h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Autist,

*sigh*

No, it's not evil, neither is it's intent. I also think we should make the world a safer place. One of my problems with the War on Terrorism (tm) is that, although I think it will net OBL and pretty much wipe-out al-Quaida, it won't resolve the *reason* terrorists are so supported in the Middle East. The US simply treats arab and islamic nations differently from Christian nations and Israel. There's no point in denying this. If the US does not crack down on Israel's appaling behaviour, then the problem will not go unresolved. Israel has every right to crack down on Hammas etc, but missiling cities is *not* dealing with terrorists. It is, in my opinion, state terrorism and should be treated as such.

I said we owe it to those murdered on Sept 11th to bring their perpetrators to justice. Note "to justice", not "we should flatten Islamic cities to get a blood debt paid back". What I meant is that OBL and the perpetrators of the crimes should be targeted. I support the removal of the Taliban from power because I considered it an evil regime. If you believe half the things you say you do, Autist, you would support it's removal too. I am completely sick of civilans dying because of other people's wars and, as I mentioned above, I don't think the US did all it could to prevent them. But like I say, if the US wants to kill people, there's nothing we can really do about it....

Zagreb

Note to Autist: Iran

There was an Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, the same year as the Soviet's entered Afghanistan. The Shah (a glorified dictator bearing a romantic "monarchist" title) was deposed. The revolution happened because the ingenious US had decided to back a massively unpopular government, probably for oil reasons. The Shah was overthrown by an ultra-conservative Islamic revolution which declared the USA, Israel and the USSR it's great enemies (although it was hypocritically happy to recieve Soviet arms and equipment). The US should have known, therefore, that backing other Islamic extremists in Afghanistan, even against the USSR, would backfire on both itself and it's ally Israel. It was either too knuckleheaded to realise this or considered it a problem to be addressed "another day"

Oh, come on. It's hardly an isolationist opinion to suggest that the napalming of civilians during the Vietnam war was a bad idea. If it had been any other country the US would have been the first to demand that war criminals be found and sentenced for Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity.
I am not trying to excuse al-Qaeda. They performed a most evil act, and desearve exactly what they got. But there are reasons for anti-American feeling, and not all of them are bad ones.

The "Islamic Revolution" is the "it" you refered too then. OK. It's odd this, because the said revolution had been on the cards for some time, the US had been keeping it at bay for some time, the CIA keeping the Ayatollahs on the payroll since 1953. President Carter in his reforms of the CIA and US overseas policy (he was i have to admit, a pretty good guy - as was Stansfield Turner as far as i can see), pulled the 800 of the CIA's 'criminal agents' and suspended payments to Khomeni. Khomeni then seized power, and lashed out at the US by taking hostages.

The CIA got their own back though, rehiring the sacked agents as private contractors and making a pack with Khomeni not to release the hostages until after Carter lost the election. You got to hand it to them, they do know how to play the game.

Some things don't change... as witnessed by the killing of 60 Afghans who were peacefully making there way to the ceremony to celebrate the annointing of the new Afghani puppets, oops leadership.

Another coup by the BIA (Bad Intelligence Agency)?

Autist,

Problem here, why didn't Khomeini do the sensible thing and direct his anger against the Carter government, rather than the USA, thus ensuring good relations with the US once Carter was ousted? Also, why didn't the Reagan government patch things up with Iran and concentrate it's resources on the USSR, if it had re-instated those elements that were supporting Khomeni? Why did the Reagan government back Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, if the CIA had previously backed the Ayatollah? Why did the US continue to give the ousted Shah support, rather than meand relations with Iran. Your theory (and until I see some conclusive proof, it is a theory) isn't implausible, but there are too many "why"s in there.

Talking about not doing the sensible thing...

Rudolph Giuliani, who is in the final days of his eight years as mayor of the United States' largest city, is Time Magazine's 76th Person of the Year.

"The person who most affected the news or our lives, for good or for ill, this year," said Time founder Henry Luce when he instituted in 1925 what has now become a national talking point each year.

As for bin Laden, the Saudi-born dissident accused by the United States of planning the September 11 attacks that killed more than 3000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, Time said he "is too small a man to get the credit for all that has happened in America in the autumn of 2001."

"He's a moral pipsqueak," Time managing editor Jim Kelly said. Kelly, valiantly (and unsuccessfully) trying to cover his backside went on to say that Time, which along with other publications has seen declining advertising revenues, was not concerned about a backlash against the weekly news magazine if it had chosen bin Laden.

Yeah right.

<>

He did, hence the hostage thing, making the arms for hostages deal with the CIA and as Mansur Rafizadeh head of Savak said "The CIA constantly hostile to Carter, told Khomeni not to giver Carter any credit - thus the CIA sentenced the American hostages to 76 more days imprisonment". And every day was a vote winner for the CIA's stooges Reagan (McCarthyite)/ Bush (ex-CIA VP). The CIA got Iran back to fund their Central American activites which had been banned eariler by congress while being able to employ 'privatly' those companymen who had been purged by Carter / Turner.

When Hizbollah kidnapped William Buckley and he spilt his guts on video admitting all the regional manipulation between CIA/ MOSSAD things got crazy, with Israel suppling US weapons to Iran while the US publicly painted them as the enemy. Iran kept Hizbolah quiet and the arms / drug funding for the contras and the WACL kept rolling in. Good working relationship that.

Autist,

You haven't answered the main point of my questions - if the CIA was in cahoots with Khoemeni, why did the US and Iran become such great enemies after Carter was voted out?

It wouldn't surprise me if the CIA helped destroy Carter's popularity. I find it amazing that a country with such a strong democratic tradition let's a bunch of unelected and, frankly, creepy Secret Service people control so much of what goes on in government.

The Secret Service is Treasury, which is Justice Department, which is domestic.
The CIA is a tentacle of the NSA, which is nebulous. The CIA is supposed to be foreign, unauthorized to function within the continental US, which leads to the question of why their offices are in the US.
The CIA is known to be involved with the DEA (Drug Enforcement Apparatus), the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Symbiotes), the ICC (International Chambers of Commerce), the OAS (Organization of American States), the IAIA (International Association of Intelligence Analysts), and the TWCIOC (Third World Country Investment Opportunity Club).
The electorate have no 'need to know', so the CIA and NSA function as a 'shadow' government dealing with the things we're better off not knowing. The electorate have no vote in who runs the CIA and NSA, their elected representatives are either out of the loop on what the 'intelligence community' are doing or they are mesmerized by it.
And the US is not a democracy, which is a shiny myth. It is a republic. Which is also a shiny myth, but one which is clung to fervently by many in the country.

America didn't "fall out" with Iran. Iran distanced itself from "The Great Satan".

That whole period, especially when the US was occupying Lebanon (which possibly was a genuine attempt by the US to rectify past mistakes), when the US was demonizing Iran was one of fairly good personal relations between the regimes, though they had to appear at loggerhaeds publicly they were largely in collusion, it was only in 1986-7 when the McFarlane visit was disclosed in Iran that their government caved in to public support and really began to distance itself, ironically using the same tactics the US had been paying it to use to oppose the soviets in the region to ridicule both superpowers! What would we do without student lobby groups, eh?

Absolutely right, Autist, I agree with you wholly (or should that be ? Merry Christmas and let's hope for a better 2002..

Re the "Person of the Year" - there was a woman prating on the radio today, to the effect that if Time had used OBL, they would have lost every reader they ever had! Is this necessarily true?
Do they see OBL as anti-Christ? One of the three predicted by Nostradamnnonsense perhaps...

(My son would have chosen the Rock: Dwayne Johnson, of WWF and the Mummy Returns, that is - not to mention Tsunkatse, Star Trek Voyager)

Merry Christmas people. Della, down here in Napier the birds are shining and the sun is singing. No doubt it is raining in Auckland.

Re Person of the Year. To paraphrase Bill Clinton: "It's the advertisers, dummy".

Person of the Year? Should be Subcommandante Marcos, he's the man that the history books will remember, and the long march to Mexico City, though largly symbolic rather than strategic will be rembered as a major step forward for mankind long after September 11 is forgotten as a tragic but insignificant disaster.

Tragic but insignificant disaster? Christ! and you guys jump my boat for America Hater? LOL.

But even more humorous is the idea that occured to me as I read the backlog. If you're not America Haters, does that mean your American Lovers? LOL.

(sarcasm folks, no need to get upset)

At any rate, my thanks go to autist....again....who has given me more homework to do. For some reason I can never just read the dates and quotes without checking them out first. It is always good to learn new things.....

Ha ha, no, it's sunny! For once. Gotcha! Merry Christmas, Loony.

Christmas greetings, Perium.. I am not an America Hater, and certainly not an America Lover .. tho' Charlie Sheen is kinda cute.. I am a detached observer.