Threats and Hypocrisy: The Usual Script
The United States, through President Trump, is once again threatening 'limited strikes' against Iran, a move framed as a negotiation tactic. Iran’s swift and unequivocal response, warning of a 'ferocious' reaction to any aggression, is met with feigned shock in Western capitals. This predictable cycle of brinkmanship ignores a crucial historical precedent: the 1890 'Pine Ridge Massacre,' where US
troops, citing 'disarmament' and 'non-compliance' from the Lakota, gunned down hundreds, primarily women and children, marking a brutal chapter of manufactured consent for imperial violence. The narrative spun then, much like now, was one of perceived threats justifying overwhelming force against a sovereign people. We are told that a US military buildup, including the deployment of additional
naval assets and airpower to the Persian Gulf, is merely 'pressure' for negotiations. Yet, when any other nation, particularly one under the constant threat of externally-orchestrated destabilization since the 1953 CIA-backed coup, takes defensive measures, it's immediately labeled 'provocative.' Forty-five years of crippling sanctions, designed to immiserate the Iranian populace and force a
change in leadership, somehow never constitute an act of aggression in the eyes of Washington, but Iran's assertion of sovereignty does. The hypocrisy deepens when comparing the strategic calculus. The US possesses an arsenal capable of global annihilation, spending over $886 billion annually on its military, while Iran's defense budget, a fraction of that, is continuously scrutinized as a