Posted on 01/07/2020 12:59:12 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Being Iranian American is like being the child of divorced parents who refuse get along, not even for the kids. Growing up as one of these embattled children, conflict embedded in my DNA, I’ve never known a moment when my two homelands have been anything short of archenemies. Thus, what most of the world experiences as an external, geopolitical conflict, I and my fellow Iranian Americans experience as an internal, deeply personal one. These are our parents you’re talking about, and we love them both, even when we hate them.
But lately - between the American regime’s targeted assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani and President Donald Trump’s ensuing threats, not to mention the Iranian regime’s murder and detention of innocent protesters - I can’t stand either one of them. Their fighting is literally keeping me up at night.
Like countless writers, I knew to reach for my craft, but mercifully, it found me first.
But more and more, it feels like art is under attack, usually rhetorically but this week literally. On Saturday, Trump took a page from the ISIS playbook, tweeting a threat to commit cultural war crimes if Iran retaliated for last week’s killing of Soleimani. “We have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture,” Trump tweeted.
In a tragic bit of irony, Donald Trump and all of the wounded souls apparently so threatened by art are also the ones who most need what it has to offer.
Indeed, although I find the president’s threat repulsive, it also compels me to pray for him. Why? The answer is rooted in my Persian ancestry.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Melody Moezzi is an author, attorney, activist and visiting professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her next book, "The Rumi Prescription: How an Ancient Mystic Poet Changed My Modern Manic Life," will be published on March 3, 2020
TIME TO DISENGAGE
Sadly, nobody has informed the MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX (MI) or the NEOCON WARHAWKS in DC.
There may be a way to let them know how we feel BEFORE the next national election on 11/3/2020. It may be too late if we wait for that.
The PHONE NUMBER AT THE CAPITOL IS 202-224-3121
The White House comment page is here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
(I just copied and pasted Christopher Bedford’s brief comments to the WH. It was delivered!)
YOUR TURN...before YOUR kids (boys & now girls) wind up in another no-win exercise in madness in the blood soaked sandbox called the Middle East where warring tribes have been killing one another since forever and the only “winners” are the owners of the MI. For additional information on how THAT works, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26O-2SVcrw0
DB
Killing Soleimani Was The Right Move, And Shows Precisely Why It’s Time To Leave Iraq
Christopher Bedford, The Federalist
Rather than ask how to whip Iran, we should be wondering if our blood and treasure is better served in defending against the real threats to our homeland. Unending American war in the Middle East drains our coffers, military strength, and political will, all to the glory of Moscow and our true enemies in Beijing. Meanwhile, foreign policy hawks in Washington are terrified Russia might follow our lead, as they have in Syria. Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump has killed the leader of ISIS, and now the Iranian general responsible for hundreds of American dead. He’s done a great deal to clean up the mess his predecessors left him in Iraq and Syria. Now it is time to disengage.
WAS
Democrats worried about the mullahs cultural legacy. This is funny on so many levels.
No, more like the Social Justice Nazis taking down statues of confederate soldiers and the founders.
There are a few cultural sites destroyed in Mideast that had nothing to do with us.
Sorry, lady, but if blowing up some statues or mosques or anything else gets some of our soldiers back home safe and sound, and preserves all of their generations, then those cultural items can go.
I couldn’t tell whether the light the man saw was the angel of light or the morning—ie satan or the light of God. Given the man
‘s tortured soul and the context being Trump’s threats to destroy Iranian cultural sites—it would be more natural for it to be the former.
Just who is asking how to whip Iran?
They have no idea why cultural sites were included in the tweet.
Many continue to refer to the death of Qessam Soleimeni as an “assassination”. It was nothing of the sort, it was the taking out of an enemy combatant, who has been engaged in acts of war of his own for YEARS, even if the war is undeclared. And his targets were not just non-Iranian combatants, it also left a trail of death among many non-combatants of many nationalities, including his own Farsi people. The Quds death brigade was much more on the order of the Nazi Schutzstaffel, and not at all like Special Forces.
Every militaristic society has its own version of the Palace Guard, troops loyal to the Maximum Leader, who are deployed to ruthlessly attack and subjugate those who are “enemies of the State”.
Fake news
Some body did some thing at Notre Dame and muslims applauded as did a few atheists.
RE: ... some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture
And that equates to cultural sites like those designated as World Heritage sites by UNESCO?
I highly doubt it.
Dresden was a cultural site during World War II. WAS. .............................. Nice city again, we were there in 2015. The church of the blessed virgin (?) has been rebuilt and is beautiful inside. After all that bombing in Feb of 45, the Martin Luther statue stood firm. Divine providence? Good Brats past the church on the right.
I guess that will be added to the list of Governor mansions in Blue states.
Your first mistake is saying that you’re an Iranian American rather than an American whose parents happen to come from Iran. I’m an American whose parents happened to come from Finland. I don’t spend one second thinking I’m responsible for Finland’s success or failure.
Though the fact that they used to boil Papist missionaries from Sweden sometimes is kind of cool.
Shouldn’t she be out making sure some cross needs to be removed?
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