How pathetic can people get?
Your letters page in the Victoria News of Feb. 15 is dominated by a photograph of two naïvely stupid “Grannies” standing in the rain protesting a nonexistent war on Iran.
Have these women and their comrades even considered why there is a possibility of a war with Iran? Probably not. Let’s look at the reasons why it could happen.
Iran is a religiously militant country with total disregard for the human rights of its own people or others in the world.
These are the people who stone women to death as adulterers because they were raped, who torture and execute men for being homosexual and who torture and imprison journalists and others who speak out against them. The list is endless.
Internationally, they have funded and continue to fund and directly contribute to terrorism. The most recent example is a failed attempt to blow up the Israeli embassy in Bangkok last week. Fortunately, they blew themselves up instead.
With this background, this rogue nation is now openly and actively developing a nuclear industry that can, and invariably will, lead to nuclear weapons. They have already implied that the first target will be Israel, a country that the Iranian president is constantly saying should be “wiped off the map.”
When requests from the UN to allow inspectors into the country to check for nuclear weapons development is denied, international trade sanctions were legally implemented.
To retaliate against this move, the Iranians are threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz. Twenty per cent of the world’s oil passes through this strait. Loss of this oil would cripple most of Europe which is the biggest user of Middle Eastern oil.
The Iranians are backing up their threat with massive navy manoeuvres that are harassing internationally flagged oil tankers in international waters.
No sensible person or country wants war. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people and countries out there who don’t care and don’t mind killing many people to support their own warped ideologies.
Until alternatives are found, the world needs oil for fuel, fertilizers, chemicals and even to make the plastic raincoats and umbrellas used by those misguided women in your photograph.
So you may be older “Grannies,” but it is time to grow up and start protesting the things in this world that may actually help people in genuine need, and to not support a rogue nation whose main goals appear to be hatred and war.
Michael Hubbard
Esquimalt