Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been in New York City for a couple of days and he’s been labeled everything but the anti-Christ. To be sure he’s different and ignorant, but we have our own supply of ignorant and different people here in the United States and elsewhere. We’ve spent a great deal of time demonizing Ahmadinejad because it suits our own run up to another preemptive war. Ahmadinejad is the acceptable villain. It’s okay to hate him. We need another villain now that Saddam Hussein is dead. Bin Laden is loose and useful to us as long as he stays loose. If we capture him how can our government use him to whip us into a terror frenzy when they need to invoke those sorts of feelings.
The United States has a long history of climbing into bed with villains. We propped up Reza Pahlavi in Iran 30 years ago. We propped Saddam Hussein when it suited us 25 years ago. We propped up cruel dictators in Vietnam as long as they supported us. The enemy of my enemy is always our fried no matter what it might say in our constitution.
Cindy Sheehan has written a thoughtful piece which is published at Common Dreams about this latest bit of hypocrisy. Read it here and reflect on what it means to you.