By
Chris Rossini
Benjamin Netanyahu was presented with a bust of Winston Churchill for his 3rd appearance of speaking in front of the U.S. Congress.
What a very appropriate gift.
For it was Churchill who was instrumental in pulling the "neutral" United States into World War I. Oh what trouble that intervention by the U.S. has wrought.
Those Churchillian machinations are well known. However, the much less talked about machinations by Churchill was when he pulled the U.S. into overthrowing Iran's Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953.
Mosaddegh had nationalized oil assets in Iran that were controlled by the British. As would be expected, the British attempted every scheme available to them to regain control. When they were out of options, guess who they turned to?
Let's just say the CIA would overthrow its very first government (in what has grown to a long train since then) when they tossed out Mossadegh.
Oh what trouble (again) U.S. foreign intervention has caused...To this day, we suffer the consequences.
Churchill had to be patient with his coup idea. President Truman wanted none of it. However, once the Republican Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers moved in, it was game on.
Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing, and pulling, and saying whatever he can to get the U.S. into a war with Iran. He's been as patient as Churchill to say the least.
Churchill eventually got his coup.
Let's hope that Netanyahu never gets his war.
"What a very appropriate gift."
ReplyDeleteYou nailed that.
I've always been interested in two comments made by Churchill in regard to "democracy":
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
&
"Many forms of government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe.
No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is
the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time."
To me, it seems an implicit acknowledgment of the evil of gov't in general...yet he seemed to have no qualms wielding the power of government.
I don't get why the US congress would give a visiting PM a bust of a politician from a third country. Aren't there any politicians from American history who could fit the bill of the values they're imagining Winnie to embody?!? Wilson, FDR, Truman, Bush 1, Bush 2, LBJ...
ReplyDeleteMr. Rossini, I didn't realize that Churchill was instrumental in the Iranian coup- is there a good resource/book on this you could recommend? I'd like to read up on this.
ReplyDeleteChurchill was an even bigger scumbag than I realized...
Stephen Kinzer has a very good play-by-play of the coup in his book All The Shah's men: http://amzn.com/047018549X
DeleteEven though Kinzer isn't a libertarian, he tells the story in a very readable fashion. He covers players on the British side (which included Churchill) as well as the Americans involved as well (most notably Kermit Roosevelt -- of Teddy Roosevelt descent).
The Israel worship just gets more and more bizarre.
ReplyDelete