Misc

Response to Dariush....

Dariush,
Notions of complete independence, nationalism, and idealism are definitely a trip; but more like an acid trip than a trip to a pleasant destination. It may feel good right away but ultimately it's a head-trip down the wrong path. Ultimately, each nation must decide what the desired outcome is for its citizens. It's important to know this doctrine or else, like a runner on a treadmill; it's lots of running and really getting nowhere! So, who do we want to be as a nation? Helping the innocent is indeed a noble; but the current Iran isn't Cyrus' Persian Empire and as much as your comment about helping the innocent sounds nice, it doesn't help us achieve our own goals of peace and prosperity for our own citizens. What I'm trying to say here is that there are many causes in the world, our choices define our destiny, and choosing this cause makes us weaker, not stronger. Our leaders don't have to prove anything to the world; all they have to do is to do what's best for our own citizens. The Palestinian cause and others like it may give a few barefoot Somalis a thrill that Iran is standing up to the West; but when it comes to the average Iranian citizen, the fact that he/she can't afford a decent meal, housing, healthcare, and is mired with rampant inflation doesn't call for a moment of celebration, it's more like an occasion for grief! Our national resources are squandered on causes that further isolate us instead of empowering us. That's the worst kind of policy, that which manipulates our emotions into bad actions rather than fulfilling our need for stability, peace, and prosperity for our nation. It's time we wake up and stop supporting Palestinians through this proxy army we have in Lebanon and just live our lives by concentrating on our own domestic problems. Hey, how about we start by forcing our president take a an Economics 101 course and stop doing this populist moves that make us poorer as a nation and robs the treasury!?

Did everyone catch that one? Or have I miss read what was said

There is a scene that suggests that it was the US that disclosed to the Islamic Revolutionary (during the secret talks to free the embassy hostages) that the shah had $20 billion of personal wealth in US banks...! That excludes the $10bn or so of government funds for military purchases and student expenses etc. And it was against the US law to seize private property.

Does anyone have a clip of Senator Kennedy standing on his soap box screaming about the $10 or $20 billion the shah had stolen from Iran. Please distribute this on youtube if you can. Anything said by Senator Byrd, George Ball and all those nincompoops would be appreciated today.

The same Western charlatans that made political use of religion to undermine the Pahlavi regime, agitated for revolution using the media and financed the "Student Confederations" and ultimately celebrated the Tazi takeover of Iran, are now writing a story as the epitaph to that era.


We'll see about that.

No apologies from the US and the killers were given medals!

In relation to the US shooting down the Iranian passenger airbus, the warning issued by the advanced anti-aircraft system of the USS Vincennes was ignored by the crew. This is the finding of the Americans themselves.

But even if we assume it was an 'error', Bush, the father, in response to the issue of apology for this horrific 'accident', boasted in that familiar style that "I will never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don't care what the facts are."

There has been no apology to this day and Captain Rogers and Commander Lustig on 3rd July 88 were presented with the Legion of Merit for their "performance in the Persian Gulf on 3 July 1988."

Jaleh, thank you for the brilliant links and info. I am sure there are many who can use them intelligently and learn.

BBC making a hero of their

BBC making a hero of their stooge...

"Hero of the retards"...the Brits utter>

The Brits turned the clock back on Iran's progress more than 200 years and they are laughing at our stupidity and people on this site still see khomeini's face on the moon. We really don't deserve any better...

That's what military does.

That's what military does. There have contingency plans to attack Canada, Australia, even England and they are updated every year...It's called war games.

I'm not disputing Americans helping Saadam. The point of contention was the downing of the Air bus.

Arms Sale: Israel's Link to the Khomeini Regime
//www.washington-report.org/backissues/1186/8...

//www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,9...

Re-lived the last 30 years with these 3 clips

The most interesting documentary I have ever seen.
Long live my dear Iran. Whoever mistreated you throughout the history, paid dearly. I love you with passion.

Amazed

British obsession with Iran is at par with Isalmist and IRI lackeys obsession with Jews, zionist and palestine! could one hand be washing the other hand. only time will tell....

Pray, what do you mean

 by "I exposed your narrative??!!" It was Ted Koppel's famous revealing of the American cover up, played fully in American TV, not MY narrative! I gave that to show what a fool you are thinking that I have access ot Iranian's inside stories, whereas this is a FAMOUS story that was palyed in the entire world, only ignorant people like yourself have never heard it before. It seems to me that like Anonymous Fish, you do NOT have the mental ability to read anything to the end and digesting it before shooting your mouth off! I said, if you need further HELP, ask it graciously. Here's my last help to you, narrowing down last part of that Ted Koppel's program, see if you understand it:

 The last break of the article:

...As we’ve been reporting for more than a year now, the Reagan/Bush administrations permitted — and frequently encouraged — the flow of money, agricultural credits, dual-use technology, chemicals, and weapons to Iraq.

What we didn’t fully understand was how those programs fit into the larger Washington/Baghdad alliance against Iran.

We didn’t know, for example, that there were actually U.S. contingency plans for an attack against the Iranian mainland.

Admiral Ace Lyons was commander of the Pacific fleet.

James A. “Ace” Lyons Jr. (Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral, U.S. Navy):

We were prepared — as I would say at the time — to drill them back to the fourth century.

And I felt we stood a good chance of sufficiently weakening the Khomeini regime, that it would have collapsed.

Richard L. Armitage (Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security, June 9 1983-1989 June 5):

The decision was made not to completely obliterate Iran.

We didn’t want a naked Iran.

We wanted a calm, quiet, peaceful Iran.

However, had things not gone well in the Gulf, I’ve no doubt that we would have put those plans into effect.

Ted Koppel [voice-over]:

One reason why that U.S. attack against Iran never became necessary is because the Iraqis were able to do the job.

But they did it with a great deal of American help.

U.S. intelligence enabled the Iraqi general staff to successfully plan and execute the retaking of the crucial Faw peninsula.

Nightline got that information from a now-retired senior U.S. intelligence officer.

What’s so fascinating is the timing of that Iraqi campaign.

It began on April 17th, 1988, the day before Operation Praying Mantis began.

One of the most important Iraqi offensives of the war began the day before U.S. armed forces wiped out half of the Iranian Navy.

Richard L. Armitage (Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security, June 9 1983-1989 June 5):

I’m very comfortable initially with what we did.

Particularly when I recall that we did this in the face of almost overwhelming opposition of the Congress.

And, in retrospect, I think we have kept the Iranian wolf from exercising hegemony.

Unfortunately, the Iraqi wolf got well and itself exercised hegemony.

But our crystal ball was very muddy in 1987, just as our crystal ball today is very muddy concerning the future.

Ted Koppel: It may just be, in the current climate, that declaring Congress irrelevant to the conduct of foreign policy would gain a lot of support.

Maybe that’s the way U.S. foreign policy should be conducted.

By the executive branch.

With a minimum of consultation and a large dose of secrecy.

If Congress seems likely to disapprove, don’t tell ’em what you’re doing.

Of course, if and when things go wrong — as they ultimately did when Saddam’s forces invaded Kuwait — there’s no one to blame but the executive branch

Thanks Marzieh

Thanks Maezieh for your insight.
As the pro Khomeini's put fire on Rex Movie Theatre in Abadan during the uprising & burnt 450 people to death in order to claim later that SAVAK did that, it was very much possible for IRI 9 years later to make 300 more to turn to ashes while travelling on a plane.

PS: The UK had owned our oil for 70 years until Mosadegh nationalized it. That meant our country was their colony. In 1979 they colonized us again in a different way & with no way to get rid of them.

offtopic

Roxana Saberi Father Says Daughter Is Now Suicidal

//www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/24/roxana-sa...

I've got to admit, you're

I've got to admit, you're one heck of a propagandsit with clever verbal masturbation skills.

Your depcition gives the impression that the US military pre-medidated and had orders from the President of the US to directly engage in a war on Iran...Sir/mama, I don't know what your agenda is here but you're a liar:

Here is the transcript:

It was a terrible accident.

Indisputably a case of mistaken identity.

Granted, there was no love lost between the United States and Iran.

But the U.S. Navy does not deliberately target a civilian Airbus.

On the record, the United States was trying to remain neutral, although clear warnings had gone out that the U.S. would not stand idly by while Iranian gunboats harassed international shipping. Nor would the U.S. Navy permit mines to be planted in international waters.

Ted Koppel [on camera]:

On that hazy Sunday morning of July 3rd, in fact, the Aegis cruiser Vincennes and the frigate Montgomery were on patrol in the Gulf, when a helicopter from the Vincennes came under fire from Iranian gunboats, while on a reconnaissance mission.

Captain Rogers: Several minutes into this, we were notified that we have an aircraft departure from Bandar Abbas. Did not really become of tactical concern till it was around 47 miles away, primarily because aircraft flew in the Gulf. It was pointed out at this point that the aircraft was essentially inbound on what looked to be a closed constant bearing decreasing range, and we were monitoring it.

Seaman: Still inbound.

Captain Rogers: The aircraft was warned, warned a number of times, continued to close. Time is a demon here. If I have a long time to sort things out, you’re going to take more time to look at this and more time to look at that.

But when you don’t have time, you basically take what you have, and you’re—

At some point in time, you have to make the decision. I was having—

I had difficulty at 20 miles. I just did not want to shoot. I could not believe that this was really happening to us. So I held my fire.

When the aircraft reached a little over 10 miles, at that point in time I either make the decision then, or I don’t make it at all, because I reach minimum weapons range.

And the decision was made at that, and it intercepted and killed the aircraft.

1st Seaman: Oh, dead. We hit it. We have got it. That was a dead on.

2nd Seaman: Relax, relax, keep the noise down. Knock it off !

Captain Rogers: I thought it was a tactical aircraft.

Did I think it was absolutely an F-14, or an F-4, or a Fokker D-27?

I don’t know.

I thought it was a tactical aircraft engaged in support of the ongoing surface action.

That’s what I thought.

Otherwise, I would have certainly never released two standard missiles at it."

BTW, thanks for the link. It exposed your misleading narrative.

WOW.... How could BBC forget to mention

1980's massacre in Iranian Kurdistan (order by Khomeini) which was an act of genocide.
If you guys think that this regime has brought us independence and glory, you must be having some serious issues.

Marzieh and Asdollah Khan, when you're

lazy and ignorant of facts and history, and you want others to do the work for you, at least have a better attitude and be gracious a bit! I already provided the list of documents from National Security archives declassified documents following Assdollah khan's request. A fantastic source that you should be thankful for, but Marzieh comes up with this attitude again: 

"It does not have any indication of the tanker wars and US direct military attack on Iran at the end of the war. It does not mention the criminal downing of the Iran Air Passanger plane by the US which led Rafsanjani ending the war. "

Please provide link. It seems like you have inside access to the officials in Tehran."

Marzieh, if you don't know about the Iranian Air downing and the end of Iran-Iraq war, you're really too off to have a conversation, frankly. One does not need inside acess to officials in Tehran, just look up wikipedia for god sake, it has a huge info on it! For a more fun read here's Ted Koppel light review:

//homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/ir655-nightline-19920701.html

Here's a semi-serious review from wikipedia:

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

And the actual case taken to the International Court of Justice that you want to read is reference #25 from the above wikipedia link.

Your proper answer should be a simple "thank you."

How hard Iran had tried to

How hard Iran had tried to make relations and also it was always US that did not deliver their promises, something that Iranian culture finds as horrible and inhuman as possible.

Iranian culture is based on the promises not be broken and the US had acted similar to the Western mentality of broke it if it fits! Kind of cowardy. If you have doubts, don't promise!!

Reminds me of the history books about Persia past, where French, British and Russian broke their promises and killed the hope of a respectable relationship.

I love for the US and Iran to have a friendly relationship, but I suggest that Iranian government be very careful. If the US has broken their promise before, they can do it again. So get what you need FIRST before delivering.

Finally there are some warmongers that were in charge, and those horrible people from the US admin killed any chance for  peace. As you heard in this program, the Iranian government agreed to change Hezbullah if US gave their promises in return, it was the US that didn't agree.

Interesting. Thanks for posting this.

It does not have any

It does not have any indication of the tanker wars and US direct military attack on Iran at the end of the war. It does not mention the criminal downing of the Iran Air Passanger plane by the US which led Rafsanjani ending the war. "

Please provide link. It seems like you have inside access to the officials in Tehran.

Didn't Regan also sold arms to Iran?

Didn't Khomein buy Arms from Israel??

BBC is exposed in William

BBC is exposed in William Engdhal penultimate book in manufacturing the coup of 1978. No amount of documentary making by BBC will change facts and official documents showing the involvement of BBC and the carter et al.

BBC might be able to fool a bunch of Iranian/arab militant Islamists a la Marzieh Dabagh, supporting Hamas, IRI, or Hizballah who believe in "armed struggle" against the US and Israel but that is all they can do.

Reference for Asdollah khan,

Not that I think you really want to learn. That entire documentary with so much coming from horse's mouth, from Shah and his military personel to American presidents and their top guys, didn't seem to teach you anything! But, since I have already typed this in one of my blogs, I'll just copy it for you, or anyone else who is truly interested in learning. The specific UN resolutions are numbered, Shultz deal with Tariq Aziz can be found in the archives, and the US National Archives of secret documents which has been declassified is provided from the GW Univeristy site:

"From Sep 1980 that Iraq attcked Iran until the final Resolution 598 of 1987, which Iran finally accepted, none of the UNSC resolution either accepted Iraq as the aggressor who initiated the war, nor the party who used chemical weapons (the 2 condictions that Iran requested repeatedly from UN).

While Iraq was INSIDE Iran, the resolutions like 479 demanded cease fire (that is Iraq borders be defined by the territory captured from Iran!) The first time that a demand was made to return to international borders was when Iran actually went INSIDE IRAQ.  

And even in 1986, when Iran captured FAW Island, and it made the west and Arabs worried about Kuwait, US in resolutions 582 and 588 of 1986 refused to accept Iraq as the culprit in initiation or use of the weapons, thus any war reparation to Iran.

Yet, from 1983 US knew that Saddam is using chemical weapons against Iran, (since they partly provided it to him!,) but according to the now declassified documents, US policy was to help Iraq defeat Iran regardless of CW treaties,  way before Rumsfeld trip to Baghdad in 1984. You can look up Reagn's declassified National Security Directive  of March 1982, (NSSM4-82), and april 1984 (NSDD139) to that account.

For US knowledge of Iraqi use of Chemical weapons on Iran, in the following link from the National Security Archives, click on document #24. Read just the douments, not the narratives of the link.

//www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

Asdollah, Dear ...

Go and find out. I am .. what can I say, baffled, that someone who can "just say no" so easy on matters relating to the future of his country, has not followed these history making events and asks for references!!! I sincerely suggest you enquire even at this late hour, and find out for yourself whether these events took place. If your excuse was ignorance, perhaps there is hope that you might see things differently.

JAMESH KON.....

jaleho, it's funny that you always make a feeble attempt at legitimizing the mullahs!
and it's ironic that the very architects of this great fiasco of 79, the brits, are now trying to portray it as something legit and valid or just!
that's pure BS and everyone knows it......there is NO WAY IN HELL that an illiterate akhoond, who can't even speak correct farsi, had the brains or the cojones to start or organize a revolution....
khomeini was the pet project of the brits and his lack of respect for human life or anything iranian made him the perfect creep to organize this
the sad thing is that our people are so gullible that they followed a moron who wrote a book on how to have sex with donkeys and underage girls!

independence

For someone who left Iran in 1973, this documentary
was very interesting and it filled some of the puzzle. What it was clear that Iran pursues a very Nationalistic and independent policy. It has showed time after time that she is not dogmatic (helped US in both Iraq and Afghanistan, helped Armenia) when it was in her own interest. It clearly shows Iranians as the mature partner in the relationship. Iran and Iranians like the Jews before them, have been subject to vicious rumors and discrimination.

Jaleho and Mehrnaz!

Be roobah goftan shahedet kieh? Goft dombam.

No references, no nothing. We are all supposed to take Jaleho's theories as fact.
I, for one, just say no.

Jaleh jaan, Dorood!

I can't currently write but just to say, thank you, you are absolutely spot on. Happy New Years!

Although the documentary shows clearly that

this was a revolution of Iranian people, with undeniable leadership of Khomeini whose uncompromising stance gathered EVERY Iranian who was for removal of Shah, independence of Iran from foreign colonial powers, but some omissions are telling!

For example, it does show the support of the west for Saddam, but does not specify that he was prompted by the Carter administration to start the war against Iran to begin with.

It does show the devasatating Chemical weapons use by Saddam and says "Saddam had chemical weapons," but does not say that it was the US and the west who gave him those weapons to use against Iran.

It does show Shultz dilemma about Saddam's use of WMD against Geneva agreement, but does not mention at all Shultz deal with Iraq to provide Saddam with WMD in exchange for Saddam's recognition of Israel and starting an oil pipeline to Israel.

It does not have any indication of the tanker wars and US direct military attack on Iran at the end of the war. It does not mention the criminal downing of the Iran Air Passanger plane by the US which led Rafsanjani ending the war.

It does refer to the UN being a tool of the US siding with Saddam despite all his criminal acts, but it does not mention that the US prevented a just cease fire by not recognizing Iraq as the initiator of the war, its use of WMD, and prevention of war damages to be given to Iran.

And, it leaves it to the canny audience to notice that in the entire 30 years, there has been some good efforts from both governments to mend the situation, but Israeli spies like Martin Indyk (the architect of Iran-Iraq dual containment) or Haas are everywhere present to torpedo any effort of the State Department for a reconciliation!

America can not follow its own interest while Israeli-firsts are allowed to lead its foreign policy. But, little by little Israeli fifth column's power is eroding and  the world will understand more by documentaries like these, books like that of Mearsheimer and Walt and the open information coming through the internet undoing the massive brainwash of American people for the past 60 years of Israeli-centric foreign policy. Basically, the US has 2 fundamental choices:

1. Throw the Israeli used condom down the history's toilet where it belongs.

2. Continue the same Israeli-first policy and go down the shitter with Israel itself.

Clearly America has started the former choice as economically it can not continue to feed the lechers at the expense of its own security.

Iran & west

Long Live IRAN.
Happy Nurooz.
Peace

BBC the puzzle maker at it again!

There is simply too much information and details (truth, half truth and none truth) in this documentary! But, most importantly the way these are compilied which makes this documentary interesting or even intriguing! I watched the clips one after the other. The viewer is left with more questions then answers after watching them!

Why should someone be surprised after watching them!? You have to ask yourself a few simple questions. Who benefited? failed? and lost? in the show of power and in the aftermath of 1979?

The looser of the play is primarily the Iranian Nation and her people. The mullah gained power. America lost an ally and access to Irans oil. UK is barely mentioned in the first clip.

The rest seem to be yesterdays news and the gossip that goes along with it! And who are the news makers? journalists? politicians? oil cartels?

We have heard and read about all of this in bits and pieces, but suddenly all these bits and pieces are put together and presented to us in its entirety and for what purpose? What is the goal of BBC this time? I am afraid this documentary is made for the Western audience.

The Shah was a hated figure because the West back in 1970s was in economic turmoil! Refer to Shahs interviews on youtube regarding Irans Oil policy and you will see why the BBC is in the business of make belief.

-F

Dariush

are you living in LALA land ?? every report that you see nowadays shown that there are more innocent Iranian who their rights are broken every day by I.R than any other country in the world, just recently, a blogger have been killed just for criticizing I.R in his weblog for God sake and you people dare to come and leave such a comment>let me explain you one last time even though I know that you will not change your mind no matter what, a nation does not have anything when it does not achieve its freedom, with all technology, missile, nuclear power and etc we will be nothing if we have no freedom, as a matter of fact, progress in technology and economy will not be achieved other than in shadow of freedom and justice, people biggest achievement in history has been getting their rights, no nation in history ever went to street for more religion or potato. This three documentary has just proven one thing to me and that is, in all of these decision making you could not see Iranian people involvement, from the first movie to the last one, same people were playing and making decision for Iranian up until now, in the first movie they were young and we saw how they grow old in last movie and I believe this is the biggest shame to us all, this shows that we have no involvement in deciding for our country and we are kicked out of our rightful place in society to stay home or I put it in simpler way, we are asked to be a good ship and just eat our grass, I do not see any difference between the way Iran in being run by its leader and a Gavdary run by its owner.

mahmoudg says: "domination of the region"??

Only an Israeli or brain washed American Zion thinks this way.
Zionist murderers

Great Documentary

Thanks for sharing.

Best docummentary I've seen on Iran

Hands down one of the better reports I've seen on Iran. Kudos to BBC.

Ali baba

Helping Palestine and Lebanon is a Nobel action. This is not the first time Iran has helped the innocent, if you look in our history.

You say, we should stand with the world instead of the opposite side of it. United states/Israel is not the world! They are hated by the world. Take your advise and travel abroad and see for yourself!

I agree with you that we need to advance in science, technology and etc. Iran is advancing unlike west's disapproval. Any country facing the sanctions, threats and the pressure that Iran has been facing for 30 years would have been destroyed in a few years if not months, but Iran is standing strong. Look at western countries, they are about to collapse without any of such issues.

Do we have problems in Iran? Yes, and they should be addressed and fixed, but we also need to give credit when credit is due. You call it ego trip. We call it independence trip.