Brian H. Appleton

Behesht e Zahra

I went to see the graves of the matyres from the Iran Iraq War.They went on for as far as the eye could see. They called this the “Silent War"in the West because it was completely ignored by the press. A million youths died on the Iranian side. The US administration at the time encouraged and armed Saddam to make this war on Iran. And is it any small wonder that the US government is feared and not trusted. A million youth dead, tens of thousands of amputees and orphans were left in the war’s wake.

US administrations put Saddam into power, took him out of power but not before sanctioning Iraq so 50,000 children died from lack of anti biotics. Now it is said that over 650,000 Iraqis have died in the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. There is a media silence over Afghanistan, where bombs are being used to make up for lack of adequate troops on the ground and civilians are getting killed.It is hard to even find estimates of how many Afghan civilians have died in this US invasion and occupation.

US administrations are assumed responsible for the installation of the Shah, the ouster of Mossadeg, the reinstallation of the Shah, the ouster of the Shah, the installation of Khomeini.

When will the US government and the military industrial complex stop treating other nations like a checker board? These are real people getting killed. Is it any wonder that the IRI does not trust foreign powers? Is it any wonder that they do not allow photographs to be taken of government buildings and that Americans must be accompanied by a guide and submit addresses of where they will be staying at all times while in Iran? Especially in light of Bush and the Congress making it so public that they have approved $400 million for covert activity to destabilize the government of Iran. The miracle is that they let Americans into Iran at all.

The Iranian people love the American people. Everyone I encountered tried to speak English to me. Everyone I spoke to said they hoped that there would be peace between our two nations. But nobody wants to be a vassal state with a puppet government again.

There are regularly scheduled black outs daily to save the power for the nights. They tell me before all the sanctions there were no black outs. What Iran wants is nuclear energy for the generation of more electricity which it needs. What Iran wants is it’s independance and dignity.

The name of the former Hilton is Esteglal, that means Sovereignty and Freedom…and I definately felt that Iranians are in charge of Iran now…the foreign presence was minimal and it felt right…

Brian H. Appleton

aka

Rasool Aryadust

www.zirzameen.com