by guest » Sun May 20, 2018 7:58 am
The Shah's suppoerters omit details about the tens of thousands of political prisoners who were tortured and killed. I personally witnessed the shah's troops shoot protesting students in the street, and I was nearly shot myself as a result.
The insecure Pahlavi family propped themselves up using Iran's wealth to decorate lavish palaces, to buy flashy foreigh cars cars, to ride around in custom private airplanes, to buy Paris fashions, to have private French hair dressers for the family, and to funnel money to foreign bank accounts for the day they were overthrown (for the second time, third if you count his father, a peasant who gained power through a military coup).
The Shah's supporters love to point out that Iran was better off under the Shah that it is today, but they miss the point: If the West hadn't overthrown the democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh in the 1950s, if the British--the most poisonous people in the world-- hadn't installed the Shah who was a corrupt and cowardly tyrant, there may never have been a revolution that led to the current horrible Islamic theocracy.
The point isn't that the Shah was a marginally better dictator than the current dictators. The point is that The West never should have overthrown a democratically elected government in the 1950's and maybe Iran would have been much better off today than it was under either of the two previous selfish and tyrannical regimes.
The Shah's suppoerters omit details about the tens of thousands of political prisoners who were tortured and killed. I personally witnessed the shah's troops shoot protesting students in the street, and I was nearly shot myself as a result.
The insecure Pahlavi family propped themselves up using Iran's wealth to decorate lavish palaces, to buy flashy foreigh cars cars, to ride around in custom private airplanes, to buy Paris fashions, to have private French hair dressers for the family, and to funnel money to foreign bank accounts for the day they were overthrown (for the second time, third if you count his father, a peasant who gained power through a military coup).
The Shah's supporters love to point out that Iran was better off under the Shah that it is today, [b]but they miss the point:[/b] [b]If the West hadn't overthrown the democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh[/b] in the 1950s, if the British--the most poisonous people in the world-- hadn't installed the Shah who was a corrupt and cowardly tyrant, there may never have been a revolution that led to the current horrible Islamic theocracy.
The point isn't that the Shah was a marginally better dictator than the current dictators. The point is that The West never should have overthrown a democratically elected government in the 1950's and maybe Iran would have been much better off today than it was under either of the two previous selfish and tyrannical regimes.