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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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 Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 3:20 pm Post subject: |
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[deleted]
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 17, 2006 3:53 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:55 pm Post subject: Re: really? how soon they forget |
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[quote="keninseoul"]
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| The U.S. govt and military have done nothing comparable, not in the current Iraqi War, or anywhere else, for that matter[/b]. |
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| 1) Indian wars? more like genocide |
Ok
2) the dropping of nuclear weapons on civilian 'targets' in Japan
To end a war against an evil enemy who refused to surrender
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| 3) Vietnam war; chemical agents - namely Agent Orange |
to kill plants, many of the victims in fact were American soldiers.
Furthermore the cold war was defensive. North Vietnam killed just as many and its invasion of South Vietnam was illegal.
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| 4) use of war to gain territory/control (i.e Texas, New Mexico, Cuba,.....)[ |
US didn't behave like Stalin and those are all in the past.
More than anything the US usually at least recently has fought against the bad governments.
It is no accident that all the nations over the last 30 years that were militarily hostile to the US were ruled by expansionist totalitarian regimes , many of whom didn't even let their own citizens leave.
Judge the US by its enemies. The US has all the right ones! |
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Mills
Joined: 07 Jan 2006
Location: Incheon
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| Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:36 am Post subject: |
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| The film comes on the heels of a novel, "Metal Storm," about a war between Turkey and the U.S. |
The most expensive Turkish film ever made, proceeded by the shortest novel ever written. |
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Mills
Joined: 07 Jan 2006
Location: Incheon
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| Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:20 am Post subject: Re: really? how soon they forget |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
More than anything the US usually at least recently has fought against the bad governments.
It is no accident that all the nations over the last 30 years that were militarily hostile to the US were ruled by expansionist totalitarian regimes , many of whom didn't even let their own citizens leave.
Judge the US by its enemies. The US has all the right ones! |
 Wow. Maybe it's because I have an American degree in International Affairs and have studied our nation��s foreign policy extensively, but I would have to say that despite its stated commitment to liberalism and democracy internationally, the United States has habitually elected to support repressive or authoritarian governments/organizations. I have to say it again, wow. Do you have a Fox News microchip embedded in your brain?
American Supported Dictators (a partial list);
Abacha, General Sani, Nigeria
Amin, Idi, Uganda
Banzer, Colonel Hugo, Bolivia
Batista, Fulgencio, Cuba
Bolkiah, Sir Hassanal, Brunei
Botha, P.W., South Africa
Branco, General Humberto, Brazil
Cedras, Raoul, Haiti
Cerezo, Vinicio, Guatemala
Chiang Kai-Shek, Taiwan
Cordova, Roberto Suazo, Honduras
Christiani, Alfredo, El Salvador
Diem, Ngo Dihn, Vietnam
Doe, General Samuel, Liberia
Duvalier, Francois, Haiti
Duvalier, Jean Claude, Haiti
Fahd bin'Abdul-'Aziz, King, Saudi Arabia
Franco, General Francisco, Spain
Hitler, Adolf, Germany
Hassan II, Morocco
Hussein, Saddam, Iraq
Marcos, Ferdinand, Philippines
Martinez, General Maximiliano Hernandez, El Salvador
Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire
Noriega, General Manuel, Panama
Ozal, Turgut, Turkey
Pahlevi, Shah Mohammed Reza, Iran
Papadopoulos, George, Greece
Park Chung Hee, South Korea
Pinochet, General Augusto, Chile
Pol Pot, Cambodia
Rabuka, General Sitiveni, Fiji
Montt, General Efrain Rios, Guatemala
Salassie, Halie, Ethiopia
Salazar, Antonio de Oliveira, Portugal
Somoza, Anastasio Jr., Nicaragua
Somoza, Anastasio, Sr., Nicaragua
Smith, Ian, Rhodesia
Stroessner, Alfredo, Paraguay
Suharto, General, Indonesia
Trujillo, Rafael Leonidas, Dominican Republic
Videla, General Jorge Rafael, Argentina
Zia Ul-Haq, Mohammed, Pakistan |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 10:41 am Post subject: |
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Mills did you cut and paste that stuff off Third World Traveler or William Blum ? both of the them take stuff out of context or maliciously distort history and facts.What is your source? I mean you don't like Fox News but you ask everyone to accept your source w/o question.
1) Prove the US really most of those guys, what do you define as support? That the US had trade and diplomatic relations with them as many countires did? After you show your source define what you mean by support.
2) The US was right to fight the cold war. The Soviet Union was out to destroy the US. Far more often than not the US supported bad guys who were fighting against guys who were just as bad. Say its not so.
3) There is nothing wrong with supporting the a dictator who is on your side if their is no liberal democratic alternative and the opposition is just as oppressive as the guy you support. Especially if the opposition (who is just as bad ) is supported by those out to destroy your country.
Yes the US supported Saddam ( Hussein though not nearly as much as France Germany and Russia ) but that was against Khomeni. The US supported Stalin too so what?The US supported Park Jung Hee - Didn't Carter want to withdraw US forces from Korea when Park was president? And If the US did who did the US support Park Jung Hee against? Kim Il Sung.
By the way you got that list from a left wing source didn't you? Why is it that according to you it seems ( cause you didn't go out and say it ) conservative / Neo Conservative sources / right wing leaning sources are worthless but left wing sources are above being questioned ?
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| Behind Algeria, on a score of 110.55, come North Korea, Burma, Indonesia, Libya, Colombia, Syria, Iraq, Yugoslavia and China. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and Nigeria follow closely. The United Kingdom comes 141st; a good score on a global basis but not so admirable when compared with other rich, industrialised countries - we are seventh out of 23. |
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It scores 10 out of 10 on denial of majority rights because of gassing the Kurds.
A country with a wretched record of human rights abuse could score a maximum total of 190. Saddam Hussein's Iraq proves the winner of the unmodified list - which measures human rights abuses outside of their economic context - with an unadjusted score of 155 |
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http://www.algeria-watch.org/mrv/mrvrap/observe4.htm
Look most of the oppressive regimes in the world are also anti US. Coincidence? I don't think so. And hey dude I got it from a semi liberal source (Observer) not Fox News. 
By the way FYI I voted for Clinton twice and Gore once. Real right wing.  |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:58 am Post subject: |
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Mills, the U.S. govt has never had any love affair with dictators or dictatorships.
We waged total war against Nazi Germany, remember?
As far as the list you produced, it's not inaccurate, just not the whole story, and each of those examples exsits in a unique and complicated context. You also might consider that you fall victim to a tendency that is very strong in the Academe to see all of these events and dictatorships through a U.S.-centric lens.
If you recall Kennedy's posture on what to do about Gen. Trujillo in summer 1960 through summer 1961, for example, (both Eisenhower and Kennedy had already made unofficial approaches to the dictator, asking him to step down -- and he declined -- then Eisenhower broke diplomatic relations and supported the OAS's embargo against the dictator), he told his advisors that there were three options:
(1) ideally, foster and back a liberal democratic regime; (2) continue backing Trujillo as an anticommunist; or (3) pull all support and watch helplessly as another pro-Castro, anti-U.S. regime emerges.
Kennedy said we really ought to aim for the first, but we cannot renounce the second unless we can be sure that the third would not happen.
In other words, oftentimes, the U.S. govt faces bad and worse options only. Among other things, most of the world is simply a confused mess -- and has been a confused mess since long before the Declaration of Independence was signed. Hardly our fault, then, although the leftist hysteria-style indictments against the Great Satan don't emerge from thin air either (we've certainly made shameful contributions, exacerbating the problem as well as our many noble attempts to alleviate or even solve it -- think of the Marshall Plan, the Alliance for Progress, and recent "debt forgiveness" initiatives in several Third World countries).
My point is, it's far too complex and complicated for simplistic conclusions about the U.S. govt.
Carter attempted to make foreign policy by moral and ethical standards, and it blew up in his face, creating more problems than before.
In the end, he reengaged the Cold War, authorizing covert operations in the Caribbean, parts of Central America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Afghanistan.
Like Ray Cline has pointed out, too, the U.S. is too big and powerful to be neutral in anything. Either by action or inaction, we influence (which is not the same as "cause") events. Oftentimes, then, we are blamed for outcomes either way. And this is childish, just as childish as saying that we've made no mistakes or done nothing wrong, or that we couldn't have done things better and should strive to do things better in the present and the future.
In any case, what we are seeing portrated in this film is pure antiAmericanism and is not justified.
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 17, 2006 3:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Mills
Joined: 07 Jan 2006
Location: Incheon
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| Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
There is nothing wrong with supporting the a dictator who is on your side if their is no liberal democratic alternative and the opposition is just as oppressive as the guy you support. Especially if the opposition (who is just as bad ) is supported by those [are] out to destroy your country.
Good and bad are relative terms.
Yes, the US supported Saddam Hussein but that was against Khomeni. The US supported Stalin too so what?
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If it wasn't for the American coup of (the democratically elected) Prime Minister Mossadegh, and our placement and support of the Shah and his repressive regime, Khomeni would have never come to power. That is a fact accepted by most scholars and is used as an example when training American Political Foreign Service Officers to take the longview in regards to their actions.
Yes, there is something wrong with supporting repressive regimes who behave contrary to your Nation's collective morals and laws.
| Gopher wrote: |
Mills, the U.S. govt has never had any love affair with dictators or dictatorships.
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Selected readings for the American foreign policy novice;
Schmitz, David F.. Thank God They��re on Our Side: the United States & Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1921-1965. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999. Pp xi, 383.
Stephanson, Anders. Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995. Pp xiv, 144.
Dean, Robert D.. Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001. Pp ix, 332.
Kinzer, Stephen. All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. Pp xiii, 256. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Good and bad are relative terms. |
Do the comparison as you like. Compare what the Soviets or the Germans or Saddam or Khomeni or Bin Laden had in mind and the US is on the better side. The US at its worst is still better than them. Better the US get what it wants then what they get what they want.
It is not relative. Do the comparison of the greatest killers in history and answer why so many of them have been against the US.
If you consider what the US fought for and what most of its enemies fought for then then there is no relative.
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Question: Who was the Bloodiest Tyrant of the 20th Century?
Answer: We don't know.
That's probably the saddest fact of the Twentieth Century. There are so many candidates for the award of top monster that we can't decide between them. Whether it's Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong or Iosif Stalin is, quite frankly, anybody's guess.
For now, let's just skip over the whole margin of error thing -- reasonable people have studied the evidence and come up with wildly differing numbers. You're free to check my sources, but for now, trust me. I've studied the matter at great length and decided that the most likely death toll for these three are:
TYRANT DEATHS
Mao 40Million
Hitler 34M
Stalin 20M
Well, that certainly looks like Mao is our man, but wait. Mao's largest crime is the Great Leap Forward, a bungled attempt to restructure the economy of China which created a famine that killed some 30M. If we confine our indictment to deliberate killings, we get this:
TYRANT KILLINGS
Hitler 34M
Stalin 20M
Mao 10M
So it's Hitler, right? Except that most of the deaths on his head were caused by the Second World War. Sure, he started it, but our society does not blanketly condemn the starting of wars (after all, we reserve the right to do it ourselves in a just cause), and we certainly don't consider killing armed enemy soldiers in a fair fight to be a crime against humanity. If we therefore confine ourselves to the cold-blooded murder of unarmed non-combatants, our table rearranges itself again:
TYRANT MURDERS
Stalin 20M
Hitler 15M
Mao 10M
This brings Stalin floating to the top. So it look like once you reduce their crimes to the unjustifiably lowest common denominator, then Stalin is worst; however, you might want to argue that dead is dead so it really doesn't matter if you give your victims a chance to fight back. Fighting an unjust or reckless war is certainly a crime against humanity, so our numbers should go back to:
TYRANT KILLINGS
Hitler 34M
Stalin 20M
Mao 10M
... and these are just the problems we'll encounter if we accept my numbers without debate. If we want to use the estimates of other scholars, we can pin up to 50 million murders on Stalin, enough to push him to the top of the list regardless of definition. Or we can whittle him down to 10 million murders if we use the low end of the margin of error, and scrounge several more tens of millions for Mao, or away from him.
So, the answer to the question of "Who is roasting on the hottest fires in Hell?" is "Well, that depends..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Secondary Level of Mass Murderers:
Obviously, we're going to run into the same vagueries and uncertainties when we try to rank numbers 4 through 10 on the list of the 20th Century's worst killers, but at least we can nominate the candidates. A pretty good case could be made that each of the following rulers (listed alphabetically) were responsible for over a million unjust, unnecessary or unnatural deaths by initiating or intensifying war, famine, democide or resettlement, or by allowing people under their control to do so:
Chiang Kai-shek (China: 1928-49)
Enver Pasha (Turkey: 1913-18 )
Hirohito (Japan: 1926-89 )
Hirota Koki (Japan: 1936-37 )
Ho Chi Minh (North Vietnam: 1945-69 )
Kim Il Sung (North Korea: 1948-94)
Lenin (USSR: 1917-24 )
Leopold II (Belgium: 1865-1909 )
Nicholas II (Russia: 1894-1917 )
Pol Pot (Cambodia: 1975-79 )
Saddam Hussein (Iraq: 1969- )
Tojo Hideki (Japan: 1941-44 )
Wilhelm II (Germany: 1888-1918 )
Yahya Khan (Pakistan: 1969-71 )
Here are a few of the century's rulers who could easily be indicted for causing hundreds of thousands of unnatural deaths. Although some might be acquitted due to inadequite evidence or mitigating circumstances, it might be a good idea to not build statues to them.
Idi Amin (Uganda: 1971-80 )
Ion Antonescu (Romania: 1940-44)
Ataturk (Turkey: 1920-38 )
Francisco Franco (Spain: 1939-75)
Gheoghe Gheorghiu-Dej (Romania: 1945-65 )
Yakubu Gowon (Nigeria: 1966-76 )
Radovan Karadzic (Serbian Bosnia: 1991-96 )
Babrac Kemal (Afghanistan: 1979-87 )
Le Duan (Vietnam: 1976-86 )
Haile Mengistu (Ethiopia: 1974-91 )
Benito Mussolini (Italy: 1922-43)
Ante Pavelic (Croatia: 1941-45 )
Antonio de Salazar (Portugal: 1932-68 )
Hadji Suharto (Indonesia: 1967-97 )
Tito (Yugoslavia: 1945-80 ) |
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/tyrants.htm
You do the comparison.
[/quote]
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| If it wasn't for the American coup of (the democratically elected) Prime Minister Mossadegh, and our placement and support of the Shah and his repressive regime, Khomeni would have never come to power. That is a fact accepted by most scholars and is used as an example when training American Political Foreign Service Officers to take the longview in regards to their actions. |
More complicated than that I seem to remember the US helping Iran keep the Soviets out. anyway that was one mistake on the other hand the US was right to fight the cold war. and most of the time what the US did was justified by what was going on.
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| The British and Soviet authorities allowed Reza Shah's system of political and press repression to collapse and constitutional government to evolve with minimal interference. They permitted Reza Shah's son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, to succeed to the throne after he promised to reign as a constitutional monarch. In January 1942 the two occupying powers signed an agreement with Iran to respect Iran's independence and to withdraw their troops from the country within six months of the war��s end. A U.S.-sponsored agreement at the 1943 Tehrān Conference reaffirmed this commitment. In late 1945, however, the USSR refused to announce a timetable for its withdrawal from Iran's northwestern provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan, where Soviet-supported autonomy movements had developed. Although the USSR withdrew its troops in May 1946, tensions continued for several months. The dispute, which became known as the Azerbaijan crisis, was the first case to be brought before the Security Council of the United Nations. This episode is considered one of the precipitating events of the emerging Cold War, the postwar rivalry between the United States and its allies and the USSR and its allies. |
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761567300_12/Iran.html
LOOKS LIKE THE US HELPED GET THE USSR OUT OF IRAN JUST A FEW YEARS BEFORE. I didn't use FOX news did I for that one did I?
did the US make mistakes during the cold war sure. was the US wrong to fight it - NO!
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| Yes, there is something wrong with supporting repressive regimes who behave contrary to your Nation's collective morals and laws. |
and let repressive regimes who behave contrary to your Nation's collective morals and laws AND who are also mean your country ill come to power?
What is better about that? The first one is way better.
Last edited by Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee on Wed Mar 15, 2006 9:52 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 9:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Mills wrote: |
| If it wasn't for the American coup... |
This was a joint British Intelligence-CIA covert operation, carried out at the behest of the British govt, who was under intense pressure to bolster the Anglo Iranian Oil company's position vis-a-vis Tehran.
Mossadeq -- and that's how leading foreign policy historians such as Nick Cullather are saying the name is correctly spelled, by the way -- was flirting with what Kim Roosevelt, TP/AXAJ's project manager, said were "the Mullahs," or the leaders of what would become the Islamic Revolution in 1979. He was also flirting with the Iranian Communist Party -- not subject to their "control," however, although that was far from clear at the time.
Given recent events in Czechoslovakia (the Communist coup in 1948), and in Italian and French elections (also in 1948 -- here I refer to Moscow's apparent control and use of the labor confederations in each of these two countries to threaten Western democracy), and finally, events in China and Korea, the U.S. suffered from a great Communist fear in the early 1950s -- some rational, some paranoid, but, in any case, the perception was real enough at the time.
This fear, coupled with Eisenhower's geopolitical thinking -- Iran bordered the Soviet Union and also contained vast oil reserves, making it a strategic issue -- and his campaign promises to roll back Communism made some form of intervention inevitable.
Calling it an American coup, however, is a bit simplistic and unduly U.S.-centric. A few CIA officers made use of an existing British intelligence espionage and communications system.
This is very old information, by the way.
| Mills wrote: |
| of (the democratically elected) Prime Minister Mossadegh |
Mossadeq was democratically-elected. But so was Hitler.
Being democratically-elected does not in and of itself make someone virtuous or righteous.
| Mills wrote: |
| and our placement and support of the Shah and his repressive regime |
We did not create the Pahlavi dynasty or "place" the Shahanshah in power in 1953 -- he was already in power.
What was at stake was a conflict over the future of Iran.
Mossadeq led the kind of anti-British movement that we see in Hugo Chavez's anti-Americanism today. As Eisenhower comments in his memoirs, Mossadeq was bound and determined to eject the British from Iran, come what may. The British were concerned; Eisenhower saw Mossadeq's populism as irresponsible, particularly given recent events in Czechoslovakia, as I've already said.
At one point, Mossadeq (head of government) organized a Communist-supported mob and moved to topple the Shahanshah (head of state) and create a new system based on ultranationalism and other principles we saw in the Third World beginning around this time, but especially in the 1960s.
We organized a counter mob, backed by much CIA money (how much remains in dispute), and we apparently bribed several military officers to go along with this. Then we -- Eisenhower and Churchill via Roosevelt, that is -- told the Shahanshah that if he fired Mossadeq (an illegal move) we would back him.
He indeed did this. This, by the way, represents the full extent of "the coup": a collection of bribes. Mossadeq lost his nerve and resigned. The Shahanshah appointed another prime minister in his place.
| Mills wrote: |
| Khomeni would have never come to power. That is a fact... |
This is not fact but assertion.
It is counterfactual history. It might make for interesting conversation at parties, but either way, you cannot prove it. It is unscientific.
| Gopher wrote: |
Mills, the U.S. govt has never had any love affair with dictators or dictatorships.
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| Mills wrote: |
| Selected readings for the American foreign policy novice... |
I appreciate your suggestions.
Sorry you think of me as a "novice" in matters concerning U.S. foreign policy.
I would suggest that you move away from other peoples' conclusions and look where professionals look so that you can stop repeating other peoples' conclusions or grinding other peoples' axes and start thinking for yourself. Don't bother citing the books some left-wing political science professor had you read in an upper-division class. It makes you look like the best you can do is cite books some left-wing political science professor had you read in an upper-division class.
For starters consider these sources:
http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/frus.html
http://foia.state.gov/SearchColls/Search.asp
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 17, 2006 3:46 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Mills
Joined: 07 Jan 2006
Location: Incheon
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| Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 9:18 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Mills wrote: |
| If it wasn't for the American coup... |
This was a joint British Intelligence-CIA covert operation, carried out at the behest of the British govt, who was under intense pressure to bolster the Anglo Iranian Oil company's position vis-a-vis Tehran.
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 True, the British were upset that "Mossadeq" was nationalizing Iranian oil and asked the United States to intervene, but they [the British] backed out before the first of two actual coup attempts. The second attempt (Operation Ajax) was carried out by thugs and extremists, purchased with American ca$h.
| Gopher wrote: |
Mossadeq was flirting with what Kim Roosevelt, TP/AXAJ's [you meant AJAX, right?] project manager, said were "the Mullahs," or the leaders of what would become the Islamic Revolution in 1979. He was also flirting with the Iranian Communist Party.
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This is government propaganda [way to find an unbiased source] created to legitimize the overthrow of a democratically elected leader.
| Gopher wrote: |
| Mills wrote: |
| of (the democratically elected) Prime Minister Mossadegh |
Being democratically-elected does not in and of itself make someone virtuous or righteous.
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I couldn't agree with you more...
| Gopher wrote: |
| Mills wrote: |
| and our placement and support of the Shah and his repressive regime |
We did not create the Pahlavi dynasty or "place" the Shahanshah in power in 1953 -- he was already in power.
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He was a figurehead; Iran operated under a parliamentary system, in which the Prime Minister wielded executive power.
| Gopher wrote: |
We organized a counter mob, backed by much CIA money (how much remains in dispute), and we apparently bribed several military officers to go along with this. Then we told the Shahanshah that if [he] fired Mossadeq (an illegal move) we would back him.
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Why is it acceptable for the United States to act amorally abroad? The end justifies the means, right? What's that propaganda they were feeding us in the US? Oh yeah, "If we allow the enemy to change us, then we have already lost."
| Gopher wrote: |
| Mills wrote: |
| Khomeni would have never come to power. That is a fact... |
This is not fact but assertion.
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Don't quote me out-of-context. Widespread dissatisfaction with the oppressive regime of the reinstalled Shah led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the occupation of the U.S. embassy. True or false?
| Gopher wrote: |
| Mills wrote: |
| Gopher wrote: |
| Mills, the U.S. govt has never had any love affair with dictators or dictatorships. |
Selected readings for the American foreign policy novice... |
Sorry you think of me as a "novice" in matters concerning U.S. foreign policy. |
I made an assumption based on an incredibly naive statement.
| Gopher wrote: |
I point out that you don't know what my background is.
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Nor you mine.
How much of a lefty do you think I can be? Remember, I'm Teufelhunden? If anything I'm a right-wing sceptic. Nation-states do not behave entirely altruistically, and you can not convince me that the United States is the exception. I would suggest you move away from taking everything the government tells you at face value.
Great, more United States government approved history. I am intimately familiar with the US State Department and its archive, thank you. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 12:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Mossadeq was flirting with what Kim Roosevelt, TP/AXAJ's [you meant AJAX, right?] |
| Mills wrote: |
| This is government propaganda [way to find an unbiased source] created to legitimize the overthrow of a democratically elected leader. |
No. I meant, "TP/AJAX," the operation's full codeword. CIA placed a two-letter prefix before the codeword during the Cold War. This was a counterintelligence tool.
Like I said before, you should get into the actual sources that professional historians and political scientists use to apprehend these events.
| Mills wrote: |
of (the democratically elected) Prime Minister Mossadegh
Being democratically-elected does not in and of itself make someone virtuous or righteous.
I couldn't agree with you more...
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I wasn't referring to W. Bush, who, in any case, I didn't vote for and don't support. I thought we were talking about TP/AJAX.
Why do critics always reduce any discussion on the U.S. or anything else for that matter to W. Bush as the least common denominator? I could start a thread on Pi and within three pages someone would complain about W. Bush.
This is a kind of psychosis. Not you personally, just among the critics. I think you can understand what I'm trying to say here.
| Mills wrote: |
Great, more United States government approved history. I am intimately familiar with the US State Department and its archive, thank you. |
Mills, you just offhandedly dismissed the central source that professional historians and political scientists use to get into U.S. diplomatic history.
If you looked at the sites I referred you to, you would have seen that they linked to the Foreign Relations of the United States series, more commonly known as "FRUS."
These are declassified memoranda and cables and various other documents that our govt (and only a very few others in the world) release to the public, ideally no later than 30 years after any event.
Granted, many of them are redacted. But the DCI is charged by Congress to protect sources and methods (just as any news service in the world is), or else we simply could not operate as an intelligence gatherer in the world. In the fifty years or so we've been at it, despite moments of extreme hostility and criticism, everyone knows that it must be this way.
In any case, take a look at them before commenting.
I also cited State's Freedom of Information Act electronic reading room. This contains things like Kissinger's telephone records and the vast Chile Declassification Project.
To balance things out, I also cited George Washington University's "National Security Archive" -- a private organization not to be confused with the National Archives or "NARA," the National Archives and Records Administration.
The National Security Archive is extremely critical of the government and relentlessly (and I'm glad it is so, by the way) fights for more declassifications every day.
To round things off, professional historians and political scientists also get into the various presidential libraries, and, if they aren't trapped in the U.S.-centric model, they might get out into the world and look into archives in various foreign countries.
Your casual dismissal of the FRUS site, just because State maintains it, is irresponsible and more than that...it is uninformed.
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 17, 2006 3:38 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 12:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Mills wrote: |
| This is government propaganda [way to find an unbiased source] created to legitimize the overthrow of a democratically elected leader. |
Mills, I wanted to address this charge separately.
I am not prepared to document Soviet intentions and involvement in Mossadeq's Iran, nor can I illustrate the Iranian Communist Party's intentions and capabilities, as well as its relationship with Moscow. The Middle East is not my research area.
I know that most in the U.S. govt and its European allies at the time were indeed concerned about these things, however, and globally.
I also know that many critics, since, say, the 1970s and 1980s, have bitterly alleged that the U.S. govt made these up, or was simply suffering paranoia, not only in Iran, but in Guatemala, Cuba, Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua, Grenada...the list goes on. Most professors in most U.S. universities continue to accept this, by the way, and that is what has probably influenced your thinking the most.
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, however. And recently its archives have finally opened. Some scholars are looking.
And it turns out that the Soviets were just as involved in these events as we were.
So the govt was not lying or suffering paranoia -- even if its responses were not necessarily rational or otherwise intelligent.
In any case, I am prepared to show you something on Soviet and Cuban involvement in Chilean affairs, and from a collection of Soviet and Chilean scholars (Cubans still hold to the party line and are uninvolved in the debate, as well as keeping documents to themselves as does the Chilean govt, particularly the armed forces).
Take a look at these, esp. the last one...
http://www.cepchile.cl/dms/archivo_1119_1515/rev79_perez_ing.pdf
http://www.cepchile.cl/dms/archivo_1120_1516/rev79_ulianova_ing.pdf
http://www.cepchile.cl/dms/archivo_1141_1464/rev73.leonov.interv.ing.pdf
http://www.cepchile.cl/dms/archivo_1140_1465/rev73.leonov.lect.ing.pdf
http://www.cepchile.cl/dms/archivo_1148_368/rev72_ulianfediakingles.pdf
Last edited by Gopher on Fri Mar 17, 2006 7:25 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 1:05 pm Post subject: |
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And here's my last response to your posts...
| Mills wrote: |
| Gopher wrote: |
| Mills wrote: |
| If it wasn't for the American coup... |
This was a joint British Intelligence-CIA covert operation, carried out at the behest of the British govt, who was under intense pressure to bolster the Anglo Iranian Oil company's position vis-a-vis Tehran.
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True, the British were upset that "Mossadeq" was nationalizing Iranian oil and asked the United States to intervene, but they [the British] backed out before the first of two actual coup attempts. The second attempt (Operation Ajax) was carried out by thugs and extremists, purchased with American ca$h. |
True, it was American money, from start to finish. (And I wasn't trying to deny or conceal this, by the way -- and this is usually charged when I don't list the entire Bill of Particulars from start to finish.)
But it was a joint operation, also from start to finish. CIA used British Intelligence's intelligence net and communications infrastructure.
After the Shahanshah fired Mossadeq, and Mossadeq stepped down, Roosevelt stopped in London and briefed Churchill in detail, for example. Also, the Shahahshah thanked the British, the Americans, and Roosevelt for backing him when he needed it.
I've also seen references, mainly in Srodes's biography of Allen Dulles, that the British were cultivating U.S. anticommunism in order to better get them on board -- remember that Truman was not the same kind of Cold Warrior Eisenhower was, and he was suspicious of the proposal, and never authorized it.
So, in any case, it is in high fashion to point fingers at the U.S. these days, on and off campus, and especially on this board.
This is U.S.-centric, however, and not sustained when the charges are compared against the actual historical record. |
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Mills
Joined: 07 Jan 2006
Location: Incheon
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| Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Gopher wrote: |
| Mossadeq was flirting with what Kim Roosevelt, TP/AXAJ's [you meant AJAX, right?] |
| Mills wrote: |
| This is government propaganda [way to find an unbiased source] created to legitimize the overthrow of a democratically elected leader. |
No. I meant, "TP/AJAX," the operation's full codeword. CIA placed a two-letter prefix before the codeword during the Cold War. This was a counterintelligence tool. |
I was referring to your type-o in the original post, "TP/AXAJ's" as opposed to TP/AJAX. I wanted to make sure we were talking about the same operation. |
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Mills
Joined: 07 Jan 2006
Location: Incheon
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| Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 7:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Mills wrote: |
of (the democratically elected) Prime Minister Mossadegh
| Gopher wrote: |
Being democratically-elected does not in and of itself make someone virtuous or righteous.
| Mills wrote: |
I couldn't agree with you more...
| Gopher wrote: |
I wasn't referring to W. Bush, who, in any case, I didn't vote for and don't support.
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I was drawing a comparison. I'm sorry if you thought I was accusing you of being a Bush supporter. |
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