I couldn't come up with a better title. The Guardian is on fire. Here's the link: http://www.theguardian.com/... I used their title because I couldn't come up with anything better...
I only ran into this story because I was following another story, about Glenn Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, being detained in transit at Heathrow airport for 9 hours under a UK Terrorism Act clause: Glenn Greenwald: detaining my partner was a failed attempt at intimidation. That story is also extensively covered.
And granted, this isn't particularly new news, except for the fact that it's the first time that it's being officially confirmed.
Meteor Blades told the story just a few days ago in this diary: An unhappy 60th birthday: The CIA coup of 1953 still resonates in Iran. Operation Ajax remembered
This is a perfect illustration of How Things Go Wrong. A determined core of individuals decide for various reasons that something needs to happen, and have the power to make it happen. Surely they had excellent moral justifications for why this was Good For America. And once invested, it made far more sense to continue to believe that this was Good For America, to celebrate the victory and promote those responsible behind closed doors, while denying involvement and spooning out the same pablum about the Virtues of Democracy and Freedom to the public.
I was likely predisposed to it, but learning American history and politics has been feeding my cynical perspective on the world for over 25 years now. It didn't make sense to me that I was as a child seeing the wrongness of US actions, and seeing through the deceptions. I didn't understand why all the grownups weren't doing anything about it. I thought that being truthful mattered, and that learning from your mistakes was important. I thought that people who had the power to make decisions that would affect the wellbeing of others, to say nothing of life or death decisions, would do so with the utmost care, and take full responsibility for their mistakes.
I still think that way. And I still see many grownups participating in deluded, deceitful, and damaging actions that have profoundly negative effects on others, without taking responsibility for it. It's frustrating. But now I'm one of the grownups, and even if I'm not directly participating in any of these things, I'm complicit in my relative silence.
So hooray, one already-known truth has now been acknowledged. And honestly, I consider this a positive step towards better relations with Iran. It may actually be a deliberate step towards that. And I am appreciative of those who worked towards this official disclosure, because it is a legitimate step forward.
This probably won't get much attention in the US. Those who are paying attention to this issue have already come to their own conclusions. I honestly believe this is a deliberate step towards more rational negotiations with Iran, which I fully support.
I've been reading Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram, which tells the story of a woman fighting for her dream of Vietnam against the US military during the Vietnam War, and I definitely sympathize with her outrage at the injustice, the suffering of civilians, her resistance to the US invasion, and her sympathy for those who died fighting the US. This doesn't diminish my respect and empathy for the Americans who suffered and died in that war, but it does confirm my contempt and disrespect for those who made irresponsible decisions that resulted in the suffering of others, especially on such a large scale.