War concerns

by John Schneeberger, Hamilton

My main concern about this war is the welfare of the Iranian people and those affected in the region. I am concerned because they are human beings and I try to make no distinction between people because of national origin.

The Iranians did not deserve to have their democratically elected prime minister overthrown by the CIA and MI6 because they wanted to control their own resources. They did not deserve 23 years of repression under the Shah. They didn’t deserve to have their revolution hijacked by Islamic extremists. They didn’t deserve an eight-year war of attrition with Iraq. They didn’t deserve 46 years of extreme oppression by a regime of religious zealots. They don’t deserve to be bombed by the US and Israel and now likely suffer thousands of “collateral” civilian deaths like the 175 killed in the attack on a girls’ school this last Saturday. No one deserves this.

I hope this bombing campaign leads to the overthrow of the odious Islamic Republic and its replacement with something better. If that was the goal, I doubt this is the best way to go about it. Trump and Netanyahu telling unarmed Iranians to overthrow their entrenched and armed police state is cynical PR meant to impress the gullible. If history is a guide, things will likely get worse for the Iranian people and they, like everyone, do not deserve this.