Saxby Chambliss Thinks The Iranian People Don't Remember the 1953 CIA Coup
By Heather Friday Jun 19, 2009 9:00am
Besides the fact that it is down right infuriating to listen to the likes of Saxby Chambliss now feigning concern about fair and free elections anywhere, the Senator also thinks that the Iranian people, if asked, would not remember what the CIA and the United States government did to their democracy back in 1953.
Reza Aslan pointed out that the opposite is true during his recent appearance on Hardball:
ASLAN: You know, he mentioned the CIA coup of 1953, which most Americans don't know anything about, but which, I got to tell you, is like the core event, the ur-event of the 20th century as far as Iranians are concerned. It's their revolutionary war, civil war all wrapped up into a single thing. And to hear a president even mention it, let alone acknowledge it in that way, had a huge effect in the cafes in Iran.
The Republicans continue to use the events in Iran as a game of political football, with little care as to how our actions here, if we're looked at as meddling again in their politics, could make things worse.
Transcript below the fold.
MATTHEWS: Republican senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia is a member of the Armed Services and the Intelligence Committees. What do you make of what Senator Kerry said, Senator Saxby?
CHAMBLISS: Well, I disagree with Senator Kerry with respect to the president`s not just silence but kind of mutation (SIC) on this. You know, I thought the president was right to give it a day or two to see what direction we thought these elections were going in, Chris. But now it`s pretty obvious from these large demonstrations all over Iran that these elections were held in a fraudulent way. And we are a beacon of hope for freedom and democracy around the world, and one thing we`ve always stood for is free and open elections.
Here we know that we`ve got a leader in Iran who was elected in a fraudulent election, and I think it`s incumbent upon this president, just as other world leaders like Sarkozy and the prime minister of Canada have come out very strongly in opposition to these elections and what`s going on, for him to take a stand that`s a pretty strong stand, and we just simply haven`t seen that. I don`t think it`s the right direction that America needs to be perceived as taking in this situation.
MATTHEWS: Well, we`ve got a long history of interfering in Iran. We interfered back when they had a democracy in the early part of the `50s, when Kermit Roosevelt and the CIA went in there and overturned those elections and put in the "peacock throne" and enforced a monarchy kind of government. Do you think we`re credible as critics of democracy of Iran? Is the United States credible in the eyes of those people and those crowds as caring about democracy in Iran?
CHAMBLISS: Oh, I don`t think there`s any question but what we are. You know, they don`t have to agree with us on everything. The people that are marching in the streets are not marching in a pro-American way. They`re simply marching in a protest of an election that was stolen from them. And as Americans, we ought to be willing to stand up and say, Hey, these people are right and they ought to have a free and open election in Iran, irrespective of whether we have disagreements with them on a major scale on other issues. But certainly, we have credibility.
MATTHEWS: Well, I guess it comes down to the question of nationalism and countries resenting outside influence. I know we would resent it. We would always resent it, any other country getting involved in our election, especially the disputed election of 2000. We don`t want anybody else talking to us about our elections. Khrushchev back in `60 wanted Kennedy to win, but he didn`t say a word because he knew it would help Nixon. Wouldn`t it help Ahmadinejad for us to say, We really don`t like the results of your election, we would have preferred it if Mousavi had won?
CHAMBLISS: Well, you know, that`s not the point.
MATTHEWS: Why isn`t it? Because from the point of view over there, won`t they be saying, Hey, you Americans are rooting for the opposition because Ahmadinejad doesn`t like you guys?
CHAMBLISS: Well, I don`t know that anybody was rooting for the opposition. I guess you could say that we would have preferred for the other guy to have won, but we don`t know if he would have been any different. But the point of the matter is that the Iranian people ought to have the right to a free and open election. They didn`t have that. They ought to have the right to choose who they want. And we`re not meddling by simply saying that these elections were not conducted in a free and open and democratic manner. They advertised them to be that, but it`s pretty obvious that they weren`t.
And for the United States president to be silent on this, Chris, while other leaders are speaking out, I think puts us in a position of saying, Well, you know, we`re just going to go along with whoever gets elected over there, and that`s not -- that`s just not right.
MATTHEWS: What do you make of the president`s concern that our history over there -- he`s voiced this in the Cairo speech -- that our history over there of getting involved with Kermit Roosevelt and the CIA, overthrowing those elections back in the `50s, getting rid of their democracy when they had one, gives us such a bad reputation in that country that if we go in there now, it`ll look like we`re just trying to grab influence in Iran again to our advantage, to get the oil back, to get the influence back that we had there under the shah?
CHAMBLISS: Well, that election was, what, almost 60 years ago now. The world has changed dramatically since then. And I dare say that you go up to any of those people in Teheran who are protesting in the streets and say, Hey, what about the United States meddling in your election in the `50s, they would shake their heads, like, What in the world are you talking about?
That`s not what they`re protesting about. These folks are protesting an election that was stolen from them last week. And that`s why it`s so critically important that America speak with a loud and clear voice in support of free, open, and democratic elections. And frankly, Chris, we`re not doing that from an administration standpoint. You`re hearing folks like John McCain and others out there strongly advocating this position, and they are the ones that are being heard by the Iranian people and not the president of the United States.
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What about 2000 or 2004?
What about norm coleman. Chamblis has no credibility!
republicanism is a mental illness!
Where was all the concern for the people of Iran, back when his presidential nominee was singing "Bomb bomb Iran"?
and what kind of name is Saxby ?
he he he. I'm thinking maybe one of his parents played the saxaphone.
by Talmadge Heflin?
Actually his real first name is Clarence. His nickname by all rights should be Lumpy.
because of the likes of this braying mouthpiece.
Oh...yea...right...I remember him. He's the racist goober who disenfranchised tens of thousands of minority voters in Georgia and stole the election.
Yes...a man we should certainly listen to.
He's also the guy who got elected by calling a triple amputee Viet Nam War vet a coward and a traitor. This filthy shitbag isn't fit to represent a dungheap, let alone Georgia-- but, then, I repeat myself.
Sometimes I just want to tear my hair out when I hear the stupidity coming from the right. These guys would be really entertaining except that there are people out there who take them seriously and vote them into office time after time after time. That's scary. The true, unvarnished state of our woefully inadequate education system is revealed every time they open their mouths.
no real elections in a long time. How come so few intelligent people are holding political office now? I am trying to determine exactly when the elections went south (no pun intended). FDR was real. Truman was real. I think Eisenhower was for real. Kennedy was real. Does it start to get murky then? Is that why Johnson declined to run for a second term?
ignorant, old, white, photogenic courtier for the corporatocracy's disinformation noise machine.
Oh, and before I forget . . . Fuck you, Dick Cheney.
The people in Iran are practically obsessed with it!!
But what chickenhawk Saxby Chambliss doesn't point out is that while the election interference took place 56 years ago, the Iranian people finally got fed up with the US puppet Shah that we installed then in 1979, a scant 30 years ago. Of course Tweety doesn't point this out because he's...well...Tweety.
...and the fact that it's politically inconvenient to mention the fact that Operation Ajax is largely if not solely responsible for the current state of US-Iranian relations (or rather, the lack thereof). The possibility cannot be ruled out that had it not been for Operation Ajax -- and American greed for easy access to Iranian oil, to which the newly-elected Prime Minister at the time potentially presented an obstacle -- the Ayatollahs might never have returned to power in Iran and all of this might never have been an issue in the first place. It's all fine and good for Matthews to reference the coup -- I'm actually somewhat surprised that he was even willing to mention it -- but he nevertheless failed to (or deliberately chose not to) discuss the connection between the coup and the current state of our relations with Iran.
And let's not forget the Superbill: Iranians printing US $100s to fund anti-US terrorism after 1979. It was made possible by the US giving the Shah plates, presses, paper and ink to print his own $100s.
This is called blowback, but the likes of Matthews and Chambliss blow something else...smoke out of their asses, I mean.
...Operation Ajax is one piece of political skullduggery which came back to bite us in the backside with a positive vengeance -- literally as well as figuratively, it seems! -- so much so that we're still trying to deal with the consequences more than fifty years later.
That's some big-time blowback...seriously!
The muslims have long memories.
Goober Bush said "We've moved on" about war crimes three months previous, but to the muslim world, The Crusades of a thousand years ago are current events.
Of course they're going to remember 1953 just as they remember European attitudes toward Turkey (calling the Ottoman empire the "sick man or Europe") and invasions of their lands in Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea and east to Afghanistan. They even remember the Spanish overrunning islam in the Philippines.
The mentality that says the Iranians would forget 1953 requires the same stupidity that said the US would be "welcomed like liberators" in Iraq.
How could anyone vote to represent them as one of their state's Senators someone so stupid and deceitful as this jerk Chambliss?
..smoke and mirrors and fear!
rigged and/or stolen elections.....
When I was in the Air Force it was smoke, mirrors and razor blades.
Stop consuming. Stop watching television.
Work stoppages. Protests. Sit ins. Mail campaigns.
You forgot about fart-ins.
as an effective large campaign tool, but I've been saying for years that the heart of the beast is encased in consumerism and the lure that catches its prey is television.
If people threw their tubes out the window, the rest would naturally follow.
How about the Ferdinand Porsche & Zündapp Käfer?
Traitor Chambliss spews nonsense and Tweety lets it slide.
It would be Un-American to expose our own corruption and fraud, like Micheal Moore says.
"Intelligence" committee is kind of a non sequitur. I mean, don't you have to provide some evidence of even a scintilla of Intelligence or at least, brain-stem function to sit on that committee???
This is why we are so screwed in this country: we have too many idiotic, lame-brained, bigoted, blowhards involved in our government and 'ruling class'. It may soon be time for us to take a cue form the Iranians.....
That think scintilla is the name of a French parfuma.
Either that or Gollyzilla's stinky younger brother who's always tagging along.
..remember Kent State?
I remember
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i86oweIj95s
I was in college at the time and we organized a vigil and march in the community. I also attended marches against the Viet Nam War.
Are you suggesting that at no point in the future is it a good idea to organize peaceful demonstrations on a mass scale because someone could get hurt? Are not millions already being hurt every single day because have no education? no health care? no home to live in? no food to eat? In the United States of America?
I think it will soon be evident to most Americans that we'll need to do something to change the direction we're headed - if health care isn't the issue, maybe the takeover of all regulations by the Fed will be; or, the demise of the US dollar; or food/energy shortages....?? Will there be another Kent State? I'd have to say probably.
...I would call it sinister Machiavellian maneuvering. He's obviously just taking whatever side will suit his puppet masters, and in this case, his sudden concern over "democracy" springs from the desire to antagonize Iran. I don't know if the election truly was stolen in Iran, and it wouldn't surprise me if it was. However, that is a matter for the Iranian people to sort out and excuse my language, but it's none of our fucking business. We can certainly express concern as a nation about a stolen election, but my fear is that these protests will be used as a justification for some sort of intervention on Iran; probably taking the form of a coup d'etat in plain public view.
Traditional republican and libertarian tenets tell us to mind our own business as a nation, and for that reason, people like this ass-hat are not real republicans. They may have an 'R' next to their name, but they should have a 'C' next to it, signifying their affiliation with the corporate fascist party.
election in Iran when we did nothing to protest two here? At least two. It certainly isn't our business. You know, glass houses. These people are determined to start a war with Iran, and meanwhile, Kim Jong-il is trying to nuke Hawaii. It just all gets curiouser and curiouser.
I agree. I have no way of knowing what the hell is actually happening in Iran, but I am very troubled by what I've heard the last week in the MSM. While at a resturant and at other locations, I've heard the word 'His Supreme Leader' or some other loaded adjective to describe the president of Iran.
It all looks like corporate America is gearing up to get Americans behind an invasion and occupation of Iran, which really is what the hacks behind the scenes have been vying for since Khomeni took power in '79.
I am very troubled by it.
that Tweety is just another beltway hack masquerading as a journalist.
That Matthews doesn't have Tom (your always welcome here) Delay weighing in on this. Tweety is just the pressure valve ensuring MSNBC doesn't become too popular. He is on 3 hours a day (west coast), that is 12.5 percent of their air time. Gets me away from the TV anyway.
Wow.
No words
That makes it ok to fuck with them more? WTF does your shitassed assessment of Iranians got to do with anything? We haven't forgotten the Revolutionary War, The War of 1812, The Indian Wars, THe Mexian - American War, The Spanish American War, WWI, WWII, The Korean Conflict, all occuring BEFORE 1953.
Does this insulting asshole think that the highly educated people of Iran just say "fuck it" when it comes to their own history?
He's on the 'Select Committee on Intelligence?' Really? this stupid mofo cracka from GA rates a seat on Intelligence, and this is what his sources are telling him? Or is this another example of Thug 'Anal Factology,' that is, the act of pulling facts from one's backside.
I just made it up. Hope you like it.
I'm sure Chambliss like most Southern racist fucks still laments the Civil War.
to those sad arsed 'Stars and Bars' crowd, It's the war of Northern Aggression...a rewrite, since it was the south that started it.
He probably sees the Iranian people on a par with Somalian pirates, but not as brown. The ignorance makes your eyes water.
The American People don't remember the assassination of JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, John Lennon.
Good God!
Where were ya in 2000 - 2004, you hypocrite!
PS. Watch where ya put your hands... ya perv.
Around Tweety's pecker? Or vice versa?
I was referring to that clip awhile back during x-mas. The one with the group photo.
.
√
Tweety...is Chris Matthews.
√
Don't you mean the "grope photo"?
...for the much needed clarification. Your time and effort is appreciated and as always welcomed. ♥
…flows forth ignorant nonsense. It’s their nature.
We should remember how Iran kept its tight little fists on the American hostages during our presidential election of 1980, making Jimmy Carter look like a fool, and virtually guaranteeing the election of Ronald Reagan and 28 years of hard right American policy. Smart meddling, Ayatollah!
One of the most traitorous acts in US history. May Reagan spend eternity getting a pineapple shoved up his ass every day.
Inquiring minds, and whatever.
http://www.seabean.com/jewelry/jpg/lodoicea_m...
fruit for Ollie North and Dick Cheney too?
because honestly he never knew about it, that those eye-rinians wouldn't either. After all brown people, even if they are the cradle of the caucasian persuasion, are not as bright as the sparking white Southern gentlemen....
That is my strawman, and I am sticking to it... like Jesus.
The Fertile Crescent which included Iran and Iraq was the birthplace of human civilization
But the Caucasian race came from the Caucasus mountains
You could say we were an occident of birth.
... some of those fellows that went west then became the caucasian persuasion. Given that the caucasian region were a perennial region of the Persian empire, and that early aryans counted the mountains of Northern Iran as their stomping grounds... I don't think I was that way off ;-)
Actually Aryans is a group of languages, not races, that include Farsi Iranian).
Caucasians are more like Eurasians from the Indus Valley, and the Germanic and Slavic languages aren't counted among the Aryan languages.
to have educated people criticizing Republicans and their policies. Level the playing field.
(the always shiity) cnn has a bried history of iran that "starts" in, wouldnt'cha know, 1979.
we started the coup that shattered iranian democracy (for, get this, nationalization of the oil industry). then we stood by and supported--for almost 4 decades--the repressive shah and his (our) bloody SAVAK.
saxby might not care that we kept iranians under a brutal regime for an entire generation, and are directly responsible for the rise of the theocracy, but those that lived thru it and dealt with might care.
the history of the coup is fascinating. and the secret US govt documents have been released to the public. and they are DAMNING.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/index.html
All mouth, no brains. Jesus, there are a bunch of dumb ass southern politicians that are just plain stupid. THESE GUYS ARE YOUR REPRESENTATIVE, ya know? Is this the best you can do down there??
Can't stand listening to this drawl and hearing his stupid comments. Makes about as much sense as the lipstick pig. God, why did we ever win the Civil War?
Saxby, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove.
It kinda goes with the territory. The Red states consist of rednecks who vote for dumbfucks like this. Anytime they wanna secede, let, 'em go.
Pffft... yeah... why would they remember a silly little thing like that, eh.
Mr Chambliss appears to have a sock where one might normally find a brain.
He called himself Sam and he was just 15 in 1982 I think, when the Iranian Army came to his school and sorted students by age and gender. A couple of weeks later, he was handed a rusty rifle and three bullets and told to run across a mine field on the Iraqi border. Well some of those student soldiers did but Sam and several others turned right and didn't stop running till they reached Turkey.
The point of this story is that he would have been born in 1967 and he not only knew about US interference in 1953 but was still furious about it. He blamed, (rightly) that interference for the Islamic Revolution and his subsequently being drafted into the Iranian Army at age 15.
People remember, but it's hardly surprising that chickenhawk extraordinaire Saxby Chambliss thinks everybody is as narrow minded and un-informed as himself.
...I beg to differ
can't believe I missed it!
From what I have read here and on other sites, the Iranians will forget the 1953 coup just as soon as the Sons of the Confederacy will forget the Civil War. Pardon me, I should have written The War of Northern Aggression. Oh wait, isn't Shameless Chambliss one of these bozos?
A recent issue of National Geographic shows that the people of Iran are still pissed off at the Arabs for something the Arabs did to Persia 500 years ago, many of these people still talk about the death and destruction Genghis Khan visited upon them 700 years ago as if it happened last month and this guy doesnt think they`ll remember a coup from 60 years ago?
The 1953 coup....sshhhhiiiitt. During my tour in the middle east I was once in Jordan and as I love antiquity I hired a guide who took me to the regular tourist sites, Petra, Jerash, Pella, etc. and some not so touristy. One such place was the tomb of يشوع
Joshau. While there a Jew, or at least that's what they told me, disrupted the tour screaming that Joshau was a murderer for the destruction of Jericho. Image, there was still someone pissed off at what happened three thousand years ago Oddly enough I thought Joshau was a Jew but the Arabs have him as one of their own; how can any westener figure out what goes on over there. That said, I loved my time over there.
If you asked the average American about the Coup in 1953 they would look at you with a blank stare.
I'm sure Iranians who had to suffer under the Shah, remember it just fine.
The vast majority of Americans don't know anything at all about the coup against the democratically-elected Mossadegh in favor of the Shah. I myself only learned about it a few years ago, and I consider myself (rightly or wrongly) to be at least a bit more well-informed than the average American -- in part because I acknowledge that there's almost always two sides to every story, because I know that human beings are rationalizing rather than rational creatures, and because I'm willing to acknowledge that America is not always (or even often) the noble champion of freedom and democracy which we purport to be.
We can start out with McCains rendition of his classic ... bomb,bomb,bomb Iran, followed by Saxby's dissertation on what Iranians remember or don't remember about America. I'm sure Limpballs, Nattyyahoo, and Newtie can contribute substantially to the concert by just showing up.
with these right-wing lollypops so much that my usual remedies don't work anymore. It used to be that I could get a good dose of their stupidity and then take a big shit and a hot bath and I would feel clean and refreshed. Here lately that doesn't work anymore.
Forget history, forget the reality of millions of people. Forget coups, forget wars, forget greed for oil. Forget the dead, forget the sacrifices of family and loved ones past. Forget reality.
Thanks Republicans for creating a new reality in which America is always right and when were not, it's ok because everyone just forgets.
These idiots have no clue.
One of the biggest problems facing Iranian and U.S. relations, is that under the Bush administration we looked at Iran as monolithic. Everyone is radical and backward. we are seeing that couldn't be further from the truth.
Dr. Brzezinski, on Morning Joe, does a great job debunking this false representation of Iranian society.
A must watch clip.
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=1853
"Dr. Brzezinski, on Morning Joe, does a great job debunking this false representation of Iranian society"
I'll give you that, he was insightful. But how does that explain daughter Mika being so fucking stupid? Sounds like Dr. Brzezinski should have bitch-slapped the airhead at an early age.
The republican representatives are a total embarrassment to our country, they do exactly what they criticize, ultimate hypocrisy.
SOB's stole 2 elections in a row, hijacked our military and destroyed the financial global markets.
I know what the corporate war plans are now, invade Iran, we can free them by installing our own government and our own way of manipulating election outcomes, we can bring them the loving Christianity that we have. All we need is a small investment of about 1 trillion dollars then we can ensure cancer and death for the rest of the Iranians history. Besides having an unstable Iran on top of all that oil, can't be a good thing, right. I say we kill a few million, spread some nuclear waste, and build military bases to permanently occupy Iran.
Why should we take care of our own election frauds and treason? Would be selfish not to destroy their country now. We must invest in their country, at all costs. After this 1 last war, then we can get back to business fixing our country in 2040.
1) Did President Obama not ban any words out of Republican mouths since what they say is so offensive that it might cause harm to our troops. Can pictures really be worse than what these guys are saying?
2) How is this not a major MSM story. A Repub senator doesn't think that the 53 Coup matters to Iranians?
Fact: Saxby Chamblis is an idiot.
Now that we've established that Saxby believes that Iran is a suburb of Savannah, we can also point to the fact that tweety has started getting in these guys faces and to some extent calling BS when they try to whip a talking point out of their wallets...
Gothic Politics in the Deep South are still alive and well....
Chambliss's comments accomplish nothing except to prove once again that the number of Republican politicians -- perhaps even Republicans in general -- plagued with the Freudian defense mechanism of projection has reached positively pandemic proportions. There's only one reason why Chambliss thinks that Iranians have forgotten all about Operation Ajax and the way in which America (the self-professed champion of freedom and democracy worldwide) deliberately subverted Iranian democracy in the 1950's and ousted their Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in favor of the Shah -- and for no other reason than because we wanted to continue having easy access to Iranian oil and Mossadegh presented a potential obstacle to that. ("What's our oil doing under their soil", right?). That's because he and his fellow Republicans want them to forget about it -- truth be told, they'd like everyone to forget about it including themselves. (The fact that Chambliss all-too-conveniently tried to skate around that issue and spoke of it so dismissively only seems to confirm that -- the United States has little or no credibility where Iran is concerned, and I have no doubt that he knows this even though he denies it.) Someone remind me again...who was occupying the White House when Operation Ajax was carried out, and to which party did he belong? And to which party does Chambliss -- or perhaps that should be "Shameless" -- belong?
Oh, of course...silly me! How could I have forgotten? The President in office at the time was Eisenhower, and Eisenhower was -- that's right -- a Republican. And to which party do the folks like Chambliss belong, the ones who are practically foaming at the mouth in their eagerness to insist that the United States should take action regarding the recent elections in Iran? Why, look at that...it's the Republicans again! Surprise, surprise...who'd have thought it, eh??
...what party was in power when the US kicked off the Bay of Pigs invasion? What party is in power now as we send drone planes into Pakistan to terrorize civilians? The fact is, both parties have a history of military escapades. Lately it just seems like the republicans are just more brazen about it.
Kennedy approved terrorism against Cuban civilians and escalated Vietnam. Clinton bombed the "bomb-making facility" (which was actually a pharmaceutical factory) in the Sudan. Hell Truman dropped two of the biggest bombs ever.
Fact is Democrats, although usually are not quite as imperialistic in intentions and rhetoric have blood soaked hands. The military-industrial complex has consumed the two-party system almost entirely.
...he tried to warn us about the potential threat from the Military Industrial Complex which Americans would probably end up facing in the future. Somewhat ironic, really, that this advice should have come from a military man as well as a Republican -- but lo and behold, it turned out that he was right.
It's a pity that not enough people listened to him.
Kennedy was duped into invading Cuba and stepping up aggression in Viet Nam because he was afraid of looking soft to the Commie baiters on the Right. Ike may have backed the coup in 53, but he sure learned to be suspicious of the M.I.C. by the time he left office.
I have to acknowledge that you scored a very palpable hit with that argument. After giving it some thought, it's clear that the Bay Of Pigs and Operation Ajax are probably roughly equivalent to one another in terms of the degree of damage which we did to our own credibility with the other country in question. It can be plausibly argued that the Bay Of Pigs was largely responsible for the Cuban Missile Crisis and that Operation Ajax was largely responsible for the Iranian Revolution of 1979 which resulted in the hostage crisis. Both incidents represented an attempt by the United States to oust a political leader whom we perceived, rightly or wrongly, as a threat to our interests (which were primarily financial in the case of Iran). In some respects, in fact, the only real difference between these two incidents is that one succeeded (Operation Ajax) while the other failed (Bay Of Pigs). One is even inclined to speculate what might have happened had the Bay Of Pigs succeeded...would foreign relations between the US and Cuba be just as strained now as the ones between the US and Iran are? Or perhaps, could this potentially have strained relations between the US and the USSR past the breaking point and resulted in an actual nuclear war rather than merely bringing us to the brink of one (i.e., the Cuban Missile Crisis) -- especially since Nikita Khruschev, who was not known for having the coolest of heads, was the Soviet Premier at the time? Sobering thought...doesn't really bear thinking of, does it?
The only distinction I might personally make between Mossadegh and Castro is the fact that at least in my own opinion, going after Castro -- a Soviet ally who reportedly never supported free elections and whose rule was in many respects oppressive -- did not represent quite such a blatant departure from our self-professed role as defenders of freedom and democracy as going after Mossadegh did, since we installed an oppressive leader in Mossadegh's place (and a monarchy at that, despite the fact that Republicans are often a bit more strident in their language when it comes to speaking of the virtues of democracy). Considering that the United States in 1953 was still doing well in terms of its own oil (if you'll pardon the inadvertent pun) and that geologist M. King Hubbert wouldn't present his prediction of peaking domestic production for another three years -- something for which many ridiculed him for most of the following decade only to discover later on that he was right -- the fact that we went after Mossadegh primarily because he wanted to nationalize Iran's oil fields represented a complete and deliberate subversion of our own ideals.
...but this will take care of it at least.
Let's drop Saxby into Tehran and let him tell the folks there that "they do not remember and that it was only a little ole regime change anyway. Get over it. We are here to fix this here election for ya."
AS Leftandleft says, "How could anyone vote to represent them as one of their state's Senators someone so stupid and deceitful as this jerk Chambliss?"
I guess the same kind people who would vote for Charles Grassley and Joe Lieberman and Sarah Palin and Mitch McConnell and Peter King and the list goes on and on.
and couldn't believe my ears at the time. Yeah, I tend to tune-out idiots like Chambliss, but.l...Ironically, the day before either Matthews or Olberman had a guest that had been in Iran all along - maybe it was Engle - and specifically brought up 1953, as something the Iranian people, even those not yet born, were very aware of.
Saxby Chambliss should be kept from ever passing judgment on foreign policy.
But, hey, for you trolls here: Chambliss is the guy who knocked off Max Cleland with his "Cleland=Osama" Ads. And yes, another Georgia Republican we can be so proud of...NOT!
and if he and Chambliss between their collective IQs can add to room temperature I'll eat a fuuking hat...
which ended in 1865, but doesn't think Iranians remember the coup in 1953?
Really there oughta be a law that when you say something that stupid, your head should just fucking explode.
but he cannot forget the Southern War of Insurrection, the War Between the States, Sherman's March through Georgia, and the Emancipation Proclamation.
pro-American way..."
WTF? Yeah, they just got f*cked over like we did (bush 2004). You expect them to be cheering for us??
Go to Hell, you piece of shit.
I mean, it is not like the people marching don't have enough on their plate that they have to make sure they make us feel better about ourselves...
.
Well you have the media enabling this behaviour by putting his mug on every other day. We are repeatedly dumbstruck by what these people are saying, but a collusive media is vital to their success.
What an insulated moron. The Iranian revolution is the center of the Iranian political landscape. To suggest that they wouldn't know what someone was talking about if they raised the issue is just absurd.
MATTHEWS: What do you make of the president`s concern that our history over there -- he`s voiced this in the Cairo speech -- that our history over there of getting involved with Kermit Roosevelt and the CIA, overthrowing those elections back in the `50s, getting rid of their democracy when they had one, gives us such a bad reputation in that country that if we go in there now, it`ll look like we`re just trying to grab influence in Iran again to our advantage, to get the oil back, to get the influence back that we had there under the shah?
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While we're on the subject of US-Iranian relations, let's not forget that the US supported Saddam Hussein during Iran's war with Iraq which was less than thirty years ago. In fact, we were playing both sides against the middle...remember Iran-Contra? And surprise, surprise...once again, the White House at that time was occupied by (you guessed it) a Republican.
for a month *after* tanks rolled into Kuwait. Then the Saudis freaked out and convinced/ordered the US to invade.
The Saudis freaked out because the Americans showed King Faud evidence (doctored photos) that Saddam was massing troops on the border and preparing to launch an assault on Saudi Arabia.
Apparently Maggie Thatcher was involved here, too. During the weekend after Saddam invaded Kuwait, she convinced Old Man Bush "not to get soft" on this agression and tried to compare Saddam's invasion to Hitler in Poland.
Late last year, Pres. Bush requested through a "Presidential Finding" 400 million dollars to conduct covert operations in Iran.
“The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.”
Members of the Democratic leadership were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran.
I'm not saying that Democrats weren't involved in any of these events...but the fact that Democrats agreed to go along with it still doesn't change the fact that in all three cases -- the 1953 coup, the support for Saddam Hussein during Iran's war with Iraq, and Bush's covert operations in Iran -- were all instigated by Republican presidents. In my opinion, for what it's worth, there is -- or ought to be -- at least some small distinction made between aiding and abetting a questionable act (or passive participation) vs. committing it yourself (active participation). Both parties are culpable and bear some responsibility for what happened -- but the active participant bears the proverbial "lion's share" of the blame.
The Gop want Acmanddon'tcarehowhisnameisspelled To stay in office period. They don't care about progress in the middle east only about keeping a key boogyman in play for the next few elections.
They are tratiors to Our Country only careing about their Big name donors and geting back into power. They would sell the Organs of every man woman and child of this country if it keep them in power and Funnled money to there Big name donors
The thing is that these idiot congresspeople don't know shit about foreign relations. They are just popping off because they are negative about EVERY fucking thing that Obama does. Even Kissinger, oh how I loath that motherfucker, says that Obama is doing it correctly. Just one more example how these jokers are obstructionists.
If your a Republican Senator (especially from the South) it's treason to suggest that we not support or recognize symbols Confederacy, who were insurrectionist racist slave-owners who lost their war about 140 years ago.
But a coup which toppled the democratically elected leader of their nation 50 years ago (who was going to nationalize, aka SOCIALIZE their oil profits in a big beautiful way) is a long forgotten footnote.
Please, Saxy and other Republicans (and Democrats) who have beaten the war drums for years now re: Iran, don't pretend you care about the rights and freedom of Iranian citizens.
Chamberliss's comments that he thought Iranians forgot how the US tried to establish a puppet state in Iran was shocking..But then again, perhaps he was engagng in projection-Many Americans are mind numbingly ignorant of world history, so perhaps he assumes everyone else is as well...Didn't Bush once suggest nobody remebers history beacuse it happened 'way back then'?
Somehow I think the tiresome boasts of American being the world's 'Beacon Of freedom' have lost credibility in recent years, given our pro torture policies...
talking about Iran right?
who have very short memories.
Contrary to the nonsense spouted by Chambliss about the administration having to take a stand and the nonsense spouted here at C&L about the president having to maintain his distance, one need look no further than President Obama's speech in Cairo, to see an example of American exceptionalism and meddling.
the Iranian election have been perfect.
John McCain and Saxby Chambliss can have their own erroneous opinions on how the President should react to the election in Iran, but they are not our elected President and therefore do not speak for America. President Obama is knowledgeable about the history between the US and Iran as obviously McCain and Chambliss are NOT. And his intention to engage Iran in talk is the first positive step that has been initiated with Iran since the US orchestrated coup d'etat in 1953. Who are John McCain and Saxby Chambliss to speak of the sanctity of the sovereignty of any state in one breath and in the next propose not just meddling in, but interjecting an unwelcomed and possibly dangerous critique into the situation? They want to throw salt on the wounds. That's not diplomacy. That's idiocy.
Of all of our representatives on record so far, President Obama, as far as I'm aware, alone has respected the sovereignty of Iran on the matter of free elections. The Iranian electoral process is an internal problem that the Iranians themselves are going to have to grapple with and resolve. The fact that they live in a combination democracy and theocracy is something that they are going to have to figure out. McCain and Chambliss can have their opinions and they can say whatever they want and they can think that the President should respond in the way that they think is appropriate, but they are wrong. They come from an adversarial approach, not a diplomatic one. I hope the next time Georgia goes to vote for a Senator that it has the good sense to elect someone other than Saxby Chambliss who, on this issue, really shows his ignorance. Georgia could do so much better with anyone else. Saxby Chambliss is a fool to discount the importance of the CIA's toppling of the democratically and wildly popular Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran in 1953. Iranians still not only remember very vividly that the United States government didn't simply meddle in their internal politics, but that very action also thwarted Iran's first and most vital attempt at modernization and set it on the more radical course we have come to see it express politically on the world stage ever since.
John McCain's style of "diplomacy", among other reasons, is why I did NOT vote for him when he was running for President. He is hot-headed, wrong-headed, arrogant, full of hubris and american exceptionalism and would have piled even more disaster upon the disaster already created by the Bush administration. His is the last opinion on Earth I would listen to. He can express his views, but they have no importance and they really don't mean anything except as the rantings of a belligerent old man.
Damn, sourthernman748, I totally agree that a big shit and a hot bath is a fine cure; for everything but Repuke bullshit.
It really is sad that these congresscritters have no clue and those morons to whom they preach are as clueless. How can we even hope to have a country that has any chance of moving into the future with these types who will only (and gladly) drag everyone down with them.
First of all, I would like to know why Chris feels obligated to talk to the losers, the minority, the insignificant, and the incompetent on these issues? I thought he tries to be fair but he gives these chickenhawk cowards room to lie and repeat the lies on every issue. As far as remembering. I have read that they remembered that incident back during our them in the '70s and '80s. I wonder if Shelby remembers dodging the draft to avoid that Vietnam War some of us fought in?
As a Republican, "Ignorance is" ChamBliss has no doubt long WISHED no one would bring up that 1953 coup. For decades the Republicans have enjoyed kid gloves treatment from mainstream media only too happy to remain silent on that key event and "blame Jimmy Carter" for the Islamic Revolution.
The 1953 coup is the CENTRAL EVENT that triggered the following 25 year long insurgency against the USA's Shah regime culminating in that inevitable and unstoppable overthrow of the Shah regime and take-over by the Ayatollahs.
Just curious...why does Chris Matthews only mention the name of then CIA Director Kermit Roosevelt as the culprit behind our involvement in that 1953 coup? Is he hoping the casual listener will only hear the name "Roosevelt" and assume a Democratic President was behind that coup?
Why is Matthews so reticent to name the man who was President in 1953 and, therefore, ulimately responsible for what the CIA did as an agency OF the Executive Branch...Dwight D. Eisenhower?
Why has mainstream media spent the better part of 60 years preventing the name "Eisenhower" from being recognized for its key contribution to the current virulently anti-American sentiment in the Middle East as well as our subsequnt-to-Eisenhower unavoidable total economic and military commitment to the Vietnam War?
wtf does he think that means?
The wingnuts wanted nothing more than to bomb Iran back into the stone age, and now they act like the poor Iranians need their phony support? The vast majority in Iran want a better relationship with the U.S. and the right wing war mongers would have destroyed that forever. Just one more thing they were unbelievably wrong about.
Unfortunately, if appearances are anything to go on, most of the Republicans (or at least the neoconservative ones) seem to think that:
citizen of less technologically-advanced nation = brainless idiot
Many of them seemingly fail to realize that the fact someone might not act/look/sound/think like an American is by no means a reliable indication of lesser intelligence. (In fact, more and more these days, one is beginning to suspect that the reverse is increasingly true).
Obama to the Ayatollah "The world is watching"
Unfortunately thanks to Bush V Gore and the Republican Party we have no moral authority to lecture anyone on free and fair elections.
Iranian potester - Sure, we could all stay home and quietly accept the results of a blatantly stolen election ...
Another protester - BUT we reject the American way of life!
http://www.mattbors.com/newstrip.html
All those hundreds of thousands...perhaps millions... of pro-democracy Iranians marching against Ahmedinejad would be marhing against America had McCain become president he bombed, bombed, bombed Iran.
The GOP is an international destabilization force and one of the greatest threats on the planet to world peace.
Henry Kissinger said yesterday that Obama is handling the situation in Iran well....
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/18/kissinger...
....not that Kissinger is any expert with moral authority, but neither is McCain.
Has Cheney kicked Kissinger out of the GOP for making that statement?
Is Kissinger apologizing to Rush for saying it?
Kissinger should be at The Hague himself btw.
I am really curious as to what limpballs, dickhead cheney, and the other wingnuts think about kissinger's statements.
And, yes, kissinger should have been at The Hague a long, long time ago.
He'll probably come out in a couple of days and say it was a joke. Just like when Goldwater said Clinton was doing a good job. For a party that claims to be all about personal freedom they sure to keep their people on a short leash. Even old retired guys like Goldwater and Kissinger.
We can't get over the fact that some students took 40 Americans hostage 30 years ago without harming a single one and with pretty much no impact on our country (unless you believe that this put Reagan in office) but the US (at the prompting of the UK, BTW) overturns a democratically elected govt and installs a Shah thereby altering their country forever and he thinks they've all forgotten about it in 60 years?
John Kerry served in combat duty in Vietnam. Saxby Chambliss is a combat dodging chickenhawk who smeared a triple amputee Vietnam combat veteran.
When it comes to foreign policy and national security Saxby Chambliss has about as much clout as Bush does on the economy.
Chambliss is assuming that Iranians are like Americans. Americans don't know about anything that happened in 2003, much less 1953. And they don't care.
CHAMBLISS: "... And we are a beacon of hope for freedom and democracy around the world, and one thing we`ve always stood for is free and open elections."
Remember September 11th 1973?
Uhh, sorry Saxby but just because Americans (and I am one) aren't very fond of history (a whole 60 years ago!), doesn't mean Iranians aren't well versed in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état. They are.
I'm also fairly certain that McCain isn't "being heard by the Iranian people." Ask the protesters who the hell John McCain is, then cue the crickets.
Like this guy knows about fair elections, Like the one he was behind by 5 points with a margin of error +-4 and won by 8 on electronic voting machines with no paper trail. Just take his word for it,he won. Now he has decided that Obama should get involved but not meddle in the elections of other countries. He doesn't think the Iranians know that the CIA imposed the Sha. They don't have history lessons? God, I long for Max Cleland.
Let's make this simple for the simple minds of Republicans:
Mind...your...own...fucking....business. It's...not...our...country!
Oh, and while you're at it, please STFU.
Picture taken in Iran the day before Saxby said that.
The photograph on the left is Mosaddegh, the prime minister ousted by the U.S. in 1953. On the right is Mousavi.
god help us
of the common American. I can't tell you how many times I've had to inform people that Israel wasn't a country that was "invaded" by the Palestinians, but was a nation created by the Brits and the League of Nations in the very widely accepted anti-semitic interest of getting Jews out of Europe and America. That in fact, land was taken from the Palestinians by force.
To expect that people would know a tinker's damn about the coup of 1953 in Iran, or the numerous coups conducted by our country in Latin America, or the horrid puppet regimes supported in Africa is to expect far too much.
We have an under funded educational system for a reason and its coming to fruition in this generation more than ever.
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