Attack on Iran Protested at the Embarcadero

Photos: Leon Kunstenaar

(San Francisco, March 7) - This was a demonstration against the US-Israel attack on Iran with a difference. A group of Iranians who oppose the Iranian Islamic Republic and approve of Trump's attempt to destroy it showed up. There were loud and were there again the next day. Asked what group they were, they only answered said they were "Iranians." Many carried signs claiming that the anti-war protesters were paid. As with the MAGA crowd, are accusations confessions?

Their Iranian flags were the version used by the US installed Shah after the CIA and MI6 overthrew the Iranian government of Mossadegh in 1953. Mossadegh's crime was the nationalization of Iran's oil industry to benefit Iran rather that the US and Britain. The Shah was, in turn, overthrown by Islamic clerics in 1979. With the "West" deprived of Iranian oil, Iran has been an official "enemy" ever since. Interesting factoid: the first country to recognize Israel upon its creation was ... Iran.

Using the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" paradigm, supporters of the Shaw are therefore pro Trump, complete with MAGA hats and a Trump banner that proclaims Trump "2024 and 2028." They also flew Israeli flags, presumably seeing no problem with Israel's genocide of Palestine. They dominated the demonstration and there was some scuffling, one person being arrested. The original demonstrators subsequently seem to have evaporated.

During all this, the whole event was given a surreal atmosphere by the appearance of a large high school drum band that overwhelmed the proceedings with unpleasant, poorly played marching music. Unfortunately, they did not march anywhere.

As the justifications for the attack coming from the Trump regime become more convoluted, varied and contradictory, the mainstream press plunges into exhaustive analysis and tries to attribute meaning, context and coherence to Trump's actions. Pundits grandiosely declare what it is all about. Each impulsive word salad uttered by Trump or one of his clowns triggers a new round of sober proclamations, as if the grotesques band of clowns that calls itself a government had any coherent plan other than pretend to implement the chief clown's impulses.

Among the presidents that have sent the US to war, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Trump is unique in one way. Each of the aforementioned believed that they had a notion of what was in the "national interest", however warped and homicidal. Trump is unique in that he does not do "National Interest" by whoever and however it is defined. He only does "Trump interest." He is The frontier con-man with a "get away with what you can" ethic in a single minded pursuit of power and wealth. Abstract notions of equality, democracy, justice, etc. are relegated to the contemptuous trash can called "woke."

Added to the Trump gangster ethic is also that he is a bully. A person with an intense need to find his validation in the domination of others. He only picks on those who are weaker. When the bully is the US president who controls the world's most powerful military, the victims are any weaker country, currently Venezuela, Iran, and soon Cuba.

As pundits and journalists mine the depths of interactions and motives of Trump with respect to his victims and attempt to make sense of his depredations, they miss the obvious. There is no coherence. As Trump recently admitted, he chose to attack Iran based on a "feeling." More accurately the "feeling" is simply the bully's need to dominate which is confirmed by the suffering of others. This is how is gets his kicks.

We are seeing this play out on a world scale.

See all high resolution photos here.