100% agree. Many of these empire targetted countries dare not even have a little more democracy because the moment they allow any sizeable voice of opposition to exist, the West’s CIA, MI6 and Mossad will immediately make use of that opposition to try to destabilise the country and to make it into a puppet state.
You’ll do what we tell you, or else, is the definition of American ‘diplomacy’, especially in the post-WWII era.
".... every socialist experiment in the 20th century - without exception - has been crushed, overthrown or invaded or corrupted, perverted or destabilized or otherwise had made life impossible for it, by the US. Not one socialist gov't or movement ... was permitted to rise or fall on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its guard against its all powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home.
It's as if the Wright brothers first experiments with flying machines all failed because automotive interests sabotage each test flight. And, then the good, God-fearing folk of the world looked upon them, took notice of the consequences, nodded their heads and wisely intoned solemnly 'man will never fly' " .. This is from Wm Blum "Killing Hope: US military and CIA Interventions since WWII" 2004
The key historical date to understand Iran is 1953: Decolonized Iran was going for Western-style democracy when the re-elected head of state Mossadegh was overthrown by the CIA and MI6 to install a despot Shah Sr. (as documented in US govt archives, Operation "Ajax"). This led to revolution and finally the theocracy that the West is now complaining about.
For 38 years (1941-1979), Shah 1.0 ruled Iran as a Western puppet, funneling the Iranian oil money to Western Corps. His secret police, SAVAK (trained by the CIA and Mossad) imprisoned, tortured, and killed thousands of political dissidents
Why aren't these "left wing individuals" more concerned with the political prisoners of "Israel"? The totally innocent children, women and men who are being abused in every conceivable way possible and now face the prospect of apartheid "hanging" without hearing just as they're in tortuous confinement without charge or hearing?
Yes! Why haven't CNN, FOX or MSNBC done a detailed Investigation as to WHY Mizz Izzy LEGALIZED RAPE of its Prisoners???
WHY does the US Govt ALLOW PEDOES to flee to Mizz Izzy EPSTEIN for protection from any possible arrest?
WHY in the USA, there has Not been One Arrest of an EPSTEIN Billionaire?
NOT ONE.
But Trump and the Z10 Congress, Dems & Repubs- Blue Team "Progressives" too - watched 165 Iranian school girls murdered as a Blood Sacrifice for the Rothschilds-Epstein Class and the Greater Israel Plan. Then they have the fnckin nerve to whine that their Motherhood is being attacked when they get mean tweets about their Frozen Eggs, like AOC.
Wow. Some people Never look in the mirror.
The Rothschilds-Epstein Class is building Our CAGE and Their new workforce.
Remember when so-called "Epstein class" was called "Bourgeoisie"?
You can trace this Pedo Mount-batton Uncle ALL the way back to Weimar Germany, where you could order a child with your meal at restaurants. True european "Culture"
Seriously this is the sort 1990s “look at both sides” crap that got us the brutal Iraq sanctions that was responsible for the deaths of 500,000 children.
The Iraq and Afghanistan invasions.
Libya's destruction.
The constant destruction of Venezuela, Sudan with no one pointing fingers to the governments, using the people’s money to kill other people.
“The question is not “how long can democracy hold out against authoritarianism,” it is “how long can democracy swim in its own filth?”” - Benjamin Studebaker
But surely to begin with we have to look at all sides? So let's not start ostracising principles much of the fight is about because of a currently true opinion...it is the repression of the " looking at both sides crap" that let them get away with Russias " unprovoked invasion". To this day Europeans trying to suggest Russia had every reason in the world to take strong action are vilified as " Putin understanders", for fucks sake. And what about the most useful principle of all at this point " know your enemy"? I'll stop now, because you're right in intent, obviously..
No, our own heads, however scrupulously focused, can never by themselves come up with all the data needed to form an accurate map, especially when there are other subjectivities involved. I ‘m curious how you would spontaneously express such a solipsistic , hyper individualistic point of view…do you believe in “ the torture instrument of free will”?…if you think about it, billionaires buy the labor power of brains the results of which they claim as their own…that certainly helps them psychotically believe in their own super cognition…have you unwittingly fallen into one of the ruling classes ideological traps?
i don't believe in free will. i'm a card carrying commie (ml). my analysis is not hyperindividualistic. we never fell for the 'unprovoked invasion'-canard.
Hear Hear Poetry! We've got to be better, what goes around comes around and the status quo controls that merrygoround. Just keep loading it up with the truth and it'll break down someday.
I haven't read the letter yet, I just support your view.
Poetry aside, I read the letter and I'm forced to agree with Caitlin, whatever and whomever they are, that ti's letter is shite and that every sentence of it should have had a paragraph of caveats to the larger issue of a half century, a whole century and more of the long, long litany of fundamentally inhumane and unjust brackets for national prerogatives, and it is blind to the effects of its own rational coincidence with the Zionist project.
So, while I absolutely agree with you ethically, I can't in the context of the reality we all face.
Madeline Albright said that the Iraq sanctions that caused all those deaths were "worth it." One day I got curious : worth what? Just what was the goal of those sanctions? I couldn't find an answer. I got the impression that they wanted Iraq to overthrow Saddam and allow themselves to be ruled by the USA. In those innocent days the USA was too shy to come right out and say it. Saddam remained in power so the sanctions failed but somehow this was "worth it." Gross, eh?
I notice the comments indicate the commenters have no idea what Iran is like within the country. It's a functioning Republic and the people adored the Ayatollah the US murdered for Israel. He was their mentor and father figure. It is NOT a repressive country. It has never attacked anyone nor assassinated anyone, ever. That's what the CIA, Mosad, Shin Bet, MI6 does all the time, all over the world. I've been there recently and loved the people, who told me the women, their wives "rule the roost " laughing as they told me. They speak freely, as in Russia and China, inlike the west where one is put in jail for talking about Israel as it is, the most evil country in all of human history. We don't have democracy and freedom. The Iranians do. Russia and China do, too. Yes, I've been there, too. Putin is beloved. No, he doesn't kill people. I notice the propaganda is widespread and as Goebels said, if people hear a lie 26 times, they think it's true. The Chinese are the most advanced in modern technology and production. Xi Jinping brought 300 million people out of poverty and into the middle class. Russia did the same for 70 million. Russia, like Cuba, has excellent healthcare and education for all. In China one must pay for healthcare, but businesses are being told to offer healthcare insurance. BTW, The only people with free healthcare are the Uyghurs in schools for disabled children. Saw it myself. Go, I get so sick of US, Israel propaganda. Makes me want to throw up. My favorite country I've been to is Cuba. Who has bravely withstood the odious US who wants "their" Havana back. Narco Marco is determined to attack those good people. We must stop him. BTW, if you want to see what countries are like, go there.
I HAVE also been there, and it IS repressive. In some ways more than the average Western country, and in some ways less. It IS especially repressive towards religious minorities, notably Ba'hai.
Not to the extent of mass-murdering them all, as Christianity did the surviving Pagan witches, not so long ago historically.
All govt is by its nature repressive, because humans and power.
The point of Caitlin's article is not to whitewash away all the repressions in target nations, but to say that as Westerners, we should be examining the beams in our own eyes, and not the motes in someone elses.
"All govt is by its nature repressive, because humans and power."
Not all governments are Westphalian governments. And not all humans are infected with Western European worldviews, and the excessively simplistic notions of "human nature" built into the false notions built into "Enlightenment" ideologies like individualism and universalism.
Exclusive governance over geography, rather than relational sovereignty, is part of Western European supremacist ideologies being spread across the planet. These flawed governance structures, not the concept of governance itself, is the source of the repression.
Many societies have had to adopt Westphalian-like Institutions in order to protect themselves from ongoing Western settler-colonialism that doesn't recognize the existence of peoples who don't also use Westphalian governance.
Notably, I didn't say "Human nature". I said "Humans and power". Every single society on Earth and in history struggles with this dilemma. Power attracts the corruptible.
There are only two escapes that I am aware of - greatly limiting executive power, as in traditional Switzerland, or the Plains Indians practice of forcing those in power to give away all their wealth during their tenure.
Either genuine democracy, or making the position unattractive to those who would misuse it.
The countries that created the Westphalia doctrine were not particularly nice places to live for the large majority within them.
Thanks for engaging. Far more nuance than the original note suggested.
Sounds like your intent was to focus on something like the popular phrase, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
Thanks for the clarification about "humans and power", but I believe a few people replying are noticing the "All govt by its nature" part and thinking you were referencing something entirely different.
I'm a settler Canadian who was born in and still live in Dish With One Spoon territory (Great Lakes, St. Lawrence).
While I believe that all Westphalian governments (exclusivity over geography, rather than relational non-exclusivity) are repressive by nature, I don't think that applies to all governments. I believe this repressive nature very obviously applies to the settler-colonial institutions of Canada which I am a citizen of, but that system is foreign to this land (an ongoing part of British and French Christian colonialism). I personally believe the 5 members of the UNs WEOG (Western Europe and Other Group) that share no border with Western Europe are the most problematic.
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is an example of a governance structure deliberately created to dilute executive power. This is a participatory democracy centuries before European representative governance had sufficient suffrage to be comparable.
I am happy to hear the references to Plains Indians. I personally know more about the peoples of 1D1S territories, but have also found it interesting to learn about how potlatch factors into domestic governance in the Pacific Northwest Coast. Governance on this continent did not fit what Europeans understood, and even though the term "hereditary" is applied, it is actually far more accountable to the community than the popularity contests used by Western representative democracies.
Well, I probably wrote too quickly, and with slightly too broad a brush.
"The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is an example of a governance structure deliberately created to dilute executive power. This is a participatory democracy centuries before European representative governance had sufficient suffrage to be comparable."
I presume you've read Graebe'rs stunning 'Dawn of Everything'?
Interesting take, but I don't think one can properly call most Indigenous American political structures "governments" at all, in what's now the US anyway.
They functioned a lot more like anarcho-syndicalist communes than anything like a Westphalian government, as you put it. There were some exceptions, of course, like the Anasazi and the "Mound Builder" culture.
Right now I'm thinking about a piece on how socialism in America might look like regarding land ownership and management, and I do think that old Indigenous knowledge should be considered.
Now that clarifications have been made, I think we can also move away from thinking this person was making a reference to "libertarian stuff".
I think looking at Haudenosaunee Confederacy governance, and how ideas became much lesser (and clearly racist) when they were brought back to Europe, shows one of the dynamics we can see playing out in these conversations.
Stolen Anarchy: Playing Indian & The Roots of Collectivism | TwinRabbit
When I read the term "All govt" I didn't assume Western European style Westphalian (exclusive executive control over a geographical region) was the definition of "All govt". I included non-Westphalian (such as relational governance) within the concept of "All govt", and disagreed with the statement that was made.
But if I was asked if I believed all Westphalian governments, by the nature of being Westphalian, were repressive then I would agree. Geographical exclusivity, not being relational, and not having an ethic of non-interference will make these exclusive governance systems repressive.
(For clarity: I'm not talking about the "Sovereign Citizens" movement, which is an even more hyper-individualized version of Westphalian governance built upon Terra Nullius nonsense, not its opposite).
Name 1 country where the entire population is happy with their Govt?
Now China is doing pretty well in that respect, and is earning that positivity through, frankly, being a damned good Govt - especially when compared to the Western regimes.
Would you honestly argue that the Chinese Govt is not at all repressive, however?
Not, by the way, in comparison to the growing technofeudal bankster-controlled militarising and highly surveilled West, or faked up BS about "Uighur Genocides" - but as an absolute?
If you were to sit down and design YOUR 'perfect system', would it be identical to Modern China?
And if NOT - what would be the characteristic of what you would change from the current Chinese model? And why.
Or is there 1 governing system on the planet that you DO think is absolutely 'perfect'? Which.
And no, I'm NOT a "Libt-tard", as it happens. Keep your ad homs to yourself.
Is both "lib-tard" and "libt-tard" a thing now? Ick.
Wouldn't libertarianism fit easily within Western Liberalism in the false-binary of Western Liberalism vs Western Conservatism?
BTW: I included the Anglosphere originating propaganda around the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in a submission to the Canadian government on UNDRIP. I know there is likely to be some repression, because I know that there has been far more opression via CANZUS governments over a much larger period of time when it comes to pre-existing populations as foreign CANZUS governments made land claims.
I notice that the Dominion of Canada hasn't even obeyed their own (British) laws, and had an appropriate Haldimand Tract Autonomous Region. The Dominion government government included the entire of the Haldimand Tract within so-called "Ontario" in 1867, and has never been the slightest bit honourable.
Well, in the spirit of 'reclaiming words', I commonly call myself a "Proud Libtard", although not quite accurately, but close enough not to be a falsehood. I sit in the rough boundary of 'left-leaning anarchist' - Anarchism of course relating to Liberalism as right is to fascist, and left is to communist, and left-leaning in that I support welfare and such socialist ideas as free healthcare and education.
The state might as well do SOMETHING useful while extorting money out of us for its various wars, mass surveillance, and oligarch-welfare.
I could have been more specific and used Randroids, although they have largely taken over US Libertarian circles, no doubt with help from the Establishment and the mindnumbing numbers of various US secret police forces.
Libt-tard I just find an amusing term. :)
Trad-Libts, now an endangered species, can probably be seen along the lines of right-leaning Anarchism.
I was born on this continent, but never quite fit into the mainstream culture.
I spent decades trying to figure out where I fit within Canada's Overton window, and what (if any) common political labels would best match and simplify political conversations.
Canada has a few more corporate brands within the “Capitalist Party” than the USA that can win seats, and I was for a time an organizer with the Green Party of Ontario and Canada. I’ve voted in Progressive Conservative and Conservative party leadership races (Ick – Canada adopted US style primaries, even though the Prime Minister isn’t a separate ballot question – corruption of the process), and voted for candidates nominated across several more corporate brands.
It is only in my 50s that I started to do some self-directed learning on anti-racism and anti-colonialism, and came to recognize that while the institutions that grant me citizenship (Canada) and my Scottish, Irish, and French ancestors are from Western Europe, the way I see the world does not fit within Western European worldviews.
It is great that you feel some connection with some politics within the USA. I find I have to look at Indigenous nationalities of this continent and East/South Asian philosophies to read about things that resonate with how I see the world.
"...as though Iran would look the way it looks today if the US and Israel had not been working to collapse and control it for generations."
This is like blaming an abused wife for screaming and acting out at the drop of a leaf. They've been living under a stressful and violent threat for years now and are coping the best they can. Westerners who have been bullying other countries can stfu as far as I'm concerned. They have no moral leg to stand on.
I 100% agree with this. America has done more to destroy the world in the last 150 years, then even the European powers did over 400 years (and I’m not minimizing the terrible atrocities of the European monarchy’s). This country needs a reckoning of our atrocities and we need to answer for our crimes in a new world order.
Yes. I was counting our military expansionism that really kicked off after the Philippine American wars, but you are right. The genocide of native Americans, the land grabs from Mexico, all of it is in our history and needs accounting for. Heck even in the Declaration of Independence Americans complained that they were prohibited from expanding westward and stealing land from the “native savages”.
American Imperialism saw that the Spanish Empire was quickly loosing control over some of its Latin American colonies and swooped in to take them over (Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Philippines, Guam, and later Hawaii, American Samoa, Panama canal and the Virgin Islands).
CJ>>"It’s crazy this even needs to be said, but if you are a westerner your ONLY job is to oppose the abuses of the western empire. Not Iran. Not China. Not Russia, Cuba or North Korea."
and
CJ>>"If you live in the US or one of its allied nations, then you live under the single most tyrannical and murderous power structure on earth, and that’s where your focus belongs."
YES! Caitlin, I agree with you 100% !!!
Also, "The western empire therefore makes the world a crueler and more abusive place not only by its direct acts of cruelty and abuse, but by the way it forces its targets to choose between (A) annihilation and (B) using extreme amounts of force to retain their sovereignty."
This is SO IMPORTANT to understand, and most people miss it.
100% agree. Do Westerners ever reflect on why indigenous Americans were killed by European settlers? I suspect it’s because European settlers focus on shortcomings of indigenous peoples, thereby giving cover (if not legitimacy) to settler violence towards indigenous peoples. We should not repeat this mistake.
Nailed it. I've recently been thinking alot about this reheating of the old "bringing civilisation to the barbarians" attitude. It really hasn't changed in centuries.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a conference in Europe openly praised colonialism. It was pretty mindboggling. Trump said in his inaugural address that the USA should "add to its territory." They clearly are serious about this.
Here is none other than Himmler, talking about the necessity of settling Eastern Europe in order to bring ‘culture’:
"Eastern Europe never progressed beyond a certain primitiveness. It has never known anything but chaos because it lacked mankind, the valuable bearer of culture, the genius who systematically planned peaceful reconstruction, who ordered the well designed exploitation of the immense treasures and the fertility of the soil."
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"I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia.. by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way..has come in and taken their place"
-Colonial Secretary and a racist pig W. Churchill
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"We are a master race, which must remember that the lowliest German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the population here."
-Erich Koch, Nazi Reichskommissar (Gauleiter) in Ukraine from September 1941 until August 1944
Nah, it was about the land. The settlers wanted the land, and they took it. Oh, they came up with all sorts of very good, logical and of course MORAL rationalizations, but that's what my ancestors did.
A lot of them knew that at the time and were a lot more honest about it. The Indigenous people were in their way, too weak to stop them, and the only way they could obtain "freedom" in the capitalism of the times was to own and/or exploit land to sell stuff for money and by God they were going to do that so their kids might have better, easier lives.
It was about the land. Everything else was bullshit or a psyop, take your pick.
Thanks, you are probably right. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were also well-meaning people among the settlers who selectively focus on indigenous people's shortcomings without acknowledging that they were under pressure from settler violence. For example, I am sure some Australian aborigines would have attacked settlers to keep them away, but this is interpreted as an unprovoked attack. Similarly, much of the Western media portrays October 7 as an unprovoked attack without taking into account the decades of Israeli pressure on the Palestinians in Gaza, effectively turning the whole of Gaza into a concentration camp. And so many Westerners seem to blame the Iranian government for being "oppressive" without taking into account the extreme economic pressure that Iran has been under, and without acknowledging Western complicity in overthrowing a democratically elected government and imposing an authoritarian Shah on the Iranian people, as well as supporting Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran, to the point of (I understand) supplying Saddam with chemical weapons (or the ingredients needed to create chemical weapons) that were used against the Iranians. Where is the self-criticism? Why only focus on Iranian shortcomings and ignore Western bad faith? This is an old trick that goes all the way back to settler violence, colonialism and imperialism.
Well, yeah, the settlers were invaders, they were taking land, so of course there would be indigenous attacks, and of course the settlers would be thinking, “Why, we’ve been here for years, and the Indians were friendly to US, not our fault so-and-so screwed them over, so they are attacking us now treacherously and without warning and so very, very unfairly! So they ARE savages! And we can feel better about ourselves.”
Few people wish to think of themselves as invaders, thieves, and genocidaires. The ability to rationalize is the ability to commit evil.
American Manifest Destiny inspired Nazi "Lebensraum", while eugenics policies were also inspired by involuntary sterilization programs undertaken by some US states
I make it a rule not to intervene in the political affairs of other nations. That is because I believe that even the most idealistic and well intentioned foreign interventions (take for example the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War) tend to have unsatisfactory outcomes.
Having said that, if you really want a more liberal, western-style Iran there is one thing you must do: you must vigorously, with all your heart and mind, oppose the western war against Iran.
And there is one thing you must not do: you must not in any way collaborate with or give comfort to those who are waging war against Iran.
The reason for these two simple rules lies in the political dynamic of Iranian society, which is known to all those who have had any experience of Iran and its people. When Iran comes under outside pressure, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, the conservative Shia faction is strengthened, and the liberal secularists lose ground. That is a fact, plain for all to see over the course of this year.
The Guardian's open letter will not move the Shia clerical establishment a single centimeter. It will only stiffen their resolve.
Don't get the idea that I am hostile to the religious conservatives. I am not at all. I simply see that Iran has its own ways of resolving social, religious and political issues, and that those ways work best in the total absence of outside interference. I believe that is true of most nations, but it is particularly true of Iran.
#47 may be dumb, but our Intelligence and National Security establishments are well aware of the dynamic you mention: internal support for a regime grows when a country is under external attack, as--often--does that regime's felt need to rely on repression. Plenty of examples elsewhere as well. One can only conclude that that is the intention of the policy makers. Perhaps because it strengthens the case at home for stronger intervention and installing a "friendly" regime.
The phenomenon is subtle and complex but not incomprehensible. Think back to the time when Britain entered the war against Nazi Germany. The members of the British Union of Fascists were detained or imprisoned. That was the "repression".
On the other side, the government worked to overcome class divisions within the country, it appealed to patriotism, it formed a government of national unity, and it made concessions where possible.
Iran is responding in a similar way. It has jailed the most intransigent supporters of the west, while making concessions to liberals in the social sphere. Its rhetoric has been extended beyond Muslim fundamentalism to the long history of Iranian civilization. The middle classes are being urged to put aside their personal aspirations, at least for the duration.
So far, it seems to be working, as it worked for Churchill in the 1940s. I am not one to make predictions as to what might happen after the war is concluded. A change of regime is possible. Or the regime could emerge stronger than it was. That is a matter that the Iranian people will have to decide for themselves. No one in the west will be able to force an outcome upon them.
Right, Susan! Abso-lutely, cobber! The way we continue to pay obeisance to the Yanks is not just nauseating, but dangerous. Our fearless leaders are so far up the Orange Lard-butt we can't see their toes. The lunatic pronouncements of His Orangeness and his sycophants are heard without demur in 'Straya. Our weak-kneed response to Israeli genocide and associated crimes is embarrassing, but to profess support for the Palestinian cause is to be accused of supporting terrorism. I'm extremely pissed off with what is laughably labelled a 'centre-left' government, and I suspect increasing numbers of us feel similarly.
I have nothing but contempt for those who claim to oppose Western imperialism - or more specifically who claim to oppose the rogue US regime - while at the same time allowing their world view to be shaped by the information managers of Western imperialism - the collaborators among us who get all of their information from the New York Times, or any of the other shameless instruments of imperialist propaganda, and busy themselves promulgating the company line.
Likewise I have nothing but contempt for those commentators that point out that the rogue US regime is the “richest country in the world” without ever asking why that is so. Or those feeble minded commentators that actually think the same criminal regime that has appropriated the world’s wealth through foul means would all of a sudden share the fruits of it’s criminality equally among it’s citizens – as if that in itself would be acceptable, and would make up for the wrongs it has committed.
Your “cut” – citizen of the rogue US regime – is a bag full of children’s limbs. Enjoy!
The main problem in the U.S. is the unshakable belief of ordinary Americans that the benefits of the "rule of the elite" will "trickle down" to everyone. They are conditioned to believe that wealth is magically created by the "elite" because the elite knows how to manage capital and it is better to have the crumbs than nothing. Americans at large fail to understand that that most of the wealth of the "elite" is extracted from the working ppl all over the world, including Americans themselves, and the crumbs they enjoy are only an insignificant percentage of what has been taken.
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Americans are having REALLY hard time realizing they have been exploited like cattle by their own "Elite", always trying to shift the blame to the undefined "Jews".
I don't think that belief in the elites is nearly as unshakeable now as it was 6 years ago. A lot has happened, and I've never seen so many people aware of just how...criminal...our government and corporations are.
I don't know if you'll see this or not, but Robin D.G. Kelly has withdrawn his name from the letter because “the circumstances in which we were asked to sign the letter were a bit shady” and that “what appeared in print wasn’t exactly what I had initially seen”, implying that the letter was changed after getting signatures. Also, Vijay Prashad produced information from Mumia that contradicts what the letter says, implying the signature was fabricated.
Yes. I hope more people learn that it's their job to work to influence (or take down and replace) the one government they have an opportunity to impact--their own!
The biggest terrorist empire in the world does not only wage wars using chemical and atomic weapons, they orchestrate coups, assassinations, fund and train terrorists cells, impose illegal sanctions killing millions in the poorest countries, they fund and instigate colour revolutions, they push propaganda media and use surveillance tech against activists, they steal land and resources and use institutions to keep the global south indebted, NATO is an aggressive war machine for the hegamon.
100% agree. Many of these empire targetted countries dare not even have a little more democracy because the moment they allow any sizeable voice of opposition to exist, the West’s CIA, MI6 and Mossad will immediately make use of that opposition to try to destabilise the country and to make it into a puppet state.
You’ll do what we tell you, or else, is the definition of American ‘diplomacy’, especially in the post-WWII era.
".... every socialist experiment in the 20th century - without exception - has been crushed, overthrown or invaded or corrupted, perverted or destabilized or otherwise had made life impossible for it, by the US. Not one socialist gov't or movement ... was permitted to rise or fall on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its guard against its all powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home.
It's as if the Wright brothers first experiments with flying machines all failed because automotive interests sabotage each test flight. And, then the good, God-fearing folk of the world looked upon them, took notice of the consequences, nodded their heads and wisely intoned solemnly 'man will never fly' " .. This is from Wm Blum "Killing Hope: US military and CIA Interventions since WWII" 2004
The great William Blum. I was honored to be on his emailing list and receive his weekly newsletter.
The key historical date to understand Iran is 1953: Decolonized Iran was going for Western-style democracy when the re-elected head of state Mossadegh was overthrown by the CIA and MI6 to install a despot Shah Sr. (as documented in US govt archives, Operation "Ajax"). This led to revolution and finally the theocracy that the West is now complaining about.
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youtu.be/mhYS59egWQc?t=315
youtube.com/shorts/eQ54eG4DjX0
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For 38 years (1941-1979), Shah 1.0 ruled Iran as a Western puppet, funneling the Iranian oil money to Western Corps. His secret police, SAVAK (trained by the CIA and Mossad) imprisoned, tortured, and killed thousands of political dissidents
youtube.com/shorts/vWo5EnhnnWc
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Iran Petroleum Consortium 1954-1979:
British Petroleum: 40%; Shell: 14%; Gulf: 7%; Exxon: 7%; Mobil: 7%; Chevron: 7%; Texaco: 7%; Compagnie Francaise des Petroles: 6%
youtube.com/shorts/Cn1JTw_z-Qw
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US in 2025: Meet the new Shah, same as the old Shah
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youtube.com/shorts/1YAgwOwpfik
youtube.com/watch?v=a1cJy93Fon8
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Dedollarization: How Iran challenges US dollar dominance and the petrodollar system:
youtube.com/watch?v=_ziGNmvOh6k&t=215s
"Iran has only survived the latest imperial onslaught because Tehran tightly controls what happens in that country."
This is entirely correct, and the same can be said for Russia and other countries that the Empire doesn't like.
Of course, the Empire cynically uses this as propaganda against those countries, while destabilizing them, the moment they let their guard down.
Congratulations on agreeing with somebody for a change, Feral!
:)
:Checks sky for very large asteroid incoming:
I had to read it twice, to make sure it was correct!! 0.0
How to Overthrow a Government: The US Color Revolution Playbook:
youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGlZDKjTtM
youtube.com/watch?v=YMl7eObvbmY
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"Controlled Chaos" is what Imperialist Security State does:
youtube.com/shorts/i790DajfHN8
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In Chaos, without a strong State to protect them, a country’s resources are free for grabs and anglo-murican imperialist hegemony is secured.
substack.com/home/post/p-198405335
Why aren't these "left wing individuals" more concerned with the political prisoners of "Israel"? The totally innocent children, women and men who are being abused in every conceivable way possible and now face the prospect of apartheid "hanging" without hearing just as they're in tortuous confinement without charge or hearing?
Yes! Why haven't CNN, FOX or MSNBC done a detailed Investigation as to WHY Mizz Izzy LEGALIZED RAPE of its Prisoners???
WHY does the US Govt ALLOW PEDOES to flee to Mizz Izzy EPSTEIN for protection from any possible arrest?
WHY in the USA, there has Not been One Arrest of an EPSTEIN Billionaire?
NOT ONE.
But Trump and the Z10 Congress, Dems & Repubs- Blue Team "Progressives" too - watched 165 Iranian school girls murdered as a Blood Sacrifice for the Rothschilds-Epstein Class and the Greater Israel Plan. Then they have the fnckin nerve to whine that their Motherhood is being attacked when they get mean tweets about their Frozen Eggs, like AOC.
Wow. Some people Never look in the mirror.
The Rothschilds-Epstein Class is building Our CAGE and Their new workforce.
🚫ALL DATA CENTERS ✌️
Remember when so-called "Epstein class" was called "Bourgeoisie"?
You can trace this Pedo Mount-batton Uncle ALL the way back to Weimar Germany, where you could order a child with your meal at restaurants. True european "Culture"
Why? $$$
Seriously this is the sort 1990s “look at both sides” crap that got us the brutal Iraq sanctions that was responsible for the deaths of 500,000 children.
The Iraq and Afghanistan invasions.
Libya's destruction.
The constant destruction of Venezuela, Sudan with no one pointing fingers to the governments, using the people’s money to kill other people.
Sick of it.
“The question is not “how long can democracy hold out against authoritarianism,” it is “how long can democracy swim in its own filth?”” - Benjamin Studebaker
And the media pretends everything is fine while the Earth burns.
Heads up1
Remember the sick U.S. bitch Albright saying that half a million dead children was worth the regime change war in Iraq?
rumble.com/vya5yf-albright-the-price-dead-children-was-worth-it.html
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Fmr CIA Officer Says The U.S. Is The Terrorist by its own definition (Iranian school bombing):
youtube.com/watch?v=_gSiI-E9IR4
substack.com/@kairostimenow/note/c-251327395
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CEPR study estimates ~500,000–600,000 excess deaths per year due to the western unilateral sanctions:
cepr.net/newsroom/new-study-estimates-over-half-a-million-people-die-each-year-due-to-unilateral-economic-sanctions/
But surely to begin with we have to look at all sides? So let's not start ostracising principles much of the fight is about because of a currently true opinion...it is the repression of the " looking at both sides crap" that let them get away with Russias " unprovoked invasion". To this day Europeans trying to suggest Russia had every reason in the world to take strong action are vilified as " Putin understanders", for fucks sake. And what about the most useful principle of all at this point " know your enemy"? I'll stop now, because you're right in intent, obviously..
idk, if you look at your side closely enough, the other side's arguments come into view automatically, imo.
No, our own heads, however scrupulously focused, can never by themselves come up with all the data needed to form an accurate map, especially when there are other subjectivities involved. I ‘m curious how you would spontaneously express such a solipsistic , hyper individualistic point of view…do you believe in “ the torture instrument of free will”?…if you think about it, billionaires buy the labor power of brains the results of which they claim as their own…that certainly helps them psychotically believe in their own super cognition…have you unwittingly fallen into one of the ruling classes ideological traps?
i don't believe in free will. i'm a card carrying commie (ml). my analysis is not hyperindividualistic. we never fell for the 'unprovoked invasion'-canard.
Hear Hear Poetry! We've got to be better, what goes around comes around and the status quo controls that merrygoround. Just keep loading it up with the truth and it'll break down someday.
I haven't read the letter yet, I just support your view.
Poetry aside, I read the letter and I'm forced to agree with Caitlin, whatever and whomever they are, that ti's letter is shite and that every sentence of it should have had a paragraph of caveats to the larger issue of a half century, a whole century and more of the long, long litany of fundamentally inhumane and unjust brackets for national prerogatives, and it is blind to the effects of its own rational coincidence with the Zionist project.
So, while I absolutely agree with you ethically, I can't in the context of the reality we all face.
Madeline Albright said that the Iraq sanctions that caused all those deaths were "worth it." One day I got curious : worth what? Just what was the goal of those sanctions? I couldn't find an answer. I got the impression that they wanted Iraq to overthrow Saddam and allow themselves to be ruled by the USA. In those innocent days the USA was too shy to come right out and say it. Saddam remained in power so the sanctions failed but somehow this was "worth it." Gross, eh?
I notice the comments indicate the commenters have no idea what Iran is like within the country. It's a functioning Republic and the people adored the Ayatollah the US murdered for Israel. He was their mentor and father figure. It is NOT a repressive country. It has never attacked anyone nor assassinated anyone, ever. That's what the CIA, Mosad, Shin Bet, MI6 does all the time, all over the world. I've been there recently and loved the people, who told me the women, their wives "rule the roost " laughing as they told me. They speak freely, as in Russia and China, inlike the west where one is put in jail for talking about Israel as it is, the most evil country in all of human history. We don't have democracy and freedom. The Iranians do. Russia and China do, too. Yes, I've been there, too. Putin is beloved. No, he doesn't kill people. I notice the propaganda is widespread and as Goebels said, if people hear a lie 26 times, they think it's true. The Chinese are the most advanced in modern technology and production. Xi Jinping brought 300 million people out of poverty and into the middle class. Russia did the same for 70 million. Russia, like Cuba, has excellent healthcare and education for all. In China one must pay for healthcare, but businesses are being told to offer healthcare insurance. BTW, The only people with free healthcare are the Uyghurs in schools for disabled children. Saw it myself. Go, I get so sick of US, Israel propaganda. Makes me want to throw up. My favorite country I've been to is Cuba. Who has bravely withstood the odious US who wants "their" Havana back. Narco Marco is determined to attack those good people. We must stop him. BTW, if you want to see what countries are like, go there.
I HAVE also been there, and it IS repressive. In some ways more than the average Western country, and in some ways less. It IS especially repressive towards religious minorities, notably Ba'hai.
Not to the extent of mass-murdering them all, as Christianity did the surviving Pagan witches, not so long ago historically.
All govt is by its nature repressive, because humans and power.
The point of Caitlin's article is not to whitewash away all the repressions in target nations, but to say that as Westerners, we should be examining the beams in our own eyes, and not the motes in someone elses.
"All govt is by its nature repressive, because humans and power."
Not all governments are Westphalian governments. And not all humans are infected with Western European worldviews, and the excessively simplistic notions of "human nature" built into the false notions built into "Enlightenment" ideologies like individualism and universalism.
Exclusive governance over geography, rather than relational sovereignty, is part of Western European supremacist ideologies being spread across the planet. These flawed governance structures, not the concept of governance itself, is the source of the repression.
Many societies have had to adopt Westphalian-like Institutions in order to protect themselves from ongoing Western settler-colonialism that doesn't recognize the existence of peoples who don't also use Westphalian governance.
Notably, I didn't say "Human nature". I said "Humans and power". Every single society on Earth and in history struggles with this dilemma. Power attracts the corruptible.
There are only two escapes that I am aware of - greatly limiting executive power, as in traditional Switzerland, or the Plains Indians practice of forcing those in power to give away all their wealth during their tenure.
Either genuine democracy, or making the position unattractive to those who would misuse it.
The countries that created the Westphalia doctrine were not particularly nice places to live for the large majority within them.
Thanks for engaging. Far more nuance than the original note suggested.
Sounds like your intent was to focus on something like the popular phrase, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
Thanks for the clarification about "humans and power", but I believe a few people replying are noticing the "All govt by its nature" part and thinking you were referencing something entirely different.
I'm a settler Canadian who was born in and still live in Dish With One Spoon territory (Great Lakes, St. Lawrence).
While I believe that all Westphalian governments (exclusivity over geography, rather than relational non-exclusivity) are repressive by nature, I don't think that applies to all governments. I believe this repressive nature very obviously applies to the settler-colonial institutions of Canada which I am a citizen of, but that system is foreign to this land (an ongoing part of British and French Christian colonialism). I personally believe the 5 members of the UNs WEOG (Western Europe and Other Group) that share no border with Western Europe are the most problematic.
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is an example of a governance structure deliberately created to dilute executive power. This is a participatory democracy centuries before European representative governance had sufficient suffrage to be comparable.
I am happy to hear the references to Plains Indians. I personally know more about the peoples of 1D1S territories, but have also found it interesting to learn about how potlatch factors into domestic governance in the Pacific Northwest Coast. Governance on this continent did not fit what Europeans understood, and even though the term "hereditary" is applied, it is actually far more accountable to the community than the popularity contests used by Western representative democracies.
Well, I probably wrote too quickly, and with slightly too broad a brush.
"The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is an example of a governance structure deliberately created to dilute executive power. This is a participatory democracy centuries before European representative governance had sufficient suffrage to be comparable."
I presume you've read Graebe'rs stunning 'Dawn of Everything'?
I haven't read it yet, but it is in my queue. A few people have suggested I might like it.
Interesting take, but I don't think one can properly call most Indigenous American political structures "governments" at all, in what's now the US anyway.
They functioned a lot more like anarcho-syndicalist communes than anything like a Westphalian government, as you put it. There were some exceptions, of course, like the Anasazi and the "Mound Builder" culture.
Right now I'm thinking about a piece on how socialism in America might look like regarding land ownership and management, and I do think that old Indigenous knowledge should be considered.
OF course they weren't Westphalian governments, a style that originated in Western Europe and is unique to the history of that region.
Why look only to Western Europe for ideas to move beyond Western European ideologies?
Why think that Indigenous ideas are "old" rather than far more contemporary and relevant than outdated Western European ideologies?
Turtle Island ideas were not improved when learned about by Marx/Engles/etc, but made far lesser.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBFvxkvpi2w
Socialism is, at best, a minor critique of Capitalism that maintains the vast majority of issues that have been exposed by Capitalism.
"All govt is by its nature repressive" Good grief. And me thinking this libertarian stuff had gone out of style.
Now that clarifications have been made, I think we can also move away from thinking this person was making a reference to "libertarian stuff".
I think looking at Haudenosaunee Confederacy governance, and how ideas became much lesser (and clearly racist) when they were brought back to Europe, shows one of the dynamics we can see playing out in these conversations.
Stolen Anarchy: Playing Indian & The Roots of Collectivism | TwinRabbit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBFvxkvpi2w
When I read the term "All govt" I didn't assume Western European style Westphalian (exclusive executive control over a geographical region) was the definition of "All govt". I included non-Westphalian (such as relational governance) within the concept of "All govt", and disagreed with the statement that was made.
But if I was asked if I believed all Westphalian governments, by the nature of being Westphalian, were repressive then I would agree. Geographical exclusivity, not being relational, and not having an ethic of non-interference will make these exclusive governance systems repressive.
(For clarity: I'm not talking about the "Sovereign Citizens" movement, which is an even more hyper-individualized version of Westphalian governance built upon Terra Nullius nonsense, not its opposite).
Name 1 country where the entire population is happy with their Govt?
Now China is doing pretty well in that respect, and is earning that positivity through, frankly, being a damned good Govt - especially when compared to the Western regimes.
Would you honestly argue that the Chinese Govt is not at all repressive, however?
Not, by the way, in comparison to the growing technofeudal bankster-controlled militarising and highly surveilled West, or faked up BS about "Uighur Genocides" - but as an absolute?
If you were to sit down and design YOUR 'perfect system', would it be identical to Modern China?
And if NOT - what would be the characteristic of what you would change from the current Chinese model? And why.
Or is there 1 governing system on the planet that you DO think is absolutely 'perfect'? Which.
And no, I'm NOT a "Libt-tard", as it happens. Keep your ad homs to yourself.
Is both "lib-tard" and "libt-tard" a thing now? Ick.
Wouldn't libertarianism fit easily within Western Liberalism in the false-binary of Western Liberalism vs Western Conservatism?
BTW: I included the Anglosphere originating propaganda around the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in a submission to the Canadian government on UNDRIP. I know there is likely to be some repression, because I know that there has been far more opression via CANZUS governments over a much larger period of time when it comes to pre-existing populations as foreign CANZUS governments made land claims.
https://r.flora.ca/p/western-european-identity
I notice that the Dominion of Canada hasn't even obeyed their own (British) laws, and had an appropriate Haldimand Tract Autonomous Region. The Dominion government government included the entire of the Haldimand Tract within so-called "Ontario" in 1867, and has never been the slightest bit honourable.
https://www.sixnations.ca/LandsResources/index.htm
Well, in the spirit of 'reclaiming words', I commonly call myself a "Proud Libtard", although not quite accurately, but close enough not to be a falsehood. I sit in the rough boundary of 'left-leaning anarchist' - Anarchism of course relating to Liberalism as right is to fascist, and left is to communist, and left-leaning in that I support welfare and such socialist ideas as free healthcare and education.
The state might as well do SOMETHING useful while extorting money out of us for its various wars, mass surveillance, and oligarch-welfare.
I could have been more specific and used Randroids, although they have largely taken over US Libertarian circles, no doubt with help from the Establishment and the mindnumbing numbers of various US secret police forces.
Libt-tard I just find an amusing term. :)
Trad-Libts, now an endangered species, can probably be seen along the lines of right-leaning Anarchism.
I was born on this continent, but never quite fit into the mainstream culture.
I spent decades trying to figure out where I fit within Canada's Overton window, and what (if any) common political labels would best match and simplify political conversations.
Canada has a few more corporate brands within the “Capitalist Party” than the USA that can win seats, and I was for a time an organizer with the Green Party of Ontario and Canada. I’ve voted in Progressive Conservative and Conservative party leadership races (Ick – Canada adopted US style primaries, even though the Prime Minister isn’t a separate ballot question – corruption of the process), and voted for candidates nominated across several more corporate brands.
It is only in my 50s that I started to do some self-directed learning on anti-racism and anti-colonialism, and came to recognize that while the institutions that grant me citizenship (Canada) and my Scottish, Irish, and French ancestors are from Western Europe, the way I see the world does not fit within Western European worldviews.
Concepts that are taken for granted by a majority of those around me include concepts I question ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenmenthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_lawhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism ).
It is great that you feel some connection with some politics within the USA. I find I have to look at Indigenous nationalities of this continent and East/South Asian philosophies to read about things that resonate with how I see the world.
Israel is but an extension of the Anglo-American empire
youtu.be/nXOHNgalVvQ?t=375
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The U.S. has funded Israel for decades, not the other way around
Israel is a very small country, only idiots believe they could afford all those wars
youtube.com/shorts/SSpC486pxGA
According to the US State Department, between 1946 and 2023 US gave Israel at least $212 billion, it's only officially.
In 2024 alone, the U.S. government sent at least $17.9 billion in military funds to Israel
AIPAC doesn't print dollars. FED does. Just follow the money.
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"Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect our interests in the region"
-FJB, 1986-2024
Your comment will hurt many people and if you are in the west you can get locked up for writing this truth.
"...as though Iran would look the way it looks today if the US and Israel had not been working to collapse and control it for generations."
This is like blaming an abused wife for screaming and acting out at the drop of a leaf. They've been living under a stressful and violent threat for years now and are coping the best they can. Westerners who have been bullying other countries can stfu as far as I'm concerned. They have no moral leg to stand on.
I 100% agree with this. America has done more to destroy the world in the last 150 years, then even the European powers did over 400 years (and I’m not minimizing the terrible atrocities of the European monarchy’s). This country needs a reckoning of our atrocities and we need to answer for our crimes in a new world order.
Don't forget how israel has badgered the US into a heap of wars because they want the land.
So true
In 250 years of USA history it has been at war for 233 of them:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ooMCvGlbbc4
Despite the US have never been invaded by a foreign military
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US launched 253 military interventions since 1991, and 471 since 1798:
http://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/09/13/us-251-military-interventions-1991/
***
The US Wars killed up to 4 700 000 Humans since 2001:
https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/costs/human
https://www.thesouthasiatimes.com/story/US-WAR-2001
Yes. I was counting our military expansionism that really kicked off after the Philippine American wars, but you are right. The genocide of native Americans, the land grabs from Mexico, all of it is in our history and needs accounting for. Heck even in the Declaration of Independence Americans complained that they were prohibited from expanding westward and stealing land from the “native savages”.
800+ overseas US military bases around the world provide constant export of Imperiali.. "democracy" and "freedom"
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youtu.be/8w7MFJZA9_w?t=206
youtu.be/zHBYevzaNIE?t=707
youtu.be/NpjDyhGyjNk?t=817
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American Imperialism saw that the Spanish Empire was quickly loosing control over some of its Latin American colonies and swooped in to take them over (Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Philippines, Guam, and later Hawaii, American Samoa, Panama canal and the Virgin Islands).
youtu.be/F_pxZ-Rl6DM?t=1056
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In 1899, 60 000 US troops invaded the Philippines - a massacre and genocide of women and children, the new “Open Door Policy”.
substack.com/home/post/p-201348278
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"United States" to Imperial America:
youtube.com/watch?v=Df4R-xdKvpM
youtu.be/NpjDyhGyjNk?t=817
youtube.com/shorts/UHlKN22zThw
CJ>>"It’s crazy this even needs to be said, but if you are a westerner your ONLY job is to oppose the abuses of the western empire. Not Iran. Not China. Not Russia, Cuba or North Korea."
and
CJ>>"If you live in the US or one of its allied nations, then you live under the single most tyrannical and murderous power structure on earth, and that’s where your focus belongs."
YES! Caitlin, I agree with you 100% !!!
Also, "The western empire therefore makes the world a crueler and more abusive place not only by its direct acts of cruelty and abuse, but by the way it forces its targets to choose between (A) annihilation and (B) using extreme amounts of force to retain their sovereignty."
This is SO IMPORTANT to understand, and most people miss it.
Thank you Caitlin! 🙏❤️
100% agree. Do Westerners ever reflect on why indigenous Americans were killed by European settlers? I suspect it’s because European settlers focus on shortcomings of indigenous peoples, thereby giving cover (if not legitimacy) to settler violence towards indigenous peoples. We should not repeat this mistake.
Nailed it. I've recently been thinking alot about this reheating of the old "bringing civilisation to the barbarians" attitude. It really hasn't changed in centuries.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a conference in Europe openly praised colonialism. It was pretty mindboggling. Trump said in his inaugural address that the USA should "add to its territory." They clearly are serious about this.
Dehumanization has always been the basic prerequisite for colonization, slavery and genocide.
The "Conquistadors" treated the American Indians like animals, claiming they have no "soul". The same way slavers treated the black people.
And this is exactly how Colonialism inspired Nazism/Fascism.
Similarly, the Brits and Western Europeans still consider the Slavs to be "Untermensch", tho they would never openly admit it.
youtu.be/e5VVqfffIjs?t=45
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Here is none other than Himmler, talking about the necessity of settling Eastern Europe in order to bring ‘culture’:
"Eastern Europe never progressed beyond a certain primitiveness. It has never known anything but chaos because it lacked mankind, the valuable bearer of culture, the genius who systematically planned peaceful reconstruction, who ordered the well designed exploitation of the immense treasures and the fertility of the soil."
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"I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia.. by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way..has come in and taken their place"
-Colonial Secretary and a racist pig W. Churchill
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"We are a master race, which must remember that the lowliest German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the population here."
-Erich Koch, Nazi Reichskommissar (Gauleiter) in Ukraine from September 1941 until August 1944
phdn.org/archives/holocaust-history.org/works/imt/imtnew/03/htm/t406.htm
Americans are VERY good at willful ignorance and double standards.. The best in the world, actually.
A trait developed over generations ever since the genocide of the native American population.
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G. Carlin: A country founded by slave owners who wanted to be "free":
youtube.com/shorts/bhIfU2QIwig
Nah, it was about the land. The settlers wanted the land, and they took it. Oh, they came up with all sorts of very good, logical and of course MORAL rationalizations, but that's what my ancestors did.
A lot of them knew that at the time and were a lot more honest about it. The Indigenous people were in their way, too weak to stop them, and the only way they could obtain "freedom" in the capitalism of the times was to own and/or exploit land to sell stuff for money and by God they were going to do that so their kids might have better, easier lives.
It was about the land. Everything else was bullshit or a psyop, take your pick.
Thanks, you are probably right. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were also well-meaning people among the settlers who selectively focus on indigenous people's shortcomings without acknowledging that they were under pressure from settler violence. For example, I am sure some Australian aborigines would have attacked settlers to keep them away, but this is interpreted as an unprovoked attack. Similarly, much of the Western media portrays October 7 as an unprovoked attack without taking into account the decades of Israeli pressure on the Palestinians in Gaza, effectively turning the whole of Gaza into a concentration camp. And so many Westerners seem to blame the Iranian government for being "oppressive" without taking into account the extreme economic pressure that Iran has been under, and without acknowledging Western complicity in overthrowing a democratically elected government and imposing an authoritarian Shah on the Iranian people, as well as supporting Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran, to the point of (I understand) supplying Saddam with chemical weapons (or the ingredients needed to create chemical weapons) that were used against the Iranians. Where is the self-criticism? Why only focus on Iranian shortcomings and ignore Western bad faith? This is an old trick that goes all the way back to settler violence, colonialism and imperialism.
Well, yeah, the settlers were invaders, they were taking land, so of course there would be indigenous attacks, and of course the settlers would be thinking, “Why, we’ve been here for years, and the Indians were friendly to US, not our fault so-and-so screwed them over, so they are attacking us now treacherously and without warning and so very, very unfairly! So they ARE savages! And we can feel better about ourselves.”
Few people wish to think of themselves as invaders, thieves, and genocidaires. The ability to rationalize is the ability to commit evil.
Exactly right!
American Manifest Destiny inspired Nazi "Lebensraum", while eugenics policies were also inspired by involuntary sterilization programs undertaken by some US states
I make it a rule not to intervene in the political affairs of other nations. That is because I believe that even the most idealistic and well intentioned foreign interventions (take for example the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War) tend to have unsatisfactory outcomes.
Having said that, if you really want a more liberal, western-style Iran there is one thing you must do: you must vigorously, with all your heart and mind, oppose the western war against Iran.
And there is one thing you must not do: you must not in any way collaborate with or give comfort to those who are waging war against Iran.
The reason for these two simple rules lies in the political dynamic of Iranian society, which is known to all those who have had any experience of Iran and its people. When Iran comes under outside pressure, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, the conservative Shia faction is strengthened, and the liberal secularists lose ground. That is a fact, plain for all to see over the course of this year.
The Guardian's open letter will not move the Shia clerical establishment a single centimeter. It will only stiffen their resolve.
Don't get the idea that I am hostile to the religious conservatives. I am not at all. I simply see that Iran has its own ways of resolving social, religious and political issues, and that those ways work best in the total absence of outside interference. I believe that is true of most nations, but it is particularly true of Iran.
#47 may be dumb, but our Intelligence and National Security establishments are well aware of the dynamic you mention: internal support for a regime grows when a country is under external attack, as--often--does that regime's felt need to rely on repression. Plenty of examples elsewhere as well. One can only conclude that that is the intention of the policy makers. Perhaps because it strengthens the case at home for stronger intervention and installing a "friendly" regime.
The phenomenon is subtle and complex but not incomprehensible. Think back to the time when Britain entered the war against Nazi Germany. The members of the British Union of Fascists were detained or imprisoned. That was the "repression".
On the other side, the government worked to overcome class divisions within the country, it appealed to patriotism, it formed a government of national unity, and it made concessions where possible.
Iran is responding in a similar way. It has jailed the most intransigent supporters of the west, while making concessions to liberals in the social sphere. Its rhetoric has been extended beyond Muslim fundamentalism to the long history of Iranian civilization. The middle classes are being urged to put aside their personal aspirations, at least for the duration.
So far, it seems to be working, as it worked for Churchill in the 1940s. I am not one to make predictions as to what might happen after the war is concluded. A change of regime is possible. Or the regime could emerge stronger than it was. That is a matter that the Iranian people will have to decide for themselves. No one in the west will be able to force an outcome upon them.
The west cynically does everything in its power to discredit Iranian liberals.
This is entirely intentional.
? I don't understand.
The west kills liberals and double-crosses them.at every opportunity, leaving onky the hardliners, as they make a more convenient cartoon enemy.
The west does not seek the reform of Iran but its destruction.
Yep
Hard agree. If you are an Australian leftie, your focus should be closing down Pine Gap.
Right, Susan! Abso-lutely, cobber! The way we continue to pay obeisance to the Yanks is not just nauseating, but dangerous. Our fearless leaders are so far up the Orange Lard-butt we can't see their toes. The lunatic pronouncements of His Orangeness and his sycophants are heard without demur in 'Straya. Our weak-kneed response to Israeli genocide and associated crimes is embarrassing, but to profess support for the Palestinian cause is to be accused of supporting terrorism. I'm extremely pissed off with what is laughably labelled a 'centre-left' government, and I suspect increasing numbers of us feel similarly.
Gee, why do you suppose this same phenomenon is seen in the UK, Europe and Canada?
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."
-Henry (Heinz) Kissinger
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Ukraine learned that the hard way..
Been wanting thst to happen since I first head who had the ruling of it.
💯, my blood boiled when I read it..
I have nothing but contempt for those who claim to oppose Western imperialism - or more specifically who claim to oppose the rogue US regime - while at the same time allowing their world view to be shaped by the information managers of Western imperialism - the collaborators among us who get all of their information from the New York Times, or any of the other shameless instruments of imperialist propaganda, and busy themselves promulgating the company line.
Likewise I have nothing but contempt for those commentators that point out that the rogue US regime is the “richest country in the world” without ever asking why that is so. Or those feeble minded commentators that actually think the same criminal regime that has appropriated the world’s wealth through foul means would all of a sudden share the fruits of it’s criminality equally among it’s citizens – as if that in itself would be acceptable, and would make up for the wrongs it has committed.
Your “cut” – citizen of the rogue US regime – is a bag full of children’s limbs. Enjoy!
The main problem in the U.S. is the unshakable belief of ordinary Americans that the benefits of the "rule of the elite" will "trickle down" to everyone. They are conditioned to believe that wealth is magically created by the "elite" because the elite knows how to manage capital and it is better to have the crumbs than nothing. Americans at large fail to understand that that most of the wealth of the "elite" is extracted from the working ppl all over the world, including Americans themselves, and the crumbs they enjoy are only an insignificant percentage of what has been taken.
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Americans are having REALLY hard time realizing they have been exploited like cattle by their own "Elite", always trying to shift the blame to the undefined "Jews".
***
youtu.be/0V71NSM3A1A?t=110
youtube.com/shorts/ox7Qh_N8LwQ
youtube.com/watch?v=XgnjltFXBCE
I don't think that belief in the elites is nearly as unshakeable now as it was 6 years ago. A lot has happened, and I've never seen so many people aware of just how...criminal...our government and corporations are.
I don't know if you'll see this or not, but Robin D.G. Kelly has withdrawn his name from the letter because “the circumstances in which we were asked to sign the letter were a bit shady” and that “what appeared in print wasn’t exactly what I had initially seen”, implying that the letter was changed after getting signatures. Also, Vijay Prashad produced information from Mumia that contradicts what the letter says, implying the signature was fabricated.
Yes. I hope more people learn that it's their job to work to influence (or take down and replace) the one government they have an opportunity to impact--their own!
The biggest terrorist empire in the world does not only wage wars using chemical and atomic weapons, they orchestrate coups, assassinations, fund and train terrorists cells, impose illegal sanctions killing millions in the poorest countries, they fund and instigate colour revolutions, they push propaganda media and use surveillance tech against activists, they steal land and resources and use institutions to keep the global south indebted, NATO is an aggressive war machine for the hegamon.