And Another Thing With Dave, by Dave Smith

The West’s grip on Iran is not diplomacy. It is an offer a country cannot refuse. This episode follows that gangster logic from the 1953 CIA-MI6 coup against Mohammad Mossadegh, through Iran-Contra and Mena, to the Business Plot — the Wall Street scheme to recruit America’s most decorated Marine to stop the New Deal.

Smedley Butler had two Medals of Honor and 33 years in the Corps. In War Is a Racket he said he was not a patriot for hire. He was “a high-class muscle man for Big Business… a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.” He made Mexico safe for oil, Haiti safe for the banks, Nicaragua safe for Brown Brothers, Honduras safe for fruit companies, China safe for Standard Oil. Al Capone ran three city districts. Butler said the Marines ran three continents.

Same playbook in Tehran. Mossadegh nationalized Iranian oil. Operation Ajax removed him. Decades later Iran-Contra sold weapons to the same “terrorist state,” funneled the profits to the Contras in violation of the Boland Amendment, and looked the other way while cocaine paid for the war. Gary Webb was right that the CIA protected Contra-linked traffickers. He was wrong that one ring explained the crack epidemic. Mena was real. The legend is bigger than the documented load.

Then they tried it at home. In 1933–34, after Roosevelt left the gold standard and launched New Deal jobs, housing, and labor programs, financiers approached Butler to lead 500,000 veterans on Washington. The plan: a “Secretary of General Affairs” as dictator, FDR as figurehead. Money from Wall Street. Arms from Remington. Cover from the American Liberty League.

Butler got the names and testified under oath. The McCormack-Dickstein Committee reported that the plot “was discussed, was planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient.”

Nobody was prosecuted. The names were stripped from the public report. The press called it a hoax, then went silent.

Same offer. Same refusal. Different map.

In this episode:

• Why Iran policy still reads like a protection racket over oil
• Operation Ajax and the 1953 overthrow of a elected government
• Iran-Contra: arms, hostages, Contras, and the cocaine pipeline
• What Gary Webb got right — and what he overstated
• Smedley Butler’s confession in War Is a Racket
• The Business Plot against FDR, and why no one was charged

Related episodes:

• The Clintons, Cocaine, Conspiracy, and Cover Up (Parts 1 and 2)
• Episode 474: Deep Down the Rabbit Hole of Drug Smuggling
• Bonus: Iran, The History of US Aggression and Lies

Seeking the truth. Exposing the lies.And Another Thing With Dave#AATWD

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#AATWD #SmedleyButler #WarIsARacket #BusinessPlot #Iran1953 #OperationAjax #IranContra #CIA

#Mossadegh #DarkAlliance #GaryWebb #MenaArkansas #NewDeal #FDR #AmericanHistory #DeepState #OilPolitics #MilitaryIndustrialComplex