The United Fruit Company (UFCO) was told of a plan to expropriate 225,000 of its 550,000 acres in holdings, only 15 percent of which were under cultivation. The UFCO immediately began a public relations campaign in the U.S. to portray Arbenz as a Communist.Mossadeq, was a centrist - center left figure who was allied with the Tudeh (uneasily). The Tudeh party was not Mosssadeq's party (that was the National Front party, a nationalist party). The Tudeh was hardly in a position to dictate terms at that point. More here.
Respect for human rights in any country must spring forth through the will of the people and as part of a genuine democratic process. Such respect can never be imposed by foreign military might and coercion - an approach that abounds in contradictions. Not only would a foreign invasion of Iran vitiate popular support for human rights activism, but by destroying civilian lives, institutions and infrastructure, war would also usher in chaos and instability. Respect for human rights is likely to be among the first casualties.Now we've got entertainment figures like Bill Maher and even the venerated Jon Stewart asking "what if we were wrong and Bush was right?" What worries me is that if someone like Stewart can ask these questions, his viewers aren't far behind... (More in these self links.)
- nobel laureate shirin ebadi.
"Je l'apprécie de plus en plus ce Bush. Je me méfiais du Bush-bashing bien pensant au moment de sa réelection (les ennemis de mes ennemis sont mes amis ?), maintenant je pense qu'il est désastreux pour son pays mais bien utile pour le reste du monde."My approximate translation:
"I appreciate Bush more and more. I was wary of knee-jerk Bush-bashing at the time of his re-election (the enemies of my enemies are my friends?), but now I think he is disastrous for his country but quite useful for the rest of the world."posted by Asparagirl at 9:04 PM on March 7, 2005
"The USA is 'No. 1' in weaponry, consumer spending and debt.posted by ericb at 9:11 AM on March 8, 2005
How do we fare in other areas?
The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005)."
The list continues...
In (the Bush administration hawks') view, invasion of Iraq was not merely, or even primarily, about getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Nor was it really about weapons of mass destruction, though their elimination was an important benefit. Rather, the administration sees the invasion as only the first move in a wider effort to reorder the power structure of the entire Middle East. Prior to the war, the president himself never quite said this openly. But hawkish neoconservatives within his administration gave strong hints. In February, Undersecretary of State John Bolton told Israeli officials that after defeating Iraq, the United States would "deal with" Iran, Syria, and North Korea. Meanwhile, neoconservative journalists have been channeling the administration's thinking. Late last month, The Weekly Standard's Jeffrey Bell reported that the administration has in mind a "world war between the United States and a political wing of Islamic fundamentalism ... a war of such reach and magnitude [that] the invasion of Iraq, or the capture of top al Qaeda commanders, should be seen as tactical events in a series of moves and countermoves stretching well into the future."posted by techgnollogic at 4:59 PM on March 8, 2005
In short, the administration is trying to roll the table--to use U.S. military force, or the threat of it, to reform or topple virtually every regime in the region, from foes like Syria to friends like Egypt, on the theory that it is the undemocratic nature of these regimes that ultimately breeds terrorism. So events that may seem negative--Hezbollah for the first time targeting American civilians; U.S. soldiers preparing for war with Syria--while unfortunate in themselves, are actually part of the hawks' broader agenda. Each crisis will draw U.S. forces further into the region and each countermove in turn will create problems that can only be fixed by still further American involvement, until democratic governments--or, failing that, U.S. troops--rule the entire Middle East.
. . .
The hawks' grand plan differs depending on whom you speak to, but the basic outline runs like this: The United States establishes a reasonably democratic, pro-Western government in Iraq--assume it falls somewhere between Turkey and Jordan on the spectrum of democracy and the rule of law. Not perfect, representative democracy, certainly, but a system infinitely preferable to Saddam's. The example of a democratic Iraq will radically change the political dynamics of the Middle East. When Palestinians see average Iraqis beginning to enjoy real freedom and economic opportunity, they'll want the same themselves. With that happy prospect on one hand and implacable United States will on the other, they'll demand that the Palestinian Authority reform politically and negotiate with Israel. That in turn will lead to a real peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians. A democratic Iraq will also hasten the fall of the fundamentalist Shi'a mullahs in Iran, whose citizens are gradually adopting anti-fanatic, pro-Western sympathies. A democratized Iran would create a string of democratic, pro-Western governments (Turkey, Iraq, and Iran) stretching across the historical heartland of Islam. Without a hostile Iraq towering over it, Jordan's pro-Western Hashemite monarchy would likely come into full bloom. Syria would be no more than a pale reminder of the bad old days. (If they made trouble, a U.S. invasion would take care of them, too.) And to the tiny Gulf emirates making hesitant steps toward democratization, the corrupt regimes of Saudi Arabia and Egypt would no longer look like examples of stability and strength in a benighted region, but holdouts against the democratic tide. Once the dust settles, we could decide whether to ignore them as harmless throwbacks to the bad old days or deal with them, too. We'd be in a much stronger position to do so since we'd no longer require their friendship to help us manage ugly regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
The audacious nature of the neocons' plan makes it easy to criticize but strangely difficult to dismiss outright. Like a character in a bad made-for-TV thriller from the 1970s, you can hear yourself saying, "That plan's just crazy enough to work." -- Joshua Micah Marshall, April 2003
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![pogrom](http://www.wissen.swr.de/sf/begleit/bg0049/bg0049x/bg0049xx/pogrom.jpg"){kind=link}
I mean, you're going to have to close the causal gap a little bit more saying, "See! We invaded Iraq, and now look as all the pretty flowers bloom!"
Saying that W is responsible for this is like saying that Reagan "won" the cold war.
posted by Relay at 3:17 PM on March 7, 2005