The Folly Of Attacking Iran
By Nicole Belle Sunday Feb 10, 2008 7:46pmJustForeignPolicy.org has issued a new video giving us a little history lesson of our involvement in Iran and its fledgling democracy:
You can sign a petition here asking your elected representatives to support Rep. Barbara Lee's bill (H.R. 5056) calling for normalizing relations with Iran.
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The U.S. will not attack Iran.
But it will keep military bases in Iraq.
Bush is much smarter than we think.
The next president will carry out Bush policies.
VietVet8666 @ 1:
Yeah, but Israel probably will, and that will be equivalent to the US attacking.
When they stop stoning people to death for being gay, I'll advocate for normalizing realtions with them.
Until that happy day arrives, count me out.
The ONLY R E A L wealth in this world is O I L Oil purchased in U.S. dollars keeps our worthless money afloat. WAKE UP !!!!!
IRAQ was first... Do the math!
Stop the madness.
Despite all the Republican rhetoic, there is no conceiveable way we have the men or the clout to take on Iran. That is why McCain is a very dangerous candidate. With his little," Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran.' ditty scared the heck out of me. There is nothing more the neo-cons want more.
I can sum up what America's foreign policy should be:
Justice.
amerikkka
home of the dumbed down and servile
omg the shame
hey, who's on american idol tonight?
Has anyone read "All The Shah's Men"?
There is also a History Channel program of note about Iran that is part of a series I have seen twice the other being on John Lennon being tracked/monitored for his behavior during anti-Vietnam protests by the FBI), this other program was on our sordid past in Iran.
One of the more disturbing aspects of the program was it revealing that techniques for torture gleaned from ex Gestapo agents and files after WWII were passed on to the Shah's secret police, Savak.
Uh....maybe we should work on establishing democracy HERE - in the US!!!!
If you are curious as to how we (the U.S.A) helped with the coup, look up Operation Ajax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_ajax
The ONLY R E A L wealth in this world is O I L Oil purchased in U.S. dollars keeps our worthless money afloat. WAKE UP !!!!!
IRAQ was first… Do the math!
Stop the madness scott
the reason n. korea iraq and iran and more recentently venazuala were placed in an "axis of evil" was because to give us the finger they stopped tradeing in dollars and switched to euros which help hasten the decline of the dollar and the rise of the euro and is a major reason the elite want to bomb iran sorry bout the runon
Well everyone should send that petition straight to obama. He told a Chicago Trib reporter in an exclusive interview that he believed bush when he said Iran had Nukloor weapons and that he would bomb Iran if he had the chance....search the Trib archives. I lost the link.
Marge, please dont spread bullshit without backing it up, thanks
I agree with Amitola @ #9. We got our work cut out for us, for sure. Restore Habeus Corpus, civil rights for all, no illegal spying, and on and on.
When they stop stoning people to death for being gay, I’ll advocate for normalizing realtions with them.
Until that happy day arrives, count me out.
We do the same thing here, in metaphorical ways
interesting and scary to open this page and see nazis. the last few days i've been reading "The Long Generation, Germany from Empire to Ruin, 1913-1945"
the parallels, of pre-world war one and two to some of the stuff going on right here right now, are frightening.
similarities of the gop to the national socialists are glaring and well known but not too many have made comparisons to the mistakes, blunders, poor crisis management, incompetent beligerent leaders, politicized military with warped ideologies THAT was the german leadership in the run up to ww1 which was of course the beginning of the rest of that war - ww2.
this books introduction alone keeps me awake at night.
sorry was ot
i see it was the shah
oops
:(
Similar story: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144
first five minutes are a little dull but it gets going fast.
Made by Irish documentarians. Covered by the US? Not that I saw.
B
cbjames @ 3:
Guess we can count you out because the elite oligarchy uses these emotional wedge issues to divide the population.
Your priorities, IMO, viewed in light of the loss of liberties, the death of 1000 cuts on the Constitution, the expansion of the police state, and the threat of a widening of war...
sort of renders your singular issue of gay rights/issues a little pale.
Hey Brian, Iran has its nutcases too. They are in the govt. and supported by small bands of nutcases in society, its the same in the U.S. and its nutcase govt and supporters
cbjames @ 3:
... I didn't know we had severed diplomatic ties with the bible belt. Did the South rise after all this years and seceded again?
(I can only hope...)
There is no quick fix when it comes to the United States, the world must hope that the americans can change the regime from within.
About time these f*****s listened.
Just lookit this article from World Policy Journal:
http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/articles/wpj02-2/Zahrani.pdf
The coup that changed the Middle East: Mossadeq v. the CIA in retrospect
"3 cbjames Says:
When they stop stoning people to death for being gay, I’ll advocate for normalizing realtions with them.
Until that happy day arrives, count me out."
Cherry picking the situation is obtuse. WE stone gay people to death.
What we did to Iran is unforgivable and yet they keep trying to forgive us.
Despite the bullshit they told us a children about good sportsmanship and fair play the fact of the matter is the US does not play fair. Not with Iran and not with us.
A good primer on Iran is the work of David Barsamian.
cbjames @ 3:
Don't you feel a little foolish and perhaps just a bit hypocritical taking the high moral ground while living in and paying taxes to support a country that's done what the US has done for the past 7 years?
Brian @ 15:
So suddenly you're concerenced with gay rights? Are you doing the same for gay rights in America? Or is Iran an easy target for neo cons these days? Propaganda at all costs, even if it's concealed as a call for more humane treatment of gays and lesbians. Why don't you sever relations with Washington DC and Texas. I mean, after all, the White House has sanctioned the torture of innocent people for years now. Doesn't that offend your delicate sensibilities?
You remind of the pathetic attempt made by David Horowitz to vilify Islam during his "Islamo-Fascism Awareness" week when he called Muslim society on the way in which it oppresses Muslim women and forces them to wear the Hijab. Suddenly, David Horowitz was a champion for Muslim women rights. How nice of him. Where are people like David Horowitz when women in China are forced to wear foot bindings or when East European and Russian women are kidnapped to serve as sex slaves and traded and sold online to the highest bidder?
Cut the bullshit already. The jig is up.
Well said Tim. Another poser is given the beat-down
By the way, dont forget to sign the petition for H.R. 5056, there should be a rising crescendo of outrage before The Decider and his martinet controlling masters in the White House tell him to open his fucking mouth and say anything about Iran, his reference to it in his state of the union was sickening and nothing more than a repeated threat that EVERYONER seems to be repeating, be thet Democrat or Republican
"Of course, we know Iran is a threat"........yea, just like Iraq was a threat.
STFU and stop with Iran, we still have more than we can handle in our grand folly, Iraq, to say nothing of the debacle that is Afghanistan.
/vent
cbjames @ 3:
That happy day will never arrive if we don't change our policy towards Iran. Through diplomacy, we might have a chance to slowly change their positions. In the meantime, I suggest we work towards correcting our own treatment of gays in the US.
On Iran, Americans aren't buying that boogy man bullshit anymore, McCain/Lieberman/Kristol and Co can go to hell.
Vladimir Putin, that is all i got to say. Vladimir Putin.
Attack Iran............. oh boy
cbjames @ 3:
And what about the gay bashings in USA that sometimes lead to death, seems there are more of those these days?
Amitola @ 9:
Rather you'd just vacate the premises, the natives would like their lands back.
Nice. Thank you.
What I find interesting is how in the last few weeks the MSM has been reporting openly about the limitations and lack of US military abilities. Just now CNN is reporting on a study by the Rand Corp.with the the first line reading, "The U.S. military is seriously deficient in meeting 'the threat of Islamist insurgencies,'...". My prediction is that this sort of tone will be played out for the next little bit, and soon there's going to be some major steps taken into further privatization and outsourcing of the U.S. military, or rather, its responsibilities.
These sort of reports seem to serve the purpose of paving the way for a public that, already unhappy with the situation in Iraq, will see an outsourced [potential] war with Iran as being a worthy alternative. The basic mentality is, "Well, our boys [Military] can't do it, so why not hire Halliburton?".
Also interesting is the fact that Rand Corp. is behind the CNN reported study.
Analyses like this suffer from a kind of chronic schizophrenia. On the one hand, we're given facts like, the US and Britain overthrew Iranian democracy for greedy, materialistic purposes. And then comes the inevitable lapse into assumptions of good will and intentions on both sides but just "misunderstandings." It's really just greed all the time.
I've been saying this for at least a year now, ever since I first learned the truth about Operation Ajax -- something which I can only imagine most other Americans aren't even aware of, since it's certainly not something that anyone would ever learn about in school or through the mainstream media because it puts us in a rather bad light. Hell, even I didn't know about it until the last year or two -- and as far as I can tell, I'm at least a bit more (possibly quite a lot more) well-read and intellectually curious than the average American. One thing is certain...knowing about Operation Ajax puts a great many things into perspective with regard to the strained relationship between the US and Iran over the last thirty years. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans continue to soldier on in blind, nationalistic ignorance and sincerely believe that Iran's hostility towards us is entirely unprovoked and unjustified when in fact it's a perfectly understandable reaction -- especially when we insist on rubbing their noses in it on a regular basis by continuing to hypocritically promote ourselves as a country which believes in defending democracy. It's arrogant, self-serving, and flat-out irrational to expect people who've been treated as the Iranians have by us to simply lie down and meekly submit to it without resentment -- it's contrary to human nature. If the tables were turned, would we submit without protest? Surely you jest...
Yes, the US believes in defending and supporting democracy -- but only when it suits our purpose to do so, and Operation Ajax is just one example of how the US is also quite willing to turn our backs on democracy and even support tyranny when it suits our purpose to do so. Especially at this point, the US is far from being the knight in shining armor that the government likes to portray us as being. If anything, when it comes to Iran, we acted more like a mob enforcer.
This looks to be a good history lesson providing some badly needed facts and historical perspective on the past relationship between the west and Iran.
But in espousing facts and knowledge I think it important for the credibility of the main message that other, peripheral information is accurate also.
In the clip the guy speaks of the The Standard of living enjoyed by the British in the '20s, '30s may have in part been due to Iranian oil but I I would think the rest of the British empire would have contributed the lions share.
He also implied the British had a good standard of living in the '40s, this is completely incorrect. The '40s in the UK were dominated by the war and the rationing that was imposed on all the population to support that effort, the rationing of basic foodstuffs lasted into the early '50s.
A few well placed mini nukes strikes against the infrastructure of terror and the regime will crumble to the ground.
REMEMBER 9/11
#1
cbjames @ 3:
---My my my!!! Might we have a PERSONAL vendetta at work here?
Samo Umer @ 40:
Oh yes! Like as is the case of Iraq, for example?
Bluestocking @ 38:
Bluestocking, I could not have said it better myself! You are truly WONDERFUL! Why so? Because you say things that i AGREE with, Bluestocking! And quite eloquently so!
Samo Umer @ 40:
Please go and shoot yourself.
As Obama told the Chicago Tribune on September 26, 2004, "[T]he big question is going to be, if Iran is resistant to these pressures [to stop its nuclear program], including economic sanctions, which I hope will be imposed if they do not cooperate, at what point ... if any, are we going to take military action?"
He added, "[L]aunching some missile strikes into Iran is not the optimal position for us to be in" given the ongoing war in Iraq. "On the other hand, having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse." Obama went on to argue that military strikes on Pakistan should not be ruled out.
operation ajax isn't unique.
the CIA is constantly fighting democracy via false flag terrorist attacks.
check out anything else they have ever done:
operation paperclip
operation gladio
alpha 66
operation condor
mkultra
operation northwoods
iran contra
etc, etc, etc.
People need to wake up and realize what our secret police do, instead of ridiculing all talk of CIA malfeasance as "conspiracy theories."
maybe someone should tell Obama this, if that nutbag gets elected he'll probably bomb Iran - then all these young kids who voted for them will be asking why they didnt research his opinions on bombing Iran. Clinton will make the right choices.
Well put Bluestocking, it's all a grand facade, and too few realize the actual problem is when warmongers lie, innocents die. It's so important that people are told the truth but no one ever discusses the historical side of the Iran question, in fact, any questioning of our relationship with Iran almost always starts in 1979.
I lived in Tehran in '75-'76. I am American.
The average citizen in Iran knew about the coup way back in the 70's. It's not news to them.
If they want to undermine the current regime, issue an apology for the '53 coup.
If they want to reinforce it, issue threats.
This is just my opinion.
Heya Dio - I lived there 66-72. We learned about "The White Revolution" at the American School.
Anyway, iirc there were actually two revolutions. The first was a middle class uprising against the Shah. Sadly it was President Carter that kept saying the US supported the Shah. My dad got a call from the brother of the PM asking him to please tell Carter to stop saying he supported the Shah, and affirm the right of Iranians to self-determination. Of course my dad didn't know anyone in the Carter White House (he was a Rockefeller Republican). Next came the overthrow of that nascent democracy at the hands of the radical islamists. I can't help but think that had we supported the people in their right to self determination the "second" revolution might have been avoided.
Anyway...
Just to clarify...two revolutions in '79.
Yes, someone, I agree..
First revolution, was the ousting of the Shah; it was hijacked by the mullahs within a short time frame.
My father worked with 2-3 of the generals shot by firing squad.
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