
CIA Confirms Role in 1953 Iran Coup - tareqak
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/
======
jacquesm
The rest of what happened in the region including the rise of terrorism is
called 'blowback' in CIA terminology.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback_%28intelligence%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback_%28intelligence%29)

Some go so far as to argue 9/11 is such blowback. Hard to prove or refute that
because of the large number of unknowns, the facts as we know them today leave
enough room for either interpretation.

~~~
madaxe
All "terrorism" is "blowback". Terrorists aren't just crazy folk who come out
of the blue and go "I know, I'll blow some shit up just because" \- they're
politically motivated and use fear as a weapon.

They're politically motivated due to actual or perceived past injustices
perpetrated by their targeted nation or organisation.

On the note of using fear as a weapon however, our own governments have become
absolutely expert, and media reports can now almost have the same impact as an
actual terrorist attack in terms of controlling patterns of thought through
fear.

So, by the definition of a terrorist as being someone who controls a
population through fear, or in fact the fear of fear... you can see where I'm
going.

~~~
uwotm8920
> Terrorists aren't just crazy folk

Ok, explain the geopolitical motivations behind shooting a 14 year old school
girl in the head.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malala_Yousafzai](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malala_Yousafzai)

~~~
jacquesm
Religious fanatics are committing atrocities all over the world. In Algeria
they behead people, in Iraq they blow each other up, in Ireland they used to
blow each other up (including schools) and in the US they shoot each other and
innocent bystanders or professionals.

Geopolitics don't enter into it.

~~~
mjg59
Irish terrorism was never anything to do with religion, religion just happened
to be a reasonably good proxy for political leanings.

~~~
falk
Bullshit. Their political leanings that stem from their religion. You could
say the same thing about Islamic terrorists.

~~~
rowanseymour
Northern Irish here. We have a cultural division that aligns roughly with a
religious division. The political leanings of Unionism and Nationalism stem
from that cultural division - the historical inequalities and injustices.
Religion is not the _source_ of the division.

Sometimes it has been _part_ of the problem. It has encouraged the
establishment of separate school systems for Catholics and Protestants and it
has been used a tool by the extremists to give legitimacy to their violence.

Sometimes it has been _part_ of the solution. It has given emotional healing
to victims, and it has motivated community leaders on both sides to push for
peace.

I'd suggest that the same is true of most conflicts that you think of as
stemming from Islam.

------
ferdo
Steve Kangas was ex military intel that became a journalist. In 1999, he was
found dead of a gunshot wound in a billionaire's building in Pittsburgh.

He was an education for me some 20 years ago when I began learning about the
depredations of the National Security Corporate State that now has us in
thrall.

\--

A Timeline of CIA Atrocities

By Steve Kangas

[http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html](http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html)

~~~
jacquesm
> It was ruled a suicide by local police.

How convenient. Maybe Greenwald and other persons of interest should go on the
record that they does not intend to suicide.

~~~
cstross
Apposite reading right now: "The Execution Channel" by Ken Macleod. Yes, it's
a work of science fiction -- by someone with a background in fringe political
groups who were being actively infiltrated/used for disinformation during the
cold war, and who's been thinking about just how far things could go wrt. the
internet.

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Execution-Channel-
ebook/dp/B00CBFX...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Execution-Channel-
ebook/dp/B00CBFXMDY/)

~~~
jacquesm
Finished. That was quite the page turner. Apart from the science twist it is
quite uncomfortably believable. Thank you for the pointer!

Score 2 for Scotland :)

------
msoad
This is why my friends ask me as an Iranian how the hell I can be happy living
in the U.S. I can't explain them that U.S. citizens are viction of the same
policies. The thing that I don't understand is, who are those elite people who
make this kind of decisions? Who are they? Who leads the whole thing?

~~~
speeder
They are the ones that get your taxes you asshole. If you don't want to depose
them, stop.giving them money to pull stunts like this.

Although US citizens love to be victims, .no atom bomb would be
dropped.without US people.money.

~~~
drcube
You realize paying taxes is mandatory in the US, right?

~~~
speeder
You realize that people can still for example move out, right?

I wrote in a agressive tone, because I see LOTS of US people that just keep
complaining about their government, and do nothing about it, beside voting
(that clearly, is not working), and when they get for example a 9/11 on their
head, they don't understand why other people hate them.

It is a thing of owning up to your mistakes, if you are not making a effort to
avoid supporting your government that do evil actions, you are evil yourself,
because you are allowing you are providing resources to make evil.

I am Brazillian, and I am tired of hearing here from US tourists for example,
that they don't understand why they are hated, if the US meddling here is not
their fault, but their government fault. I don't believe the US population is
stupid, or they DO support the government evil actions, or they just don't
care, saying that it is "not your fault" is NOT acceptable when you are
providing taxes that pay the wages of CIA people that disappear my friends.

~~~
mapleoin
Would you say you condone all the actions done by your country's government.
If not, how are you taking action against them?

~~~
speeder
First, our country is much less tame than US in outright evilness...

It is a government that is very inefficient, and corrupt, but does not drop
bombs on other people heads to get minerals.

Aside from that, what I am doing?

First, I don't pay most taxes, literally. I don't even bother looking at what
taxes I should pay. The tax that I pay correctly is the state (not federal)
and municipal ones.

Second, I support with campaigning and donations when I can, some politicians.

Third, I support protests, specially the big and loud ones (like the ones that
attracted international media here, and DID resulted into a couple of law
changes in our favour).

Fourth, if after next elections things don't improve, I plan in moving
somewhere else, and renouncing my citizenship as soon as I can. I don't want
to stay citizen of a country that I don't agree with the actions of its
population, the government is only a reflection of the local population, maybe
with the exception of extreme cases of autocracy.

Fifth, after I amass enough power, I plan in engaging in politics in a active
manner, whatever manner is needed at the time, and where I am.

------
sidcool
So, the CIA releases such information years later, when it's not of much
relevance. 50 years from now, if they say they had a hand in some of the most
inhuman things happening now, we would probably be indifferent. Not sure how
can anyone hold them accountable for their actions. Probably none of those
individuals who played a part in the coup would be around.

~~~
iaskwhy
That's a strange comment. We knew a lot about what happened in Iraq just
months after the war started and we know a lot more now. All the individuals
responsible for that war are still around.

------
alimoeeny
I thought they had already accepted the blame years ago, DISCLAIMER I am
Iranian.

~~~
cafard
I don't know whether accepted is the word. It has certainly been common
knowledge in the US for 20 years or more. I think that one of the principals
on the US side may have included it in his autobiography, but I could be
wrong.

------
mncolinlee
I thought this coup was outed by FOIA documents while I was still in college
around 9/11 time.

I highly recommend All The Shah's Men if you want a good run-down of what
happened. Even the CIA history FOIA document reads a bit like a James Bond
novel. Kermit Roosevelt Junior was quite the Bond-like character and the
Operation Ajax coup gets busted by the government days before they rescue the
captured agents and complete the operation. Thrilling story for a real life
tale.

------
squozzer
My favorite quote from the piece -- "There is no longer good reason to keep
secrets about such a critical episode in our recent past. The basic facts are
widely known to every school child in Iran. Suppressing the details only
distorts the history, and feeds into myth-making on all sides."

Myth-making is the point of history. Forgive me HN for parroting a quote I
first saw in a video game, "History is but a fable agreed upon."

~~~
alexsb92
Googling the quote it seems like it originally comes from Napoleon Bonaparte.
What game do you attribute it to?

------
pazimzadeh
Is it a requirement that reports become declassified after a certain amount of
time? If not, then why is this being released? What does the CIA stand to
gain?

------
vermontdevil
What would CIA confirm 50 years from now?

~~~
jacquesm
Conspiracies aplenty to choose from, likely some of those will end up being
true after all.

The benefit of knowing which is which is today, 50 years hence it won't
matter. Some of the records are sealed for 70 years, sometimes with the most
transparent of reasons for the sealing attached to them.

------
beefxq
Conspiracy theory has become conspiracy fact.

------
enupten
Is it just me who is sad for the early demise of what could've been a
flourishing democracy in the Middle east (inplace of the silly regime that is
now in power) ?

~~~
eliasmacpherson
Few will thank me for posting this comment but you may find it interesting, it
wasn't just Iran in the post war period:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/06/the_baby_and_t...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/06/the_baby_and_the_baath_water.html)

~~~
mercurial
Thanks, very interesting read (as usual with Adam's writing). It's to be
expected that playing with fireworks is liable to get one burned,
unfortunately intelligence services have a very hard time understanding this
sort of thing.

------
WasimBhai
How is this even remotely related to Hacker News? I guess if I really wanted
to discuss this, I will rather go to /r/worldnews.

~~~
gruseom
It's very related! From the HN guidelines:

 _On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one 's intellectual curiosity._

The release of major new documents about a major historical event that still
has major side effects today easily clears that bar. What's not related are
comments like "how is this even remotely related":

 _Please don 't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate
for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to
its page and clicking on the "flag" link._

[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
tptacek
Story: interesting.

Result thread on HN: nightmare.

For me, that suggests we keep it off the front page, but I'm just one me.

~~~
DrJokepu
Basically, the problem with your argument is that the quality and tone of the
comments on even purely technical stories is equally sad these days on HN.

~~~
davidw
So you're saying there's a correlation between the rise of the political
stories, and decline of the technical content?

Seems plausible to me.

~~~
DrJokepu
That is exactly what I was thinking, yes.

