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Today's
Stories
Sasan Fayazmanesh
What Kermit Roosevelt Didn't Say
August 18, 2003
Uri Avnery
Hero in War and Peace
Stan Goff
The Volunteer Military and the Wicked Adventure
Cathy Breen
Baghdad on the Hudson
Michael Kimaid
Fight the Power (Companies)!
Jason Leopold
The California Rip-Off Revisited: Arnold, Milken and Ken Lay
Matt Siegfried
The Bush Administration in Context
Elaine Cassel
At Last, A Judge Who Acts Like a Judge
Alexander Cockburn
Judy Miller's War
Harvey Wasserman
The Legacy of Blackout Pete Wilson
Website of the Day
Fire Griles!
Recent
Stories
August 16 / 17, 2003
Flavia Alaya
Bastille
New Jersey
Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps
Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50
Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?
William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles
Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk
Wenonah Hauter
Which
Electric System Do We Want?
David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?
Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist
Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline
for August 14, 2003
David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue
Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin
Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder
August 14, 2003
Peter Phillips
Inside
Bohemian Grove: Where US Power Elites Party
Brian Cloughley
Charlie Wilson and Pakistan: the Strange Congressman Behind the
CIA's Most Expensive War
Linville and Ruder
Tyson
Strike Draws the Line
Jim Lobe
Bush Administration Divided Over Iran
Ramzy Baroud
Sharon Freezes the Road Map
Tom Turnipseed
Blowback in Iraq
Gary Leupp
Condi's
Speech: From Birgmingham to Baghdad, Imperialism's Freedom Ride
Website of the Day
Tony Benn's Greatest Hits
August 13, 2003
Joanne Mariner
A Wall of Separation Through the
Heart
Donald Worster
The Heavy Cost of Empire
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Elaine Cassel
Murderous Errors: Executing the Innocent
Ralph Nader
Make the Recall Count
Alexander Cockburn
Ted Honderich Hit with "Anti-Semitism" Slur
Website of the Day
Defending Yourself Against DirectTV Lawsuits: 9000 and Counting
August 12, 2003
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Ron Jacobs
Revisionist History: the Bush Administration, Civil Rights and
Iraq
Josh Frank
Dean's Constitutional Hang-Up
Wayne Madsen
What's a Fifth Columnist? Well, Someone Like Hitchens
Ray McGovern
Relax,
It Was All a Pack of Lies
Wendy Brinker
Hubris in the White House
Website of the Day
Black
Mustache
August
11, 2003
Douglas
Valentine
Homeland Security for Whom?
Mickey
Z.
Bush's Progress
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Meet the New Bitch, Same
as the Old
Elaine
Cassel
Indicting DNA
Dr. Mohammad
Omar Farooq
Civil Liberties and Uncivil Super-Patriotism
Uri
Avnery
Who Will Save Abu Mazen?
Website
of the Day
RIAA Subpoena Clearinghouse
August
9 / 10, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
California's Glorious Recall!
Saul
Landau
Bush and King Henry
Gary
Leupp
On Terrorism, Methodism, "Wahhabism"
and the Censored 9/11 Report
Paul de
Rooij
The Parade of the Body Bags
Michael
Egan
History and the Tragedy of American Diplomacy
Rob Eshelman
A Home of Our Own
Daoud
Kuttab
Life as an ID Card
Philip
Agee
Terror and Civil Society: Instruments of US Policy in Cuba
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Marc Racicot: Bush's Main Man
Walt Brasch
Schwarzenegger, "Hollyweird"
and the Rigtheous Right
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush, Bribery and Berlusconi
Josh Frank
Mean, Mean Howard Dean
Elaine
Cassel
Will the Death Penalty Ever Die?
Sean Carter
Total Recall
Poets'
Basement
Hamod, Engel, Albert
August
8, 2003
John
Chuckman
What the US Says Goes
Roberto
Barreto
Defend the Vieques 12!
Bruce Gagnon
Iraq War Emboldens Bush Space Plans
Elaine
Cassel
The Reign of John Ashcroft
Dave
Lindorff
Snoops Night Out
Website
of the Day
Zero Boy
August
7, 2003
M.
Shahid Alam
It the US a "Terrorist Magnet?"
Toni
Solo
Neo-liberal Nicaragua: a New Banana
Republic
Adam Lebowitz
Hiroshima Commemorated: the View from Japan
Hanan
Ashrawi
When the Bully Whines
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Conscience Takes a Holiday
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Lets Slip: Iraq Not Behind 9/11; No Ties to Al-Qaeda
Mike Kimaid
What's the Score?
Elaine
Cassel
The Smell of VICTORY: Ashcroft's Latest Stinkbomb
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
August 6, 2003
Steve
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause: It's Not
Easy Confronting King Coal
David
Krieger
Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Robert
Fisk
The Ghosts of Uday and Qusay
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's War on the National Forests
Elaine
Cassel
No Fly Lists
Stan
Goff
Military Equipment and Pneumonia
Hugh Sansom
An Open Letter to Nicholas Kristof on the Nuking of Japan
August
5, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Prisoner of Ramallah: Arafat at
74
Forrest
Hylton
Terrorism and Political Trials: the
View from Bolivia
Ray
McGovern
"We Cook Estimates to Go"
David
Morse
Poindexter's Gambit
Edward
Said
Orientallism: 25 Years Later
George
W. Bush
My Darn Good Resumé
Hammond
Guthrie
It's Incremental, Watson!
Website
of the Day
National Prayer Day
August 4, 2003
Bruce
K. Gagnon
Another Peace Activist Detained by
Airport Cops: My Story
David
Lindorff
Fear-Mongering About Social Security
Mark
Zepezauer
George F. Will: Descent into Self-Parody
James
Plummer
Tracking You Through the Mail
Mickey
Z.
Marriage Insecurity from Sharon to Bush
Bruce
Jackson
News that Isn't News: How the NYT's
Pimps for the White House
August
2 / 3, 2003
Tamara
R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down
Francis
Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool
David
Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side
Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem
Uri
Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus
Robert
Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq
Jerry
Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media
Noah Leavitt
What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to
Intervene?
Saul
Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology
Ron Jacobs
One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson
Thomas
Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta
Amadi Ajamu
Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader?
Poets'
Basement
Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming
August
1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Stopping Prison Rape
Alex Coolman
Who Moved My Soap: Trivializing
Prison Rape
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Stan Goff
Injury and Decorum: The Missing Wounded in Iraq
Wayne
Madsen
Europe Unplugs from the Matrix
Robert
Fisk
Wolfowitz the Censor
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Loses Big in Puerto Rico
Website
of the Day
Stop Prisoner Rape
July
31, 2003
Ray
McGovern
The Prostitution of Intelligence
Brian
Cloughley
Wolfowitz's Operative Statement
Sheldon
Hull
The RIAA's Jihad:
The Devil's Music (Industry)
Elaine
Cassel
The Next Time You Crack a Lawyer Joke, Think of These Attorneys
Sheldon
Rampton
and John Stauber
True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's
Wars
Hammond
Guthrie
Speculation Blues
Website
of the Day
Army of One?
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
July
30, 2003
David
Lindorff
Poindexter the Terror Bookie
Marjorie
Cohn
Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About
the Oil
Elaine
Cassel
How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas
in Terror Cases
Zvi
Bar'el
The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War
Lisa Walsh
Thomas
Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend?
Sean
Carter
Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes
ND Jayaprakash
India and Ariel Sharon
Steve
Perry
Bush's Top 40 Lies
Standard
Schaefer
Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing
Website
of the Day
Bring Them Home Now!
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Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
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Civil Liberties
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Michel
Guerrin
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Uzma
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The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
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Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
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August
18, 2003
In Memory of August
19, 1953
What
Kermit Roosevelt Didn't Say
By SASAN FAYAZMANESH
"'I owe my throne to God, my people,
my army and to you!' By 'you' he [the shah] meant me and the
two countries-Great Britain and the United States-I was representing.
We were all heroes."
Countercoup: The Struggle for the
Control of Iran, Kermit Roosevelt,
1979
It is ironic that CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt,
the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, published his book on the
1953 CIA coup in Iran and the return of the shah in the same
year that "his majesty's government" was overthrown.
An American friend gave a copy of the book to me shortly after
its publication in 1979. I skimmed through the book and put it
on my bookshelf. The CIA coup appeared irrelevant when the old
and decadent institution of monarchy in Iran seemed to be finished
once and for all.
More importantly, however, I, along with
many other Iranians of my generation, knew the story full well
and did not need Kermit to repeat it. We knew that the shah owed
his throne to the likes of Kermit. But we also knew something
that Kermit didn't know, or didn't say. We knew that we owe to
the Kermits of the world our tortured past: years of being forced
as students to stand in the hot sun of Tehran in lines, waving
his majesty's picture or flag as his entourage passed by in fast
moving, shiny, big black cars with darkened-glass windows; years
of being forced to rise and stay standing in every public event,
including movie theaters, while his majesty's national anthem
was being played; years of watching a dense megalomaniac try
to imitate "Cyrus the Great" by wearing ridiculous
ceremonial robes in extravagant celebration of his birthdays
or crowning of his queens; years of being hushed by our parents,
fearful of being arrested, if we uttered a critical word about
his majesty's government or his American advisors; years of worrying
about secret police (SAVAK) informants, who were smartly, but
ruthlessly, trained by the best of the US's CIA and Israeli's
Mossad; years of witnessing our friends and acquaintances being
taken to jail, some never heard from again; years of passing
by buildings in which, we were told, people were being tormented;
years of hearing about people dying under torture or quietly
executed; years of being exiled in a foreign country, which ironically
was the belly of the beast, the metropolis, the center which
masterminded much of our misfortune in the first place; years
of spending our precious youth to free or save thousands of political
prisoners by marching in the streets of the metropolis, wearing
masks to hide our identities and looking bizarre to those who
knew nothing about our story; and, finally, years of trying to
prove to the American people that the 1953 CIA coup was not a
fig-leaf of our imagination or a conspiracy theory, that it indeed
happened and that they, whether they like it or not, have a certain
culpability in what their government does around the world.
Most Americans, however, did not believe
our story or did not care about it until the 1979 Revolution
in Iran and the subsequent storming of the US Embassy in Tehran
by the "students following the line of Imam." Once
52 Americans were blindfolded and held by the students in what
they called the "nest of spies," questions began to
be raised: Who lost Iran? How did we lose it? Why are the Iranians
so insanely agitated? Why do they burn our flag? Why do they
hate us so much? In the midst of the hysteria, of course, no
intelligent answer was sought and none was given. Surely, no
meaningful answer was ever offered by the US government then
or in the next two decades.
It was not until the US corporations-which,
as a result of the US's economic sanctions and executive orders,
were prevented from making lucrative deals with Iran-put pressure
on the US government in the late 1990s that we saw the first
admissions of guilt about the events of 1953. On April 12, 1999,
in an offhand remark in front of the captains of industry, President
Clinton said:
Iran, because of its enormous geopolitical
importance over time, has been the subject of quite a lot of
abuse from various Western nations. I think sometimes it's quite
important to tell people, look, you have a right to be angry
at something my country or my culture or others that are generally
allied with us did to you 50 or 60 or 100 or 150 years ago.
(The Washington Post, May 1, 1999)
Of course, had the President, who was
now apparently "feeling our pain," devoted some of
his extracurricular activities to reading Kermit's book, he might
have given a better speech in terms of who did what to whom and
when. But given his limitations, this was the best that he could
do to please the corporate crowd.
But the greatest admission of guilt came
from former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who in a meeting
of corporate lobbyists in March 2000 stated:
In 1953, the United States played a significant
role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular prime minister,
Mohammed Mossadegh...the coup was clearly a set back for Iran's
political development and it is easy to see why so many Iranians
continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal
affair.
(US Department of State, March 17, 2000)
Unfortunately, this opaque confession
did not console us much, since it was not a genuine expression
of sorrow but merely an attempt to improve relations with the
Iranian clergy in order to open the floodgates of corporate profit.
After Albright's speech, on April 16,
2000, The New York Times broke what its writer, James
Risen, called the US's "stony silence" by devoting
a number of pages to publishing parts of a still classified document
on the "secret history" of the 1953 coup. The history
was written by one Donald N. Wilbur, an expert in Persian architecture
and one of the "leading planners" of the operation
"TP-Ajax." The report chronicled gruesome details of
the events in 1953: how, by spending a meager sum of $1 million,
the CIA "stirred up considerable unrest in Iran, giving
Iranians a clear choice between instability and supporting the
shah"; how it brought "the largest mobs" into
the street; how it "began disseminating 'gray propaganda'
passing out anti-Mossadegh cartoons in the streets and planting
unflattering articles in local press"; how the CIA's "Iranian
operatives pretending to be Communists threatened Muslim leaders
with 'savage punishment if they opposed Mossadegh'"; how
the "house of at least one prominent Muslim was bombed by
CIA agents posing as Communists"; how the CIA tried to "orchestrate
a call for a holy war against Communism"; how on August
19 "a journalist who was one of the agency's most important
Iranian agents led a crowd toward Parliament, inciting people
to set fire to the offices of a newspaper owned by Dr. Mossadegh's
foreign minister"; how American agents swung "security
forces to the side of the demonstrators"; how the shah's
disbanded "Imperial Guard seized trucks and drove through
the street"; how by "10:15 there were pro-shah truckloads
of military personnel at all main squares"; how the "pro-shah
speakers went on the air, broadcasting the coups' success and
reading royal decrees"; how at the US embassy, "CIA
officers were elated, and Mr. Roosevelt got General Zahedi out
of hiding" and found him a tank that "drove him to
the radio station, where he spoke to the nation"; and, finally,
how "Dr. Mossadegh and other government officials were rounded
up, while officers supporting General Zahedi placed 'unknown
supports of TP-Ajax' in command of all units of Tehran garrison."
"It was a day that should have never ended," Risen
quotes Wilbur as saying, for "it carried with it such a
sense of excitement, of satisfaction and of jubilation that it
is doubtful whether any other can come up to it."
To those who still believe in the fairytale
of a righteous US government wanting to spread democracy around
the world such revelations might sound shocking. But to us, whose
lives were forever changed as a result of this cheap, "$1
million" coup, none of this was news. Like bedtime stories,
we had heard them all a hundred times from our parents. The only
difference was that where Wilbur saw a glorious day, we saw a
day of infamy; where he wished the day had never ended, we wished
it had never begun; and where he saw a dazzling picture of his
majesty's restoration to power, we saw grotesque pictures of
a brutal dictatorship, informants, dungeons, torture, executions
and 52 blindfolded Americans marching up and down the steps of
the "nest of spies." Perhaps Wilbur did not see what
we saw or, perhaps, he just did not say.
It is, of course, meaningless to write
an iffy history. However, one can't help but imagine how things
might have been different had it not been for the Kermits and
Wilburs of the world. Would the Islamic Revolution of 1979 have
taken place? Would Americans have been held hostage for 444 days
in exchange for the shah and frozen assets? Would the US have
helped Saddam start the Iraq-Iran war? Would over a million people
have died as a result of the war? Would the US have imposed numerous
unilateral sanctions against Iran for over two decades and made
the captains of industry lose billions of dollars? Would Saddam
have invaded Kuwait? Would the US have invaded Iraq twice and
be in the mess that it is in right now? I guess a better question
is this: Will the US ever learn that the Kermits and Wilburs
of the world are not that clever, have no foresight, and, in
the long-run, do more damage to this country than good? Or, to
put it differently, will there ever be an enlightened US government
in which there is no room for the likes of Kermits and Wilburs?
On August 19, 2003, I will read Kermit
once again and think of what he did not say. I will reflect on
my years in exile and dream of someday returning home, a home
which by then will be as foreign to me as the one in which I
presently reside.
Sasan Fayazmanesh is Associate Professor of Economics
at California State University in Fresno. He can be reached at:
sasanf@csufresno.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for August 16 / 17, 2003
Flavia Alaya
Bastille
New Jersey
Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps
Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50
Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?
William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles
Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk
Wenonah Hauter
Which
Electric System Do We Want?
David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?
Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist
Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline
for August 14, 2003
David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue
Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin
Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder
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