Another Step

Just one more time, in a practice which spans decades, a middle-east leader calls for Israel to be wiped off the map. In fact, it seems he said this:

"The establishment of the Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world. The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land. As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-10-26): speaking at a conference "The World without Zionism"

It's hardly difficult to see why the practice is so common, as Israel was re-created by the USA by seizing land from the Palestinians, a practice which Israel has continued ever since. Even the BBC reporter observes:

"Such calls are regular slogans at anti-Israeli or anti-US rallies in Iran. "

But this leader was the Iranian leader, and this is the period in which Messrs Bush and Blair are trying to paint Iran as an unstable, war mongering, terrorist-supporting regime which is is trying to develop Weapons of Mass Destruction and is hence ripe for attack.

With his current role as the Head of State presiding over the EU and on a day with a major EU meeting in London, Tony Blair seems to have effectively prompted international condemnation. He turned around the guarantees the government had given that there would be no war against Iran, pronouncing:

"I have never come across a situation of the President of a country saying they want to wipe out, not that they have got a problem with, or an issue with, but want to wipe out another country. This is unacceptable. And their attitude towards Israel, their attitude towards terrorism, their attitude on the nuclear weapons issue, it isn't acceptable. [...] I haven't said in precise terms what we can do, but this is a discussion that we will be having with our allies. And you know there has been a long time in which I have been answering questions on Iran, with everyone saying to me: "Tell us you are not going to do anything about Iran." If they carry on like this, the question people are going to be asking us is: When are you going to do something about this? Because you imagine a state like that, with an attitude like that, having a nuclear weapon?"
- Tony Blair 2005-10-27: Press conference at EU informal summit Hampton Court

I have several problems with Blair's remarks:

• As so often, Blair crucially misrepresents his protagonist, to suit his argument:
  Ahmadinejad: "Israel must be wiped off the map."
  Blair: "they want to wipe out, [...] want to wipe out another country."
  Modern-day Israel was put on the map, by force of imposition by the USA. Ahmadinejad says it must be wiped off the map. He did not say that Iran would be the country to do it; he didn't say that it had to be done by force of war.
• Blair said "their attitude towards terrorism [...] isn't acceptable".
  This is about the British government's allegation that Iraq is supplying bombs to insurgent groups in Iraq. Not only does Iran deny this, but on a "Sunday AM" interview, Defence Secretary John Reid staggers back a mile from suggesting the Iranian government had anything to do with it. (I'll attach the text as a comment to this post.)
• Blair said "their attitude towards Israel [...] isn't acceptable".
  We've covered this one.
• Blair said "their attitude on the nuclear weapons issue".
  Iran has denied any intention to gain nuclear arms, and the IAEA and independent inspectors have both found no evidence of an intention to gain nuclear arms. This is about Iran's intention to use nuclear energy (its right under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty). For more information, see this post.

One of the reasons I maintain this Blog, is that in the run-up to the Iraq war many things were said which later disappeared without a trace, many things which were clearly of significance were given scant or no attention by the media. But after the event the quotations are difficult to find, and the size of the task is too huge for me to carry out. I am desperately unhappy about the extent to which the media follows the Anglo-US governments' point of view. It tends to question individual points of a policy, but take for granted the underlying premise as if they were obvious. I'm particularly concerned when this happens (as it regularly does) on the BBC.

In the Sunday AM programme, mentioned above, Andrew Marr makes two basic errors - he slips towards the rhetoric of the government by suggesting that Iran *is* an alarming problem, that it *does* have links to extremists, that it *is* trying to develop a nuclear [implied 'weapons'] capacity, that the Iranian president said 'he wanted to wipe Israel from the map' rather than simply that Israel was imposed by the USA and 'must be wiped from the map'. On this occasion I decided to write a complaint to the BBC. I'll include the text as another comment. I'm interested to hear the BBC's response.

"Shoot-to-kill" policy continues unabashed

The London Metropolitan Police has a 100% failure record in its shoot-to-kill policy. The only time it has been used, since its adoption with no public statement earlier this year, it killed an innocent man.

Officers killed that innocent man under incredible circumstances. We now know the only thing which connected the late Jean de Menezes with the July 2005 London bombings was that he happened to live in the same apartment block as the suspect. But we have been fed a web of deceit created by the police force:

• The murdered man was positively identified as one of the bombers: he was not. The police officer who might have given an identification was appartently on a toilet break.
• The murdered man was wearing a long, thick coat which could have concealed bombs strapped around his body: he was not. He was wearing a light denim jacket.
• The murdered man ran from police when challenged, jumped over the ticket barrier and took flight: he did not. He used his season ticket to pass through the ticket barrier. He did not run at all until he found a train already on the platform, from when he ran aboard.
• The murdered man could have set off a bomb had he been carrying one: of course he could not. He half-fell and was half-pushed to the ground by the police officers in pursuit. A falling man puts his hands out to break his fall, and as an innocent man that is undoubtedly what he will have done. In that circumstance it is quite impossible for him to trigger any device. And in any case, we now understand that he was being held by one or more officer(s) at the time he was shot.

The murdered man was shot 7 times to the head at close range; and then the Met' Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair told a news conference they had an air ambulance on the scene, but he was found to be dead!!

And today we are told by an unapologetic Commissioner that his policy stands. He justifies it by saying this is the same policy:

"If somebody was holding a 10-year-old child with a knife to the child's neck and is about to start cutting the child's head off, the only shot available might be to the head, in which case that's what would be done."

It's difficult to see how somebody who can be clearly seen to be a clear and present threat to a child can be compared to someone who has not been seen or effectively judged to be any threat at all. The only thing that John Menenzes did at the tube station that day which in any way distinguished himself from any other passenger on the station was to die a violent, unprovoked and callous death.

Well, it seems that we need to see more murders on the grounds of counter-terrorism... one a day, if possible, for as long as it takes for the public to realise that the next victim of the shoot-to-kill policy could and may well be them. It seems it will take politicians intent on creating a police state the absolute assurance of being flung from office to get any sense back into counter-terrorist policy.

Common Sense Prevails?

"Another bomb, another bill" was the phrase used by Ken Clarke, last week, to describe the government's commitment to strike out further human rights with every new bomb. And yesterday we have an unexpectedly welcome but limited u-turn by the government, following criticism by Law Lords.

And yet the government's new proposal still goes too far. The new proposal is:
"To make a statement glorifying terrorism if the person making it believes, or has reasonable grounds for believing, that it is likely to be understood by its audience as an inducement to terrorism."

Is there a difference?

The Attack on Iran: has the countdown begun?

It seems the vilification of Iran, to soften up the British electorate for a future military campaign against the country, may have begun. Without producing any evidence, Britain has announced that it holds Iran responsible for the deaths of eight British soldiers by way of supplying technology to a Shia group in Iraq.

Without any independent body on the ground to give an assessment, it is impossible to know the truth. However Iran has strongly denied the claim, and it turns out the anonymous British official himself has no more than suspicions about who even carried out the attack. Asked to suggest Iran’s motive, he could only say that maybe Iran felt it had to show that it could not be "pushed around".

Whatever the truth of this story, it is worth bearing in mind that the UK and US feel at liberty to supply arms to warring factions, stir up national unrest and even invade sovereign nations which pose no particular threat, when they feel it meets their own interests or sense of adventure.

However our bitter experience from the build-up to the war against Iraq, is that to align himself with the US position, Tony Blair will use any means available to conciliate his electorate to the need for attack. A brief recap of events:

• November 2004: Jack Straw ruled out any military action in Iraq, a position which was confirmed by Tony Blair during the 2005 election campaign
• May 2005 (after the election): Tony Blair answers a question about possible action on Iran “Let’s see what happens”
• August 2005: Bush answers a question about use of force on Iran "All options are on the table”
• September 2005: Jack straw downgrades his original position to "It is not on the agenda, I happen to think that it is inconceivable"

It is early days yet, but my forecast is that if Blair is in power for long enough, he will support the US in an attack on Iran. And yet still, North Korea - the one country which absolutely possesses and is likely to use weapons of mass destruction - has no action threatened against it whatsoever.

Background

In mid-2002, it became clear that Iran had built a uranium enrichment plant, and announced that it intended to build a nuclear power plant. As Iran’s president has pointed out, the country has an inalienable right to produce nuclear fuel under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), although this is provided the country allows inspection from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The US and the UK have been most vocal in expressing the concern that Iran intends, or may intend at some future time, to build a nuclear warhead, and therefore want to prevent Iran from building a nuclear reactor. Although both the IAEA and independent researchers have said there is no evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, the US dismisses them and holds a consistent line that military action against Iran is under consideration.

It is worth making a note about international treaties and international law. The US and the UK considers Iran to be bound by the NPT, even though it is not a signatory. The US, on the other hand, do not consider themselves to be bound by the Kyoto Treaty, or subject to the International Criminal Court, because they were not signatories to it.