Letters to the Editor
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A Cartoon Crazy
I wish it were funny that Bolton is channeling Uncle Duke from Doonesbury, but it's actually sickening and frightening.
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Bolton
Yes meddling works, viz Pinochet and others, as bringing back the Shah of Iran and killing a developping democratic regime in the act. Bringing democracy onto others works only if it suits the interests of big business. Otherwise a dictator will do. Right on you rightwing neo-con. And heaven help those who deem to know better and in the act hurt the interests of money and/or oil companies etc., even if the people of a country supporting their regime.
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Fine with me
As long as Mr. Bolton and his family are the first we airdrop outside Tehran.
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Clandestine to whom??
I suppose Bolton is thinking of the last time we "regime-changed" Iran, from Mossadegh to the Shah. This was in no way clandestine to the Iranians, who will harbor eternal resentment over that. So who was it clandestine to? Some imbecilic republicans, of course, who can't conceive of Uncle Sam wearing the black hat.
But times have changed. Nowadays, republicans are fully complicit in their ignorance. So go ahead and invade Iran. Your supporters will never be able to face the real reason. Doing it clandestinely is a waste if time and yields the same results anyway.
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Hey...it worked in 1953
...and Iran hasn't given us any trouble since. They've been a perfectly fine friend to the US, through good times and bad. Nope. Nothing to see here.
Clandestine regime change indeed. Did these guys even go to history class??
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History.
Well, if its not in the old/new testament, it's not history. It's theory.
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If clandestine regime change
is so terrific, why the hell didn't we do it in Iraq?
We didn't because we wanted to show the Ay-rabs how big and bad we are. That worked out well.
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And now, let's return to those thrilling Days of Yesteryear!
Golly gee, those WERE the days, weren't they? Back when we really knew how to rule the world? Just recall, if you will, the CIA's Operation Ajax, which in 1953 overthrew a democratically elected Iranian government led by Mohammed Mossadeq, re-installing Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as ruler. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Gosh, THAT worked so well over the decades, didn't it? By all means, LET'S DO IT AGAIN. AND AGAIN. AND AGAIN.
For those with short memories, or who've never heard of this, just visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
Happy reading! (Note, please, that this little debacle was all about OIL -- does that fact surprise anyone? Anyone else feeling a profound sense of déjà vu?)
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No Mossadegh to assassinate this time
Someone here said it right - 1953 seems to have faded from memory.
And also let's not forget the photos of Rummie shaking hands with Saddam, our then new friend against the Shiites in Iran. That worked out well, too.
Hey - live by the sword, dies by the sword.
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Secret Agent Man
Oh, RichEmery, you're so silly. All of the failed "clandestine" regime changes we know about weren't really clandestine because we know about them! Get it?
All of our many regime change operations were actually successful, thus you don't know anything about them.
So if you want to know about our successes, we could tell you. But then we'd have to kill you.
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The bias of the extremists:
I'm sorry Mr. Bolton, but if you are referring to the "clandestine regime change" of 2000, when you and your jackbooted legions in Dockers descended on Florida to stop the course of democracy ... Well.. you got lucky... you had help from the inside in the form of a corrupt Supreme Court.
Further Mr. Bolton, the forced regime change of 2000, against the will of the people, has been much like our other attempts at regime change. It comes back to bite us in the ass and then some.
Right now, two of our regime change efforts are now creating enormous instability and insecurity in the world The first Iran, were we replaced a functioning democracy with a totalitarian aristocracy... is now run by fanatics, and the other- the United States, also once a functioning democracy, is now run by fanatics.
Hey... wait a minute...I smell conspiracy!
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Once upon a time
Americans knew how to revolt
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It brings a tear to my eyes...
... to think of those halcyon days when we could do whatever we wanted wherever we wanted and someone else paid the price.
Guatemala, 1954.
Haiti, 1959.
Diem in Vietnam, 1963.
Dominican Republic, 1963.
Congo (Zaire), 1965.
Greece, 1967.
Suharto in Indonesia, 1967.
Allende in Chile, 1973.
El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s.
I know how you feel John Bolton. We look like such wimps now, trying to get along, letting other countries determine their own fates. Democracy. Phooey!
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Clandestine Regime Change
Loverly. More death squad democracy for this century? Mmm hmm. And these chickenhawk bastards like to pretend that they're the hard-nosed realists.
Make no mistake: if the choice is supporting democracy or capitalism, well, that's a no-brainer, given our track record -- capitalism, first, last, and always. I know they like to stick the two together under "free trade" -- but if the free trade is being ensured by a dictatorial regime propped up against popular will by our military aid and/or clandestine thuggery, that's no so democratic, no? And that fuels resentment of our country in said client regimes, making us less secure, etc., etc. Literally a bloody mess.
Check out William Blum's "Killing Hope" for a broad accounting of America's record of "clandestine regime change" since WWII. Not pretty stuff, but important to get a sense of where we've been, before chowderheads like Bolton et al. try to get that kind of death squad democracy back on the table as acceptable policy.
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Yeah, well...
Once we knew how to convert kill or convert the Jew, how to burn women at the stake, how to enslave Africans, etc.
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Good old days
"Once upon a time, we knew how to do clandestine regime change."
True enough. Of course, once upon a time, someone who advocated it publically in America would have been excoriated as a scary imperialist freak.
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Hey! It Worked So Well in Iran the Last Time We Tried It!
You'd think that Bolton would be less positive about "clandestine regime change" because it didn't exactly turn out well the last time we tried it in Iran. We then wound up with the Sha, of late unlamented memory. In fact, it's difficult to remember a single example where "clandestine regime change" ever worked out well.