Speaking of Iran...

By Libby

Funny thing about group blogging. Your colleagues are miles away and we don't assign topics or time frames here so one can't predict what's going to be posted, or when. It sometimes results in an odd sort of synchronicity and today Sha and I seemed to have tapped into the same cosmic train of thought.

Like Sha, Iran is on my mind this morning, and I share her sense of resignation that the bombing of Iran is a fait accompli. It's only a matter of when as far as I can see. But unlike Sha, that triggers my fight instinct. I've come to the point where I glaze over from the sameness of the dismal reports of daily carnage out of Iraq but I still want to believe that bombing Iran is somehow preventable.

I listen to people talking about bombing that country in such detached, clinical terms as if it's some kind of alien entity unrelated to the normal world and I wonder if people understand what they're asking for when they seek to punish a whole population for the sins of their crazy leader. Via Glenn Greenwald, I found this photo essay to be worth the proverbial thousands of words. This is a land and people not so unlike our own.

Can we in good conscience pre-emptively destroy all this out of fear of a threat that has not in any way been demonstrably proven? I know I can't advocate it and in fact feel compelled to do anything I can to prevent it - futile though it may be.