Monday, June 22, 2009

Too many people are forgetting this

Or maybe some of them never knew it. The article I'm calling to your attention is entitled "Iran Had a Democracy Before We Took It Away" by Chris Hedges and I give you just the first paragraph:

Iranians do not need or want us to teach them about liberty and representative government. They have long embodied this struggle. It is we who need to be taught. It was Washington that orchestrated the 1953 coup to topple Iran’s democratically elected government, the first in the Middle East, and install the compliant shah in power. It was Washington that forced Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, a man who cared as much for his country as he did for the rule of law and democracy, to spend the rest of his life under house arrest. We gave to the Iranian people the corrupt regime of the shah and his savage secret police and the primitive clerics that rose out of the swamp of the dictator’s Iran. Iranians know they once had a democracy until we took it away.

When will we learn? When will we ever learn?
~~~

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:04 PM

    Thanks for the great history lesson.

    annie

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous8:02 PM

    We as a country had neither the awareness not the courage to protest when our elections were taken and manipulated.

    Marilyn

    ReplyDelete

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