Greenland, Iran, I don't want to win that way

Don't let the news cycle move on when we need to do the right thing today.

It’s snowing in Tehran, and nobody cares.

They used to yell “stop the presses!” when breaking news hit the cycle after the plates were put to bed and the paper began print production. The paper would be late, but the news would be fresh; that’s the origin of the term “late breaking news.” We still use the term but the meaning misses. For example, President Donald Trump will be late to his speech in Davos. His 30-plus year old airplane had some electrical issue and the pilots decided to turn back shortly after departing for Switzerland. That’s late but not breaking. What is breaking is the hearts of Iranians.

Surfiran Mag: In 2018, The First Snowfall In Tehran Brings With It Beautiful Snow Capped Mountains And Towns Cloaked In White!. These Incredible Images Show The Iranian Capital Of Tehran Was Transformed Into A Winter Wonderland After Temperatures Plunged And As Much As Ft Of Snow Fell.

Elahe Mohammadi, an Iranian reporter, filed this note:

For one or two days now, every once in a while, our VPNs work for about half an hour to one hour during the day and we manage to connect to the internet. We send out a message to let people know we’re still alive. The city smells of death. In all my life, I had never seen snow fall in Tehran and not a single person even smile.

The newspaper Ham-Mihan was shut down after three and a half years of publication. In all these past days, we tried to write about the dead and the wounded. About #Melkshahi, about Behesht-e Zahra, about Kahrizak and the waiting eyes of families for the bodies of their loved ones, about hospitals, nurses and doctors who witnessed the catastrophe with their own eyes, shed tears, and did everything they could.

Hard days have passed and everyone is stunned; a whole country is in mourning, a whole country is holding back tears, a whole country has a lump in its throat.

We keep hearing about Greenland, because the presses have moved on from the story in Iran. Tens of thousands of protesters have been murdered in cold blood by the regime. The U.S. has rattled sabers, and I’ve seen repeated reports of various jets and other assets moving around the Gulf region, but nothing has happened so far. Red lines were drawn, crossed, and consequences were withheld. The souls of Iranians who yearn for freedom are literally dying, and the media has moved on.

We are forgetting about what’s important, we’re being led by the nose one press cycle at a time by a man who obsesses over his own press, and laments over not winning a Nobel Peace Prize he has not earned.

Tucker Carlson had a lunch meeting with President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio last Friday—his second visit in two weeks. Carlson has been spewing the most vile, anti-semitic, pro-Russian, pro-Iranian propaganda for the last year or more. The latest is his newsletter where he asked “Could the Iranians obtaining The Bomb wind up being a good thing?” He cited North Korea as an example of a stable, responsible nuclear club member. This is insanity on stilts. The South Koreans live every day under the threat of nuclear annihilation, not to mention the tens of thousands of chemical weapons that could rain down on Seoul and everywhere within artillery range of the DMZ. I would not call North Korea’s nukes “stabilizing.”

Carlson asked “What are the chances Iran would actually launch a nuclear attack?” Let’s see, if you believe the ayatollahs, it’s 100 percent. Iran is a large country with 90 million residents. Even if Tehran was consumed in nuclear fire, there’d still be an Iran. But one nuke over Tel Aviv and there’d be no Israel. This is how the mullahs have calculated their chances. Israel believes it. Letting Iran obtain a nuclear weapon would be catastrophic for regional stability. Tucker Carlson is working for the enemies of the U.S., Ukraine, and the west. And he has unfettered access to the West Wing of the White House.

There must be no deal with Iran, other than for their current regime to step down, which won’t happen voluntarily. There are reports the regime has brought in foreign (Arab and Afghan) fighters to kill its own citizens in the streets. But we’ve moved on, to Greenland.

Even if Greenland is the magical answer to our rare earth problems, access to the Arctic, global warming, and unlocking buried alien technology (ok, that last one is sarcasm), obtaining it is wrong. I don’t care if we “need” Greenland, or that it is geographically part of North America, or that the U.S. could pay Denmark’s entire national debt, or that we could make every Greenlander as rich as the richest family in your town. I don’t care that we can gild the path to moral despotism with gold and diamonds. It’s wrong. Wresting an island and its people to benefit ourselves is wrong.

It was wrong when we did it to Hawaii in 1983, when President Benjamin Harrison signed a treaty of annexation with an illegitimate junta run by the pineapple plantation owners which had overthrown the beneficent regime under Lili'uokalani. President William McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution, an act of political chicanery, to officially make Hawaii a territory, over the objection of the majority of its native residents. There was no other foreign nation involved in that illegal taking. With Greenland, the Danes and other Europeans are standing against America, along with 50,000-odd Greenlanders.

If NATO breaks, and the U.S. imposes tariffs on European nations who side with Greenland and Denmark, the U.S. could also withdraw all support for Ukraine, not that we’ve added to it in over a year. This would leave Russia to complete its invasion without worrying about the threat of NATO’s Article 5, or U.S. retaliation. It would side us with the soulless depot Vladimir Putin.

If we leave Iran to its own devices after promising aid to the protesters, it would side us with the butchers of Teheran, Ayatollah Ali Khameini and his son. If we leave the illegitimate government that stole an election in power in Venezuela, in exchange for oil we don’t need, and can’t pay for, we are siding with Nicolás Maduro, even as he sits in a cell in New York.

If we “win” Greenland, we will have done it by an immoral, illegitimate act. “Do you know what time it is?” Apparently, it’s time for the U.S. to become evil but gain all the riches sought by the political class running the place. It seems they mean it’s time for people like Tucker Carlson to be lauded and heard, when his message is lies and terrible blood libels.

It is never time to do what is wrong, even to gain what we think we “need.” It is never time to move on from the latest news cycle to the next one, abandoning the things we should be doing in order to obtain the next “victory.”

It is time to shout “stop the presses!” It’s time to remember those we are about to abandon to despotism and death. The news cycle wants to move on, but we must keep shouting to do the right thing. Remember this as Mr. Trump gives his speech in Davos, that is, if he gives it at all.

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