One can send a dissenting letter to any daily newspaper now on the subject of Iran, or an e-mail to any so-called leftist web site and I can guarantee, they will not publish it. Even in calmer times, I once conducted an experiment where I sent radical letters to nearly all the 1600 daily newspapers in the United States and very few were published. Few Americans realize it, but we have a very sophisticated propaganda system in place in the United States. It rose to great efficiency in World War 1, when most Americans were isolationists and didn't want to fight the Germans in Europe. The Creel Committee was established and some of the best propagandists of the day were hired to fire up the American people for war. One of the most effective propagandists was Edwards Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, who later made smoking popular with American women by clever advertising. Another was Ivy Lee, a propagandist for John D. Rockefeller, who helped him cover up some of the damage from the Ludlow massacre of striking coal miners in Colorado. He advised Mr. Rockefeller to give to charities, etc. These propagandists demonized the Germans by calling them Huns, stated they bayoneted babies and made cartoons depicting them as beasts engaged in all sorts of despicable activities. Also, they used a method called repetition, which they are using now, and is not only used to start wars, but also to propagate CIA activities. It is said that a lie stated often enough becomes the truth. Needless to say, the war propaganda for World War 1 worked well and Americans were clamoring for war and war dissenters were sent to prison or deported.

I wrote an article once called the Drums of War and stated that if the United States went to war with Iran a similar propaganda strategy would be used as that with Iraq. That is that all sorts of unfounded assumptions and lies would be made, similar to those used in Iraq, like weapons of mass destruction, uranium from Niger, demonization of the leadership and that these unfavorable articles and TV pieces would grow from a few to an absolute crescendo. Now, one can't turn on any American TV station without tremendous coverage of the elections in Iran and the US wars of aggression on either side of Iran are completely forgotten. I did read of couple of interesting articles yesterday. One said that American and British oil companies were being invited back into Iraq under very favorable terms- 75% of the profits going to the foreign oil companies and only 25% to the Iraqi people. The smoking gun appears at long last. The other story was about a memo leaked to the Observer newspaper in England that illustrated the war planning for Iraq going on between George W. Bush and Tony Blair in 2003, two months before the war started. In the memo Blair and Bush agreed that if the weapons of mass destruction excuse did not work, that another one would have to be devised like having US planes with UN markings fly over Iraq with the probability they would be shot at by the Iraqis or some other provocation would be used.

Remember when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were openly talking about going to war with Iran? Remember when John McCain was singing his little song to Beach Boys music: Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran. There is a disadvantage, however, in going to war with a country with modern missiles that can hit ships and aircraft carriers. The CIA destabilization program is the cheaper and more effective method. Is there anyone out there with a brain who seriously believes that the United States does not want a change of government in Iran? Is there anyone out there with a brain who doesn' t believe that all sorts of US organizations like the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Agency for International Development are not involved behind the scenes in organizing and financing these street demonstrations and protests in Iran? One expects propaganda out of the mainstream media, but one can go to leftist site after leftist site and one would think this is all an example of the Iranian people's desperate desire for democracy. Even Michael Moore, who I thought had more sense, is displaying bloodied protesters on his site. If Iranians are attempting to influence other Iranians, I find it ironic that their street signs are in English and not in Farsi. I saw this in another place, Venezuela, where the signs were in English and not Spanish. Also, I remember an article about a Venezuelan student who claimed he was paid a lot of money by Americans to stir up trouble. Hugo Chavez is not a popular man with the American ruling class because he nationalized the oil and is spending a lot of it on the poor.

It would be one thing if CIA interference had never happened before in countries with governments unpopular with the corporate elite in the United States. It has happened many,many times. I guess I will have to go through a bunch of them because as Gore Vidal says: "It is the United States of Amnesia." Possibly it is the United States of Ignorance, as I am not sure if the American people ever knew of these things. In 1953 the CIA overthrew Mossadegh in Iran and brought the Shah and his secret police, the SAVAK. to power. The Shah immediately privatized the oil and invited the western oil companies back into the country. In 1954 the CIA overthrew the democratically elected Arbenz government in Guatemala. In 1973, the CIA overthrew the democratically elected leader of Chile, Salvador Allende, and brought the brutal dictator Pinochet to power, who proceeded to conduct mass executions of leftists. In 1965, Sukarno was overthrown in Indonesia in a CIA coup, which cost the lives of several million of the Indonesian Communist Party. There were CIA coups against Goulart in Brazil and Cheddi Jagan in British Guiana. The CIA played a pivotal role in executing Patrice Lumumba and bringing Mobutu to power in the Congo. Needless to say, Mobutu was a very bloody dictator.

If coups and election tampering didn't work, the CIA had a third option. That was to organize a mercenary army from outside the country. Does anyone remember the Contras and their invasion of Nicaragua? This is not the only example. The United States and South Africa financed two terrorist armies called UNITA and Renamo to invade and destabilize the leftist governments in the former Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique. Renamo destroyed schools, medical clinics, farm cooperatives and anything which could be considered socialistic in Mozambique. They also cut off arms and legs with machetes so that Mozambique has one of the highest rates of amputees in the world. The death toll in Angola and Mozambique runs into the millions. Of course, this has nothing to do with imperialism. This is so the CIA could bring them democracy. This is evidently what all the geniuses on the left believe about Iran. I'm sure the Pentagon dropped tons of depleted uranium in Iraq and Afghanistan so that it will blow around in the dust storms to bring the Iranian people a better way of life too- some more cancers and deformed babies.

Americans simply can not get it through their thick heads that imperialism, something that has existed for hundreds of years and has example after example, is the real driving force behind US foreign power and not democracy. We don't even have real democracy in the United States. We are under the control of corporations. Just because the ruling class in the United States have found an articulate, intelligent, personable black man to act as President does not mean by any extent that American imperialism has vanished into thin air.