For me, any sensible discussion of Iran must accept a number of facts. I will set these out as Set A and Set B. Both sets are true. But ideologues of the right routinely discount Set A, while ideologues of the left routinely discount Set B. That is why most debate on Iran is inane.
Set A
Iranian Islamic fundamentalism allied to fierce anti-Americanism was born from CIA intervention to topple democracy and keep in power a ruthless murdering despot for decades, in the interests of US oil and gas companies
Iranian anti-Americanism was fuelled further by US support for US friend and ally Saddam Hussein who was armed to wage a murderous war against Iran, again in the hope of US access to Iran’s oil and gas
The US committed a terrible atrocity against civilians by shooting down an Iranian passenger jet
Iran is surrounded by US military forces and has been repeatedly threatened to the extent that the desire to develop a nuclear weapon is a reflex
There is monumental hypocrisy in condemning Iran’s nuclear programme while overlooking Israel’s nuclear weapons
Set B
Iran is governed by an appalling set of vicious theocratic nutters
Iran is not any kind of democracy. It fails the first hurdle of candidates being allowed to put forward meaningful alternatives
Hanging of gays, stoning of adulterers, floggings, censorship and pervasive control are not fine because of cultural relativism. Iran’s whole legislative basis is inimical to universal ideals of human rights.
Iran really is trying to develop a nuclear weapons programme, though with some years still to go.
There are two very good articles on the current situation in Iran. One from the ever excellent Juan Cole. I would accept his judgement on the elections being rigged.
http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/class-v-culture-wars-in-iranian.html#comments
The other from Yasamine Mather, which puts it in another perspective.
http://www.hopoi.org/articles/elections%20June%202009.html
I am not optimistic about the outcome of the popular protest.
eddie
You know that ALL the indications point to Ahmadinejad winning a (on the whole) fair election so your answer is to say…
“except that the polls are unreliable”
Only when they don’t suit New Labour eddie…me thinks.
eddie,
quote:”Is there any organisation in the UK that is not part of British Intelligence, in your view? ”
Anyone who has studied the intelligence services even a little bit knows that chatham House is a mouthpiece for them. It is possible to know such things.
As Robin cook said before he ‘dropped dead’, “There is no such organisation as Al Qaida. Everyone with any connection to the intelligence services knows it.”
George Dutton,
re http://tinyurl.com/lkxsnu
So it is now revealed by official sources that there is no record of Flight 11 (one of the planes that hit the twin towers) having taken off on the morning of 9/11.
This is violating mockery, pure arrogance and chutzpah on the part of the 9/11 criminals.
This kind of revelation is, it seems, part of the occult cycle that secret societies and the criminals who inhabit them use to further enhance their power.
The slow drip-drip of damning revelations is always played out after high crimes have been committed by the shadow powers that are the real power behind the state.
The same happened with the Kennedy assassination, The King assassination, The Robert F Kennedy killing…..eventually it becomes clear to all that official story that was first impressed on the public of ‘The Lone Nut’ is obvious nonsense, but it seems to late to do anything about, the fire in the public’s belly has gone, the presiding legal powers (who are controlled anyway) do nothing….
…..and the reputation and invulnerability of the criminal degenerates in control is enormously enhanced while those that cry out for justice suffer further inevitable demoralisation.
That doesn’t mean that these people will get away with it forever.
No Name
I only put the link up for what maybe some info?.Who knows the truth of 9/11, not me.
The way I look at 9/11 is to ask myself just one question…
Are the powers that be capable of doing such an atrocity for their own ends…The answer that comes to me is…Yes, but that is not to say they did?.
George Dutton
I don’t know any such thing and nor do you.
Nameless one. KevinB again? Lone Nut. You said it. “The internet is a place where like-minded lunatics can meet up to re-inforce their lunacy”. (TM me). I said it. If it didn’t take off where is it? Still standing on the runway? Surely you are sensible enough to realise that all this stuff is bunkum?
no-name,
You are misquoting Robin Cook on Al Aaeda. What he actually said was:
“al-Qaeda was originally the name of a database. It was a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the ’80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda, literally ‘the database,’ was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujaheddin who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.”
That quote was made up based on the actual quote above which was logged in Parliament. Robin Cook never denied the existance of Al Qaeda.
And can you tell why Omar Bakri calls the 911 terrorists the “magnificent martyrs”? He knows they exist so why don’t you? Is he part of the conspiracy as well?
Typing error:
“It was a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies.”
Should read
“Bin Laden was the product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies.”
Apologies
While I think that the ‘Masters of War’ are capable of anything, my own view on the more fringe hypotheses about the attacks on the USA of 11th Sept 2001 is that such hypotheses – holograms et al – derive from a deep psychological need for utopia and for the existence of the big unifying theory of everything.
In practice, they actually serve to reinforce the official narrative and to debunk any (rational) criticism of that narrative. It’s the David Icke phenomenon again: Lizards, and other such beings.
There are many valid questions relating to ‘9/11’ but it has become very difficult and counterproductive to pose these because of the forest of nonsense which has grown up around the matter.
I’m not saying that this all has been deliberate – as I say, I think (as a cod psychologist) that like alien abduction it is reflective of some deep societal neurosis and maybe a conflicted sense of spirituality.
Nonetheless, I think that if certain elements in the US Administration were somehow complicit by omission, they wouldn’t need anyone to plant oddball stories in the media because there are enough people around who seem to derive pleasure from doing that themselves.
We don’t need to invent conspiracies, because as Chomsky suggests, there are enough indications on the tin for us to reflect that power conspires most effectively to do what it says it does – i.e. it crushes people.
chris, glasgow
He said it was not an organisation which it wasn’t. It was exactly as you just said it was a list of names on a CIA database.
eddie,
Every detail of the ludicrous 9/11 official conspiracy theory can be easily dismantled.
And there are plenty of Muslims saying exactly what the intelligence services want a western audience to hear including ‘debunked’ versions of Bin Laden claiming they did it (on videos with the wrong shaped noses and heads, using the wrong hand to sign documents and wearing gold rings just like any other Muslim fundamentalist. The CIA/MI6/Mossad wouldn’t be doing their jobs if they didn’t have a pubfull of geezers like this.
The Electric Prunes were good.
Chomsky is a deceiver, a gatekeeper. A misdirector of outrage. His university is funded by Pentagon money and if he was any threat to that evil he would have been silenced years ago.
His story is that the people carrying out the ‘conspiracies’ are the Obamas of this world and that’s a flat-out lie.
Obama is owned by Wall Street financiers. Now that the Federal Reserve, a private corporation, IS effectively the American government, this is beyond reasonable dispute. The real power is hidden within the financial/military/industrial establishment. This power is a lying, murdering, mind-controlling deceitful power.
Chomsky is their boy.
He is the most treacherous dog out there because he is too intelligent not to know the truth and he protects the very people he all-too-vaguely condemns. He’ll break your heart talking about the crimes committed against the defenceless, then he blame ‘the US Government’ rather than identify the source of the problem which is the money creation system (and the small group at the top) that owns it.
Here’s what President Woodrow Wilson (on whose watch the federal Reserve was installed) said about these people in the 1920’s (two quotes):
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the U.S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
These are the people we need to eject from power and they are the ones who, for Chomsky (the fraud), do not exist.
Suhayl Saadi:
Everybody who brings up “holograms”, “lizards”, “alien abductions” or “Noam Chomsky” when it comes to 9/11 doesn’t know what he or she is talking about.
Bill Doyle, who lost his son Joey on 9/11 and now heads the large “Coalition of 9/11 Families”, estimates that approximately 50 % of the members of his group think that 9/11 was an inside job. Donna Marsh O’Connor, the Jersey Girls and Bob McIlvaine are only some of many family members that have publicly questioned 9/11. They have done so not because they are “conspiracy buffs” or because they believe in shapeshifting lizards but because the official conspiracy theory is a load of horseshit.
Planes are normally intercepted within 15-20 minutes (129 times in 2000 alone), but on 9/11 the planes weren’t intercepted for 109 minutes. AA 77 was flying towards the Pentagon for over 40 minutes, passing several air bases, but no interceptor jets went up. NORAD gave three different conflicting timelines (two of them under oath). There were up to 9 different war games running on the morning of 9/11, some of them mirroring the events and paralyzing the response. Coincidence, huh? The head of the German central bank, Ernst Welteke, said his investigators found “almost irrefutable proof” for massive insider trading before the attacks. Investigations against the alleged hijackers were being obstructed so extremely that the FBI agents in Minneapolis joked that there had to be “spies or moles” who were “actually working for Bin Laden” at the FBI headquarter. Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, George Bush, Montague Winfield, Scott Fry and Richard Myers – the people who would have been responsible for coordinating the defense on 9/11 – had better things to do during the attacks (Rumsfeld playing a paramedic, for instance). One may be a coincidence, but ALL?! And despite the fact that practically all key people in the FAA, CIA, FBI, NSA, the government and at NORAD had failed miserably and 2,973 people died because of their overwhelming incompetence, nobody was fired or even reprimanded and many of the people who were directly responsible for the worst defense failure in US history were even promoted!! Doesn’t make much sense in the context of the official version, or does it? Sounds more like “mission accomplished” to me. And I think it’s pretty much common knowledge by now that the 9/11 commission, with Condi’s buddy Zelikow directing it and 25 % of the report based on torture evidence, didn’t investigate nothing (Naomi Klein calls the report “an embarrassment”) and, if only because of that, a new investigation must be done. The 9/11 families are calling for it. Even Noam Chomsky supports their call. Jimmy Carter does. You don’t?
The points I mentioned are not conspiracy theories, they are conspiracy facts. Even the conspiracy phobic George Galloway had to admit that it’s “practically impossible” to see how Building 7 could have come down without explosives. Everybody who is not in deep denial would agree with that. Paul Craig Roberts has questioned 9/11. Peter Scholl-Latour has questioned 9/11. Horst Ehmke has questioned 9/11. Lynn Margulis has questioned 9/11. Cindy Sheehan has questioned 9/11. Robert Fisk has questioned 9/11. Robert Bowman has questioned 9/11. Michael Parenti has questioned 9/11. Gore Vidal has questioned 9/11. Over 700 Architects and Engineers have questioned 9/11. And, according to you, they are all “conspiracy theorists”? Yes, they are conspiracy theorists in the same way people theorizing about Gladio, MKUltra, CoIntelPro, Project Paperclip, Operation Mockingbird, the Manhattan Project and Operation Northwoods would have been conspiracy theorists. It’s ridiculous to suggest that there are no conspiracies, that there are no false flag attacks (or that “Brutus acted alone”). Whatever Noam Chomsky’s virtues are, he’s an idiot when it comes to conspiracies. “Wide-ranging conspiracies do take place, whether you or I, or Charlie Brooker, are inclined to believe it or not,” Dan Hind put it. Not everything is a conspiracy, yes, but not everything is coincidence either.
John Martin. Thanks.
The information is very informative and I appreciate you sharing it.
If you read what I wrote more carefully, you’ll note that I did not suggest that there no doubts about the aetiology of ‘9/11’. What I was suggesting was that idiotic theories about holograms, etc. fall into the category of David Icke et al and that they ‘tar’ anyone rational who suggests that the official version is not true with the same brush and enable easy dismisall of such critique that therefore they end up serving power. Do you understand what I’m saying? These theories are disinformative.
I do take your very astute points about Chomsky and have noted other criticisms of his political thought/ activism, particularly in relation to Israel, actually. It’s a discourse well worth having. I paraphrased him on this occasion as a referential point of sanity.
With respect, you ought to have considered what I’d said more carefully in the context of the immdeiately previous posts rather than firing off a tirade in a sort of knee-jerk way as though I’d been singing the Pentagon’s tune all along. It’s the sort of tirade best reserved for those who religious endorse the official conspiracy theory, which I do not. I don’t know exactly what might have happened, but like many other sane and rational people I do not buy the official story.
Is that clear enough?
How refreshing to see Chomsky being slagged off, especially here. I always thought he was a phoney, but my views come from the other direction to yours.
AS for 911, oh, oh dear, oh dear. Gore Vidal. Cindy Sheehan. Please God. What do these people know about science? I could assemble a hundredfold of “eminent” people and a thousandfold of engineers and architects who believe that your theories are nuts. As indeed they are.
eddie,
yes, ’eminent’ liars. Actually there are hundreds of architects and engineers for 9/11 Truth who can prove, using, year 11 science and the physical facts now available, that 9/11 was an ‘inside job’.
The only professional engineers I have read who have defended (stupidly, as it happens)the official story are employed by NIST, Popular Mechanics magazine (editor, brother of Zionist Director of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff) and one young engineer at Cambridge University whose ‘theory’ on the collapse of WTC7 is hardly a theory at all more the unproveable ravings of a lunatic on LSD.
Stick to the name-calling. Serious people look at the evidence and understand what happened on 9/11, though few have the courage (as yet) to stand up and spell out the implications of this horror in the public domain.
I agree with Suhayl Saadi in that the whole 9/11 movement has become saturated with mis and dis-information, but that to anyone with eyes open enough to see, the official narrative is plainly misleading, and wrong in many cases.
The quote below goes a long way to explain the current state of the 9/11 research community…
————————————-
Vincent Salandria was perhaps the first JFK researcher to come to believe that the truth of the assassination could be better approached by large-scale considerations than by focusing on details. Here is a brief selection from Gaeton Fonzi’s 1993 book The Last Investigation that vividly expresses this sentiment, which has now been adopted by many researchers:
QUOTE -“By late 1975, when I was beginning work as a Government investigator on the Kennedy assassination, I had not seen or spoken with Vince Salandria for a number of years… I moved to Florida and, because of other demands, found little time to devote to the assassination. But Vince Salandria had become something of a legend among the growing circle of Warren Commission critics. Almost everyone who planned to write a book about the Kennedy assassination first journeyed to Philadelphia to probe Salandria for insights and perspective…
But before starting my new job, I returned to Philadelphia to draw upon Salandria’s vast knowledge of the evidence and get his opinion about the most fruitful areas of investigation. Salandria was most cordial, and we spent a long winter Sunday talking. Yet I sensed a certain balking in his attitude, a feeling of disappointment in what I was about to begin. Eventually, he explained why he was no longer actively involved in pursuing an investigation of the assassination. It gave me a surprising insight into how far Salandria’s thinking had evolved.
“I’m afraid we were misled,” Salandria said sadly. “All the critics, myself included, were misled very early. I see that now. We spent too much time and effort microanalyzing the details of the assassination when all the time it was obvious, it was blatantly obvious that it was a conspiracy. Don’t you think the men who killed Kennedy had the means to do it in the most sophisticated and subtle way? They chose not to. Instead, they picked the shooting gallery that was Dealey Plaza and did it in the most barbarous and openly arrogant manner. The cover story was transparent and designed not to hold, to fall apart at the slightest scrutiny. The forces that killed Kennedy wanted the message clear: ‘We are in control and no one — not the President, not Congress, nor any elected official — no one can do anything about it.’ It was a message to the people that their Government was powerless. And the people eventually got the message. Consider what happened since the Kennedy assassination. People see government today as unresponsive to their needs, yet the budget and power of the military and intelligence establishment have increased tremendously.
“The tyranny of power is here. Current events tell us that those who killed Kennedy can only perpetuate their power by promoting social upheaval both at home and abroad. And that will lead not to revolution but repression. I suggest to you, my friend, that the interests of those who killed Kennedy now transcend national boundaries and national priorities. No doubt we are dealing now with an international conspiracy. We must face the fact — not waste any more time microanalyzing the evidence. That’s exactly what they want us to do. They have kept us busy for so long. And I will bet, buddy, that is what will happen to you. They’ll keep you very, very busy and eventually, they’ll wear you down.”
For some more insight into the macro view, see:
http://tinyurl.com/ksjux5
Re. ‘eddie’:
It is not rational to rubbish everyone who questions official accounts of events, whether it be in relation to Iraq, Iran, 9/11 or whatever, as incompetant, nor is it rational always – in whichever of the threads grow from this website – to defend official government policy. I mean, even Labour, Lib-Dem and Conservative MPs will disagree on some aspects of the govt’s foreign war policy, but there is no evidence of any such critical thinking here.
It is not rational, rather, it demonstrates a consistent, almost bloody-minded, loyalty to those who have power and wealth and who constantly are trying to accrue even more power and wealth. Such a position is becoming unsustainable and lacks credibility.
“The propaganda war against Iran”
“Responsibility for the violence in the streets of Tehran is attributed entirely to the government and its security forces.”
“No connection is drawn between these events and the broader situation in the region, where the US is waging two wars, on Iran’s eastern and western borders, both aimed at establishing American hegemony over the oil-rich territory.”…
http://tinyurl.com/mjw2bg
No name,
“He said it was not an organisation which it wasn’t. It was exactly as you just said it was a list of names on a CIA database.”
Please tell me where he said Al Qaeda as not an organisation? What Robin Cook said was that the NAME Al Qaida was originally the database of mujaheddin fighters fighting against the Russians in the late 80’s.
He has never denied the existance of a terrorist organisation called Al Qaeda. He was quoted many time refering to the lack of evidence connecting Al Qaeda and Saddam in his stange against the Iraq War. But at no point did he deny the existance of Al Qaeda.
Sorry I just posted a comment but forgot to add my name to it. Here it is again.
No name,
“He said it was not an organisation which it wasn’t. It was exactly as you just said it was a list of names on a CIA database.”
Please tell me where he said Al Qaeda as not an organisation? What Robin Cook said was that the NAME Al Qaida was originally the database of mujaheddin fighters fighting against the Russians in the late 80’s.
He has never denied the existance of a terrorist organisation called Al Qaeda. He was quoted many time refering to the lack of evidence connecting Al Qaeda and Saddam in his stange against the Iraq War. But at no point did he deny the existance of Al Qaeda.
Maybe a trivial comment, but I’m fascinated, looking back at the first quote here from Paul Craig Roberts who asks would there be such attention (in the USA) given to an election in Japan, India, or Argentina, or who in the USA can name the leaders of various other countries.
He goes on to say that the reason is that the USA has been demonizing Iran for a long time.
Seems to me that the number of comments and the heated discussion here proves the accuracy of PCR’s remarks 100%.
And a PS:
I don’t know when the USA became shortened to the “US” but is has connotations that I don’t like, and maybe we should think about using USA all the time. Why? Because it stands for United States, without saying where, and it’s far too akin to “UN” for my liking. United States – United Nations. Since the USA has been setting itself up in direct opposition to the UN (which I am *fully* aware needs reform) and mocking it and deriding it among the right-wing in the USA, I think it’s an insidious change of title that we should resist. My “two cents” for today (I’m in the Euro zone.)
Good point about the term, ‘US’, it’s partly I think laziness, partly is a reflection of the ubiquity of narratives relating to the imperial power of the US (of A), partly is a tacit acceptance of the global cultural and linguistic dominance and normative absolutist perspective of the USA (esp. in the UK, it’s the Atlanticist tendency and a sign of media genuflection to ‘the cousins’) and partly may be that tendency common in North American colloquial expression to shorten, abbreviate, e.g. NYC, DC, LA, etc.
The older colloquialism of course was/ is ‘America’, but understandably this really hacked-off people from the other countries of the continents of South and North America. Not unlike the terms, ‘The British Isles’ or ‘Great Britain’ in relation to various aspects (shall we say) of Ireland.
The term, ‘9/11’ is another example. Of course, as has been pointed-out on a number of occasions, this term makes no sense in British English. It’s also a branding, a corporatisation and institutionalisation of war, and so we have ‘7/7’, etc.
There was also, ‘Soviet Union’ instead of ‘USSR’ or ‘CCCP’. There will be a political etymology relating to that, too, I should imagine.
Interesting point, thanks for raising it.
He didn’t say it was’nt a terrrorist organisation. He didn’t say it wasn’t a trapeze act either. The quote I read had him saying it was not an organisation…..it was a CIA database of Islamic militants and criminals.
Therefore it was not a centrally co-ordinated army of any kind….as it has been presented to us in the dopey west.
“BBC Caught In Mass Public Deception With Iran Propaganda”…
http://tinyurl.com/m7muot
One suggestion is that since Al Qaeda means “the base”, Arabic speaking CIA operatives initially used it as a short form of “the database” when referring to the collection of names held on it. And the people on that database (or indeed anyone who wanted to) began calling themselves after it.
Agree about US, but then am frequently cross with myself for using Israel when I mean the Israeli government, for example.
dreoilin: Seems to me that the number of comments and the heated discussion here proves the accuracy of PCR’s remarks 100%.
Actually, what I like about this thread is that it seems to be bending over backwards to avoid demonising Iran, and raising some interesting points, including “why focus on this?” in the process. My answer to that, when my partner asked was:
a) A million people or so marching peacefully on their parliament is and should be news. If it happened in Japan, it would be news too.
b) The previous USA administration has been threatening Iran with attack, and according to some commentators, the new one has not materially changed policy. This concerns us all.
BTW, has anyone wondered whether to use “the government is”, or “the government are”, and why? And really, the very fact that we call it a “government” annoys me. They do not “govern” us, they work for us.
Excellent points, Technicolour.
‘The government’ is singular so it should be ‘is’. ‘Governments’ would be the plural.
I think that while many are focussing on Iran right now for the best reasons – the ones to which you alluded – others, particularly those in positions of power – may well have other agendas in relation to their interest (in both senses of the word).
George:
Thanks for that last link. You may be interested to know that the BBC has now issued a correction and changed the caption of the photo…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8104362.stm