Last week, the Iranian regime shot down Ukrainian Flight 752 with two anti-aircraft missiles. (https://www.businessinsider.com/iran-ukraine-plane-crash-flight-752-timeline-unfolded-events-allegations-2020-1) It was but a footnote in a long history of brutal disregard for human life by a vicious theocratic dictatorship.
The week prior, an Iranian General was killed in Iraq by the United States. We can debate whether the Trump administration was wise or not wise to eliminate the Iranian General, but he was not a good man, and was known to be responsible for attacks on Americans. (https://www.businessinsider.com.au/trump-claims-us-killed-iranian-general-soleimani-to-stop-war-2020-1 ) He was a force-initiator.
Regardless of whether the Trump administration should have killed the Iranian General, and in the way that they did, I want to address a particularly perverse notion that is floating around out there: Some people on the far left are saying this is the fault of Donald Trump. They use the following sort of “logic” to arrive at this conclusion:
(1) Donald Trump killed an Iranian General in Iraq, where he was waging war against the United States.
(2) Iran had just retaliated for this with a missile strike, and they were nervous of an American counter-attack, so they got jumpy and shot down the commercial airline.
If we were examining any semi-rational western government’s actions in such a situation, we’d ask several tough questions, such as: Why didn’t Iran, which knew it was about to conduct a missile attack, ground commercial airline flights? Why didn’t it have systems in place to distinguish between commercial flights and non-commercial flights?
But, a “liberal” throws all of that out in her mind, because it would require her to actually examine the nature of the Iranian regime, which she prefers not to do. The “liberal” will fail to consider key aspects of reality about Iran:
(1) Iran is a theocratic dictatorship with a record of human rights abuses. It routinely machine guns people in the streets for protesting against the government.( https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/06/middleeast/iran-un-protest-deaths-intl/index.html )There is no evidence to suggest it would have any more concern for the passengers on a commercial flight than it does for unarmed people in the street.
(2) Iran sponsors international terrorism that targets civilians, and it has since the current regime took power in the 1970’s.( https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/02/politics/state-department-report-terrorism/index.html ) This makes Iran essentially an outlaw nation, and they know it. They’re highly paranoid as a result.
(3) A theocratic dictatorship, pretty much by definition, has no concern with the well-being of its people in the here and now. Their goal is to prepare the population for after they die, and will go to heaven. Human rights are irrelevant to this world view. The Iranian regime is what it would look like if Branch Davidians somehow took over the United States. (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Branch-Davidian)
All of this adds up to an unstable, paranoid regime that will “shoot first and ask questions later”, because it isn’t really that concerned about the rights or welfare of its own people -or anyone else.
For a Western “liberal” to say it’s Donald Trump’s fault that Iran shot down Ukraine Flight 752, and killed a bunch of it’s own people is a statement of almost willful blindness.
The essence of the Iranian regime is the violation of the rights of other people in the pursuit of a supernatural “paradise” after they die. In fact, they believe they’ll go to that paradise if they kill the infidels.
I’ll leave you with an analogy. Imagine you encounter a mentally unstable homeless person at the bus stop. You momentarily make eye contact with that mentally ill person, and then they beat you senseless. Now imagine the police come and say: “Well, you shouldn’t have made eye contact with him.”
Even if your momentary gaze did precipitate the lunatic’s attack, it’s clear to everyone that the crazy person is just that -and anything could set him off.
The Iranian regime has a specific nature. Even if it didn’t murder anyone this, particular week, given enough time, that’s exactly what it will do.
