Israel (Backed By U.S., As Usual) Murders 4th Iranian Scientist In 2 Years

To celebrate the second anniversary of the bombing assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari, Israel killed (or murdered,* one has to say, if you can’t find the part of international law that gives one nation the right to assassinate civilian citizens of another nation it is not at war with- and not “war” in some metaphorical or rhetorical sense, but the legal state of declared war) another Iranian scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, age 32, a professor at Tehran’s technical university, and a department supervisor at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant.  As in the previous cases, motorcyclist hitmen attached a magnetic bomb to his car door in traffic and blew him up, also killing his driver. (BBC and NPR reports.)

[“Blaming U.S. and Israel, Iran ReportsKilling of Nuclear Scientist” -NY Times] [“Iranian scientist involved in nuclear program killed in Tehranbomb attack” –Washington Post]

 

Far from denying the assasinations, Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, Israel’s military chief of staff, said yesterday that Iran should expect more "unnatural" events this year. How’s that for a not-too-subtle threat? (1)

Israel is in the process of training Iranian terrorists in Iraq to attack Iran. (Also known as “guerrillas” or “paramilitaries” or “freedom fighters,” depending on your political and ideological agenda- personally, mine is objectivity. People who assassinate civilians and plant bombs in cities are terrorists. If they aren’t, then the word has no meaning whatsoever except as a political curse word applied to dissidents and protesters, as the FBI, Bashar Assad of Syria, and U.S.-trained death squads do, and to armed political enemies. Or you can use the cynical term “assets,” as the professional secret policemen, military cutthroats, “commentators” and “statesmen” do. Of course, these Iranian clients/Israeli cat’s paws have their own agenda, to overthrow the Iranian regime. Hard to see how terrorist acts further that goal. If anything, they strengthen the regime, creating unity or at least conformity against the violent foreign assault. If there was a movement fighting back against the oppression of the regime that needed arms, for example when the regime was repressing masses of Iranians protesting the crooked election a few years back, that would be different. But neither Israel nor the U.S. was interested in that, just as the Syrian people are currently left to suffer their fate at the hands of the sado-murder Assad regime.)

 

Haaretz, citing the French paper Le Figaro, reports that Israel is training these Iranians in the Kurdish-controlled area of Iraq to carry out bombing attacks in Iran.

[“Le Figaro: Israel's Mossad recruiting Iraniandissidents to work against Tehran regime”]

Prior to the previous round of planned negotiations, two Iranian scientists were attacked in Tehran with car bombs, one fatally. This attack also precedes feelers towards negotiations. You have to wonder if “hawks” in Israel and the U.S. are deliberately sabotaging any chance of a non-military resolution to the Western-created crisis.

[“TIMELINE / Mysterious deaths and blasts linked to Iran'snuclear program” –Haaretz.com]

So let’s get this straight: a country of Islamic lunatics, Pakistan, has an actual nuclear arsenal, a military that sponsors terrorist attacks against two neighboring countries and, according to testimony to Conress by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, against U.S. troops and even the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Plus it’s been a major proliferator of nuclear weapons technology to countries the U.S. doesn’t like, like Syria and North Korea. Yet the sky will fall if Iran gets nuclear weapons. I don’t think so. The U.S., Israel, France, Britain, all united, have nuclear arsenals, and unlike the deranged Taliban, the Iranian mullahs aren’t suicidal. What’s “intolerable” to Israel and its Western patrons is a shift in the balance of power in the Middle East. That’s all it’s about.

Oh, by the way, here’s more evidence that Israel can do whatever it wants, from Haaretz: [“Israel subsidizesWest Bank housing, breaking promise to U.S.”] This is in “retaliation” for the Palestinians joining UNESCO, a grave crime in the eyes of Israel and the U.S.

 

 

*Of course, assassinating people in these cases isn’t called “murder” in Western media reports. For some reason, when their own Governments do it, assassinations aren’t murder to these “journalists.” It’s only “murder” when enemy regimes kill people, and oftentimes the “courts” of these countries demand reparations of hundreds of millions of dollars for the deaths.

U.S. courts have entered judgments of hundreds of millions of dollars in political cases against the PLO, Iran, and Cuba for shooting down exile terrorist planes over Havana. On the other hand, Israel isn’t dragged into court over killing sailors when they tried to sink the U.S.S. Liberty in 1967, although they paid “compensation”- over which they did a lot of haggling- nor are they forced to pay for murdering U.S. citizens like Rachel Corrie, killed by U.S.-supplied Caterpillar armored bulldozer, or the American-Turkish citizen murdered by Israeli commandos raiding a relief flotilla trying to break the Gaza blockade. In fact the U.S. Government and media voiced full-throated support for that and other attacks on aid flotillas.

The Qaddafi regime paid reparations for bombing airliners, which it should have. The point here is the self-righteously moralistic double-standards of Western and especially U.S. courts. If the U.S. had to pay hundreds of millions for each civilian death/murder it committed, directly or indirectly, it would be on the hook literally for hundreds of trillions of dollars.

It’s not “objective” to avoid the proper word, “murder,” and substitute “killing.” It is a tacit moral endorsement to not use the proper word. (On the other hand, the U.S. media does apparently think abortion is “murder,” as it uses the anti-abortion movement’s verbiage in its “objective” reporting, calling these fanatics- who include terrorists- “pro-life,” and pro-human rights position the right to control one’s own body, the right not to be forced to bear offspring like some captive farm animal, the right of choice, “pro-abortion.”)

Now, if the media thinks it’s justified for their countries to kill people for reasons of state, they should just say so. They could run editorials or op-eds titled “Why We Murder” or “Our Need To Murder” or “When Is Murder Justified?” (answer: when “we” do it) if they like. But their intellectual dishonesty and moral bad faith are illuminated by their refusal to do that, the honest thing. And I’m sure there are plenty of reactionaries who’d be happy to make the case (“we are killing a few bad people to prevent a nuclear holocaust that would kill millions” would be one specious argument they’d no doubt make) just as there have long been rightists who justify torture. 

For example, Harvard Law Professor and Zionist shill Alan Dershowitz wants “torture courts” to issue “torture warrants” to legalize and, presumably, remove the moral stench from torturing Muslims. And as long ago as 1982, loathsome professor Michael Levin was given a whole page in Newsweek- a criminal enterprise involved in trying to protect the murderers of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt by terrorist bombers in Washington, D.C., among many other crimes- to run a straightforward defense of torture, “the Case For Torture.” Even now Brandeis University maintains a webpage for Levin to put forth noxious sophistry justifying torture. I won’t put the link here- you can google “Michael Levin torture” and you’ll find it.]


(1)    Apparently more Iranians have been assassinated than just the 4 scientists. Israel has a covert ops campaign against Iran that is now 12 or more years old. Haaretz published an article in 2009, citing the U.K. Daily Telegraph, with details of this. [“Is Israel assassinating Iran nuclear scientists?

Daily Telegraph: Israel using hitmen, double agentsto disrupt project as alternative to military strike.”]