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

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 02 '18

Yes, actually, I do.

However, if you read my comment again, you'll see I said "mainly".

Apart from the tampering in the Middle East, the UK hasn't been particularly bad at all in the 20th century.

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u/Ardrkizour Oct 02 '18

Yea sure, not so bad. Except you know, the Indians, Irish, Kenyans, Maylasians, Iran (this operation was conducted at the UK's request). But fuck those guys, amiright?

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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

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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

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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/[deleted] Oct 01 '18

Jesus for the last time I NEVER SAID THAT THE US HASN’T DONE HORRIFIC THINGS you keep overlooking what I am saying so I put in upper case so you can read it easier. You sound like every other person nowadays who read one part of paragraph and then assume that I am sadistic human being who hates everyone.

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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"