Addressed to "The Times Argus" of Central Vermont

Frank

Following the occupation in Iraq a patriotism, obstinate in display, has blossomed in the U.S. I cringe at the playground diplomacy, the rhetoric spawned from the accretion of aggression, and opinions lack luster in reasoning and dense with irrational cogitation. I have crossed my fingers that these acts don't reflect upon me by default but now I have to speak, partly consequent of a Barre denizen who wrote in to express his opinion(s) of "dealing" with Iran. It was a puerile piece thick with anger and lacking facts.

Let us not forget that shortly after the events that took place on 9/11 Iranians congregated by the masses to hold a candlelight vigil for those who perished in the attacks. This gesture was quickly befogged weeks later after George W. Bush included the nation of Iran in his "Axis of Evil", an epithet for terrorist nations. It was then that Ahmadinejad began to mirror our very own president's ethics in foreign policy, albeit directed elsewhere, i.e., Israel, Syria, Lebanon, etc., and has evolved since. There are many topics up for debate pertaining to Iran, but straying from diplomacy and resorting to unilateral action is, in toto, an ill-advised decision that violates Geneva laws. Mandates aside, I believe it defies the canons of good behavior to air opinions aggressively and blindly.

We must recall that our shaping of the Middle-East for the past 60 years has resulted in a regional unrest directly contributing to an upshot in social/cultural disparity here and abroad, violent and non.

It was our interest in Iran that brought us to Iraq. In fact, Saddam was a beneficiary of U.S. funding and arms during the Iraq/Iran war, given permission and guidance to invade Iran. It wasn't until Saddam meddled with our own interests in the region that we turned our back on him and his regime. And have we forgotten that we were a sponsor of Saddam's war upon the Shiite population within his own country? Possibly in fear of Iran, being primarily Shiite, influencing Iraq's population and counter-insurgency - protecting its regional interests from hegemony? As for Israel, do people not know of Israeli-run torture chambers in Lebanon, that roughly 800 Palestinians are arrested and tortured by Israeli soldiers every year (according to Amnesty International), that their military power is the world's 3rd largest - a result of prime weapons deals from the U.S.? Or that there has been and is tremendous disparity in economic and military aid from the U.S. between Israel and the rest of the world when there surely has been other pressing humanitarian crises, i.e., Rwanda, Darfur, Congo, Timor, Bosnia, the list goes on and yet I'm sure I could find direct correlation between most humanitarian crises throughout the world and U.S. foreign policy. To sum it all up, occupying Iran is control over the Caspian Sea - control of the oil fields in the Middle East. Wilsonian ideology helped to point this out. There is no war on Islamic fundamentalism just fear and propaganda. If it were so, why aren't we flexing the same muscle towards Saudi Arabia, they're the most extreme Islamic state in the world? I'm sure it has to do with foreign oil investments. We are strategically protecting our assets and attempting to broaden them at the same time. Iran has a nuclear program. So do we, so does Russia, so does Israel, so do a lot of countries. Israel is as much of an aggressive threat as Iran is to the global economy and the Middle East, and let me point out that there are roughly 25,000 Jewish citizens in Iran that have claimed to be happy where they live (according to israelnn.com Iran has begun erecting a $3.2 million cultural center for the Jewish community in Tehran). Digression aside, nuclear proliferation needs to be subdued globally and not exclusively.

The foreign policy paradigm that our leaders have sworn by for decades does not work. It creates a cultural rift that could be a cultural bond. In Tom Wessels recent book "The Myth of Progress" he addresses in the beginning chapter that we need to re-evaluate our methods and paradigms, that the current ones are not sustainable to abide by. Like Wessels, I concur that paradigms work hand in hand, that is, foreign policy affects the economy which affects the environment and so forth. As a student seeking knowledge to help curb and redirect the current path of economic growth and promote the proliferation of the humanities I believe we need to transcend aggression and anger and ameliorate diplomacy. As we can see, anger accretes into atrocity. We lost thousands on 9/11 and by reacting through aggression that number of civilian casualties is reported monthly now in Iraq; do we really want to increase death by pursuing more conflict, subversive or not? In my opinion aggression is attributed to high levels of testosterone. According to a finding reported in the September 2007 edition of Harper's Magazine, "Men with high testosterone levels tend to be irrational negotiators."