GGniner
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RE: Photos from Iran
(06-15-2009 05:43 PM)niuhuskie84 Wrote: (06-15-2009 02:54 PM)GGniner Wrote: If we had a President with a pair between his legs, I'd say the US and Iraq should return the favor to Iran and fund/support the opposition and encourage civil war to overthrow the Mullahs.
but I said, "IF"
Yea, because our coups in Iran have gone so swell. Many of the current problems in the region exist because of what we have done...in fact you can narrate a direct narrative all the way to 9/11. Read up on the aftermath of 1953.
thats one take on the Shah coming to power, there are other takes on that which include the very complex history on the subject. Its not wise to Monday Morning QB the freaking Cold War and events that took place 50 plus years ago as a Cold War effort against the Soviets Ultimately. The current regime is in place mainly thanks to the limp wristedness of Jimmy Carter. Its a reason Reagan defeated him.
New Individualist Editor: Ron Paul's "interventionism" fraud
Quote:Ron Paul has become the most visible exponent of that malignant view of America. In my mind, his "blowback" excuse for 9/11 -- and "excuse" is exactly what his "explanation" amounts to -- is sufficient to completely disqualify him for any American public office, let alone for the role of commander in chief of the U.S. military.
For example, Paul repeatedly cites as aggression U.S. government actions that helped to topple and replace the Iranian regime of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. However, Paul rarely mentions these days (as he did on Dec. 3, 2002) that the U.S. and Britain did so "to prevent nationalization of Iranian oil." Instead, Paul's account of the extremely complex events transpiring within Iran in those days are reduced to a simplistic fairy tale of U.S. imperialism against a "democratically elected leader," a superficial fantasy that grossly distorts the full truth.
For one thing, it was not "Iranian oil" being nationalized, but that of the British company that had drilled for it, and which had it stolen by the Mossadegh regime. Mossadegh refused all subsequent diplomatic efforts by Britain to broker a deal to peacefully regain that expropriated property; indeed, in October 1952, he declared that Britain was "an enemy." Later, this pillar of "democracy" resigned in 1952 when the Shah denied his demands for broader "emergency powers"; he was reappointed by the Shah only when street demonstrations by his supporters threatened to overthrow the government. Back in power, Mossadegh then systematically began to communize the Iranian economy.
All this took place in the context of our Cold War with the Soviet Union, which had been plotting to extend its influence in Iran, via its puppet, the Tudeh Party, in order to gain control that nationalized oil. At the same time, U.S. intelligence agencies and the Eisenhower administration worried that Mossadegh was getting dangerously close to the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party.
Was it therefore unreasonable or wrong for the U.S. and Britain to take action to topple a dictatorial, increasingly leftist regime, in order to regain that stolen property and, more importantly, to protect American national security interests? Can this 1955 action in defense of private property and against totalitarian Soviet expansionism reasonably be blamed as the "cause" of "blowback" much, much later -- such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard takeover of the U.S. embassy in 1979, 26 years later? or the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, 40 years later? or even the destruction of four U.S. airliners, the Twin Towers, and part of the Pentagon in 2001, 48 years later? Or is that "blowback" charge mere excuse-making for Islamist thugs and cutthroats?
The manipulative use, by Paul and too many libertarians, of vague, undefined smear terms such as "interventionist" and "neocon" permits them to blame the U.S. government for virtually anything it does in our legitimate, long-term self-defense, anywhere in the world. Actions to thwart coercive threats, such as forging defensive alliances, are "interventionism." Helping other nations counter a growing peril from a declared U.S. enemy nation (Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Iran, etc.) is "interventionism." Sometimes, even trading with adversaries of dictatorial regimes (e.g., trading with Taiwan, an enemy of China) is "interventionism."
The only "moral" alternative they imply, therefore, is a de facto, hunkered-down pacifism: a steady retreat by the U.S. from any interactions in the world -- lest we diss some backwater bully, cross his arbitrarily declared boundary lines, offend him for his subjective notions of religious or cultural blasphemy, or thwart his laughable claims of "national sovereignty."
Part of the sloppy thinking at the root of "noninterventionist" lunacy is the tacit equation of individual rights with "national sovereignty" -- and also the equation of "economic interventionism" (against peaceful individuals) with "political interventionism" (against despotic regimes). Philosophically, these twin equations are completely bogus.
Anyone really want to argue and monday morning QB Churchill and Eisenhower, that they should've grabbed the ankles and let the regime STEAL Property from a British Company? That they should've sat back and just watched in pacifism as the Iranians moved towards Marxism????
This was all around the same time of the "Iron Curtain" speech, would it have been better if Iran had fallen behind the Iron Curtain instead of on our side of it???? How do we know today, if the same Mullah's or something worse or better wouldn't be ruling Iran right now?
God bless Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, Eisenhower and all the Cold Warriors.
btw, thanks for reminding me of why it is I despise the paultard so.
(This post was last modified: 06-15-2009 07:03 PM by GGniner.)
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