Mass Media Bias part 2

Why is there a bias in the media?






There are very many different filters that lie between the facts of a situation as it occurs and the final version of events in our living rooms. Some of these filters are well-intentioned; many are unconsciously affecting the story and other filters are quite deliberately there to manipulate the public to a specific point of view.

Among some of the well-intentioned filters are a) those meant to protect the innocent people in the story from harm; b) those meant to protect the public from the more distressing and horrific aspects of the story and c) those filters that are meant to ensure we get the news we want and need by weeding out those that we have no interest in. These filters themselves are problematic enough. Protecting innocent victims sometimes has a side effect of allowing a repetition of the atrocities to occur through lack of awareness; keeping news free from the more horrific effects of modern warfare can allow it to go on for many years before sufficient public outrage is created to change government policy; the decision about what is considered interesting is problematical, too, in a country that seems to care more about the latest evictee from Big Brother than in the painful effects of UK politics on a few million people in some faraway place.



Unconscious filters to our news output come about largely due to our culture and upbringing. Those who grow up in a society that believes they are culturally superior to certain other races will more readily accept the UK and US claims that they must bomb Arab countries to bring them freedom and democracy. They will see ‘terrorism’ in the attempts of these besieged countries to free themselves from their tormentors but heroism in the acts of war committed by their own forces. Even though logic would show that our own Governments have waged war on countries miles from our own, that offer no threat to us and which have absolutely no defense against our armed forces. The psychological effect of fighting in these empire building wars is increasingly evident in the suicides and breakdowns among US personnel returning from America’s wars abroad.



Mass media also imposes its own filters in that it is a commercial enterprise seeking profit and ratings success. There is a subtle filter at work that ensures the predominance of stories that fit in with general opinion. Frequently the real story, supported by plenty factual evidence is scrapped or relegated to a small slot on page 14 while minor news that fits in with the public’s current perceptions will be emblazoned across the headlines of every news outlet. More subtly, but nevertheless worth keeping an eye on in these days of huge corporations in the media, if you want to keep a well paid job in any media market, it is usually wise to keep in mind your owner’s personal viewpoint and agenda.



Finally the most insidious and malevolent filters are those imposed on our news stories by the people in power. Examples of these are well known in Britain but most people associate them with dictatorships like Communist Russia or China. People seem to be more blinkered about their own government’s shortcomings in this area. A very successful method of monitoring the Iraq war was that of insisting that all journalists from the West worked lived and moved with the troops. Any one outside these parameters was considered inimical to the safety and success of the war effort. These embedded journalists of the Gulf war quickly succumbed to the brothers-in-arms whitewashing of news from the frontline in the war on Iraq. Briefings became less about feeding unfortunate news to inquisitive journalists disguised with the preferred spin, and more about coming together to ensure that support for the war would be nurtured by the stories released to the general public. Back home, the readiness to send government briefings straight to the printing press or News studio without verification continued the unbalanced shaping of the news.

At the same time, many lies were published from the ‘undisclosed sources’. Later when the lies were shown up for what they were ie deliberate, unabashed propaganda, there was no one to point the finger at and accuse of lying. Blair and his cohorts have proved adept at passing the buck in his way at subsequent investigations.

‘I took it in good faith…..’ ‘I had no reason to question the facts before me..’

Most sinister of all are the questionable deaths of those who would attempt to bring the truth to the people. This includes the deliberate murder of ‘unilateral’ journalists during the war on Iraq. The attack and vilification of dissenting journalists and the bombing of Al Jazeera’s residential compound by two US missiles in the same war.

Mass Media Bias part 1

Thoughts on Media






In the World I grew up in, Russian people were the ones being lied to by their media. Chinese people, too, were brain-washed and only allowed access to ‘approved’ films and literature. Today it is frightening to realize that those tactics are now extensively at work right here in the West. On the free Sky channels, today, you will find the same news morning noon and night in most of the available channels. Not only is the populations of the West fed the same News items, more alarmingly, they are all fed the same slant on these news items.

The more trusting of you may well say ‘We have great news coverage of the World. As long as we have the facts we can put our own slant on it.’

Firstly, I am afraid it is not true that we have great coverage of World events. We see only the events our Government and media barons want us to see. For example, there has been a great deal of coverage about deaths caused by the Syrian Government troops during recent months. At the same time, absolutely no coverage is given of the violence and deaths caused by those who want to destroy the Assad regime. On the same topic, a great deal of misinformation from Syria was aired as the ‘truth’ although it was blatant propaganda. Now that those films have been proven to be fabricated you would expect a free media to be outraged at having the wool pulled over their eyes. You might expect discussion programmes long into the night about where the truth really lies. You would expect these things, if the media you watch actually aired the findings of those who have uncovered the lies within those ‘amateur videos’.

Secondly as is obvious from the first points, the facts read out before us day in day out on almost every media channel and newspaper are not really facts at all. What seems to be happening is that the Western Governments are being coerced by lobbyists with a very great deal of money. Some of the cash goes into individual pockets as in the case of the Blairs. (Usually the rewards come in after the faithful service is over.) In many cases the cash goes to the lackey’s political party allowing it to enjoy many more years in power than it deserves. Unfortunately, it takes little effort to buy a politician who is already well endowed with the prejudices and blinkers of years of elitist education.

These leading politicians will be entrusted to choose certain countries or fall guys for their most prejudiced attention. The end result may be many years away but that doesn’t really matter to the super rich. Eventually the money from that country’s pillaged resources will come rolling in and it will be payback time for the media moguls and government lackeys who oiled the machines of war.

By war, I do not only refer to actual guns and bombs. A great deal of warfare today is going on with economic sanctions and the introduction of crippling debt. These weapons bring countries to their knees just as assuredly as weapons of mass destruction. The third form of warfare prevalent today is the information war. Propaganda, lies and distortion coming from the media,

Thanks to a collaborative media, the general public cheer for and even demand the acts of aggressive illegal violence against target nations.

How can our Western Governments be in the wrong when they are fighting these evil foreigners who do unspeakable stuff to their own people.

The experts trotted out daily for sound bites are hand-picked to provide the desired slant on the situation which of course will be aired on every channel in the Western hemisphere throughout the day. Ergo this form of warfare must be just and right. We are so much better than those evil Russians Iranians Islamists Chinese and anybody else currently annoying the Banking elite by refusing to enter into their massive debt ridden currencies or refusing to do what the American Government asks it to do or stubbornly hanging on to their precious resources which the West thinks it has a right to.

People who would deny that this is how World politics is being conducted, may have problems with their long term memories. Only a few years back, Saddam Hussein had those nasty weapons of mass destruction being carted about Iraq on trucks. Didn’t he? The media churned out lie after lie, day in day out, to a gullible public. Dodgy deaths, resignations and bullying took care of anyone daring to criticize these reports. However, millions of people went on marches to let the Government know we had not been fooled. Eventually, after a strong country was decimated and left lying in the gutter, the truth surfaced.

There were no weapons of mass destruction. Tony Blair and Bush knew there were no WMD’s. They discussed motives for war together and chose this one as the most likely to be believed. They knew when they reported Saddam’s ‘45 minutes to destroying London’, that this was an outright lie. They consciously worked to create the illusion that Saddam Hussein’s Government was working with terrorists, knowing that the complete opposite was the case. Hand in hand with their media buddies, these criminals of the highest order proceeded to carry out their psyops on people, not just in the West but all over the World, and they succeeded.

Even those spineless rebels who would quietly mutter their doubts about the veracity of these allegations, fell eagerly into line as soon as project ‘Shock and Awe’ began. While millions of innocent Iraqis died they did the ‘honourable’ thing and supported the troops.

Nobody has yet been imprisoned nobody even charged with this crime of the century. The only hope for justice is that there are many places that Bush, Blair and his associates can no longer wander because their crimes are known and they would be arrested under International laws.

What do the wonderful British press have to say now. The mainstream media does not even appear to care.

By the way, who has the real Weapons of Mass Destruction? Who is not only a real danger to the World but is actually known to use them on innocent men women and children? Only the most warlike, empire building, greedy country that ever inhabited this World. The US of A.

You will never hear of America’s empire building on our media. When the USA attacks a country it is always liberating it from a ruthless dictator. There are no voices of dissent, whatever atrocities committed by America or its faithful cohorts.

The New York Times spoke of its role in the propaganda in a spotlighted me culpa on May 26 2004.

Much of the media accepted the Administrations labels without challenge as they accepted the very reason for going to war without challenge….

We published information that was controversial then and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged.

Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged or failed to emerge.’

Dan Rather of CBS said

Look I am an American, When my country goes to war I want my country to win. I can’t and don’t argue that that is coverage without prejudice. About that I am prejudiced.

A lot of people wonder where are the young of today when it comes to these issues? Although I have no idea why anyone would want to leave their conscientious objection to their countries atrocities to its teenagers, there are very compelling reasons for the absence of young protestors.

For a start, the banks have managed to get them into the web of debt previously reserved for the more mature of us.

Secondly the media deliberately avoids the kind of coverage that got my generation up off their bums and out on the streets. You see very few civilian casualties, hardly any blood and gore and absolutely no discussion of the ethics of the war in civilized debates. While civilian deaths at the hands of Western forces are counted in the millions, the media have deemed them hardly worth a mention. In stark contrast the death of a British soldier fills every news slot when it comes through. Abdul Henderson, a deserter from the Iraqi war said,

You used to see the atrocities, the real horror. The media has done a really good job in suppressing our stress.



Today I prefer Russian TV to the BBC because it will at least examine important issues from different points of view. I can barely watch or listen to the BBC, on the other hand, because it follows Government propaganda to the letter. ITV can hardly be called independent when it always follows suit. Sad to say that the most remarkable thing about the few gems issuing forth from Channel Four is their rarity. When not spouting jingoistic rhetoric against the most recent designated fall guys, the best you can say about the standards of information on these channels is that they are utterly banal. In a less benign frame of mind, I find them to be criminally negligent.

Tony Farrell

Tony Farrell, a principal police intelligence analyst, was preparing the annual threat assesment report for South Yorkshire Police when he discovered compelling evidence that both the 9/11 and 7/7 terrorist attacks were not carried out by "Islamic extremists".
Tony used his training as an Intelligence Analyst and produced a report that showed that the threats most likely to be faced by the South Yorkshire Police in the future came from Government organizations not Muslims in the community.
 He was eventually sacked for holding this view, even though, neither the police nor the employment tribunal by their own admissions looked at the analysis he offered. Some colleagues showed, by their comments that they actually agreed with his assessment but that he could not put them forward because it was not possible to go against the Government's line on the issue.
Before firing him, the force tried to have him judged mentally unbalanced. He came back with a clean bill of health. He was then sacked for holding views incompatible with his job. Those who fired him openly admitted that they had not even read the report let alone follow up on Tony's findings.
He is currently fighting to be reinstated and is giving talks to publicise the craziness going on in the UK today.
Please sign the petition here
http://www.change.org/petitions/campaign-to-reinstate-tony-farrell-as-principal-intelligence-analyst

Thanks to David Pidcock for this story that may explain something of the inexlicable behaviour of many people in positions of power today.

"Here’s how people conform without question explained within an allegory:

You start with a cage containing five monkeys.

Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of ladders under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the ladders and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he is halfway up the ladders, spray all of the other monkeys with freezing cold water.

After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the ladders, in order to avoid the discomfort of being dowsed with freezing water, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the ladders. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him.

After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the ladders, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the ladders and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the ladders, he is attacked.

Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the ladders or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys which have never been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the ladders to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done round here. And that is how religious, sovereign, corporate, legal policies are made against reason, truth and freedom.

Lost Days

I have just learnt some amazing facts about 1752. In March of that year Parliament decided that it was time for Britain to come into the Gregorian calandar. This happened in two stages. September the 2nd was followed, not by September the 3rd but by September the 14th wiping 11 days from the year.
Next stage was the move of New Years day from March 25th to January 1st. yep until this year, Hogmanay happened to fall on March 24th.
These changes meant that 1752 in Britain was only 271 days long.

Iran Part 3

Iran    

How the West Found a New Way to Create their Empires

The narrative I have followed is that written by Brian Lapping based on the series televised by Granada called ‘End of Empire’. When the book went to second edition in 1989 Brian gave the following as a reason why the British might be the last of the old-style empires.

“The massacres that are the essential means to keep such empires going are now hard to carry out secretly. The increasing difficulty that major powers consequently have in exercising their will over small ones justifies the decision to call this book ‘End of Empire’.”

Unfortunately, anyone with a modicum of knowledge about the World today will know that this was a pipedream.

As Lapping pointed out,

“The British did not often use this word (‘massacre’) for the actions of their own colonial governments. The common euphemism was ‘punitive expedition’.”

Today one of the favourite terms would be ‘Deposing a brutal dictator.’ Oddly enough, it has to be noted that, only dictators who have irritated the West and, in particular, the USA, tend to be considered sufficiently brutal to justify the large scale massacre of a country’s population.

The other all-pervading euphemism is ‘War on terror.’ Again terror is seen to emanate only from those who fail to do the bidding of the Empire or from nations which have strategic importance to the Empire builders. The atrocities and terror caused by that Empire builder and its friends are of course immune to attack on this basis.

Old-style Empire and the massacres that accompany it are still very much in vogue. The big change would seem to be that the ability to hide such massacres in full public view and even to create a call for them within the general population has increased dramatically. The mass media has fallen almost completely under the control of those most likely to profit from empire building thus creating the necessary mask of decency and democracy required to keep the intelligent and generally decent population of the west in complete ignorance of their Government’s true nature.

If you are in any doubt that this is happening today and that the West is still the main propagator of tyranny, I would urge you to consider current events in the Middle East as you read this factual account from the very offices of the perpetrators of these same events more than half a century ago.

The Coup

We have already heard that arms were deposited in Iran long before the coup took place. C M Woodhouse describes in his autobiography how he went to the British base Habbabiyah in July 1952 to pick up these arms and have them buried for future use. The Rashidian family had their £1.5 million ‘bonus’ ready to put into the hands of mercenaries and British supporters. Mussadeq was keeping up his side of the business by steadily alienating the powerful Iranians who used to support him and now hawks in the Whitehouse were more than happy to place a Western puppet back in charge in Iran.

At the end of 1952, Woodhouse went in person to Washington to convince the Americans that Britain had everything in place to assure the success of a pre-emptive coup. He was able to play on American paranoia over fear of Communism at the time to convince them that, without such a manoeuvre, Iran would surely fall under Communist rule. It did not require a lot of persuasion to bring them on board.

A replacement Prime Minister for Mussadeq was agreed upon. General Fazlollah Zahedi wasn’t top of the British list but he seemed to bear no grudge about his imprisonment for four years by the British in Palestine.

Back in London, meanwhile, MI6 approached Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of the US president and now head of CIA in the Middle East, to take charge of the operation in Iran. The British, who had been caught spying by Mussadeq, were now removed from Iran, so they did not have the manpower themselves to carry out the coup.

 Even with everything in place, it still took till mid summer 1953 for John Foster Dulles in the USA and Winston Churchill in Britain to give the go ahead.

It was now up to the Shah to fire his Prime Minister and replace him with the Western man of choice, Zahedi.

As usual the Shah showed indecisiveness and uncertainty about the proceedings. Perhaps wisely, he did not trust his Western co-conspirators. MI6 arranged the return of his sister Princess Ashraf to Tehran in the hope that she could strengthen his resolve. They even arranged coded messages in a BBC broadcast by President Eisenhower to reassure the Shah that he was safe. Nevertheless, the Shah fled without signing the two crucial documents. The CIA had to follow him to his retreat in the Caspian Sea to finally pin him down and get his signature on the documents.

By now everyone had become aware that a plot was being perpetrated and this brought Mussadeq’s supporters out into the streets again. This time, the Rashidians had their hired agent provocateurs ready. These ruffians infiltrated the crowds in the guise of Tudeh members and created fear by throwing rocks at mosques and priests.

Mussadeq countered by taking control of the army and for a time he seemed to be in a good position to outwit the coup, sending Zahedi into hiding in the American Embassy. He was outmanoeuvred, though, when Kermit Roosevelt took over a small radio station from which he could run his side of the operations. The Rashidians had done their work well and they pulled out all the stops to turn the crowd against their old hero.

Richard Cottam stated

‘That mob that came into the North Tehran and was decisive in the overthrow was a mercenary mob. It had no ideology. That mob was paid for by American dollars and the amount of money that was used has to have been very large.’

Leading the demonstration was a famous weight lifting team calling ‘Long Live the Shah’. Jugglers and acrobatics, paid by Rashidian gold, followed, drawing a large crowd. Homs Katouzian, an Iranian university teacher recalls seeing lorry loads of ‘ruffians and thugs’ carrying clubs and sticks shouting anti Mussadeq slogans.

Along with the growing popular dissatisfaction, this was enough to rouse the crowds against Mussadeq. Having lost his popularity in the streets, he gave himself up gracefully to be tried for treason in a military court. It is estimated that, by the end of his trial he had already won back his standing among ordinary Iranians.

The USA was now the main power in Iran and the Shah set about a Western agenda of militarization and modernisation. This did not sit well with the strongly religious people of Iran and he became increasingly repressive in an attempt to quiet dissent. He did not have the ruthlessness of his fellow Middle-East dictators, however, and in 1979, he was once again forced to flee by an Islamic uprising led by the Ayatollah Khomeni. Soon afterwards Britain, Russia and the USA were all removed from the country as the new Islamic Government, for better or worse, took power into its own hands.

Syria 2012

Fast forward thirtythree years and the West is still doing everything it can to thwart Iranian independence and get its hands on Iranian oil. Iran has suffered crippling economic sabotage over the years which has forced it to stand on its own feet well beyond the capabilities of other puppet Middle Eastern countries.

The war-mongering speeches by Blair, Netanyahu and many in the US republican elections show clearly that the USA and Nato still has this great independent country firmly in its sights.

Syria is a friend of Iran and it too has stood up for independence from the West. It has little by the way of resources but it would be a great stepping stone on the way to the defeat of independent minded countries anywhere in the World and in particular Iran.

Current events in Syria have been instigated by the West in very much the same way as the coup in Iran half a century ago. The Western media mocks claims by the Syrian Government that the violence is being supported if not orchestrated by foreign sources. The desire of the Syrian people for a peaceful outcome and the great deal of support for Assad is completely ignored by our media. Assad’s constant call for reform and an end to violence is also ignored, while his military operations trying to defeat armed uprisings all over Syria are depicted as murderous. I have no love for Assad. He is an unethical, immoral dictator of the same ilk as many of the puppets kept in power by the West. He has brought his country to this place because of his wanton disregard for human rights in Syria and his desire for reform has very much been forced upon him. Nevertheless, the one-sided media reports in the West have little to do with a wish to make life better for the Syrian people. If this was a motive, the news would be full of similar reports and calls for intervention in many many other countries. Strangely news of attrocities in Bahrain, Yemen etc are missing completely.
If the well-being of the Syrian people was of importance to the Western media, we would also be hearing how the UN would be called upon to ensure innocent people were not going to be the victims in their thousands as in every other country the UN has entered 'for the good of the people'.

Putting Britain in Syria's Shoes

Think about it. If this was happening in Britain, what would our government be doing.

We know that our militaristic police would be out in force beating up the innocent unarmed protestors who will have been encouraged on facebook, twitter etc to come out against some particularly bad laws being passed in Parliament. We know this was a ploy used in the downfall of  Libya.

To create a call for intervention, there needs to be a violent uprising in the country. Arms would therefore be smuggled in from China, Russia or anyone else determined to bring Britain down.
 It is well known that the West had Turkey and Kuwait do this in their determination to bring Syria down.

Mercenaries would now be showing up from London to Glasgow, shooting into crowds of unarmed protestors causing confusion and further media frenzy against the UK government who is being blamed for all the attrocities in the media.

Why would any Government do this knowing their enemies are watching and increasing the protests as a result? It makes no sense at all.

The reports of the shootings cause greater dissent in the country and many people believe that the coalition is responsible for the shooting.

Armed groups in Manchester and Liverpool start terrorising the population shooting police and encouraging dissenters to take up arms.

Surely by now the army would be deployed to end the armed resistance. In effect, civil war has broken out in cities all over Britain. The army is now spread thin on the ground. As the armed groups, including revolutionaries and foreign mercenaries, are driven out of some cities, they gather in Leeds where they have a core of popular support. Those who dissent will be violently disposed of and the World media claims success for the revolutionaries in Leeds. Any violent deaths can always be laid at the door of the Conservative regime.

The army would undoubtedly be in open conflict with the armed insurgents by now and innocent people will be killed in the crossfire. The media would thus be able to show how brutally the British Government deals with dissent and the death toll would be loudly laid at their feet to add to the growing call for armed intervention.

Armed intervention would obviously create much more opposition in the population as it becomes aware that they are being taken over by a foreign state. A very bloody war ensues with possibly half a million deaths depending on how long we manage to keep our powerful enemies at bay. 
At last the UK would be proclaimed free while puppet polititians would be given the powerful positions in Government and our resources put out to tender at bargain prices among our 'saviours'. The free citizens could now go about the business of rebuilding the country. It won't be easy of course because a lot of violent people are armed and a lot of armed people will be bearing grudges for many years to come. 

All of you, including Amnesty and Avaaz who should know better, who cry for intervention, imagine if this were your counry.

 

Iran Part 2 1951/1953 (A problem called Mussadeq)

Iran Part 2

At end of part one, we left the British Labour party struggling with the dilemma caused by the nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company at the hands of Prime Minister Mohammed Mussadeq. Celebrations in Iran were short-lived, however, as it soon became evident that the response of the Oil Company was to go on strike. Most non Iranian staff left, the rest were fired. When the British refused to allow their tanker drivers to sign a document recognising that they were transporting Iranian oil, the oil business came to a grinding halt.

Meanwhile, the hawks in London were advocating a military response to retrieve such a valuable British asset. They predicted copycat losses occurring all over the globe if Britain failed to react. To placate these voices and buy themselves some time, the British Government sent the HMS Mauritius to evacuate all British citizens from the area. They also sent reinforcements to Iraq and Cyprus to create unease in the country.

The US was called in to support the UK but, in fact they had little sympathy with the British demands. On a visit to America, Mussadeq completely won over the Americans. While the Brits saw him as a funny little man in pyjamas, the Americans saw a charismatic believer in democracy who did not encourage the communists and was seeking freedom from the imperialistic British just as the Americans had done themselves. The fact that there was 50% of the World’s production of oil available to Iran’s supporters probably did no harm to his case at all.

To avoid what they saw as a disastrous military involvement in Iran, America sent its great negotiator of the day, Averell Harriman, to try to end the impasse. In fact Harriman and, Richard Stokes, the negotiator sent in by the Brits, both believed that the Iranians were justified in their cause. Back in London, however, a jingoistic press accompanied by the dominance of the Anglo Iranian Oil’s voice among the political elite, meant that no compromise was likely to be reached.

Up to this point, it was widely thought that Mussadeq was the only politician that could hold back the Communists in Iran. The new Conservative Government returning to power in 1951 had no such fears. Churchill, by this time, was a Prime Minister in name only and Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary and Deputy PM, was very much in control of our foreign policy. Eden knew of the successful machinations going on behind the scenes in Iran. British intelligence had been under instructions from the Labour Government to organize the fall of Mussadeq and a coup was shaping up nicely. It also seemed likely that the Communists could easily be set up to take the blame. For the moment it was best if the British played along with American negotiators to buy a little more time.

Mussadeq did himself no favours when he failed to accept an interim agreement set up by the US. This would have allowed oil to flow while keeping the money for overseas sales in the hands of trustees. His short sightedness led to the US losing patience with him and as a result he failed to secure the loan the country needed to sustain it until its oil revenue returned.

In the resulting outcry against Mussadeq in the Majlis, old political hand, Quavam Saltanah, was quick to see a window of opportunity. He had approached Julian Amery, a Tory with very high Government connections to show his willingness to support British interests in Iran. As a result, in July 1952, he momentarily found himself appointed to the position of Prime Minister, by the Shah. Mussadeq had resigned over his claim to the right to appoint War Minister. Knowing that he could rely on his ability to move the masses, Mussadeq once again addressed his people and they turned out in their masses to call for his return to power. When the army refused to fire on demonstrators, Saltanah had to be removed.

“The popular reaction to the resignation of Mussadeq in Tehran was such that Quavam could not continue. This was a real setback. I think at the same time the military takeover in Egypt was taking place. It was a bad week.” Reported Sir Donald Logan, assistant to Anthony Eden at the Foreign Office.

 Mussadeq came back with a vengeance that frightened his opponents. He forced the Shah’s sister to leave the country; cut the royal budget; named himself War Minister; and took over some of the power from the Majlis.

The time had come for British intelligence to oust Mussadeq, once and for all. Thanks to the pro-English Rashidian brothers, Seyfollah, Qodratollah and Assadollah, their plans were well underway.

The Rashidian family were very wealthy. They kept a family suite in the Grosvenor House Hotel in London and sent their children to be educated in England. They already had in place, arrangements to bribe the Majlis; pay mob leaders to counter the spontaneous demonstrations of support enjoyed by Mussadeq;

They had helped Woodhouse of MI6 before and they were given £1.5 million pounds to use for bribery in the country now. A cache of arms had been previously buried somewhere in Iran and was now made available to the rabble rousers ready for the trouble to start.

Mussadeq knew the Rashidians were British agents but his faith in democracy meant allowing them to continue their plotting against him in freedom. When he discovered that something serious was really going on, he forced out their financers but the damage was already done. The British Voluntary Council, long a cover for intelligence operatives in Iran, were also removed from the country too late. 

President Dwight D Eisenhower came to office in November 1952 changing the American attitude towards the Iranian Prime Minister. He sympathised instead with the British desire to oust Mussadeq and take back control of the Iranian oil supplies.

Of course it is always necessary in a coup situation that the victim plays his part correctly and Mussadeq obliged. He awarded himself emergency powers to pass laws by decree and then set about reforming the country’s land laws and redistributing the oil wealth.

At the same time, Mussadeq dismissed many Civil Servants and army leaders. When the senate objected, he ordered the Majlis to close it down. When opposition found the courage to resist, Mussadeq held a referendum and won by an overwhelming majority. 
He antagonised the Islamist leaders with his modernization programme and his determination to enfranchise women. In his recent actions, he had departed from those who upheld constitutional values and, in his opposition to the colonialist agenda; he had upset those who became powerful and rich under their hand.

With the loss of his traditional supporters, Mussadeq found himself more aligned to the Communist Tudeh, the terrain of intelligent, forward thinking young Iranians, keen to be free from the shackles of imperial domination and the corruption of the Majlis. By failing to keep on side those who valued an easy life, he left himself vulnerable to his enemies.

In part 3 the story of the coup bears an uncanny resemblence to events right now in Syria.

Syria

Usually I write up my own understanding of World situations but I felt this had a lot of power coming from someone who had actually suffered at the hands of this dictatorship but who still fears Western Zionist motives in Syria
"arabrevolutions
Arab Revolutions
January 30, 2012
Why Do I Defend Syria? (As a foreigner myself I advise you to check it. It was written by an Iraqi Scholar)
Ghassan Wakeup : “This is an article that I read approximately 2 weeks ago written by an Iraqi scholar (Dr. Omar Thaher). I was very touched by this article and decided to translate it into English and did not get the chance to do this till now. Better late than never.”
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Why Do I Defend Syria ?

It is very wrong for anyone to assume that those who are currently defending Syria are necessarily supporters of Bashar Al Assad and that they want him to be president for life and to later pass on the presidency to his son. Quite the contrary, some of those defenders could be very staunch critics of the regime but, not from the perspective of Syria’s own Ahmed Jalabi (ie Burhan Ghalyoun), but rather from the perspective of care and respect of the Syrian people and a conviction that the people deserve to have a government that gives its people their rightful place in humanity. Some of those defenders may well be some of those who have in the past had a taste of the harshness of the regime. The writer of this article is a man who ran away from Syria in 1984 three years after escaping to Syria from Iraq, and did not manage to return to Syria for 22 years and is still unable to go back to Iraq.

I cannot forget the “hospitality” of Section 279 and what I endured in 1982. It was a reminder of the previous hospitality of Security Police in Baghdad. But that was the tip of the iceberg and I often wondered that the timing of a volcanic eruption is only a question of time as the Syrian citizen, just like his Iraqi compatriot suffers daily from the atrocities of the “Defence Brigades”, the Intelligence (Mukhabarat) that are so intimidating for the visiting tourist, let alone the residing citizen.

When I returned to Syria in 2006 it was not because I missed the hospitality of section 279 but because I miss some family members that I haven’t seen for over a quarter of a century and could not reunite with them except for in Syria. How often after my return did I contemplate writing to President Bashar Al Assad warning him that Syria in 2006 is the same one into which Eli Cohen infiltrated over four decades ago and that Israel could smuggle into Syria anything including hydrogen bombs on a daily basis without having to pay more than $10 by the courier as a bribe to the customs police. Isn’t this sadly the case? Otherwise, how did this huge arsenal of weapons reach the terrorists today in a manner than allows them to wreak fear and havoc in so many areas and even challenging the army itself?

The Syrian revolution came a bit too late. This is fine. But it came unlike other popular uprisings. It is coming from Mosques and not from universities or factories. There is nothing wrong with this either, what really matters is that the masses need to rise in order to earn with their own hands what is rightfully theirs. Yes, we must emphasise the concept of earning with ones own hands what is rightfully ours. In this respect I pledged my heart, my soul and my pen and all that I possessed to support anyone who struggled against Saddam Hussein in the past.

I did this because for years on end my friends and I dreamt of an Iraq without Saddam, only to spend many years later lamenting in pain because in hindsight we did not know back then that every word we said and every letter we wrote against Saddam and every drop of blood we shed to get rid of him was only enriching the argument of the enemies of Iraq, beginning with Israel and America and not forgetting the Sheikhs and the Kings of the Gulf, not forgetting Ahmed Chalabi, Iyad Allawi, Nouri Al Maliki, Tarek Al Hashemi and their cohorts. Saddam has gone but what dawn has risen on us? Or should we say what night has fallen upon us? Saddam was bad? But Iraq used to be beautiful and great, secure and advanced and a country with a powerful State and stature and an army; but we did not see this. We did not know back then that despite everything, we had a country and that rulers can come and go but the country is here to stay. And of course we did not know that opposition groups were betraying their people and their country; even our communist leaders repeated the slogan “free country and happy people” until it came out of our ears whilst they were salivating under the CIA payroll. They betrayed the country and sold out their people and blessed the occupation, and eventually worked under the auspices of Bremer. We wanted Saddam to go, but they wanted Iraq to go, and it did. We wanted a popular revolution to topple Saddam or at least a military coup to get rid of him, but they were preparing for a destructive occupation, sectarianism and dreadful deaths. Is history not repeating itself in Syria today? I say this whilst I insist that Bashar Al Assad is not a bad person even though he did not have the right to inherit his position and/or to pass it on to his children.

Our national assets were taken away from the hands of the Saddam regime, but in whose hands are they now? Definitely not in ours. It will take only a fool to repeat the Iraqi experience elsewhere, and a fool is the Syrian citizen who spends a single moment of his life and an ounce of his energy in fighting Bashar Al Assad for as long as he doesn’t know that if he removes Al Assad, God forbid, nothing will be achieved other than turning Syria into a furnace, devouring its people and an open slather for crime and … do I need to say what Iraq has been transformed to? Perhaps we were excused because we were taken by surprise because events were changing overnight, turning Iraq into the target of the assault rather than Saddam. But the Syrian citizen of today has no excuse at all because he can clearly see that the finances and the weapons that are supporting his “revolution” are coming from the rotten Gulf rulers, and hence this revolution can only be for their own benefit and how can what benefits them be of any good for Syria?

It is only a total moron and a fool who puts the assets of Syria in the hands of the rulers of the Gulf, the same hands that carry the blood of the children of Iraq and of Libya. We say there is corruption in Syria and a million unemployed. This is a tragedy indeed but whoever cannot find work today may find work tomorrow after those beasts return to their altars. A million unemployed is far better than a million dead and a million widows and four million orphans and six million homeless and scattered all over the world, and a million cancer victims and a million deformed new born, deformed by the illegal weapons used by the Americans and paid for by the Saudi rulers. Yes, my Syrian brother, this is what the servant of the Americans and Israelis want for you, and this is what the master of regression and backwardness in Qatar is promising you.

And since when my dear Syrian Citizens were the mentally retarded King of Saudi Arabia and the Prince of Qatar so caring about your freedom or the freedom of others? Those people have no conscience and no integrity. We turned Iraq for eight long years into an eastern gate, protecting the nation from Iran and we paid for this with the blood of hundreds of thousands of our young men and we spent every Dinar in our Treasury to protect those apes from Iran. And what would have been our reward had we won? They stole our oil and they flooded the international market with cheap oil to destroy the Iraqi economy, then they allowed half a million American and Israeli soldiers to land on the sacred land of Prophets and they financed two wars against Iraq to return it to the Stone Age. And they danced on the corpses of our fallen ones, the Dance of the Swords just like predecessors did on the day of Ohod; the day they danced and ate the livers of the fallen ones. And why? Because their hearts and minds still rot with ignorance “jahaliyyeh”. And why would you think that what they want for Syria is different to what they wanted for Iraq? They, my dear Syrian citizens want nothing for you except war and destruction.

Despite its corruption and corrupt ones, Syria is beautiful, gracious, great, civilized, proud, independent, united, free and it enjoys the dignity of the lion (Assad). And if you want to know the beauty of Syria you have to read the writings of Oussama Fawzi because he covers more about Syria than other contemporary writers and portrays how wonderful Syria is. You say corruption? You are right. But, who is going to salvage you from this corruption? The old man of Hijaz who is so rotten to the core that it has penetrated into his bone marrow? These people do not have in store for you any freedom or dignity or privileges. All they have in store for you is nothing but traps, blood, sectarianism, destruction, poverty and humiliation. They believe that they can humiliate people with their dirty money and they have indeed bought the traitors of Syria. Those primitive Bedouins have the love of killing and bloodshed running in their veins and they are envious of any Arab country that has true civilization and culture, that has art and literature and intellectuals and this is why they do all they can to destroy Syria and deliver it into the hands of ruthless tyrants.
I defend Syria because I do not want to see the assets of the Syrian people going out of its hands and into the hands of rotten scoundrels who have a grudge against Syria and/or some gangs under the pay of Sarkozy.

I defend Syria because I love Syria and its people and I do not want to see another Iraq getting amputated and having its people getting killed right, left and centre in the streets, mosques or churches.

I defend Syria because I do not want to see American or French tanks in the streets of Damascus with Israeli journalists covering the news freely, reporting scenes of falling statues of Assad with the intention of having them replaced with statues of apes. This did happen in Iraq.

I defend Syria because I do not want to hear that Jewish extremists have come to swim in Barada River, claiming that they have been promised to do so as they are doing now at the River Tigris.

I defend Syria because I see in it the Grenada of today, the last Arabic bastion of dignity. If it falls, God forbid, that will be the end of Arabs.
Syrian brothers, do not allow Netanyahu to enter Damascus disguised with Saudi head dress and a Qatari sandal.

Source in Arabic:

لماذا أدافع عن سوريا؟- بقلم د. عمر ظاهر
Author: Iraqi Scholar Dr. Omar Thaher
Translated by: Ghassan and Intibah Wakeup (Kadi)