transactions for permitted goods like medicine and food, and so-called “dual use” materials. For example, fluoride toothpaste is nearly impossible to obtain in Iran since fluorine is “dual-use”; it is used to make UF6 - Uranium Hexafluoride, a step in the concentration process.
Other destabilization activity by the U.S. includes:
* In 2006, the U.S. congress passed the Iran Freedom and Support Act, which directed $10 million towards groups opposed to the Iranian government;
* In 2007, President Bush authorized a $400 million covert operation to create unrest in Iran;
* The CIA has provided support to a militant Sunni organization called Jundullah, which has launched raids into Iran from its base in Pakistan;
* The U.S. has provided funding and training to the terrorist groups People's Mujahidin Organization of Iran (MEK, Mujahedin-e Khalq) and Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan.
Myth 5: Islam is an intolerant religion that promotes violence
Over 1 billion people in the world are followers of the religion of Islam, that is to say they are Muslims. The word Muslim literally means “one who submits” and the implication is to the will of God, whom Muslims refer to as Allah. Of the three Abrahamic faiths: Christianity, Judaism and Islam, Islam is the purest form of monotheism.
Actually, Islam forms the basis of a universal brotherhood of mankind. This is the main reason that Islam has spread so rapidly; it gives people hope for escaping the clutches of slavery, whether economic or physical. On the subject, the Holy Qur’an (Surat al-Hujurat 49:13) says:
“O mankind! Indeed We have created you from a male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that you certainly would get to know one another.”
Accurate portrayals of Islam are rare in the Western media. When Moqtada al-Sadrwas in the news, he was always “the radical anti-U.S. Shi’a cleric Moqtada al-Sadr,” and never just the Islamic cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, or simply Moqtada al-Sadr. And what about Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran? Does a “fair and balanced” account about him exist in the Western media? By and large, the answer is a resounding no.
Conclusion: Reality vs. Mythology
In reality, the United States is a rich, nuclear-armed and imperialistically inclined nation with pompous plutocrats for leaders who manipulate the citizenry by media mythology. The U.S. poses the greatest threat to world peace, not Iran, Islam or any Islamic group, and because so few of my fellow citizens are exposed to the truth, it is my duty as a Muslim to unmask these myths. As the Prophet of Islam (S) said:
“All of you are guardians, and all of you are held accountable for fellow citizens.”
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