Blowback of foreign policy - Journal Review

[TomSea]

Blowback of foreign policy

    Dec 12, 2016

The Central Intelligence Agency defines “blowback” as the unintended consequences of foreign operations that were deliberately kept secret from the American public. Chalmers Johnson, a CIA consultant from 1967 to 1973, explained that because these operations are kept secret, when the retaliation against America finally happens the American public doesn’t have the information to put the cause and effect together. They’re simply left asking the question, “Why do they hate us?”

When terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on 9/11 we were told it was because they “hate us for our freedoms.” But many in the CIA have come forward with facts telling a much different story: U.S. foreign policy had been sowing the seeds for 9/11 for 50 years.

Chalmers Johnson: “In 1953 the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, became extremely irritated that the British were ripping off his natural resources ... The British came to the new President Eisenhower and asked for help on this. Eisenhower very conveniently declared Mossadegh to be a communist, and we then sent the CIA to overthrow him. The result was we brought the Shah to power and he created an extremely repressive regime that within 20 years had led to a revolution against him. The Ayatollah Khomeini created a government that was violently anti-American. In the after-action report by the CIA on what they had done in Iran in 1953 they said, ‘we’re going to get some blowback from this.’

“We then made a puppet out of Saddam Hussein in Iraq who was a friend of ours … We did so because he was anti-Iranian. He was very fearful that the revolution in Iran would spread into his country. He therefore went to war with Iran. ... Unfortunately for Saddam Hussein, he began to lose the war. At that point, in comes the United States in the form of Donald Rumsfeld, sent to Saddam Hussein by President Ronald Reagan to tell him we will supply you with intelligence, we will supply you with the weapons you may need through covert means. That’s why cynics in Washington say, ‘We know Saddam Hussein had weapons-of-mass-destruction. We have the receipts!’ This is what we mean by blowback.”

“He remained a friend of ours right up to his invasion in the summer of 1990 of Kuwait. We became alarmed when he invaded Kuwait that he could possibly go on and invade Saudi Arabia itself, the largest reserves of oil on earth. We stationed troops in Saudi Arabia. It was a mistake in every sense of the term. Remember Osama bin Laden had said, ‘I resent the government of Saudi Arabia for using Americans to defend Saudi Arabia against Iraq.’ At that point we began to fear we were going to lose our position in Saudi Arabia, for the second largest proven reserves on earth are in Iraq. This leads us now to demonize our previous ally and prepare the American public for the thought that we must take him out,” concludes Johnson.

Continued: http://www.journalreview.com/opinion/article_a39a3dde-bee0-11e6-a404-efc85d059f4b.html

[TomSea]

I don't agree with all of what this opinion piece says but.. did people know our CIA was accused of overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran back in 1953?

These are the kinds of things we need to be careful of and here, 60 years later, we still have problems with the Iranians, that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

I'm not aware of the Iranians doing really horrible things as we see elsewhere in the Muslim world, they don't like Israel and that is wrong, they fund terrorism, Hezbollah against Israel, probably staged an attack back in the '90s against Jews in Argentina along with being allied at least, with whom blew up the Beirut Marine Barracks.

[txradioguy]

I don't agree with all of what this opinion piece says but.. did people know our CIA was accused of overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran back in 1953?

These are the kinds of things we need to be careful of and here, 60 years later, we still have problems with the Iranians, that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

They haven't been allowed to interfere for almost 50 years like that.  The CIA is not really allowed to do much dirty work anymore thanks to the Church Commission in 1976 and further restrictions put on them by Bill Jeff early in his administration.

You should really update your facts on this.

I'm not aware of the Iranians doing really horrible things as we see elsewhere in the Muslim world, they don't like Israel and that is wrong, they fund terrorism, Hezbollah against Israel, probably staged an attack back in the '90s against Jews in Argentina along with being allied at least, with whom blew up the Beirut Marine Barracks.

The fact you honestly can say what I bolded is astonishing.  And is shows how out of touch with what the Iranians do and sponsor world wide.

We have soldiers that were killed and permanently maimed thanks to Iranian Quds forces training AQ in Iraq on DFC's and daisy chained IED's.

And that's just since the surge in 2007. 

Putin and Assad have allowed Quds forces to fight in Syria and the actively work with the PLO.

Iranian exiles contend that from 1980 to 1988, 20,000 to 30,000 Iranians were executed in prison and thousands more were tortured. In the summer of 1988, under a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, at least 5,000 political prisoners were executed, according to Amnesty International.

The events have been largely ignored by the international community, and accounts from survivors like Mr. Asadi have served as the only form of record. But now a grass-roots campaign has begun to investigate and expose the events in Iranian prisons. The Iran Tribunal, an independent tribunal set up in 2007 by survivors and families of victims, has ruled that the Islamic Republic committed crimes against humanity and gross violations of human rights during the 1980s.

The ruling, which has no legal standing and is symbolic in nature came after a three-day hearing in The Hague and was based on testimonies and evidence gathered by a truth commission in July in London, where 75 witnesses, including survivors and families of victims, testified to widespread patterns of brutality and disregard for basic human rights as well as extrajudicial executions throughout the country.

Because the crimes have gone unpunished, members of the tribunal say a culture of impunity endures in Iran.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/world/middleeast/years-of-torture-in-iran-comes-to-light.html


They are currently holding at least three that we know of American citizens and the Washington Post reporter they did release has spoken openly about torture.


It's not just the Israelis that Iran hates...it's the entire western world.

But you seem to be ok with that.