The Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, and?
In 1953, British and American intelligence overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in Operation Ajax and installed the Shah as dictator and puppet of the West. The British and US were indifferent to the damage the coup and the Shah would inflict on Iranians, and were only concerned with how the coup would benefit them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d’%C3%A9tat
The Shah was a brutal dictator ruling Iran for 25 years with an iron fist. His secret police, the SAVAK, was associated with the CIA and together they tortured and executed political opponents and anyone a threat to the Shah’s power. Viewing Iran as a stop against the spread of Soviet influence, Nixon gave the Shah carte blanche to buy all the American weapons he wanted. US aid to Iran continued until 1967.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912545-6,00.html
The general attitude in Washington was that, although the Shah could be a most stubborn and inconvenient ally (former Secretary of the Treasury William Simon once called him “a nut”), he was on the whole considered a force for stability and moderation in the Middle East.
This assessment revealed itself to be utter bullocks in 1979.
By 1976, Amnesty International estimated that the Shah held between 25,000 and 100,000 political prisoners. During protests in 1978 and 1979, the Shah’s military opened fire on civilan demonstrators, killing five to ten thousand. By 1978, the Iranian people were holding massive demonstrations against the Shah. The Shah fled Iran in January 1979. The Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers swept through the country, taking power in February 1979.
By October 1979, the Shah entered the United States. Iranians had demanded the Shah return for trial and execution, and were so outraged by the US defending the tyrant it had put in power back in 1953, that Iranians invaded the US embassy in Iran and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
Iran turned into a fundamentalist muslim theocracy, and America’s overthrow of it’s democratic government in 1953, and its continued support of a brutal tyrant for 25 years, was what radicalized the country to fundamentalism, extremism, and with a severe hatred toward the US.
Fearful of the new radical extremist Iranian government it helped create, The US looked for a new stabilizing force it could support.
In 1979, Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq by killing and arresting his rivals. Saddam viewed the Islamic Revolution by the Ayatollah in Iran as a threat to his power. Iraq had large Shiite population, and Saddam’s power was vested mainly in the Sunni population of Iraq. Saddam’s government had a mostly non-religious ideology, and Saddam viewed as a threat to his own power the possibility that Iraqi Shiites might become sympathetic to the Shiite Muslim theocracy in Iran. In 1980, Saddam declared war on Iran.
In 1983, US special national intelligence estimate explores both the domestic and foreign implications of Iran’s apparent victory over Iraq. It states “Iraq has essentially lost the war with Iran” (p.6) It spends a page and a half discussing how Iraq losing the war could affect oil prices (at the time, around $34 a barrel)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB167/03.pdf
During the mid 1980’s, the US pumped massive military support into Iraq, including chemical agents, biological agents, anthrax, weapons grade botulin poison, west nile virus, cyanide, mustard gas, and other Weapons of Mass Destruction. The US publicly condemned Iraq’s use of WMD’s while it continued giving Iraq full military support. Throughout the mid 80’s, Iraq used WMD’s against Iran on a regular basis, and occasionally against its own civilian population, and throughout the 80’s, the US supported Iraq.
In 1984, Iran presents a resolution to the UN condemning Iraq’s use of chemical weapons. The US embassador to the UN called for “restraint”. The resolution is rewritten removing all mention of Iraq from the resolution before the US allows it to pass.
By 1986, Kuwait asked the US to protect its oil tankers. The US reflaged the tankers under US flags, which then allowed the US military to attack Iranian ships that threaten the tankers. The tanker wars continued for years, culminating in 1988 when the US Vincennes shoots down Iran Air Flight 655, killing all 290 civilian passengers aboard.
By 1988, Iran and Iraq declare a ceasefire. Iraq’s economy is in a shambles and Kuwait is overproducing oil, dropping the price of oil, and impacting Iraq’s ability to pay off its debts. In 1990, Iraq invades Kuwait.
It would take a massive military coalition to force Iraq out of Kuwait, and it would take ten years to disarm Saddam Hussein. By 2000, the chief US weapons inspector, Scott Ritter stated that Iraq was 98% disarmed, but the US wanted a reason to topple Iraq and install its own government, so it wouldn’t allow Saddam to certify Iraq as fully disarmed.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051114/ritter/2
By February, 2003, the chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix, stated that Iraq was complying with inspections and that inspections would be complete within several months. The United States invaded within a month, citing false intelligence, and phony, nonexistent, links between Iraq and the attacks on 9/11. Years later, the US is still bogged down in that military quagmire.
In 1953, the US threw its military and financial support behind the Shah of Iran, thinking this would counter potential Soviet influence in the area, and stopping Iran from taking its oil fields away from British Petroleum. The total brutality of the Shah radicalized Iranians against him and against the US, and was a direct cause of the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
In 1983, the US threw its military and financial support behind Saddam Hussein, thinking this would counter the radical fundamentalist theocracy that had taken power in Iran in 1980. Once again, the assessment of experts in Washington revealed itself to be utter bullocks only a few years later.
The “experts” have repeatedly thrown military might and economic support behind military brutes in the middle east, arguing that having a strong ally in the middle east will create a stabilizing force in the region. And repeatedly, these “experts” have been shown to be full of shit. And the backlash it has created in the region always comes back to harming US civilians.
But, surely, we wouldn’t let these morons repeat this idiocy again, would we?
Don’t count on it.
We’re doing it right now with our blind, unquestioning support of Israel. Israel is America’s next Shah of Iran. Israel is America’s next Saddam Hussein. And like our blind support of the Shah caused the backlash of the Iranian Revolution, like our blind support of Saddam Hussein armed a madman with weapons of mass destruction, our blind support of a militant and beligerent Israel helped bring the attacks of 9/11 upon the US.
The US politicians and “experts” would say that our support of Israel brings stability to the middle east, but this opinion has already been shown to be utter bullocks.
Currently Israel receives the largest sum of American foreign aid, about three billion dollars every year. Every gun, every fighter plane, every helicopter, every tank used by the Israeli army is an American made weapon. M-16’s, F-16’s, Apache’s, and M-1’s.
http://www.fpif.org/papers/usisrael.html
While the US pumps billions of dollars into supporting Israel, the US ambassador to the United Nations has always made sure that no UN resolution will ever pass that criticizes Israel too strongly.
And while the US only strengthens its unquestion support of Israel, Israel’s actions in the Middle East are more and more coming under international condemnation.
Back in August of 2006, the UN condemned Israel’s use of thousands of cluster bombs against its war with Lebanon, leaving millions of unexploded munitions on the ground that would take months or years to clear.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/31/lebanon.clusterbombs/index.html
In May of 2008, Former US president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jimmy Carter condemned Israels blockade of Gaza as a “human rights crime”.
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2008/05/26/gaza-blockade-is-human-rights-crime-carter/
October of 2008, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead McGuire arrived in a boat off the coast of Gaza to protest Israel’s continuing blockade of Gaza.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=6134239
In January of 2009, the Red Cross stated that Israel broke international law.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/08-6
January of 2009, the UN human rights chief warned a special session of the Human Rights Council on Friday that violations in the Gaza Strip were severe and that some reported incidents may warrant prosecutions for war crimes.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090109/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictgazaunrightschief_newsmlmmd
Also in January of 2009, Amnesty International joins the chorus calling for investigations into war crimes violations by Israel’s military in Gaza.
http://blog.amnestyusa.org/middle-east/un-should-investigate-war-crimes/
Of course, this blind and unquestioning support of Israel while the international community condemns Israel’s actions surely won’t have any negative consequences to America.
Will it?
On 18 April 1996, Israel bombarded a UN compound in Lebanon where civilians had fled for shelter from Israels invasion of Lebanon. Israel’s bombardment of the compound killed 106 civilians and wounded 116. The event became known as the Qana Massacre. A United Nations investigation into the incident found that the shelling was likely deliberate. Amnesty International investigated and concluded that the Israeli attack on civilians had been intentional. Human Rights Watch investigated and concluded that Israel violated international law. When the UN tried to pass a resolution requiring that Israel pay for the reconstruction of the UN facility, only two countries voted against the resolution, Israel, and the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_shelling_of_Qana
An architectural graduate student studying in Saudi Arabia saw video of the carnage and signed a “martyrdom will” the very same day of the massacre. His name was Muhammad Atta, and five years later, he would be piloting one of the planes into the World Trade Center on 9/11. The backlash to America’s blind support of Israel has already started.
Some would argue that the US government’s blind and unquestioning devotion to Israel comes from the Israeli lobby, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. Former President Jimmy Carter stated that AIPAC is putting enormous pressure on politicians running for office who do not share AIPAC’s goals. However, that can’t entirely explain why when the international community is roundly condemning and criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza in december 2008 and January 2009, the US Senate passes a resolution “recognizing the right of Israel to ‘defend’ itself”. It was passed by unanimous voice vote, a true sign of cowardice.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=sr111-10
AIPAC probably has as much money and lobbying influence as the NRA, which is a lot, but even in teh face of NRA lobbyists, Congress manages to pass a gun control law or two. On the other hand, Congress is unanimous in its support of Israel. So there’s more to it than lobbyist money.
It would seem that the very same “experts” who advised the US to overthrow the democratic government of Iran and install the Shah as brutal dictator, who advised us to arm Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction in the 1980’s, who argued these actions would create a stabilizing force in the middle east, who have been time and again been shown to be completely full of shit, these very same moronic “experts” are still considered “experts” by the US government. And these idiots have convinced the US government that blind support of Israel will stabilize the region, will grant us power and influence in the region.
And when Israel commits attrocities like the Qana Massacre, and people like Muhammed Atta become radicalized terrorists in response, it is American civilians who pay the price for the stupidity of these so called “experts”.
Wasn’t it enough for the US to create one Shah? Wasn’t it enough that the US armed Saddam Hussein with WMD’s? Hasn’t the US caused enough damage following the advice of these “experts”?
We must stop our unquestioning support of Israel, we must stop turning a blind eye to the aggression and beligerence of Israel, we must stop turning a blind eye to the human rights violations and war crimes committed by Israel that the rest of the world sees but we refuse to acknowledge, we must stop protecting an aggressive and even beligerent government from committing attrocities without repurcussions, because we cannot afford the repurcussions that blind support creates for America.
We cannot afford to allow our blind support of Israel to further radicalize the Middle East against us. We cannot afford to allow the “experts” to fool us into thinking this blind support of Israel will somehow magically “stabilize” the region. Our support of Israel has already radicalized parts of the Middle East against us, and we felt some of the backlash of our blind support on 9/11.
