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some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:10 pm Post subject: Overthrow...what do you think of this book? |
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http://www.buzzflash.com/reviews/06/04/rev06051.html
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (Hardcover)
by Stephen Kinzer
BUZZFLASH REVIEWS
Awhile back, we offered the book "All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle Eastern Terror," by Stephen Kinzer. (We interviewed Kinzer about the book.)
It was a compelling, detailed account of how the U.S. overthrew the democratically-elected government of Iran in 1953. Kinzer's book on the Iran coup was meticulously researched. In the end, whatever cover story the State Department was using to claim it was necessary to squash democracy in order to fight Communism, the real impetus behind the U.S. suppression of democratic rule was that the charismatic elected leader of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, wanted to restore the British oil concession to Iranian control.
Eisenhower, then president, had to be convinced that the coup was necessary to keep the Soviets at bay. The former WW II Allied Commander in Chief wondered aloud at a National Security Council Meeting "why it wasn't possible to get some of these people in the downtrodden countries to like us instead of hating us."
These were prophetic words. The Shah was installed as a puppet government leader by the U.S. after Mossadegh was disposed of -- and the rest is the sad history of U.S. failure after failure in foreign policy.
Kinzer, who is one of the truly professional New York Times reporters, has returned to the topic of the United States overthrowing governments in his new bestseller appropriately titled, "Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq."
Although Iraq may stand out for its singular incompetence, deception, bungling and corruption, it does -- Kinzer's book sadly reminds us -- join a long list of U.S. attacks on democratically elected (and U.S. supported rogue leaders who rebelled) governments that didn't toe the American foreign policy/economic interest line. Regime change isn't some sort of Bushevik innovation, although pre-emptive regime change is. The fact is America has always asserted its "right" to remove governments not to its liking when it was able to do so. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 7:25 pm Post subject: |
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When Ambassador Nathanial Davis testified before the Senate Committe on Foreign Relations concerning Chile, he recalls coming up against extremely hostile, cynical, unyeilding, and very U.S.-centric assumptions concerning U.S. involvement in world affairs. He explains why the hearing was so combative:
| Nathaniel Davis wrote: |
| I did not...confess to egregious official wrongdoing, and I fear that only such a response would have satisfied the senator. |
While reviewing a recent book on U.S. intervention in Chile, a Foreign Affairs reviewer noted that a large percentage of the literature on U.S. foriegn policy suffers from this U.S.-centric bias.
On top of that, given the coincidence of many of the beginnings of these investigations with the Vietnam and Watergate eras, these debates were U.S.-centric and narrowly focused on establishing U.S. complicity and guilt, at the expense of totally ignoring local conditions and actors.
This is part of a deeper problem in the historiography, and even foreign scholars note this.
Chilean historian Joaquin Fermandois, for example, comments as follows...
| Fermandois wrote: |
| Kornbluh belongs to an old tradition of radical and bitter self-criticism within the U.S., where since the '50s, an atmosphere of criticism began to be formed that had, as its objective, [undermining] the "anticommunist" foreign policy known as "containment"...things speeded up because of the situation engendered by the Vietnam War. From then on criticism of American society, a cause which has never nor will never lack themes [or] justifications, passed to denouncing her foreign policy...this process...sees only faults in U.S. foreign policy. |
Kinzer, the journalist Some Waygug-in references above, belongs in this tradition.
If you are looking to be a part of this tradition, then, yes, embrace Kinzer's books and join him and many others in denouncing the Great Satan.
If, however, you are looking to explore the rich complexity of these world events, which includes accounting for but not obsessing on the U.S. role in them, then you should probably consider seeking out more balanced and professional information and data.
On the theme of U.S. involvement in regime change in Iran fifty years ago, you would be well advised to start with Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne, eds., Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran (Syracuse University Press, 2004).
Here's an excerpt from what the National Security Archive says about it...
| Quote: |
Among the book's main conclusions is that Iranians and non-Iranians both played crucial parts in the coup's success. The CIA, with help from British intelligence, planned, funded and implemented the operation. When the plot threatened to fall apart entirely at an early point, U.S. agents on the ground took the initiative to jump-start the operation, adapted the plans to fit the new circumstances, and pressed their Iranian collaborators to keep going. Moreover, a British-led oil boycott, supported by the United States, plus a wide range of ongoing political pressures by both governments against Mosaddeq, culminating in a massive covert propaganda campaign in the months leading up to the coup helped create the environment necessary for success.
However, Iranians also contributed in many ways. Among the Iranians involved were the Shah, Zahedi and several non-official figures who worked closely with the American and British intelligence services. Their roles in the coup were clearly vital, but so also were the activities of various political groups - in particular members of the National Front who split with Mosaddeq by early 1953, and the Tudeh party - in critically undermining Mosaddeq's base of support. The volume provides substantial detail and analysis about the roles of each of these groups and individuals, and even includes scrutiny of Mosaddeq and the ways in which he contributed to his own demise.
The "28 Mordad" coup, as it is known by its Persian date, was a watershed for Iran, for the Middle East and for the standing of the United States in the region. The joint U.S.-British operation ended Iran's drive to assert sovereign control over its own resources and helped put an end to a vibrant chapter in the history of the country's nationalist and democratic movements. These consequences resonated with dramatic effect in later years. When the Shah finally fell in 1979, memories of the U.S. intervention in 1953, which made possible the monarch's subsequent, and increasingly unpopular, 25-reign intensified the anti-American character of the revolution in the minds of many Iranians. |
http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB126/index.htm |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 4:07 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
If, however, you are looking to explore the rich complexity of these world events, which includes accounting for but not obsessing on the U.S. role in them, then you should probably consider seeking out more balanced and professional information and data.
On the theme of U.S. involvement in regime change in Iran fifty years ago, you would be well advised to start with Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne, eds., Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran (Syracuse University Press, 2004).
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Typically myopic. "Others'" sources are biased but you sources are all growed up people.
Typically narrow: Even if a work is biased toward one side or the other it is bound to help define the argument unless the research is simply wrong. Thus, anyone wanting to understand a situation is a fool to look only to the center. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 10:54 am Post subject: |
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Here is a short list of professional examinations of Cold War-era U.S. foreign policy and world affairs, for Some Waygug-in and anyone else who is interested in leaving indictment-style or partisan diatribes and narratives behind and engaging in a more mature and professional debate...
Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War -- is in either its ninth or tenth edition now, I am not sure which. See his huge bibliographic essay for additional suggestions.
Thomas McCormick, America's Half Century, 2d ed., (Johns Hopkins, 1995)
Cole Blasier, The Hovering Giant, rev. ed. (Univ. of Pittsburgh, 1986).
Blasier, The Giant's Rival: The USSR and Latin America (Univ. of Pittsburgh, 1987).
Ilya Prizel, Latin America Through Soviet Eyes (Cambridge, 1990).
United States Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders (Washington, D.C., 1975).
Paul E. Sigmund, The Overthrow of Allende and the Politics of Chile, 1964-1976 (Univ. of Pittsburgh, 1977).
Nathaniel Davis, The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende (Cornell, 1985).
Allison and Zelikow, The Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2d ed., (Longman, 1999).
Thomas Wright, Latin America in the Era of the Cuban Revolution, rev. ed. (Praeger, 2000).
Piero Gleijeses, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954 (Princeton, 1991).
Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 (Univ. of North Carolina, 2002).
Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne, eds., Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran (Syracuse University Press, 2004).
Last edited by Gopher on Sun Jun 11, 2006 9:32 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 4:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Thank you for such an in-depth response. |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 9:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Absolutely. (By the way, "growed up" is not the correct participle; it is "grown up.") |
You can't possibly be that stupid...  I really hope this was just a childish little jab.
| Gopher wrote: |
Take yourself, for instance. You are puerile and prone to express ideas in the most extreme form of antiBush, hatred-based hyperbole possible.
You and your brother also act like my little, nipping puppy companions, who follow me everywhere just to yap at my ankles, regardless of what I say or propose. |
Ah, the irony. The hypocrisy! You are young, that's certain. Please tell me you realize the infantile nature of your above comments? You see, I *know* I'm just getting your goat with the Ivory Tower stuff (Though not originally. You really are a perfect example of someone who believes taking classes equals wisdom and intelligence.), but you're so serious about it all! Other than the Ivory Tower, etc., shtick, my responses to you are sincere. You DO lack logic; you rely far too heavily on info and far too little on analysis. You will not take a stand or make an assertion you cannot quote someone on. In other words, you do not seem to think for yourself. You dismiss any point not by your approved list of mainstream scholars. You dismiss any assumption, analysis, theory, supposition, etc., on the same grounds. What you still can't seem to grasp is that every theory, every discovery, every investigation begins with just such suppostion.
You ignore that many things are unproveable, yet still occur. I just scratched my nose. Can I prove it? No. But in your world, the scratching never occurred.
| Gopher wrote: |
| I could start a thread saying that it is better to steam vegetables than to boil them, and you would attack it and assert a contrary position while also loudly proclaiming that your "logic" is superior to mine and that you could argue circles around me anytime you wanted because you are more intelligent than me -- correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe I am reviewing things you have said to me time and again on this board. |
Did I say I was more intelligent? Don't think so. Got a quote? I may have slipped up once in a fit of hyperbole...
Said before, will say it again. Go ahead and check all the reponses I've made to you. You will find that they are about the content or the flaws in your arguments. You will also find I do not, in fact, respond to everything you post. It may be because I don't give a whit about the point you made, or it may be because I agree and have no reason respond. But you assume my intnt is malicious. It isn't. (Though I must again admit it has become habit to poke fun at you.) Also, you will find I post in a positive way to some of what you post because I agree with it. You, however, seem incapable of this simple objectivity.
In other words, this flame war is, was, and always will be your doing, and in your imagination only. If you would get back to discussion and not insult me and other posters virtually every time you post (and how do you not see the hypocrisy in the mirror?), you wouldn't catch any crap from me. For me, it's just fun to tease you. Heck, all I have to do is point out something you said is irrelevant and you go off like a two year-old who had his toy taken away. From the very first flame you tossed that started all this (which you claimed for ever so long you hadn't done, then had to admit the truth later) when I used "irrelevant" in response to one of your long-winded posts, to now, it's always the same. I point out the lack of logic, irrelevance or childishness of your posts and you... do what you did here. Your hypocrisy is bizarre in it's totality. Do you any longer post in response to me without insulting?
Ah, but reality just don't visit yer little wurld, do it?
You're young.
Have some more straw.
Last edited by EFLtrainer on Mon Apr 10, 2006 10:13 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 10:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| So yeah, I think I'm not too far off base on saying that you are consumed by your biases, BLT Trainer, and you are certainly not helping Kinzer by endorsing his views here either, my little howler-monkey friend. |
You are just too bizarre for words. FYI, had I been old enough, I would have voted for Reagan the first time around. By his second term it was clear he didn't belong in the office and that his policies were not effective. Iran-contra just sealed the deal.
With GB the elder, I didn't see him as any different than any other politician. We knew he was willing to disregard the constitution, but he wasn't a total nut job like his son.
Dumbya is just special, in the worst sense of the word. He is dangerous. Don't get that yet? Keep paying attention. Now, I've explained this ad nauseum, but I knew he would be even before he was elected. Since, it's become so obvious as to be beyond any reasonable description.
You choose to think doing nothing is doing something. I call that a fool's errand. There are times when extreme measures must be taken. This is one of those times. If people do not come to understand how heinous this administration is, the mistake is likely to be repeated over the next few election cycles. This is something we cannot allow.
Let those who think Ivory Tower-esque discourse is going to change things do what they do. It's part of the equation. Let those who think they can best help by shouting from the rooftops do what they do. It is also part of the equation.
But you are too intolerant of others. You see only one way and fail to accept that the whole is what gets it done in the end, not one narrow group of people, ideas or approaches. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 10:12 pm Post subject: |
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