BFEE Overthrew Iranian Democracy for BP

[Octafish]

A reminder of who did what to whom 57 years ago, helping us get into the fix we're in today. CIA and MI6 overthrew Iran's democratically elected government and installed the Shah in order to reclaim "their" black gold:

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Vice President Richard M. Nixon greet the freshly minted Shah Reza Pahlavi to Washington, D.C.

History of BP Includes Role in 1953 Iran Coup After Nationalization of Oil

AMY GOODMAN: As we wrap-up, as tens of thousands of gallons of oil continue to spew into the Gulf of Mexico from the BP oil spill, we continue our series on BP. Yesterday we looked at their horrendous safety record on the millions of dollars they’ve spent on lobbying congress to prevent regulation. Today, we’re going to look at the history, sixty years ago, BP was called Anglo Iranian Oil Company. In an interview on DEMOCRACY NOW!, Stephen Kinzer, the former New York Times bureau chief, author of "All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror", told the story of the Anglo Iranian Oil Company’s role in the 1953 CIA coup against Iran’s popular progressive Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. Let’s go to a clip of what Steven Kinzer says.

STEVEN KINZER: At the beginning of the 20th century as a result of a corrupt deal with the old dying monarchy, one British company, owned mainly by the British government, had taken control of the entire Iranian oil industry.

SNIP...

...What happened was that Prime Minister Mossadegh, who really was an extraordinary figure in his time, although he’s in somewhat forgotten by history, came to power in 1951 on a wave of nationalism aimed at this one great obsession, we’ve got to take back control of our oil and use the profits for the development of one of the most wretchedly impoverished nations on earth at that time. So the Iranian parliament voted unanimously for a bill to nationalize the Anglo Iranian Petroleum Co. and Mossadegh signed it and he devoted himself, during his term of office, to carrying-out that plan. To nationalize was then Britain’s largest and most profitable holding anywhere in the world. Bear in mind that the oil that fueled England all during the 1920s and 30s and 40s all came from Iran. The standard of living that people in England enjoyed all during that period was due exclusive to Iranian oil. Britain has no oil. Britain has no colonies that have oil. every factory in England, every car, every truck, every taxi, was running on oil from Iran. The Royal Navy, which was projecting British power all over the world, was fueled a hundred percent by oil from Iran. Suddenly Iran arrives and says, 'Oh, we're taking back the oil now.’ So this naturally set-off a huge crisis. And that’s the crisis that made Mossadegh really a big World figure around the early 1950s. At the end of 1951 Time magazine chose him as 'Man of the Year,' and they chose him over Winston Churchill, Douglas MacArthur, and Dwight Eisenhower; and they made the right choice because at that moment, Mossadegh really was the most important person in the world.

AMY GOODMAN: That was the former New York Times reporter Stephen Kinzer. Wrote "All the Shah’s Men." Talked extensively about the Anglo Iranian Oil Company which was renamed British Petroleum. That’s BP. That does it for our show.

SOURCE: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/6/history_of_bp_includes_role_in

Here's an excellent overview from Mr. Bill Hare:

When the CIA Overthrew Iran for British Petroleum

By Bill Hare
opednews.com

EXCERPT...

Iran had just elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, that nation's most popular political figure.

The fact that Mossadegh was elected by the will of Iran's citizens did not deter the efforts of an invigorated CIA that used the Cold War as a pretext to move away from the fact finding agency conceived of by President Harry Truman to an aggressive international political body willing to overthrow nations in contravention of popular national will.

Mossadegh immediately angered the international power cartel with which the CIA actively interlinked. British Petroleum had been garnering the lion's share of profits from Iran's wealthy oil deposits.

Mossadegh nationalized Iran's oil as a means of obtaining what he deemed to be a fairer portion of that important asset. The nationalization law was passed unanimously by the Iranian Parliament.

Despite the fact that BP was offered considerable compensation by Mossadegh his days were numbered after the nationalization bill was passed.

Richard Helms, who would later become CIA Director, was prepared to act with a close Iranian friend becoming political beneficiary. A plan was launched to overthrow Iran in a coup and hand over the reins of power to a reliable figure who would accede to the international power elite's interests on behalf of British Petroleum.

CONTINUED...

http://www.opednews.com/articles/When-the-CIA-Overthrew-Ira-by-Bill-Hare-100511-809.html

Corp Watch adds more on BP: http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=287

Hey, America! Doncha just LOVE that Imperial attitude? Who needs Democracy, anyway?

[Oceansaway]

1. !

[Octafish]

4. A Clash of Civilizations? Christian in Name Only

Insight from Mr. Gaffney:

Christian in Name Only

A Clash of Civilizations?

By MARK GAFFNEY
CounterPunch
May 22, 2003

EXCERPT...

Did the U.S. government respond with reasoned dialogue? Absolutely not. Instead of negotiating a fair settlement of the differences, the Eisenhower administration collaborated with its British ally. The CIA and M16 (the British counterpart of the CIA) were ordered to stage a military coup. Mossadegh was overthrown by force of arms. The young Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, who during the previous two years had been eclipsed by Mossadegh's immense popularity, was installed in power. Mossadegh was thrown into prison. What mattered in Washington was not democracy, nor the best interests of the Iranian people. What mattered was not fairness, or international law, or human dignity. None of the above. Only one thing mattered: preserving the obscene profits of the U.S. and British oil companies.

The U.S. refused to negotiate with Mossadegh, but not because he was a Communist. He was not. Even as the coup was in progress, John Foster Dulles, U.S. Secretary of State, told a Senate committee there was no Communist threat in Iran. Mossadegh was unacceptable because he was considered too independent. He insisted, for example, on maintaining Iran's neutrality. During the Cold War Washington viewed this kind of attitude as tantamount to betrayal. Available historical records show that U.S. policymakers did not even consider whether meddling in Iran's internal affairs might be immoral. The U.S. National Security Council never even discussed the question of ethics on the day it made the fateful decision to launch the coup. (William Blum, Killing Hope, 1995, chapter nine)

The Shah was more compliant to U.S. corporate interests. For which reason the U.S. lavished aid and arms upon the Shah's increasingly brutal government. The coup signaled the end of democracy. The CIA and Israel trained the Shah's notorious secret police, the SAVAK, which hunted down Iranian dissidents all over the globe. During the next twenty-five years the Shah was Washington's most loyal ally--at the expense of the people of Iran. Amnesty International reported in 1976 that Iran "had the highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts, and a history of torture which is beyond belief. No country in the world has a worse record of human rights than Iran." (William Blum, Killing Hope, 1995, chapter nine)

The rest is history. Today, it is instructive to ask whether Shi'ite fundamentalism would have come to prominence in Iran in 1979 had we the good sense in the 1950s to support political moderation, justice, and democracy, instead of profits for profits' sake. Viewed in this perspective, the "clash of civilizations" appears considerably less inevitable than the talk show hosts, the FOX pundits, and the rabid newspaper columnists--the fear mongers--would have us believe. Indeed, the above history suggests that the actual clash is right here in America. The clash is the gaping chasm between one view of the world versus another: human decency versus rapacious greed.

If we were truly a Christian nation, we in America would have insisted that our government's dealings with Iran adhere to the golden rule: do unto others. But nothing like this happened. We who preach freedom and democracy chose not to be informed about our government's foreign intrigues. We who call ourselves Christians chose not to care about the criminal way our government was treating others. Most importantly, we so-called Christians totally abandoned the most fundamental teaching of Jesus: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. A teaching so simple, yet, so profound. We failed in the case of Iran. And similar instances involving other countries are too numerous to count. Some will argue that foreign affairs is no place for Christian values. What nonsense! On this shrinking planet--a planet in deep peril--the most important decisions we make are how we treat other people(s). The unpleasant truth is that we Americans are spiritually bankrupt as a nation: Christian in name only. And there is no doubt that in the coming days we are going to reap the consequences of the whirlwind we have unleashed on this tiny planet.

SOURCE:

http://www.counterpunch.org/gaffney05222003.html

Treason -- corruption in public office -- is like a gift that keeps giving.

[Florida Blue]

42. We were never meant to be a "Christian Nation". The fathers did not want that.

[WinkyDink]

62. The author's statements, IMO, are meant to be ironic, given how many DO make this assertion.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

39. Your screen name has a very...

...a saddening irony in light of the topic at hand.

[barbtries]

2. put them out of business!

they've killed the gulf. how many lives we'll never know, especially if you count the wildlife. they are lying to us every day and obstructing efforts to stem the damage.

the fucked up thing is i don't have a clue where to even begin to make something like that happen. but i think it really needs to happen.

BP needs to be put out of business NOW.

[Octafish]

6. Agree Totally. Guess who runs Prudhoe Bay?

BP Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust

Not that Wiki isn't, eh, ideal. A bit more:

http://www.business.com/directory/energy_and_environment/oil_and_gas/consulting_and_engineering_services/property/bp_prudhoe_bay_royalty_trust/profile/

Almost forgot, BP was in charge of, eh, emergency oil spill response in Alaska's Prince William Sound:

Slick Operator: The BP I've Known Too Well

Wednesday 05 May 2010
by: Greg Palast, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

I've seen this movie before. In 1989, I was a fraud investigator hired to dig into the cause of the Exxon Valdez disaster. Despite Exxon's name on that boat, I found the party most to blame for the destruction was ... British Petroleum (BP).

That's important to know, because the way BP caused devastation in Alaska is exactly the way BP is now sliming the entire Gulf Coast.

Tankers run aground, wells blow out, pipes burst. It shouldn't happen, but it does. And when it does, the name of the game is containment. Both in Alaska, when the Exxon Valdez grounded, and in the Gulf last week, when the Deepwater Horizon platform blew, it was British Petroleum that was charged with carrying out the Oil Spill Response Plans (OSRP), which the company itself drafted and filed with the government.

CONTINUED...

http://www.truthout.org/slick-operator-the-bp-ive-known-too-well59178

As for busting the company, We the People might expect some help from our Congreff and the President.

[BeFree]

8. BP is going down

But a new head will just grow back and replace it. Exxon, maybe?

And where the hell is Cheney? Why isn't he complaining about this major screwup?
Why isn't he offering suggestions on how to fix the oil gusher?
He's our oil man. The go to guy. The one who is all for protecting America.

BP will disappear, leaving a boatload of debt behind floating on the black tide of death. Cheney will be at the helm steering it right for your bank account, pension fund and social security.

We've been had. Bushco wins again. Reagan is in hell smiling his ass off.
The rich will feel no pain. You and me? Screwed again.

When will we ever learn? When will we rise up and take back what they have stolen from us?

[barbtries]

9. i don't know,

but i'm all for NOW.

[unhappycamper]

3. Hey! That happened over 50 years ago.

Everyone knows that only the propaganda spewed by the M$M is relevant to our situation. History, smishtory.

[Octafish]

11. Gosh. Worse yet. I'm old enough to remember 50 years ago.

Including the time the Shah used his petrodollars to buy all manner of western weapons, including nuclear:

Iran's Nuclear Program

Part I: Its History

By Mohammad Sahimi
Payvand's Iran News
10/2/03

EXCERPT...

This article represents the first of a three-part series in which these two important questions are discussed, and Iran's nuclear program is described and analyzed in detail. In the present article, the history of Iran's program for nuclear research and development is reviewed. The significance of this review is twofold. (1) History shows that the US and her allies were in fact the driving force behind the birth of Iran's nuclear program in the late 1960s and early 1970s. (2) It is also particularly important to recognize that since the late 1980s, when Iran restarted its nuclear program, the US and her allies have been given every opportunity to participate in the development and construction of nuclear reactors in Iran, which would have provided them with significant control on the reactors and their products, but that they have always refused to do so.

SNIP...

Before embarking on this task, we must recognize that the development of adequate energy resources is a highly important part of the national interests of every nation which, by their very definition, transcend the political system that governs a nation. Both Democratic and Replublican administrations in the US, and their allies, such as Britain, have waged wars, invaded and occupied oil-producing countries, and engineered coups to overthrow the legal, often democratically-elected, governments of oil-producing countries in order to control the world's oil reserves. They have always justified their deed solely based on protecting their national interests and national security. We only need to recall what happened in Iran in 1953, after Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalized Iran's oil industry, and the recent invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US and Britain, to understand this. The same principles are also applicable to Iran, namely, that she has a fundamental right for securing adequate energy resources - the engine for her development and advancement.

Iran's foray into nuclear research and development began in the mid 1960s under the auspices of the US within the framework of bilateral agreements between the two countries. The first significant nuclear facility built by the Shah was the Tehran Nuclear Research Center (TNRC), founded in 1967, housed at Tehran University, and run by Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI). This Center has always been one of Iran's primary open nuclear research facilities. It has a safeguarded 5-megawatt nuclear research reactor that was supplied by the US in 1967. The reactor can produce up to 600 grams of plutonium per year in its spent fuel.

Iran signed the NPT on July 1, 1968. After the Treaty was ratified by the Majles, it went into effect on March 5, 1970. In the language of Article IV of the Treaty, the NPT recognized Iran's "inalienable right to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful proposes without discrimination, and acquire equipment, materials, and scientific and technological information." The events of the early 1970s were, however, instrumental in shaping and accelerating the development of Iran's nuclear program. The 1973 war between the Arab countries and Israel, and the subsequent huge increase in the price of oil, provided the Shah's government with considerable resources for Iran's development. At that time, a study by the influential Stanford Research Institute concluded that Iran would need, by the year 1990, an electrical capacity of about 20,000-megawatt.

According to declassified confidential US Government documents posted on the Digital National Security Archive (see the article, "The US-Iran Nuclear Dispute: Dr Mohamed El Baradei's Mission Possible to Iran," by Drs. A. Etemad and N. Meshkati, published on July 13, 2003, in the Iran News), in the mid-1970s, the US encouraged Iran to expand her non-oil energy base, suggested to the Shah that Iran needed not one but SEVERAL nuclear reactors to acquire the electrical capacity that the Stanford Research Institute had proposed, and expressed interest in the US companies participating in Iran's nuclear energy projects. Building these reactors, and selling the weapons that the Shah was procuring from the US in the 1970s, were, of course, a good way for the US to recover the cost of the oil that she was buying from Iran.

CONTINUED...

http://payvand.com/news/03/oct/1015.html

Gee. It's like the West wants to have an excuse to start a war with Iran or something.

PS: My Friend, I even remember beaches and trees and stuff like good public schools and good paying jobs. That's why I keep bringing up this old stuff -- I want the young to know the world wasn't always a playground for the kings and lords. There was a time in America...

[SpiralHawk]

63. "Smirk." - xCommander AWOL (R)

[redqueen]

5. K&R

My dad used to delight in sharing this history with us kids when we were little.

We grew up sans blinders wrt to these matters, thanks to him.

[Octafish]

15. Eyes Wide Open.

A bit more history:

The US and Iran part II - the Shah and the revolution

Public Radio International
October 26, 2004

In part II of our series on US policy toward Iran, Jeb Sharp examines America's relationship with Tehran during the reign of Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi.
Listen to part II

After the 1953 coup, the United States lost no time in shoring up the Shah's regime. Washington poured money into Iran for economic recovery. It began providing military aid. The United States took one other fateful step: it sent CIA experts to Iran to train a new intelligence agency. That agency grew into the Shah's notorious secret police force, SAVAK. Nasser Hadian, a political scientist at Tehran University, grew up in the shadow of SAVAK.

Hadian: "The presence of SAVAK as a very fearful force was almost everywhere and everyone believed that OK any dissent, any opposition, legal or otherwise would not be tolerated by SAVAK and the people would be arrested and would be tortured. That was the general perception."

Reza Shah Pahlavi

Iranians knew the United States lay behind the Shah's new grip on power. And the Shah knew the image of him as America's puppet made him vulnerable. So he set out to reform and strengthen Iran, and to reduce his dependence on the United States. He had considerable success according to Iranian historian Shaul Bakhash.

Bakhash: "The Shah you know managed Iran's foreign policy extremely well. And certainly between 1963 and 73 Iran enjoyed a decade of impressive economic growth. But the Shah grew increasingly autocratic. He certainly grew increasingly out of touch with public opinion. And I think he determined that he knew what was best for the country and there was no reason to listen to anybody else. "

The United States kept a close watch on Iran through the 1950s and early 60s. But eventually Washington began to turn its attention to other, more pressing problems. Especially Vietnam. But the United States still needed an ally in the Persian Gulf. In 1972 President Nixon visited the Shah to ask a favor. He wanted the Shah to guarantee US security interests in the region. In return, Washington would allow Iran to buy any weapon system it wanted. The Shah agreed. The job of overseeing those arms sales fell to a young foreign service officer in Tehran named Henry Precht.

Precht: "They promised the Shah that he could buy whatever he wanted and no one would quibble with him. Everything up to but not including nuclear weapons. So that was my marching orders, facilitate, don't get in the way of this process."

Then came the 1973 Arab Israeli war. Oil prices rose dramatically. Suddenly the Shah was flush with oil money. He bought massive quantities of the most high-tech weaponry money could buy. US officials were unsettled by the consequences of their bargain. But Washington had no alternative plan for policing the oil-rich Persian Gulf. It became taboo to question the arrangement according to Gary Sick, a member of the National Security Council staff under President Carter.

Sick: "People in the bureaucracy learned very quickly that anybody who was raising questions about our relationship with the Shah was not really welcome and so people if they didn't like this policy they would find themselves working somewhere else."

In deference to the Shah, the United States took another fateful step. Gary Sick says Washington backed off its intelligence gathering inside Iran.

Sick: "In the past we'd had a tremendous capacity to read Iran's domestic politics. We basically gave that up so that we were no longer looking at Iran's internal problems. This had huge implications which affected everything that we did from that point on."

CONTINUED...

http://www.pri.org/theworld/?q=node/3567

Thank you for sharing a most important lesson, my Friend. Your father set an example for all of us to follow.

[OnyxCollie]

7. Corporate Power, Government by Private Groups, and the Law.

Friedmann, W. G. (1957). Corporate power, government by private groups, and the law. Columbia Law Review 57(2), p. 155-186.

Under this state of affairs, it is not surprising that on certain occasions
private international cartels have become a substitute for public international
treaties. The outstanding illustration is the Iranian Oil Agreement
of 1954. In that case the leading oil companies of the Western world cooperated
with their own Governments as well as with that of Iran in an
arrangement that has features both of a commercial business operation
and of a quasi-public international treaty.

The agreement, between the Iranian Government and the wholly
government owned National Iranian Oil Company on the one part and a
consortium of eight companies-five of them American, one British, one
Dutch, and one French-on the other part, gives the consortium an exclusive
concession to produce, refine, and sell Iranian oil. While the governments of
the participating Western companies are not officially parties to the agreement,
they took a very active interest in it, so much so that the State Department
has refused to disclose the terms of the accompanying internal
agreement between the participating companies to the House of Representatives
because of objections voiced by the Governments of Iran, Great Britain,
France, and the Netherlands as well as for United States foreign policy
considerations.59 In this particular instance, the oil companies, with the
blessing of their governments, combined the functions of public agencies
with those of private entrepreneurs. Although this arrangement was instrumental
in the solution of a grave international crisis, it is hardly a generally
desirable pattern, especially when part of the business arrangements are
covered by secrecy.

59. One of the major partners, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now renamed British
Petroleum Co.), is, in part, owned by the British Government, and the French Government
has interests in the Compagnie Francaise des Petroles, another participant. (p. 175)

[Octafish]

16. Secret Government used to be un-American. Now it's SOP.

Readers are leaders, indeed.

Big Oil's Last Stand

By Antonia Juhasz. Edited by Emily Schwartz Greco
Foreign Policy in Focus
October 22, 2008

Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from the introduction to The Tyranny of Oil: the World's Most Powerful Industry, and What We Must Do To Stop It (William Morrow 2008).

Within days of the New Year, 2008 began with three landmark events. Oil reached $100 per barrel for only the second time in history as gasoline prices began an ascent toward the highest prices in a generation. And on January 3, Senator Barack Obama became the first African American to win the Iowa Caucus. Voter turnout broke records as well, with four times more registered Democrats voting than had turned out in 2000. Obama was reserved yet purposeful as he delivered his historic victory speech. He chose to highlight just a handful of policy issues in the 15-minute address, making his focus on oil all the more significant. Obama forcefully declared that he would free the United States once and for all from "the tyranny of oil" and then pledged to be the president "who ends the war in Iraq and finally brings our troops home." An already raucous crowd met these pronouncements with thunderous applause and waves of cheers.

"The tyranny of oil" powerfully encapsulates the feelings not only of Americans, but of people the world over. Without viable and accessible alternatives, entire economies suffer when increasing proportions of national budgets must be used to purchase oil. And on an individual level, families, facing the same lack of alternatives, forgo basic necessities when gasoline prices skyrocket. Communities that live where oil is found — from Ecuador to Nigeria to Iraq — experience the tyranny of daily human rights abuses, violence, and war. The tyranny of environmental pollution, public health risks, and climate destruction is created at every stage of oil use, from exploration to production, from transport to refining, from consumption to disposal. And the political tyranny exercised by the masters of the oil industry corrupts democracy and destroys our ability to choose how much we will sacrifice in oil's name.

SNIP...

2,600 Mergers

Since 1991, government regulators, under the direct and heavy influence of the nation's largest oil companies and their lawyers, have allowed more than 2,600 mergers to take place in the U.S. oil industry. The mergers have resulted in the near demise of the independent oil company, refiner, and gas station in the United States.

The mergers of the mega-giant oil companies have all taken place since 1999 and remain the largest mergers in corporate history. Exxon merged with Mobil, Chevron with Texaco, Conoco with Phillips, and BP with Amoco and then Arco to create the largest corporations the world has ever seen. Shell also participated in the merger wave by purchasing several "baby-Standard" oil companies.

While nowhere near its Seven Sisters "glory years," Big Oil's oil reserves are impressive nonetheless. Were the five largest oil companies operating in the United States one country instead of five corporations, their combined crude oil holdings would today rank within the top 10 of the world's largest oil-rich nations. ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell, and BP exercise their control over the price of oil today through these individual holdings and through participation in the crude oil futures market. The futures market has replaced OPEC as the principal determinant of the price of crude oil. It is largely unregulated and prone to excessive speculation and manipulation.

The mergers also allowed the oil companies to take control of the refining and selling of gasoline in the United States in the style of Standard Oil. They have forged a mass consolidation of these sectors, yielding rapid increases in the price of gasoline and oil company profits.

CONTINUED...

http://www.fpif.org/articles/big_oils_last_stand

Thank you for the heads-up on that big turning point in history, OnyxCollie.

"...on certain occassions..." Hah!

[WinkyDink]

65. And yet there remain those who ridicule as "tinfoil-hattery" the claims of small-group control at

the very top.

Tri-lateral Commision? Bilderburgers? Carlyle Group? Oh, how Ian Fleming!

[dotymed]

70. And yet, the corporate owned MSM

is just now beginning to report the facts that have been posted to DU for the last month. Of course, much of the most damning evidence is still unreported to the masses. For example, I watched some of (elitist, over-privileged) Anderson Coopers' show last night. He was informing people of the "new evidence" that BP was actually using toxic dispersants when much safer and more efficient dispersants (which are used to fool people about the extent of the carnage) are readily available. Of course he neglected to report that the dispersants that BP have been using, are actually made by a company owned by BP.
On DU, we libruls, have known about this for weeks. I wonder when they will dribble out that information? I assume it will be "reported on", when it is considered to be the least harmful for BP, and the most advantageous for the GOP.

[Angry Dragon]

10. I read the first article....fascinating read

One can trace the troubles we have today, wars, terror, oil problems, back to the republican doorstep. Do not ever let them forget that, never!!

And the bushes would seem to have had there fingers in that also.......it just never stops.

[Octafish]

19. America Held Hostage

Back in the day, when the only watchdog Traitors really had to worry about was Corporate McPravda...

America Held Hostage

By David Dionisi, December 30, 2007

Many Americans are unaware that declassified information reveals the CIA helped overthrow an Iranian Prime Minister in 1953 and thwart 1980 hostage negotiations to defeat US President Jimmy Carter.

During 1979-1981 the American people were routinely told the reason for the Iran hostage crisis was that President Carter allowed the Shah to visit the US for medical treatment. While it is true the Shah did visit the US, the reason for the hostage crisis was to prevent another 1953 US coup. In 1953 the US and Britain illegally overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister.

Why did the US and Britain overthrow Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq? The answer is that Mossadeq interfered with US and British oil interests. The Shah, returned to power by the US and Britain, outlawed political opposition and committed terrible crimes. Together with the CIA, he created a secret police organization called SAVAK. Torture became common and the Shah and the US were despised by most Iranians.

While this truth was highly classified in the US during the hostage crisis, this information has been published by newspapers in other countries for decades. The American public may want to take note of this to understand why we must not solely rely on the news as it is reported here in the US. US media professionals knew the real reason for the Iran hostage crisis in 1979 and yet they did not broadcast this information. They failed to do that in part because the official US government position until 1999 was that the CIA was not involved. Decades of US government denials were silenced and illuminated as lies after the National Security Archive filed a lawsuit with the CIA in 1999. Educating millions about this tragedy, The New York Times also published in 2000 the Top Secret after-action report by coup planner Donald Wilber. The after-action report, kept secret for almost 50 years, confirmed that US covert action executed out of the US Embassy in Tehran in 1953 was a catalyst for the US Embassy being stormed on November 4, 1979. Iranian students involved in the hostage crisis communicated this justification in 1979 but their voices were dismissed.

Since the Iranian people knew about the US overthrow of Mossadeq in 1953, why was it necessary for the US government to deny the operation even in 1999? The answer to this question is to be found in the presidential election of November 1980.

Beyond wondering what secrets are so horrible that the Bush administration hopes they stay classified at least 50 years, why revisit this subject now? As demonstrated with the recent British hostage crisis and current calls by political leaders to bomb Iran, understanding history is necessary both to understand current events and to prevent future wars. Believing the story constructed by the perpetrators, specifically that 52 Americans were released on January 20, 1981 after 444 days of captivity because Reagan simply put his hand on a Bible to become the President, creates the conditions for continued corruption. A careful review of what really happened reveals that not one but two governments were overthrown by the CIA, one directly, the other, indirectly much later.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan was running against President Carter. Polls showed the major swing issue was the Iran hostage crisis. Time magazine’s October poll highlighted this point, showing how close the race was, with Carter at 42 percent and Reagan at 41 percent. Reagan understood that Carter would win if the hostages were released before the election.

Reagan, his candidate for vice president (former CIA Director George H. W. Bush), and campaign manager (experienced CIA officer William Casey), formed a team of 120 foreign-policy and intelligence professionals. Some of these operatives continue in 2007 to actively promote the “hand on the Bible Reagan miracle” propaganda in order to harden Republican party support. To highlight the size of this operation, reporters Abbie Hoffman and Jonathan Silvers noted in an article titled An Election Held Hostage that the National Security Council employed only 65 foreign-policy professionals. They also revealed that in September 1980, William Casey and Edwin Meese formed a subcommittee of these professionals, called the October Surprise (OS) group.

As a result of the focused OS intelligence effort, Reagan had informants at the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Council and in the White House Situation Room. This intelligence apparatus enabled Reagan to receive the “Top Secret – Eyes Only” documents regarding President Carter’s negotiations with Iran. When Reagan was asked how these Top Secret documents were found in his personal campaign file he answered “he didn’t know how they got there.” Reagan’s intelligence apparatus also explains why former Congressman David Stockman was able to boast on October 28, 1980 that he used a stolen copy of Carter’s briefing book to coach Reagan for a televised debate. The most important “Eyes Only” document Reagan’s network provided was on October 15, 1980, when classified information revealed Carter was about to have the hostages released. Reagan obtained this information from campaign strategist Richard Allen, future Reagan National Security Advisor. Allen said he obtained the information from reporter John Wallach, who obtained his information from Secretary of State Edmund Muskie.

CONTINUED...

http://www.teachpeace.com/americaheldhostage.htm

Things are different today, I hear every mother say the pursuit of happiness is such a bore...

http://democracyunbound.com/playboy1088.html">To fight boredom, fascism and traitors, courtesy of the Way Bac machine.

[nichomachus]

33. Think of any bad thing that's happened in the last 60 years in or to the US

And there is a thread that somehow runs back to the Bush family. It's really quite amazing -- and depressing.

[Octafish]

36. Sen. Prescott Bush wrote an interesting article for Reader's Digest on war for Iraq's oil in 1959...

It was called: "To Preserve Peace, Let’s Show the Russians How Strong We Are."

It's not available online, but I transcribed it from a copy in the lie-bury:

To Preserve Peace Let’s Show the Russians How Strong We Are

By Prescott Bush
U.S. Senator from Connecticut;
member of the Senate Armed Services Committee
The Reader’s Digest July 1959

MAN’S GREATEST danger, it is said, is ignorance. In a very real sense, the Soviet Union’s ignorance of our military strength may be the source of her gravest peril—and ours. Kaiser Wilhelm started World War I because he miscalculated Allied power. Hitler, mistakenly thinking he could blitz the world, launched World War II. Kruschev today lacks firsthand knowledge of our country; he may be given what others think he would like to hear—rather than an objective report on our actual military strength. Although it seems impossible that any sane person could start a war, we would be wise to take no chances.

Why not invite the Soviet high command to the United States for a conducted tour of our military might? We are bringing Russians to see our farms and factories, our scientific laboratories and research centers; we exchange dancers and musicians. Why not have their military leaders over for the most beneficial look of all? Our expressed policy, the aim and purpose of our entire defense system, is to deter the Kremlin from starting a war. What better way to deter than to show?

What we could show is nothing more nor less than the greatest military might ever assembled in the history of the world. If the Soviet high command could see what we have, they should be of our mind—that for them to start war today would be an act of insanity.

We could start in a Pentagon briefing room. There, with maps, globes, films and sound-projection equipment to help illustrate our points, we could give them a good hard look at the distribution of American power. Then we could fly the group to Mountain Home Air Force Base in Montana, where bombers of the Strategic Air Command are on 24-hour alert, many ready to take off within 15 minutes. We could see an awe-inspiring line of B-47’s, any one of which can, in a single mission, deliver explosive power equivalent to that of all the bombs dropped by all sides in World War II. We could invite the commander of the Soviet air force to ride in one of these planes, and see it refueled in the air, thus quietly demonstrating that, while most Soviet bombers would have to fly one-way missions, ours can strike any target in the world and return nonstop.

SNIP...

It’s fortunate for them that we want only peace with justice. Our entire record attests to that. We have no history of aggression, profess no desire for world domination, as do the Communists. Only by their continued menace have we been forced to take these measures for defense.

I ASK, “Why don’t we show the Russians many of these defense measures?” What I would not show them is any self-satisfaction on our part about the future, any slowing-up of plans to produce the new weapons which must inevitably take the place of the old ones. I believe we are in a continuing struggle to keep on top in this business of declaring war. I think that the Russians are never to be underrated. I also believe that the Communists are master bluffers that they seek to put us off by arrogant threats to Berlin and to the peace of the far Pacific, and, while our people are preoccupied with these threats, they may try to take over Iraq as the Chinese Reds have conquered Tibet.

CONTINUES…

The Reader’s Digest
July 1959 pp. 25-30

Small world. Too small for war.

[BolivarianHero]

12. Yep..

And the Kremlin stood aside because BP gave them a sweetheart deal on Iranian oil. Another reason Trotsky would have been a better leader than Stalin.

[Octafish]

21. ''Oil of Russia'' is a great read: ''FATHOMING THE SECRETS OF ENERGY DIPLOMACY''

Thanks for the heads-up on Trotsky, BolivarianHero.

I think you led me to find the money making major my relatives often remind me I missed:

FATHOMING THE SECRETS OF ENERGY DIPLOMACY

Oleg Alexandrov
Oil of Russia
September 2010

The International Institute for Energy Policy and Diplomacy manages to combine the best traditions of Russian higher education and foreign best practices

The rapid development of the global oil and gas business today demands a new generation of experts who are capable of responding to the difficult challenges of the 21st century. The International Institute of Energy Policy and Diplomacy holds a leading position in the system for training highly-qualified personnel in the fields of energy diplomacy, geopolitics, and global economics for the companies and organizations of Russia's fuel and energy complex. In the last ten years, it has contributed heavily to the development of the country's higher education in oil and gas.

Forging personnel for energy diplomacy

One of today's most important tasks is optimizing international cooperation in the area of the fuel and energy complex and stepping up energy diplomacy at the government and corporate levels. Because of the need to carry out these tasks, there is a substantial demand for the training in Russia of international experts for major companies and organizations of the domestic fuel and energy complex.

"The International Institute for Energy Policy and Diplomacy (IIEP) was created on February 8, 2000, as part of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Moscow State Institute for International Relations," says Prof. Valery Salygin, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute's director. "Its operational strategy was developed on the basis of a number of basic programs drawn up in the area of higher education, including the Priority Lines of Development for the Educational System of the Russian Federation and the Energy Strategy of Russia in the Period up to 2030."

In consideration of the importance of the tasks facing the IIEP, an Oversight Committee was set up for the Institute in 2001 and is now headed by RF Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Among the members of the committee are the heads of the administrations for the country's 10 largest oil-producing regions, along with the directors of the 30 leading companies in Russia's fuel and energy complex, including, LUKOIL President Vagit Alekperov, Gazprom President Alexey Miller, and Surgutneftegaz President Vladimir Bogdanov.

"The IIEP," Prof. Salygin continues, "is the sole higher educational institution in Russia to train experts in the field of international energy cooperation, and in the spheres of energy diplomacy and geopolitics. Our programs provide a balanced blend of fundamental academic and effective practical training for future experts, thanks to the combined academic and practical potential of leading Russian scholars and highly-qualified specialists from leading domestic and foreign energy companies. In the last ten years, we've become convinced that our choice was the correct one. We now have more than 500 students, master's candidates, and other graduate students from 34 regions of Russia and 18 foreign nations."

The IIEP is home to three specialized faculties, and each one is unique. The Faculty of International FEC Affairs is headed by Nikolay Laverov, Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The master class on Russia's Foreign Energy Policy, currently headed by Academician Nodari Simonia, Director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of World Economics and International Relations, invariably draws huge interest on the part of both undergraduate and graduate students. The Faculty of FEC Legal Regulation operates under the direction of Prof. Veniamin Yakovlev, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and well-known scholar and RF presidential advisor on legal issues. In 2007, members of the faculty prepared and published a fundamental work, entitled International Energy Law.

CONTINUED...

http://www.oilru.com/or/42/874/

Instead of plastics, if only my high school counselor had mentioned "Energy" and "Russia"...

[Initech]

13. America: one nation under oil

[Octafish]

22. Offshore Drilling Disaster Tied to Weak Oversight, Strong Lobbying

We do have a prayer, courtesy of Firesign Theatre...

“OIL”

Anointed with oil on troubled waters?

Oh Heavenly Grid,
help us bear up thy Standard,
our Chevron flashing brightly
across the Gulf of compromise,
standing Humble
on the Richfield
of Mobile American thinking;
Here in this Shell,
we call life.”

-- Firesign Theatre, "Don't Crush That Dwarf. Hand Me the Pliers."

Then, again...

Offshore Drilling Disaster Tied to Weak Oversight, Strong Lobbying

Andrew RomanoffFormer Colorado House Speaker, Candidate for US Senate
Posted: May 12, 2010 Huffington Post

Every day, 200,000 gallons of crude oil are spewing out of the damaged wells from British Petroleum's sunken offshore drilling rig, the Deepwater Horizon. The oil slick is now the size of Delaware - and growing.

Analysts are only beginning to calculate the economic and environmental consequences of this blowout in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Gulf Coast. Industries such as fishing and tourism stand to lose tens of billions of dollars, from Texas to Florida. The fishing industry alone employs over 40,000 workers in the Gulf States, with revenue totaling more than $3 billion annually.

The Gulf Coast accounts for 40 percent of the wetlands in the lower 48 states. This spill could not have come at a worse time for waterfowl, sea turtles and other wildlife, which are migrating to the Gulf to nest and lay eggs. Plankton, the main food source of Gulf shrimp, is being destroyed. As the oil settles, bottom feeders such as blue crab will be poisoned. Many fish like the bluefin tuna will survive, but the oil they ingest will contaminate whatever consumes them.

In the final analysis, the damage from this spill will make it the worst environmental and economic disaster in U.S. history.

CONTINUED w some logic...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-romanoff/offshore-drilling-disaste_b_574231.html

Perhaps if we used the chromium switch by the label maker marked: Quantum Wave Function...

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Octafish]

29. Venezuela oil 'may double Saudi Arabia'

Funny. The Saudis think THEY'RE "the Roils."

Venezuela oil 'may double Saudi Arabia'

BBC News
Saturday, 23 January 2010

A new US assessment of Venezuela's oil reserves could give the country double the supplies of Saudi Arabia.

Scientists working for the US Geological Survey say Venezuela's Orinoco belt region holds twice as much petroleum as previously thought.

The geologists estimate the area could yield more than 500bn barrels of crude oil.

This assessment is far more optimistic than even the best case scenario put forward by President Hugo Chavez.

The USGS team gave a mean estimate of 513bn barrels of "technically recoverable" oil in the Orinoco belt.

Chris Schenk of the USGS said the estimate was based on oil recovery rates of 40% to 45%.

CONTINUED...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8476395.stm

Who knows how many long knifes Hugito has escaped?

Thank you for the heads-up, malaise. Interesting times, indeed. Carajo.

[liberation]

51. Isn't if funny, the minute Chavez gave the middle finger to the US he became a "tyrant"

Regardless of the fact that he was democratically elected.

Not, that I think that Chavez is the smartest of politicians. But I am always fascinated about the opinion manipulation attempts by the US when it comes to beat the drums of war against anyone who dares disagree with our wants, while at the same time... the average American thinks we are the actual victims in all this.

Fascinating, and frightening at the same time.

Heck, up to this day... most of the opposition against the 2 front war we have going on in the middle East comes from the amount of American casualties. While most of the American people (even a large chunk of the peacenic movement) does not know (or care for that matter) that the number of local casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan are a few order of magnitude larger than our volunteer soldiers.

[WinkyDink]

66. That was true of VietNam, as well. Anyway, we're there to SAVE THEM, right?!

[dotymed]

72. Regarding Chavez.

Anytime a country (or politician) refuses to be shackled by America and its' corporate owners, especially if the "peasants" are shown some empathy, they are immediately declared hostile to America. I agree that Chavez is not the "smartest of politicians." I believe he began as a man who didn't really want to be a politician. He wanted to stop the suffering of the poor and reign in the despotism of the wealthy. As usual, the United Corporation of America has done everything in its' power to derail his intent. While Chavez has done a lot to improve conditions for the poor, usually at the expense of the once ruling elite, much of his Socialist agenda has been deformed. The Venezuelan elite, backed by the Corporatist government of America, have been successful in their agenda of corrupting any real change. They have been such a destructive force, even at the cost of hurting their interests (cutting off your nose to spite your face), that Venezuela now faces destructive inflation. They have goaded Chavez into un-winnable positions which had the desired effect of forcing him into questionable decisions.
Instead of being a good neighbor and respecting the democratic will of the people, our government has repeatedly (and historically) attempted to subjugate the people and silence their voice. If we would have just observed, the American ruling class feared their exposure and the possible, equitable changes this may have heralded for America.
Anything to retain their corrupt, demeaning rule of America was, and is, the standing order. Only, we the people can change this.

[Catherina]

17. Great post n/t

[Octafish]

30. Report details CIA role in overthrow of Iranian government in 1953

Here's history Corporate McPravda must've forgotten:

Report details CIA role in overthrow of Iranian government in 1953

By David Walsh
19 April 2000
WSWS.org

EXCERPT...

The role of the New York Times in the current sequence of events should simply be noted. The secret history of the coup was “provided to The Times by a former official who kept a copy,” Risen writes. In an accompanying article, he provides some details as to how the American press was manipulated by the intelligence agency at the time (details that contradict the article's headline, “C.I.A. Tried, With Little Success, to Use U.S. Press in Coup”). Risen recounts how CIA officials planted articles with the Associated Press and Newsweek and made use of a Times correspondent in advancing the shah's cause.

The secret history complains, however, that the spy agency “lacked contacts capable of placing material so that the American publisher was unwitting as to its source.” If anything has changed over the intervening decades it is that the relations between the US government, CIA and the press are far more intimate. In the recent conflict in Kosovo the news media, including quite centrally the New York Times, acted by and large as the unquestioning mouthpiece for the NATO high command and the US State Department. In publishing the history of the 1953 coup the Times' editorial staff means, one way or another, to serve American geopolitical aims, the accomplishment of which would only mean more suffering for the Iranian people.

Details of the coup

According to the secret history, written in March 1954 by Dr. Donald N. Wilber, one of the coup's planners, the credit for coming up with the idea of overthrowing Mossadegh must go to British intelligence, who proposed it to their US counterparts in late 1952. British interests had retained control of Iran's oil fields after World War II through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The decision by Iran's parliament to take over the oil industry, a struggle identified with Prime Minister Mossadegh, infuriated officials in London.

SNIP...

Apparently plans for a coup got a boost in March 1953 when an Iranian general approached the US embassy about support for an army-engineered coup. In April CIA chief Allen W. Dulles authorized $1 million to be spent “in any way that would bring about the fall of Mossadegh.” An initial coup plan was drawn up at a gathering of US and British intelligence officials in Cyprus in May 1953. The CIA began distributing “gray propaganda” in the streets of Tehran, including anti-government cartoons, and “planting unflattering articles in the local press.”

In June 1953 British and American officials finalized their conspiracy plan at a meeting in Beirut. Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, soon arrived in Iran to oversee its implementation. On July 11, President Dwight Eisenhower signed off on the plan.

The primary difficulty for the CIA at the time was convincing the shah to take part in the plot. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, father of the Persian Gulf commander, was enlisted to help gain the shah's cooperation. The British also attempted to sway Pahlavi.

Meanwhile the operation went ahead. One of the dirty tricks employed by the CIA was to have agents pretend to be Iranian Communists and threaten Moslem leaders with “savage punishment if they opposed Mossadegh.” In another incident the house of at least one prominent religious leader was bombed by CIA agents posing as Communists.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/apr2000/iran-a19.shtml

Must be irony how all those familiar names get left out of all the wars and so forth since.

PS: Thank you, Catherina. I very much appreciate your kindness.

[Echo In Light]

18. K/R

[Octafish]

35. MOSSADEQ AND OIL NATIONALIZATION

To be honest, it wouldn't be a bad thing for the USA and UK.

MOSSADEQ AND OIL NATIONALIZATION

EXCERPT...

Oil production came to a virtual standstill as British technicians left the country, and Britain imposed a worldwide embargo on the purchase of Iranian oil. In September 1951, Britain froze Iran's sterling assets and banned export of goods to Iran. It challenged the legality of the oil nationalization and took its case against Iran to the International Court of Justice at The Hague. The court found in Iran's favor, but the dispute between Iran and the AIOC remained unsettled. Under United States pressure, the AIOC improved its offer to Iran. The excitement generated by the nationalization issue, anti-British feeling, agitation by radical elements, and the conviction among Mossadeq's advisers that Iran's maximum demands would, in the end, be met, however, led the government to reject all offers. The economy began to suffer from the loss of foreign exchange and oil revenues.

Meanwhile, Mossadeq's growing popularity and power led to political chaos and eventual United States intervention. Mossadeq had come to office on the strength of support from the National Front and other parties in the Majlis and as a result of his great popularity. His popularity, growing power, and intransigence on the oil issue were creating friction between the prime minister and the shah. In the summer of 1952, the shah refused the prime minister's demand for the power to appoint the minister of war (and, by implication, to control the armed forces). Mossadeq resigned, three days of pro-Mossadeq rioting followed, and the shah was forced to reappoint Mossadeq to head the government.

As domestic conditions deteriorated, however, Mossadeq's populist style grew more autocratic. In August 1952, the Majlis acceded to his demand for full powers in all affairs of government for a six-month period. These special powers were subsequently extended for a further six-month term. He also obtained approval for a law to reduce, from six years to two years, the term of the Senate (established in 1950 as the upper house of the Majlis), and thus brought about the dissolution of that body. Mossadeq's support in the lower house of the Majlis (also called the Majlis) was dwindling, however, so on August 3, 1953, the prime minister organized a plebiscite for the dissolution of the Majlis, claimed a massive vote in favor of the proposal, and dissolved the legislative body.

The administration of President Harry S Truman initially had been sympathetic to Iran's nationalist aspirations. Under the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, however, the United States came to accept the view of the British government that no reasonable compromise with Mossadeq was possible and that, by working with the Tudeh, Mossadeq was making probable a communist-inspired takeover. Mossadeq's intransigence and inclination to accept Tudeh support, the Cold War atmosphere, and the fear of Soviet influence in Iran also shaped United States thinking. In June 1953, the Eisenhower administration approved a British proposal for a joint Anglo-American operation, code-named Operation Ajax, to overthrow Mossadeq. Kermit Roosevelt of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) traveled secretly to Iran to coordinate plans with the shah and the Iranian military, which was led by General Fazlollah Zahedi.

In accord with the plan, on August 13 the shah appointed Zahedi prime minister to replace Mossadeq. Mossadeq refused to step down and arrested the shah's emissary. This triggered the second stage of Operation Ajax, which called for a military coup. The plan initially seemed to have failed, the shah fled the country, and Zahedi went into hiding. After four days of rioting, however, the tide turned. On August 19, pro-shah army units and street crowds defeated Mossadeq's forces. The shah returned to the country. Mossadeq was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for trying to overthrow the monarchy, but he was subsequently allowed to remain under house arrest in his village outside Tehran until his death in 1967. His minister of foreign affairs, Hosain Fatemi, was sentenced to death and executed. Hundreds of National Front leaders, Tudeh Party officers, and political activists were arrested; several Tudeh army officers were also sentenced to death.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

http://countrystudies.us/iran/17.htm

Naitonalization would certainly make the money go to where it belongs: We the People -- no offense to those in favor of the Oil Depletion Allowance.

[alfredo]

20. BP was kicked out of Iraq, and just recently signed a $500 million oil deal in

Iraq. I be they had quite a bit to do with Great Britain joining the coalition of the willing.

[Octafish]

49. There's no business like oil business. Poppy mixed business with ''service.''

Poppy continued family tradition of mixing business with govmint service.

Bush Administration Uses CIA To Stonewall Iraqgate Investigation

Jack Colhoun
Covert Action Quarterly 42

In House floor speeches, Rep. Henry Gonzalez has documented how pre‑Gulf War U.S. policy helped Iraq develop weapons of mass destruction. But President George Bush, taking a page from one of the darkest chapters of the Nixon presidency, has enlisted the CIA as part of his campaign to derail the Texas Democrat's Iraqgate investigation. The CIA is investigating Gonzalez for revealing allegedly secret intelligence information, which it claims has harmed U.S. national security interests.

Involving the CIA in domestic political affairs is one of the few remaining taboos in U.S. politics, and so far, Bush has gotten away scot‑free with it. His predecessor, Richard Nixon, was forced to resign a few days after the infamous "smoking gun" tape revealed that he had instructed White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman to tell CIA Director Richard Helms to refuse to cooperate with the FBI's investigation of Watergate.

While the media and the Washington pundits have duly reported the CIA's investigation of Gonzalez, they have failed to note the resemblance between the way Bush and Nixon instigated domestic involvement of the CIA to protect their administrations. Nor have the media explored the ominous political implications of Bush‑the first former CIA director elected president‑using the Agency to discredit his political foes.

The House Banking Committee, which Gonzalez chairs, began looking into pre‑Gulf War U.S. policy toward Iraq in 1990. "We have determined that your statements in the Congressional Record on July 7, 1992, included information from a Top Secret compartmented and particularly sensitive document dated September 4, 1989, to which we gave your staff access," CIA Director Robert Gates wrote in a July 24 letter to Gonzalez. "Because of the sources and methods underlying that information, I will ask for a damage assessment to determine the impact of the disclosure." Adm. William O. Studeman, acting CIA director while Gates was abroad, informed Gonzalez in a July 28 letter that the CIA's Office of Security would also assess Gonzalez's House floor speeches of July 21 and July 27, 1992. Studeman claimed that Gonzalez revealed other Top Secret intelligence information in these speeches.

The maverick Mexican‑American lawmaker from San Antonio, Texas, angrily denied the CIA's charges. "Your insinuation that I have revealed Top Secret, compartmented information is inflammatory and without merit," Gonzalez declared in a July 30 letter to Gates. "In fact, I have taken great pains to ensure that all information I have placed in the Congressional Record is of the broadest nature and readily available from public sources."

Gonzalez added he was "extremely disappointed that the CIA was allowing itself to be used to build a smokescreen around the president's flawed policies. The CIA should be above involving itself in the political problems of the administration."

Gonzalez also charged that since spring, the CIA has not cooperated with the House Banking Committee. Attorney General William Barr, in a May 15, 1992, letter to the Texas Democrat, announced that the administration would no longer turn over classified documents to Gonzalez's committee without "specific assurances" that he won't make the information public.

Gonzalez, who has made public more classified U.S. documents than anyone since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the "Pentagon Papers," believes Bush is using the CIA to taint the Iraqgate investigation. Again the parallel is clear. In 1971, Nixon's White House "Plumbers," led by CIA operative E. Howard Hunt, launched a campaign to discredit former Pentagon analyst Ellsberg and even broke into his psychiatrist's office to search for incriminating dirt.

Meanwhile, Republicans on Capitol Hill escalated their vilification campaign against Gonzalez. House Minority Leader Robert Michel (R‑Ill.) introduced a resolution in the House on August 4 that calls on the House Ethics Committee to investigate Gonzalez's release of documents, citing the CIA probe of the 32‑year House veteran. Michel charged that Gonzalez has violated the House code of conduct, but he failed to note that lawmakers who disclose classified information on the House or Senate floor are exempted from the federal law against making intelligence secrets public.

CONTINUED...

http://covertaction.org//content/view/147/75/

Where were the other Democrats? Jack Brooks and very few others were there. Most of the other liberals were, by that time, gone.

Oh well. Let's get on with the show.

[alfredo]

54. Is there such a thing as a successful and honest man?

[Bluenorthwest]

23. BFEE?

Not familiar with the term.

[Binka]

24. Bush Family Evil Empire n/t

[Octafish]

25. Bush Family Evil Empire

Bartcop's shorthand for the ruling class's global criminal enterprise, an organization the likes of which not even Ian Fleming dared dream. Here are a few posts with links and outstanding responses:

Henry Paulson, Banker to the BFEE

Know your BFEE: Cultkeepers

Know your BFEE: It wasn’t Obama who Looted the Treasury and Banks. It was Bush and his Cronies.

Know your BFEE: John McCain, Dim Knight Errant of the War Party

Know your BFEE: Goldmine Sacked or The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One

Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.

Know your BFEE: The Corrupt Bastards Club… with Lipstick

Know your BFEE: Olympic Games Show Who’s Best Friends Forever with Authoritarians and Dictators

Know your BFEE: 1984 Death of Outstanding Congressional Staffer Buried Poppy-Moon Relationship

Know your BFEE: Forget Rev. Wright! It’s Bush and His Cronies Who Owe an Apology for Rev. Moon!

Know your BFEE: GW Bush Covers Up His Lying America Into War

Know your BFEE: Bush and His Crooks with Badges Sent an Innocent Man to Jail

Know your BFEE: They Looted Your Nation’s S&Ls for Power and Profit

Know your BFEE: War and Oil are just two longtime Main Lines of Business

Know your BFEE: Bush has Killed a Million Innocent People for Their Oil.

Know your BFEE: Scions of the Military Industrial Complex

Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich

Know your BFEE: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ford Covered Up CIA Murder of American Scientist

Know your BFEE: Money Trumps Peace. Always.

Know your BFEE: They kill good soldiers like Col. Ted Westhusing for profit.

Know your BFEE: America’s Ruling Gangster Class

Poppy Bush brought up JFK Assassination and "Conspiracy Theorists" at Ford Funeral

Know your BFEE: Robert Gates did more than keep the doors open at BCCI

Know your BFEE: The Fellowship ‘Preys’ for America

Sink the BFEE: Foley gives us Congress. Condi sends 'em to prison.

Beat the BFEE: Poppy’s CIA warned about terror plots and did not stop them

Know your BFEE: Los Amigos de Bush

Know your BFEE: Neil Bush hangs out with Russian Mafiya Godfather

Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush was in Dallas the day JFK was assassinated.

Know your BFEE: Nazis couldn’t win WWII, so they backed Bushes.

Know your BFEE: At every turn, JFK was opposed by War Party

Know your BFEE: Lies Are the Currency of Their Realm

Know your BFEE: Cheney & Halliburton Sold Iran Nuke Technology

Know your BFEE: The Stench of Moussaoui Permeates the Octopus

Know your BFEE: Moussaoui Must Die for Bush and 'His' Government

Know your BFEE: Alito is just another word for Mussolini

Know your BFEE: Like a NAZI

Know your BFEE: The China-Bush Axis

Know your BFEE: Bush and bin Laden Clans Together in Bed

Know your BFEE: Libby Is the First Big BFEE Turd to Go Down

Know your BFEE: WHIG (White House Iraq Group) made phony case for Iraq War

Know your BFEE: The Secret Government

Know your BFEE: Reinhard Gehlen

Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush Armed Saddam

Know your BFEE: Killer Businessmen who put Power and Profit before Country

Know your BFEE: Nixon Threatened to Nuke Vietnam

Know your BFEE: Corrupt Craftsmen Hoover and Dulles

Know your BFEE: Poppy’s CIA Made Saddam Into the Butcher of Baghdad

Know your BFEE: Hitler’s Bankers Shaped Vietnam War

Know your BFEE: Merchants of Death

Know your BFEE: R. James Woolsey, Turd of War

Know your BFEE: Sneering Dick Cheney, Superturd-Superrich-Supercrook

Know your BFEE: Bush Lied America into War

Know your BFEE: James R Bath – Bush – bin Laden Link

Know your BFEE: War Profiteers

Know your BFEE: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Know your BFEE: Bush and bin Laden Clans Together in Bed

Know your BFEE: Rev. Sun Myung Moon OWNS Poppy Bush

Know your BFEE: Homeland Czar & Petro-Turd Bernie Kerik

Know your BFEE: American Children Used in Radiation Experiments

Know your BFEE: Eugenics and the NAZIs - The California Connection

Know your BFEE: The Barreling Bushes

Know your BFEE: A Crime Line of Treason

Know your BFEE: How Smirko Got Rich

Know your BFEE: George W Bush did "community service" at Project P.U.L.L.

Know your BFEE: Vote Suppressor Supreme, the Turd Bill Rehnquist

Know your BFEE: George W Bush Knew 9-11 Was Coming and Did NOTHING!

Know your BFEE: Oliver North, Drug Dealer

Know your BFEE: Pat Robertson Incorporated a Gold Mine with a Terrorist


These aren’t labeled “Know Your BFEE,” but they’re meant in the same spirit:

Poppy Bush Involved in JFK Assassination -- BFEE's Spooked!

Vietnam and Iraq Wars Started by Same People

BFEE Turd Daniel Pipes tied to DANISH CARTOONS

JFK Would NEVER Have Fallen for Phony INTEL!

Plame Affair makes clear: USA is run by TRAITORS.

How Cheney Got His SNEER: The Curse of Dick Cheney

Know your BFEE: Dope Dealers & Money Launderers

BFEE Is More than Capable of Bombing Their Own Countrymen

Frank Church and the Abyss of Warrantless Wiretapping.


And for all my friends with those hard-to-reach areas between the ears:

A fact curiously missing from American history and any mention of the Warren Commission

A Short History of Conspiracy Theory


Note 1: The subject is a work in progress. The entries are not perfect, nor are they complete. They do provide a framework for a who's-who and what's-what and how we got here. Started for educational and historical purposes, these threads are meant to serve the public interest. What gives them a special quality are the contributions of DUers. May they also serve some prosecutor in the future.

Note 2: As no individual is totally evil or totally good, not all Bushes are evil or beholden to the BFEE. Nor are all those who gain by its existence members of the immediate or extended Bush family. Nor are the Bushes at the pinnacle of global power -- it is quite likely they serve an even wealthier class. What they all have in common is the use of the powers of the government of the United States for accumulating wealth and power for themselves, their associates and the other affiliated beneficiaries among the world's financial elite and authoritarian regimes. Always, they gain at the expense of the people and nations of the world, including the citizens of the United States and its Constitution.

[Bluenorthwest]

31. Very familiar with the subject matter

just not that set of letters. These days, it is always sets of letters, and I never know what they mean. I need an acronym translator device. Thanks for the links.

[Hosnon]

93. DU's boogeyman.

The source of all the world's problems.

[Octafish]

95. BFEE's shorthand for the monied class that is the source for most all the world's problems.

Recognize these two historical figures?



One had familial links to slavery and the other to eugenics.

Those are not democratic ideals; they are evil.

[Hosnon]

98. Oh, I wasn't aware of that. I suggest changing the term then.

I generally assume BFEE threads are conspiracy threads about the Bushs (which would, in my opinion, deserve the label "conspiracy"). But if the term refers to the (pardon) fucking-over by the rich of the rest of us, I'm a bit more interested.

[Initech]

99. I've come to think that BFEE isnt just limited to the Bushes.

It includes all of George HW's friends.

[Hosnon]

101. Eh - unless you define "friends" to mean "ruling elites", I don't see how that helps.

And if you do so define "friends", why not just use "ruling elites" or something else, since the vast majority of us do not define "friends" so broadly?

[Initech]

104. If you put it that way I think all the "ruling elites" are connected somehow.

[Octafish]

100. Tried to call it the 'War Party'....

...but the cast of characters who make big money off war also come from the same small and shallow conspiratorial gene pool of high society never-worked-a-day-in-their-lives types represented by Wall Street, Big Oil and Old Money. Even spymaster Ian Fleming could not imagine the day when an organization would hijack the US Government and direct policy to benefit cronies. Yet, isn't that exactly what three generations of the Bush family have accomplished?

For instance, the When War is Swell, Bush's Crusades and the Carlyle Group.

Regarding how Big Money and the War Party use the "conspiracy label":

"One of the things that is interesting about reading conspiracy theory is that much of what folks think is conspiracy is really many people acting in concert to make or protect their money." - Catherine Austin Fitts

Why "conspiracy theorist" is used to smear those people who want to know truth, let alone question authority:

A Short History of Conspiracy Theory

[Hosnon]

102. The elites may overuse the term to cover their collected asses but that doesn't mean that

everything labeled a conspiracy is one.

And I'm not convinced that what's going on is just an aligning of interests, rather than an active conspiracy.

[Soylent Brice]

26. Dear Octafish,,

Please never ever leave DU. Ever.



Yours Truly,

Soylent Brice

[laughingliberal]

27. +1 nt

[Ignis]

32. +1. We would have to retire your jersey number.

:patriot:

[catzies]

40. A hearty and sincere "Seconded!" Octafish is a treasure and I have learned a lot

from these threads and links, because everything is connected and even if you think something is new, it has its roots in the past.

And when we're talking the BFEE, it is a very dark, evil, murderous, oily past.

[blm]

47. Exactly...the books need to be opened over 5 decades so Americans can finally UNDERSTAND what

has happened over the years that led to the shitstorms of the last 10 years.

If those books were opened there would never be a Bush elected to anything ever again.

[WinkyDink]

68. Wait until the history books from Texas get into schools. Oil spills/leaks/eruptions? Nobody here

but us chickens.

[leveymg]

61. I also promise to stay, if you do, too, my aquatic friend. You three, SB! ;-)

[Soylent Brice]

73. WOOT!

[Octafish]

75. What Sil said...

"Just when I thought I was out they pull me back in."



Thank you for everything, Soylent Brice. In all seriousness, You and my DU Friends mean the world to me.

[blm]

79. Aren't we legally married by now?

; )


common law?

[Octafish]

82. Baby, with us, there has been and there never will be a seven-year itch.

Who needs a piece of paper?

[laughingliberal]

28. Excellent, as usual. nt

[Octafish]

50. Ted Rall -- Nationalize BP and Other Criminal Corporations

Here's a great idea:

Nationalize BP and Other Criminal Corporations

by Ted Rall
CommonDreams.org
Thursday, May 20, 2010

The Supreme Court says that corporations have the same rights as individuals. When they misbehave, shouldn't they face consequences as serious as those imposed upon an individual?

It goes without saying that a person who commits a crime ought to face punishment proportional to the offense. Large and midsize corporations, which employ thousands of employees, have far vaster reach and power than even the wealthiest ordinary citizens. So their crimes can be breathtaking in scope. The 1984 industrial catastrophe at a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India killed 15,000 people. An additional 200,000 have since suffered serious injuries. Compared to the boards of directors of Union Carbide and Dow Chemical, which bought the company in 2001, Ted Bundy was small potatoes.

Unlike small-time serial killers, however, corporations get away with murder. For at least a year, management of the Toyota auto company knew that brakes in millions of its cars might fail. A 2009 ABC News investigation found that at least 16 people had died. "Safety analysts found an estimated 2000 cases in which owners of Toyota cars including Camry, Prius and Lexus, reported that their cars surged without warning up to speeds of 100 miles per hour," reported the network. Yet Toyota did nothing. Instead they blamed their customers, saying they were resting their floormats on the gas pedals.

On May 18th, Toyota finally faced the wrath of the federal government. Its "punishment": a paltry $16.5 million fine, not one cent of which went to the victims or their families. The fine, which amounted to a ridiculous 5.5 percent of its 2009 profit, went into the U.S. Treasury's general fund--in other words, to kill Afghans and Iraqis.

Available to Congress and the President is a far more appropriate punishment: nationalization without compensation. Toyota's American operations ought to be seized and operated by the federal government. The top officials of the parent company in Japan, whose willful negligence murdered at least 16 American citizens, ought to be extradited and face trial in U.S. federal court.

Extreme? Expropriating private property is commonplace--when the target is Joe and Jane Sixpack. Just ask hundreds of homeowners of New London, Connecticut. When the city destroyed an entire neighborhood to build a luxury office development, the U.S. Supreme Court backed them up, radically expanding the concept of eminent domain. Unlike a lot of evil corporations, those homeowners didn't do anything wrong.
The U.S. government has not only the right but the duty to take over criminal corporations.

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/20-10

Thank you, laughingliberal. Much obliged, my Friend!

[amborin]

34. knr

[Octafish]

74. Making it safe for the King of Kings

From "Killing Hope" by William Blum:

Iran 1953

EXCERPT...

As the prime minister had anticipated, the British did not take the nationalization gracefully, though it was supported unanimously by the Iranian parliament and by the overwhelming majority of the Iranian people for reasons of both economic justice and national pride. The Mossadegh government tried to do all the right things to placate the British: It offered to set aside 25 percent of the net profits of the oil operation as compensation; it guaranteed the safety and the jobs of the British employees; it was willing to sell its oil without disturbance to the tidy control system so dear to the hearts of the international oil giants. But the British would have none of it. What they wanted was their oil company back. And they wanted Mossadegh's head. A servant does not affront his lord with impunity.

A military show of force by the British navy was followed by a ruthless international economic blockade and boycott, and a freezing of Iranian assets which brought Iran's oil exports and foreign trade to a virtual standstill, plunged the already impoverished country into near destitution, and made payment of any compensation impossible. Nonetheless, and long after they had moved to oust Mossadegh, the British demanded compensation not only for the physical assets of the AIOC, but for the value of their enterprise in developing the oil fields; a request impossible to meet, and, in the eyes of Iranian nationalists, something which decades of huge British profits had paid for many times over.

The British attempt at economic strangulation of Iran could not have gotten off the ground without the active co-operation and support of the Truman and Eisenhower administrations and American oil companies. At the same time, the Truman administration argued with the British that Mossadegh's collapse could open the door to the proverbial communist takeover. When the British were later expelled from Iran, however, they had no alternative but to turn to the United States for assistance in toppling Mossadegh. In November 1952, the Churchill government approached Roosevelt, the de facto head of the CIA's Middle East division, who told the British that he felt that there was "no chance to win approval from the outgoing administration of Truman and Acheson. The new Republicans, however, might be quite different."

John Foster Dulles was certainly different. The apocalyptic anti-communist saw in Mossadegh the epitome of all that he detested in the Third World: unequivocal neutralism in the cold war, tolerance of Communists, and disrespect for free enterprise, as demonstrated by the oil nationalization. (Ironically, in recent years Great Britain had nationalized several of its own basic industries, and the government was the majority owner of the AIOC.) To the likes of John Foster Dulles, the eccentric Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh was indeed a madman. And when the Secretary of State considered further that Iran was a nation exceedingly rich in the liquid gold, and that it shared a border with the Soviet Union more than 1,000 miles long, he was not unduly plagued by indecision as to whether the Iranian prime minister should finally retire from public life.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Iran_KH.html

Thank, amborin, for giving a damn!

[amborin]

80. thanks for posting this!

[wiggs]

37. BP has Iraq contracts ALSO. NT

[Octafish]

76. BP: All Star Iraq War Profiteer

Juan Cole alerted readers to this reminder about making money off of, eh, consulting:

Iraq War Profits Katy Brown looks at some of the companies profiting from the invasion of Iraq

BP received an estimated $5m from the Ministry of Oil, ‘To help conduct technical studies providing the ministry with advice, analysis and training for Rumaila field’.

But the really big money for BP is in Iraq'a oil. Big, big money.

[Uncle Joe]

38. Well shit kabobs if it isn't one thing it's another.

Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Octafish.

[Octafish]

77. The Dulles Brothers: How to Wreak Havoc in Guatemala and Iran

Here is one hell of a resource:

Operation AJAX -- The Stinker and the Madman

The details! The details!

PS: You are most welcome, Uncle Joe. With every response, I learn much that is new to me. So, thank you, my Friend!

[bertman]

41. Another informative history lesson about our bloody history of spreading "democracy". REC.

[Octafish]

78. 'If I sit silently, I have sinned.' -- Mohammed Mossadegh

No ideologue, the guy was truly profound.

Mossadegh, Islam and the Ayatollahs - The story behind the fall of democracy and rise of fundamentalism in Iran

[bertman]

86. And courageous. He knew the intrigues that the British and Americans had used over the

years in the Middle East to separate the people from their natural resources.

[Quantess]

43. Thanks for posting it.

[Octafish]

81. Truman invited Mossadegh to Washington in '51. Here he visits the Liberty Bell...

Things really changed when the Republicans took charge.

Four Important Books on U.S. Foreign Policy—What, Why, and Where?

by Bill Becker

EXCERPT...

First, we learn that after failing to intimidate Mossadegh into returning the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company under effectively the same rules that led to its nationalization in the first place, Britian's newly re-elected, super-imperialist Prime Minister Winston Churchill tried mightily to persuade the Truman administration to join Britain in a covert action to remove him from power. Truman and his Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, rejected Churchill’s underhanded request out of hand. Truman and Acheson held British imperialism in contempt, and while recognizing that Mossadegh was a frustratingly difficult national leader to deal with, they also approved of his progressive reforms and his democratic aspirations for Iran. Contrary to the British, they also took seriously the fact that Mossadegh had been democratically elected and enjoyed the genuine support of the vast majority of Iranian citizens. In essence, they wanted to see Mossadegh succeed.

Second, we learn that the British did not once invoke a "communist threat" to the entire Middle East and beyond if Anglo-Iranian was not returned to them. In fact, the British and the Russian monarchy had in 1907 formally partitioned Iran between them, with the Russians taking the north sector. During WWII, the U.S., the British, and the Soviet Union worked together in Iran for crucially important strategic purposes. In 1944, the pro-Soviet wing of Iran’s first true political party, Tudeh, gained control of the party, and in 1946 even succeeded in winning a majority in Iran’s parliament. Tudeh implemented significant progressive reforms: limitations on child labor, a 48-hour workweek, guaranteed maternity leaves, and a minimum wage. Tudeh’s growing political strength led Stalin to attempt a takeover of Northern Iran in early 1946. He envisioned a "People’s Republic of Azerbaijan" run by Tudeh. Azerbaijanis resisted, and the Iranian Prime Minister at the time, Ahmad Qavam, persuaded Stalin to withdraw his troops as required by the agreement reached before the end of the war. "Jubilant Azerbaijanis celebrated by summarily executing all the Tudeh leaders they could find," writes Kinzer.

Tudeh also suffered in Iran proper. In 1949, a attempt was made to assassinate Mohammad Reza Shah. In spite of the evidence that the would-be assassin was a religious fanatic, the Shah blamed Tudeh, and took repressive measures against it. Thenceforth, Tudeh was only one of several players on the Iranian political field.

This history hardly speaks of a Soviet Union that presented a dire threat to Iranian sovereignty, or even to British commercial interests. The British knew this, and President Truman and Secretary of State Acheson, both savvy and far more scrupulous, knew it. In fact, Kinzer makes it clear that Truman and Acheson believed that the most effective way to forestall a communist Iran was to bring more democracy, more education, more freedom, and higher living standards to the Iranian people. They thought Mossadegh was the man for the job. Thus the British had no choice but to keep their mouths shut regarding a non-existent "communist threat." (More on Kinzer’s treatment of the "communist threat" in Part III of this review.)

CONTINUED...

http://www.williamgbecker.com/fourimportantbooks.html

Always a big difference for We the People once the Republicans are in charge. Power and Money get concentrated -- in their pockets.

PS: JFK thought like Truman and Acheson. That's why he refused to take part in the post-colonial civil war in Vietnam.

[slipslidingaway]

88. Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran addressing the United Nations Security Council.

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/photographs/view.php?id=3223

I've looked for this speech a few times, but have come up empty handed.

[Octafish]

94. Thanks for the heads-up. Mossadegh made a case at the UN for nationalizing Iran's oil.

The matter went before the international court at The Hague.



They ruled with Iran. From "a 1951 speech" out of the above link:

Our long years of negotiations with foreign countries… have yielded no results this far. With the oil revenues we could meet our entire budget and combat poverty, disease, and backwardness among our people. Another important consideration is that by the elimination of the power of the British company, we would also eliminate corruption and intrigue, by means of which the internal affairs of our country have been influenced. Once this tutelage has ceased, Iran will have achieved its economic and political independence.

The Iranian state prefers to take over the production of petroleum itself. The company should do nothing else but return its property to the rightful owners. The nationalization law provide that 25% of the net profits on oil be set aside to meet all the legitimate claims of the company for compensation…

It has been asserted abroad that Iran intends to expel the foreign oil experts from the country and then shut down oil installations. Not only is this allegation absurd; it is utter invention…”

Gee, that doesn't sound like a crazy commie rat to me. It's because I, also, put people ahead of profits.

PS: I'll keep my eyes peeled for the speech. I visited the UN's site last night and I came back empty, too.

[WillyT]

44. Yep... A Golden Oldie That Keeps Kicking Us In The Ass...

Blowback's a bitch, no???

:mad:

:kick:

K & R !!!

:hi:

[Octafish]

84. If USA'd followed Truman's policies, there'd be no Blowback.

Meaning NO HOSTAGES and no October Surprise TREASON.

Pars Times - Iran and Beyond:

Visit of his Excellency Mohammad Mossadegh, Prime Minister of Iran, to the United States of America, October 6 to November 18, 1951.

We even hospitalized Mossadegh -- prolly got him a private room -- soon after his arrival. Very humane treatment was the norm for LIBERAL DEMOCRATS.

Seems like a coupla fellahs by the name of Dulles, though, didn't take a likin' to all them Persians living on top of their bosses' oil patch.

[uponit7771]

45. This is so disgusting, I figured some oil company HAD to be involved. There was oil and Iran had it

[Octafish]

91. BP and Big Oil Cover the Earth

In 1999...

Unfortunately, literally as well as figuratively.

... Following a year in which oil prices reached all-time lows and placed severe economic pressures on the industry and energy-producing countries, 1999 emerged as a year of "mega-mergers" and acquisitions-including the merger of Exxon and Mobil, British Petroleum (BP) and Amoco, BP-Amoco and the Atlantic Richfield Corporation (ARCO), France's Total and Belgium's Fina, and the announced acquisition of France's Elf Aquitaine (Elf) by Total-and rising oil prices. Consolidation within the industry meant that a smaller group of transnational corporations would have to assume responsibility for the sector's human rights impact globally. Two key issues dominated the human rightsdebate: the use of revenues generated by energy projects to bolster abusive governments and situations of corporate complicity in human rights violations when companies relied on abusive state forces for the protection of company facilities, personnel, and prerogatives. Despite efforts by some companies to address human rights, the overall performance of the industry was poor. Countries where companies were criticized for their operations on human rights grounds included Chad, India, and Nigeria...

[David Zephyr]

46. "All the Shah’s Men" by Stephen Kinzer is one blistering book.

As is his "Bitter Fruit".

Thanks, Octafish.

[Octafish]

92. Amy Goodman spoke to him on Democracy Now...

Uncle Sam always bails out the deserving, such as foreign governments and international banks and mineral extracting corporations ASAFP. So, while 43 years have passed since the riots, I'm sure they'll get around to bailing out Detroit some day.

History of BP Includes Role in 1953 Iran Coup After Nationalization of Oil

... This one company had the exclusive rights to extract, refine, ship, and sell Iranian oil. And they paid Iran a very tiny amount, but essentially the entire Iranian oil resource was owned by a company based in England and owned mainly by the British government...

PS: You are most welcome, David Zephyr. Always good to read you, my Friend.

[Overseas]

48. K&R ! //nt

[Octafish]

96. BP's Oil Spill is Latest Crime in a History of Plunder

Here's an excellent perspective on the problem:

BP's Oil Spill is Latest Crime in a History of Plunder

EXCERPT...

A history of criminal activity

Far from being a “good corporate citizen,” BP is a corporation that has made its huge profits through a history of crimes around the globe. Originally named the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, the company was founded in 1908, as the first company plundering the oil reserves of the Middle East. Anglo-Persian was renamed Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1935 and was subsequently renamed the British Petroleum Company in 1954.

The British government owned a majority share of the company and what little revenue was handed to the Iranian government was paid back to British and other European creditors. In 1947, for example, AIOC reported after-tax profits of £40 million, while giving Iran a mere £7 million.

The company subjected Iranian workers to deplorable working conditions, paying Iranians considerably less than foreigners. The following passage is how the director of Iran’s Petroleum Institute described those conditions:

Wages were 50 cents a day. There was no vacation pay, no sick leave, no disability compensation. The workers lived in a shanty town called Kaghazabad, or Paper city, without running water or electricity … In winter the earth flooded and became a flat, perspiring lake. The mud in town was knee-deep, and … when the rains subsided, clouds of nipping, small-winged flies rose from the stagnant water to fill the nostrils. … Summer was worse. … The heat was torrid … sticky and unrelenting—while the wind and sandstorms shipped off the desert hot as a blower. The dwellings of Kaghazabad, cobbled from rusted oil drums hammered flat, turned into sweltering ovens. … In every crevice hung the foul, sulfurous stench of burning oil … in Kaghazad there was nothing—not a tea shop, not a bath, not a single tree. The tiled reflecting pool and shaded central square that were part of every Iranian town … were missing here. The unpaved alleyways were emporiums for rats.

After centuries of Iran being a semi-colonized state under the British and Russian empires, most Iranians lived in abject poverty. Even part of the oil revenues stolen from the country could have resulted in a substantial gain in the living standards of Iranians. But, even in the face of an intense mass struggle for oil nationalization, Anglo-Iranian refused to agree to any significant concessions. It insisted on pocketing virtually all the revenues from Iran’s oil. In 1951, after the nationalization of oil by nationalist leader, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, Anglo-Iranian still refused to agree to a 50/50 profit-sharing arrangement. In other words, paying for half of the stolen oil was more than Anglo-Iranian was willing to concede.

The 1953 coup in Iran was, in large part, in response to the nationalization of oil, which had effectively deprived Anglo-Iranian of its profits from Iranian oil. After the coup, carried out by the CIA, the Shah, a U.S. puppet, denationalized the oil. Anglo-Iranian continued to make profits from Iran’s oil, albeit having to relinquish its monopoly. The fact that the United States had carried out the coup necessitated that Anglo-Iranian share Iran’s oil wealth with U.S. oil giants.

BP also had its hands in Iraq, as one of the key concession holders of that country’s oil. The nationalization of Iraq’s oil in 1972, which was the continuation of a process of the 1958 revolution in Iraq, was a blow to BP and other oil giants. The genocidal sanctions on Iraq, which cost more than a million lives, and eventually the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which continues to this day, have been carried out by imperialist powers to restore the immense profit-making opportunities of oil giants, including BP. BP has just gained virtual control of the Rumaila oil field in Iraq, possibly the second largest oil field in the world.

CONTINUED...

http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=13985&news_iv_ctrl=1261

Like a nice pool, planet earth's too small and fragile a place for the turds of giants.

[liberation]

52. So the question is: what do the Bushes have in plan for us for this century?

They certainly managed to run a train on us during most of the past century.

[Octafish]

97. Judging by their lack of action in light of the coming ecological collapse of planet Earth...

...and their consistent support for policies that benefit the "haves and the have-mores," I'd say we are in for a most frightening period of time. If We the People allow them to continue siding with their former business partners, the NAZIs, we may be done for.

Once I could almost laugh about this, calling it "Chimpageddon." Then, reality passed anything from my imagination.

Texas biologist applauded for suggesting depopulating planet by 90-percent.

That's some kind of NAZI thinking.

[slipslidingaway]

53. knr nt

[BrklynLiberal]

55. That was some nasty bed they made for us all to lay down in..

So BP has been pulling crap for decades......

[Nikki Stone1]

56. Long evil history with BP

Sigh.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

57. Yes, they did.

Your work is phenomenal, Octafish. Thank you.

[Rex]

58. Kind of like Enron and Afghanistan.

George W & Kenneth Lay had agendas for oil in the middle east and couldn't wait to start wars to make money.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/bushlay12.html

They should all have to stand trial for warcrimes, but that will never happen.

[leveymg]

59. Let's rewind the Wayback Machine to 1912. Lord Churchill switched Royal Navy to oil - Persian oil

BP got its start as the Anglo-Persian Oil Co., and its first big contract was the Royal Navy, which just prior to World War One had switched over from domestically-produced coal to oil, which at the time was produced in only three places in the world in great quantity: Texas, Azarbijan (Russia), and Persia. Given that the British might have had some trouble seizing the former two sources from its then allies, the British Foreign Office and Special Intelligence Service (SIS, now MI6) gave Persia, neighbor and rival of the Ottoman Empire, some special attention. To a large extent, that created much of the tension with Austro-Germany, who had dealings with the Turks (who dominated the OE), and with Russia, that led to the outbreak of World War One.

In 1953, Kermit Roosevelt and the CIA overthrew Mossadeq at the behest of our old friends the Brits. BP took back most of the concession, but had to split some of the take with US oil companies. That explains why, to this day, the Iranians distrust the British even more than the Americans and the Russians. Read "The Prize", still the single best book on the history of Big Oil, War and Imperialism.

No surprise, really, that Empire Oil has been lurking behind the scenes in the latest buildup of conflict with Iran.

[Swamp Rat]

60. k&r

¡Estoy muy muy enojado, compay! :grr:

[leveymg]

64. Swamp Rat's here. too!

Haven't seen you in a Dog's age, my friend! Did you just whip that one up?

[Swamp Rat]

67. A couple of days ago

Can you tell I am angry?



edit: not to angry to say :hi:

[leveymg]

69. You're not the only one.

Back at ya! Do you think the Seven Sisters ever stopped ruling Washington?

Not in this lifetime!

[lonestarnot]

71. And not even a whimper of a push-back in the air, jut rotten dead smell and oil.

:hug: K & R!

[Octafish]

85. Leave No Oil Giant Behind

Mille grazi, Swampinissimo. ¿Como handan?

Pa' un' atitut distinta:

Gallina Fina

Yo tambien, Compay Primero. Yo tambien. No es politico. El lio es supernatural.

[Angry Dragon]

83. K

[NNN0LHI]

87. Iranians were not known as religious fanatics back then either

When the Shah took over Mosques were the only places people were allowed to congregate in groups.

Our actions turned the mullahs into something special.

Don

[leftstreet]

89. kick

too late to rec

[Quantess]

90. What a great thread!

Epic.

[Cetacea]

103. K&R

Your knowledge on these matters is outstanding and a treasure.

[bobthedrummer]

105. Yep. Kick.

Thanks again my brother.
:hi:

[bobthedrummer]

106. The Iran Documentation Project (The National Security Archive)

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/iran/index.htm

[bobthedrummer]

107. bttt