Four days before Trump ordered the June 21 bombing of Iran, David Petraeus, U.S. general who commanded the U.S. military in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, offered him this advice in an interview with the New York Times:
Mr. Trump, he said, should deliver an ultimatum to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, and order him to agree to the complete dismantlement of his nuclear program or face “the complete destruction of your country and your regime and your people.” If the supreme leader rejects the ultimatum, Mr. Petraeus said, “that improves our legitimacy and then reluctantly we blow them to smithereens.”
Did this threat to blow 90 million Iranians “to smithereens”—or as one Times reader put it, to “shatter the skulls, tear off the limbs and fry the internal organs of small children. Reluctantly”—spark a societal wave of condemnation?
No! The New York Times treated it as a legitimate piece of advice regarding the wisdom of bombing Iran, one of several from former imperialist officials. His comments didn’t disqualify him from appearing on other major media either: the very next night Petraeus was invited to share his thinking with Jake Tapper on CNN. That a man who says such things is not widely regarded as a frozen-blooded monster tells you quite a bit about this system and even its “reputable” news media outlets.
Bob Avakian: Free Yourself from the GTF! The Great Tautological Fallacy
In the London Review of Books, writer Adam Shatz points out, “[M]urderous threats from US officials against foreign leaders and their people no longer provoke shock, much less condemnation; they’re simply part of the ‘conversation’ about how the US should manage its empire.”1
Indeed. What kind of system normalizes—in fact welcomes—calls for destroying whole countries and people, for blowing millions to “smithereens”?
And not just talks about mass murder, but actually carries it out, time, after time, after time! The nuclear incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The Korean War of 1950-53. The 1961-75 Vietnam War.
October 16, 2015: Doctors Without Borders’ hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, after U.S. airstrike killed 42 staff and patients. “The attack was conducted with a purpose to kill and destroy. We don’t know why.” Photo: AP
What about Petraeus himself? He was right in the middle of America’s so-called “war on terror,” commanding U.S. military forces in the wars in Iraq (2007-08) and Afghanistan (2010-11), and acting as the Director of the CIA (2011-12). This was a war of terror which directly and indirectly, took between 4.5 and 4.6 million lives between 2001-2021!2 In other words, Petraeus is up to his neck in the blood of innocent children in Iraq, Afghanistan, and across the Middle East!
This isn’t ancient history—it’s happening right now! The U.S. has supplied some 70 percent of the weapons Israel has used to kill over 58,000 Palestinians and destroy nearly all the homes in Gaza, including over 14,000 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, and 3,000 Hellfire missiles.
Even America’s “humanitarian efforts” come soaked in blood—as their “relief organization” in Gaza (the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) has presided over the murder of at least 674 starving people. Many of those killed were “blown—or machine-gunned—to smithereens” as they were seeking food!
In light of all this, the fact that Petraeus can so glibly and eagerly, and with good cheer, talk of the “complete destruction” of 90 million Iranians reveals how a monstrous system produces truly monstrous people.
A system that is no longer fit to rule, a system that must be overthrown through revolution at the soonest possible moment.
Again, What Kind of System? A Rotten and Illegitimate One!
We Need and We Demand: A Whole New Way to Live, a Fundamentally Different System!
