This just down the pipe from Undercurrent – no grip on its reliability yet, but it certainly raises eyebrows:
“A colleague at the BBC turned up the following in a research file relating to a (subsequently spiked) anglo-american documentary co-production of 2000-1, working title "A Patriot Too Far"[sic]. This colleague had no involvement with the programme itself but worked through the file while conducting research for one of our middle-east correspondents recently. She has been following Hyperstition's disinterment of the West story, as have I, and although she cannot vouch for its verisimilitude, she considers that these notes may be of some interest.”
[from the producer's notes] Following the storming of the US Embassy in Teheran in Nov. 1979, a student group began to publish documents seized from the building. These dossiers, published as "Documents from the US Espionage Den"[sic], included top secret material which the Americans, who had apparently been taken entirely by surprise, did not have time to shred or otherwise remove. Since the series runs to over fifty volumes, and includes routine bureaucratic memos and dubious 'espionage documents' reconstructed from shredder scraps, it is unlikely that anyone outside the intelligence services has reviewed them in their entirety.
Our contact in Teheran draws attention to the minutes of a meeting of Nov 2 1978 that is collected in vol.56 , featuring someone referred to only as "West". Given this pseudonymity and the political sensitivity of the content it is unlikely we could use this text directly (legal have not yet given an opinion) but from the tone and content of "West's" remarks it would be difficult not to conclude that this is 'our' man.
[...]
WEST: Who's puppeting who? You made every stupid mistake possible, you created a monster and armed it to the teeth in the name of profit and some phony idea of stability and political alliance. These people see the light of freedom, and you respond by humiliating them, and still think you can contain the situation, you think you've got everything covered, but it's you guys who need to cut loose before it's too late. Kermit and the CIA lost control, the Shah has lost control, you guys've never controlled anything, no-one has control once the blob is free. You beat down Mossadeq because you didn't want a red road through the mideast. Well, you're fighting yesterday's enemies. Black tentacles, gentlemen, that's what you should be worrying about. It doesn't even make sense to think about enemies anymore. And you think this place is friendly, your little island of stability? The blob is gonna unlock things you don't even want to dream about.
[....]
By taking pre-emptive action now we stay in the vanguard of escalation. Who knows how long we'll wait for another opportunity to get the American people behind us? Otherwise you fools can just waste another ten, twenty, fifty years in snivelling diplomacy, negotiations, deals with rug-merchants, and gradually letting the advantage slide. Pre-emptive action is the future, the future...
SCH: If we could just tone down the apocalyptics some, I must repeat that all of the intelligence available to us at the present moment suggests the advisability of ongoing lines of communication with the Shah as the sole agency likely to command the means to maintain political stability and control of the military. It is unthinkable that any of these opposition factions will in the near future constitute anything more than a minor nuisance. We doubt very much whether Komeni [sic] commands the sort of power that is attributed him by certain fanatic elements. In sum, this is no time for talk of aggression, and with all due respect, [deleted], I can't help thinking that your presence here is unlikely to help our efforts to smooth things over and return to stability.
WEST: Your stability is a joke, [deleted]. You're talking to a soldier here. Things can flip any minute, white to black, blink of an eye. Then it won't be your little island anymore, the shutters will come down, and the talk will be of alah and jehad[sic]. It's time to think the unthinkable, gentlemen, there's no room for manouevre. Either you exit and turn this place into a parking lot on the way out, or the whole region will be a weeping sore that good american soldiers will be wasted mopping up decades from now. Things have gone too far, it's time to make ourselves worthy of the 'great satan' ...
"West's" intemperate and bizarre tirades throughout the first half of the meeting are brought to an end by a "WS," with the words : "You come on like a mad ayatollah, West, I do believe you've spent too much time smoking hashish with the Imams". Although this is presumably intended as a joke (admittedly one unbefitting a "diplomat") to defuse the tense atmosphere evident even in transcript, it might suggest that West had been tasked with some sort of ground-level intelligence-gathering. However given the fog of disinformation, all-too-familiar to us, that surrounds West, it seems unlikely we will ever know who he was working for or whether his "opinions" were authorised or shared by any military or intelligence body.
What does seem certain is that, if duly tolerated, he had no friend among those present at this meeting, and since "West" does not appear on any subsequent documents, we can assume that he left Teheran as little more than a figure of fun, an immoderate marginal.
Nevertheless, on Nov 9 1978 the US Embassy would issue a momentous Telegram, tellingly entitled "Thinking the Unthinkable", and signaling a total reversal of their long-held position on the Iranian political situation (as articulated in the transcript by "SCH") . This switch, far too late to make any difference, thankfully fell far short of "West's" policy of a scorched-earth retreat and a opportunistic escalation of aggression (worryingly feasible, as "West" had suggested would be the case, given US public opinion over the coming hostage crisis).
If, over the following year, a year that would end with the sacking of the Embassy, this embattled diplomacy (or "lack of nerve" as West would have it) served only to reveal the lamentable failings of US intelligence and the shortsightedness of their policies, it is impossible to say how much worse might have been the consequences of that unthinkable inhumanity advocated by "West", compared to our current political situation in which the dire prophecies of this militant madman have mercifully not come to pass.
[New York, Aug 30, 2001]
Just have to take the first crack at this one.
When I read this: "you created a monster and armed it to the teeth in the name of profit and some phony idea of stability and political alliance. These people see the light of freedom, and you respond by humiliating them" my first reaction was extreme suspicion. Nothing West-related I'd ever come across sounded remotely compatible with these kind of sentiments.
But after looking more carefully I began to wonder whether they didn't serve as the greatest confirmation of authenticity, for at least three reasons:
1) These transcripts were produced by Iranian Khomeinists and would obviously be doctored to serve their ideological purposes, if West's words could be gently 'guided' in a direction suiting their purposes they would be.
2) After coming across McPatrick's remarks (forwarded to me anonymously) the twisting of 'freedom' into something alien and unrecognizable began to seem almost like a West signature.
3) What reason to think West would reject the principle of 'taqqiya' if it could be worked to an ulterior purpose conforming to his - still deeply obscure - strategic purposes? There are numerous reasons to think he considers the very existence of Shia Islam to be a 'faultline' in the Jihadi edifice (can see Reza going appropriately ballistic - or pestilential - over the expression 'Jihadi edifice' so I just can't bring myself to rectify it ;)).
Anyway, it sure sounds BBC, so one level of credibility is pretty solidly chalked in from the start.
West as freedom-fighter doesn't quite seem to fit (lol) but my question (forgive its naivety, not really been involved in the West saga so far, hence don't know why I am being targeted for unsolicited contribs) is, what exactly was/is West's position 'compatible with'? It seems almost every possible party has some more or less disavowed strategic overlap with his 'programme'. And what would 'freedom' mean to West exactly?
Posted by: undercurrent at January 3, 2005 12:22 PMReza - "... but with more deleted / censored passages ;)" - [seriously] after putting this up i was wondering whether it would be an electric cattle-prod issue for you - just let us know if you need stuff hacked out
Posted by: nick at January 3, 2005 12:35 PMUndercurrent - "what exactly was/is West's position 'compatible with'?" - keep asking the same question, and all I get is hideous Terminator remixes ...
Posted by: nick at January 3, 2005 12:44 PMhaving properly read through the other posts re. West, it doesn't seem impossible that hardline Islamic militants would want to build up (and perhaps partly fictionalise) West as a significant character, in order to constitute a mirror-image enemy of jihad, a worthy enemy or partner in escalation, a mutually-respectful nemesis - making an anti/hero out of him.
(apologies Reza ;) This was just one meeting, but the persian mind is obviously oriented toward excavating sinister hidden factors (maybe West represented the 'real' US interest). But, if they had deliberately twisted his words, I would have thought they'd have made some capital of this rather than hiding it away in the 50th volume. Unless they hoped for someone in particular to find it?
"it doesn't seem impossible that hardline Islamic militants would want to build up (and perhaps partly fictionalise) West as a significant character, in order to constitute a mirror-image enemy of jihad, a worthy enemy or partner in escalation" - utter concurrence from this 'analyst'
Posted by: nick at January 3, 2005 01:42 PMin fact (don't want to de-stitionally deflate things but...) since the whole saga has the air of a psychotic hollywood-scriptwriter-turned-mad-mullah about it, is there any hard proof from reliable US sources that "west" existed?
Posted by: undercurrent at January 3, 2005 02:08 PMUndercurrent - as the hackneyed saying goes: if West didn't exist, it would be necessary to inevnt him (and with the BBC, CNN, and sundry other commentators thoroughly plugged in - we're talking serious black helicopters if the guy turns out to be an invention)
Posted by: nick at January 3, 2005 02:54 PMRemaining entirely agnostic on the ontological implication of his 'invention,' it's a case of who had most need of inventing him, then.
Posted by: undercurrent at January 3, 2005 03:03 PMWell, without pre-judging the interests of global media organizations and various other parties, anyone wanting to explore the outer reaches of the 'Skynet scenario' would have an obvious investment in West's extremity ... taking 'Renomadization of the US War Machine' as a key (re-read the D&Gon War Machine essay with this in mind, and if it doesn't freak you at all, let me know ...)
Posted by: nick at January 3, 2005 03:14 PMah, the "net-centric warfare" beloved of Rumsfeld...
Posted by: undercurrent at January 3, 2005 03:17 PM>>> [seriously] after putting this up i was wondering whether it would be an electric cattle-prod issue for you - just let us know if you need stuff hacked out.
Well, obv. this has been written by infidels so keep the post.
Posted by: Reza at January 3, 2005 03:27 PM>>> (apologies Reza ;) This was just one meeting, but the persian mind is obviously oriented toward excavating sinister hidden factors (maybe West represented the 'real' US interest).
lol ... wait and see what Jay has stored for West. those hidden factors have already begun to work, btw.
Posted by: Reza at January 3, 2005 03:30 PMUndercurrent - if you think we're only talking Rumsfeld you really haven't even started to walk the plank ... the truly provocative thing about West is that he diagonalizes - he doesn't expect 'the enemy' to concede to anything, in fact, he affirms their refusal to compromise. That is why continuous incoherent rumours about his 'alliance with the jihadis' perpetually re-emerge, with no relation whatsoever to BBCesque sympathies with the supposedly underlying political grievances to jihadi agitation - my strong expectation is that West (despite his almost inexpressibly offensive position) has a far more intimate relation to the cultural 'logic' of jihad than multicult Western liberalism could imaginably reach - he respects an enemy the BBC will never understand, because West wants the jihad to become stronger - for 'reasons' diverging radically from (overt) Jihadi objectives - (and if Rumsfeld wants anything remotely akin to that he is even more interesting than I had ever suspected).
Reza - As long as you're not being brave just to make a point ;)
Posted by: nick at January 3, 2005 04:13 PMNick,
Bravery is a scarlet letter marked on West’s soldiers to serve; for Jay courage is a redundancy, a deterrence in the un-manned journey to the End of the River. I may publish a few passages from the journal of one of Jay’s puppet in the next few months. Be patient ;)
Before logging-off; my apologies for horrible illiteracy; was wondering who the hell Hulugu is (apart from West’s nickname). I just found out you mean Holaku Khan, the spelling has been terribly but excitingly mangled in English (on name-anomalies see: http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/004335.html). Needless to say: I prefer Hulugu.
Should add Holaku khan finally turned into a faithful Muslim (and all his successors), he constructed many magnificent mosques in iran over what he had ruined before. This might be a good historic lesson for West. ;)
Reza - "This might be a good historic lesson for West" - sure, whatever keeps the pot-heads happy ;)
Posted by: nick at January 3, 2005 10:56 PM... and then there's 'the blob' (a quite different 'it' - i think (!?))
Posted by: nick at January 3, 2005 10:58 PM>re-read the D&Gon War Machine
"From the standpoint of the state, the originality of the man of war, his eccentricity, appears in a negative form:stupidity...madness...illegitimacy..."
Hmm, I know a president like that...I _hope_ this isn't what you're trying to tell us...
Posted by: u/c at January 5, 2005 08:50 AMUndercurrent - politicians don't count - thinking more along the (paraphrased) 'States always have problems with their war machines ...' lines
Posted by: nick at January 5, 2005 11:56 AM>politicians don't count
nominee : nomadological pun of the month
Posted by: u/c at January 5, 2005 12:12 PM