US foreign policy in the Middle East used to be something I had to pay attention to for my job. Since I don't have all day (I do try to post as much as possible on here because I think it's crucial that women are alerted to how our rights are being lost, but I do have other things in my life to do too) I just tried to give a bit of background so that people who didn't have to know what was happening in the Middle East for their work might be able to understand some of my objection to Alinejad.

This isn't really the forum to go into US foreign policy, but I do think that war is a feminist issue, and wanted to alert women who might not be as knowledgable as I was as to why I think Alinejad and her motivation should be examined more closely before full on GC feminist support.

Alinejad might be a feminist angel, but, given the sheer amount of back room spooks/ the Usual Neo-Conservative Suspects who seem to consider her a heroine, I personally think she's being used, or is in on efforts to soften up the US public for yet another UnHoly War.

And I do not support the Iranian regime, far from it. I have just watched over and over the US public being told lies, including humanitarian lies (Kuwaiti premature babies being thrown out of incubators by Iraqi troops) to justify wars and military actions. I am on the side of not bombing women into bits in order to give what's left of their bodies "rights."

We were "bringing freedom to Iraq" at one point with "Operation Iraqi Freedom" - anyone remember that? That freedom killed a lot of females, and left millions of others missing limbs, scarred bodies, homeless, hungry, sexually assaulted, prostituted.

I did actually know a lot about US foreign policy, not just in the Middle East, and am firmly in the leave other countries alone camp unless we are actually doing good, which the US is almost never doing. We are thugs overseas and our population is completely uninformed by our media about what we are actually doing around the world unless it's couched in patriotic terms.

And the coming attack on Iran, no matter who wins the US election, will be couched in patriotic (false flag attack) or humanitarian terms (we're saving those I-ran wimmin from having to wear tents!) so I'm very suspicious about Alinejad's raised profile and what force is actually behind it.

But bottom line, I was certainly not attacking you or anyone else personally, just, after seeing the same Alinejad tweet video retweeted on about 7 GC feminist Twitters I wanted to let people know that she might not be what they thought and that the situation between the US and Iran is fraught and dangerous.

BTW: I used Jim Lobe for information a lot. I don't agree with everything he claims, but he is miles ahead of almost any other US journalist in terms of knowledge of US policy in the Middle East.

And the author of the article is Iranian himself; I've also followed him for years. IIRC he lost his brother to the Mullahs so is no fan of the Iranian regime himself.

If anyone wants to know more about why I think Alinejad might not be above board, ask me. You'll get a novel (maybe, I don't have much time this week), but it's better than launching a war on Iran to save women from having to wear headscarves by killing them.