Listen HERE
Ken Meyercord is the author of “Immoral Injury,” the heart of my recent Veterans Today post “Trump’s Shameless Murder of Soleimani Will Kill Thousands of US Troops—By Suicide.” Ken is also a fearless truth warrior who attends think-tank-sponsored events in the Washington, DC area and asks the hard questions. Watch him intervene during the Q&A at the SETA Foundation’s forum on US war on Iran (at the 1:02:50 minute mark) asking about a near-future Iran-liberates-Iraq-from-US-occupation scenario. Concerning which, he writes:
“The SETA event took place on Tuesday, before Iran retaliated with missiles. The moderator collected 5 questions at once, mine being the last. If you’re interested in the panelists’ response to mine, don’t waste your time. They didn’t address it.
“I found the whole discussion surreal as none of the panelists recognized the Iraqis as having ‘agency’, as it’s put these days. The picture we’re presented with is that the Iraqis are up in arms about Iranian influence in their country, as if they would have no complaint with us were it not for Iran’s nefarious machinations. Really? Aren’t we the ones who invaded their country, set up a puppet government, killed tens of thousands of their countrymen, caused millions to flee to neighboring countries, turned some of their major cities into rubble, set up a fortress right in the center of their capital city, a fortress behind the walls of which their own parliament meets? Talk about influence, and of the most nefarious sort. And the Iraqis are supposed to be more concerned about the influence of a country which supports their goal of getting us out? Talk about living inside a bubble! If there were no Iran, wouldn’t the Iraqis still want us out? (I know, the protestors set fire to the Iranian consulate in Basra. Give me a thousand bucks and I can get a couple of goons to do that.)
“The Iraqi demand that we leave their country did not start last week. A year ago, Iran’s parliament requested, unanimously, that their prime minister provide a timetable for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. There were attacks on US military bases over the last year before the infamous attack which killed an American contractor. Rockets had been landing in the Green Zone for at least a month before our assassination of the Iraqi Popular Militia Force’s leader. And a couple more landed shortly after his death. Then, just hours after Trump’s stand-down speech, two more rockets hit the Zone, one just a hundred yards from the American embassy.
“I was pleased that Trump, in drawing a red line, i.e., American casualties, that he cited Iran but not Iran ‘or its proxies’. The ‘proxies’ are not going to stop their attacks just because we’re rattling our sabre at Iran. What are we going to do when a dozen rockets hit the zone at one time and Americans are killed? Are we going to hold Iran responsible, as Trump did the assault on the US embassy? Once again, we’d be headed down a slope you could ski down… and probably hit a tree.
“If we continue to stonewall the Iraqis over withdrawing our troops and the Iraqis give up hope of ever forcing a withdrawal by peaceable means, I think the scenario I painted is possible, not now but in six months or so. Can you imagine our response if it came to pass? Hopefully, reality would intrude even into the dream world of our leaders and their think-tank parrots, and to the great relief of the Iraqis (and me) we would sullenly withdraw our troops—from Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, as well.”
We also discuss the near collision between a US and Russian ship in the Arabian Sea, of which Ken writes:
“You may have heard that there was a near collision in the Arabian Sea yesterday between one of our ships, the USS Farragut, and a Russian naval vessel. The photo generally shown accompanying the news reports shows the Russian ship perilously close off the stern of the Farragut.
“The Pentagon-supplied video which accompanies the story shows the two ships side-by-side with the Russian ship on the starboard (right) side of the American ship (that’s the Russian ship in the photo below).
“In this photo you can see the course the Farragut was on from the wake it left and, more faintly, the track of the trailing Russian ship. They were clearly on a collision course.
“The Pentagon blames the Russian ship for ‘aggressively’ approaching the Farragut; but, according to the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea ‘the vessel which has the other on her own starboard side shall keep out of the way and shall, if the circumstances of the case admit, avoid crossing ahead of the other vessel’; i.e., it was the Farragut which was required to cede right-of-way (or, to put it in Pentagonese, ‘aggressively’ failed to change course).
“The mainstream network I first learned of the incident from (I forget which one, not that it matters) failed to question the Pentagon’s story (what else is new?), despite all the resources they have at their command to fact-check, a journalistic practice very fashionable these days (Don’t they have any sailors on their staff?). Isn’t it a sad state of affairs when I have to learn the truth about events such as this from the Russian TV network RT. When, in the future, rockets continue to rain down on the Green Zone in Baghdad (as they will) and eventually kill some Americans (which will happen) and the congressional ostriches who passed that wimpish War Powers Act authorize Trump to respond with an attack on Iran (which they will), citing the judgement of the ‘intelligence’ community that Iran was responsible (which will happen), you might want to consult RT (rt.com), as well as Iranian TV (presstv.com), before deciding what you believe to be true.