Ayatoilet:

It is a simple fact now that Europe is competing with the U.S. strategically in many ways. Yes, there is a false façade of unity and alliance, behind which most Europeans (if you get to know them well) actually have a deep seated contempt and arrogant view towards Americans. To most Europeans Americans are ‘cowboys’ like George Bush to be manipulated and engaged for the sole benefit of European supremacy. And having lived on both sides of the pond, I have to say that I have found politicians and government staff in Europe to be a great deal more sophisticated than their American counterparts.

Yes, the Europeans are condescending and arrogant. They are highly racist too, just consider their views towards immigrants and Muslims and the massive size of their ultra-rightwing political parties! And Americans are not immune to the same European condescending attitude.

And quite honestly, Americans too have put themselves in a situation where they can and have been manipulated by Europeans. All Brits have to do is open their mouths and lay on their thick accents (exaggerated for American ears) and they are either thought of as experts or better yet male studs to bang impressionable American women (who especially work in the US government).

And so, Americans have been systematically manipulated to take on projects for the sole benefit of Europeans often at huge losses to American prosperity and prestige. Case in point Iran.

In 1953, when Iran’s democratically elected government nationalized Iranian oil from BP, the Brits came crying to President Eisenhower claiming that Iran was turning ‘communist’ and engaged the U.S. to carry out a coup to reinstall their oil concessions in the country. Nothing could have been further from the truth, but so what, the Brits got back their fields and took on a 25 year contract with Iran as a major player in the ‘consortium’ that exploited Iranian oil. But this coup created deep seated mistrust and antagonism for the US in Iran, and kept the Brits largely immune from the same Iranian anger.

In 1978, it was a group of European leaders – James Callaghan (Britain), Giscard D’estain (France) and Helmut Schmidt (Germany) who met with Jimmy Carter in Guadeloupe who persuaded Carter to topple the regime in Iran and install the (British backed) Mullahs in place. And Ayatollah Khomeini duly travelled from his home in Paris to Tehran on an Air France 747 chartered by the government in France. America’s most stalwarth ally, the Shah was supplanted with a regime of Mullahs with key leaders among the Mullahs being financed and trained by the Brits.

In 2003, when Britain had its eyes on Iraqi oil and gas (since its North Sea oil has basically run out) – and wanted to grab the second largest oil and gas reserves in the world – it was false British intelligence on Aluminum tubes in Niger and claims (and pictures) of Chemical Weapon plants in Iraq that eventually persuaded the American public to support the war …none of which ended up being true. The Chemical Weapons plant ended up being a hydrogen gas generator used for filling meteorological balloons, the Niger Aluminum tubes never existed. But after the invasion, BP and Shell grabbed the two largest oil fields in Iraq, but US paid out over 3 Trillion dollars in the war along with over 4000 lives of American soldiers. American assets were duly leveraged again.

Go to link