‘First-graders who didn’t know how to write were encouraged to cry for Soleimani…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) MSNBC’s Chris Matthews compared the death of Iran’s “beloved leader” Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian general and terrorist, to the deaths of American rock legend Elvis Presley and the United Kingdom’s Princess Diana.
“When some people die, you don’t know what the impact is going to be,” Matthews said during a segment with Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas.
“When Princess Diana died, for example, there was a huge emotional outpouring. Elvis Presley in our culture,” Matthews continued. “It turns out that this general we killed was a beloved hero of the Iranian people to the point where—look at the people, we got pictures up now—these enormous crowds coming out.”
Unlike high-profile terrorists like the recently killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Soleimani was little known or discussed in the American media prior to his death.
“There’s no American emotion in this case,” Matthews said, “but there’s a hell of a lot of emotion on the other side.”
President Donald Trump ordered the killing of Soleimani, a brutal Islamic leader with the blood of hundreds of U.S. soldiers on his hands, after he had flown into Baghdad airport to provide tactical support for Iran-backed militia groups attempting to siege the U.S. Embassy there.
But Democrats immediately blamed Trump for escalating tensions with Iran and leading the U.S. to another “forever war,” as Castro claimed.
“They very much could have anticipated that Iranians would react in this way, both the Iranian public but also that the government would strike back,” Castro told Matthews. “This speaks to a much larger issue, Chris, which is the president has had a very chaotic and erratic foreign policy, especially with respect to Iran.”
Many Iranian-born U.S. residents, however, have been quick to point out that the regime’s mourning for Soleimani is nothing more than a facade.
“In the city of Ahvaz, where large numbers of people turned out to mourn Soleimani, the government has forced students and officials to attend. It provided free transport and ordered shops to shut down,” Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad wrote in The Washington Post.
“According to videos sent to me by people inside the country, the authorities are making little kids write essays praising the fallen commander,” Alinejad added. “First-graders who didn’t know how to write were encouraged to cry for Soleimani.”