Posted by scrubsupwell on Monday, 05 February 2007 17:22:03

seabhcan has said here that David wants to attack Iran. I am gutted. I want to see him repeat himself in answer to my question. If this is true I will fight David with all the tenacity I saw in my father when Blair went to war on Iraq.

Posted by seabhcan on Monday, 05 February 2007 19:36:43

Hi Scrubs, I think you misunderstand how Britain is run. What Cameron 'wants' is irrelevant. What America wants is key. To get elected, Cameron must predict what America will want 1-3 years from now, and preemptively support that.

The US government controls the UK media, and through it UK public opinion, by the means described by Chomsky in the book Manufacturing Consent.

Basically it comes down to one question. Why does Boeing advertise in the Guardian? If you understand that, you'll understand the way the world is run.

Does Boeing expect any of the Guardian readers will rush out and buy a $300m jumbo jet? No. So why do they advertise in ordinary newspapers?

After 7/7 the Guardian was about to run a story blaming the Iraq war for the London bombings. Boeing, who make the war planes, threatened to pull their advertising. Guardian toned down the story.

That is why Boeing, and the other war corporations, advertise. It is to buy editorial control of media, and thus control public opinion in democracies.

If Cameron were to come out against war, any war, the war corporations would steer the media commentary against him.

However, it isn't all bad. If public opinion turns against a war independent of commercial media, the corporations are forced to follow. Ultimately all power resided in the people.

Posted by scrubsupwell on Monday, 05 February 2007 20:47:23

Have you ever tried to reach millions of people. Even a mailshot of 10,000 is a pig unless your father is rich. I agree that power in the people is there, but it frustrates me trying to disseminate knowledge people need to decide to close ranks. Even then as Jamie Oliver found out and psyops know that collective agreement soon dissipates unless sustained by media coverage.We are in the habit of electing clean well educated young men with a family and shooting ourselves in the foot. Apart from hiring the services of a prophet what can we do to use that power? I am beginning to read about Mrs Thatcher because she made people feel secure even though MI5/6 were plotting behind the scenes. The good news is I believe America is weakening and a financial crisis (euro based oil perhaps) will seal her fate. We cannot be dragged down with her and David should have the balls to do something about it. I take a positive attitude in that Britain has to be strong to save those across the pond who have been brain-washed, frightened, demoralised, devastated and crucified by a collective and perverse dictatorship.

Posted by 2012AD on Monday, 05 February 2007 21:09:25

of course he knows the real translation, but the real translation is no good to him politically as he relies just as much on the fear factor as blair. Hence his decision to impliment a minister soley for terrorism.

Posted by AndrewFarnden on Monday, 05 February 2007 21:48:33

I think there was a time during the 18 months before the Iraq war where if we had real dialogue between nations, that was held up to the kind of scrutiny that our 9/11 collegues use on this site we could of either avoided the mess that followed.

Fair enougth the political will would of had to be there and it may not of been, but if the political will was not there real scrutiny of the deplomacy by the public would of created the will I'm sure.

The truth was when Saddam was being protective over information on his weapons he didn't have, the public didn't say "hang on there is two sides to this, whose going to protect this country from invasion once he has been seen by the region to have no self defence"

The truth was we never scrutinised our own politicians like we should of, Saddam should of been interviewed by Paxman, and Blair should of answered the difficult questions.

Now is the time for our deplomacy to be tested and challenged by the public.

Mr Ahmadimijad has challenged Mr Bush to a debate, and in the name of peace I don't think he should just dissmiss it. And just because he has I don't think we should shy away from serious dialogue with a country just because it may upset the USA or challenge our simple view of the world.

I think this issue is crucial at this time and Mr Camerons every word on the subject should be held up to the total scrutiny.

Posted by canvas on Tuesday, 06 February 2007 15:01:32

I think it's interesting how Richard Branson can't buy into TV - he keeps getting bumped off. Wonder what they are so worried about?

Posted by canvas on Tuesday, 06 February 2007 15:06:16

Andrew, cringe, you want George Bush to debate? Yikes. He can hardly string a sentence together - and when he does this is what happens...

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror." --George W. Bush, interview with CBS News' Katie Couric, Sept. 6, 2006



http://webcameron.informe.com

Posted by AndrewFarnden on Tuesday, 06 February 2007 16:13:05

The cost of war in lives and money is so expensive, yet diplomacy, political effort and understanding are often free.

There are so many questions we should of asked of our politicians before Iraq, lets not make the same mistake again.

Are we confident are leaders are stretching theirselves to avoid the hideious consequenses of war, and if we aren't don't we have a duty to challenge them. The total lack of knowledge of the motives behind this sentence above that is always refered to, just highlights how easy the slide to war can become when the public don't read beyond the headline and the policy makers are given an easy ride.

I'm saddened by the missed opertunities to bring a peacefull conclusion to the Iraq issue before 2003, but right now I'm more focused on what we can do in the future

Please vote for Dave to takle the above Question head on.

Posted by AndrewFarnden on Tuesday, 06 February 2007 20:47:03

The president of Iran has been experiencing political damage at home lately due to his attitude towards the outside world, surely the oportunity to engage with others now must seem more appealling to him and we should capitilise on this instead of building diplimatic obsticals by careless use of language and our shambolic press.

Posted by stav1 on Wednesday, 07 February 2007 09:58:27

A political bombshell from Zbigniew Brzezinski
Ex-national security adviser warns that Bush is seeking a pretext to attack Iran
By Barry Grey in Washington DC
2 February 2007

Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser in the Carter administration, delivered a scathing critique of the war in Iraq and warned that the Bush administration’s policy was leading inevitably to a war with Iran, with incalculable consequences for US imperialism in the Middle East and internationally.

Brzezinski, who opposed the March 2003 invasion and has publicly denounced the war as a colossal foreign policy blunder, began his remarks on what he called the “war of choice” in Iraq by characterizing it as “a historic, strategic and moral calamity.”

“Undertaken under false assumptions,” he continued, “it is undermining America’s global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America’s moral credentials. Driven by Manichean principles and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.”

Brzezinski derided Bush’s talk of a “decisive ideological struggle” against radical Islam as “simplistic and demagogic,” and called it a “mythical historical narrative” employed to justify a “protracted and potentially expanding war.”

“To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said.

Most stunning and disturbing was his description of a “plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran.” It would, he suggested, involve “Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in a ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.” [Emphasis added].

This was an unmistakable warning to the US Congress, replete with quotation marks to discount the “defensive” nature of such military action, that the Bush administration is seeking a pretext for an attack on Iran. Although he did not explicitly say so, Brzezinski came close to suggesting that the White House was capable of manufacturing a provocation—including a possible terrorist attack within the US—to provide the casus belli for war.

That a man such as Brzezinski, with decades of experience in the top echelons of the US foreign policy establishment, a man who has the closest links to the military and to intelligence agencies, should issue such a warning at an open hearing of the US Senate has immense and grave significance.

Brzezinski knows whereof he speaks, having authored provocations of his own while serving as Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser. In that capacity, as he has since acknowledged in published writings, he drew up the covert plan at the end of the 1970s to mobilize Islamic fundamentalist mujaheddin to topple the pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan and draw the Soviet Union into a ruinous war in that country.

Following his opening remarks, in response to questions from the senators, Brzezinski reiterated his warning of a provocation.

He called the senators’ attention to a March 27, 2006 report in the New York Times on “a private meeting between the president and Prime Minister Blair, two months before the war, based on a memorandum prepared by the British official present at this meeting.” In the article, Brzezinski said, “the president is cited as saying he is concerned that there may not be weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, and that there must be some consideration given to finding a different basis for undertaking the action.”

He continued: “I’ll just read you what this memo allegedly says, according to the New York Times: ‘The memo states that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation.’

“He described the several ways in which this could be done. I won’t go into that... the ways were quite sensational, at least one of them.

“If one is of the view that one is dealing with an implacable enemy that has to be removed, that course of action may under certain circumstances be appealing. I’m afraid that if this situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, and if Iran is perceived as in some fashion involved or responsible, or a potential beneficiary, that temptation could arise.”

At another point Brzezinski remarked on the conspiratorial methods of the Bush administration and all but described it as a cabal. “I am perplexed,” he said, “by the fact that major strategic decisions seem to be made within a very narrow circle of individuals—just a few, probably a handful, perhaps not more than the fingers on my hand. And these are the individuals, all of whom but one, who made the original decision to go to war, and used the original justifications to go to war.”

None of the senators in attendance addressed themselves to the stark warning from Brzezinski. The Democrats in particular, flaccid, complacent and complicit in the war conspiracies of the Bush administration, said nothing about the danger of a provocation spelled out by the witness.

Following the hearing, this reporter asked Brzezinski directly if he was suggesting that the source of a possible provocation might be the US government itself. The former national security adviser was evasive.

The following exchange took place:

Q: Dr. Brzezinski, who do you think would be carrying out this possible provocation?

A: I have no idea. As I said, these things can never be predicted. It can be spontaneous.

Q: Are you suggesting there is a possibility it could originate within the US government itself?

A: I’m saying the whole situation can get out of hand and all sorts of calculations can produce a circumstance that would be very difficult to trace.


I think cloaked in his rhetoric is a suggestion that the current administration will do anythink they what, even start another war, even create an act they can call povocation. False Flag Terrorism again. just like 911 and then the WMD BS in Iraq.

Posted by BRosse on Wednesday, 07 February 2007 10:44:16

Six Lies You Shouldn't Believe About Iran, Especially Since, Hey, There's People Down Here.

by Rosa Schmidt Azadi

It feels so different watching an aircraft carrier group coming toward you than watching it sailing away from you toward another part of the world.

I'm an American who used to live in New York City. All my life, when I heard about warships, it was US warships going places far away. I never even imagined hostile warships sailing toward New York. Now I'm in Tehran, and aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis is heading our way. And as it sails, people are discussing Israel and/or the US bombing Iran as if my family and 69 million other people weren't even here. I'm getting scared.

Most Iranians that I know don't worry about this as much as I do, though they're wondering how the sanctions will affect the economy. Khomeini had a famous saying that we actually saw on a sign yesterday in another town: "America can't do anything to us." Some friends here speculate that Bush just needs an enemy so that he can continue his programs in the US, and that Iran is the enemy du jour. I wish I could believe that.

The way I see it, somebody has to stop the US president right now, and it's very upsetting that the Congress isn't doing it. My frustration is greater because I'm in a country where the Internet is not completely available. For example, I tried to send a donation to Dennis Kucinich, but PayPal wouldn't take it because of the embargo. I tried to write to my Congressperson, but the Islamic Republic blocked the communication, presumably because it was with the US government. (Sometimes news stories that I want to read are blocked, too, but there are ways around that.)

If the US and/or Israel attack Iran, it will be a war based on lies, just like the Iraq war. Iraq didn't have WMD, but Iraqis died in the hundreds of thousands. The lies about Iran seem intended to, first, make Iran look like the new Nazi state that must be bombed so as to avoid a new Holocaust, and second, make Americans fear that Iran will hurt our soldiers in Iraq or give nuclear weapons to terrorists who will hurt us in "the homeland."

History shows that Americans are very susceptible to demonization of particular leaders of countries that the US wants to attack. Remember Castro? Noriega? Saddam? Now it's Ahmadinejad. Whatever people think of views attributed to Ahmadinejad, it remains the case that it's not morally acceptable to kill people because of their president, whether that president be Saddam Hussein, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or George Bush.

I want to discuss six big lies we are hearing to justify expanding the war to Iran.

LIE NUMBER 1: President Ahmadinejad "has repeatedly threatened to wipe Israel off the map."

Even Al Jazeera English version based in Qatar keeps saying that. Why hasn't this mistranslation been corrected after it's been thoroughly exposed? (in the Guardianand http://prisonplanet.com)

Juan Cole, in Informed Comment, explained how "wiped off the map" was a mistranslation; Ahmadinejad was restating the official Iranian policy that the government system based on Zionism must end. And why the heck can't newscasters learn to pronounce the man's name? Anyone who knows Farsi could teach them in a minute. Why should we think they know what he said, in Farsi, if they can't even say his name?

LIE NUMBER 2: The Iranian government is run by 1930s-style anti-Semites.

Last Spring, a story was planted that the Iranian parliament had passed a law forcing Iranian Jews to wear yellow badges. "Fourth Reich," screamed a banner headline on one of the New York City tabloids. In a few days, the neocon source was disclosed and the story was completely retracted by the Canadian paper in which it was first published. The New York paper never apologized. When I mention the "yellow badges" to people here in Iran, they look incredulous. "But ... that didn't happen." I know. But I'll bet there are some Americans, and Israelis, who actually believe Jewish Iranians are walking around wearing yellow badges.

LIE NUMBER 3: Iran is bent on wiping out the Jews.

Maybe Americans should have a little humility and remember how recalcitrant the US was about accepting Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler during WWII. Iran has a very good history, under Cyrus the Great, of protecting the Jews. The long history of Jews in Persia is indicated by a monument to the Jewish prophet Daniel in the south of Iran. As for the European Holocaust deniers who were among the speakers at the Holocaust conference in Tehran, I just can't figure it out, unless Ahmadinejad is trying to win popularity points with pro-Palestinian regional populations by appearing to be unafraid of Israel and the US. Or he could be a fool and/or a religious fundamentalist (like some other presidents who shall go unnamed).

LIE NUMBER 4: Iran is causing trouble in Iraq and threatening Arab states.

Everyone should be very clear: Who's meddling in Iraq, who's flying thousands of missions shooting at Iraqi citizens, who attacked whose diplomatic mission, who is detaining whose citizens, and who has announced that it is supporting subversive operations inside whose country and across whose border (from Iraqi Kurdistan)? Most likely some of the undemocratic and unpopular rulers in the Middle East are afraid that their own citizens may be attracted to the Iranian model. That may concern the US oil men and financiers who have business and military ties with them, but it's not a reason for Americans to back destruction of Iran.

LIE NUMBER 5: Iran is dangerous to humanity because it's trying to get nuclear weapons.

Other people who know more than I are writing about the nuclear issues. But regarding threats by Israel and the US to bomb Iranian nuclear research sites, that's a violation of international law, not to mention a danger to innocent civilians. Regulating nuclear activities is the responsibility of the IAEA. So far, the IAEA has declared that Iran does not have nuclear weapons and is in compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. That's more than we can say about the USA, which is supposed to be actively disarming its 10,000 warheads, not refurbishing them and developing new kinds of nuclear weapons. Though there are good reasons to think Iran does not want nuclear weapons, let's imagine, just for the sake of argument, that Iran would someday acquire them. Humanity has managed to live with other countries having nukes. The only reason Iran's having nukes would be of greater concern would be if the lies spelled out above were true. But they're lies.

LIE NUMBER 6: Iranians are looking to the USA to bring them democracy, just like the USA has brought democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq.

I'm living here in Tehran, Iran, now, with my family, as are many other Americans, Europeans, Asians, and other foreigners. We are inviting friends and relatives to come and visit. The skiing's fine. More democracy and more civil liberties would be better, but there are elections and there are laws and there are non-governmental organizations and you can approach public officials. Whatever's not right with this country is the business of the people here to work on. Some Iranians living in other countries want the US to "save" Iran. I don't know, but I suspect people like that would like the US to magically bring back the good old days when the US-allied Shah sat on his throne and the well-off classes had a fine life. If anyone finds any overseas Iranians who actually are willing to see Iran bombed, I hope the reporters ask them if they have any relatives currently living in Iran. I hope Americans don't take these has-beens too seriously.


Rosa Schmidt Azadi is a long-time peace activist, an anthropologist, and a retired civil servant who's also a wife, daughter, sister, aunt, great-aunt, godmother, and the mother of two college students. After walking out of the smoke of the 9-11 attacks in New York City and returning to participate in the recovery effort, Rosa began working to prevent further death and destruction in other countries at the hands of the U.S. government. Participating in a peace vigil at the World Trade Center site for more than three years gave her the privilege of talking with thousands of people from all over the world about things that matter most. Dr. Azadi has earned two advanced degrees and is still learning. Currently, she's splitting her time between Tehran, Iran, and upstate New York.

Posted by AndrewFarnden on Wednesday, 07 February 2007 16:21:19

If anyone out their is of the opinion that Iran is entirely to blame for the mounting international tension can you please answer the following question.

What should the president of Iran do to defuse the situation, that in his eyes wouldn't leave him more vunrable to external agression, weekened domestically and looking subservient as a nation.

This is not supposed to be a provocative question, just a chance to explore the options through his eyes. I believe ultimately this is the only way to avoid another Iraq.

Posted by AndrewFarnden on Thursday, 08 February 2007 12:01:09

Seabhcan

You say that power ultimately rests with the people and I think you are right. But is it not true that "the people" as a collective are a dead loss on this issue. "The people" were quick to their feet when the invasion of Iraq became a reallity, but in the days when political pressure and understanding would of made a difference they were too busy watching Eastenders.

How many people have turned their mind to Iran now when it could still make a difference, how many people write to their MP on the issue and how many know the answer to the questions I've put above? It would appear that even the leader of the opposition could invest a little more time in this area.

I work in an environment with around 300 people but I'd struggle to find three that could string together an opinion on Iran, sure they all have opinions on Iraq now its too late. I despair at the collective ability of human nature sometimes, or maybe I just worry too much.

Posted by seabhcan on Thursday, 08 February 2007 12:47:06

Its tough, I agree. And its tougher when the media suppress stories which they don't like. Two cases in point are the 2003 rail strike in the north east. The rail workers refused to carry war material on the network. If it had been reported it this brave and noble stand might have served as an example to the nation. Instead there was a complete media blackout - arms shipments were routed around the area and the invasion went ahead. To this day few people have heard of it.

The other is the discovery of the Talbot street bomb factory last October which police say was the largest store of chemical and explosive weapons ever found in the UK. Two were arrested and the street closed off. The police say they also found "a master plan" to "spread terror among the population". Again, a complete blackout in the media - no reports. I personally complained to the BBC and the Guardian about this. They assured me that it had nothing to do with the fact that the bombers were BNP members and not Muslims.

But we always faced these problems - the media has always been controlled. The difference now is the internet which allow grassroots swapping of information, just like this. The media may strike and refuse to carry the citizen's 'war material'. But we can use the internet to ship our information around the blackout.

Posted by AndrewFarnden on Thursday, 08 February 2007 19:01:55

Its hard to see what the conservative line on Iran is, and indeed where it differs from Tony Blair and American friends. In some ways due to the lack of clarity its possible to envisage that Conservative instincts may be even closer to the Americans, indeed this would be traditional.