Pence Demagoguery Of Iran Is The Perfect Example Of His Unfitness For Office

Earlier today I mentioned about how Eisenhower handled the Suez War in October, 1956. Simultaneously he was dealing with an uprising of Hungarian students that turned into a full-fledged revolt against the Soviet Union. Hungarian partisans took on Soviet tanks in the streets of Budapest and, for a few days, it looked like they actually won their country's freedom. Through Radio Free Europe the U.S. appealed to Hungarians to rise up and fight the Soviets, going so far as to give tactical advise on resistance-- and not of non-violent kind. Radio Free Europe, a right-wing, C.I.A.-supported enterprise funded by U.S. taxpayers, certainly led Hungarians to believe that if they kept struggling, NATO would come to their rescue. Neither Eisenhower nor NATO had any such intention and when Russia came down on the Hungarian partisans like a ton of bricks, killing several thousand and driving over 200,000 into exile... crickets.

It was worse in 1991 when President George H.W. Bush vociferously encouraged the Shias of southern Iraq to rise up against Saddam Hussein, insinuating that the U.S. would intervene on their behalf. Bush personally broadcast incitements on the Voice of America" "There is another way for the bloodshed to stop: And that is, for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside and then comply with the United Nations' resolutions and rejoin the family of peace-loving nations." The CIA also maintained its own Saudi-based radio station, the Voice of Free Iraq, which exhorted the Shi'a to rise up against Saddam.

They did rise up-- and were mowed down. At least 100,000 Shi'a were slaughtered and over a million became refugees. Bush, who was more concerned that Iraq might disintegrate, to the advantage of Iraq, didn't give it a second thought. The Defense Secretary, Dick Cheney said also favored letting the Shi'a go down to slaughter. He announced "it would be very difficult for us to hold the coalition together for any particular course of action dealing with internal Iraqi politics, and I don't think, at this point, our writ extends to trying to move inside Iraq."

As Saddam's forces were hunting down the remnants of the Iraqis who had been encouraged by Bush's exhortations to rise up, Bush defended his honor:

"I have not misled anybody about the intentions of the United States of America. I don't think the Shias in the south, those who are unhappy with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad or the Kurds in the north, ever felt that the United States would come to their assistance to overthrow this man... I made clear from the very beginning that it was not an objective of the coalition or the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein."

Yesterday another hypocritical right-wing shithead, Indiana lunatic fringe Congressman Mike Pence, demanded that President Obama give the same kind of false hope to Iranians struggling against Ahmedinejad. "I think," he lied, "first and foremost we have to take a half step back from this administration's olive branch and apology approach to enemies and countries that have been hostile to the United States of America and our allies... I'm hoping before the end of the day today the president will speak a word of support for Mr. Mousavi and for the dissidents and the reformers within Iran." Even hard right conservatives acknowledge that Pence has his head up his ass on this one.


I wonder if Pence, a clueless and viciously partisan obstructionist and the worst kind of political opportunist vomited up from the depths of our political system is aware that his sudden hero, Mr. Mousavi, a socialist, was Ayatollah Khomeini's hand-picked Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 1981-1989 and before that was the Foreign Minister. Although Pence might feel a bond with him for having ordered the mass executions of 30,000 political prisoners, he's best known in Iran for lots of things that would turn Pence's hair white, especially subsidized food coupons and oil coupons and converting private enterprises into government controlled institutions. He was an anti-American hardliner while he was in office and a huge supporter of making trouble in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. Not that Pence would care about any of this-- just so that he gets an opportunity to go on TV and attack President Obama (just as the pathetic Mormon empty suit running for President again did yesterday) while Obama actually has to deal with the intricacies of a confused, dangerous and developing Iranian situation. I bet neither Pence nor Willard is even wearing green today! (Maybe those two clowns should watch this clip-- and learn.) Lucky-- for us and the world-- McCain was decisively defeated in 2008. He's with Pence and Willard; big surprise.

Mike Pence, Mitt Romney & other GOP opportunists should stay out of this

UPDATE: Real Election Results?

The not always reliable U.K. newspaper, the Telegraph is reporting that the police were given the go-ahead to open fire on protestors. They also report "leaked" Interior Ministry "statistics" showing that Mousavi had won 19.1 million votes while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won only 5.7 million (coming in third after the real reformist, Mehdi Karoubi, who got 13.4 million votes).