Syria

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Letters to the Editor


Monday August 02, 2010


*** Syria
Before World War 1, Lebanon was a part of Syria and had been a part of Syria for hundreds of years! Lebanon had not been independent since almost the times when Israel was independent. For hundreds of years it had been occupied by Romans, Arabs or Turks or somebody. And when World War 1 rolled around, Lebanon was a part of Syria and had been a part of Syria for hundreds of years. Which, of course, was the idea in the World War 1 settlement. They gave Israel or Palestine to the British, and they gave Lebanon to the French. I think they called it the Levant. Syria was one of the defeated powers because they had worked with the Germans, so they ripped off Lebanon from Syria and they ripped off Palestine from the Turks! Neither one of them had been an independent country for centuries. So the point is that both Israel and Lebanon are artificial countries! Palestine had been a country for generations, but it was under the Turks and the Arabs. But both were the artificial creations of the conquering powers, particularly Lebanon. They hadn't been free or independent for hundreds of years, it was a part of Syria. So when Lebanon had their big civil war, the Arabs agreed that Syria should move in to Lebanon and settle it and stop the civil war and enforce peace, and they did. Of course, this aggravated the Israelis because they didn't get a piece of the action! Well, they did move in for awhile, but then they got forced out by the UN and World opinion. So finally they just invaded Lebanon against the UN and World opinion and grabbed the bottom half anyway. They're all such a bunch of liars and pretenders, particularly Israel and the U.S.!
Ted Rudow III,MA

The History of BP

The history of the company we now call BP over the last hundred years has really traced the arc of global transnational capitalism. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, guaranteed itself, or won the right to own, all of Iran’s oil. So, nobody in Iran had any right to drill for oil or extract oil or sell oil.

Then, soon after that find was made, the British government decided to buy the company. So the Parliament passed a law and bought 51 percent of that company. And all during the 1920s and 1930s and 1940s, the entire standard of living that people in England enjoyed was supported by oil from Iran. So that became a fundamental foundation of British life.

And then, after World War II, when the winds of nationalism and anti-colonialism were blowing throughout the developing world, Iranians developed this idea: we’ve got to take our oil back. It was Mosaddegh's desire, supported by a unanimous vote of the democratically elected parliament of Iran, to nationalize what was then the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. They carried out the nationalization.

The British and their partners in the United States fiercely resisted this. And when they were unable to prevent it from happening, they organized the overthrow of Mosaddegh in 1953. So that overthrow not only produced the end of the Mosaddegh government, but the end of democracy in Iran, and that set off all these other following consequences.

Ted Rudow III,MA