Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

This is Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif laughing it up in Bejing just last month with Chinese Foreign Minister FM Wang Yi, and it reveals something very telling.

It reveals that China does not believe that Iran commits terrorist acts or blows up tankers in the Persian Gulf. Russia has stated outright that Iran doesn't do those things. So, who are you going to believe? Your own government or China and Russia? But, your own government lied to you about Iraq. Every one of the scare tactics that George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice used to justify the disastrous war on Iraq proved to be false. Do you think it's different this time? If so, stop and think. To what end would Iran commit terrorist acts? What value would they get from it? They would not get anything of value. They would only get harms.  Iran would have to be insane to commit terrorist acts. They are in the oil business. They want to sell oil to every country in the world that needs oil. They know that killing innocents is bad for business, that nobody wants to buy oil from a monster. So, even if you don't accept that they are devote Muslims who practice a religion which prohibits murder, give them credit for not wanting to destroy their oil business. They can't make it up in pistachio nuts. 

I will tell you that every charge being leveled against Iran is false. They have not condoned, supported, or committed acts of terror. They did not blow up tankers in the Gulf. And if they said the U.S. drone was over their air space, then it damn sure was.  They are not idiots. They wouldn't do something to trigger a war with the United States. They issued two warnings before blowing up the drone, but the U.S. ignored them. Who is provoking who here?  

Trump deserves some credit for derailing those imminent attacks on Iran last night. But, with the kind of people he has got around him, particularly Pompeo and Bolton, I don't know how long he will be able to hold out. 

And look at the U .S. media. Look how they drum up the fervor for war, reporting Iran's misdeeds as if they're facts, and playing into the whole, "there has to be war " mentality, just as they did with Iraq. Any morning, we could wake up to the news that another tanker got hit in the Gulf; Iran did it; and now missiles are in flight to Tehran. 

If they start this war, for which they are salivating, I think Americans should go on strike. It happened when I was in college at UCLA in the 1960s. Both students and faculty went on strike, demanding an end to the Vietnam War. We could do it again, and we should.