Subject: US-IRAN CONFLICT: OP ED ASHLAND TIDINGS
https://ashlandtidings.com/opinion/guest-opinion/foreign-conflicts-whos-telling-the-truth
Foreign conflicts: Who’s telling the truth?
by John Marciano
Friday, July 12th 2019
On June 19, an Iranian missile shot down an unmanned U.S. surveillance
drone. Iran claimed that the drone violated its airspace, but the U.S.
military said it was over international waters in the Persian Gulf. Iran
presented GPS coordinates, however, indicating that the drone was 8 miles
off its coast, inside the 12-mile limit recognized by the United Nations.
A review of some past U.S. conflicts — including the CIA overthrow of
Iran’s government in 1953, the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 and
the Tonkin Gulf incident in Vietnam in 1964 — should cause us to question
Washington’s version of what happened. All of the actions listed below —
that were denied by our government — violated the U.S. Constitution and
international law.
1953: The CIA led a combined U.S.-British coup that removed the Iranian
government of democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh,
and then installed the repressive Shah, who ruled for 26 years until he
was overthrown by a popular movement. The U.S. denied any direct
involvement in the coup, but this was a lie. Iranians who claimed that the
U.S. violated international law and the U.N. Charter by its actions told
the truth.
1961: Soon after becoming president, John F. Kennedy approved the Bay of
Pigs invasion against Cuba. Before the invasion, Kennedy had stated that
there would be no intervention by the United States. According to the late
journalist Richard Walton’s “Cold War and Counter-Revolution,” however,
after it failed JFK “refused to admit American responsibility,” stating
that any “unilateral American intervention would have been contrary to our
traditions and to our international obligations.” Exposing JFK’s lies,
Walton reminded Americans that Washington planned the invasion: “The
exiles used American equipment. They were trained by American military
men.
The warplanes were American, flown by Americans. American ships carried
the invaders, and American naval units accompanied them. Americans were
killed in the operation.” The U.S. lied about the invasion; Cubans told
the truth.
1964: The official U.S. story of the Tonkin Gulf incident is that North
Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked U.S. destroyers on routine patrol in
international waters. President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara
told the public that the North Vietnamese had attacked U.S. ships; that
this was clearly “a deliberate” pattern of “naked aggression”; that the
evidence for the attack was “unequivocal”; that the attack had been
“unprovoked”; and that the U.S., “in responding in order to deter any
repetition, intended no wider war.” As I wrote in “The American War in
Vietnam,” in a war built on a mountain of lies, these claims were arguably
the biggest. The U.S. lied and the North Vietnamese told the truth — as
later verified by the Pentagon Papers and the National Security Agency.
Johnson used this incident to escalate the conflict; it left 3.8 million
Vietnamese and more than 58,000 Americans dead, and millions of Vietnamese
and American soldiers still suffering and dying from the effects of Agent
Orange — the chemical defoliant that was approved for use by JFK in 1962.
1973: In the first Sept. 11 act of terrorism, unknown to nearly all
Americans, the CIA aided right-wing generals who overthrew the
democratically-elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile, leaving
thousands of people dead, tortured or in exile. The U.S. denied
involvement; the Chileans told the truth.
2003: The U.S — led by President George W. Bush and Secretary of State
Colin Powell — claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD);
Iraq denied the claim and international investigating teams verified their
position. The U.S. still invaded, supported by Congress; it is estimated
that 600,000 people were killed and millions were displaced. The U.S. lied
and Iraq told the truth.
The historical record is clear: The U.S version of each conflict was
false; the other side told the truth. As journalist Robert Merry writes in
the American Conservative, “beware when our leaders manifest a passion for
war. That’s when it’s time to demand honesty, sobriety, and restraint —
and answers” (June 21). If we don’t learn from history and stay informed,
others perish — and our vulnerability to lies deepens with every
international crisis.
John Marciano lives in Talent.
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