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May 26, 2003 - Washington, DC - This falls under the "Folks, we
can't make this stuff up," column.
We all know how all of our problems with the Middle East started. During
the Eisenhower Administration, in order to keep oil prices in line, that
Republican administration decided to undermine and destabilize the government of
Iran.
This "worked," by President Eisenhower's standards, causing the Iranian
government to collapse and allowing us to replace the government with one of our
choosing.
Flash forward to the late 1970's. Remember, the beginning of all of this
terrorist stuff.
Why did Iran take our hostages? Why did fundamentalist Islam begin
terrorist attacks against America? Why to this day does fundamentalist
Islam wage terrorism against America?
The answer is simple, and unquestioned. It began when the U.S. tried, as
we are about to again, to destabilize Iran.
So back to that story, the Eisenhower administration did not like that the
Islamic fundamentalists who were gaining power in Iran thought Iran should use
its oil for its own profit.
No, it had nothing to do with religion or any such nonsense. As TIME
Magazine, in its May 19, 2003 article The Oily Americans, by Donald L. Bartlett
and James B. Steele, put it, we didn't like that the fundamentalist government
"showed too much independence in handling its oil sales."
(see
TIME Magazine story ) They would not let America bully them
into selling the oil at whatever price America demanded.
So, Eisenhower, through the CIA, overthrew that government. It worked,
they said - just like arming Osama "worked" in Afghanistan and like arming
Saddam "worked" in stabilizing the Middle East.
The fundamentalists were pissed at the U.S. because we had forced them out of
power. Finally, in the 1970's, they managed to grow strong enough to take
their stand, and so they stormed our embassy, took the hostages, kicked out the
Shah (the government we had installed,) replaced him with fundamentalist
Ayatollah Khomeini, and the beginning of this modern age of terror began.
None of this is questioned. You can read the history of it over and over,
in any credible news source you choose. (the above mentioned
TIME Magazine article gives and excellent, credible summary for starters)
So, you may be shocked - maybe disgusted, appalled, or just baffled - at why our
current Bush administration is just deciding, at this very moment, to do it all
again.
That's right. It's not enough that the Republican Eisenhower
administration started this terrorism rolling by attacking, without provocation
- purely to keep control of oil prices - tthe fundamentalist Islamic government
of Iran back in the 1950's. It's not enough that we lived to see the
results of that, with the hostages in the 1970's, and numerous terrorist
incidents. It's not enough that George H. W. Bush, as head of the CIA for
President Nixon, as Vice President under Regan, and as President, created Osama
bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, and created Saddam Hussein as a powerful enemy. It
is not enough that we suffered through bombings of our embassies, the Cole
bombing, two Gulf Wars, and 9/11 as a result of these stupid insurgency
policies, and that we now are locked in a long term War Against Terror that
affects our lives on a daily basis as a result of all of this.
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