Are We Desensitized When It Comes To War?
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Transcript provided by: "Technically, That's Illegal"
I just got back from Starbucks little bit ago, and I thought I would sit and chat with you on my coffee break. While I was in Starbucks, I heard a couple of individuals talking about the future war in Iran. Of course, they were discussing all of the reasons why it’s justified. I didn’t get myself involved in their conversation. It’s not my business what they were talking about, but I overheard the conversation and there were a number of things that were said that I would refute.
There are a lot of misconceptions about Iran and about this conflict altogether. By the way, this is a conflict between Iran and Israel. Only after the United States began threatening Iran through the media did Iran even suggest they would set their sights on the United States. I know that Israel is an ally of ours, but the thing about it is Israel can defend themselves. They really can. Ironically, Israel has a problem with Iran’s so-called nuclear program which has yet to be proven. The CIA and other officials continue to come out with reports that say there’s no evidence of this. There is no evidence they are building nukes. Regardless, there is a lot of propaganda and a lot of rhetoric. The ironic thing is Israel does not want them to get nukes. However, the only reason Israel itself has nukes is by doing the exact same thing that Iran is supposedly doing.
This sort of clandestine program that violates all kinds of treaties and things is what Israel started back in the sixties or fifties. It’s hypocritical, to be honest. Even so, Israel can defend itself. Israel can wipe Iran off the face of the map if they so choose. They don’t need our help. Why would we get involved? War supposed to be a last resort kind of thing, right? It’s not anymore.
I fear we’ve become desensitized when it comes to the image of war in our minds because a lot of us have grown up knowing nothing but war. I think about my nephews. All of them are relatively young. The oldest is sixteen years old. He was born in 1995. By the time he was six or seven years old, we’ve been in war. That’s what he’s known. America is always at war with somebody in the Middle East. They may not understand why but they know we’re there, and that’s just the way things are for them. Isn’t that crazy to think about? Even for me, I was born in 1981. I grew up in the 80s hearing about communists and the Cold War. I didn’t know what any of that meant, but I heard it all of the time. In the 90s, there was a war in the Middle East. I remember watching the missile strikes with the green tinted videos on the nightly news every single day. It’s just what we’re used to. We don’t think about it because we’re not there.
Consider this: remember how you felt on the tragic events that occurred on September 11th, 2001. There were three thousand Americans killed on that day. It was a horrible, horrible, tragic day. This happens almost every day in places in the Middle East and we’re the ones with our fingers on the trigger. You say there’s a difference because those were civilians that were killed here in the United States. Well, this from antiwar.com. I saw this just the other day. The title, “Obama Denies Huge Number of Civilian Casualties in Drone War.”
President Barack Obama readily confirmed the drone war in northwest Pakistan in an interview Monday, breaking with the protocol which normally demands U.S. officials not speak publicly about the classified program.
“I want to make sure people understand actually drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties,” President Obama said in an hour long interview hosted by Google. “For the most part, they’ve been very precise, precision strikes against against al-Qaeda and their affiliates.”
The claim mirrors previous attempts to downplay the civilian casualties of the drone war. John Brennan, President Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor, told the public back in June that zero civilian casualties have occurred as a result of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan.
This was an obvious lie, but the Bureau of Investigative Journalism helped prove it so in August by cataloguing their lengthy findings on civilian casualties in the drone war, counting hundreds of civilians by name who were killed in drone strikes, including at least 168 children. Investigative reporter Noor Behram, who had been on the ground in Pakistan tallying the dead, estimated that “for every 10 to 15 people killed, maybe they get one militant.”
How could they avoid killing civilians? We’ve got a war on terror. I get that. We’re seeking after the ones who killed Americans, but we’re killing a lot of other people in the process. Not just with the drone strikes, but certainly those attacks are not nearly as precise as what were led to believe. Think about being a person living in these countries like Pakistan. Think about the wars were fighting. You don’t even think about Pakistan, do you? No. You think about Iraq and Afghanistan. We’re in Pakistan and other places as well. We even sent troops to Africa. The whole reason for that I’m not even sure about. We’re not fighting al-Qaeda, that’s for certain. We’re not even fighting Muslims. We’re fighting Christians down there. I don’t know how much actual fighting has been done, so don’t misunderstand me. It’s just that I think we’ve been desensitized. We are incapable it seems of putting the shoe on the other foot, if you know what I mean.
We’re building up this propaganda against Iran to go into yet another war. For me, that’s just it. It’s propaganda. There’s a couple of red flags in all of this hype surrounding Iran. The first red flag is that Iran has been close to getting nukes for years and years and years. I read a couple of excellent time lines that have shown the progress of Iran’s nuclear program (if they have one) as early as 1979. At that time, they were not even an Islamic anti-Western society as we think of them today. There were reports of them getting close to having nukes and they’re still close to getting nukes despite the fact that James Clapper and the CIA have come out with multiple reports (even very recently) saying that there is no proof that Iran has nukes or is getting close to nukes. We just don’t have that kind of intelligence.
The other red flag is simply the fact that given that this is not a U.S/Iran conflict. I’m not sure why were even considering getting involved knowing, like I said, that Israel can take care of themselves. Plus, what kind of fools do you think Iran is? If they had the capability of shooting off some kind of nuke towards Israel or towards the United States (that one’s very unlikely), are they really that foolish? Knowing what we and Israel could do to them, do you really think they’re going to commit suicide by firing off a nuke just out of spite? That’s crazy.
We’ve taken Iran’s president’s words somewhat out of context. Those words get replayed over and over again — they want to wipe Israel off the face the map. Therefore Israel, being our ally, we should be greatly concerned about this and ready, jumping, itching at the chance to pull the trigger against them. But, one, that man who made such outlandish comments, does not have the power to fire off nukes according to Iran’s own government system. He can’t do that. And, like I said, he wouldn’t be crazy enough to do that. Iran is not that foolish.
The way the media portrays all of this is that they have really put a bent on this matter to promote the future war in Iran. They are describing them as terrorists and using some of those key words to make us all believe that we’ve got to do something about them. This is from lewrockwell.com titled “Disgraceful Reporting by the Boston Herald and Others.”
The best way to get news is to read actual testimony, reports, transcripts, and speeches. The worst way is to read headlines, unless you like to be subjected to distortions and misunderstandings. In between, one can read news reports and then blogs, comments, and editorials about news reports.
No matter what one reads, the next step is to think about the matter and place it in perspective based on important factors, past events, past news, past communications, history, and so on.
Transcript provided by: "Technically, That's Illegal"
Case in point: the testimony of Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper today. Most important is that he said clearly that Iran is not building nuclear weapons and CIA chief David Petraeus said the same thing, and the latter said he had met with the head of Mossad to convey his view. This portion of his testimony was not reported in the Boston Herald article. Instead, it pieced together two unconnected parts of his testimony and left the impression that Iran was making enriched uranium in order to conduct an attack on the U.S.!! This is disgracefully poor reporting and utterly misleading.
Google provides headlines. Many of these, that I will not cite, are disgraceful too. They leave the impression that Iran has bolstered its threats unilaterally and is suddenly more willing to attack the continental U.S. This is not at all what Clapper said. He said that Iran is “now more willing to conduct an attack on the United States” in the case of a “real or perceived” threat by the U.S. to the regime. In other words, an attack on them or a U.S. threat on them that they considered deadly serious might possibly be met by their attacks on American soil. That’s his opinion, but even that doesn’t get reported accurately. For example, the Washington Post says, according to Google, “launch terrorist attacks inside the United States in response to perceived threats from America and its allies…” Notice that they added the word “terrorist” to Clapper’s testimony and they left out the part about a real threat. This is really pitiful and biased reporting.
In fact, Clapper’s words are heavily hedged in three ways that the reporting doesn’t make clear. First, he said that it was the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador that is what is indicating to the CIA that “some Iranian officials” are more willing to attack the U.S. in response to real and perceived threats on their regime. OK, but that plot is alleged and the evidence for Iran’s involvement is vanishing. It was so far-fetched and so clownish, whom does it convince? Not me at any rate. Maybe the bright boys in the CIA. Clapper seems to be reaching for a convincing story. Second, other parts of his testimony make clear that there are big divisions and conflicts among Iran’s rulers. That is why he hedged by saying “some Iranian officials.” This is hardly a ringing statement that says that Iran has decided to target the U.S. Third, he says that the top leader “probably” has changed his calculus. How does he know that? It too is hedged language.
In reality, the two short paragraphs on the threat from Iran do not deserve consideration even as major news and they do not deserve scare headlines, much less misinterpreted headlines or biased news reports. There have been numerous threats coming out of Iran about what damage it might choose to inflict if attacked. Their language has waxed as the U.S. threats have waxed. It doesn’t take a CIA with a huge budget to figure out what’s going on. The plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, such as it was, is actually peripheral to the ongoing threat dynamic.
Fox News uses the phrase “emboldened Iran” when it says it is “more willing” to attack the U.S. Where do they get “emboldened” from? That too makes it sound as if Iran, for some unknown reason or unilaterally, has taken upon itself to make the U.S. a target.
There’s more, but I think you get the picture. Glenn Beck also uses the word terrorist when reporting about the potential attacks from Iran on the United States. No. What Iran has been talking about, if anything, is that if you threaten or attack them, they will fight back. They’re more justified in that than we are. Here’s something to keep in mind: China and Russia are on Iran’s side. Get this:
The potential for East-West conflict over Iran is that Russia and China have both given strong indications of being on Iran’s side. The level of Chinese support goes beyond words and economic sanctions. It goes to military aid and prospective military support. Several high-level officials in Russia have criticized sanctions as well as any attack in quite strong language, suggesting “catastrophe” and unknown but large ramifications. The West’s sanctions are backfiring already as Iran arranges oil sales in non-dollar currencies. They are backfiring by creating support for Iran among states outside of Europe and the U.S.
So we’ve got bigger problems than just Iran if we do ultimately make Iran a target. But, here’s what I really want you to think about if you happen to be in support the war against Iran: Why? Why? I don’t want to do just answer that question with talking points that you would hear from Sean Hannity. I what reasons. And you should be honest enough with yourself to seek out those reasons. Why do you support a war in Iran? Is it going to make the world a safer place? Are we going to be better off? Is it justified? Is it moral? This subject really gets to me. This is why I talk about foreign policy so much.
As much as we may have been desensitized to it over the years, war a very serious matter. It is one that I think we should be putting a lot more consideration into than what we are. It honestly makes me cringe to watch Christians be almost blood thirsty in their support for pretty much any war that gets thrown to us by politicians and mainstream media. Yeah, do it! Let’s kill some Muslims! That’s what I’m hearing in their statements. Is that the reason? Because they’re Islamic nations? Is that the reason we want to kill a lot of people get ourselves involved in another costly war? Do we really perceive them to be a threat? If that’s the case why don’t we just blow up everybody? Why don’t we just take our nukes around the world and end all threats? We’ll be fine, right? You want peace through strength? There is your answer.
What is your reason for supporting the war? Is a good reason? I don’t support it. I just don’t see any reason to. I really don’t. I’m not trying to be mister hippie pacifist. I just don’t see it.
“Iranian Balderdash | 111 Coffee & Cigarettes” Transcript provided by Ann Sattley of Technically, That’s Illegal
Obama Denies ‘Huge Number of Civilian Casualties’ in Drone War | AntiWar.com
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/01/30/obama-denies-huge-number-of-civilian-casualties-in-drone-war/Disgraceful Reporting by the Boston Herald and Others | LewRockwell.com
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/104912.htmlIrresponsible Reporting on Iran From Glenn Beck | LewRockwell.com
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/104915.htmlChina and Russia on Iran’s Side | LewRockwell.com
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/104899.html
About The Author
Jeremy Sarber
I'm the pastor of one of the most blessed churches in all the world. I'm married to the most wonderful woman to walk the face of the earth. I'm host of possibly the most unconventional podcast on the Internet. I am thankful because I deserve none of it. Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email
