US Leaders Are Cheerleaders for a War Machine

On today’s show, guest host Bert Zipperer is in conversation with Negin Owliaei, editor-in-chief of Truthout, about the war that the US and Israel launched on Iran last weekend. On Saturday, Owliaei woke up to dozens of text messages from her family in Tehran announcing the bombardment of their city. Since then, the US and Israel have killed more than 1,000 people across Iran and the Middle East, including 150 school children.

Owliaei says that she is frustrated by the public discourse about Iran and the way that the language of “preemptive strikes” and “imminent threats,” sanitizes war. She reminds listeners that there were signs that the US was gearing up for an attack on Iran and that it costs the nation $1 billion per day to wage this unjust and illegal war. She insists that “just because it’s started, doesn’t mean it needs to go on” and “every minute we can shorten this war is a success.” In her latest article for Truthout, she discusses the need for resistance and support for grassroots organizing like Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, Taxpayers Against Genocide, and No Tech for Apartheid.

They also discuss Nowruz (the Spring holiday in Iran), the history of the 1953 CIA-backed coup, the deportation of Iranians following the 12-day US-Israel war on Iran last summer, and the Women, Life, Freedom movement. She wants people to understand that everything that’s going on domestically has a foreign policy effect. Owliaei joined A Public Affair last summer to talk about the US and Israel’s 12-day war on Iran. 

Note: This pledge drive interview was edited to remove parts of the show dedicated to station fundraising. We thank our listeners for their generous support.

Negin Owliaei is Truthout’s editor-in-chief. An award-winning journalist, she previously worked at Al Jazeera’s flagship daily news podcast, The Take. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Featured image in celebration of Nowruz, or the beginning of spring by Hamed Saber on Flickr. 

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