The Race for Iran - What might Martin Luther King say about policy in the Middle East today.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

King died more than a decade before the Iranian revolution. Obviously, there is no direct evidence of what he would have thought about his country’s policies toward the Islamic Republic or the course of America’s engagement in the Middle East over the past 30 years. But we believe that his “Beyond Vietnam” address speaks powerfully to the concerns of those who think the United States has gone badly off track in its approach to the Islamic Republic and the Middle East more generally. The address is too long to post, in its entirety; for those who want to read the whole text (something we highly recommend), click here and here (for video excerpts and commentary). But we have excerpted below a number of passages that, we believe, cut to the heart of the (largely self-generated) challenges that the United States faces in the Middle East today.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated one year to the day after he delivered this address. He was 39 years old when he died.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.

This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words:

“Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.”

http://www.raceforiran.com/what-might-martin-luther-king-say-about-u-s-policy-in-the-middle-east-today

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[pscot]

1. "God didn't call American to do what she's doing in the world now.

God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war... And we are criminals in that war. We have committed more war crimes almost than any other nation in the world and we won't stop because of our pride, our arrogance as a nation"

King could have said it, but it was actually the first guy Obama threw under the bus, Rev.Jeremiah Wright. I'm reading a book about MLK and I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately. I like your sigline, by the way. It's a dreadful poem, but it has some memorable lines

[EmeraldCityGrl]

2. I've also been reading and thinking about MLK

quite a bit lately...compeled by the times we find ourselves in to
to read his words and wishing he were here to offer his wisdom.