On
November 22nd of last year, the US government announced it would impose
sanctions on Iran’s information minister for his alleged role in limiting
domestic Internet access while protests raged in that country over increases in
gas prices.
At the time, US Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin condemned the Iranian government for
censuring information that Iranian citizens could view online, stating that,
“Iran’s leaders know that a free and open internet exposes their illegitimacy,
so they seek to censor internet access to quell anti-regime protests.”
The
Iranians were evil, said the US government official in charge of economic
sanctions, because it restricted what its citizens could read in the
international press.
Our government would never do that…right?
Wrong. Yesterday, the US government knocked Iran’s state news agency, FARS, off of the
Internet entirely, citing US sanctions against the country.
What that means is the Iranian news
service is being censored by the United States government and that Americans
will therefore no longer be able to see anything from this foreign media
outlet.
Exactly what Mnuchin accused Iran of
doing back in November.
Zerohedge writes, “as Iran’s
PressTV describes further“:
The news agency said that it
had received an email from the server company, which explicitly said that the
blockage is due to an order by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets
Control (OFAC) and its inclusion in the list of Specially Designated Nationals
(SDN).
The
agency attached to its post a screenshot of its website with the message “www.farsnews.com’s
server IP address could not be found.”
This
latest US censorship of Iranian media is nothing new. Iran’s PressTV has been
removed from YouTube and other US social media with “US sanctions on Iran”
being given as the reason.
Americans are not allowed to see the
Iranian perspective on the Middle East because the Beltway bombardiers and
their bosses in the military-industrial complex depend on successfully
demonizing all Persians so that Americans will accept their annihilation in
another neocon war. If Americans are allowed to see the Iranian perspective
they might not be so supportive of the slaughter the neocons are cooking up.
The bottom line is this: the US
Administration cites Iran’s restricting of outside media as evidence of the
evil nature of the Iranian government, all the while scrambling to restrict
American citizens’ access to Iranian media outlets.
Pot.
Kettle. Black. Hypocrisy.
Daniel
McAdams is the Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and
Prosperity.
Copyright © by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole
or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/01/daniel-mcadams/the-unbearable-hypocrisy-of-us-sanctions-on-iran/
