IN the light of President Trump's decision to escalate political and military tensions in the area of the Persian Gulf, raising the real threat of a full scale US-Iran war ("Hunt in warning to avoid Iran travel", The Herald, May 18), let us refresh our memories with some history of the United States, recalling occasions when, as Aeschylus is reported to have stated over 2500 years ago, "truth is the first casualty in any war".
In 1898, when the USS Maine exploded by accident in Havana, President McKinley, egged on by Randolph Hearst's yellow press, declared war on Spain, which owned Cuba at that time, blaming the Spanish for sabotage, a claim totally unfounded. This war is generally regarded by historians as the beginnings of American imperialism, which led to US global domination in the 20th century.
In 1964, the USS Maddox opened unprovoked fire on a shadowing North Vietnamese submarine, killing six North Vietnamese sailors. One bullet in response hit the Maddox. Soon, another incident in the Gulf, later admitted to be "fake news", claiming a submarine attack on the Maddox, led President Johnson to get Congressional approval for escalating US intervention in Vietnam, and for the bombing North Vietnam. That intervention, now agreed, was a total political and military disaster for the US, and we should recall that it was courageously opposed by Harold Wilson, the Labour Prime Minister. It goes without saying that this was also a disaster for the estimated one million Vietnamese who died in an unnecessary war.
In 2003, based on the false and manufactured claim that Iraq had chemical weapons, a claim disputed by every competent authority, the US and its supine supporters, including to his eternal shame and damnation, Tony Blair, the then leader of the Labour Party, invaded Iraq. Sixteen years later it is universally agreed that this was an even greater disaster than US intervention in Vietnam. And again, it was a disaster for the Iraqi people, an estimated 500,000 to 1m of whom have perished.
Now, Mr Trump is claiming that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, a claim refuted by every competent authority, from the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) – who should know – and disputed by the entire range of countries who, sadly, are still US military allies: including our own country, right across the political spectrum, who are, at present at least, refusing to accept that Mr Trump's knowledge of sub-atomic particular physics is greater than that of the combined expertise of the IAEA.
If war starts between the US and Iran, it will have been based on lies. And, though the ignorant in Washington may think there is only one letter of difference between Iraq and Iran, Iran will prove to be a much more resilient and resourceful opponent than was Saddam Hussein, and such a war would prove to be an even greater disaster for America. The UK should in no way be involved, and should follow the example of the French over Iraq in 2003, and not engage in a war of lies. More than a century after the Spanish American war, it is time to call a moratorium on US global military interventions based, time and again, on lies.
Iain R Mitchell, Glasgow G3.
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