1953: the year that never ended

Ioseb Besarionis due Jughashvili or Joseph Vissarionocivh Stalin, the strongman of the USSR died. Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was crowned queen of England. James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick announced the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA. Cambodia declares its independence from France. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay completed the first recorded ascent to the summit of Mount Everest. Jonas Salk gave himself and his family the polio vaccine. The Korean War came to an end. The North Sea flood left 1,835 people dead in the Netherlands.

History does not pause. Natural disasters do not retire. The year 1953 was not an exception. Name the year and ask a Sri Lankan, ‘what happened in 1953?’ The likely answer would be ‘The Hartal.’ The answer would be different in each country. Sometimes it is personal but sometimes it is of national importance.

Len Hutton’s Englishmen defeated Australia to win ‘The Ashes’ for the first time in 19 years that year but few would remember the fact. It must have been big news back then. Ask any citizen of the United Kingdom to name a single event that had an overwhelming impact on that country in 1953 and few would say ‘Iranian coup d'état'. Ask anyone in that county if he or she knows about ‘Operation Boot’ and you’ll probably get far more blank faces than raised eyebrows, fist-pumps or shame-showing dropping of gaze.

And yet, in terms of providing an example that clearly indicates the true worth of democracy and human rights posturing of the British and of course her friends and masters in the matter of plunder, ‘1953’ is pretty significant.

It’s all there in ‘Coup 53,’ a documentary by Iranian filmmaker Taghi Amirani which details how the CIA worked with Britain’s MI6 clandestinely in Operation Boot. At the time the British were more like what the US is today, thinking of themselves as equal rather than junior partners in imperialism as evident in involvement in Iran, the Suez Canal, Egypt and of course the most violent and pernicious displacement in the 20th century, that of Palestinians.

The UK now plays second fiddle to the USA, but that country has planned or executed over 40 attempts to remove foreign governments in 27 countries since the end of the Second World War. And the USA?

Here’s a post-1953 list. Guatemala, Syria, Indonesia, Iraq, Vietnam, Cuba, Cambodia, the Congo, Laos, Dominican Republic, Iraq (again), , Indonesia (again), Cambodia (again), Chile,  Bolivia, Ethiopia, Angola,  East Timor, Argentina,  Afghanistan,  Poland,  Chad,  Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Haiti, Zaire,  Yugoslavia, , Afghanistan, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan,  Palestinian territories, Syria, Libya,  Syria and Pakistan. This is not counting all those so-called democratising efforts executed by ambassadors like Julie Chung and State Department busybodies like Victoria Nuland.

Iran in 1953 provided a blueprint for CIA-orchestrated coups. Had it not been for ‘Iran 1953’ how would such moves have played out is a question people have pondered. That’s speculation, though.  

Let’s go with what is known. The introduction by Chris Hedges in an interview of Amirani for ‘The Real News Network,’ is a nutshell capture.

‘On August 19th, 1953, 70 years ago this week, the democratically-elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had seized Iran’s vast oil fields from the British and put them under Iranian control, was removed from power in a coup organized and financed by the British and US governments. He was replaced by the dictatorial Shah, who immediately signed over 40% of Iran’s oil fields to US companies.

‘The CIA and the British Intelligence Services used bribery, libel, black propaganda that accused Mosaddegh of being a communist, assassinations, and orchestrated riots by paid mercenaries to overthrow the democratic government. They hired agents to pose as communists to threaten religious leaders, while the US ambassador lied to the prime minister about alleged attacks on American citizens. They oversaw the assassination of the chief of police, a Mosaddegh loyalist, leaving his mutilated body on the street as a warning to others who might defend the democracy. Mosaddegh’s house was surrounded and attacked and most of his security detail were killed. Mosaddegh was sentenced to three years in prison, followed by house arrest for life.'

Amirani observes: ‘To this day, 70 years since the 1953 coup, the British government has not officially admitted its role in this coup. Everything that happens in Coup 53, everything that happened to Coup 53 after its release, everything we talk about right now must be seen through that prism. The British have not yet come clean. The coup didn’t happen. They had nothing to do with it, although the CIA have finally admitted. They released the documents.’

It was about oil. The sequence isn’t all that unfamiliar.

In March 1951 Mohammed Mossadegh presented the idea of nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company to the Iranian Parliament. The Parliament approved it. In April that year Mossadegh was elected as Iran's new Prime Minister. In May 1951 Britain imposed an embargo on Iranian oil and banned the exportation of goods to Iran in retaliation while mobilising her navy as a show of force. In June, President Truman of the USA tried to sort out Iran-Britain tensions diplomatically, but Britain decided to take legal action against Iran in the International Court of Justice. The ICJ threw out the case. In 1952, Iran severed diplomatic ties with Great Britain. In 1953, a failed coup against Mossadegh forced Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to flee, but he returned to power in a second coup heavily backed by Britain and the USA.

This is the story of 'empire' that has only seen the addition of several more chapters since 1953. This is why France is so agitated over the coup in Niger. ‘Our interests,’ France thunders. What are these interests and have they changed since 1953 (yes, and for several centuries before that when marauding Europeans laid waste lands, perpetrated genocide and plundered resources)? Access to and control of resources (primarily oil, but also, as in the case of Niger, uranium), strategic footholds and more, and creation of markets. That’s what it is.

A central feature of Amirani’s documentary is an interview  given in 1985 by Norman Darbyshire to the Granada TV documentary ‘End of Empire.’ Amirani claims that Darbyshire, ‘in the absence of the British government official admission, stands in for that confession.’

‘He happens to be the lead MI6 officer who co-wrote the plan. He masterminded the coup. He ran the coup. He paid the mob. He orchestrated the whole management of agents on the ground. When the British were kicked out of Iran, when Mosaddegh discovered the plots for the coup, he remote-controlled the coup from Cyprus. Darbyshire’s interview is really the most clear piece of evidence of British involvement in this coup.’

The British Foreign Office hasn’t responded, to my knowledge. They do not. Neither does the US State Department. They believe that tossing in liberal quantities of words like peace and democracy, and enhancing traction by kept-media would suffice. They aren’t wrong.

This is why whenever Europeans and North Americans and their lapdog allies Japan and Australia (and sometimes India too) offer tuition classes to countries such as Sri Lanka, they should be told, ‘STOP, tell me about 1953 and all 1953s thereafter that your country has been associated with, directly or indirectly.’  

They might say ‘yes, but that’s then, this is now,’ but they can be told, “‘1953’ is TODAY, darling.’ Got to do homework though. Got to know history. Got to know the global political economy. No shortcuts to exposing lies and liars. 

malindadocs@gmail.com.

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Niger 'crisis': Blinken is blinking, Nuland is midwifing

Antony Blinken is concerned, poor man. The US Secretary of State, following talk of the current Niger leadership considering obtaining military support from the Wagner Group, told the BBC that ‘every single place that this Wagner Group has gone, death, destruction and exploitation have followed.’ Hold on to that.

What is referred to as the ‘Wagner Group’ is a Russian state-funded entity, the ‘Wagner Private Military Company’ controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin.  A few months ago Prigozhin launched a rebellion following disagreements with Russia’s Ministry of Defence. Not surprisingly the Western media, which is largely cued by Washington, cheered Prigozhin on. The euphoria was short-lived. An agreement was reached, Prigozhin moved to Belarus but Blinken kept cheering. 

Blinken said that the uprising showed real cracks in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government and expressed hope that this ‘may offer Ukraine a crucial advantage as it conducts a counteroffensive that could influence the outcome of the war.’

The gains and losses of the counteroffensive are largely speculative. If you believe Washington-Speak, everything is going well and the outcome that would please Blinken is still possible. Russia Today will tell you otherwise. What’s important is that six weeks after the Wagner move on Moscow was quashed, the military group has sent shivers down the spines of several countries bordering Belarus. Latvia closed its border with Russia and along with Lithuania requested NATO for additional troops while Poland beefed up its border with Belarus with 1,500 additional soldiers.

So, while even the Western media has dropped the ‘Cracks in Russia’ narrative, the outcome at least for now is increased angst among Washington’s allies. Whether this would solidify Washington’s intended putsch on Russia or rather Russian sway in Europe or would result in the Russia-Belarus combine stitching up the Western flanks is left to be seen.  For now, Blinken isn’t talking about ‘cracks.’ Not in Russia anyway. He is worried about Niger and probably the African continent.  We will get to that.

Antony Blinken is someone who called for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He bought into the lie about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction or maybe he knew the truth and endorsed the lie. Having held senior positions in the State Department and the National Security Council from 1994 to 2001, Blinken, we can assume, was in the know about Washington’s quiet and not so quiet wars. He knows how the USA funds, arms and trains people in other countries to wage war on governments that don’t toe Washington’s line. He knows about US mercenaries.

We know about the Wagner Group, thanks to Washington-echoing media but these outfits rarely talk of the US equivalents. There are exceptions, of course. On September 16, 2007,  Blackwater contractors (well, mercenaries) guarding State Department employees entered a crowded square near the Mansour district in Baghdad, Iraq, opened fire and killed 20 civilians. At the time the US mercenary outfit’s ground forces in that country numbered 160,000.  Sean McFate has detailed ‘America’s addiction to mercenaries’ talking about the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of it, in an article in ‘The Atlantic’ published on August 12, 2016. It’s an excellent entry-point for those who want to dig deeper into the ‘Deeper State’ of US interference in other countries which of course includes US military bases, US-sponsored coups, ‘revolutions,’ and rigging of elections in favour of Washington’s political lapdogs all over the world.

This is why Blinken’s statement is so out of order. Let’s re-quote: ‘every single place that this Wagner Group has gone, death, destruction and exploitation have followed.’ 

The United States of America invaded twenty-two countries just in the last 20 years. ‘Vivid Maps’ claims the following:

‘[The USA] has been involved in declared wars against the United Kingdom (1775 – 1783 and 1812 – 1815), Canada (1812 – 1815), Algeria (1815), Mexico (1836, 1842, 1844, 1846-1848), Japan (1853-1854), Korea (1871 and 1950-1953), Philippines (1898 and 1899-1902), Cuba (1898), Spain (1898), Vietnam (1964-1973), Cambodia (1969-1973), Iraq (1991, and 2003-present), Kueit (1991), Oman (1991), Afghanistan (1998 and 2001-present). The U.S. also has been involved in World War I (Germany, Austria, Belgium) and World War II (Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Morocco, Algeria, Japan, Philippines, Papua New Guinea).

‘The USA has been involved in some form of military conflicts and acitvity in France (1798-1800), French Guiana (1798-1800) Mexico (1818-1819), Cuba (1822-1825 and 1917-1922), Greece (1827, 2014), Indonesia (1832, 1838-1839), Arcgintina (1833, 1852-1853, 1890)Peru (1835-1836), Uriguay (1855, 1859), Nicaragua (1854, 1857, 1896, 1898, 1912 – 1925), Panama (1856, 1865, 1988-1989), Lebanon (1858, 1982-1983) Venesuela (1873,1895, 1902), Angola (1860), Puerto Rico (1898), Dominican Republic (1903-1904, 1965), Ethyopya (1993-1994), Syria (1903, 2017), Honduras (1911, 1983-1989), Hiati (1914, 1993-1996), Russia (1918-1922), Croatia (1919), Guatemala (1920), Germany (1948), Taiwan (1950-1955), Thailand (1952), Egipet (1956), Laos (1962-1975), Democratic Republic of Congo (1964), Iran (1980, 1920), El Salvador (1981), Chad (1983), Bolivia (1986), Saudabi Aravia (1990), Liberia (1990, 2003), Sierra Lione (1992), Sudan (1992-1993) Macedonia (1993-1994), Bosnia and Hertzegovina (1993-1999), Burundi (1994), Albania (1996-1998), Gabon (1997), Republic of Congo (1997), Sudan (1998), Kenia (1998), Tansania (1998), Serbia (1999-2000), Kosovo (1991-2001), South Sudan (2001), Mauritania (2003), Sinegal (2003), Eritea (2004-2006), Central African Republic (2011), Uganda (2011), Yemen (2012, 2016), Jiordania (2013), Niger (2013), Poland (2014), Ukraine (2015), Lithuania (2015), Cameroon (2015).’

Could Blinken claim that death, destruction and exploitation did not follow in any of these instances?  He claims that the Wagner Group ‘brought nothing but bad things in their wake.’ Hmm. And the US brought…what? Life, construction and Christmas all around the year? No, Blinken cannot claim that the USA never brought death, destruction and exploitation to countries they invaded or intervened in through proxies.

Neither can Victoria Nuland, the current Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs who has been desperately urging the new Niger government not to get involved with the Wagner Group.

Nuland has not called for the ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum, to be reinstated. In fact Nuland’s plea comes after the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) threatened military action against Niger’s coup leaders unless they reinstated Bazoum. The new government has refused to back down and clearly Nuland isn’t taking the ECOWAS threat seriously. The deadline imposed by ECOWAS has come and gone and there’s no sign of military intervention by ECOWAS. Instead, Burkina Faso and Mali have declared that any foreign military action against Niger would be considered a declaration of war on them as well.

Prigozhin has made the pertinent observation on Nuland’s pleas to the Niger government to desist from talking to the Wagner Group. He points out that the thought of Niger-Wagner talks has forced Nuland to recognise a government it had not recognised the previous day. 

Nuland, by the way, is widely known as ‘The Maidan Midwife,’ for her active role in the Ukraine coup in 2014, which by the way helped create conditions for what’s unfolding in the region right now. And what’s that? Well, death, destruction and exploitation.

Many African nations now see the range of options expanding; in a uni-polar world, arm twisting was the name of the game. 'Things are changing,' they might very well be thinking

Blinken also told the BBC that the Wagner Group was taking advantage of instability in Niger. He should know. When has the USA not taken advantage of political instability? Indeed, has not the USA created instability in order to take advantage of the chaos?

The world in general ought to be wary of mercenaries, all mercenaries and not just the Wagner Group. The world in generation ought to be wary of intervention of any kind by whichever country, not just Russia. The USA however does not have the moral authority to whine, but that’s exactly what we are seeing. Blinken is fretting, Nuland is midwifing.  We are watching.

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