By Karla Fetrow
Israel Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu., has drawn the red line, stating that those who refused to stand by it have no moral right to give Israel a “red light”. By this, he inferred that a war against Iran would be moral, and somehow, legal. An inference to an aggressive action against a country that has to date, demonstrated no inclination for this desired war, is puzzling at best. According to MJ Rosenberg of Huff Post, the Israeli citizens are also disinterested in going to war with Iran, even though Natanyahu assures them that only five hundred Israeli citizens would be killed in an Iran missile strike retaliation. Not only that, but only three percent of American Jews think war with Iran is a good idea.
Republican Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney seems to feel America has abandoned Israel by not being more enthusiastic in supporting Netanyahu’s desires to send Iran into the stone age. In a war-like atmosphere, it’s only natural that nuclear capacity is a prologue to nuclear weapons. In the meantime, the ground gets shakier, and war or no war, countries are choosing up sides.
What exactly is fanning the flames behind Netanyhu’s obsession with bombing Iran? On the surface, the evidence seems to point to a religious war. The recent attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya that killed U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans was said to be provoked by a group that felt a U.S. produced film insulted the Prophet Mohammad. The origins of the film is rather murky. The cast that starred in it assumed they were making an action flick, called “desert Warriors”, set two thousand years in the past. The producer, who claims his name is Sam Bassiel, is not listed with the directors’ and writers’ guild. Nobody apparently knows who financed the film, which became an American flop in the box office.
The film, with a title recently changed to “Innocense of Muslims” is purported to have been backed by a few extremist anti-Islam groups. It was declared by the mysterious Bassiel, who uses several aliases and claims an Israeli/ American background although Israel has no record of him, that the film is “a political effort to call attention to the hypocrisies of Islam.” Stated Bassiel, “Islam is a cancer. The movie is a political movie. It’s not a religious movie.”
The political repercussions of the film have been enormous. Apart from the fatal protests in Benghazi, the film sparked anti-American demonstrations in Cairo, Egypt, where over 2,000 protestors stormed the US Embassy and removed the American flag, attempting to replace it with a black flag that stated, “There is no God but Allah”.
There is, however, a piece to the puzzle that just won’t fit into the religious scenario. Iran supports the current government of Syria, which has been sharply criticized by Al Qaeda for failing to pursue the cause of Islamist Muslim. Al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahri stated all Muslims should back the rebels seeking to over-throw President Bashar al-Assad as it would bring them one step closer to the goal of defeating Israel.
To add to the confusion, the US sends support to the rebel troops intent on over-throwing Assad, which in turn gives this monetary support to Al-Queda. According to John Glaser of Anti-War, the greater the greater the Al Qaeda profile, the more money is flown in to support the endlessly growing confusion of who is fighting against who and for what reason. States Glaser, “All of this collusion is done in order to siphon off more taxpayer dollars, military training from Washington, and major weapons systems from America’s defense corporations.”
The memorial for the 9/11 attacks have been declared Patriot’s Day. More accurately, it should be called, “Homeland Security Day”. After eleven years of constant conflict and witch hunts for terrorists abroad and at home, Americans have grown weary of policies that have affected their freedom of assembly, freedom of peaceful protest and stripped their privacy. Yet they are being prepped and cultivated for a war that could have world-wide consequences.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia is nervous about a US led NATO plan to place land- and sea-based radars and interceptors in several European locations. Washington says the shield is intended against a possible missile attack from Iran, but Moscow sees it as a threat to its security, saying it may eventually grow powerful enough to undermine Russia’s nuclear deterrent.
Putin stated that a remark made by US Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, has justified Russia’s opposition to defense plans in Europe, after the Romney declared Russia as the number one geo-political foe of the United States.
“I’m grateful to him for formulating his stance so clearly, because he has once again proven the correctness of our approach to missile defense problems,” Putin said of Romney. “The most important thing for us is that even if he doesn’t win now, he or a person with similar views may come to power in four years. We must take that into consideration while dealing with security issues for a long perspective.”
While China opposes the development of a nuclear arsenal in Iran, it harshly criticizes the NATO sanctions against the country and states that Iran has the right to develop nuclear capacity for energy purposes and urges that the conflict with Iran be settled peacefully.
As the estimates on the possibility of war with Iran edges up to forty percent, peaceful resolution isn’t looking too good. The moral red line that Netanyhu has drawn is clearly immoral. He has advocated hostilities against a country based on the rumors of nuclear arm capacity without evidence that Iran has any intention of developing nuclear arms. His paranoia has harmed a developed country that had been economically stable, with a large middle class , through the sanctions imposed by NATO. He has pitted not only the citizens of his own country into unwillingly contemplating war, but the citizens of the United States.
War against Iran isn’t necessary from a religious view, yet because of a film that wasn’t even heard of in the US, the flames of religious indignation have been ignited. War isn’t necessary from a political view. Iran’s support of Syria has actually stabilized any threats from Muslim countries to march against Israel. War with Iran however, is a cash cow for financial investors. While we are at war, we cannot concentrate on our own problems involving adequate housing, inflationary costs and unemployment. Thousands of young people struggling for economic stability will be advised to simply join the military.
While we are at war, the hitherto neutral countries will be watching. They will weigh the justifications for bombing Iran and speculate on how these aggressive policies will affect their own governments. Many of these countries might not remain neutral. They may decide an economic war is not palatable and side with Iran for ideological reasons or to protect their own systems of government.
An entire generation of people do not remember the hardships, the distrust, the fear and oppression of the Cold War. They do not know what it’s like to be given instructions for bomb shelters and preparations for what to do if they are in a classroom or office just prior to an attack. We’ve torn down the Iron Curtain that suppressed our knowledge and interactions with citizens in half the world, yet down a thicker, heavier curtain is being raised. It is a curtain made of drones, air strikes and intense security measures. It is a curtain that draws across our very windows, lending suspicion and biases against our neighbors. We are being drawn into a war that is meaningless to all except the perpetrators of prejudice and hate, and the people who finance them. The red line has been drawn and the only question that remains is what side of it will we, individually, and as a people of the American Republic, stand.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/romney-cant-imagine-saying-no-to-meeting-bibi/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/is-netanyahu-an-existenti_b_1877461.html
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/13/world/anti-islam-filmmaker/index.html
http://news.yahoo.com/al-qaeda-leader-urges-support-ousting-syrias-assad-115939241.html
http://antiwar.com/blog/2012/08/31/us-backed-yemeni-regime-collaborates-with-supports-al-qaeda/
L. A. Breaux 
Subversify Staff
All of the rhetoric about “religious” wars is a critical misplacement of blame. I would dare say there has NEVER been a war with “religion” as anything but an excuse. Wars, national, international, local and marital are all about power. They are about one person demanding control of another person or persons. Religion is used as an excuse because it creates the illusion of righteousness for the true evil. The blame of religion creates a righteous motive to destroy, and destruction is the absence of religion; it’s the opposite; it’s the anti.
Royal Chants, I agree. Religion is nothing more than an emotional whip to work people into a frenzy. A person’s religious or non-religious belief shouldn’t make a damned bit of difference to anyone. Like love, it is a deeply personal emotion, and like love, we either seek it or we don’t.
My dear Karla;writers and artists writing cowboy stories, California conversations and the legend of Jesse James. The gym teacher in a car wreck with her boyfriend….can’t be…teachers don’t have boyfriends or drive after dark. Oh Mr. Cline was such a loss.
You liked the Monkeys when everyone else was Beatle crazy. You thought Abraham Lincoln was good looking…
Sorry about that Karlsie, I got carried away with nostalgia. We were discussing religion and you have revealed yourself to be a woman of your time. The intimacy you proclaim for religion is neither assumed nor believed by most of the world. Martin Luther, 1,000 years after Christ walked on earth was inspired to understand that a relationship with God was between an individual and God and that governments were never intended to be involved. That was the beginning of the religious revolution, or as we call it, Protestantism (protests…), and the basis for the new idea of America; separation of church and government. Other religions and indeed, the first Christian church, Catholicism believe that religion is based on behavior rather than an individual relationship with God, by his grace, and when behavior is considered, governments always want to control individuals. We westerners will continue to be frustrated with the Mideast because they see God very differently than we do.
All of these things would most likely have come to pass no matter what. The minute the false country of Israel was set up these things were set in motion. Understanding this makes it easier to see why a very stupid film would be the match that lit the fire. It was never about religion, power nor film making…okay maybe power a little…it’s more about the fact that people were displaced with no recourse offered them without their input. A giant misstep was made, we are now paying the price.
And yes, more boys and girls will be sent off to die. But, I find it unusual that most of these are youth that sign up for military service. We haven’t even invoked a draft and still we are sending soldiers oversees. Who are these families and youth who do not care that they die for something so far away and of no concern to them?
@ Grainne,
” But, I find it unusual that most of these are youth that sign up for military service. We haven’t even invoked a draft and still we are sending soldiers oversees. Who are these families and youth who do not care that they die for something so far away and of no concern to them?”
Well, the youthful demographic is the one most heavily targeted by recruitment propaganda (not to mention the poorest demographics…) – the way that the state sees it, they need to get their military/paramilitary agents while they are still young and maliable (i.e. before they wise to the scam…) and thus focus all their attention on them. And since these kids have few employment prospects (even people with degrees, like myself, are having a hard time finding work that doesn’t involve manual labor) they see the state’s military/paramilitary forces as one of the handful of guaranteed jobs in an economy that’s progressively getting worse and worse: in their minds, it’s better to risk death under a hail of fire than to find certain death on the streets as an unemployed hobo.
This generation doesn’t have a lot of options anymore (not unless one is willing to go to extremes that are not approved by mainstream society anyway..) and I can forgive some stupid kid for joining the forces of repression out of desperation – provided that he renounces his loyalty to the state first…
@AZ- Oh yes I agree absolutely. It is just very clear that an environment has been created in which the youth see this as the only way out. Then their own cognitive dissonance causes them to re-up, sometimes for three or more tours of duty. If they don’t re-up, their dissonance causes them to support the military actions because gosh darn it! They don’t want to feel like they wasted time! I think it a brave thing whenever ex-military personnel speak out against what they were required to do.
Hell we have even effectively convinced the GLBT sector to fight for a chance to go somewhere else and die for a cause that is not theirs. I think this is sad. People are fighting to be allowed to die for the state.
The loss of options in these new generations is not by accident. Kids are fed MTV cribs dreams then told they can’t afford what they think should rightfully be theirs, so…the military. Living with less is not be taught or accepted, not even by family units who think those who choose this are underachieving and strange.
I live near a military base. The young people in the military are living in better homes than they can afford on civilian pay. They are also promised “higher education”, which they sometimes do and sometimes don’t receive. Other kids in the same age group are working low end jobs, such as fast food diners and chain stores. Their income isn’t high enough to afford the same living conditions as the military kids. Their options are to share rent with at least one other person, move in with a family member, or put their names on the list for subsidized housing. Many of these military kids have families. Facing a low paying job and sharing rent with others is not an option. It’s pitiful to think of the tight corner these kids have been forced into.
Royal Chants, you did throw me through a loop with your initial outburst, but it was some rather delicious prose, nonetheless. I’m glad you clarified yourself, and that’s an interesting take on religious history – one that I, shamefully, hadn’t really thought about. I actually received my viewpoints from my mother, whose own parents were atheists, but who developed her own religious convictions as she grew older. My mother was deeply spiritual, and I learned to differentiate between the hallelujah choir and those who had real spiritual motivations. They are governed by behavior; but the behavior isn’t compulsory. It’s an understanding that runs far deeper than simply being told what’s right or wrong.
(Out burst? I heard it as a very calm soothing voice meant to bring back memories). Aha! You do have a handle on what the whole New Testament is about. The Old Testament was about laws and rules. The New Testament says that if you have a personal relationship with God, you don’t need laws and rules; you will “usually” do the right thing intuitively. Being humans (get the reverse of words?) we naturally cannot be perfect so we’re bound to slip. I’m glad your mom found her truth. It really is soooo important. How did I get off your lovely subject of hate and present day wars and killing and onto this boring subject, heh?
I retract “outburst”. The voice was actually very poetic, leaving me as little flustered on how to respond. I wouldn’t call an examination of religion a boring subject; especially since so many people are insistent we are on the brink of a religious war. I find that difficult to accept, as hatred and wars have no place among true believers, and I have met a few who would lay down their lives for peace.
@ Royal Chant,
What are you talking about with this notion of “our country has been at peace for a generation, the young men take rifles to school?” You may not have noticed, but the U.S./NATO empire has been at war since the 1940s – from occupying Korea under the auspice of a “police action” and the Veitnam conflict to the various wars in Latin America and the Middle East going from the 1980s to the present!
I don’t know what rock you’ve been hiding under, but there hasn’t been any peace around here in at least 70 years (if not longer) – the reason people are taking guns to school is because they feel like thay are at war with their very existence (which is a feeling I can relate to) and don’t know what to do about it: so rather than shooting the bastards that imposed this Kafkaesque nightmare world on them, they turn their attention towards the more superficial things that taunt them from day-to-day (hence the tragic school shootings we keep seeing).
Yes, yes, but where religion is, the devil cannot be far behind. One must have experienced adversity, pain and suffering in order to appreciate peace, lack of pain and joy. That is the basis for the war phenomena. When our country has been at peace for a generation, the young men take rifles to school. We will never be very far removed from war in thhis earth age because men love war. Your sympathy for the young men who sign up for war is wasted because many love the prospect of putting their lives on the line, coming home a hero and reliving the horror when they are old men. They won’t admit that, or some won’t. They’ll retell their stories with sad faces and mourn their killed friends, but will secretly envy the friend’s fate.
So go our lives, philosophy and religion. God and Satan; one cannot exist without the other. I say that lightly but I believe it’s real and desperately serious. If and when we understand the reality we can then decide where we want to be when we finally understand that our existence can be eternal. Oh yes, there is more to this universe; to “living” than what we know here on this tiny planet.
Azazel; Aha! Speak of the devil and he will appear! According to Wikipedia “Azazel is a servant of Lucifer. On at least one occasion, Azazel has called Lucifer as his “daddy”, a reference to Lucifer’s role in creating demons. Azazel was King of Hell during Lucifer’s imprisonment.” And coincidently it goes on to say, “The only weapon described as having the power to kill Azazel is The Colt.” I say coincidently because the pen name I’m using,“Royal Chants” is the name of my colt. Hmmm
As to your rant, by your own words, there has always been war and according to the bible there always will be: Matthew 24:6, He said there will always be wars in the world until the Prince …
So I ask, why the ire? What do you hope to accomplish by being so angry? Do you really believe writing a scathing response to me will calm the storms? You did prove another point I made. In regarding the “volunteer” military as a bad thing, I have to believe you aren’t old enough to remember the forced military draft, which we have not experienced since 1973. It really is all relative. You won’t appreciate a home until you’ve lived on the streets. You won’t appreciate good health until you’ve been sick. You won’t appreciate wealth until you’ve been poor.
@ Royal Chants,
I picked my nom de plume for one reason – Azazel is a demon of war: the one who gave man the weapons needed to oppose the mythical tyrant in the sky known as Yaweh (and yes, that’s exactly how I perceive the biblical deity – as a personification of tyranny).
Now, you ask about my anger – the short version here is what my anger (and, in fact, the anger of many others like myself) stems from is the fact that the society we live in made us some serious promises about out lives: promises that it never intended to keep – we are those who are betrayed by the social contract we once blindly followed until the day we found ourselves at the end of our own ropes with no one to rely on but ourselves. The nation turned its back on us, so we turned our backs on it.
And for the record, I’m opposed to state-backed armies – be they “volunteer” (which is a rather ironic term, considering that most people who sign up don’t really have a lot of other options in this society…) or drafted since I’m opposed to states on principle.
Azazel; Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha oh my…. You must be 12! Bye bye.
Azazel; I’m sorry, I apologize. I should not have laughed at you and your distress. You actually write quite well. Most kids I know have trouble putting two sentences together and it’s good practice to write about anything, so bravo.
You have a whole world to learn about and just for the record, nobody promised you anything. Nobody owes you anything; certainly not what you perceive as a good life. All those people out there… all the millions of people….they’re just like you. Who do you think is supposed to supply you and them with what you think you need to be happy? Who are you supplying with happiness? Ever hear the phrase “survival of the fittest?” That’s not talking about the corner gym. That means this life is about survival and that’s what we’re all trying to do. Some have it figured out and some don’t. Little kids who want to depend on some other human to coddle them have some growing up to do. Please don’t take a gun to your school to prove how frustrated you are. They’ll just conclude that you were mentally unbalanced and you’ll be dead and you, therefore, won’t survive. (BTW, standing against God is not the smartest way to survive)
For the record, I’m in my thirties – thank you very much. And I’ve been out of school for years with a worthless and highly overpriced piece of paper to show for it.
You obviously know nothing about me, yet jump to conclusions about who I am and what I do…
Sorry, I don’t buy it. There is no way you could have written what you did in your post of September 21, 2012 at 4:04 AM, and be in your 30’s and educated. No way.
And why is that? Because educated people aren’t supposed to be angry? Because a man in his thirties wouldn’t be on a computer at 4am?
Well, I do have a degree and am quite angry – largely due to the fact that I can’t expect to get so much as a half-decent job with a degree anymore. And I keep a very irregular schedual due to the fact that what I do for a living isn’t exactly a conventional (or even “legal”) line of work: I come here whenever time allows me to and I occasionally submit a piece for publication here (you can feel free to look them up if you wish – just use the site’s seach bar…).
Once again, you have numerous preconceptions about me based on what believe people of given backgrounds should be like – I advise you to let go of these stereotypes, for they only inhibit your understanding of people…
I simply copied into my text the post date I referred to. It included the time of day. I am no stranger to 4 a.m. nor think it has any indication of age. How ridiculous. I took my clue about your age from what you wrote:
“society we live in made us some serious promises about our lives: promises that it never intended to keep – we are those who are betrayed by the social contract we once blindly followed…”
That is from the mind of an innocent; someone who thinks they’re owed something just for being conceived. Really? Social contracts? Who do you think that “society” is and just where are those promises written that you talk about? I suspect you’re confusing salesmen and recruiters with “society.” You, if you’re in your 30s, are society. You are in your prime and what YOU have accomplished (published complaints, byw, don’t count as accomplishments), is what steers society. You are belly-aching about yourself. If you truly have an education, you are better equipped to make the world a better place, and writing childish diatribes won’t help. You may be 30, but your thinking is not.
Now that’s all just to explain myself. The fact is, it is a very difficult world for many people right now, myself included. Unfortunately spite, anger, and blaming God won’t help. Helping others when possible will help. In a day gone by when times were also very difficult, a very wise president said “Ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country.” Wow!
Apparantly you and I have different takes on what society is – I was raised to believe all my life that if I followed the rules, stayed in school and worked hard I would be rewarded for it: it wasn’t until after I got out into the real world that I learned the cold, hard truth – those who get ahead aren’t those who work hard, but those who are already connected to people in higher places. I wound up with a degree that’s worth nothing, thousands of dollars in debt and with nothing but manual labor jobs to pay off my staggering bills. Things did not change for me until I stopped living within the “laws” society imposed upon me and began a new life (the details of which I won’t describe here).
So, in a nutshell, I’ve given up on this phony “land of opportunity” and now work for me and mine exclusively – this land is not my country any longer: as far as I’m concerned, the present order is my enemy.
Sorry, but “society” is not an opinion. It has a definition and you, whether you are a positive forward-moving part or part of the problem, you are society.
1so•ci•e•ty; noun, a: an enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another
b: a community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests
I’m so glad I ran into you out here in spider land. I’ve always wondered who the center of the universe was and now I’ve actually met you. Damn the rest of the world for not recognizing that also!
Thanks for ignoring my points (you know, the whole portion about the social order *not* living up to the same standards it holds us to…) and rambling off some dictionary definitions of the term (of which I’m no longer a part of – as I have no common institutions, interests, traditions, ect… with the present order).
I see that speaking further with you is a waste of time since you still believe in this delusion that you actually matter to the present social order – so goodbye Royal Chants: you may be comfortable living with a society that promises you one thing (opportunities for decent-paying jobs and benefits) and delivers another (lots of debt and no qualifications for anything beyond low-paying manual labor) but I most certainly am not…
hmmm, I’m ignoring your points? You have totally ignored mine. I don’t think I matter to society. Why should I? I don’t think you matter to society. Why should you? You are no different from anyone else who makes up society. That’s why I mistook you for a 12 year old (still think it) because you don’t get that YOU’RE NOT SPECIAL! Grow up. You’ll feel better.
BTW, I’ve tried getting one of those “low-paying manual labor” jobs and can’t get hired.
And if I were an employer I certainly wouldn’t give someone a big salary who thought “et cetera” was abreviated “ect.” No way you went to university.
On the subject of the Iranian economy; the government is now collecting taxes for the first time in over 30 (3000?) years.
So yeah the economy is going to hell.
..quote. “I picked my nom de plume for one reason – Azazel is a demon of war: the one who gave man the weapons needed to oppose the mythical tyrant in the sky known as Yaweh (and yes, that’s exactly how I perceive the biblical deity – as a personification of tyranny).”
Actually, Azazel is the one who taught man how to make weapons and armour out of wood and metal, in order to kill other men.
I’m not sure how effective swords and body-armour are against an imaginary tyrant in the sky.