Reflections on US state terrorism

July 3, the day preceding the Declaration of Independence by the 13 New England States that fed up with British crimes banded together as the United States of America in 1776, will remain an eternal blot of shame on Uncle Sam’s conscience – if there is any.

It is the day on which in 1988, the trigger happy Yankees indulged in a blatant act of state terrorism by blowing in mid air an Iranian passenger on its regular flight across the Strait of Hormuz, from Bandar Abbas to Dubai. As a result, 290 passengers and crew on board the Airbus-300, including 66 children were blown to bits by the two missiles fired by the USS Vincennes and went down to a watery grave in Iran’s territorial waters off Hengam Island in the Persian Gulf.       

In fact, a few hours earlier, the US ship in violation of international maritime laws had entered Iranian waters and positioned itself for the “kill”, fully knowing that the 4-days-a-week Iran Air Flight 655 would be flying right above through its commercial air corridor, Amber 59, a 32 km-wide lane, on a direct line from Bandar Abbas to Dubai Airport. Stay with us for a special feature in this regard.

At 10:17 hours Iranian time on July 3, the unsuspecting Iran Air passenger plane, manned by Captain Mohsen Rezaian, a veteran pilot with 7,000 hours of flight time, took off half an hour late and was in the process of ascending the 14,000 feet altitude for the 28-minute flight, when Its journey was cut short on the orders of the cowardly captain Will Rogers, who gloated with delight at his criminal downing of the Airbus and the death of all passengers on board.

Rogers, his staff, and the Republican regime of Ronald Regan, then began to deceive a shocked world through glib lies that the Americans had acted in self defence claiming that the aircraft shot down was a F-4 Tomcat which menacingly descending at the Vincennes with the intention of attack.

Preposterous lies indeed by the USA, which right since its dubious birth in the last quarter of the 18^th century has pursued a policy of expansionism and state terrorism – crimes that include the dropping of atomic bombs on the unsuspecting Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima when World War 2 was almost over, the killings fields in Vietnam in the 1960s  and the early 1970s, the blind support to the illegitimate racist Zionist entity called Israel, and the recent deaths of at least 1.2 million Iraqis and hundreds of thousands of Afghans in the past decade, in addition to the sedition underway in Syria, and the bombing of the poor Yemeni people by Washington’s client, the Wahhabi regime of Saudi Arabia.

The downing of the Iranian civilian airliner was nothing short of a pre-planned crime in support of Saddam’s abortive invasion which despite the use of US-supplied internationally banned chemical weapons was poised for the imminent collapse of the repressive Ba’th minority regime.

This is not a mere speculation, since the events of the months preceding the July 3 act of terrorism, had seen blatant acts of US aggression on Iranian shipping and Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf, while this same US had turned a blind eye and called it ‘case of mistaken identity’ when Iraqi air force jets attacked the guided-missile frigate USS Stark  on 17 March 1987, killing several American marines, in order to provide pretext to Washington to lay the blame on Iran for rising tension and involve itself into open hostilities against the Islamic Republic.  

Today, 28 years later, it is clear that the US is not just the culprit, but that all its mischief has badly backfired, as is evident by the frenzied sanctions it has imposed on Islamic Iran through pressures and threats against world countries in a vain bid to curb Iran’s rapidly growing power and progress, while Iraq has slipped into the Islamic orbit, Bahrain is all set to bid goodbye to the American 5^th Fleet, Syria stands firm in the face of most devilish plots, Israel is counting the days to its eventual demise, and it is only a matter of time before the British-created state of Saudi Arabia would implode.

Years later, the awarding of Will Rogers with medals of honour by the regime of Bush Senior, proved beyond doubt that the downing of Flight 655 was a pre-planned act through a chain of command reaching the apex of power in Washington. Commander Lustig, the air-warfare coordinator, was awarded the US navy's Commendation Medal for what the criminals in the White House shamelessly called “heroic achievement,” by lauding his “ability in quickly and precisely completing the firing procedure” on a large passenger aircraft gently ascending its commercial air corridor.

Today, we renew our mourning for the martyrs of the tragedy. We shower the waters around Hengam Island with flowers. But the souls of the 300 passengers are far from pacified. They seek to ask the question: Why doesn't the United Nations, especially its affiliate the International War Crimes Tribunal, take any practical action against the criminals in the US?

No amount of apologies – although Washington has offered none nor Tehran expects any – will ever wipe out the bitter memories of this dastardly deed that sent 290 innocent passengers aboard the Airbus plying the 5-times-a-week Bandar Abbas-Dubai commercial air corridor 59, including 57 women and 53 children, to a watery grave in the Persian Gulf waters. It was, and will continue to remain an unpardonable crime, even long after the United States of America ceases to exist on the world map.

AS/ME