Iran; the Risk of Military Action.
We all want to ensure that the Bristish Service personnel detained by Iran are safe and secure and are released unharmed. However there are questions that have to be answered by all sides about what led to their arrest by the Iranians.
Where exactly were the British service staff operating?
In whose territory were they when they were detained?
What was their role or mission?
Similarly, where were the Iranian forces?
What was the Iranian operation?
Especially, what were the grounds upon which they detained the British personnel?
My fear is that already the hawks in the US are using the detention of the British military personnel as a further justification for military action again Iran.
Some of those surrounding Bush are content to use this incident to set Iran up for further provocative actions against Iran and even invasion.
Instead what is needed is calm negotiation to get to the truth of how and why the British were detained and how they can be freed safely.
One measured approach could be for Britain to request the UN to invite both Iran and Britain to meet to explain each other's version of events and to seek to negotiate a resolution to the present stand off. This potentially dangerous situation could be turned to everyone's advantage by bringing about a new point of contact for longer term negotiations.
A rush to threat of further sanctions and acts of military aggression will do nothing except exacerbate the present, hazardous sitauation.
Mandelson Resurfaces.
On a more parochial note, I hear on the news that Mandelson is calling for a challenge to Gordon Brown from a new generation of New Labour MPs and in the press Blair has let it be known through his aides that he is encouraging Miliband to run.
The depths of personal bitterness and nastinesss amongst the architects of New Labour never fails to surprise me. This group has worked closely together in their project to hijack the Labour Party, undermine the socialist principles upon which it was founded and destroy its mission to transform our society.
Now they are tearing each other apart for what?
Not because of any difference over political philosophy, ideas or policies. This is about naked ambition and bitter personal infighting.
Do any of them care about the future of our party or our government?
They are disgracefully putting their own political careers and ambitions and personal animosities above the needs of our movement. By making our party look so divided in this way they are undermining our support just before the elections in Scotaland, Wales and local government.
I am calling upon all of them to put the interests of our party first and to act with some dignity not like a pack of political hyenas fighting over a carcass.
Let us have a democratic election for the leader of our party.
Let's have a range of candidates standing based upon the range of different policy approaches within the party.
And for the party's sake let's end this persistent, personal backbiting within what's left of the New Labour clique.
We need a friendly, comradely debate over policies not this personality clash between the Blair and Brown factions of New Labour.
35 Comments:
How about asking Iran to return the troops first, or at the very least, allow access to them, before we get to the whys and the wherefores? Because we're all civilised adults, aren't we? No doubt our first glimpse of them will be on Iranian TV.
Perhaps we should return the Guantanamo prisoners first, before we get to the whys and the wherefores.
How ironic that John talks of unity ahead of the local elections when it is he and his rump of extreme left wingers who have done more damage to the Labour party over the years than anyone else.
If you haven't noticed the Tories are ahead in the polls not extreme left parties.
The tories are ahead in the polls because New Labour has adopted tory policies and the gap between its rhetoric and the reality has become too wide.
It also has something to do with the Prime Minister lying through his teeth about Iraq , sending our troops to die there based on that lie and refusing to bring them home from an impossible situation he sent them into without the proper equipment.
Meanwhile Brown pledged 'whatever it takes' in money for that disaster and increased taxes overall while throwing away money that should have gone to NHS staff and treatment of patients on PFIs.
The left did not do any of these things - the right - Blairite and Brownite - did.
The right has been in power and has controlled the leadership of the party - it made the decisions - it set the policies - it is unpopular.
So typical of these people to try to blame the left for the stupidity, dishonesty and vanity of Blair and Brown.
The troops should never have been sent to Iraq or Iraqi waters in the first place - and as soon as they're released they and the rest should be brought home before Ahmadenijad or Bush and Cheney can start using them as pawns again.
Perhaps we should return the Guantanamo prisoners first...
Irrelevant, I think.
The troops should never have been sent to Iraq or Iraqi waters in the first place...
Slight flaw there: why should being in Iraqi waters make being captured by the Iranians an occupational hazard? Still, if we recognise that provocation is not the preserve of one side only, that (at least) might be a helpful outcome.
It also has something to do with the Prime Minister lying through his teeth about Iraq , sending our troops to die there based on that lie and refusing to bring them home from an impossible situation he sent them into without the proper equipment.
Wasn't this just as much the case (not that I entirely agree) before the 2005 election that we won, and aren't we trailing to a Tory leader who agreed with the PM's strategy? Ergo there's a fair bit more to this.
We won it but with a massively reduced majority - AND because Blair claimed he would stand down before the election - something he's failed to do.
Voters were expecting a change of leader and a change of policy.
They've been offered neither.
Plus of course The Sun and the Daily Mail have (predictably) defected back to the Tories as soon as the Tories got a vaguely electable leader. Blair's strategy in elections relied on having Murdoch on side. That was always going to backfire in the long run.
I do accept Ahmadeinjad is probably looking to deflect attention away from his domestic difficulties (e.g his brutal repression of the bus drivers' and teachers' strikes).
That does not mean i see any justification for British or American troops to still be in Iraqi territory whether on land or at sea any more than Iranians have any justification for being in Iraq (well they have slightly more as they could argue its self defence to bog down American and British troops when the Bush admin has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran).
well they have slightly more as they could argue its self defence to bog down American and British troops when the Bush admin has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran
Sorry to dwell on this, but you have got to be kidding. A neighbouring state, Iran, that has recently fought a war against Iraq, that is directly responsible for the terrorism that is killing so many Iraqis and foreigners, has *more* right to a presence in Iraq than coalition troops who are trying to control the terrorism, and who are there with the permission of the democratic government?? I've heard some pretty wacky ideas on this topic, but that's completely insane.
Bloggers for Labour, the Left is not to blsme for any of the problems besetting the Party at the moment.It's now 13 years since Blair became Leader and for the past four years we have had nothing but in-fighting and bitternerss. ALL the policies which are making Labour so unpopular are the consequence of a Blair government.
Now they are at it again fighting like ferrets in a sack.Talk about a turn-off for the electorate.
Brown has tried to accommodate the Blairite wing and ended up pleasing no-one.Why can't we behave like other political parties and just have a leadership eelction reflecting different views and let the members decide.The public are sick of bilious spin from weasels like Mandelson ( today's Observer Page 1) and his horrible cronies.
Really "bloggers for Labour" - you have evidence that the Iranian government are behind terrorist attacks on Iranian civilians do you? Provide it please. ( i think youll find that the only evidence even the MoD and the Pentagon have claimed is for roadside bombs targeting the military)
And you seem to believe only the people fighting British and American and Iraqi government forces are killing iraqi civilians - try Amnesty International's annual report for 2006 then:
"Both the US-led Multinational Force (MNF) and Iraqi security forces committed grave human rights violations, including torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary detention without charge or trial, and excessive use of force resulting in civilian deaths. "
http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/irq-summary-eng
Sorry if Amnesty International - an organisation which, ( unlike the Iranian government , the Bush administration and the Blair governments) does not have a long history of lying and distorting the facts is too "wacky" for you - but both sides in Iraq are torturing people and taking little care about the number of civilians they kill.
You also might wish to note that most of the terrorist attacks have been against Shia pilgrims (who include many Iranians) - not a likely target for the Shia government of Iran.
You might also wish to consider that the American journalist Seymour Hersh (who in thirty years of journalism has never so far been proven wrong from My Lai on) reports that Vice President Cheney is working with the Saudis to provide 'black ops' money to sunni extremist groups across the middle east to 'contain Iranian influence' - quite possibly including some of the Shia pilgrims being blown to pieces by bombs in Iraq - http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh
Given all this your conspiracy theory that Iran's government is behind most of the terrorism in Iraq (mostly against Shia including Iranians) sounds quite frankly 'wacky' and then some.
bloggers4labour, i like the way you said iran 'recently fought a war against iraq'.
in fact iraq, backed by us and america, waged an agressive war against iran, including use of chemical weapons the likes or rumsfeld and bush snr were selling them.
good point joef - first war on Saddam is meant to be justified on the grounds that he attacked Iran and the Iraqi kurdish town of Halabja decades ago (with US and British support).
Now 'bloggers for labour' tells us that Iran is bad because Iran fought back against Saddam's invasion.
So history is whatever suits the current government line and is re-written when the government's aims change?
Also if 19 years ago is recently then Neil Kinnock was recently Labour leader and Thatcher was recently Prime Minister(the Iran-Iraq war ended in 1988 by the way B4L)
sorry i meant to say in one of the posts above that you're claiming you have evidence that the Iranian government are behind terrorist attacks on Iraqi civilians, not Iranian (though since many of the shia targeted by terrorist bombs in Iraq are Iranian it would be a mix of the two) - anyway - would like to hear what evidence you can provide for that claim B4L
the Left is not to blsme for any of the problems besetting the Party at the moment...
I didn't explicitly say it was. It must be, to some extent, but I wasn't going into detail. Either way, the -ve criticism of one faction doesn't entail the +ve criticism of another.
... ALL the policies which are making Labour so unpopular are the consequence of a Blair government.
Even if that were so, that doesn't prove that a different Labour govt from 1997 would not have lost popularity at a similar rate, for other reasons (in fact, every historical precedent has done so in spades), and it doesn't address the issue that policies that made the Labour *more* popular may also be the consequence of a Blair government.
D McF,
Given all this your conspiracy theory that Iran's government is behind most of the terrorism in Iraq (mostly against Shia including Iranians) sounds quite frankly 'wacky' and then some.
You claimed that Iran had a *greater right* to involvement within Iraq than a transnational military force whose presence is approved by Iraq's own government for the suppression of terrorism. Do you still believe this, and do you believe Iran could possibly have legitimate, benevolent interests there, given the regime's track record of sponsoring terrorism, or are you uncomfortable about going down this route, but feel compelled to do so because even the slightest concession towards the US/UK is more politically tricky than casting suspicion on Iran? I'm not going to go any further than say that Iran is strongly implicated in hostile involvement in Iraq. Perhaps it is all a set-up, but the balance of probability is that it occurs.
I've so far ignored the claim that the "Bush admin has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran", which seems to have snipped "... if it develops serviceable nuclear weapons in defiance of UN inspections and sanctions" off the end.
Let us assume, initially, that the British soldiers were in Iraqi waters. Under these conditions, Blair and the UK government should have the high ground in moral and legal terms but we don’t. Blair lied to get us to support war against Iraq – an illegal war; he could only describe Guantanamo as an “anomaly” despite the degradation and torture of inmates; he accepted the landing of rendition flights in the UK. He has supported the flouting of international law. Through him, the UK has flouted international law.
Now when he should be able to demand that international law be followed, he can only do so as a hypocrite - a hypocrite who supports the law only when it suits his narrow purpose.
If the British soldiers were in Iranian waters – even if in error - then the position is much worse. But here again the UK’s weakness is the legacy of Blair’s hypocrisy. As upholders of international law and human rights we might have had some credibility in asking for the soldiers’ release but Blair’s fragrant breaches have removed this possibility.
All that is left for Blair is bluster. Again, not the correct approach. He should be quiet and let others work away in the background and he should hope that they can get he soldiers out of a hole of Blair's making.
Well done John ,
We have been trying to get an appointment since Jan 2007 without any success .
Is it possible for the end of April 2007 .
Kindest regards .
NicoNtumba_JusticeCampaign
Mandelson always comes out of the woodwork...who is he to try to shape the leadershipo contest any more than the average party member??..but due to his refusal to properly support fair trade African countries are in the absurd situation where tinned imported tomatoes are cheaper than fresh at the local market...
"Bloggers for Labour' wrote :
"I'm not going to go any further than say that Iran is strongly implicated in hostile involvement in Iraq. Perhaps it is all a set-up, but the balance of probability is that it occurs."
So in other words you have no evidence whatsoever that Iran is behind terrorist attacks on Iraqi civilians - so you're merely making empty claims.
I don't doubt Iranian forces are backing some of the militias - just as the US and British forces and the new Iraqi government trained and support some of the Iraqi government special police commando death squads. Unsurprising since the Bush admin is full of the people who backed the contra death squads in the Reagan admin in the 80s.(see Times article and HRW report links below)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article541123.ece
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/01/08/iraq14986.htm
Neither side has clean hands - but there is no evidence of Iranian involvement in terrorist attacks on civilians.
Seymour Hersh does report though that Vice President Cheney is backing Sunni extremist groups across the middle east of the type that carry out terrorist attacks on Shia pilgrims in iraq to 'contain Iran' (the same way the Reagan admin backed Bin Laden and the mujahedin in Afghanistan in the 80s to 'contain Soviet influence') see link below
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh
B4L wrote "You claimed that Iran had a *greater right* to involvement within Iraq than a transnational military force whose presence is approved by Iraq's own government for the suppression of terrorism. Do you still believe this, and do you believe Iran could possibly have legitimate, benevolent interests there, given the regime's track record of sponsoring terrorism, or are you uncomfortable about going down this route, but feel compelled to do so because even the slightest concession towards the US/UK is more politically tricky than casting suspicion on Iran?"
What I actually said was that neither British and American nor Iranian forces were justified in being in Iraq - though from the Iranian viewpoint they probably see it as self-defence to aid anyone fighting the US/UK forces in Iraq as Bush has Iran next on the list for attack.
I see you've decided to ignore Amnesty International's 2006 report on Iraq which says the US/UK multinational forces you claim are defending Iraqis are also involved in killing civilians through excessive use of force and in torture - as are the new Iraqi government's forces.
http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/irq-summary-eng
You continue to pretend all the killing of civilians is by those fighting the coalition and the Iraqi government. As long as you continue denying the facts as reported by reliable and independent sources like Amnesty you will remain out of touch with the reality of the situation.
Vote for John in this poll:
www.labourhome.org
Let's grind Meacher down into the ground!
You continue to pretend all the killing of civilians is by those fighting the coalition and the Iraqi government.
It's ridiculous to claim I said *all*, when I clearly didn't. The assumption prevalent on this blog, however is that the figure is "few", or "irrelevant", or "it's far more important we concentrate on the other", even when faced with terrorist suicide-bombing on a daily basis. But then, who are we to criticise such behaviour, when some past behaviour on the part of the US/UK can be introduced to hold our tongue, and turn two wrongs into a right? See Calum's comment for a classic example:
But here again the UK’s weakness is the legacy of Blair’s hypocrisy. As upholders of international law and human rights we might have had some credibility in asking for the soldiers’ release but Blair’s fragrant breaches have removed this possibility.
The practice of using one flaw in X's argument to let Y win is not a basis for principled politics, it's just a ploy to protect one's own cherished political beliefs (enshrined in an opposition/reaction to X) from scrutiny.
Just looked at michael 4 leaders website and the endorsements are not half as wide ranging as the ones on here.. Also whenever he posts a blog there is very rarely one comment on it compared to dozens on here and that is usually michael please stand down!!
Spoke to an MP recently who is firmly in the Brown camp. He is convinced John is likely to get the 44 and that Meacher is out of it.
However, Michael does need to be comradely about this and withdraw. The last thing the left of the party needs there to be a cock up with John two or three short because of his ill conceived bid.
Dear Nico Ntumba
Thank you for your comment, and the materials you have sent in about your campaign. I would be grateful if you could call John's office and leave a message on how to contact you, so that we can arrange an appointment.
Thanks
Tom (John's office)
B4L the terrorist suicide bombings have been mostly by sunnis against shia pilgrims (including Iranian pilgrims) which is why your claim that Iran is behind these terrorist attacks is so unlikely to be true (and has no evidence to support it).
Your claim that the British and american governments are defending the shia against these terrorist attacks hardly holds up very well since Cheney is channelling Saudi money and his and Abrams backing to these sunni extremist groups.
You may not have said all killings of civilians in Iraq were by those fighting the coalition but since you've said the coalition is defending Iraqis against terrorism you're assuming that the coalition only rarely and accidentally kills Iraqis and does everything possible to avoid killing them.
That's not a view that fits with the facts as e.g reported by Amnesty. Many of the civilians being killed in Iraq are being killed by coalition and Iraqi government forces.
Iran is very probably backing Shia militias many of whose members will be carrying out kidnappings , torture and murders of sunnis - but then the coalition and the Iraqi government have their own death squads and torturers - the police commandos - not to mention shootings at checkpoints , bombings and attacks on whole cities by coalition forces.
The whole 'basically good coalition and Iraqi government' versus 'basically bad enemies of the coalition and the govt' has
little basis in reality.
Both sides are killing, torturing and terrorising civilians on a large scale.
There are lots of decent people in the British and American military but unfortunately they mostly arent the ones setting policy or giving orders.
This is a very active forum indeed.
I just posted something on Michael Meacher's blog and it wasn't approved. You'd have thought they'd appreciate any messages they get, it's so quiet over there.
Any musicians on here fancy recording 'Stand down Michael' to the tune of The Beat's 'Stand Down Margaret'?
What's Meacher's website addy? (can't find it through google)
It's www.michaelmeacher.info
His website is HILARIOUS. Today he's talking about housing.
If you were Michael Meacher, would you start talking about housing? Cough...
Comrades may find my letter to Kelvin Hopkins MP of some interest. It is on my blog and makes several salient points on the Meacher issue. I hope Kelvin takes them on board.For those of you who don't know, he was one of only 2 MPs at Michael's campaign launch.The other one, Ian Gibson, is NOT voting for him allegedly
Also very much pointing out that Kelvin Hopkins is an MP who supports the Labour Representation Committee, which last year overwhelmingly backed John4Leader.
Which begs the question why was he supporting Michael Meacher in the first place. Still, anyone can make an honest mistake. Now it's time he put it right.I suggest we all send nicely worded e-mails in solidarity with John McDonnell to hopkinsk@parliament.uk
I don't care if the waters were Iraqi or Iranian, they were not British and our Navy has no moral right to be there. Checking for "smuggled motor cars"? Whatever next! Is the Navy reduced to being a tax collector protecting US interests in Iraq?
Since John Gray accused me of using 'sensationalist web sites' as sources and of putting Iraqi trade unionists' lives at risk - and denied me the chance to reply - i've put a reply to his lies about John McDonnell, myself and the Stop the War Coalition up on my website.
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