Neo-Cons and Moral Degeneracy

[laststeamtrain]

Neo-Cons and Moral Degeneracy
by Jacob G. Hornberger

The presidential advisor for press affairs to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has an interesting op-ed in the Los Angeles Times today. Pointing out that Barack Obama’s offer to talk to the Iranian regime is nice, Ali Akbar Javanfekr pointed out that words alone are insufficient, especially if the U.S. government persists in conducting an aggressive and interventionist foreign policy.

Javanfekr specifically pointed to (1) the U.S. government’s surreptitious 1953 coup in which it ousted the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, from office and installed a cruel and brutal Iranian U.S. puppet in his stead, who proceeded to terrorize and torture the Iranian people for the next 25 years, with the support of the U.S. government; and (2) the U.S. government supported Saddam Hussein in his war of aggression against Iran, a war which caused the deaths of one million Iranian people.

What is fascinating to me is how so many conservatives, neo-cons, and liberals fail to recognize the morally degeneracy of U.S. foreign policy. It’s as if they have just resigned themselves into accepting that the U.S. Empire is now a permanent feature in American life and the life of the world and, therefore, that anything it does should automatically be considered good and moral.

I recently witnessed this phenomenon in a debate on Afghanistan that was sponsored by the Donald and Paula Smith Foundation in New York City. (The video of the debate has not yet been posted but when it is, I’ll let you know in a blog post.) If you’ll watch it, I think you’ll be as fascinated as I was by the reaction of neo-con Max Boot, formerly of the Wall Street Journal and now a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, to my charge that U.S. foreign policy is “morally degenerate.”

I blogged on one aspect of Boot’s angry reaction to my “moral degeneracy” charge immediately after the debate. That was in reference to my pointing out the apparent willingness of pro-Iraq War supporters to sacrifice any number of Iraqis, no matter how high, to achieve “democracy” in Iraq, even while simultaneously supporting the brutal non-elected military general in Pakistan who took power in a coup and who refused to permit elections in the country.

<snip>

Contrary to the hopes of Iranian officials, the solution to America’s foreign policy woes lies not with Barack Obama. It is obvious that he is stuck in the morally degenerate foreign policy of empire and interventionism that has held our nation in its grip for decades. Instead, the key to getting our nation back on the right track — the track toward freedom, peace, prosperity, harmony, and morality — lies with us, the American people. When a critical mass of Americans finally decides to restore a constitutional republic to our land, that monumental shift in a positive direction will follow.

<more>

http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2009-03-31.asp

[bemildred]

1. Well, this is correct insofar as that it is true that Obama will not make much progress

without an aroused and informed people watching his back. He is just a man.

[juno jones]

2. How many Americans even know about the 1958 coup?

How about those similar coups in Central America and the propping up of colonial govts in asia? The fifties set up the plate we've been eating off of for the last 60 years.

But most people don't know a thing about this even though the fallout of those actions is about to catch up with us.