Yes, militant Fundamentalist Islamic individuals wield much of the power in Iran. But let's put on our thinking caps to discern how that situation evolved. In 1979 hard-line anti-American Islamic clerics assumed control of the Iranian government when they ousted the Shah (the corrupt US puppet who tortured and killed tens of thousands of Iranian "dissidents" during his reign of terror). Ironically, the Iranian government the United States loves to hate exists because the CIA and MI6 facilitated the Shah taking power from Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. The significance? Mossadegh was a democratically-elected secular prime minister who had had the audacity to nationalize the oil industry because the British oil companies were grossly exploiting the Iranian people. By acting in typical fashion (by taking out a populist leader and replacing him with a vicious tyrant), the United States provided an incubator for powerful anti-American sentiment. Thus the United States and Great Britain are responsible for the theocracy in Iran which they fear and despise.
Corporate media pundits like Michelle Malkin and Anne Coulter are the vanguards in spreading pernicious distortions which fan the rapidly spreading emotional flames of fear, prejudice, and hatred comprising Islamophobia. Two of the most disturbing and inflammatory perversions of the truth the Western media entities disseminate are that all adherents of the Islamic faith are radical fundamentalists and that Sharia Law is universally harsh and grossly inferior to the Empire's system (which provides "liberty and justice for all").
Just as Christianity encompasses a broad spectrum of people with varying ways of practicing and expressing their faith, the Islamic world is filled with human beings who have diverse ways of expressing their religious beliefs. There are liberal, moderate, and Fundamentalist Muslims. And surprising as it may seem, most practitioners of Fundamentalist Islam, like most Fundamentalist Christians, are essentially peaceful individuals. In fact, a Muslim truly following the tenets of Islam practices moderation and tolerance. Many Muslims are no more willing to strap plastic explosives to their belts for a suicide mission than most Christians would be to bomb an abortion clinic. There are radicals from both religions, but they are very much in the minority.
Another lie deeply embedded in the barrage of communications we receive from the Western corporate media is that the United States and its allies are morally superior to the "evil Muslims". One aspect of Islam they offer as "proof" of this faulty conclusion is that many Islamic nations incorporate Sharia into their legal systems. While Sharia can involve harsh and rigid forms of justice, it exists to varying degrees in the many Muslim nations around the globe. Judiciaries in Islamic nations manifest the influence of Sharia in ways that span the spectrum from extremely dogmatic to highly secular and liberal.
While the Western media's blistering criticism of the more draconian actions of some Islamic nations (i.e. Iran's execution of teenagers) is definitely warranted, the Empire has a great deal of house-cleaning to do before it is in a position to preach to other nations on human rights issues.
Here are but a few recent examples of the United States' own flagrant human rights abuses:
1. carrying out quite a number of its own executions in a manner recently discovered to inflict a great deal of suffering on the victim
2. routinely torturing and suspending justice for suspected "enemy combatants"
3. funding the Israeli Apartheid and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians
4. occupying a nation where it has killed over a million Iraqi civilians since the Gulf War invasion (through brutal economic sanctions and military actions).
5. funding the Israeli devastation of Lebanon
6. supporting numerous ruthless and murderous regimes (as long as they are friendly to US corporations)
7. having cynically embraced Saddam Hussein as an ally (knowing of his crimes against humanity) when it furthered US interests and invading Iraq preemptively to topple him when he ceased to be useful.
8. having kept the House of Saud in power for years despite its harsh practice of Sharia (i.e. thieves' hands are severed and adulterers are stoned).
9. maintaining the largest prison population in the world through a legal system so unjust that 50% of those incarcerated are Black when Blacks comprise 14% of the general population.
10. engaging in numerous outright massacres of civilians (i.e. Haditha, Fallujah)
Corporate media pundits like Michelle Malkin and Anne Coulter are the vanguards in spreading pernicious distortions which fan the rapidly spreading emotional flames of fear, prejudice, and hatred comprising Islamophobia. Two of the most disturbing and inflammatory perversions of the truth the Western media entities disseminate are that all adherents of the Islamic faith are radical fundamentalists and that Sharia Law is universally harsh and grossly inferior to the Empire's system (which provides "liberty and justice for all").
Just as Christianity encompasses a broad spectrum of people with varying ways of practicing and expressing their faith, the Islamic world is filled with human beings who have diverse ways of expressing their religious beliefs. There are liberal, moderate, and Fundamentalist Muslims. And surprising as it may seem, most practitioners of Fundamentalist Islam, like most Fundamentalist Christians, are essentially peaceful individuals. In fact, a Muslim truly following the tenets of Islam practices moderation and tolerance. Many Muslims are no more willing to strap plastic explosives to their belts for a suicide mission than most Christians would be to bomb an abortion clinic. There are radicals from both religions, but they are very much in the minority.
Another lie deeply embedded in the barrage of communications we receive from the Western corporate media is that the United States and its allies are morally superior to the "evil Muslims". One aspect of Islam they offer as "proof" of this faulty conclusion is that many Islamic nations incorporate Sharia into their legal systems. While Sharia can involve harsh and rigid forms of justice, it exists to varying degrees in the many Muslim nations around the globe. Judiciaries in Islamic nations manifest the influence of Sharia in ways that span the spectrum from extremely dogmatic to highly secular and liberal.
Here are but a few recent examples of the United States' own flagrant human rights abuses:
1. carrying out quite a number of its own executions in a manner recently discovered to inflict a great deal of suffering on the victim
2. routinely torturing and suspending justice for suspected "enemy combatants"
3. funding the Israeli Apartheid and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians
4. occupying a nation where it has killed over a million Iraqi civilians since the Gulf War invasion (through brutal economic sanctions and military actions).
5. funding the Israeli devastation of Lebanon
6. supporting numerous ruthless and murderous regimes (as long as they are friendly to US corporations)
7. having cynically embraced Saddam Hussein as an ally (knowing of his crimes against humanity) when it furthered US interests and invading Iraq preemptively to topple him when he ceased to be useful.
8. having kept the House of Saud in power for years despite its harsh practice of Sharia (i.e. thieves' hands are severed and adulterers are stoned).
9. maintaining the largest prison population in the world through a legal system so unjust that 50% of those incarcerated are Black when Blacks comprise 14% of the general population.
10. engaging in numerous outright massacres of civilians (i.e. Haditha, Fallujah)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
