Pundit on CNN stating that whatever the outcome in Iraq,

[HysteryDiagnosis]

it will be breathtaking, awesome or some other flowery euphamism.

It's as if no dictatorship or democracy has ever been brought down either overtly or covertly in the past 100 years or so. I'ma thinking they need to get over themselves, read a little history, and do some soul searching over what we have done in the ME over the past several decades. Shame on them for gloating the repetition of past mistakes. In other words, they ain't seen nothing yet.

Afterthought, a somewhat dictatorial regime HERE in the U.S. that has usurped much of the power of the Congress was almost overthrown here, and probably would have been if our shiny new election process had an audit capability. Just think, we only missed by a couple million idiots.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0605-03.htm
>>So Many Governments To Overthrow, So Little Time
by Pat M. Holt


WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is reported to be considering "destabilizing" - in other words, covertly overthrowing - the Iranian government because of its suspected ties to Al Qaeda terrorist groups. This would be precisely the wrong thing for the United States to do in Iran. If we are to meddle in Iran at all, our efforts ought to be directed against the Islamic clergy and not the elected politicians.

Overthrowing the wrong government would be consistent with a long record by the US, going back to the aftermath of World War II. We paid street mobs to demonstrate against Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh after he nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Mossadegh went into exile and Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi returned.

This was not all bad. For 26 years, the shah provided a generally pro-American government. He also ran an efficient and vicious secret police, but there was stability in the Persian Gulf. The Shah made huge arms purchases. He sold oil to Israel. He promoted Westernization. Young women wore blue jeans on the streets; movies were well-attended, boys and girls held hands in public. All of this was distasteful to conservative Islamist elements, but the US was riding high, and the CIA was on a roll.<<

[BuyingThyme]

1. Ties to Al Qaeda

>>"The Bush administration is reported to be considering "destabilizing" - in other words, covertly overthrowing - the Iranian government because of its suspected ties to Al Qaeda terrorist groups."<<

There are many countries with close ties to Al Qaeda, but atop the list are the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Is that why Bush decided to overthrow our government? It's all coming together.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Perhaps shrub could exhume some of the perps who were involved with

building up the Mujahedeen, Taliban, you know, you garden variety extremists... and put them in Guantanamo... 'course, any close family members will have unlimited immunity in these matters. Hypocrites.

http://blog.zmag.org/wordwise/000545.html
Reagan's freedom fighters carry on
Posted by Tim Wise at June 8, 2004 09:10 AM

Among the things Ronald Reagan gave the world--but which is hardly being mentioned amid the praise being heaped upon him in the wake of his passing--was the Mujahadeen, which would never have gained the power it developed in Afganistan absent his support for them, and absurd tendency to refer to them as freedom fighters in the tradition of the "founding fathers." (O.K, so maybe that comparison was apt after all on at least one level; I mean, both the Muj and the U.S. founders were fond of killing their enemies in the name of political power, and could be classified as terroristic in a any number of ways, so...)

Anyway, as Reagan's body prepares to lie in state, and as the son of his former Veep prattles on about how much he learned from Reagan's leadership, perhaps it would be worth noting that the current "President" of Afghanistan, hand picked by the U.S. after the collapse of the Muj-heavy Taliban, is now overtly cozying up to the fanatical Muj warlords who have made such a mess of the country and inspired al-Q for years. According to todays New York Times, , Hamid Karzai is seeking muj warlord support for his ongoing presidency, and will involve them in future coalition governments as well.

[BuyingThyme]

3. Imagine...

what would happen if it became known that the 19 hijackers were trained in Iranian flight schools by Iranian citizens under the surveillance of Iran's FBI equivalent.

[rodeodance]

4. bush alsready called it a SUCCESS (before the election) that is all

that matters to most!!

[tishaLA]

5. Could you provide evidence to support your assertion please?

Thanks

[BuyingThyme]

6. What "assertion"?

[tishaLA]

12. About the Iranians training, etc. the highjackers

[BuyingThyme]

14. The objective is to...

look at the United States through the prism of Iran.

In reality, the hijackers were trained in American flight schools by American citizens under surveillance of of the American FBI.

IMAGINE if the American people were to view the United States government with as much interest as they view the Iranian government. We'd get a new government in a second.

[jimshoes]

7. I remember hearing

some of them trained in American flight schools. Should we attack Florida?

[BuyingThyme]

8. That was my point.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

9. That was my point.

Ahhhhh, another person who gets the show... who has more than a six week memory... a person who sees the grand scheme for what it truly is.

Welcome to DU, I hope your stay is a pleasant one. :)

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl?ACCT=617800&TICK=NEWS&STORY=/www/story/09-15-2001/0001572748&EDATE=Sep+15,+2001
Newsweek Story: Alleged Hijackers May Have Trained at U.S. Military Bases


Full Story to Appear in Newsweek's Next Issue on Newsstands
Monday, Sept. 17 and Currently Available on the Web Site

By George Wehrfritz, Catharine Skipp and John Barry

>>NEW YORK, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. military sources have given the FBI information that suggests five of the alleged hijackers of the planes that were used in Tuesday's terror attacks received training at secure U.S. military installations in the 1990s.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20010915/HSSU001 )
Three of the alleged hijackers listed their address on drivers licenses and car registrations as the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla. -- known as the "Cradle of U.S. Navy Aviation," according to a high-ranking U.S. Navy source.<<

[BuyingThyme]

10. U.S. Navy? Hmm. . .That's where GHWB learned to fly...

And Donny Rumsfeld...

Why do all of the dirty pilots come from the Navy as opposed to the Air Force?

Oh, the many mysteries of Naval Intelligence.

[KharmaTrain]

11. Revisionist History 101

The wingnuts are attempting to paper over their own sorid history with even more garbage.

According to their world, THEY didn't lose Vietnam...it was the media, hippies and Democrats who did. Iraq was going to be what Vietnam should have...let the military run amok and let the chips fall where they may. Shout down the disenters and anyone who paints other than a rosey picture is lying or uniformed. When things go bad there, it's not our military or regime's fault, it's those who point it out...they're traitors and defeatists.

Iran is another pain. Besides the hostages, the U.S. lost a major oil pawn and military/industrial customer when the Shah was overthrown. By confusing all the history of that country and paint the U.S. as the victim, I expect the right wing to whip up an even bigger Iran frenzy...if anything, to divert attention away from the deeper mess in Iraq.

These goons are like children who go into a room, make a mess and the adults are left to pick things up.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

13. I got your revision..... right here.... Kinzer, All The Shah's Men

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0471678783.01._PIdp-schmooS,TopRight,7,-26_PE32_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

From Publishers Weekly
With breezy storytelling and diligent research, Kinzer has reconstructed the CIA's 1953 overthrow of the elected leader of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, who was wildly popular at home for having nationalized his country's oil industry. The coup ushered in the long and brutal dictatorship of Mohammad Reza Shah, widely seen as a U.S. puppet and himself overthrown by the Islamic revolution of 1979.

At its best this work reads like a spy novel, with code names and informants, midnight meetings with the monarch and a last-minute plot twist when the CIA's plan, called Operation Ajax, nearly goes awry. A veteran New York Times foreign correspondent and the author of books on Nicaragua (Blood of Brothers) and Turkey (Crescent and Star), Kinzer has combed memoirs, academic works, government documents and news stories to produce this blow-by-blow account. He shows that until early in 1953, Great Britain and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company were the imperialist baddies of this tale.

Intransigent in the face of Iran's demands for a fairer share of oil profits and better conditions for workers, British Foreign Secretary Herbert Morrison exacerbated tension with his attitude that the challenge from Iran was, in Kinzer's words, "a simple matter of ignorant natives rebelling against the forces of civilization."

Before the crisis peaked, a high-ranking employee of Anglo-Iranian wrote to a superior that the company's alliance with the "corrupt ruling classes" and "leech-like bureaucracies" were "disastrous, outdated and impractical."

This stands as a textbook lesson in how not to conduct foreign policy.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.