Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Iran Had a Democracy Before We Took It Away
Iranians do not need or want us to teach them about liberty and representative government. They have long embodied this struggle. It is we who need to be taught. It was Washington that orchestrated the 1953 coup to topple Iran’s democratically elected government, the first in the Middle East, and install the compliant shah in power. It was Washington that forced Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, a man who cared as much for his country as he did for the rule of law and democracy, to spend the rest of his life under house arrest. We gave to the Iranian people the corrupt regime of the shah and his savage secret police and the primitive clerics that rose out of the swamp of the dictator’s Iran. Iranians know they once had a democracy until we took it away.
The fundamental problem in the Middle East is not a degenerate and corrupt Islam. The fundamental problem is a degenerate and corrupt Christendom. We have not brought freedom and democracy and enlightenment to the Muslim world. We have brought the opposite. We have used the iron fist of the American military to implant our oil companies in Iraq, occupy Afghanistan and ensure that the region is submissive and cowed. We have supported a government in Israel that has carried out egregious war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza and is daily stealing ever greater portions of Palestinian land. We have established a network of military bases, some the size of small cities, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait, and we have secured basing rights in the Gulf states of Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. We have expanded our military operations to Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Egypt, Algeria and Yemen. And no one naively believes, except perhaps us, that we have any intention of leaving.
We are the biggest problem in the Middle East. We have through our cruelty and violence created and legitimized the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads and the Osama bin Ladens. The longer we lurch around the region dropping iron fragmentation bombs and seizing Muslim land the more these monsters, reflections of our own distorted image, will proliferate. The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that “the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.” But our hypocrisy no longer fools anyone but ourselves. It will ensure our imperial and economic collapse.
The history of modern Iran is the history of a people battling tyranny. These tyrants were almost always propped up and funded by foreign powers. This suppression and distortion of legitimate democratic movements over the decades resulted in the 1979 revolution that brought the Iranian clerics to power, unleashing another tragic cycle of Iranian resistance.
“The central story of Iran over the last 200 years has been national humiliation at the hands of foreign powers who have subjugated and looted the country,” Stephen Kinzer, the author of “All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror,” told me. “For a long time the perpetrators were the British and Russians. Beginning in 1953, the United States began taking over that role. In that year, the American and British secret services overthrew an elected government, wiped away Iranian democracy, and set the country on the path to dictatorship.”
“Then, in the 1980s, the U.S. sided with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, providing him with military equipment and intelligence that helped make it possible for his army to kill hundreds of thousands of Iranians,” Kinzer said. “Given this history, the moral credibility of the U.S. to pose as a promoter of democracy in Iran is close to nil.
Especially ludicrous is the sight of people in Washington calling for intervention on behalf of democracy in Iran when just last year they were calling for the bombing of Iran. If they had had their way then, many of the brave protesters on the streets of Tehran today—the ones they hold up as heroes of democracy—would be dead now.”
Washington has never recovered from the loss of Iran—something our intelligence services never saw coming. The overthrow of the shah, the humiliation of the embassy hostages, the laborious piecing together of tiny shreds of paper from classified embassy documents to expose America’s venal role in thwarting democratic movements in Iran and the region, allowed the outside world to see the dark heart of the American empire. Washington has demonized Iran ever since, painting it as an irrational and barbaric country filled with primitive, religious zealots. But Iranians, as these street protests illustrate, have proved in recent years far more courageous in the defense of democracy than most Americans.
Where were we when our election was stolen from us in 2000 by Republican operatives and a Supreme Court that overturned all legal precedent to anoint George W. Bush president? Did tens of thousands of us fill the squares of our major cities and denounce the fraud? Did we mobilize day after day to restore transparency and accountability to our election process? Did we fight back with the same courage and tenacity as the citizens of Iran? Did Al Gore defy the power elite and, as opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has done, demand a recount at the risk of being killed?
President Obama retreated in his Cairo speech into our spectacular moral nihilism, suggesting that our crimes matched the crimes of Iran, that there is, in his words, "a tumultuous history between us." He went on: "In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians." It all, he seemed to say, balances out.
I am no friend of the Iranian regime, which helped create and arm Hezbollah, is certainly meddling in Iraq, has persecuted human rights activists, gays, women and religious and ethnic minorities, embraces racism and intolerance and uses its power to deny popular will. But I do not remember Iran orchestrating a coup in the United States to replace an elected government with a brutal dictator who for decades persecuted, assassinated and imprisoned democracy activists. I do not remember Iran arming and funding a neighboring state to wage war against our country. Iran never shot down one of our passenger jets as did the USS Vincennes-caustically nicknamed Robocruiser by the crews of other American vessels-when in June 1988 it fired missiles at an Airbus filled with Iranian civilians, killing everyone on board. Iran is not sponsoring terrorism within the United States, as our intelligence services currently do in Iran. The attacks on Iranian soil include suicide bombings, kidnappings, beheadings, sabotage and "targeted assassinations" of government officials, scientists and other Iranian leaders. What would we do if the situation was reversed? How would we react if Iran carried out these policies against us?
We are, and have long been, the primary engine for radicalism in the Middle East. The greatest favor we can do for democracy activists in Iran, as well as in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gulf and the dictatorships that dot North Africa, is withdraw our troops from the region and begin to speak to Iranians and the rest of the Muslim world in the civilized language of diplomacy, respect and mutual interests. The longer we cling to the doomed doctrine of permanent war the more we give credibility to the extremists who need, indeed yearn for, an enemy that speaks in their crude slogans of nationalist cant and violence. The louder the Israelis and their idiot allies in Washington call for the bombing of Iran to thwart its nuclear ambitions, the happier are the bankrupt clerics who are ordering the beating and murder of demonstrators. We may laugh when crowds supporting Ahmadinejad call us "the Great Satan," but there is a very palpable reality that has informed the terrible algebra of their hatred.
Our intoxication with our military prowess blinds us to all possibilities of hope and mutual cooperation. It was Mohammed Khatami, the president of Iran from 1997 to 2005-perhaps the only honorable Middle East leader of our time-whose refusal to countenance violence by his own supporters led to the demise of his lofty "civil society" at the hands of more ruthless, less scrupulous opponents. It was Khatami who proclaimed that "the death of even one Jew is a crime." And we sputtered back to this great and civilized man the primitive slogans of all deformed militarists. We were captive, as all bigots are, to our demons, and could not hear any sound but our own shouting. It is time to banish these demons. It is time to stand not with the helmeted goons who beat protesters, not with those in the Pentagon who make endless wars, but with the unarmed demonstrators in Iran who daily show us what we must become.
The fight of the Iranian people is our fight. And, perhaps for the first time, we can match our actions to our ideals. We have no right under post-Nuremberg laws to occupy Iraq or Afghanistan. These occupations are defined by these statutes as criminal "wars of aggression." They are war crimes. We have no right to use force, including the state-sponsored terrorism we unleash on Iran, to turn the Middle East into a private gas station for our large oil companies. We have no right to empower Israel's continuing occupation of Palestine, a flagrant violation of international law. The resistance you see in Iran will not end until Iranians, and all those burdened with repression in the Middle East, free themselves from the tyranny that comes from within and without. Let us, for once, be on the side of those who share our democratic ideals.
- Posted in
138 Comments so far
Show AllThe west has continued to use the Middle East as a test tube for social/cultural experiments, and political tinkering. The historic precedence Chris notes in this article has morphed into our current nightmare of religious dictatorships, or petty tyrants held up by strings pulled in the White House.
We need a complete house cleaning in our own country. A second revolution where millions take to the streets and begin to demand that our voices be heard instead of ignored. Until our citizens feel the wind of free air blowing through their empty and comfortable lives, willing to take to the streets en mass like we have seen in Iran in recent days, expect the same norms from the duopoly.
When this will happen may be a response to ever diminished economic opportunities. If the super structure comes crashing down, a shout the world has long avoided will finally go out and the first to come tumbling down will be our corporate owned 'yes' men and woman in Washington.
Justice is slow. It is very frustrating to the people. But it will come. Justice will come. And the Washington 'Beltway' and all the talking heads, will get THEIRS. I think some of their dreams (stolen from us) are already becoming their nightmares. It will continue. It will go beyond the grave for these evil ones. There is justice beyond the grave.
May the Common Dream (freedom) of the common people show the way....
nedlud
It will continue. It will go beyond the grave for these evil ones. There is justice beyond the grave.
------------------------
There's life, learning and work to be done beyond the grave.
Those who thought there'd never be any accountability or consequences for their actions, or never gave it any thought, will be shocked for sure.
http://www.near-death.com/evidence.html
Death to Amerika.
Life to freedom!
Death to American meddling, not death to America. We need to practice what we preach and abandon our "Do as we say, not as we do" policy.
Hi KeLeMi~
Mostly we agree, though I am probably quite a bit more angry about things than you. That is why I spelled it Amerik-k-ka. There are good things, still, within the former American ideal. But we need to connect to our souls and our courage to reclaim those ideals and go beyond them even. We are a sick sick sick nation.
"We are a sick sick sick nation".
Not writing within a fully defined context of sickness is the only flaw for me in this otherwise fine piece of writing by Hedges; though it is a flaw that limits the power of the argument greatly so I'll proceed.
The sickness is schizophrenia, though he mentions moral nihilism, Hedges piece doesn't take the larger schizoid into consideration:
"...We have not brought freedom and democracy and enlightenment to the Muslim world. We have brought the opposite. We have used the iron fist of the American military to implant our oil companies..." - Hedges
"We" have done none of this, the oil companies are not ours: the oil companies are multi-national independent players that have been subsidized by the blood and gold of the US Citizenry for implantations around the world. When the US signed onto the UN Charter, in the light the sentiments were "peace on earth goodwill toward all humans", at the same time, schizophrenically and in the shadows, there was a State Department memo saying "take the oil fields at any cost".
Schizophrenia is a perhaps the most rampant of all the pandemics crossing the globe right now. Another example that might be familiar to CD readers is the "Human Body Exhibit" that has gone around the Nation the last few years. The exhibit was about the Human Body, but the predominate advertising image pictured the neck up of one of the torsos used with the top of the skull cut away to expose the cortex. We talk about the human body, but we are fixated on only the cortex at this time; this is true in many fields (and their applications) of scientific and educational (standardized testing) endeavor - thus the schizoid split of mind and body.
This is also true when considering the Union's body politic: the executive functioning centers (cortex) are split from clear harmonious function with the sensory, motor, vegetative processes (hands, feet, torso, etc.) of the populous - thus the schizoid split and behavior of the Union as a whole.
Where Hedges does speak of a sickness:
"President Obama retreated in his Cairo speech into our spectacular moral nihilism, suggesting that our crimes matched the crimes of Iran,... He went on: "... the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.... Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking... It all, he seemed to say, balances out."
...Hedges diminishes an offering to the argument of something I myself have never heard: an admission by a Senior US official of stating the US(the usurped power of the US) overthrew a democratically elected government. As thin and short a thread as this may seem is does begin, or could begin if used properly, to suture our national schizoid wound: bringing the light and dark together into the gray continence of serious solemn judgement. A realm of judgement that includes the credibility of the President of the United States stating there are more to these people (humanizing is a huge step) then the schizoid statement that they are "terrorists who are inherently evil and hate US for no reason".
Thus We don't need to take (as NMBILL intimated at 11:32) the whole of Hedge's historical context and argument here to the populous to be effective in starting to "heal our Nation's wounds", but add the little thread from the president's speech in Cairo to the argument for sanity in the Middle East and world. This in addition to recognizing ourselves and our enemies as human, with all the sickness that may entail, with the persistence and perseverance also mentioned in commentary to Hedge's fine story, could do much for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The argument would be further empowered by recognizing the fact that the US has always been in some way schizophrenic (no women's vote, 3/5 a person, etc.), thus removing the burden of hatred toward the executive center and lament and anger of some form of democracy lost, and replacing it with endeavors for connecting the executive and the populous and the enthusiasm for the America that can be, an enthusiasm connected to the founding Fathers and Mothers: Washington, Lincoln, Douglas, Tubman, Keller, King...the enthusiasm of a whole family, the power of the vision of a whole Union.
May Stable Peace Be Yours.
Besides, as you point out Chris, the US can't even afford another war-- as much as the Republicans would want one. Oh, I forgot--Democrat or Republican, there's always money for war in the US budget.
Are the Protests taking place in Iran, at least in part, CIA funded operations?
Paul Craig Roberts at ICH makes a strong case they may be:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22875.htm
There is more data coming out.
MKO is alleged to have taken a violent part in protests with the intent to escalate protests into riots.
Iran states MKO members arrested in Tehran.
Iran is mulling over reviewing ties with Britain.
UK journalist (BBC) is being expelled....
Iran says police are not authorized to use weapons(guns), only "anti riot tools" (batons, tear gas, hoses....) Which begs the question, if the police aren't authorized to use weapons, who carried out the shootings?
www.presstv.ir/detail/98732.htm?sectionid=351020101
Chris Hedges is right. We can no longer sustain our empire. We are learning what the British leaned when it departed from India and elsewhere.Our invasions of Iraq,Afghanistan, Grenada, Panama are of the past. We are overextended, in crippling debt and moraly suspect. We have colluded in the overthrow of leaders in Iran, Chile, Guatamala et al. Yes, time to wihdraw our troops from Iraq, Afghanistan and secret bases around the world. We fought Britain to gain our independence. Let others, good and bad, have theirs.
The author states:
"I am no friend of the Iranian regime, which helped create and arm Hezbollah, is certainly meddling in Iraq, has persecuted human rights activists, gays, women and religious and ethnic minorities, embraces racism and intolerance and uses its power to deny popular will."
Agreed. Sounds like Zionism, too.
Who knows what the Middle East would have been like if we had allowed democracy to flourish in Iran.
odoco
Tim Weiner's book, "Legacy of Ashes - A History of the CIA," has an excellent review of the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953.
You might also read an article recently posted in "Dissident Voice" entitled "Pentagon Relabels Protests (domestic) as low level terrorism." If accurate, those now in the streets of Tehran would be identified as terrorists by the US government! Ah yes, how hypocrisy reigns!!!!!
I believe Mr. Hedges has it correct - most Americans do nothing in tragic and historic times because most are too ignorant, too apathetic to understand. Others are so racist that they understand, yet approve of our actions overseas. A virulent, predatory and self-serving Christianity tied to American corporate aims is always at work, and both are so tightly tied to the US military they have formed a virtual political / military / religious triumvirate that the people in this 'democracy' no longer control.
Watch the idiot politicians on the Sunday talk shows - a level of intelligence sub-par to that of the chairs they are sitting upon. Watch them lie. Watch them mislead. Watch them work for the elite.
As Bill Maher has pointed out, the Democrats are now the New Republicans, and the Republicans have morphed into something so nearly incoherent and malicious it is difficult to find a label for them profound enough to describe their lunacy - and their hate - and their ignorance - and their paranoia. There is, effectively, no opposition party in this country.
And when that happens - you all know the result.
Sioux Rose
ODOCO: Good post. As the entire political spectrum pulls to the right, the unseen chains on citizens grow tighter and tighter. There is a reciprocal relationship between policies of the extreme right and the levels of misery society's most vulnerable experience. However, the numbers of "the vulnerable" are rising, and I believe a point comes where the collective, treated like a beast of burden, bursts its chains. It's a 21st century version of the scene in Cecil B. Demille's, "The Ten Commandments" where the slaves rebel, and Moses (I know, this is Hollywood's version) intones, "Let my people go!" Well, we're all equivalent Egyptian slaves now, and the pharaohs wear sophisticated suits, but the same principles of conquest based on dividing and conquering are still very much in practice. History doesn't repeat, it circles back!
ODOCO,
Excellent observations. Space is limited, but Hedges does not discuss the corporate motivations that led to the coup putting the Shah in power, as well as the business interests that oppose democracies in many places. Deals cut with democracies are likely less favorable than deals cut by bribing dictators. Christianity and humanitarian needs are cover stories used to placate the America public while business goes about exploiting a people and their resources for as much wealth as is possible. Business, wall street, etc., seek to control politicians and the military for the sake of advancing profits. US foreign policy has little interest in desperate people with no oil or other material to exploit.
Exploitation is a common example probably for all time, but the exploration of the new world, 1492, for gold, spices and land.
The TV media could easily educate the American public about this history and the business connections to political policy, but those truths would be devastating to greedy businesses. So, businesses consolidate and control the media. As a CD poster points out, the Roman versions of Carl Rove saw an opportunity to co-opt Christianity and shape it to serve the Empire and the wealthy. Now days Christianity and Capitalism are tightly wedded together, but early Christianity sounds more like communism. The Russian revolution in 1917 scared the wits out of the wealthy the way the guillotine scare them during the 1700s. Those filthy masses might demand a larger share of the proceeds of their labor, or even the means of production such as the large tracts of land stolen by the kings of old.
The wealthy have fought to retain their wealth and privileges over the centuries, resisting the egalitarian movements of 1700's and reformations, the Marx philosophy that was made possible by the ruthless exploitation of the workers of the industrial revolution.
Isn't the middle east all about oil and gas and gas pipelines and about which companies get to profit from them?
Mr. Obama is president because he got air time, Hillary got air time and other candidates with other ideas did not. Ronald Reagan was the "Teflon" president because the scandals would not stick or not last more than a few days, that was not a quality of Ronny, it was that the media dropped the stories in a few days. How else could Bill Clinton's sex life and a non-crime of white-water be a greater story that collaboration with the kidnappers of the US Embassy staff in order to influence the US election?
Americans are as caring and compassionate as other people, look at the responses to a puppy in a drain or the victims of a tsunami, but for Americans to respond they must first be informed. For decades many Americans have been taught to distrust the communists, with the communists gone, that mistrust has been redirected at the "liberals" and lots of people trustingly accept that line.
CD reaches a few thousand people. How many actually read any given post, a few hundred? Fox news reaches millions.
There is a third point that should be made. People here have commented that Americans should be protesting in the streets in 2000 and 2004 with passion about their votes as the Iranians have been. I agree. However, Michael Moore's movie, SICKO, addressed that very point. Americans don't leave their jobs to protest because they have to guard their health insurance. If they were fired, they might not get coverage again. That is a huge threat that hangs over Americans that is not there in most other nations with public health care.
Why were Gore and Kerry such surrender monkeys instead of acting like the bozo Norm Coleman or this Iranian candidate? Why has Bernie Madoff just pleaded guilty and marched silently off to jail? In the world of the Godfather, silence is the key to survival and retribution is a certainty. That could be an explanation. A less sinister reason for Gore/Kerry to quit is just that the media would have roasted them as sore losers had they protested. I do think we live in a Godfather type world, a world more like the series "24" than we would guess. The recent "24" has been especially good with inside the white house betrayal and treason by some congressmen, some Blackwater type businessmen and some of the military. I'd recommend watching the series as a small window into the thinking of the other side.
One of the wounds within Iranian memory is a huge bomb, planted in the Iranian legislature in the 1980s after the Shah's fall, which killed most of their legislature. Something like 300 leaders died. I have seen no mention of this, or whether anyone was ever caught for the act, but if such a horrible act had happened to Congress in America the entire nation would still remember it.
Hedge's gives us a well laid out article based on fact. His last apocalyptic fantasy about American economic collapse was heavy on vision and light on fact. There are subtle indications of American policy changes in the Middle East, with strong emphasis on 'subtle.' It seems that indiscriminate, high 'collateral damage' air-strikes will be reduced. America's presence in Iraq will be more hidden. An improved situation in Palestine seems likely.
"An improved situation in Palestine seems likely."
And how the heck do you see that happening, hmm?
Things are already better there than a few months ago. And I did say subtle changes.
The Palestinians told you that, did they?
Since you know that things are better, surely you can list the changes?
nedlud--your right and what great comfort can be had if one can only summons the faith to be this--Otherwise Justice can only be found in the dictionary
What's more interesting than what's in the American history text books is what isn't in them.
If the average American knew about US meddling in other countries, and the disasterous effects it had on the country we meddled in as well as the USA, they would think differently about it.
Ron Paul had it right when he voted against HR560.
http://www.ronpaul.com/2009-06-19/ron-paul-the-only-member-of-the-house-to-back-obama-on-iran/
Here's why he did it.
rise in reluctant opposition to H Res 560, which condemns the Iranian government for its recent actions during the unrest in that country. While I never condone violence, much less the violence that governments are only too willing to mete out to their own citizens, I am always very cautious about “condemning” the actions of governments overseas. As an elected member of the United States House of Representatives, I have always questioned our constitutional authority to sit in judgment of the actions of foreign governments of which we are not representatives. I have always hesitated when my colleagues rush to pronounce final judgment on events thousands of miles away about which we know very little. And we know very little beyond limited press reports about what is happening in Iran.
Of course I do not support attempts by foreign governments to suppress the democratic aspirations of their people, but when is the last time we condemned Saudi Arabia or Egypt or the many other countries where unlike in Iran there is no opportunity to exercise any substantial vote on political leadership? It seems our criticism is selective and applied when there are political points to be made. I have admired President Obama’s cautious approach to the situation in Iran and I would have preferred that we in the House had acted similarly.
I adhere to the foreign policy of our Founders, who advised that we not interfere in the internal affairs of countries overseas. I believe that is the best policy for the United States, for our national security and for our prosperity. I urge my colleagues to reject this and all similar meddling resolutions.
We need to go back to non meddling.
"We need to go back to non meddling"
"Go back"?
At the begining of the "american Revolution", the "rebels" fearing the British influence over the Eastern Tribes, i.e. Iroquois, Mohawk etc. offered the tribes weapons to use against the other tribes who participated with the British.
Then, when B. Franklin was the "Indian Agent" to the Iroquois Confederacy, they took the 'frame work' of the 'confederacy' ---a remarkable piece of intelligent design of "democracy" that had full participation of all members of the tribe---especially women who had voting rights to decisions---and used the frame work as the foundation of the US Government (well, they excluded women for a over a hundred years but we won't mention that here since that was a decision made by those 'founders' who gave such good advise)-----
The USA never honored any of the treaties or agreements they made with those tribes that assured the American victory by their lack of siding with the British--------
If you 'go back to non meddling', you'll need to ask the British to retake possession of the US----which I am sure they will be glad to do----------since the USA has always 'meddled' in the affairs of other nations----always with disastrous results---and never seems to learn from their mistakes; mainly because there are 'americans' just like you who have a distorted concept of their history----
which in reality is basically----fantasy reinforced with propaganda----and you will go to insane lengths to repeat the propaganda and the mistakes---- almost as if it were a "national anthem'.
The USA has never known a 'democracy'---it has always been a Plutocratic Oligarchy, and as long as so many americans such as yourself maintain the 'propaganda machine'
you will never know 'democracy'-----and you will keep repeating the same mistakes, sometimes in the same generation---------Vietnam and Iraq are just two examples.
Good Luck America, you really need it.
Ron Paul should run again for the POTUS. Most of his libertarian social policy is horrible, but on matters of limited government he is right on. We should not be building and supporting an American Empire foreign policy. Right on Chris Hedges in this essay.
21-06-09 14:14
Thought i'd let you know, the golden key is available
"the game of nations" miles copeland (1969, printed in UK
Willmer brothers ltd.)page48 and 59
"in late 1951, he borrowed kermit roosevelt from the
newly formed C.I.A. to head a highly secret committee
of specialists - some from the state dept..dept. of defense..
some from business (oil) and universities to study the arab
world, with particular reference to the arab/israeli conflict.
Within a month or so...the idea was advanced that promoting
a moslem 'billy graham'(anglo priest to the presidents in US )
to mobilize religious fervors; a leader who could dominate and
bewitch a small group of men."
The only serious setback to the corporatist police state in the usa
was the church committee. The last uncontrolled election was when kennedy squeaked out the corporate choice richard nixon.
We know how they resolved that...G.H.W.Bush's operation Zapata (dangled for self-immunization by j edgar hoover,
no fan of jfk)
I've been saying for awhile if al qaeda didn't exist, the neocons would have had to invent it....
actually its alot more complicated than that
but zapata (overthrow of castro and its
failure, blamed on kennedy) led to 11 22 63, the
most unique cross organizational conspiracy up until
WTC organized by saudis thru pakistani ISI, eavesdropped
on by the israelis through their telephonic proprietary
software, and aided and abetted by military industrial media complex ultimately benefitting larry silversteins asbestos compromised purchase of WTC, which turned out perfectly
to benefit a 'wartime' 'president' installed by a
fruit of the poison tree supreme court.
Reagans gang should have been impeached, hence blocking h.w.bush ascension and immunizing against reagan redux using
W. as head puppet.
following exerpted from common dreams commentary 18/6/2009 responding
to GLENN Greenwalds article on domestic spying in the us
**Even Greenwald does not cope with the essence of the intelligence community problem of corruption.
**Well documented is the fact that the worst spying and most harmful espionage versus the USA is by little sister Israel.
**US policy is to 'look the other way' when we catch little sister doin' it to US ! Witness the recent dismissal of the lawsuit against the AIPAC spys, when US Rep Jane Harman was lobbying DOJ against the lawsuit.
**It is said the Israel Mossad spy agency has so much dirt on US intelligence, military, FBI, and counter-terrorism officials that they do the bidding of little sister Israel.
LIttle surprise then, when the 'cui bono'==(who benefits) from crimes & disasters & irrational foreign policy and domestic==there stands little sister Zion, once again.
*Greenwald recognizes the same game being played "over and over again" and again, but Glen fails to unmask that man behind the curtain pulling the strings. Wizard of Zion.
**Who were the occupants of Bldg #7, Saloman Bros Bldg, World Trade Center up to Sept 11, 2001 ? Who owned that building, as well as the leasehold to the Twin Towers?
What WTC structure is now completely re-built while Ground Zero is still a hole in the NYC dirt ?
**Do not ever forget Jack Abramoff, convicted felon, imprisoned. "W" Bush stated he never knew Abramoff. Yet, Bush and Cheney shared the very same 'Special Assistant to the VP & Prez by the name of Ms Susan Ralston==who carried the identical title while working for Abramoff !
**Before being taken down, one of Abramoff's sought contracts from Unc Sammy was to install an state-of-the art telephonic & communications network inside the executive office buildings of both houses of Congress !
After Bush denied knowing Abramoff, data searches began turning up hundreds of documents to the contrary, with Susan Ralston as a go-between. DOJ and, of all people, the US Secret Service denied these documents from Congress under the now familiar 'states secrets' laws=====including logs of Abramoff visits to the White HOuse.
**Susan Ralston then quietly, sweetly, resigned her position saying she didn't want to be a distraction to Prez & V. Prez.
**Just as quietly, the US Congress stopped asking the Administration for the Abramoff documents
Sioux Rose
BENNING: The Israeli surveillance "dirt data" is a circumstance I don't recall reading before, but it sure would explain a lot.
DEEPA: Excellent posts. For a while I have sought to decouple the modern martial concept of Christianity from the ACTUAL teachings of Christ, who came as Peacemaker. In essence, the Roman ways were never transcended, the "Karl Roves" of that era realized that by applying Christ's name, a whole new rationale for continuing the killing fields would be quite easily attained. And it's mostly been downhill, historically speaking (if wars and imperial occupations are taken as a negative) from there. A few spiritually astute souls really DO get the message, but they are the exception, as opposed to the rule, so long as Mars rules. And given time's witness added to the current U.S. budget (and what is allocated for the military at the price of sane, social programs beneficial to citizens) it's fairly clear that Mars is the driving force that does "rule."
personally, I think chris is playing into the hands of the
M I M complex. Iran is a distraction that we set up
by spending millions inside IRAN for the last ????
years. As I speak the shah jumior pahlavi is trying
to raise some banner of LEGITIMACY...of course they're
legit, but Jr is dancing in front of a populist and
modernist parade that in no way clamors for a
RESURRECTION of the 'shah'.
I saw him on C-Span. Reminded me of Chalabi. And I agree, this article starts off sounding like he's pointing out a bit of what you've said, and then suddenly says, so let's get behind it. If we want to support a populist uprising for freedom, it needs to be here at home.
odoco
I've read most of Hedges' books, seen him speak, visited with him briefly. In no way did he remind me of a Chalabi - a paid CIA stooge who had his own personal agenda in promoting a war. I've known about Chalabi for years, and I have studied Hedges for about the last five years. I simply don't see where you find enough information to do a character assassination on him.
Go listen to him speak - if you think he supports the present system in this country, or our foreign policy, or he is doing this for personal gain - I think you are seriously mistaken.
So sorry, my bad. I meant that seeing the shah being portrayed on C-Span as the royal crown of Iran reminded me of Chalabi. I did not mean to character assassinate Hedges.
It would be the ultimate irony.
US overthrows Iranian government because we don't like they do business.
US installs shah.
Iranian revolution overthrows shah.
Iranians install another government we don't like.
US overthrows Iranian government.
Installs shah, jr. in the name of democracy.
I'm fine with letting the Iranians run Iran. If they want democracy and achieve it, more power to them. Letting the same forces intervene in determining the "necessary" outcome is freedom in a lie. It's what we have.
America, pull your heads out of your television sets! CNNFOXMSNBCABCCBSNBC is not your friend. Did you learn nothing when they convinced you that you'd rather have a beer with G. Wanker B? Did you not notice how they overcame the tremendous resistance the nation had to going to war with Iraq? This is a weapons of mass destruction redux. They are building the case - a false case - to justify the coming war with Iran.
Why is it legal to use our taxes to finance military psychological operations against us?
Have the idiots in Washington not noticed that our own country, our own elections, our own freedom has become a sham? We should get our own house in order and not be creating mayhem around the globe - refugees, civil war, misery and suffering - for what?
Anyone remember free speech zones when we opposed Bush? Where was CNN's concern for our freedom? Our own government would happily call us domestic terrorists and lock us up if we tried to overturn one of our own elections.
After the neocons drove the country into the ditch with the Wanker and Iraq, they were not held accountable. Now they're back, new and improved.
Deepa
This article is a "breath of fresh air" in the midst of American and western rant on democracy in Iran. Christ Hedges is on the dot about how the US is the root cause of instability, dictatorships and the rise of terrorism in the world.
The American history is filled with its sacred missions in the world. One of them was to Philippines. William McKinley, then US President explained:
"I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me: 1) That we could not give them [the Philippines] back to Spain — that would be cowardly and dishonorable; 2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany — our commercial rivals in the Orient — that would be bad business and discreditable; 3) that we could not leave them to themselves — they were unfit for self-government — and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and 4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the ... War Department map-maker, and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States (pointing to a large wall map), and there they are, and there they will stay while I am President!"
The President described the combination of sadistic cruelty and starry-eyed self-adulation as a noble campaign to ``uplift and civilize and Christianize" the Filipinos. “Civilizing” and “Christianizing” the Filipinos took longer than McKinley thought. This noble campaign brought out the brute in the soul of the US Christian crusaders. A frustrated US General ordered troops to kill every Filipino male over age ten. The righteous American Christian warriors succeeded in their campaign by overcoming local resistance forces through their overwhelming superiority in weapons and sheer ruthlessness. They slaughtered about half-a-million Filipinos within the next few years. The American media explained that it would take patience to overcome evil, and bring liberty and happiness to the Filipinos. One critical citizen satirized McKinley's war: "G is for guns/ That McKinley has sent/ To teach Filipinos/ What Jesus Christ meant."
Deepa
The two Americans who clearly stated American terrorism and vilations of human dignity, value and rights are Peck, former Ambassador to Iraq, and Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
On September 15, 2001, four days after the bombings on US soil, in another interview with Fox news, Ambassador Peck contended, "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye...and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards.”
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, summarized the terrorist activities of the US around the world:
"We took this country (America) by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism! We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism! We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We bombed Gadafi's home and killed his child…We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy. Killed hundreds of hard-working people; mothers and fathers who left home to go that day, not knowing that they would never get back home…We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant?...Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism."
So what is consciously and consistently rejected by the US and its public is the principle of universality regarding terrorism.
odoco
Thank you deepa - you have exactly and succinctly stated the point, and the illusion, and the reality of why so many throughout this world now abhor and fear the United States.
Deepa
US has a long record of supporting terrorist organizations to further its perceived strategic interests. After the downfall of the US supported dictator Shah of Iran, containing the influence of Iran in West Asia has become a major US foreign policy objective. In order to achieve this goal, the US is making use of several terrorist organizations to carry out covert attacks inside Iran.
In April of 2007 the ABC News journalists Brian Ross and Christopher Isham reported that the US was funding a terrorist group Jundullah or Allah’s Brigade to carry out strikes inside Iran. According to them, its leader Abdul Malik Regi, a former Taliban member, was alleged to be involved in large-scale narcotics trafficking through Iranian exiles with connections in West Asia and Europe.
In February of 2007 Jundullah set off a bomb in the Iranian city Zahedan which killed at least eleven members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Iranian state television showed the confession of an alleged perpetrator, Nasrollah Shamsi Zehi, that he was trained at a secret camp in Pakistan. Media reports suggest that the US is also supporting another extremist organization, Mujahideen-e-Khalq, for attacks against Iran. This organization was involved in the 1991 anti-Shia massacres in Iraq. It was designated as a global terrorist organization in 1997. Another terrorist organization that the US is using to carry out attacks against Iran is a Kurdish terrorist group, Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistane, or Party of Free Life of Kurdistan.
- Mousavi kindled hopes in th West, particularly in the US, UK, Germany, France, and some "pro-West" Arab capitals. But then, that was because he was a known factor as foreign minister and then prime minister during 1981-89. The issue was never that he was a modernist or reformer. To quote Taheri, the well-informed chronicler of the Middle East, Mousavi when he was in power, "developed a wide network of contacts in the US, Europe and the Arab countries".
Taheri, who rubs shoulders with the Arab and Western political elites, offers insights into the Mousavi camp. He recalls that the man who led the lengthy Algiers talks, which resulted in the release of the American hostages in 1981, Behzad Nabvi, is still assisting Mousavi. So is Abbas Kangarioo who held secret negotiations with the Ronald Reagan administration in what came to be known as the Iran-Contra deal. Kangarioo, a key advisor and friend of Mousavi, also has the distinction of having "developed a network of contacts in intelligence and diplomatic circles in Europe and the US".
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF23Ak02.html
Note to Chris Hedges: Well said! Full stop.
I am interested to see responses that seem to suggest that supporting Iranian movements towards democracy would mean supporting American intervention.
Bravo for the Iranians who would insist on popular government. Let's keep the US military as far as possible away from them and let them work.
We will never see an article like this in the MSM, but that's exactly what needs to happen to enlighten our sunshine patriots.
Our industry has been largely shipped out to Asian sweatshops. Many of our largest corporations are now headquartered in foreign lands to aviod taxation and regulation and they are presently looting the treasury. Progressive taxation on our richest citizens has been eliminated. One percent of our population lives in gulag. Our borders are pourous to rightless illegal workers while those borders have become a totalitarian farce for citizens to cross. Our police departments have become militarized and many perceive the threat of martial law as a real possibility. I could go on, but, in short, the working class of the USA is beginning to pay the price of the evil this country has committed around the world in the last seventy years.
Tony Vodvarka
This is the perfect time for the U.S. Military to move into Iran in support of this nascent movement toward real democracy. We can just say that the leaders of the revolt have invited us in to assist. We're really GOOD at these kinds of lies. With just a little bit of "catapaulting the propaganda", within a week the entire U.S. population would breathe a huge sigh of relief, believing that its military on white horses has once again ridden to the rescue and would be pro-Iranian occupation. This is as it should be. America. Protector of the World. Policeman to the World. Making the World in its own image. God, its good to be a patriotic AmeriKan.
I read you, loud and clear: SARCASM.
We have sarcasm, we have anger; let's continue to give support and courage to each other as well.
Death to Amerika (not America).
Life to freedom (maybe America?).
This is the perfect time for the U.S. Military to move into Iran in support of this nascent movement toward real democracy.
As much as closet throatsticker Obysmal would like to do this, he can't unless the draft is brought back. Anyone, Republican or Democrat, who tries to bring back conscription is committing political suicide. A mark of real peril to the empire in the future will be the reinstituion of a draft. That's when even the most uniformed and dumbest American will know the empire is falling.
>>
This is the perfect time for the U.S. Military to move into Iran in support of this nascent movement toward real democracy.
<<
That was meant to be sarcastic, because this would be a typical U.S. intervention opportunity. They want democracy? OK. We'll help them by invading their country. We do seem to enjoy fomenting civil wars in foreign countries like Vietnam and Pakistan.
A great piece by Chris Hedges, with, par usual, a decent perspective that comes from a history of being a first-hand witness to global events.
Taken the history into account, what this blogger has to say outlines the responsibility of those outside Iran:
"As outside observers, we have two obligations now. First, we need to keep our own states from using the events in Iran to advance imperialist stratagems. But we also need to show solidarity with the struggle for greater freedom in Iran. And not much is demanded from us. All that is asked for is, as Hamid Dabashi phrases it,
'the active solidarity of ordinary people around the globe to be a witness to their struggles and demand from their media an accurate and comprehensive representation of their movement (Hamid Dabashi)'
All we are asked for is to respect the Iranian people, all of them, both those who voted for Ahmadinejad and those who didn't, and not to confuse their voice and their interests with that of either their unelected ruling clique or the foreign "support" that seek to exploit them."
LINK: http://tinyurl.com/another-antizionist-jew
If the U N had appropriate power, we would have a standing International force which could intervene in this kind of event, as peacemakers, to stand between the protesters and police and "time out" all, have the people return to the safety of their homes, and give the police a chance to refuse to harm their own people. The protesters would have a voice in a recount and the country would have a chance to demonstrate a real democracy. This could have happened in Burma (named Myanmar by the dictators) in 1988, where the people voted by 85% for Aung San Suu Kyi and she was put into immediate house arrest, where she remains. (I'm sure the government was so overconfident they actually counted the votes.) In 2007 even the peaceful monks in Burma marched by the thousands and were slaughtered along with the demonstrators. This could have helped in multiple cases of genocide in the Balkans and Africa, if the UN had the power to send a peaceful force before it was too late, because of having to recruit military from hesitant members, and arriving in time only to count the dead.
Of course, we in the U S are too passive (chicken) to protest after an obvious stolen election, even though thousands of us protested the start of the invasion of Iraq. As for sovereignty, it doesn't seem to come up when we intervene with our miilitary or economic forces. No justice, no peace.
Good point, peaceworker, about the UN getting involved. Why can't there be an internationally accepted group to monitor elections? I know Jimmy Carter worked on this, but apparently not in Iran. A very strong and well-respected organization is needed to vindicate the obvious devotion people like those in Iran have for accurate vote counting.
I have a problem with the vast majority of the comments in CD about the 2000 election of Bush, which was decided by the Supreme Court. Although I thought the court was wrong, I have enough respect for law to grant that the problem -- a virtual tie -- was resolved legally. The fact that the result was accepted without a major uprising and without violence comparable to what's happened in Iran demonstrates the vitality of democracy in the U.S., not the opposite.
I think trying to draw parallels between Iran 2009 and US 2000 is a weak part in Hedges article. There are far too many dissimilarities than there are similarities between the two political elections, including prep and post events.
When these events are forced together to make Chris' larger criticism of the US populace --which is that he is frustrated by the lack of protests stateside (although I'm certain any violent aspect would be rebuked by Chris)-- he risks having to also compare Al Gore to Mousavi, which begs Chris' point.
Chris effectively argues there wasn't a passionate leader challenging the establishment, because Gore was/is the establishment. But Mousavi wasn't passionate, at least in the last televised debate. He came off, to me, uninspiring and, by all purposes, lost the debate and the vote. Where does this image of Mousavi as charismatic protest agent challenging the system come from in Hedges parallel? It doesn't exist. What Hedges unfortunately accomplishes in this section is to interject modern Western politics of the personality into Iranian politics which is about systems (clerics being a rather Byzantine section). So why not just cut to the chase and drop forced parallels when really all he wants to say with these two paragraphs is, we Americans don't protest well enough against the establishment.
OKAY BRO...We americans don't protest well enough against the establishment.
Said... and?