In 1953, we did not invade Iran (although the British seriously considered the option), instead we funded and fomented and managed the overthrow of a democratically elected government.
You conveniently leave out a lot of pertinent facts in order to twist this into a typical leftist anti-American history rewrite. First off, the instigator of this coup was Great Britain. Brits were the first to discover oil in Iran, they built the entire Iranian oil industry from scratch. The Iranian prime minister - Mossadegh - tried to nationalize it. Since it was a constitutional monarchy, both the Shah and Mossadegh shared power, with the relative balance of power between them shifting from time to time. Though most people supported Mossadegh, the Shah had supporters as well. The UK wanted to see the Shah restored to full power once more, hoping he would forever support British rights to run the oil fields. But they had a hard time convincing the US to back them in their support of a coup by the Shah, because Harry Truman's government didn't want to get involved for nothing more than an oil dispute between Britain and Iran.
But the Cold War WAS a big issue at that time to the US. The Tudeh (Iranian Communist Party) was very strong, and Mossadegh did not seem to be distancing himself from it. So the UK tried again - aiming to convince the US (by now it was the Eisenhower Admin), that Mossadegh was leaning toward the Communists. I don't know exactly how much he really was, but in any case the Brits no doubt exaggerated it to get the US to sign on. The CIA and its British cousin the MI6 helped the Shah and his friends in the Iranian army with their coup, mostly through contributing a lot of cash to pay a "rent-a-mob" who took to the streets of Tehran, picking up a lot of supporters as they went (there was a lot of dissatisfaction with the govt at that time due to the economy being in shambles as a result of the ongoing UK/Iran oil dispute). The mob eventually marched on Mossadegh's residence. The army acted. He was put into prison (and later house arrest) and the Shah took over.
Because of these actions, civilians were killed.
Oh, give me a break! The coup was over in hours. How many "civilians" died? Maybe 2 or 3 of Mossagedh's bodyguards? Get real. What you seem to be implying here is that - An Iranian coup *FIFTY* years ago by the Shah and army officers against Mossadegh, that was virtually bloodless, and happened to be supported primarily by the UK, secondarily by the US, can be used to "understand", and by extension, to even partially "justify" the WTC massacres as "civilian lives traded for civilian lives"!!
As part of our plan, we then installed the infamous Sha of Iran into power. Norman Schwartzkopf Sr. is even reputed to have helped the Sha develop his vicious SAVAK secret police.
And can you present any evidence at all that the SAVAK that Schwartzkopf knew at the time he was helping create it was identical in viciousness to the same SAVAK 25 years later?
This regime had one of the worst human rights records going at the time, and yet we continued to support the regime we created. Thousands were jailed, beaten and killed. Millions were coerced into acceptable behavior.
Yes, I certainly wouldn't argue that they were any better on human rights than other Middle East nations in those days. So what's your point?
When our buddy the Sha was overthrown, we again encouraged the killing of citizens by promoting war between Iraq and Iran. We set about arming and funding the Iraqi war machine. Millions were killed.
History rewrite alert!!! (Again.) We had NOTHING TO DO with the starting of this war. Saddam saw the turmoil in Iran, and the fact that it was fast becoming the pariah of the world, and saw what he thought was a golden opportunity to grab a slice of Iran while the getting was good. Khomeini had already done whatever he could to make us his enemy, so once the war did start, we sold weapons to Iraq and shared occasional satellite photos with him of Iranian positions/defenses/etc. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." What's so despicable about selling arms and giving intelligence to a country engaged in a war with your enemy?
And when this Iraqi war machine we created did what we created it to do (engage in aggression against neighboring countries) we went about killing Iraqis to stop our own creation.
Argh! Typical Liberal Blame-America-First propaganda BS! Selling weapons to a country gets magically spun into "creating" their military! Where do you get this stuff from?? (And I see you conveniently forget about that little detail named "Kuwait" when you make a backhanded slap at our entry into the Gulf War)
Today we continue to kill Iraqis through sanctions (most reports put the figure at 5,000 Iraqi children killed per month).
BARF ALERT AGAIN!! The UN Sanctions in place since 1990 make an exception that allows Iraq to sell a certain amount of oil every year, with the proceeds SUPPOSEDLY to be earmarked by the Iraqi govt for buying food, medicine and similar "humanitarian" goods. Guess what Saddam spends it on?? Well, say a big "Duh" here! It gets spent on weapons, on making sure his "Republican Guard" bodyguards are pampered so as not to lose their loyalty, and on big donations to terror cells throught the MidEast. But yet, Saddam's cruel starvation of his own people gets spun by you into an accusation of the ***USA*** killing Iraqis!! What gall!
What's preventing you from going just one little teeny leap further than you have gone, and just stating that "The CIA killed the 5000+ in the WTC and Pentagon on 9/11." Fess up .... you DO believe that, don't you!!