Psych War On Iran
The Iranians snatched some British sailors that were controlling ships in the Iraqi/Persian Shatt-al-Arab. Such has happened before and was solved without much trouble.
Maybe the UK boats really were in Persian waters, maybe they were not - maybe there was some intent for a conflict on either side, maybe not - who knows or will ever know for sure. Anyhow, this is certainly no reason to start a war.
Another piece of anti-Iranian propaganda was launched today via the BBC:
Col Masherevski said "local information" indicated that "the vast majority of the violence against us is inspired from outside Iraq".
"The people here very much believe that is Iran," he said.
"All the circumstantial evidence points to Iranian involvement in the violence here in Basra which is disrupting the city to a great extent."
The standard of weapons being used against British troops was such that it could only have come from outside Iraq, he said.
There are absolutely no facts in the BBC piece and that mysterious Colonel (zero(!) Google hits for his name) has nothing to provide but rumours.
The sea incident is more usable than the Colonel and so this will be taken up as part of the propaganda campaign to put pressure on Iran and to further the western agenda of disabling Iran by sanctions - "been there done that," Madeleine Albright would say.
This is part of the pattern of threats and intimidation directed against Iran as the very astute badger documents.
There is quite some noise now, though not reflected in the western press, by the non-permanent UN Security Council members to tone down the next resolution on Iran:
South Africa’s proposal aimed to drop all the key sanctions proposed by the major powers, including an arms embargo and financial bans on an Iranian state bank and the Revolutionary Guards, and to suspend all other sanctions for 90 days to allow for more talks with Teheran.
The amendments were offered despite an earlier agreement by Germany and the five permanent members of the 15 member council -- The United States, Russia, China, France and Britain -- on the wording of the draft resolution.
Pahad said South Africa was within its rights to suggest changes to the draft document, which he said had only been presented to other Security Council members at the last minute.
“The draft resolution was never shown to us, so it’s not wrong for us to make our views known,” he said.
Indeed most countries do support Iran's right of civil nuclear development:
National leaders of the 118-state Non-Aligned Movement concluding their Havana summit approved a statement on Iran that "reaffirmed the basic and inalienable right of all states, to develop research, production and use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes."
But the war-mongers are cheating the non-permanent, non-aligned UN members on the content of the resolution:
South Africa's ambassador, Dumisani Kumalo, this month's council president, expressed dismay.
"They told us we would be negotiating a give and take," he told reporters on Thursday. "They are doing exactly what they said they weren't going to do."
[...]
Kumalo had also proposed a 90-day "time out" in imposing the sanctions, ..
No chance for that sane moment to happen. The U.S. will continue to bribe and threaten its will through the Security Council and use all of its propaganda outlets to justify its moves and discourage any opposition.
Millions of U.S. government $'s will make sure that the U.S. weapon and oil industry has at least another decade to prosper. Someone, most probably your children, will have to pay for this.
Posted by b on March 23, 2007 at 20:52 UTC | Permalink
Maybe the merchant ship was under Iranian flag. And the US Coast Guard doesn't seem to have any problem arresting people on the high seas.
Posted by: Ensley | Mar 23 2007 21:38 utc | 2
Rule Britania, Britania rules the Thames Estuary.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Mar 23 2007 22:03 utc | 3
Interessting comment, via Colman at ET:
Daily Kos :: Comments BREAKING: 15 British troops seized by Iranian Navy
The problem for Britain with the international boundary between Iraq and Iran along the Shatt al-Arab waterway is that it is part of a complex and unresolved dispute between Iraq and Iran. Britain as a temporary occupying power cannot legally make concessions on behalf of Iraq on this boundary issue. Royal Navy patrols working in what Iraq maps tell them is part of Iraq may well stray into waters which Iran claims as Iranian.
A particular issue is that Iran claims the boundary runs according to the Thalweg principle (that is along the deepwater navigational channel). In the 1975 Algiers accord Iraq conceded this in order to get Iranian support over a Kurdish insurgency in Iraq, then when the Kurds were suppressed for that time, reneged on the deal. The Shatt al-Arab demarcation was a central issue in the Iran-Iraq war and was unresolved by that war.
Mostly the Iraq-Iran frontier runs along the low-water mark of the Iranian bank of the river. I suspect that today’s dispute is in one of the three specific exceptions to that rule, probably close to the exception running from number 1 jetty in Abadan where the frontier follows the Thalweg for four miles downstream before reverting to the Iranian low-water mark.
Posted by: Fran | Mar 23 2007 22:30 utc | 4
Iran accuses Britain over sailors
Commodore Nick Lambert said he had "absolutely no doubt" the vessel had been in Iraqi waters, adding that it could be "a simple misunderstanding at the tactical level".This was supported by US military monitoring the movement of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
US Navy spokesman Commander Kevin Aandahl told the BBC: "They were in Iraqi territorial waters."
The original BBC report inluded a further quote from Commodore Nick Lambert to the effect that he knew that the Iranians were just as sure as he was that the Brits were in Iranian waters. In other words that the "tactical misunderstanding" was deliberate.
And look who's assuring us that, "They were in Iraqi territorial waters"!
This is a set up. No one can claim to be surprised when the US/UK ignite WW III in the Middle East. They are telegraphing their punches.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Mar 24 2007 1:57 utc | 5
And they have the "blessing" of the Demoplican Party for their upcoming shocking and awful behavior redux as well, I must add, lest we forget it.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Mar 24 2007 1:59 utc | 6
Correction to my piece above: Turns out the BBC spelled the Colonels name wrong. According to the Guardian, it is Lt.Col. Justin Maciejewski, not Masherevski as the BBC wrote. The Guardian piece is also much less propagandazised than the BBC writeup ...
Guardian: US and UK fail to find smoking gun
Although British and US military and diplomats often complain of Iranian support for insurgents in Iraq, there is no "smoking gun" to prove it, a senior British officer in Basra admitted yesterday.Lt Col Justin Maciejewski said he could not prove Iranian interference in the southern Iraqi city, where UK troops come under regular mortar and rocket attack. ...
Brits set this little trap up at this time 'cuz UN debate on sanctions against Iran is set to begin on Sun. Gotta make 'em look like a threat to the ever innocent West doncha know.
Posted by: jj | Mar 24 2007 10:14 utc | 8
Wasn't an incident like this used for an excuse to bomb the hell out of Lebanon?
Posted by: Rick | Mar 24 2007 15:35 utc | 9
I have been watching BBC and Sky really pump out the vile over the last few days. First with Mugabe (and I would like to know why the UK is trying to work people up over that, I know b real has posted on Africa but I haven't seen the specific reason for right now) and now they are in lockstep over this Iranian incident. The beeb says the sailors were captured whereas Sky says they are held hostage.
The comments on this incident were also somewhat predictable. It would seem that the UK has no shortage of fighting keyboarders either. in the pasted comment below I can't really tell if it is snark or not but it did get a recommend....
Nuke them, these middle east countries have to learn their place in the world. The ONLY reason they have a voice is due to their oil reserves, the sooner we wipe the country out the sooner we can secure the oil for the west.Steven, Swindon
Posted by: dan of steele | Mar 24 2007 18:15 utc | 10
dan
i work from a simple premise now in relation to the mass media (it svaes time) - i don't believe a fucking word they say - not one utterance - not one breath
Posted by: r'giap | Mar 24 2007 19:05 utc | 11
the 900 pound (408.2 kg) gorilla in the room that no one talks about is that the UK insists that its sailors were in Iraqi waters. So they were already trespassing, right? Didn't w and his poodle announce that Iraq was a sovereign nation?
this admin defines hypocrisy.
Posted by: dan of steele | Mar 25 2007 15:47 utc | 12
The comments to this entry are closed.
They still fail to see the irony of complaining about "foreign interference in Iraqi affairs" or that the allied invasion of Iraq "disrupted" things to a vast extent. Nor do they catch the irony that there was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq until they moved into the power vacuum created by the invasion.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 23 2007 21:11 utc | 1