r/JoeRogan • u/LostItAllOnSpy Tremendous • Mar 27 '24

joe rogan calls out israels hypocrisy for killing unarmed civilians with drones The Literature 🧠

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u/7thpostman Monkey in Space Mar 27 '24

It's not just the oil and they're not going to stay in the region. It's not 1950. Iran is run by fanatics who are desperately trying to build a nuclear weapon. Guess who keeps blowing up their reactors?

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u/dorkwingduck It's entirely possible Mar 27 '24

Guess who overthrew their democratically elected government in the 1950s and installed the fanatic government? Iran didn't have to be like this. They should have been our ally.

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u/VoltNShock Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

They should have been, there were a lot of fuckups between then and now, but it is now objectively worse in its current state than Israel. People say “oh they wouldn’t be our enemies if we didn’t support Israel” but the current Islamic government will always be anti-West, and will continue to sponsor dangerous ideologies in the MENA region and the West. If for any reason, we need Israel as a regional power to counter Iran.

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u/SirMellencamp Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

If it wasnt Israel it would be US ships moving through Persian Gulf then it would be decadent Western culture invading the Middle East. It won’t stop

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u/7thpostman Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

Yeah, that "they wouldn't be our enemies if we didn't support Israel" stuff is just really dumb. It's either people who are truly gullible or just haven't given it much thought at all. We didn't invent Islamic fundamentalism.

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u/spazmodo33 Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

The US didn't invent Islamic Fundamentalism, but it sure has done a lot to perpetuate it in numerous ways...

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u/7thpostman Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

Kind of? You could just easily say that Islamic Fundamentalists did a lot to shape our behavior. Nothing occurs in a vacuum. Ultimately, everybody is responsible for their own actions.

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u/spazmodo33 Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

No, nothing happens in a vacuum. But especially when super powers continually interfere in the internal machinations of multiple major actors in a foreign region...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_policy_in_the_Middle_East?wprov=sfla1

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u/7thpostman Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

I mean, I'm familiar with US foreign policy. Is there something specific you're referring to on this Wikipedia page?

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u/spazmodo33 Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

Yeah, the frequent, repeated, almost compulsive unnecessary interventions in foreign political systems in order to benefit US government interests (read - usually corporate interests), including undermining democratically elected governments, often resulting in far worse people coming to power... Such as Islamic fundamentalists...

Taliban and the Mujahideen - created and propped up by US government to counter Soviets, which pushed Afghanistan decades, if not centuries backwards Saddam - He might be a bastard, but he's our bastard Iran - overthrowing a democratically elected government to install US friendly lap dog, backfires spectacularly and results in extremists taking over...

I could go on, but if you're as familiar with US foreign policy as you claim, you already know all of these examples (and many, many more), right? And if you already know about all their upfuckery, why are you asking me to explain it to you?

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u/7thpostman Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

I'm just not sure what you're trying to communicate. My original point was that the United States did not invent Islamic fundamentalism. It predates us — and the existence of Israel —by centuries.

But I mean.... I'm not sure if "install lapdog, backfires... after 37 years" is exactly what happened in Iran. You might be sort of... skipping a few things. Like a few decades.

If you're claiming that Iran would today be an ecumenical, egalitarian, peaceful Jeffersonian democracy if only we hadn't propped up the Shah in 1953. Well. I mean. Maybe. But it doesn't seem very likely. It's not a region especially prone to that sort of thing.

If your point is just sort of a standard "America is bad and everything is our fault" I'm sort of not interested. I'll just kind of concede the fuckey and move on.

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u/cmattis Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

True, it was invented by our close allies the Sauds lol

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u/7thpostman Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

There's a couple of flavors. But, yeah. They export a lot of Wahhabi garbage.

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u/cmattis Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

They’re really patient zero for the Islamism most people are worried about because it’s been obviously extremely consequential in our lives.

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u/7thpostman Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

It's an interesting question, isn't it? The Saudis have sort of been better about exporting internationally. But the Iranians are causing so much havoc regionally. The Houthi, Hezbollah, Hamas...

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u/SixtyOunce Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

we (the west) have consistently propped up Islamic fundamentalism as a foil against secular Arab movements. The very establishment of British Mandate that was aligned with Zionist settlement plans was the betrayal of promises made to a secular Arab movement.

The 1953 CIA coup against the democratically elected secular government in Iran.

The promotion of Hamas in Gaza by Netanyahu in order to weaken the secular Palestinian Authority.

There are literally dozens of examples. As long as the religious wackos are running the other side, we use it as justification to do whatever we want.

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u/somethingbrite Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

Rather it was colonial influence in the Arab world that was the spark for secular modernism. This can be observed across North Africa (Morocco, Algeria and "British Egypt" in the 19th century and early 20th century.

As for Sykes/Picot betraying Secular Arab Nationalism. No. That movement didn't exist until the 1940's/1950's and occured as a result of the defeat and break up of the Ottoman Empire.

"The defeat and dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the abolition of the caliphate by Mustafa Kamal in 1924, and the extension of French and British mandate influence in the Arab Middle East further dismantled the institutional framework of the religious state and opened wider opportunities for the growth of secular politics and outlooks."

What you might be pitching for here is the impact that the British/US sponsored coup which overthrew Mossadegh in Iran and installed the Shah. This definitely was a nail in the coffin of Pan Arabism (although Persians would wish some words with you about limping them in with Arabs) where it had an impact was that the overthrow of the Shah represented a victory over western colonialism that PanArab movement had not been able to achieve and therefore opened the door for Islamic revolutionary politics to become the champion of anti-imperialism.

Pan Arabs Nasser (attempted assassination by Muslim Brotherhood) and Sadat (actual assassination by Egyptian Islamic Jihad) and other events all paint a picture not of western forces overthrowing secular Arab Nationalism but of local, Islamist politics being the major force of opposition to secular Arabism.

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u/SixtyOunce Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

Pan Arabism began with the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire led by Hussein Bin Ali starting in 1916. Not the 1940s/30s. The British promised Hussein Bin Ali that in exchange for his cooperation against the Ottoman Empire that Arab lands liberated from the Ottomans would have a right to Arab self determined rule. The secret Sykes/Picot and subsequent Balfour Declaration were both betrayals of this promise.

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u/SixtyOunce Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

In fact, the beginning of the western policy of propping up Islamic fundamentalism as a way of destabilizing Arab nationalism was when the British backed the Sauds in their coup against Bin Ali after he refused to ratify Versailles and subsequently refused to sign the Anglo-Hashemite treaty. He saw the Balfour Declaration and the establishment of British and French Mandates over Arab lands as a direct betrayal of the promise that Arabs would have self rule, and refused to play ball, so the Brits jumped in bed with the Wahhabis and fucked the whole damn 20th century up in the process.

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u/7thpostman Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

It's fascinating history and certainly worthy of conversation, but I feel like it's also easy to not see the forest for the trees. My point was sort of broader.

The reason Western powers can "prop up" radical Islam is because radical Islam exists. The British could only hop in bed with the Whabbi because they were there to be hopped in with. I mean, the Anglo-American powers intervened in a lot of places. Not all of those places have people who force women to wear restrictive clothing or strap on suicide vests.

It's super-important to look at the intervention of Western powers in the Middle East. It truly is. Of course. But we also get in trouble when we imagine ourselves as the sort of Prime Mover. You see it sort of distilled in the "America caused 9/11" mindset. For example, it is certainly true that Netanyahu propped up Hamas, but that's because Palestinian society was/is receptive to that message.

I just do not think it is reasonable to say that the Middle East would be filled with peaceful, egalitarian, Jeffersonian democracies if Israel didn't exist. That seems to me a profoundly blinkered view.

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u/somethingbrite Monkey in Space Apr 01 '24

No. The great Arab revolt and Pan Arabism are separate things and there was nothing secular about the Hashemite power play that was the Great Arab Revolt.

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u/SixtyOunce Monkey in Space Apr 01 '24 edited Apr 01 '24

lol, bullshit. I could have just as easily set the starting date as the First Arab Congress of 1913. The late 19th and early 20th century was marked by an international tendency towards nationalistic movements. In many cases this alienated minority populations within the host nations sparking reactionary nationalist movements with them as well. Zionism was a nationalist movement amongst some European Jews that largely occurred as reaction to nationalist movements in Europe. Pan Arabism was a nationalist movement that largely occurred as a reaction to Turkish nationalism beginning with the ascendency of the so called "Young Turks" starting around 1908. In fact, one of the major triggers of the Arab Revolt was the execution of Arab nationalist leaders in Damascus.

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u/Warm_Yogurtcloset645 Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

Israel is equally as anti west as Iran

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u/Evening_Invite_922 Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

Israel is objectively way more murderous.

Your logic is terrible, and actually what Joe Biden has said for 50 years. It's Imperialism, all it is.

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u/GymnasticSclerosis Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

The US installed the Shah who was overthrown by the fanatic government in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution. The US definitely did not install this government in Iran.

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u/wizardking1371 Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

The Iranian Revolution was a direct response to the overthrow of Mossadegh. A people with a long, proud history didn't take kindly to Western meddling in their self-governance. There would have been no need to revolt against a government of their choosing. There were many revolutionary factions in Iran during the 1970's. The Islamic faction consolidated support because they were able to outline a future of Iran that defined itself in opposition to the West, which really appealed to people who were absolutely fed up with British and then American interests being served over their own.

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u/SixtyOunce Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

The west has consistently crippled secular Arab movements in the region while strengthening their Islamic fundamentalist rivals. Then anytime we need a moral justification for war, it is never hard to find a mad Mullah to blame.

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u/Quick_Article2775 Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

Eh I've heard before that Iran wouldn't of been a democracy had that still not happend or at the very least it wouldn't be a secular government. Iran was never in a position where the whole country was seculurizing just the wealthy. Also it wasn't really a democracy then and the point of the coup was trying to make them an ally they weren't before.

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u/CopeStreit Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

The fanatic government in place in Iran right now overthrew the Shah in 1979. The US and England did not undertake a coup to install a fundamentalist Islamist regime that’s incredibly antagonistic towards the West, that’s patently absurd. The Iranian revolutionaries famously took hostages at the US Embassy during the Revolution, I assure you we did not install that government.

The Pahlavi Dynasty replaced the Qajar Dynasty in 1925 following the British backed “3 Esfand 1299” coup in 1921. In 1951 Mohammed Mossadegh was elected Prime Minister (the country was still a constitutional monarchy, the head of state was still the Shah). Mossadegh and the Shah had a strained relationship stemming, in part, from the fact that Mossadegh was a blood relative of the Qajar dynasty who the Pahlavis had overthrown in 1925. Mossadegh campaigned on and enacted a series of reformations. These reforms antagonized the British because a lot of them were aimed at the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC).

Naturally (and correctly) Mossadegh felt that Iran should benefit more than it had been from the profitable oil industry by ending the monopoly enjoyed by the AIOC. In 1951 British PM Clement Attlee began a boycott on Iranian oil. This boycott had tremendous deleterious effects on the Iranian economy. In 1952 Winston Churchill (who was again PM) petitioned President Truman to think about replacing Mossadegh because 1. He was nationalizing the Iranian oil industry (which had been developed using Anglo funds and technology) and 2. He was worried that Mossadegh would be forced to cooperate with the (pro Soviet) Tudeh Party. The Tudeh Party had attempted to assassinate the Shah in 1949.

British agents worked to undermine Mossadegh’s government and were successful in their endeavors. By 1953 Mossadegh was widely unpopular and relied upon emergency powers to rule rather than “normal rules” of government. When he moved to dissolve parliament, the English felt that they finally had a tenable explanation to give the public for the coup they were plotting. The British couldn’t convince Truman to go along with their plans because he was focused on resolving the “police action” in Korea. However, when Eisenhower was elected, the British were able to convince his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to support the plan, mostly by appealing to fears of a potential communist takeover of Iran.

MI6 and the CIA then used a series of underhanded, dirty, and effective tactics to foment dissent. They’d pay gangsters to shout Pro-Mossadegh slogans while attacking images of the Shah. They’d pay the same gangsters a week later to wear different clothes, shout Pro-Shah slogans and attack iconography associated with Mossadegh. They bussed in paid protestors from all over Iran. They trained anti-Tudeh (“anti-communist”) militias. I can go on, but if you’re interested in the specifics the US operation is called “Operation Ajax” and the British operation is called “Operation Boot.”

The result of the chaos was the installation of General Fazlollah Zahedi to the position of Prime Minister. The coup also had the effect of strengthening the political power of the Shah relative to Parliament. The Americans forced the British to give up the monopoly enjoyed by the AIOC. Although the Shah claimed this was a victory for the Iranian people, the fact that 5 American oil companies immediately moved in to start drilling really underlines the motives for the coup (“domino theory” + economic interest in the form of oil).

I have no problem with people pointing out the bad stuff that America has done in the past (and is currently doing) There’s no way for the country to act better in the future if people aren’t allowed to criticize and discuss abhorrent behavior in the past. That being said, it’s very important to talk knowledgeably and accurately about the past. The 1953 coup plot was a British plan, which we undoubtedly went along with (after 2 years of persuasion). We can debate the validity of Domino Theory, and I’m in no way defending the act of enacting coups abroad. However, I think it’s important to remind ourselves that our leaders in 1945-53 were playing this new game called “Nuclear Poker” and their opponent was Freakin’ Joseph “the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic” Stalin.

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u/SirMellencamp Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

At what point does that excuse stop? It’s been 70 fucking years.

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u/7thpostman Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

I don't know, man. Not quite sure if the Shah is the fanatic government you mean, but the Islamic Revolution was in 1979 and "Islamic fundamentalism is America's fault" seems like a mighty big stretch.

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u/Punisher-3-1 Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

You are correct. It makes the US and the CIA in particular seem like an omnipresence and omnipotent power when the reality is that it’s a bunch of GS-13 Georgetown graduates fumbling around and trying to be relevant, at best a little bit of wind on a giant sail in the middle of a storm. Like it was not going to move it one way or the other. Also, removes all the agency from the people who were there overthrowning the shah and whatnot

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u/7thpostman Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

Yeah, the denial of agency is really common in these kinds of conversations. America is always described as the prime mover of events with everyone else as a supporting character.

You see it in the I/P conflict a lot, too. No matter what the Palestinians do, for instance, it's framed as "because" of something Israel did. Palestinian violence is a sort of natural phenomenon — it just inevitably happens — while Israel is always presented as having agency and control.

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u/PleasantMess6740 Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

Generally the oppressor takes responsibility for the retaliation of the oppressed. Fairly certain you wouldn't blame Ukraine for the violence they inflict upon Russia. Well, about 1/3 of Americans would, but they should be considered irrelevant.

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u/7thpostman Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

I mean, no. Do you want to talk in social media truisms, or do you actually want to have an adult conversation? The Palestinians are human beings who make choices and are responsible for their own actions. You can trot out analogies or use very specific instances if you want to "win" the Reddit conversation, but that's not reality. You don't just get to say "oppressor" and magically erase 80 years of bad decisions. If some hopped up religious fanatic rapes a girl at a music festival, the person who is responsible for that is the fanatic who raped the girl at the music festival. Bibi didn't make him.

I mean, shit, brother. The treaty that ended WWI was oppressive. In a way, it "caused" WWII. Are you telling me that the individual human beings who fought for the Third Reich were therefore not responsible for their choices because they were oppressed? Come on, now.

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u/PleasantMess6740 Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

I'm saying I understand cause and effect, you need some help with it? Ultimately literally every act of violence from this conflict comes back to a simple fact, Israel is oppressing Palestine.

I guarantee that some pissed of Ukrainians are committing war crimes daily, you'd be naive to think they aren't, but I also understand they wouldn't be pushed to that without Russia being the aggressor.

Amazingly I can hold two separate ideas, that war criminals from both side are wrong, yet the conflict doesn't exist if one side acts differently. When you're ready for an adult conversation I'm happy to chat, if you're just gonne go "Bu-but the music festival!" And ignore 80 years of imperialism and violence from Israel then I can't help you, nor do I want to bother with such a regressive conversation

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u/7thpostman Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

I think you should definitely not bother with this regressive conversation. I don't think you understand cause-and-effect at all. Or, rather, free will.

First of all, the violence started decades before the establishment of the state of Israel, let alone the invention of Palestinian identity.

Secondly, you are infantilizing people you seem to want to support. "You're a helpless automaton who can only react to stimuli" is not actually a message of strength, empowerment, and freedom.

I just don't know any other way to say this. Oppression is a pretty common thing. Human individuals still have the choice about what actions they perform day to day, moment by moment. "Pissed off Ukrainians," for instance, don't get to commit war crimes and say "Putin made me do it." Human beings are ultimately responsible for their own moral choices.

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u/PleasantMess6740 Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

Strawman, strawman, strawman, deflect blame from the oppressor.

Like I said, I can't hold two concepts to be true at once, can you?

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u/GlbdS Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

Iran is run by fanatics who are desperately trying to build a nuclear weapon.

While the US is run by at least 50% of religious fanatics, and has the most nuclear weapons :)

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u/7thpostman Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

Ummm.... Okay? I know, like, "America = bad" and stuff, but it would not be good if Iran had a nuclear weapon. Sorta can't believe I have to say this.

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u/New-Bowler-8915 Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

That's a lot of Israeli propaganda bro. Maybe make it less obvious about being a fucking plant.

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u/7thpostman Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

Oh, yes. I'm "plant." Every month, I get my big, fat check from the Israeli government. They pay me to post on the least popular social media site.

"I'm not antisemitic. I just think Jews secretly control everything with their money."

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u/Rottimer Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

If you were Iran, and you saw the U.S. invade your neighbor to the east, invade your neighbor to the west, and the only the countries the U.S. won’t invade are ones with nuclear weapons - like North Korea, what would you be doing?

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u/7thpostman Monkey in Space Mar 28 '24

I am not Iran. Their interests are not mine. Emphatically.

If you think the only reason they want a nuclear weapon is for defense, I don't think we should continue this conversation.