Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site lasspvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!hoxna!houxm!vax135!cornell!lasspvax!kevin From: kevin@lasspvax.UUCP (Kevin Saunders) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Re: Closed Eyes to the raping of a nation. Message-ID: <133@lasspvax.UUCP> Date: Thu, 29-Nov-84 11:46:08 EST Article-I.D.: lasspvax.133 Posted: Thu Nov 29 11:46:08 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 1-Dec-84 19:59:14 EST References: <> Reply-To: kevin@lasspvax.UUCP (Kevin Saunders) Organization: Theory Center (Cornell University) Lines: 42 Summary: >>> stuff. Our technique is different -- that's all. We get the Shah >>> of Iran to kill thousands (literally!) of his subjects. We get the Death >>> Squads to do the dirty work in El Salvador. Morally, we are simply in >>> no position to complain. > >We got the Shah of Iran to kill thousands??? Certainly the Shah did kill >thousands, but we had nothing to do with it! Explain to me why on Earth >it would have been in our interests to kill thousands of Iranians. Are you >so naive to believe that we could compel a leader to kill his own people, >or that we would even want to??? Garbage. We were a strategic ally of the Since you ask what we had to do with it: In 1953 the CIA had the democratically elected Premier of Iran (Mossadegh) overthrown: he was a socialist, and had nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The Shah (a king, remember? an hereditary king, of the sort we violently rebelled against some *200* years ago) was flown back in from to take over. Why was it in our interests to kill thousands of Iranians? Because some Iranians were Communists or merely anti-imperialists who would screw around with *our* :-) oil. The secret police of the Shah, the dreaded and despised SAVAK, were trained by the CIA and worked in coordination with our intelligence services, like the secret police of any "friendly" country. Americans didn't pull the trigger-- but we oiled the gun and loaded it. Oh yes, don't forget the electronic/signals intelligence station in Iran, which was our primary means for a long time of monitoring Soviet missile tests. BTW, please don't talk about naivete when you're waxing skeptical about well-publicized American crimes in third world countries--it sounds crushingly, well, naive. Most of this stuff was revealed in the 1973 Senate hearings on Intelligence activities. For more background, check out _The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence_ (Marchetti & Marks, 1974) or _The Man Who Kept the Secrets_ (Powers, 1979). Top Secret, Kevin Eric Saunders kevin.lasspvax@cornell.arpa