A Letter to Your Conscience, Representative Ocasio-Cortez
Dear Representative Ocasio-Cortez, your recent statement to the military chain of command regarding 'illegal orders' in Iran, in response to President Trump's chilling threat of civilizational annihilation, was a striking moment amidst the pervasive silence of mainstream politics. You correctly identified the genocidal implications of language suggesting 'a whole civilization will die tonight' for
failing to meet Washington's demands, a declaration that certainly merits scrutiny for removal from office. Your pronouncements on social platforms, where you labelled the rhetoric a 'threat of genocide,' briefly pierced the typically muted response from your colleagues regarding the nation's posture towards Iran. Yet, while The Hill's coverage highlights your condemnation, it, like much of the
corporate press, frames this as a singular event, a misstep by one erratic president. What it conveniently omits, Representative, is the deep historical tapestry of U.S. aggression that precedes this moment. The United States has been a direct participant in a joint operation against Iran for decades, a campaign far predating Mr. Trump's tenure. This includes the explicit backing of Saddam
Hussein's regime during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, where the Pentagon provided intelligence that facilitated Iraq's chemical weapons attacks against Iranian troops, a documented war crime. That conflict alone claimed over one million lives, many due to internationally prohibited weapons, directly implicating Washington's complicity. The issue isn't merely the 'illegality' of a specific order