The
American media�s one-sided and propagandistic coverage of the Iranian election
has made an American hero out of the defeated candidate, Mousavi.
This leaves
one wondering if anyone anywhere in the US media or US government knows that
Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who served as prime minister of the Islamic Republic of
Iran from 1981 to 1989, the decade following the overthrow of the American
puppet government by Khomeini, has been fingered as the Butcher of Beirut, responsible for the
bloody attacks on the US embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut during the
Reagan administration that blew to pieces 241 US Marines,
sailors, and Army troops.
According
to Jeff Stein writing in the June 22, 2009, CQ Politics, Mousavi �personally selected his point man for the Beirut terror campaign, Ali
Akbar Mohtashemi-pur,� who presided over the terror cell responsible for
the attacks.
The
National Security Agency had a tap on the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon,
according to Admiral James Lyons who was deputy chief of Naval Operations at
the time. Admiral Lyons told Jeff Stein that �the Iranian ambassador received instructions from the foreign minister
to have various groups target US personnel in Lebanon, but in particular to
carry out a �spectacular action� against the Marines.�
Stein
reports that Lyons �also fingered
Mousavi for the 1988 truck bombing of the US Navy�s Fleet Center in Naples,
Italy.�
Bob Baer, a
CIA Middle East field officer at the time, says that Mousavi �dealt directly with Imad Mughniyah,�
the person responsible for both attacks.
All of
these facts have gone into the Memory Hole. The US media and government have
turned Musavi, the bloody butcher of US servicemen, into the would-be liberator
of Iran from theocracy.
Only in
America and in George Orwell�s fictional population in his predictive book, 1984,
can we find such citizen ignorance.
Every day
in America, a.k.a. Oceania, we see the growing power of Big Brother�s three
slogans: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
From
ignorance comes the strength to create a hero out of America�s terrorist enemy,
Mousavi.
From
freedom comes the protection provided by being constantly spied upon, no longer
endangered by privacy which might keep Big Brother from discovering a terrorist
plot. This freedom from terrorists morphs into the slavery of being held in
indefinite detention without evidence or charges. Habeas corpus has become the
opposite of freedom as it prevents our protection from terrorists.
On June 23,
Big Brother Obama, following in the tradition of Big Brothers Bush and Cheney,
declared that Oceania and the �entire
world� are �appalled and
outraged� by Iran�s violent efforts to crush protests organized by
Oceania�s interference in Iran�s election. Meanwhile, Oceania continued its
wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, crushing people right and left while
gearing up to bring peace to Iran. No one is outraged at the violence. War is
Peace. Those who don�t fight wars can�t bring peace. Peace results when Big
Brother�s hegemony extends over those regions that do not understand that War
is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength.
�The face of Big Brother seemed to persist for
several seconds on the screen, as though the impact that it had made on
everyone�s eyeballs were too vivid to wear off immediately. The little
sandy-haired woman had flung herself forward over the back of the chair in
front of her. With a tremulous murmur that sounded like �My Savior!� she
extended her arms toward the screen.
�At this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmical
chant of �Big Brother, Big Brother, Big Brother!� over and over again, very
slowly, with a long pause between the first �B� and the second -- a heavy,
murmurous sound, somehow curiously savage, in the background of which one
seemed to hear the stamp of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. For
perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was
often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to
the wisdom and Majesty of Big Brother, but still more it was an act of
self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic
noise.� [1984]
The
drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise sums up well enough the
performance of Oceania�s Ministry of Truth.
How long do
Americans have before doubting Big Brother and the Ministry of Truth is a
Thoughtcrime?
�Whether he wrote �Down With Big Brother,� or
whether he refrained from writing it, made no difference. The Thought Police
would get him just the same. He had committed the essential crime that
contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it.�
The neoconservatives have set up in America Thoughtcrime
watch committees over professors. Academics who depart from or challenge the
neocon line are reported and are subjected to vilification campaigns. Sami
Al-Arian, a computer science professor at a Florida University, was destroyed
by the US Department of Justice [sic] because he gave the Palestinian side of
the story.
The neocon
academic spy operation has been given a boost by Dennis C. Blair, director of
National Intelligence. Writing in CounterPunch (June 23), David Price reports that Blair has
announced plans for a program to train intelligence officers, whose identities
and activities would not be known to professors or administrators, to conduct
covert missions in university classrooms.
This is as
Orwellian is it comes. Thinking independently is rapidly becoming a serious
Thoughtcrime. Winston Smith was the only one among Big Brother�s subjects
capable of independent thought. His ability to think independently was
discovered and terminated.
Already we
see that the US media is incapable of independent thought. Independent thought
in the universities, where careers are dependent on government grants, is
already half dead. Independent thought does not exist in think tanks, which
serve the interests of donors. In America independent thought is rapidly
becoming an anti-American act, which is itself morphing into a terrorist act.
Newspeak
handles effortlessly the morphing and transforming of meaning. New generations
born into the new system know no difference and, thus, do not need to be
silenced. Once the older generations are brought to heel, truth is whatever Big
Brother says.
Paul
Craig Roberts [email
him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President
Reagan�s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has
held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair,
Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University,
and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was
awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the
author of Supply-Side
Revolution : An Insider�s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation
and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown:
Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M.
Stratton of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the
Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for
Peter Brimelow�s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent
epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.