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Progressive (Post-Liberal) News & Views (since 1982)
Neither Left nor Right - Seeking Truth and Justice
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Back in the early seventies or late sixties
(alz-hammered), my wife and I had friends who were
social workers in L.A. County who left and went to
Iran as college teachers during the time of the Shah.
It paid well, and after working there several years,
they quit and brought their family home. They
actually wanted to work in Australia, but, after a
leisurely trip east on the Silk Road, found Australia
closed to immigrants (or job seekers, I don't remember
which,) and they came back to U.S.A.
So much for their background. Liberal people,
not very left, sort of anarcho-libertarian; she
Jewish, he wasp, kids beautiful.
In conversation, I mentioned that I didn't like
the Shah, especuially the Savak, his death-squad
Secret Police. They agreed he was poison, and
mentiioned that the situation was deadly: the people
most organized against him were "the bazaar people"
who were "just as bad and ignorant at the same time."
Well, it turned out that he was referring to the
people who DID take over, the Khomeini bunch.
Now this poses the question: what happened to
the Mossadegh faction, the secular,
nationalist-oriented, cpitalist, democratic,
non-aligned .... ohmigod! I just stumbled on it! The
USSR had a non-aligned nation on their southern border
and the CIA certainly wasn't about to let THAT
situatiion persist!
Right-wing secular or r.w. religious?
Shahzie-boy it was! He was dependent on the US for
arms, and we could count on him to DESTROY THE
SECULAR, NATIONALIST-ORIENTED, CAPITALIST, DEMOCRATIC,
AND NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT of Mossadegh! Perfect!
And soon, sure enough, the threat of Murderous
Muslim Old Men was right there in place to serve as
enough of a 'terrah' threat so that we began that
wonderful money-maker, the Eternal Great War on
Terrah!
(Or "Terrrr", as the bush-boob says.)
The Mossadegh Current, I'll call it, probably is
so far underground and/or destroyed that it isn't a
factor in the Iranian situation, and would probably
have to be nurtured considerably to function again.
This happened before, didn't it? The Afghan
government was non-aligned. It was not as much of a
'satellite' of the USSR as Chile is of the USA today;
that is to say, they won't necessarily vote with us,
but they won't fight us, either. WE armed Ossama bin
Laden and the Taliban, then, after bankrupting the
foolish men in the Kremlin, used them as the
boogie-men. Dual purpose allies! Convertible
friend-enemies! Oh Boy!
Enough history. Suffice it just to say that
there have been opportunities missed by Israel in the
past to come down on the side of the people, when
inaction carried the day. There are still
opportunities, harder to find, more difficult to
exploit, but they do still exist, and I say this as
an article of faith.
FAITH??!! DAMN YOU, HANK! YOU'VE PUT ME ON THE
SPOT AGAIN, YOU DOG! I don't know what the strategy
should be. I'm an alz-hammered machinist. You must
be able to figure this out, and I'll follow through
fire anyone who will save us from the destruction, but
I won't kill your children or others' children for
you.
Warren
--- Hank Roth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> http://pnews.org/ - http://up-yours.us
> Progressive (Post-Liberal) News & Views (since
> 1982)
> Neither Left nor Right - Seeking Truth and Justice
>
>
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>
> Islam has always been radical but became emboldened
> with the rise to power
> of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Fereydoun Hoveyda points
> out that the recipe
> for this extremism was a combination of various
> factors, including
> frustration over accomodations made between several
> Arab countries and
> Israel, austerity imposed on them by IMF and Western
> influence on their
> societies, which many saw as insulting to Muslim
> religious purity and
> moral sensitivities. It was a "clash of cultures"
> according to Hoveyda.
>
> The left also made the mistake of supporting the
> overthrow of the Shah.
> The Shah may not have been the nicest guy and he had
> a tough security
> police (Savak) but he did introduce modernization in
> Iran which included
> equality for women, improved literacy and there was
> a rapproachment with
> Israel. I had an Iranian friend who was gay and he
> didn't fear for his
> life under the Shah and the Shah was also an estopel
> to the radicalization
> and "old medieval mores" of Islam, which followed
> the take-over by
> Khomeini.
>
> The main thrust of Islamization, Fereydoun Hoveyda
> writes:
>
> "All fundamentalists yearn for the
> establishment of Islamic
> governments in their respective countries pending
> the reunification of the
> community of Muslims under the rule of one leader
> (caliph) and the
> launching of the final jihad, which will bring the
> whole planet into the
> fold of Islam."
>
> Hezbollah, HAMAS, the insurgency in Iraq, and
> al-Qaeda are the ground
> troops for World War III. Hoveyda writes:
>
> "Today militant Islamic fundamentalists are
> different from their
> terrorist predecessors. They do not seek personal
> renown. They are not for
> hire. They are actors in an eschatological drama.
> They sacrifice their
> lives for the triumph of Islam. They are believers
> in the service of
> Allah. Their reward awaits them in the hereafter: a
> place in paradise."
> Hank Roth
>
>
> Continued (read it here):
> http://pnews.org/ArT/TrU/GodsShadow.shtml
>
>
>
>
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Everything begins at The Worm Hole: http://up-yours.us/
----------------
Don't Miss This: http://tinyurl.com/m2uah
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