Pompeo Should Outrage Us, But So Should So Much Else
Once upon a time, Americans thought that no Sectary of State could be more destructive than Collin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, or Hillary Clinton. After reading Bob Woodward’s books on the Iraq War and Mark Landler book Alter Ego, I thought I would agree.
Then Mike Pompeo came along.
First picked to lead the CIA, Pompeo was appointed by President Trump to replace Rex Tillerson as Sectary Of State in April 2018. Since then, basically his entire goal in life has been to get the President to go to war with Iran.
A recent report found that Iran will not reach the peak of this current coronavirus epidemic until late May. Not only that, but up to 3.5 million people could die as a result. That means that about 4.3% of the population of Iran could die as a result of this illness.
Even state television has admitted this is a big crisis. According to figures from the Iranian government, 1,135 people have died, jumping from just 147 in the last 24 hours. Overall, they estimate that 17,361 people have been infected in one form or another.
How does Pompeo respond? Not only does he refuse to remove the pre-existing sanctions the United States has on Iran, but he’s actually announced a new round of sanctions today.
Here’s what Pompeo said as to why he’s doing this:
Instead of focusing on the needs of the Iranian people and accepting genuine offers of support, senior Iranians lied about the Wuhan virus outbreak for weeks.
You mean like the President did when he called it a Democrat hoax? Donald Trump mocked the people who feared this pandemic as recently as the same month he declared a state of emergency.
What did the Iranian government do? They said the virus was contained, which they were wrong about. However, so did Trump. The same day the CDC said this virus spreading was “not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when” a top Trump adviser said he had it contained “pretty close to air tight”!
Leading to the deaths of 3.5 million people like this use to be considered a crime against humanity. But now, it’s just called politics.
But this isn’t the only thing that should outrage us. Senator Josh Hawley, the populist in chief of the Republican Party, said this on Twitter:
To any multinational corporations that come to Congress asking for taxpayer $$$, you better come prepared to explain how you will move supply chains and jobs back to America if you want my vote
Hey, anyone remember when Hawley introduced legislation to ban government contracts to “big tech” companies? Well of the three companies he targeted — Google, Facebook, and Twitter — all three have there headquarters in the United States.
Let us not forget that Hawley is the same Senator who introduced legislation trying to not medicine from coming into the US if it was from China. Basically the only difference between what Pompeo and Hawley did is that Pompeo is an international threat while Hawley is a domestic one. Either way, both should be considered some of the most evil people currently in politics.
The international community needs to come together to figure this out. When we were making the Atomic Bomb, we didn’t care what country the scientists came from, we cared about them working for us. To make it short, this illness is about as dangerous to us as the rise of fascism, and we should treat it as such.
