Iran and the Left

A theme has developed in the wingnut media, namely, that 'the left' has neglected Iran. This is presumed to indicate either hypocrisy and double standard ('They always criticise Israel!') or tacit sympathy for Ahmedinejad, the Ayatollah, and the mad mullahs who run the regime.

The evidence for this charge lies solely in the claim that leftists have been mute on Iran. They probably have been mute in the News Ltd media, since they don't exist at all within Murdoch empire, but a quick click on the links of my blog, and about thirty seconds googling revealed anything other than silence or complicity when it comes to the Iranian autocracy:

Lenin's Tomb is probably the foremost socialist blog in the UK, if not the world, excluding the large group blogs. Bloggers Richard Seymour and Yoshie have repeatedly tackled the issue of Iran, the elections, and the uprisings. Significantly, this extensive coverage has also encompassed critique of the deceits and conceits perpetuated regarding this crisis by the ruling elites in the Anglophone media.

Slavoj Žižek has published a widely-circulated text supporting the protestors in Iran, and calling for the downfall of the current regime. From a rather different leftist perspective, Chomsky has given this interview on the subject.

In Australia, Mark Bahnisch made some cautious remarks in support of the dissenters. Quiggin looked at things with reference to Obama. Slack @ndy has compiled pro-protestor links, anti-regime, and has criticised a presumed concordance between Ahmedinejad and Chavez. Green Left Weekly expressed solidarity with the dissenters of Iran.

In the US and beyond, there has also been plenty of critical comment on the topic of Iran's sham elections and their aftermath. Minnesota-based Trot Renegade Eye lent his voice of solidarity. Counterpunch has been providing almost daily coverage, including these two pieces. AlterNet had provided a number of pieces on this topic, particularly attacking the lack of freedom of speech. Marxism.com has published multiple pieces int he past week or so - see the link here. Zmag has sharply attacked the democratic pretensions of the regime, as has Socialist Worker.

Now for some general remarks. The above pieces are all well worth reading. Many are sceptical about the possibility of the protestors effecting lasting change. Even greater scepticism is reserved for Ahmedinjad's opponent, Moussavi, whose 'reformist' credentials are regarding by many commenters as dubious, at best. (Interestingly, Žižek is an exception here). All the same, each and every piece is concerned with the welfare of the protestors, and none supports the existing regime in any respect whatsoever.

Another point worth noting is that, roughly speaking, the further left you go, the more decisive the statements you are likely to find in relation to Iraq. Centre-leftists and social democrats such as Bahnisch and Quiggin are far more equivocal than are the socialist and anarchist commenters above.

It goes without saying that everybody of value in the left supports the opverthrow of the existing Iranian regime, and wishes the demonstrators success in their task of liberating Iran.

Finally, the attempt by rightists to pretend that the left are somehow opposed or indifferent to the uprisings in Iran is sheer chutzpah, occasioned by years of controlling both politics and the mainstream press. Not only do these clowns attempt to falsify the past, they are now, increasingly, it seems, trying to distort history as it happens. They must presume that leftist audiences are as stupid and apathetic as their own. It is an ongoing fight to ensure that these deceptions are rectified.

The 'Good' War

Simon Jenkins of the Guardian has an article on Afghanistan, with which I find myself largely agreeing:

Vietnam began with President Kennedy's 1963 intervention to keep the communist menace at bay and make the world safe for democracy. That is what George Bush and Tony Blair said of terrorism and Afghanistan. By 1965, despite Congress scepticism, American advisers, then planes, then ground forces were deployed. Allies were begged to join but few agreed.

The presence of Americans on Asian soil turned a local insurgency into a regional crusade. The hard-pressed Americans resorted to ever more extensive bombing, deep inside neighbouring countries, despite evidence it was ineffective and counterproductive.

No amount of superior firepower could quell a peasant army that came and went by night and could terrorise or merge into the population. Tales of American atrocities rolled in. The army counted success in enemy dead. A desperate attempt to "train and equip" a new Vietnamese army made it as corrupt as it was unreliable. Billions of dollars were wasted.

Every one of these steps is being re-enacted in Afghanistan. Every sane observer, even serving generals and diplomats, admits that "we are not winning" and show no sign of doing so.

History is not a forte for most in the mainstream media. As history is occurring now in Iran, for instance, the conservative MSM is attempting to spin the protests as somehow being analogous to the 'colour' revolutions of the former Soviet bloc, protests that the left don't support as the left allegedly admires the Iranian regime's 'anti-Americanism'.

It's not merely the Tory shysters who are to blame, however. Jenkins hits the nail on the head when he says that 'a heavier guilt lies with liberal apologists for this war who continue to invent excuses for its failure and offer glib preconditions for victory.'

Chomsky and the Middle East

It is next to inconceivable, within the mainstream of Western intellectual culture, that one might give a principled critique of the war – that is, the kind of critique we give reflexively, and properly, when some enemy state commits aggression: for example, when Russia invaded Czechoslovakia, or Afghanistan, or Chechnya. We do not criticize those actions on grounds of cost, error, blunder, quagmire. Rather, we condemn the actions as horrendous war crimes, whether they succeed or not.

This is taken from a recent interview, to be found here. Lazy blogging, I know, but I'm very busy.

Hypocrisy

Whilst the sabre-rattling continues in the West over the 'Iranian crisis', many of you will no doubt have seen a story about a state that comes a lot closer to genuine theocracy (I won't use the non-sequitur of a name, 'Islamofascism'), Saudi Arabia.

Iran still manages to be subject to regular scrutiny by our media and politicians, in advance of a possible strike by the US, Israel, or both.

Naturally, any such war will be presaged by a litany of 'human rights' abuses which bombing Iran will necessarily put right.

Never mind that it is Saudi Arabia's government who has defended a court's decision to sentence a woman who was gang-raped to 200 lashes of the whip. The US State Department found enough confected outrage to term this sentence 'astonishing'. Nonetheless, the Republicans, normally so astute in matters Islamofascist, could not actually bring themselves to suggest that the sentence ought to be changed.

Never mind that of the minority of insurgents in Iraq who are 'foreign fighters' attacking 'our' troops, the largest proportion come from Saudi Arabia, according to a recent report.

Never mind the fact that, despite opposition from protesters, the Anglophone world's traditional imperialists recently (and sycophantically) rolled out the red carpet for King Abdullah, head of one of the world's least democratic regimes, Saudi Arabia.

Never mind that Judaism is banned in Saudi Arabia, and Israeli passport-holders are not permitted into the country. The purportedly genocidal Iranian regime cannot get rid of its Jewish population, even when the said population is offered bribes by Israel to leave.

No. It is Iran who must be punished, by sanctions at first, by war if 'necessary'.

Rage is All the Rage

Since rage against Islamo-Fascism continues to be the new black this season, I thought I'd share a couple of relevant comments/posts:

As a woman, I really hate the way that the government of Iran treats women
in Iran. That does not mean that I want to bomb the women of Iran.

And:

Oh the Feminists hate Republicans
And Republicans hate the Feminists
To mock all Feminazis
Is an old G.O.P. rule
But during Islamo-Fascism Week
Islamo-Fascism Week
You’ll see Ann Coulter On Our Backs at USC
She’s helping Muslims seek
Their Feminine Mystique
Simone De Beauvoir’s really very
cool...

From here.

Hall the Half-wit (Can he fix it?)

In response to a post from yesterday, about the Iranian president's visit to the US, serial cyber-pest Iain Hall has decided to go on the warpath again.

Hall tends to have a circle of bloggers he calls 'leftist' whom he reads, and attempts to critique. The present author appears to be one such blogger, though given Hall's refusal to actually debate on my blog, one can only conclude that he is attempting to drum up hits for his pathetic blog.

Debating on Hall's blog is amusing, given the poor arguments in Hall's arsenal, and the nutters who rail to his defence. Nonetheless, I've been placed on moderation, meaning that my comments do not appear on his blog until some hours later. This is hardly helpful to open and honest debate.

Before responding to Hall's imbecility, it may be worth reminding readers of some of my principal objections to his garbage. Hall's opinions are similar to those of many pig-ignorant hicks, but he is a special case for a number of reasons. These can be summarised as follows:

1. He has repeatedly embarked upon cyber-stalking campaigns, and threatened to expose the identity of pseudonymous bloggers with whom he has poitical disagreements.
2. He actively promotes and endorses the sentiments and output of fascist bloggers (such as AWH).
3. Virtually all of Hall's 'arguments' are cobbled together from the off-cuts of Melbourne's village idiot, Andrew Bolt.

Further background on Hall can be found here. Despite Hall's absolute refusal to acknowledge an debating positions other than his own, confronting his idiocy can be a useful exercise, if only so that his audience can discern how laughable his views are.

Now for some retorts to a retard:

Hall begins by saying:

Hap has been on holiday and despite being of the leftist greenie persuasion
he went on one of those environmentally nasty overseas holidays on one of those
polluting aeroplanes. So take a bow my Marxist friend and accept responsibility
for the many hundreds of tons of extra CO2 that you have paid to add to the
atmosphere.

I've never described myself as a 'greenie', nor written a post on the environment. Still, nobody would expect honest argument or serious debate from this species of rightard, who still apparently believes that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy.

In the post, I explain that my attention is focused on the US reaction to Ahmadinejad's visit, not the relative virtues of the man himself. This latter topic has been the subject of much attention, and I provided the reader with a couple of links should they want some background. Preambles notwithstanding, Hall responds:

See how he, quite neatly, sidesteps any serious considerations of this evil
little man so that he can clear the decks to get a good swing at his actual
topic?

Since it is my blog, I would have thought I was entitled to 'get a good swing' at my 'actual topic'. Also, see how, quite clumsily, Hall sidesteps any 'serious considerations' of Ahmadinejad by summarily dismissing him as an 'evil little man'.

In my post, I made it perfectly clear that I did not regard Ahmadinejad or Iran as democratic in any satisfactory sense. Whilst elections are held, I'm well aware that candidates are picked from a limited field, state censorship is rife, and the regime engages in many practices that human rights agencies regard as abuses. For this reason, I don't give Ahmadinejad any praise, and I don't think any progressive person can. Having said that, the hypocrisy of Ahmadinejad's detractors was my topic, not Ahmadinejad himself. Ahmadinejad has been subject to a significant misinformation campaign in the West, primarily as a result of his supposed anti-US leanings. Observers will note that pro-US Islamic regimes with worse track records than Iran (particularly Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan) are routinely ignored by the Western media.

In any case, in Iran, it is not Ahmadinejad who sets the agenda on foreign or nuclear policy, but rather, the Ayatollah. Hall doesn't seem to have got this far in his 'thinking', if his tortured neural spasms even deserve the term.

Hall continues:

People are naturally outraged the president of one of the world most
significant state sponsors of the Islamists wanted to “pay his respects ” at
ground Zero.

Actually, I don't think any state has sponsored more terrorism than the US in recent years. This is why I wanted to write about the hypocrisy of US reaction. Ostensibly, Ahmadinejad was 'paying his respects'. As a politician, he may well have been doing this for cynical propaganda purposes, but such use of 9/11 is routinely made by US politicians themselves. Unless Hall is a mind-reader, I'm not sure how he can assess the Iranian president's sincerity.

There is no doubt that most of the ordnance used in roadside bombs is
coming from Iran. It is also clear that Iran has been providing a great deal of
practical support and training to the Shia in Iraq. Iran clearly is not the only
supporter of the “insurgency” but to suggest that it is not a significant player
is to tell a lie.

No doubt to whom, Hall? As you can find in my previous Iraq posts, and on several bloggers in my links list, the Iraq insurgency is largely composed of Iraqi nationalists, not foreign fighters, Iranian or otherwise. The US itself has been providing a 'great deal of support' to all sorts of unsavoury groups within Iraq, Shia and Sunni. If Iran is a 'significant player', perhaps this is because, unlike the US, Iran is a neighbour to Iraq, and is directly subject to the outcome of war in Iraq. In Hallworld (also known as Noddyland), only the US are permitted to act in their perceived national interests, irrespective of where those interests may lie.

In my post, I compared Iran with Saudi Arabia, and suggested that the former got a 'bad rap', whilst the latter tended to receive a 'pass' in the Western media. Hall disagrees:

Err no Iran and Saudi Arabia are both theocratic states that are both
pernicious in their own ways but I seriously doubt that you could draw the
differences a broadly as suggested by Hap. In any case the Saudi’s don’t want
the bomb, as Iran clearly does.

Many things are 'pernicious' in Hallworld. Hall might have noted that Iran's leaders have repeatedly and explicitly said that they do not want 'the bomb'. Perhaps they ought not to be believed, but any honest person should be capable of noting that Iran is surrounded by a series of dubious nuclear powers (US-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Israel). Iranians would possibly have to be considered insane if they didn't want 'the bomb'. Nonetheless, if Hall has 'clear' evidence of Iran wanting nuclear weapons, he might wish to pass it on to the UN, US, and Israel, since these guys don't seem to have any definitive evidence themselves.

Hall opines:

You see in Haps Universe it is the USA that is the greatest threat to
the world. None the less he is happy to enjoy the fruits of American technology
like the plane that few him to is tropical holiday or the operating system on
his computer but he would soon realise the error of his ways were he to be
obliged to pray five times a day by the regimes that he clearly thinks are more
virtuous than the USA.

Actually, the US has behaved more violently and aggressively than any other nation since WWII, so yes, it is the 'greatest threat to the world'. This does not prevent people from within the US making a variety of important contributions to the world. Most people can distinguish between a government and its people, and since I regard the US as a pseudo-democracy in any case, I don't hold the US people solely accountable for their government's atrocities. Furthermore, I didn't claim that Iran was 'more virtuous' than the USA. Discussions of virtue are for the preachers in any case. Iran's record on foreign policy is positively saint-like compared to the records of Nixon, Kissinger, Bush, and others. These facts somehow seem to escape Hall, who, to my knowledge, has never once managed to criticise US foreign policy, no matter how bloody or self-interested it is. To that end, I briefly remarked upon US misadventures in Asia and Latin America, to which Hall responded:

I would dearly love to know what part of the globe is now totally blank
because the last time that I looked the map of the world was still intact. Of
course Hap ignores the pernicious influence of his beloved Marxism and the
necessities of the cold war, that have been long gone now.

The first line is mere gibberish that can be safely discarded. As for the 'cold war' - it wasn't 'cold' for the millions of people destroyed by it. I would like to see Hall explaining its 'necessities' to the Cambodians who were carpet-bombed, to the Vietnamese who still have quantities of Agent Orange in their breastmilk, to the Hungarians who were ignored and left to die during their 1956 uprising, to the Chileans who had a democratic leader overthrown, to the Salvadoreans who were raped, tortured, or assassinated under the US-backed junta, or to the Nicaraguans dodging sea and landmines laid by US-sponsored terrorists. Or, to look at more recent examples, perhaps Hall could explain the 'necessities' of US foreign policy to the Pakistanis and Saudi Arabians, oppressed by US-backed tyrannies, or to the democracy protesters gunned down in resource-rich Uzbekistan, or to the Iraqis trying to avoid the horrors of white phosphorous, or to the Colombians who 'disappear' for the heinous crime of joining a trade union antithetical to US interests.

Hall does not stop here, however:

What is ridiculous about students protesting about a particularly bad
regime that hangs young women for the “crime ” of being raped? What is
ridiculous about protesting against the leader of a nation that makes being Gay
a capital offence? Hap appears to suggest that unless “human rights” are
universally observed that protest against any particularly nasty regime is
ridiculous. To my mind THAT makes Hap’s whole argument ridiculous.

To use a Christian expression, it does seem rather 'ridiculous' to point out the splinter in your brother's eye, whilst ignoring the log in your own. I'd have thought the anti-Iranian protesters would have more influence objecting to the regimes that are as bad or worse than Iran, but who receive support from the US government. After all, Iran is not beholden to the US for its policies (and this, no doubt, is its principal crime, in the eyes of Western commentators).

Never mind the fact that Hall's oeuvre largely consists of limpwristed attacks against minorities and their rights, whether these minorities consist of gays, women, 'leftists', or Muslims.

And yes, I do think that 'rights' need to be 'universal'. How quaint and quixotic of me, not to make moral exceptions when 'friendly' regimes engage in murder and plunder.

I also claim, in passing, that the US executes and imprisons a vast number of its citizens, and that it is, relatively speaking, an unsafe place in parts. I cited a recent study in support of this claim. Hall doesn't seem to like this:

One has to ask by what measure is Hap making such claims about the
cities in the USA? In any case if we were to group enough of these third world
cities together to equal the population of the United States would we have a
violent crime more often than the twenty two seconds of the piece quoted by our
friend Hap? I some how doubt it. This is typical of the foolishness and
falseness that you can get when you base the entirety of your argument on some
statistical snippet ,as Hap does here.

I'm happy to put statistics aside, and am also happy to aver that Saigon is safer than Detroit, and Vienna is safer than LA. I'd have hardly thought that this was a revelation. In any case, this is largely peripheral to the gist of my discussion, but just highlights the extent to which Hall is clutching at ever-diminishing straws.

Hall's tirade doesn't stop there, folks:

Just how can Hap claim that the outrage of these protesters is not real?
This is a wonderful example of our would be revolutionary projecting his own
prejudices upon the subject of his approbation. Can we really expect anything
different from someone who is so inculcated with the pernicious ideology of Marx
and Lenin?

Putting aside Marx and Lenin, and all their 'perniciousness', my post was grounded on facts, not revolutionary theory. It's particularly amusing how the rightards use and abuse the term 'projection', as if any of them had ever read Freud. It's abused almost as frequently as the term 'existential'. Perhaps that will be the topic of another post, namely, the intellectual bankruptcy of the Tories.

If I may ask my readers for one last display of patience, Hall goes on to conclude:

I must say that Haps conclusion gave me a much-needed belly laugh this
morning. Firstly, using Wikipedia, he cites a contentious court case as proof
that the USA is a land of bigotry , yet this case is still subject to appeal
through the courts and from what I have read is not as simple as Hap wants to
believe, then he cites the long dead “Jim Crow ” laws, again from Wikipedia. But
by far the most amusing is his citing of a piece from Gay news about the
treatment of homosexuals in the USA. This is hilarious when you consider that
Homosexuals in Iran face not discrimination as they do in some parts of the USA
but death at the end of a rope; When asked about Homosexuals in Iran Ahmadinejad
said that there were none. Of course this is because they have been killed or
will be if they dare “come out”. I could not think of a more ironically stupid
way of trying to suggest that the USA is morally inferior than all other places
and cultures on the planet. Can you dear reader?
So in conclusion just what
has Hap given us? From where I sit it seems that he has given us another of his
ANTI-USA rants that is long on prejudice and hypocrisy but very short on a
nuanced understanding of either political reality or the true nature of
humanity. Hmm, sounds like situation normal for the far left.

There's plenty of evidence that the US is rife with bigotry, and is probably more 'fundamentalist' than either Turkey or Malaysia, for instance (though not, in fairness, more whacky than the mullahs of Iran). You can find evidence for this in studies, for instance, or even in last week's episode of The Chaser, where US respondents reported it would be a good idea for Muslims to be forced to identify themselves, with tattoos if necessary. One can only hope that that segment was a 'set-up'.

The Jim Crows laws are not so far removed from the experience of many Black Americans, which is precisely why we have seen such a strong reaction to matters of race in Jena. We must remember that the laws in question were state-sanctioned racism, dissolved a relatively short time ago. The laws themselves were not radically different to the 1935 Nuremberg laws. Germany has come clean about its past, and has attempted to make amends. The US, and its blind and ardent supporters (like Hall), have done no such thing.

Obviously, I have no interest in showing the US to be 'morally inferior'. My point was simply focused on the hypocrisy of the protesters, and the idiotic response of conservative pundits. Their pious wailing in the name of 'human rights' would be akin to apartheid-era White South Africans complaining about Black rights in the US.

In short, Hall has produced another misguided attempt to draw readers to his blog, and to ignite further flame wars. All of this I would accept in good humour, if not for Hall's continued and baffling support of bigots and would-be fascists. Until Hall can redeem himself by renouncing his endorsement of such scum, it is only fitting that he be treated as the unprincipled cretin he is.

Get Thee Behind Me, Satan!

Much attention is being given to the visit that Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has undertaken to the US. I won't waste my time debating the relative merits or possible purposes of this visit, or indeed, the relative merits of Ahmadinejad himself. Ken L of Surfdom has already provided a pretty reasonable summary of reactions thus far (here and here).

Needless to say, nobody on either side of politics is holding up Ahmadinejad as a poster-boy for democracy. Even if they did, this would be largely irrelevant, given that the Ayatollah is the supreme ruler of Iran in any case.

What's amusing is the hypocrisy that has accompanied this little visit by the Iranian. Ahmadinejad wanted to visit the site of the September 11 attacks, and bleeding-heart conservatives united with cruise-missile liberals in the collective victimhood (and amnesia). Naturally, this sense of victimhood is predicated on the (false) notion that Iran is behind the insurgency in Iraq. Or else, these US victimologists justify their pious outrage on the pretext of Ahmadinejad's alleged human rights abuses. No doubt such abuses have occurred in Iran, but it is noteworthy that this latter country receives far more indignation than does Saudi Arabia, the rulers of whom make Ahmadinejad look like Gandhi.

As is often the case, the most amusing quotes came from Dr Condoleezza Rice, who said that any attempt by Ahmadinejad to visit Ground Zero would have been a 'travesty'. She explained:

"I think this is somebody who is the president of a country that is
probably the greatest state sponsor of terrorism, someone who is a Holocaust
denier, someone who has talked about wiping other countries off the map," Rice
told an interview with CNBC television network. (source).

At least Rice managed to get her first 12 words right.

If being the 'greatest state sponsor of terrorism' was a universal criterion for say, denying visas to the aggrieved countries, then post-WWII US politicians might find much of Latin America, South-East and Central Asia and Africa off their travel itineraries. Furthermore, whilst Ahmadinejad might (supposedly) talk of 'wiping other countries off the map', the US remains the only post-WWII power to have put this policy in practice, repeatedly.

The most ridiculous sight of all was that of the Columbia University students protesting Iran's human rights record. (Remember, 'human rights' only becomes an issue with regimes that our Government's don't like. Hence the silence about Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan, or Colombia, or numerous others).

Many of the world's cities, including in the Middle East, and particularly in Asia and Europe, are safer and no more discriminatory than cities in the US. Iran, with its addiction to state censorship, is hardly a stellar example these days, but it still does not imprison and execute its citizens on anywhere near the same scale as the good ol' US of A.

But we should let the protesters enjoy their faux-outrage, and give our blessing to this rare and pious unity of 'conservative' and 'liberal'.

After all, the US is the paragon of democracy - land of the free, home of the brave.

Don't know much 'bout history, Don't know much 'bout geography...

Polling at the commencement of the Iraq War found that a majority (75%) of Americans supported the invasion. When the same polling occurred in April 2007, a majority (58%) said that the invasion was 'a mistake'. Public opinion around the world was even less favourable about Bush's war.

With this in mind, take a look at another recent survey, this one by Newsweek. The survey examined the views and beliefs of 1001 Americans aged 18 or older. The results were not flattering.

Even today, more than four years into the war in Iraq, as many as four in
10 Americans (41 percent) still believe Saddam Hussein’s regime was directly
involved in financing, planning or carrying out the terrorist attacks on 9/11,
even though no evidence has surfaced to support a connection.

The work of Republican speechwriters and Faux News has obviously paid off, then. One wonders what support for the invasion would be like if that 41 percent had their facts correct.

A majority of Americans were similarly unable to pick Saudi Arabia in a
multiple-choice question about the country where most of the 9/11 hijackers were
born. Just 43 percent got it right—and a full 20 percent thought most came from
Iraq.

The pollsters don't speculate as to why this might be: perhaps it is because Iran's (soon-to-be-invaded?) theocracy has taken the limelight from Saudi Arabia's brutal Wahhabist regime. The latter regime is, of course, of great concern to human rights organisations, but of much less concern to our bearers of 'Democracy', who count the Saudis among their allies.

And perhaps because most (85 percent) are aware that Osama bin Laden remains at large, roughly half of the poll’s respondents (52 percent) think that the United States is losing the fight against his terror group, Al Qaeda, despite no military defeats or recent terrorist attacks to suggest as much.

No military defeats (the Iraq War was declared 'mission accomplished' 4 years ago) and no recent terrorist attacks, yet the War on Terror is being lost; more cause for Washington (or Canberra) fear-mongering, no doubt. It is amusing to ponder the responses of the 15 percent who believe that bin Laden isn't actually at large. Osama's doing Elvis gigs in Vegas, perhaps?

Other results of the poll are also embarrassing:

Roughly half (53 percent) are aware that Judaism is an older religion than
both Christianity and Islam (41 percent aren’t sure). And a quarter of the
population mistakenly identify either Iran (26 percent) or India (24 percent) as
the country with the largest Muslim population. Only 23 percent could correctly
identify Indonesia. Close to two thirds (61 percent) are aware that the Roman
Empire predates the Ottoman, British and American empires.

It would be easy to interpret these results as evidence of 'dumb' Americans, and make reference to anecdotes of crass and boorish US travellers. After all, anyone in America (or Australia) with the inclination and resources can readily obtain a few basic facts about the world. Yet I think we should resist the 'only in America' interpretation, and sketch some possible explanations.

When discussing political matters, I often take the media to task. The reason for this is that, all that most people know about politics is what media agencies choose to tell them. Entire speeches are routinely condensed into soundbites, and state propaganda is allowed to pass unfiltered through a complicit media. This phenomenon has been discussed at length by the likes of Chomsky, who argued that US propaganda is as effective and pervasive as anything the Soviets employed with Pravda. Faux News and Australia's own Government Gazette differ from Politburo literature only in their sophistication. Clearly, the constant linking of Iraq and 11/9 by Governments and the media is a possible explanation for the results above.

Yet this is not the full story. Another recent (June 2007) poll that I found (courtesy of Ken L) found that respondents generally did not trust the media in America. Only 23% said that they had a 'great deal' or 'quite a lot' of confidence in television news. The figure was 22% when applied to the print media. State indoctrination cannot be the only explanation here. We might perhaps say of supporters of the war, after Žižek, that this is a case of 'they know what they are doing, yet they are doing it all the same'.

The next obvious target for criticism would logically be the education system, which, despite the bleatings of 'cultural warriors' here and in the States, has blatantly failed to educate its citizens with information that is damaging for the reigning regimes. Supposedly 'post-modern' teaching of history cannot be blamed for an ignorance of basic facts.

Whatever the explanation, it is likely that history shall remember the twin destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan as the most significant political event of the early 21st Century. Like Lady Macbeth's spot, the stain of blood spilled for conquest is not easily washed off, even in the face of pervasive ignorance. This is especially true when the 'spot' of blood is often more reminiscent of a torrent.

Shakespearean analogies aside, the significant distortion of history by our pro-Government, chickenhawk cheer-squads ensures that where there would be tragedy, there is instead farce.

I am not optimistic, but perhaps a little knowledge would go a long way to slowing America's sabre-rattling towards Iran. The Venezualans too fear that the Coalition will seek to 'democratise' them. Whilst it may seem a little too interventionist for the weak-stomached libertarians out there, perhaps the following should be distributed to the public, as a kind of war prophylactic:

Surf's Up

Irrespective of which party wins the Federal election this year, Australians will continue to see a close US-Australian alliance.

In this light, we might wish to consider the sage foreign policy advice of a possible next president, John McCain. McCain was responding to an interviewer's questions about Iran, a pertinent topic, given that US warships are currently massing in the Perisan Gulf:

His questioner had struck an anti-Iran tone, asking him when the United
States was going to "send an air mail message to Tehran," drawing cheers from
the crowd.
Senator McCain then briefly sang "Bomb, bomb, bomb" - an adapted
snippet of the rock 'n' roll band's refrain "Ba-ba-ba, Ba-Barbara Ann" - winning
laughter from the audience.

It's good to see the world's future is in such safe hands. Can't wait to see tunes by Herman's Hermits adapted so that they refer to the US supporting tyranny in Uzbekhistan. Maybe The Beatles' song 'Yesterday' could be changed to 'Pinochet'. Or we could hear a McCain rendition of a Sinatra classic - 'I did it My Lai'.