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2005-12-15 Europe

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Posted by Dan Darling 2005-12-15 02:03|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 The light finally coming on?
And how about a letter to the Nobel committee who saw fit to reward the peanut farmer from Georgia who by abandoning the terrible Shah of Iran brought forth an even greater evil upon mankind.

Posted by Phaiter Creasing4965 2005-12-15 10:00|| 2005-12-15 10:00|| Front Page Top

#2 And how about a letter to the Nobel committee who saw fit to reward the peanut farmer from Georgia who by abandoning the terrible Shah of Iran brought forth an even greater evil upon mankind.

If the Shah had been abandoned even earlier, perhaps the revolution that overthrew him would have been a democratic and philo-Western one, rather than an Islamofascist anti-Western one.

Supporting a tyrant against the discontent of his own people never works well, because tyrannies are always overthrown and the people remember who aided them. Your stance towards said tyrants only serves to determine the stance of the *next* regime. It's not a coincidence that some of the most anti-American regions in the world (Iran, Latin America, Greece) once had tyrants aided by the US government, even as it's not a coincidence that countries like Poland (once enslaved by Russian stooges) now form the forefront of the anti-Russian resistance.

Posted by Aris Katsaris 2005-12-15 10:14|| 2005-12-15 10:14|| Front Page Top

#3 The headline is misleading - country to country ties usually at the ambassadorial level - this implies Sweden recalled its ambassador and closed its embassy. In fact all that happened was that one parliament stopped speaking to another - a type of relationship that isn't particularly significant or common, anyway.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-12-15 10:15|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-12-15 10:15|| Front Page Top

#4 Supporting a tyrant against the discontent of his own people never works well, because tyrannies are always overthrown and the people remember who aided them.

Right Aris, now how about Roosevelt supporting Joe Stalin? And we can add in there supporting the colonial British Empire too. Sometimes the choice is the lesser of the two evils at the moment.

Posted by Phaiter Creasing4965 2005-12-15 10:21|| 2005-12-15 10:21|| Front Page Top

#5 Aris has the benefit of living in an inconsequential country that matters little. The choices it makes are dictated by its larger friends. It never has to make tough choices, the bigger countries do that for it. Gives him the ability to be naive and generally stupid.

Posted by AllahHateMe 2005-12-15 10:31|| 2005-12-15 10:31|| Front Page Top

#6 We should have let the communists take over Greece. After they added a few hundred thousand or million Greeks to the total in the Black Book of Communism, the Greeks would have liked us.

The surviving ones, at least.

Posted by Robert Crawford">Robert Crawford 2005-12-15 10:35|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-12-15 10:35|| Front Page Top

#7 Aris is right, although he forgets that natural american policy was distorted by the Communist threat. We supported Saddam when the likely alternative was Iraq as a Communist Client state. Now that Communism has been knocked down a peg (but not eliminated), our natural pro-democracy, anti-tyranny inclinations are being allowed to express themselves.

I was in a Grad school with a very strong Iranian contingent financed by Iran who, nevertheless, agitated for the removal of the Shah. I point-blank told one, my officemate, that going communist was merely trading a domestic master for a puppet master run by a foreign power. He agreed with me, saying that communism was atheistic and contrary to Islam. He assured me that there was a religious leader in Paris, at the moment, who would straighten things out and supervise the setting up of a democratic republic. At the time, I was more naive and ignorant about Islam than I am now, and was satisfied with the answer.

Boy, If I had only known.

In retrospect, he probably thought Khomeini would be like Iraq's Sistani, but it appears there was a split in the Shiite imam ranks, with Khomeini being of the faction that advocated more religious control over the state.

I like to think he realized his countrymen made a dreadful mistake: he and all his Iranian friends all but made me an honorary Iranian and I counseled them on their advertising spin. We had friendly debates about religion and respected each other's piety enough to believe that when God/Allah called to lead us to a clearer truth, that we would follow. All were quite rational and able, I'm still convinced, to admit they made a mistake.

I can't shake the feeling that some are now dead by un-natural means.

Posted by Ptah">Ptah 2005-12-15 10:50|| http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org]">[http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org] 2005-12-15 10:50|| Front Page Top

#8 Right Aris, now how about Roosevelt supporting Joe Stalin

AFAIK Roosevelt didn't support Stalin against the Soviet Union's own people, he supported him against an external invader, Hitler.

AFAIK America had opposed Stalin before said invasion actually occurred, and opposed him again once World War II had ended. AFAIK, America would have been happy if Stalin had been overthrown in a mass revolt.

And we can add in there supporting the colonial British Empire too.

To the extent you were supporting the British Empire against Hitler, you were doing right. To the extent you were supporting the British Empire against the wishes of native peoples to free themselves from the colonial yoke, you were doing wrong.

See, it's kinda the same way that I support you when you move against Al Qaeda or other Islamofascists, but I oppose you when you grab innocent Muslim farmers and torture them to death.

We should have let the communists take over Greece. After they added a few hundred thousand or million Greeks to the total in the Black Book of Communism, the Greeks would have liked us.

The Greek people were liking America well enough after you aided its government in the civil war against the Communists in the late 1940s. Ofcourse the time of the military junta was decades later in the late 1960s and early 1970s, at a time where there was no threat of Communist takeover whatsoever -- and that's when Greece turned to hate you. The military junta was a plain move against *democracy*, not against any sort of communist threat.

But I can't expect you to keep the decades straight, Robert. Your arguments consist of a kindergartener's knowledge of history, and a pre-kindergartener's usage of false dilemmas.

Posted by Aris Katsaris 2005-12-15 11:14|| 2005-12-15 11:14|| Front Page Top

#9 Right after the Shah fell I was working in an Architectural office with 2 Iranians who left Iran 2 months before. They both told me the Shah was bad but the Ayatolla was MUCH worse. They didn't blame the US for supporting the Shah as at the time there was no other (their words) alternative to the Shah. Ptah, they didn't want Komeni either. That was the reason they got while the gettin was good. Fortunately they had the means. They had no illusions about what an Islamic government in Iran would be. They were (and I hope still are) husband and wife and knew what would happen to the wife under Islamic rule. They wanted the freedoms we enjoy. They also knew that if the Shah had been overthrown earlier there would most probably been a communist government. Aris' assertion that "perhaps the revolution that overthrew him would have been a democratic and philo-Western one" has no basis in reality. It's just wishful thinking. They felt the best option was to keep the Shah and work for reforms. They are still here in the US and have become naturalized citizens.

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2005-12-15 11:16|| 2005-12-15 11:16|| Front Page Top

#10 Although I believe that Aris has a valid point about dictatorships, it surprises me to learn that Greece stands alongside Iran and Venezuela in its stern determination to stem the tide of godless American capitalist imperialism... or something.

Posted by Secret Master 2005-12-15 11:22|| 2005-12-15 11:22|| Front Page Top

#11 If memory serves, the Greek coup was precipitated by Papandreou's (the elder) attempt to gain control of the defense ministry (a coup if you will) in order to protect his son Andreas (and future Prime Minister) from his involvement in a leftist military coup to overthrow the king and establish a leftist dictatorship. The king forced the elder Pops to resign and the leftists (who obviously were not adverse to a coup, just as long as it was their coup) caused massive demos and strikes and lots of skullduggery in government.

At this point the colonels pulled off the coup. Don't remember much opposition or bloodshed. All those who now claim to have opposed it must have been passed out on Ouzo or were in the French Resistance. It took about a year for the king to try a really botched counter coup. Again, not much support for it by the people. Don't remember citzens out in the streets with pitchforks and Molotov cocktails like in Hungary. If the Greek attitude to the coup was "Ehh", pardon me if the US attitude was the same. The US was fighting a war and was facing down the Soviets over much of the planet, including over the Arab-Israeli war. If Greeks still have hurt feelings because Uncle Sam had more important things to do than invade a shitty little country to overthrow a coup (which was initiated by a coup from the otherside of the political spectrum) that posed no threat to it, then too fucking bad. You should have asked the Turks to come to your rescue.

Posted by ed 2005-12-15 11:45|| 2005-12-15 11:45|| Front Page Top

#12 DB, it was the Shah's reforms that precipitaed the islamic overthrow. In addition to economic modernization, it was the liberalization of women, changing morals, and especially the diminishment of the mullah's power and property that galvanized the religious establishment to overthrow the Shah. I think the Shah was heading toward constitutional monarchy, but the economic, social, and religous changes were to much and too fast. The outward excuse the ayatollahs gave may have been the Shah's extravagant lifestyle and corruption, but the real reason were the hits the religious establishment was taking.

Posted by ed 2005-12-15 12:06|| 2005-12-15 12:06|| Front Page Top

#13 I do think you have a point ed, but the Shah's secrect police were imprisoning anyone who opposed the Shah, according to my friends. I only have second-hand information. In any case Aris' assertion that had the Shah been overthrown earlier there might have been a Democratic government in Iran is not supported by the reality at the time.

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2005-12-15 12:27|| 2005-12-15 12:27|| Front Page Top

#14 My apologies, Aris. I admit I'm not well-versed in the recent histories of pissant backwater nations.

(And, of course, any dictatorship in Greece had to be America's fault. Everyone knows there were no Greeks involved.)

Posted by Robert Crawford">Robert Crawford 2005-12-15 12:46|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-12-15 12:46|| Front Page Top

#15 Although I believe that Aris has a valid point about dictatorships, it surprises me to learn that Greece stands alongside Iran and Venezuela in its stern determination to stem the tide of godless American capitalist imperialism... or something.

"Or something" is correct -- it's probably naivety to think that the rhetoric of Venezuelan or Iranian or Chinese anti-Americanism has anything to do with actual ideology.

As for your surprise regarding Greece -- it's not as noticeable, because Greece itself is hardly as noticeable or powerful or regionally significant as Iran or Venezuela. Besides, the political elite of Greece acts on a much more *practical* level. What would this elite gain with useless anti-American rhetoric? It's not as if it has any regional allies to muster under its banner. (Not since Milosevic fell anyway, and in that case we were the followers, not the leaders)

But the actual position of Greece, even with lack of rhetoric, could be seen in the way that (alongside Russia) it was one of the two nations in the world that supported Serbia in its wars. Greek politicians kept on supporting Milosevic even after his own people had abandoned him.

More recently, and perhaps significantly for the issue of anti-Americanism, I've lost count of the number of Greek people, from the Archbishop down to fellow soldiers or taxicab drivers, whom I've heard indicate that they believe that America "had 9/11 coming".

At a hard look from me, most of those people will quickly add "Except for the people dying ofcourse. That was bad.", so the Greek people have not gone *fully* genocidal yet, but it seems to me it's the next worse thing when the "people dying" in the twin towers can be seen as a mere detail rather than the main event.

ed> First of all, *lots* of countries didn't invade Greece to overthrow the dictatorship here, that doesn't mean America's only other option was to support the regime. Let's quit it with the freezing-cold-or-scalding-hot dilemmas.

Secondly, yes, obviously the junta had lots of internal support as well. After all you didn't invade to install it either, so that it had internal support goes without saying. The Greek Church supported it, the Army supported it, lots of people supported it.

But dude, America is a convenient scapegoat to blame instead of all those respectable institutions, because of the fact that America was *also* guilty. You have only yourselves to blame for putting yourselves in such a hate-able position. The Hungarians could hate the Soviets, and the Lebanese could hate the Syrians, why did you ever think that the Greek people would not hate *you* when the dictatorship passed?

Thirdly, I don't think you can have it both ways. You can't *both* claim that leftist forces were so powerful as to almost have been able to pull off a left-wing coup and paralyze the country and whatever, and yet at the same time so weak that they managed to hold no resistance to the rightwing coup at all.

Posted by Aris Katsaris 2005-12-15 12:53|| 2005-12-15 12:53|| Front Page Top

#16 I admit I'm not well-versed in the recent histories of pissant backwater nations.

That won't stop you from endlessly chattering about them, as long as you keep it insulting at least.

And, of course, any dictatorship in Greece had to be America's fault.

LOL! Weren't you, in the previous post, attempting to take *credit* for the dictatorship's supposed actions in preserving Greece against communism? Can you really have it both ways? Do you even have *any* actual opinion in there, Robert, or are you as hollow as you seem?

Frankly I'm quite prepared to say that America may have not been responsible for the dictatorship's establishment at all. That still doesn't excuse you from the sin of *supporting* this regime.

And it doesn't change the fact that said American support for the dictatorship did wonders in establishing Greek anti-Americanism in the post-dictatorship years. Because it legitimized anti-Americanism as a supposedly democratic force.

Posted by Aris Katsaris 2005-12-15 13:06|| 2005-12-15 13:06|| Front Page Top

#17 Guess that means no more Swedish meatballs for the Moolahs, Olie.

Posted by Captain America 2005-12-15 13:16|| 2005-12-15 13:16|| Front Page Top

#18 Aris,
The fact of the leftist coup plot exists. Deal with it. The overthrow plot and the coverup of the guilty is what began the whole sordid chapter in Greek history. The coup plot was powerful enough to have a least one powerful political family in Greece supporting it. A bit of googling shows: In parliament and out, Papandreou, relishing to the full this renewal of the (relentless struggle", harried the government, against a background of continuous and large-scale demonstrations. ... In mid-March fifteen officers charged in the Aspida affair were convicted and the public prosecutor sought to have Andreas Papandreou's parliamentary immunity lifted so that he could be charged, along with other civilians alleged to be involved. That vs. 3 colonels (though it seems they were competent, at least plotting coups).

America guilty? The stupidity of Greeks is guilty. Your elites think they can pull off coups for the greater socialist good. Then when sonny gets into hot water, daddy brings the whole country to a stop. How stupid and selfish is that. How selfish were Greek citizens to allow 3 colonels to pull off a bloodless coup, then later, not support the king in trying to restore the staus quo. As an outsider, I must conclude most Greeks supported the coup or are the laziest people on earth. So the US could have been like the Soviets and Syrians and invaded your ass, but then that would have made enemies of what seems the majority who supported the coup. Or the US could have cut off weapons, but no the Greeks didn't want that either, with Turkey and the Soviet block next door. Cut off trade? Don't think so. Again, where was the Greek opposition, protests and sabotage?
Make up your Greek mind, and with the benefit of hindsight, tell us what you want to US to do. What would benefit the US?

The colonels execute a coup in Cyprus, causing the Turks to invade Cyprus and the junta to fall. To top it all off, the Greeks then go and elect an original Aspida coup plotter that started the whole mess, to become their Prime Minister? It's as smart as Venezuelans electing Chavez after his failed coup attempt, or Hitler after the Beer Hall Putsch. Save me from Greek stupidity.

Posted by ed 2005-12-15 13:36|| 2005-12-15 13:36|| Front Page Top

#19 ed> You keep on babbling about an obviously *failed* coup, as if it somehow justifies a successful coup of the future.

Oh, wait perhaps it's not the failed coup that you blame, perhaps it was the fact that a democratically elected leader like George Papandreou Sr. felt he had the mandate to govern the country despite the unelected king's and the unelected army's wishes.

You keep on asking "where were the protests". In the year of 1973 several student protests culminated in November 17 of the same year, where many Greek students protesting the dictatorship were killed when junta tanks stormed the Polytechnic school of Athens. Their protests were all the more remarkable in the fact that though both anti-American and pro-democratic, they were not philo-Eastern bloc: a fact that indicates the basic falses in Robert's and others' either-the-Soviets-or-the-Colonels false dilemma. Either way I'm tired of your insults towards these brave students' memory.

I've never supported villainous actions of the Greek government or villainous attitudes of the Greek people, so I would very much appreciate it if you also once in a while showed the backbone to criticize villainous actions of the American government -- and America's support for the dictatorship was clearly one.

Even if you felt it unavoidable that you needed to supply Greece with weaponry, why not atleast *criticize* the regime?

And frankly, you could have begun by simply not sending *torture instruments*. Is that a baby step small enough for you?

This conversation is over. If you still cling to the idea that America did everything right in supporting the regime, then our realities are so different as not to merit discussion. I have a Harry Potter review to write which is a far better occupation than trying to talk sense to dictator-apologists.

Antiamericanism is a flower that America has itself seeded with its support for tyrants. Blame people's stupidity for not appreciating such generous gifts, but the more you go on this tactic, the more you'll have to consider pretty much every other nation in the world other than yours to be "stupid".

Posted by Aris Katsaris 2005-12-15 14:11|| 2005-12-15 14:11|| Front Page Top

#20 Aris. I never justified any coup. Those are your words. I pointed out to you that the colonels coup did not come out of the blue, but was in response to the coup efforts of Papandreou and fellow stupid ass leftists, and following Papandreou Sr. paralyzing the country for the sake of his coup plotter son. A real patriot. And if you did not notice, all the coup plotters on all sides were Greek, hardly an American among them.

I am impressed student demonstrations happened 6 1/2 years after the colonels took power. But them Greeks are world famous for being deliberate in action and slow to anger, or not. It must be America's fault that other Greeks stormed the student dorms.

Thanks for all the Greek words of chastisement for Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, the Iranian mullahs. Hmm, I don't hear them. Guess Greeks are whispering them so as to not offend, or Greeks realize those words mean nothing and have no effect on dictatorships. As for criticizing the junta, but still sell them weapons otherwise Greeks would howl if cut off, what benefit is that to the Americans when so many Greeks supported the coup, especially since the original coup plotters wanted to set up a Nasserite dictatorship? And took Greeks 6 1/2 years to get tired to dictatorship? Cripes. As for Americanism being a gift. Yes it is. How many people have the Greeks liberated?

Terminate this thread if you wish. My preference is for the US to have nothing to do with Greece and Greece can return to its historic tributary role, whether Roman, Turk, German or Russian I don't care.

Posted by ed 2005-12-15 14:41|| 2005-12-15 14:41|| Front Page Top

#21 Ed,

Yep, you said it. Greece has been the football of -Europe- since 1829,* yet we're the evil Satans for going along with European "realism" and "engagement" back in the 60's over the traditional US Jacksonian isolationism. Gag.

*and Aris wants them to continue to be the EU's bureaucracy's lackeys FOREVER, having failed to catch a clue from the French EU constitution vote.

Posted by Ernest Brown 2005-12-15 15:05|| saturninretrograde.blogspot.com]">[saturninretrograde.blogspot.com] 2005-12-15 15:05|| Front Page Top

#22 LOL! Weren't you, in the previous post, attempting to take *credit* for the dictatorship's supposed actions in preserving Greece against communism? Can you really have it both ways?

You can. Why can't I?

I mean, christ, your #1 shtick is to tell each and every one of us what's going on inside our heads. You read our minds, judge our souls, and pronounce us all evil incarnate whenever our opinions do not line up with yours. You're doing it again in this thread.

If you can pull that shit off, I'll do whatever I can to annoy you. Particularly when you're justifying bigotry against my country when it was your own country's fault in the first place and we were just trying to deal with the world as it existed. No, we didn't clean up the mess your countrymen made. I doubt we knew we were expected to.

You know one reason Americans have little interest in the pissant nations of the world? Because we get exhausted of the endless airing of grievances, if not against us, then against everyone else. Particularly when those grievances make as much sense as this:

But dude, America is a convenient scapegoat to blame instead of all those respectable institutions, because of the fact that America was *also* guilty. You have only yourselves to blame for putting yourselves in such a hate-able position. The Hungarians could hate the Soviets, and the Lebanese could hate the Syrians, why did you ever think that the Greek people would not hate *you* when the dictatorship passed?

Hint: American tanks did not roll through Athens. We did not set about assassinating Greek politicians and sending in proxy armies. There's a hell of a lot of difference between what happened in Hungary and Lebanon and what happened in Greece.

Comparing them is childish, and that's one reason I'm not impressed.

And, no, I'm not "apologizing for a dictatorship", or claiming America is morally pure. Christ, I'm *NOT* going to take responsibility for something that was done when I was three years old, and I wouldn't expect *YOU* to do that, either.

Posted by Robert Crawford">Robert Crawford 2005-12-15 15:30|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-12-15 15:30|| Front Page Top

#23 Antiamericanism is a flower that America has itself seeded with its support for tyrants.

Yet he wants to unite his homeland with the world-champion tyrant supporters in France.

Go figure.

Posted by Robert Crawford">Robert Crawford 2005-12-15 15:37|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-12-15 15:37|| Front Page Top

#24 Ed is absolutely right that the overthrow of the Shah was, first and foremost, a reactionary response to his reform efforts. The mullahs were FURIOUS that he built co-ed schools with western-style curricula and credentialled teachers, imported doctors that (among other things) treated abused women and collected statistics and above all, move power away from the arbitrary thugs who ran the villages to a central government.

Now, that government did perpetrate some abuses. But if you think they were worse, rather than less, than what went on in the villages prior to his changes, you're naive at best.

Full disclosure: I was offered a job to work in Iran for 2 years. Turned it down for family reasons, but not before investigating things carefully including discussions with both ex-pats and Americans who'd been there. Shah fell 22 months into what would have been a 24 month contract .....

Posted by lotp 2005-12-15 17:48|| 2005-12-15 17:48|| Front Page Top

#25 Cut it out guys, I can hear AK beating off all the way over here.

Posted by whitecollar redneck 2005-12-15 19:20|| 2005-12-15 19:20|| Front Page Top

#26 Thanks, lotp, I almost forgot this was a thread about Iran/Sweden/Israel.

Is that von Sydow guy related to Max von Sydow? Was just wondering....

Posted by Desert Blondie 2005-12-15 20:02|| http://azjetsetchick.blogspot.com]">[http://azjetsetchick.blogspot.com] 2005-12-15 20:02|| Front Page Top

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