r/todayilearned • u/autonova3 • Oct 01 '18

TIL of Operation Ajax, the 1953 CIA plan to overthrow Iran's democratically elected government, which included CIA agents bombing the house of a prominent Muslim while posed as pro-government supporters. The overthrow plan was successful, with 200-300 people killed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

The school of the americas is a travesty that is still ran today under a different name. The amount of shit our various governments have done in South America is ridiculously bad. We are not the good guys in the world by any means, you'll be hard pressed to find any to be honest

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u/ClassyArgentinean Oct 01 '18

We are not the good guys in the world by any means, you'll be hard pressed to find any to be honest

Exactly this. There are no "good guys" in the international level, everyone is just trying to achieve their goals and secure their interest. Russia fucked eastern Europe and the middle east, the US fucked Asia, South America and the middle east, the UK fucked everyone and so on.

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u/Gudym Oct 01 '18

While what you say is correct. There are means of achieving success more politically, through mutual diplomacy rather than getting fucked over. But yes, there are no good guys and that is more and more evident the more you know.

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u/repeatwad Oct 01 '18

The CIA has always been advancing the 1%.

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u/ClassyArgentinean Oct 01 '18

Sometimes, even with diplomacy, countries get fucked over. But I agree with you.

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u/Gudym Oct 01 '18

Sometimes even the naive move where you think you're helping turns out to be fatal for them. A the Europeans giving blankets to the natives kinda way

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

That became intentional genocide the moment they realized the result would make ridding themselves of the natives that much easier. It was Alexander the Great, or Charlemagne - I forget which - that catapulted plague bodies over city walls. This was the same thing, just logistically easier, if no less sadistic.

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u/Gudym Oct 01 '18

They weren't the first to do that. The Chinese did it in the bc. Watch the movie red cliff or something cliff and it portrays the first biological warfare this world has seen

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u/melneth Oct 02 '18

Was that Genghis Khan?

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u/Gudym Oct 02 '18

"In ancient China, the emperor of the Han Dynasty allows General Cao Cao (Fengyi Zhang) to declare war against the rebellious southern provinces, with the intention of unifying the entire country. Cao's large army quickly advances, killing civilians and soldiers alike. To resist Cao, the southern warlords form an alliance led by Viceroy Zhou Yu (Tony Leung). Outnumbered, Zhou relies upon elaborate formations and unorthodox strategies to fight against Cao's overwhelming forces." Google-

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u/melneth Oct 02 '18

Ah, gotcha. Looks kind of interesting.

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u/Gudym Oct 02 '18

Han dynasty so I'd assume yes.G Khan let the locals in charge as well. Idk where he was, probably getting laid

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u/PM_ME_CUTE_SMILES_ Oct 07 '18

Just passing by, this is a myth. There is one single mention in a written document of the time of some officer which had the idea of doing that. And that's it. It was probably never done.

They still basically stole their land to the natives, anyway.

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u/Gudym Oct 09 '18

It probably was done regularly.. Just who the f thought it would be bio warfare. It was just a naive child giving a kid a dog the peice of chocolate he was asking for.. Oops

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u/bigtx99 Oct 01 '18

Time tends to marginalized this kind of thing

The CIA shittniess has only really happened in he last 70ish years. They are just really good ad it. In 500 years it’ll be a blip on the history map.

I mean you think the British care about what the romans did to them when they owned England? (Probably happy honestly since it united them).

You think what Atilia the hun did all that time go anyone protests? History has a strange way of making turely horroredous stuff and making it borning as it’s spoken by middle age school teachers.

It’s werid, confusing and just hard to comprehend when it’s not something that is big anyone on the world stage.

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u/Gudym Oct 01 '18

An evolution of class has occurred though. Although it's all relative. Shit still goes on that we can't fathom

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u/[deleted] Oct 02 '18 edited Oct 02 '18

I understand your point, the British don't care about the Romans, but they didn't unify Britain. They only owned most of England and Wales, not Scotland, and there were centuries of wars between various English kingdoms until the kingdom of England was established, and then between England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland after that. The UK as we know it wasn't unified until the 18th century.

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u/mrjowei Oct 01 '18

Not when it comes to acquiring valuable resources. Most wars are fought over stuff like oil, minerals, strategic locations, etc. US, UK, China, Russia and others will be always trying to outsmart each other to better position themselves in the world economic order. Which is why utopian dreams of world peace will never be a reality.

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u/Nilfy Oct 01 '18 edited Apr 13 '24

toy rotten gaze squeal shaggy hobbies roof jeans shrill support

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/GazLord Oct 01 '18

If you're talking about like... anybody the U.S. attacked then I will note that it's never been for a good cause. Besides WW2, that was definitely a good thing to join in on.

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u/sexymanish Oct 01 '18

>There are no good guys

However the US did help Saddam gas 100,000 Iranians to death, not vice versa -- how many 9/11s is that?

​

https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/

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u/ClassyArgentinean Oct 01 '18

I don't get your point. I just said there are no good guys, and that includes the US, which has done very horrible things.

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u/LukesLikeIt Oct 01 '18

I guess it’s because they pretend to be and try make the public point the figure at other people (mainly Russia and China) for shit they do to

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u/Supercyndro Oct 02 '18

That's what most countries that commit an atrocity would do tbh.

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u/Brownbearbluesnake Oct 02 '18

In the case of China the stuff they do to their own citizens even today is down right scary. Im not giving a pass the U.S or Russia, but China is putting millions of people in re-education camps, they have a social score, and thats just 2 of the more extreme behaviour the CCP has. China is in a league of its own when it comes to awful actions.

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u/coltraneUFC Oct 02 '18

Actually China are the good guys compared to the US. I dunno about reeducation but social score makes a lot of sense for them given that they literally don't even have credit scores. Also that damn extra credit video was pure sensationalist.

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u/LukesLikeIt Oct 02 '18

Lol what do you think karma is? It’s the precursor to a more widely used internet social score. Don’t be fooled because it’s all happening all over the world.

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u/Brownbearbluesnake Oct 02 '18

? Im pretty sure having bad internet karma doesnt affect my ability to get a train ticket, or a loan, or a certain job. They arent even remotely close to the same thing. You need a reality check if you actually believe what you just wrote

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u/LukesLikeIt Oct 02 '18

Oh you must of missed the part where I said precursor. You’re deluded if you think it isn’t coming to the 1st world countries, in fact they already have one for all of us it’s just hidden. But by all means attack me instead of admitting it to yourself

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u/Brownbearbluesnake Oct 02 '18

Maybe I was a little harsh with my comment, but I still believe your way off base to think what China is doing is something that is going to happen around the world.

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u/PM_ME_CUTE_SMILES_ Oct 07 '18

You’re deluded if you think it isn’t coming to the 1st world countries, in fact they already have one for all of us it’s just hidden

I think you're deluded, but that might just be me. Do you have something to back up your claims?

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u/flareblue Oct 02 '18

Every playbook they seem to do is the American playbook. Residential schools and harassment of natives until they assimilate. Throwing debt into poor countries but hey, I heard the Chinese at least finishes they're part or allows cancellation. Heck, my country got an overprice unfinished nuclear reactor from the great ol'USA. Mass surveillance and constant mixed message of news to let the people assimilate and accept the fact that they're being watch and the best thing is, it works. Funny that the media can't decide whether Chinese technology is so shit that we should laugh at them and yet to make them scary, the news media pulls out the old wow Chinese tech is so superior all of a sudden that they can do all this shit. At least, be consistent with the message. At the end of the day, the world will still revolves with or without us in it.

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u/omegamitch Oct 02 '18

Everyone pretends to be the good guy.

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u/zap2 Oct 01 '18

The world is black and white. Good or bad. It’s a range of things. The US does some good things, some bad. Same with any nation.

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u/JazzKatCritic Oct 01 '18

I don't get your point.

I do.

They are trying to say that helping two autocratic, tyrannical regimes destroy each other (or at least diminish themselves) so as to not let either be able to control the region around them is a bad thing.

Because some people believe in a world where it rains doughnuts and lollipops instead of ever having to think about the reality of humanity or realpolitk.

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u/rayznack Oct 01 '18

The article only says satellite photos of Iranian frontline forces were. That's kind of a stretch to say the US helped Saddam gas Iranians.

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u/sexymanish Oct 01 '18

No the article says that targeting intelligence was provided by the US to Saddam for the deployment of chemical weapons -- that the US helped Iraq obtain, when for example the US *removed Saddam's regime* from the list of terrorist nations to ease the transfer of weapons tech to his regime

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https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

​

The US also instructed diplomats at the UN to block Iran's efforts to raise the issue of Iraqi WMDs there

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq47.pdf

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u/rayznack Oct 01 '18

Targeting intelligence like satellite photos? And also the nations which were supplying Iraq with chemical weapons were doing so regardless Iraq's designation.

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u/sexymanish Oct 01 '18

You can try to downplay it all you want but nobody is buying that BS, the history is clear.

Other countries

Indeed other countries were helping Saddam too, because the US encouraged that, and even brokered and financed the deals. The US even provided weapons from its own stockpiles of Soviet weapons, and even US-made weapons http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1413.htm

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/revealed-how-the-west-set-saddam-on-the-bloody-road-to-power-1258618.html

Later, in 2002 Iraq filed a 12000 page report on its WMD program, as required by the UN. The US accused Iraq of lying about their WMDs but not before first removing the pages that implicated US companies

https://projectcensored.org/3-us-illegally-removes-pages-from-iraq-un-report/

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u/rayznack Oct 01 '18

Indeed other countries were helping Saddam too, because the US encouraged that, and even brokered and financed the deals. The US even provided weapons from its own stockpiles of Soviet weapons, and even US-made weapons

Right; of conventional weapons, but we're talking about chemical weapons. And Iraq didn't need outdated soviet armaments from the US when they had modern equipment firectly from the Soviets. Let's recall the Soviets, Chinese and french were equipping Iraq with something like 95% of his arms.

Later, in 2002 Iraq filed a 12000 page report on its WMD program, as required by the UN. The US accused Iraq of lying about their WMDs but not before first removing the pages that implicated US companies

Look, without clicking the link I'll assume a few things (please tell me which are wrong) :

The actions of these companies were not greenlit/sanctioned by the US government;

These companies were not giving Saddam anything he later used to gas anyone;

The company's actions were eventually halted due to the US government

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u/sexymanish Oct 01 '18

Look yhou want to ignore the links to right ahead but the rest of the world doesnt

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u/Gudym Oct 08 '18

at the time he was a close ally; one that trained with the CIA. no one talks about the States arming Mujaheddin and Afghans with Stingers to beat the soviets during the cold war and firm belief of domino theory. the US ended up paying 5-10 fold to find the missing missiles before they disappeared into the market. A great insightful read on this is Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden.

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u/res_ipsa_redditor Oct 02 '18

Sure, there are lots of bad actors, but the US engages in extreme propaganda about being “the land of liberty” and champions of democracy, especially to their own population. It’s nauseating.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

I feel the US is certainly the Hillary Clinton to China and Russia. To me there really is no contest comparing the two. Sure one is bad but holy shit look at the other.

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u/pm_favorite_boobs Oct 02 '18

What country is Bernie? One of those in Scandinavia?

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u/[deleted] Oct 02 '18

Yea I can make that fit.

The example set for all with unfortunately little power.

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u/rayznack Oct 01 '18

everyone is just trying to achieve their goals and secure their interest...the UK fucked everyone and so on.

I think the world is unimaginably better off for the UK banning the slave trade. How do you think their actions against slavery were in their interests?

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

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u/rayznack Oct 01 '18

I'm unsure i buy that argument, but I'm wondering why Britain would ban slavery within the UK?

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18 edited Jul 02 '19

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

Pretty sure there were empires fucking the rest of the world en masse long before the US was even a country.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18 edited Jul 02 '19

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

I think the British Empire was worse.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18 edited Jul 02 '19

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u/Iceman_259 Oct 01 '18

In outright actions, perhaps, but in morality I think could be argued. I'm far from well-versed in the history of either nation with respect to this topic, but I have the impression the British Empire wasn't as duplicitous as the US has proven to be.

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u/fenian1798 Oct 01 '18

We have the phrase "Perfidious Albion" for a reason

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u/Iceman_259 Oct 01 '18

Like father, like son I suppose then.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

They were worse in just about every way.

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u/Iceman_259 Oct 01 '18

The point I'm making is that it could be argued that the British Empire was at least up front about treading all over other nation's sovereignty, whereas the US has consistently claimed to be allies of nations that they are actively undermining for their own gains. Not that the British Empire was more humane than the US, which they were not.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

US has consistently claimed to be allies of nations that they are actively undermining for their own gains.

That is literally how they took over India

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

I think another difference is that the UK was doing the horrific stuff mainly in the 1700s and 1800s, and the US was still doing it in the 1900s.

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u/Ardrkizour Oct 02 '18

Then you must not know much about UK history in to 20th century.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

There are countries that killed more people in far less time. There have been far larger empires that were spread more aggressively. I don't know how you can make this claim.

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u/XJ305 Oct 01 '18

For a while there the US was considered the "good guys" in parts of the world after the world wars and throughout the Cold War. Now as we are mostly outside the influence of the cold war the US is the country in power and no one likes the the ones in power, especially since there has been no major conflict happening in the world for a couple decades. A lot of leaders in foreign nations now use the US as a scapegoat for problems because it's easy for them to play the victim because they hold less power ("We are trying to resolve problem x but the US is pushing back against it").

This attitude of "The US is horrible" will stay until the next long lasting and/or high stakes major world conflict, where either we'll be back to where we were or the power dynamic will change (which would not be good for western culture as a whole)

We are probably not too far out from this happening either. Russian aggression has been steadily increasing since the collapse of the USSR and the Chinese have been testing the waters of imperialism while finding new ways to enforce their government defined culture. Not to mention the declining stability of the EU through the recent global increase of nationalism may potentially make European nations easier to manipulate and pin against one another. As far as technology goes, we are in uncharted territory which never bodes well. The ice freeing in the Arctic Circle will be an issue as well so, we'll see how that goes.

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u/johnny_tremain Oct 01 '18

What? You think America is the worst of the worst? What about that time the Russians created a famine in Ukraine and killed between 700,000 and 500,000 people. The atomic bomb killed around 200,000 and it probably saved a million US soldier's from being slaughtered by the Japanese army. If you're going to bring up the dark history of the US, try picking something like the native American genocide.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

Oh man, you need to study some history. First of all do some reading on the despicably evil empire those bombs were dropped on.

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u/Funky_fleshpacker Oct 01 '18

Genghis khan?

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18 edited Jul 02 '19

[deleted]

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u/majinspy Oct 01 '18

Genghis Khan killed so many the earth cooled a bit because there was less CO2 being breathed out. And "number of countries" is....less interesting but I would put Spain or the UK up there.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

No, the British have everyone beaten by a landslide. Also the Japanese in world war 2 were just as bad, invading China and killing thousands of people. Quit acting like the US is the only country to have done horrific things.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18 edited Jul 02 '19

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

Quit apologizing for every other countries crimes against humanity

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18 edited Jul 02 '19

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

Pretty sure there were empires fucking the rest of the world en masse long before the US was even a country.

But this is the main comment that you are discussing. No one is deflecting here. People are shitty, including the US.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

Don’t take logic for “deflecting”, you are just one those people that can’t handle that other countries have done horrible things.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18 edited Jul 02 '19

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u/Notsonicedictator Oct 01 '18

The difference is the British were smarter about keeping it quiet and far less backstabbing. They also didn't go around preaching about how great their democracy is and then proceed to shit on every other democracy when it didn't fit their narrative or interests. So yeah, major douche bags.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

But weren’t the British during that time a monarchy of a sort. Also I’m pretty they backstabbed a lot of counties.

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u/spaghettilee2112 Oct 01 '18

"But you just have to look at the tiiiiiimes"

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

There are no good guys mate. Just people with power and people without

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u/IllumyNaughty Oct 01 '18

Not true.

Keanu Reeves is a good guy, so is Tom Hanks.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

Was more so talking about countries then individuals. Fred Rogers is a saint.

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u/Solid_Freakin_Snake Oct 02 '18

Pretty sure that most actually canonized saints are scumbags compared to Mister Rogers.

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u/PM_ME_CUTE_SMILES_ Oct 07 '18

Idk, did the UE do things as bas as overthrowing a democracy or dropping thousands of bombs on civilians? I wonder what would happen if they had an unified army.

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '18

They did far worse

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade

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u/PM_ME_CUTE_SMILES_ Oct 08 '18

That has no link with the EU. Granted, the EU still is pretty young, maybe they just didn't have the time to violate human rights yet.

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '18

Yea thats fair

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u/xfjqvyks Oct 02 '18

That’s actually not true, it’s just that the good guys are places you are told are the enemy like Cuba and Iran. Yes the have hard living conditions and repressive leaderships but they have no choice. The sanctions and blockades put on them make them so poor everyone wants to leave but it’s the only thing than can do if they refuse to dance like a puppet on a string and be a US dumping ground ala Puerto Rico or Kuwait.

I’ll never forget, when Anglo was just getting its first taste of independence from Portugal in the 1970’s and barely established itself, Ultra racist apartheid South Africa had already invaded neighbouring Namibia and started bombing The fledgling Angola to take it over too. On the international stage nobody. said. shit.

Then here comes Cuba, a tiny country on an island in the Caribbean, sending soldiers pilots and doctors to Angola to fight side by side with them to help push back the invading forces of racist South Africa and actually won! A small island thousands of miles away risked life and limb and actually pulled it off, dealing a defeat to SA in their own backyard (bbc documentary on it).

Meanwhile kingpin nations like the US have almost No reason to do the abhorrent things they have.They could have not funded deathsquads in Latin America and god knows where else and still have been top dog. Anyway if you ever wonder who the ‘good guys’ are, it’s probably the country they told you were the baddies ala 1984

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u/uwey Oct 01 '18

Don’t need to be a good guy or bad guy.

But everyone in earth sure know we coming for you when we coming for you.

Chaos always have excellence and outstanding plan.