The Recent History of The Middle East

Sent by The Whited Mama:

 

Let's stop doing this - Iran edition

The CIA has admitted that it was behind the 1953 military coup in Iran that overthrew the government of radical nationalist Mohammad Mossadegh, and the US has declassified documents detailing how the CIA’s secret operation brought the country’s Shah back to power.  (Iran was going to nationalize the company that later became British Petroleum.) 

This led to the 1979 Iranian Revolution when Iran grew weary of our puppet. 

This led to every other Mid-East regime (with the exception of Israel) hating America. 

This was part of what led to the 9/11 terror attacks. 

This helped justify our responsibility for almost half of the world's military spending.  It "saved and created jobs" for Lockheed, Bell, General Dynamics, and scores of others. 

It gave us plenty of reasons to fund both sides of an Arms Race between Israel and everyone else in the region.  Lockheed, Bell, General Dynamics, and scores of others are quite pleased with the results. 

It created enemies that we needed protection from, hence the need for stronger "leaders". 

For the last couple of decades, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, She Whose Name Is Not Spoken, and John Freakin' Kerry have been stomping around the globe making things worse.  Our armies follow in their paths. 

Let's bring them all home.  Let's stop doing this.  Please.

Barack Obama on the Boston Marathon bombing

Someone programmed The Teleprompter Jesus to make the following statement about the Boston Marathon bombing: 

"On days like this there are no Republicans or Democrats....We are Americans, united in concern for our fellow citizens ... We still do not know who did this, or why. But make no mistake, we will get to the bottom of this."

Let me fix that for you, Barack. 

"On days like this there are no Republicans or Democrats, only subsidizers of Lockheed-Martin, Bell Helicopter and Northrop Grumman.  We are hostages of the military-industrial complex, united in concern for saving jobs at General Dynamics and this is the price we pay for full employment in those industries.  We still do not know who did this, but if you had a foreign army in your nation, you would probably do the same thing and set off a few bombs yourself.  But make no mistake...I'm not going to chance my stance on undeclared wars, the military-industrial complex, the American empire, or colonialism." 

Hope this helps. 

Bring Them Home

Here's the print that our Narcissist In Chief is peddling on his campaign site.

I'm not the first person to notice the similarities to another image that's been in the media lately. Here are the hand prints of our Libyan embassy staff.
Way to go with that "Smart Diplomacy", guys. 

What in the hell made anyone think Bill Clinton's wife would be any better at representing us and keeping a lid on this mess than, say, Sarah Palin's husband??  Four years working from a safe Congressional seat in upstate New York???  Sitting through HillaryCare meetings?  Making up fantasies about running across Serbian airfields under fire (along with the comedian Sinbad and Chelsea and some random singers?)

Don't bother praying for the troops. 
Don't go to the hassle of putting a yellow ribbon sticker on your car. 
Discontinue your practice of going nuts every time an army reserve unit unrolls a giant USA flag before a NFL or MLB game. 

If you really want to support the troops, vote Libertarian.
We'll get their feet back underneath their Mamas' tables. 
We are the only party that wants to bring the troops home NOW. 

We have no business over there.  We're making things worse.  If you had to get past Chinese checkpoints and barracks to get home from work, you might be bombing attacking some embassies yourself. 

U.S. military and CIA interventions since WW2

Let this be a warning to Canada, Greenland, Mexico, The UK, and Scandinavia.... We WILL intervene in your bidness if you give us an excuse.  And if you don't give us an excuse, we'll invent one. 

Here are the chapters in the book "Killing Hope" by William Blum:

1. China - 1945 to 1960s: Was Mao Tse-tung just paranoid?
2. Italy - 1947-1948: Free elections, Hollywood style
3. Greece - 1947 to early 1950s: From cradle of democracy to client state
4. The Philippines - 1940s and 1950s: America's oldest colony
5. Korea - 1945-1953: Was it all that it appeared to be?
6. Albania - 1949-1953: The proper English spy
7. Eastern Europe - 1948-1956: Operation Splinter Factor
8. Germany - 1950s: Everything from juvenile delinquency to terrorism
9. Iran - 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings
10. Guatemala - 1953-1954: While the world watched
11. Costa Rica - Mid-1950s: Trying to topple an ally - Part 1
12. Syria - 1956-1957: Purchasing a new government
13. Middle East - 1957-1958: The Eisenhower Doctrine claims another backyard for America
14. Indonesia - 1957-1958: War and pornography
15. Western Europe - 1950s and 1960s: Fronts within fronts within fronts
16. British Guiana - 1953-1964: The CIA's international labor mafia
17. Soviet Union - Late 1940s to 1960s: From spy planes to book publishing
18. Italy - 1950s to 1970s: Supporting the Cardinal's orphans and techno-fascism
19. Vietnam - 1950-1973: The Hearts and Minds Circus
20. Cambodia - 1955-1973: Prince Sihanouk walks the high-wire of neutralism
21. Laos - 1957-1973: L'Armée Clandestine
22. Haiti - 1959-1963: The Marines land, again
23. Guatemala - 1960: One good coup deserves another
24. France/Algeria - 1960s: L'état, c'est la CIA
25. Ecuador - 1960-1963: A text book of dirty tricks
26. The Congo - 1960-1964: The assassination of Patrice Lumumba
27. Brazil - 1961-1964: Introducing the marvelous new world of death squads
28. Peru - 1960-1965: Fort Bragg moves to the jungle
29. Dominican Republic - 1960-1966: Saving democracy from communism by getting rid of democracy
30. Cuba - 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution
31. Indonesia - 1965: Liquidating President Sukarno … and 500,000 others
East Timor - 1975: And 200,000 more
32. Ghana - 1966: Kwame Nkrumah steps out of line
33. Uruguay - 1964-1970: Torture -- as American as apple pie
34. Chile - 1964-1973: A hammer and sickle stamped on your child's forehead
35. Greece - 1964-1974: "Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution," said
the President of the United States
36. Bolivia - 1964-1975: Tracking down Che Guevara in the land of coup d'etat
37. Guatemala - 1962 to 1980s: A less publicized "final solution"
38. Costa Rica - 1970-1971: Trying to topple an ally -- Part 2
39. Iraq - 1972-1975: Covert action should not be confused with missionary work
40. Australia - 1973-1975: Another free election bites the dust
41. Angola - 1975 to 1980s: The Great Powers Poker Game
42. Zaire - 1975-1978: Mobutu and the CIA, a marriage made in heaven
43. Jamaica - 1976-1980: Kissinger's ultimatum
44. Seychelles - 1979-1981: Yet another area of great strategic importance
45. Grenada - 1979-1984: Lying -- one of the few growth industries in Washington
46. Morocco - 1983: A video nasty
47. Suriname - 1982-1984: Once again, the Cuban bogeyman
48. Libya - 1981-1989: Ronald Reagan meets his match
49. Nicaragua - 1981-1990: Destabilization in slow motion
50. Panama - 1969-1991: Double-crossing our drug supplier
51. Bulgaria 1990/Albania 1991: Teaching communists what democracy is all about
52. Iraq - 1990-1991: Desert holocaust
53. Afghanistan - 1979-1992: America's Jihad
54. El Salvador - 1980-1994: Human rights, Washington style
55. Haiti - 1986-1994: Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?
56. The American Empire - 1992 to present

Shah of Iran nuclear: Good ! Other Iranian nuclear: bad

Here's some old-school propaganda about the wisdom of allowing Iran to go nuclear. 
Those of you who are at least 40 years old might remember when the Shah was our boy, and Iran, for all practical purposes, was our colony. 
Yes....It was good for Iran to go nuclear.  Not any more. 

From one of our colonies: A human rights update

From CNN:


Kabul (CNN) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said that a rape victim freed from prison after he intervened on her behalf has the right to make her own choice about whether to marry her attacker.
In an exclusive interview from Kabul, Karzai told CNN's Fareed Zakaria that the woman's case appeared to be a "misjudgment" that had to be resolved.
The woman, identified only as Gulnaz for her own protection, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after she reported that her cousin's husband had raped her.
But the 21-year-old was freed this week following the president's intervention, and is now staying at a women's shelter in Kabul, with the daughter she conceived in the attack and gave birth to in prison.
Her plight attracted international attention when it came out that she had agreed to marry her attacker to gain her freedom and legitimize her daughter.

Perhaps this legal concept will catch on in our other colonies like Korea and Germany, and then spread to the U.S.  If a woman turns down a guy's marriage proposal, he can walk away rejected, or....he can rape her. 

"Hey, how did you two meet?"
"You didn't read about it?  He raped me, and we've been together since, for the sake of the children.  It turns out we like a lot of the same TV shows and movies !"

A Libertarian walks into a bar....

Does it surprise anyone to learn that a libertarian can go into a bar, knock back a few, and then find himself in some political arguments? 

Yes, strangely enough, it happens.  And I have a new strategy for winning.  Winning these disagreements before they even become a disagreement.  WINNING at the Sheen level.  It's not about converting the person you're arguing with, but trying to convert other people who hear your conversation. 

I call it "evangelism through misunderstanding".  You intentionally misunderstand someone's statement, and flip it around to the libertarian position on the topic. 

- A bartender says "I support a woman's right to choose".  Most people who make this statement say it with a level of conviction and righteousness that implies you are a misogynistic oaf if you dare think differently. 

Turn to the bartender and say "You're damn right a woman has a right to choose.  Look at the sorry schools here in zip code _ _ _ _ _.  A woman should have a right to choose which school her kids attend.  It shouldn't be based on the zip code where she happened to buy a house.  Her kids shouldn't be a slave to a system dominated by the teacher's unions.  Give her a choice, and the schools will either improve or go under.  And anybody who disagrees with me hates women." 

If the bartender tries to steer the conversation back to abortion, the intended topic, act as if the fate of one- ounce blots of protoplasm is irrelevant.  Take it back to our lack of choice in numerous government programs.  "Seriously, dude, why don't we have a choice in schools?  You mean, you support the right to choose in abortion, but not schools?  Why?"   

Here's another one, probably my favorite.  The guy down at the end of the bar says "We need to cut out all of this foreign aid." 

Lift your glass or bottle upward, and begin your rant. 

"Precisely.  Exactly," you say.  "We've got 60,000 troops in Germany, and the f-ing Krauts don't pay us a dime for them.  We should bring every one of them back to the house.  30,000 in South Korea, and they're costing us a fortune.  We don't charge the Koreans a thing for defense.  25,000 soldiers and sailors and marines in Japan.  My taxes don't cover the expense of even one single soldier, and we've got 25,000 people defending Japan fergodssakes.  You'd think they could provide for their own defense, but no.  Barack Obama has to defend his empire."
"Now if someplace is having a famine or an earthquake or a typhoon, yeah.  We should help them out.  But that cost is just a drop in the bucket compared to what we're spending on our overseas empire." 

If your victim tries to get back to the relatively small amount that we send to places in dire need of relief, divide the dollar amount in question by $125,000.00 (that's the approximate amount we spend per soldier/sailor) and take the conversation back to our "Free For Everyone Who Asks" military services.  Chances are, the dollar amount we're spending on real aid is less than the amount we still spend defending England from Hitler.  (We have 6,000 people stationed in England.  I swear to God, we do.) 

Here's another one.  My friend Mike Coyne got me thinking along this track.  I've used this twice, and it's loads of fun....
If some loudmouth is holding court at the bar or the next table, and lamenting the number of illegals who are coming into the U.S. and taking American jobs, you should agree with him that it's a low-down dirty shame.  Tell him that you've got friends who lost computer programming jobs to foreigners from Toronto.  You know someone who lost an accounting position to an immigrant from Quebec.  The head of your company's software department is from Serbia. 
Without fail (for me in Texas, anyway) your new acquaintance will make it clear that he was talking about Mexicans.  Illegal Mexicans.  He'll say we should put up a fence with guards and dogs, all along the border. 
Look surprised. 
Say "Oh, I misunderstood you.  Hey, if one of those poor Mexican bastards can swim the Rio Grande and do your job?  You're already screwed."
Go back to your seat and don't say another word to him.  Can you imagine how little there would be in the Social Security fund if illegal Mexicans weren't paying into the system? 

Remember, we're libertarians.  We'd rather be right than popular.