Here's why Iran is angry at America.

[Octafish]

The Pahlavis are introduced to society by the Dulleses.



The Secret CIA History of the Iran Coup, 1953

We'd be angry, too.

[sutz12]

1. No, no, no....they hate us for our freedoms.....remember...

:sarcasm:

(I didn't really need that, did I?)

[Octafish]

3. We love them for their money.

The oil helps.

American Judas by RobertPaulsen

[Eryemil]

8. Considering the rather draconian laws and backwards culture

They do probably hate us for our freedoms.
Sodomites getting married? Unthinkable!

[tblue]

13. The young people like western culture. They want to live free.

We can't blame the people for what the asinine president of their country does (think: the US and B*sh). They hate us for, sadly, our support of Israel, for occupying Iraq, for our disrespect, our bullying, our interference in their gov't (think: the Shah), and our economic exploitation. The cultural divide, though it bothers some fanatics and may bolster their anger, is not what makes people wish us dead -- that's Neocon Speak.

[eridani]

17. They were a secular country in 1953

It's mainly the fault of the US and Britain that they are not today. We sponsored the backward mullahs against Mossadegh. Israel supported Hamas to undercut the PLO. We supported the religious whackjobs in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 80s. Imperial bullies are fine with using religious whackjobs against secular nationalists, and citizens of those bullying countries have no status to gripe about said whackjobs having their own agendas.

[The Stranger]

45. If that were the case, they would love the U.S. for its freedoms, not hate it.

The "hate us for our freedoms" lie is espoused by the Right Wing Hate Cult.

[Eryemil]

52. Good point, I wonder how they feel about Canada.

[mitchtv]

64. a Gay couple escaped to India

and were given refuge in Canada. Of Canada, one might say Iranians are dying to go there.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x119610

[Eryemil]

72. Well, the queer ones are anyway.

[Maru Kitteh]

67. But you're a queer, athiest cultural relativist who thinks those who rape and murder babies are just

"attracted" to them and have merely "broken" a "social contract." All of those were YOUR OWN WORDS before you edited them.

As the cultural relativist you claim to be, ANY persecution of "sodomites" should be of no consequence to you. I mean the persecutors may, or may not be able to contain their desires. Who are you to say it is wrong or right?



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5179076&mesg_id=5182833

Defending child rapists:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5179076#5179938

[Eryemil]

71. I don't know but I think this is against the board rules. If you have a problem with me...

...take it to the board administration.

I probably shouldn't bother but:

One can be a relativist, (ie. agree that morality is relative to a culture, group or species) even while still holding absolutist views.
Take murder for example. (Killing is not murder, UNLAWFUL killing is) Most of us would agree that murder is a terrible thing. The fact that we're evolutionarily disposed towards a degree of altruism and empathy is a important factor in why this is so. Mostly however I would say it has more to do with our self-preservation instinct; we do not want to be killed. Hence, why so many people have no qualms about killing others that are perceived to have broken a social contract.

"Murder is bad." is an absolutist statement.
"Most humans consider murder to be bad." is a relativist one.

[Psephos]

2. But somehow, Japan, Germany, and Italy found a way past their anger...

...to become bedrock allies.

One can easily argue they had a lot more to set aside, too.

[Idealism]

5. The coup doesn't talk about the systematic rape of Irans oil for decades

All in all, implementing a coup of a democratically elected government is horribly wrong and much worse than what we did to the Axis powers in wartime. Germany, Italy, and Japan instigated WWII, not us.

[tblue]

14. Thank you.

Well said.

[Psephos]

15. Millions dead, utter economic destruction, firestormed cities, atomic bombs, years of total war...

...but what happened to Iran half a century ago was "much worse than what we did to the Axis powers...".

Ok, whatever you say.

:eyes:

[Idealism]

16. It was in time of war, a war of aggression that THEY instigated

not us.

The Iranians did nothing to provoke the coup of their democratic regime other than elect a man with a liberal ideology- the right-wing US government didn't like that too much. The CIA was formed in part to overthrow governments Ike didn't like sadly.

[Baikonour]

20. Hmm.

You do know that the CIA was originally the OSS in WW2, and became the CIA because of Truman, right? But yes, Eisenhower and Dulles did use the CIA to overthrow a foreign government for the first time (Iran). Odd that Eisenhower warned us of the military-industrial-complex at the end of his presidency, when he in fact helped perpetuate it.

[Idealism]

22. One of the greatest speeches a President has ever made, that one...

It is saddening that Eisenhower greenlit coup after coup against democratically elected governments to further the economic interests of corporations and to derail liberal ideology from taking root. I wasn't saying Ike created the CIA, you are right Truman is responsible for that mess- just that under Eisenhower the CIA ran wild thanks to Dulles meddling in other states affairs.

[Baikonour]

23. Yeah, Dulles was a mad man.

It's a shame Eisenhower let it happen. Or maybe he had no choice.

[Idealism]

24. There are always whispers about

the CIA being out of control from the beginning, or the Pentagon hijacking the federal government... do you believe that the influence can surpass even a President? In that vein of thinking, Eisenhower's farewell speech rings more like a plea for help than a warning for future generations, no?

[Baikonour]

31. Exactly.

It was certainly more than a warning. Eisenhower knew of the threat and probably feared for his life. We all know what happened to the president who succeeded him after he tried to stop the Cuban coup...

[Chulanowa]

28. We also decided not to turn Germany and Japan into international pariahs

under constant threat of nuclear annihilation, either. In fact we actually worked to get them working with us. Not so Iran. The people of Iran overthrew our implanted fascist dictator, and we've treated them like threat #1 in the world ever since. We've done everything in our considerable power to exact revenge on Iran for the "slight" of them capturing US spies after overthrowing a US puppet governor. We funded and supplied a downright genocidal war against them from Iraq. We threaten today to utterly destroy them if they don't stop doing something they're not doing and give us proof that they stopped doing it.

The United States has worked really, really hard to make an enemy out of Iran, and the funny thing? It really looks as if Iran doesn't give a shit, which seems to piss us off more.

[Octafish]

7. State Department backed the most rightwing regimes in those nations.

Even though they call themselves "Liberal Democrats" or "Christian Democrats" or "Social Democrats" or whatnot, America's right backed the right in each of those nations. The thing about Iran is, the people were able to see through that. The mullahs took advantage of the situation.

Dictatorships - World War II and the Cold War

[formercia]

41. SAVAK was totally infiltrated

The Iranian secret service (SAVAK) was infiltrated by the revolutionaries well prior to the revolt against the Shah. When it did occur, the members of SAVAK that were still loyal to the Shah were quickly dealt with.
It was well planned and executed with a relatively low level of violence as a result.

[izquierdista]

30. It's easy to set aside

When the right-wing whackjobs have shot themselves in the head or committed hara-kiri. IMHO, the reason Japan and Germany recovered so quickly was BECAUSE they outlawed the right wing and made it a shameful thing to remember. It wasn't the United States that made them do it, because the U.S. was happy to take in former Nazis and find them a job with NASA or someplace making weapons. They did it themselves, out of shame that they let the right-wingers in their midst get control and run their country into the ground. Kind of like the point the U.S. is at now, although the U.S. is in not as bad a shape. The right wing in the U.S. is reduced to sniping with each other now, but they haven't committed suicide. They will be back, struggling to come back up, just like a ptomaine taco.

[geardaddy]

40. Japan never outlawed the right with and made it a shame to remember.

Germany did though.

[Usrename]

36. We never propped up monsters to rule over those countries.

See the difference?

[Psephos]

60. "Never propped up monsters..." - guess you skipped history of 1920s and '30s n/t

[Usrename]

65. I think we were talking about post-war reconstruction.

Weren't we?

[Psephos]

66. No offense, but no, that wasn't the referent

If you trace back up-thread, my original point was that other countries have suffered far harsher treatment from the US in similar time-frames to Iran's experiences, yet managed to put it all aside and instead look forward, to their (and our) benefit. The US, with 400,000 war dead in WWII alone, after Japan's surprise attack and Germany's unilateral declaration of war, managed to do the same thing as well. Our response to the enemies that attacked us and took the world through its worst-ever conflagration was to supply them the cash and the constitutional and civil frameworks to remake themselves into economic powers with democratic governments.

Everyone who replied to my original post responded as if I had made a different argument. But I didn't. That strawman tactic makes actual exchange of ideas pretty much impossible - well, that and the condescension and huff that always accompany the straw. (That comment doesn't apply to you, Usrename - I appreciate your tone of discourse.)
:toast:

I'm not attempting to justify what was done to Iran in the past, and also have not forgotten what was done to the US by Iran, either. But while we don't willingly forget history, we also should not live in the past, because we cannot change it. We can, however, change the future...so that is where our efforts must be expended.

The in-group/out-group tribal hatred paradigm might have worked for proto-humans running naked on the veldt, but in the age of technological nations, it brings nothing but grief. Sooner or later, it will bring Armageddon, almost certainly from some religious nutjob whose ideological hatreds will make him certain that it is his duty to God.

No one can argue that the US, Iran, and the world at large wouldn't be much better off if things that happened many, many years ago could be set aside, and relations improved. We elected Obama, and it's like the US just took a Xanax. Be nice if Iran could do the same.

[Usrename]

70. In my recollection, I thought they did try to set the past aside.

And President Carter refused.

There were many young Iranian students at the university I went to. They were all in the military back there. When the Shah fell, there was only one demand that I am aware of, that we give the Shah back to them along with all the money he stole. These were young people, wanting a fresh start with a completely new relationship with the US.

Just before the Shah fell, the young people I went to school with were marching in protest against the Shah with bags over their heads. They wore the bags so that they couldn't be identified and reprisals carried out against their families back home. I thought it was silly at the time, that's how naive I was. Since they all marched, every single one of them, how hard would it be to identify them?

In any event, they were chanting "Down with the Shah, down with US imperialism in Iraq." I will never forget it, with the bags over their heads I had to listen for a long time before I could understand what they were saying, once I figured out that they were chanting in English even though many of them only spoke Farsi. I was so naive that I didn't even know what US Imperialism was, or what they were talking about.

A week later they were all beat very badly for marching in a Hollywood park with bags over their heads. The locals went after them with baseball bats. They had no idea what they were saying, nor any idea of what their lives were like under the Shah. One of them told me about his nine-year-old cousin who's arms were ripped off in front of his parents as part of the torture regime there.

About another week later, the Shah fell and the hostages were taken at the embassy. By students, young people, if the reports are accurate. I think they tried really hard to reconcile with the US but we would have nothing at all to do with anything like that. That was when I first learned what US Imperialism was all about.

[Malikshah]

37. Hmmm... context much.... Iran had done abso frikkin lutely nothing to us.

Plus what they said above me.

Time for folks to stop using Germany, Italy, Japan as the examples of
"enemies to friends" or success-stories for "nation building"

Both uses abuse history in a most tiresome fashion.

[Psephos]

61. Hmm - straw argument much? Your point, along with others above, answers something I didn't say n/t

[Solon]

58. Did we install Hitler or Mussolini into power, and let them terrorize their nations for over 20...

years? The situations aren't in any way comparable.

[leftstreet]

4. He was quite dashing though

Lots of good stuff at the link.

Thanks for posting!

:thumbsup:

[Ardent15]

6. Calling them part of "the Axis of Evil" didn't help

Thanks, Dubya.

[Captain Hilts]

10. A Canadian - David Frum - made that one up. Ugh! nt

[Captain Hilts]

9. And they got even in 1979. They need to let it go now. So do we. Iranians don't hate the US.

They have a young population and many of their parents were educated in the US. There is no natural hatred there.

[readmoreoften]

33. The Shah destroyed their architecture and killed their grandparents. They don't trust our government

but luckily they're smart enough to realize that the American people aren't the American government.

[Malikshah]

38. Bullpuckey-- not even close to "being even" It's not even about that.

But if it were...not by a country mile.

[Canuckistanian]

53. How do you define "even"?

Iran had a highly popular leader, Mossadegh. But Mossadegh wanted to keep some of those massive oil profits for the Iranian people, instead of just giving it away to American and UK business interests.

So, what did Britain and America do?

They ousted Mossadegh and in his place they installed Shah Rezah Pahlavi, who immediately sold out the country's oil interests and instituted one of the worst police states since Nazi Germany. With massive support from America, of course.

And what did Iran do to America? Kidnapped some people for a year? And returned them all unharmed?
Wow, some "punishment". And that's how some Iranians feel too.

And as for the younger Iranians, you're right. They LOVE America, American culture and American values.

They just don't trust the American government. And I don't blame them one bit.

[Truth2Tell]

11. Off to zeee greatest for ye. nt

[slipslidingaway]

12. The people in Iran had fought for 100 years to have a say in their

government, only to have it interrupted in 1953.

[tuvor]

18. Oh, good. An excuse to post this...

Just pointing out another facet to the stone:

http://www.ricksteves.com/iran/

Well worth catching on PBS if you have the chance.

[Idealism]

19. If you haven't seen Rageh Inside Iran

I would highly recommend it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9161934809152225169

[tuvor]

25. Thanks for that.

Bookmarked.

[myrna minx]

21. Or how about: Iran: the friendliest people in the world

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/destinations/middle_east/article5768065.ece

Beaming smiles, gel and a joke about lavatory brushes and weapons of mass destruction - Iran overturns all expectations

The metal door to the synagogue swung open and a small boy skipped across the courtyard. He looked puzzled at the three people who stood before him, two of whom were clearly not Iranian. He led us up some steps to the temple, where I slipped a skullcap on to my head. A lady came towards us, smiling. “Are you Jewish?” she asked.

“No,” I replied. “Sorry.”

My friend Annette and I went inside anyway, past a table of food laid out for Passover, and sat at the back as an elderly man read from the Torah in front of eight others.

I'd never have guessed that my first time inside a synagogue would be in Tehran, but Iran is full of surprises. It has a fundamentalist leadership that many in the West believe to be as nutty as a box of pistachios. But it also has a population of 65 million, most born after the 1979 Islamic Revolution (which culminated in the return from exile of Ayatollah Khomeini 30 years ago this month), and far removed from the dour and menacing stereotype often portrayed on the 10 o'clock news. The ordinary Iranian people are by far the friendliest and most welcoming I've met in more than 20 years of travelling.

more after snip...

[ConsAreLiars]

26. K&R - There is something very terribly wrong about that picture.

If you don't see it, look again. And if you still don't, look at it again while asking "Do any of these people look like they give even half a fuck about the greater good or the common person in the US or Iran?" And read the link and the secondary links. If you want a clue, follow this lead. If you don't want to believe it, but have any sense of integrity, grit your teeth and do the hard thing - get some facts.

[EFerrari]

27. And today we hear that members of Congress took trips to Antigua

on Stanford's yacht.

Members partied with 'Mini-Madoff'

It seemed like a great trip at the time. In January of 2005, several members of Congress and their staffers boarded two corporate jets at the executive aircraft terminal of Washington Dulles International Airport, bound for the Caribbean island of Antigua.

Their junket included some of the traditional work of a congressional visit, but the schedule also included plenty of time for sitting on the beach and playing golf, not to mention the highlight of the trip — a reception on an enormous yacht moored in a cove on the far side of Antigua.

But what seemed like a great trip then became a radioactive boondoggle two weeks ago when the Securities and Exchange Commission accused the owner of the yacht, billionaire Robert Allen Stanford, with a massive, $8 billion fraud.

And now, most members of Congress wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near the man who is portrayed by government officials as a “Mini-Madoff.” (The nickname is a reference to the fallen Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, who in late 2008 was accused of committing a $50 billion fraud.)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090303/pl_politico/19543

We live in a much more civilized age. :)

[deaniac21]

29. Well, with a less than 50% literacy rate, they are easily lead astray.

[thewiseguy]

35. You mean 77%?

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/ir.html

[deaniac21]

59. How many weapons of mass destruction do they have?

lol

[Fumesucker]

69. Given the literacy rate in the USA

You could say much the same thing about us.

Easily led astray by the likes of bushie.

[MinM]

32. How many "AJAX"-type Operations have been authorized by Bush-Cheney?

:shrug: We may never know. And while I don't absolve Iran of transgressions in this ongoing pissing-match, at least they're sophisticated enough now to not take the bait of these covert ops...

:kick: 'n R

[Raskolnik]

34. Well, that and the fact that Iran is controlled by group of theocratic despots

who use the "great Satan" to maintain their grip on power.

But don't let that get in the way of binary thinking.

[Malikshah]

39. And we weren't? Please.. Stop with the tired old canards

[Raskolnik]

44. Oh, please. At the end of the day, Bush left power.

He may have been the worst president we ever had, and he may have inflicted grave damage to this nation, but after eight years in office, he left, and his party was voted out of power.

If you honestly think that conditions under Bush's rule were equivalent to those in Iran under the Mullahs, you are grossly misinformed.

[Malikshah]

46. Last I saw, Rick Warren and his ilk still have a strangle hold on this country

and "one nation under God" is still in the Pledge of Allegiance.

As for being misinformed, I will leave that statement alone. To respond would be a bit too revealing on a public board.

I will say this, though-- do not assume that folks are misinformed just because they disagree with you...

[Raskolnik]

48. That's right. "One nation under God" being in the pledge means that

you have it just as rough as the people that have been jailed, beaten, killed, or tortured for dissident beliefs in Iran. That sounds about right.

[Malikshah]

49. We have people jailed, beaten, killed, tortured for being Gay in this country too

Of course, we're just ducky...

Want to start in on the shooting of doctors? How about child molestation and the protection of pedophiles?

Get a grip and try and step away from the Iran is evil drums. They'll give you callouses.

[Raskolnik]

54. First, I am most certainly *not* saying that Iran is evil.

The leaders of Iran, as a whole, however, are some evil bastards, by and large.

Second, I'm not aware of any modern criminal penalties associated with homosexuality in this country, but if any remain, I join you in their condemnation.

Third, what does the shooting of doctors by wackos and the protection of pedophiles (by the Catholic church, I assume you mean) have to do with the government of Iran?

If you are so busy wringing your hands over the flaws of the U.S. to acknowledge that the government of Iran is made up of theocratic despots the like of which we simply do not know here, then I think you are missing perspective.

[Malikshah]

56. I've got quite a bit o perspective on the issue

People's focus on 53 alone and that Iran needs to get over it is wrongheaded.

We backed a dictator much worse than the entire Council of Guardians put together and then some in the longest conventional war of the 20th century...just because he invaded Iran.

We overthrew a democratically elected government and put a despotic dictator back into power who ruled for 25 more years

Iran has never invaded a country. It has been the invadee over and over and over again.

Was Khomeini any better than the Shah? Marginally. Did he do good by the Iranians? Not by a long shot.

Did Iran overthrow the Shah in a popular revolution to install Khomeini and his entourage? No. Do the Iranians have a choice in the current situation? Not really.

And yet, Iran is the pariah of the world?

Why is that? Because folks don't know an iota of the country's history or about its people.

Is Iran innocent? Of course not-- no one country is. Does Iran deserve to be the pariah that folks make it out to be? Hell no.

Are the leaders of Iran right now evil bastards? Not any more so than what we had for the last eight years.

Do they need to be gone. Damn straight.

But we, as a country, better check ourselves and learn from past mistakes.

Education is the key here.

[NoSheep]

55. Oh please? I think stealing the SECOND election was NOT "leaving power".

[anonymous171]

42. Can we just withdraw from that entire area? I am tired of dealing with these crazies. nt

[LeftinOH]

43. The toppling of Mossadegh was an Anglo-American co-production, wasn't it?

This particular mess we get to share with the Brits-

[Malikshah]

47. More us than them to be honest.

They were all a flutter with Truman trying to get him to pull the plug on Mossadeq. Truman wasn't having any of it.

When Ike came in with the Dulles brats, they tried a different tack, playing the Red Card as it were.

This worked wonderfully. We were the ones running the show, however.

Kinzer's work, All the Shah's men, is a must read about the affair.

[NoPasaran]

50. After half a century, it's time for them to take a fucking chill pill

[sufrommich]

51. My thoughts exactly, time to move on. nt

[Solon]

57. Its seems to me that it should be us who should take a chill pill, we never got over 1979. n/t

[Psephos]

63. Exactly. Otherwise, it's the same-old, same-old, Hatfields and McCoys.

Feuds aren't about who "started it" - once the enemy has been identified, feuds become self-perpetuating feedback loops of tribal hatred.

So after a certain point, it's not about who started it, but about who will end it. It takes a moment of self-discipline by both parties.

[Kaleva]

62. The Shah had legal authority to dimiss Mossadeq

Under the Constitution, the Shah could dismiss the Prime Minister for whatever reason and replace him with a person of the Shah's choosing.

The link in the OP provides interesting reading regarding the race between Soviet leaning Mossadeq in his efforts to eliminate the monarchy and Americans and British who wanted to the pro-western Shah to remain in power.

[H2O Man]

68. Everything the Shah did

was "legal" ..... I think that is the point of the OP.