My letter published in the Jamaica Observer
The recent assassination of Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani has been met by some local readers, it seems, with joy and bewilderment as to why the international community would be sad.
This is possibly linked to the reports I have seen which liken the late general to Osama bin Laden and the oft-repeated statement that the general has “American blood on his hands”.
Such views, while disgusting, are understandable if one accepts that most of our people only consume the garbage which passes for news emanating from the US and her friends.
Let us deal with the points and lay the facts from the lies. General Soleimani was a general in a branch of the Iranian Armed Forces, the Quds Force, which in 2018 was named a terrorist organisation (against the will of the joint chiefs of staff and the US’s Central Intelligence Agency).
He was also an accredited diplomat. He was in no way comparable to bin Laden.
In fact, this diplomat was assassinated while on his way to talk to Saudi Arabia envoys about winding down the war in Yemen (the world biggest humanitarian disaster, in case we have forgotten).
To compare a diplomat and member of an internationally recognised army to bin Laden shows how far propaganda can and has gone.
The American blood so often talked about is also an aberration, at worst, or a twisting of facts, at best. Lest we forget, it was the US who invaded Iraq in 2003 with the covert aim of toppling Iran next.
It was they who fired the entire Ba’ath party and army; thus creating the Sunni al-Qaeda in Iraq. And it was the Shia majority who asked for Iranian help as the bloodbath increased.
True, the militias trained by Soleimani and his Quds Force killed Americans, but they were an occupying force, an illegal one to boot, and the UN Charter says force of arms is more than acceptable to evict the occupier — how soon we forget the African liberation struggle and these discussions — and that an occupied people can ask for help to liberate themselves (does Zimbabwe ring a bell?). This is not a full-throated defence of Iran; it is critical support.
I am an atheist communist and they are a theocracy, I have my personal gripes with their system — something which is up to them in Iran and not me to decide — but I can put prejudice aside in order to parse sense from nonsense. The killing of this man who led from the front line the fight against ISIS does not portend peace.
My personal political views do not preclude me from standing with a nation who is trying to ward off imperial aggression.
We all should take a stance against this imperial aggression and what amounts to nothing more than the cold-blooded murder of a diplomat on a peace mission with the permission of the Iraqis outside a civilian airport.
To those just repeating talking points, I say, please do some independent research on the subject and then draw conclusions.
The world is on edge and it is the fault of the Americans who, through their refusal to accept the new geo-political realities, lash out like a wounded dog hoping to take as much down with it as possible.
Say no to the American aggression and push for war and fight back against the propaganda machine — the same one which would have you believe Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are somehow existential threats to American security.
Stand up to it and refute it, or we will in no short order find ourselves either victims of it directly or indirectly via global conflict, possibly nuclear, and the surety of a prohibitively high oil price.
jamaicachange 