The Israeli military’s attack on Gaza aid ships makes Somali pirates look like Saints

A member of the Gaza aid flotilla killed by Israeli commandoes - source - Turkish TV's 'World Bulletin' website

The Israeli military’s attack on ships carrying aid to Gaza makes Somali pirates look like saints by comparison.

Somali pirates come from one of the poorest countries on earth, take hostages for money and it’s unknown for them to kill them. Israeli forces, from one of the richest countries in the world, killed at least ten people to prevent them bringing food and medicines to people short of both.

Israeli military claims that they were attacked first with iron bars, knives, axes and gun-fire are contradicted by Turkish television videos which seem to show only fists and pieces of wood being used to resist boarding, though neither this video nor Israeli military ones are all that clear (1), (2).

A journalist on board one of the ships also reported that Israeli forces opened fire on the ship he was on before they even boarded it, casting further doubt on IDF claims, which are probably more propaganda, like their past claims that UN ambulances which they fired on were carrying Qassam rockets; which turned out to be stretchers (3) – (5).

The military assault on unarmed civilians and vessels sailing under the Greek and Turkish flags in international waters is a serious breach of both international law and Greek and Turkish sovereignty and will probably lead to a deterioration in Turkish-Israeli trade deals and intelligence co-operation.

As Craig Murray, an expert on maritime law from his time in the British foreign office, points out, in terms of international law Israeli forces have invaded Turkish territory and may have killed civilians who are Turkish nationals, which is both an act of war and a war crime.

The Israeli government and military stories have varied from claiming that Israeli forces were fired on with guns before they returned fire, to claims that people on board the ship stole the side-arms of Israelis who had boarded and began firing on them.

One Israeli cabinet minister then told the BBC’s News 24 that the Israeli commandos who boarded the ships were only armed with paintball guns. An Israeli military source told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz marines had both paintball guns and lethal pistols, while an Israeli commando told them “They jumped me, hit me with clubs and bottles and stole my rifle...I pulled out my pistol and had no choice but to shoot.” (6).

Which version of events is accurate is hard to say. What is obvious is that the various Israeli claims are not consistent with each other – and that the Turkish TV video shows Israeli soldiers with rifles, helmets and body armour fighting with people armed with some kind of bars, sticks or clubs (7).

What’s also certain is that Israeli forces are holding around 600 of the surviving passengers from the ships prisoner and preventing the media from talking to any of them before they’re deported –all are in jail without trial, potentially indefinitely, under military law, suggesting Israeli forces have something to hide here and may be trying to throw out enough random claims to conceal the truth, while preventing the media getting to talk to most (non-Israeli military) eye-witnesses (8) – (11).

The flotilla and the siege of Gaza

Like the Israeli military’s repeated attacks on UN aid trucks and clearly marked UN buildings during the Gaza war in late 2008 to early 2009, this latest atrocity highlights how wrong the blockade, which denies all the people of Gaza enough food, fuel and medical supplies, is. Fuel is blockaded on the grounds that it can be used to make rockets, yet there is no blockade on fuel or ammunition from the US and Europe to Israeli tanks, helicopters, aircraft or artillery, which kill around 10 times as many civilians each year as are killed by all attacks by Palestinian groups on Israeli civilians combined . Israel’s “Gaza War” or “Operation Cast Lead” alone killed around 1,400 Palestinians, the majority civilians, in three weeks. The killings included indiscriminate bombing and artillery fire, deliberate targeting of UN vehicles, buildings and staff ; and many incidents of Israeli troops on the ground shooting unarmed men, women and children carrying white flags (12), (13).

(In fact military aid money from the US has continued to flow in by the billion under Obama and US arms sales to Israel continue.)

.It’s not only the Israeli government which was responsible for establishing the blockade of Gaza but also “the Quartet” – the EU, the UN, Russia and the US. So the British government are involved in this blockade too, though they, the EU and the UN have since called for the blockade to be lifted ; mostly as a result of the media coverage generated by volunteers organising aid convoys like the flotilla to Gaza.

The supposedly “moderate” dictatorship of President Mubarak in Egypt has been Israel’s partner in the blockade, closing Gaza’s borders with Egypt.

The Israeli government argue that they allow some food and medicines into Gaza. This is true, but the UN say the amounts allowed in are around a quarter of what the population requires (14). Anyone who’s read Primo Levi’s account of his time in Auschwitz concentration camp will know that during the Holocaust the Jewish prisoners were allowed some food too, just not nearly enough (15).

The World Health Organisation had already found by April of last year that the blockade of Gaza, which began in January 2006, was causing rapidly increasing rates of malnutrition among children in Gaza and resultant increases in anaemia due to protein deficiency and stunted growth (16).

Gaza today is a giant concentration camp with the whole population imprisoned and punished by the Israeli military and government. Israeli forces don’t systematically exterminate the people of Gaza with poison gas, so it’s not as bad as Auschwitz was. They do however routinely indiscriminately bomb and shell Gaza, killing civilians and destroying thousands of houses and hundreds of factories – including flour mills and cement factories in the last Gaza “war” (which was more of a one-sided massacre by Israeli forces) – and they have even often randomly shot Palestinian civilians, including many children, in the head with sniper rifles, on the orders of superiors. They also ensure the entire population are short of food and medicine (17), (18).

The Gaza flotilla embarrassed the Israeli government by highlighting the blockade – and was punished for it.

Israeli deputy Prime Minister Danny Ayalon called it “an armada of hate” which was guilty of “provocation” and attempting to “delegitimise Israel”, while the deputy Speaker of the Israeli Knesset (parliament) claimed that most of those on board the ships were “terrorists” (19).

The only thing preventing even worse hunger in Gaza is smuggling through tunnels to Egypt, which the Israeli and Egyptian governments are trying to find and close entirely on the grounds that they allow smuggling of weapons to Hamas. They may, but most of what’s smuggled through them is food or consumer goods, not weapons (20)

The blockade also prevents such “terrorist” items as cement, shoes, clothes and crayons entering Gaza most of the time (21).

The Gaza flotilla wanted to ensure these kind of items reached Gaza. The Israeli government claims it wanted to ensure no arms were reaching Hamas, but it’s clear the blockade goes far beyond preventing arms into Gaza and aims to overthrow the elected government entirely by a long running siege combining restricted supplies with periodic bombing and ground raids.

The bravery of the people on board it has opened at least a temporary lifting of the blockade, with Egypt having opened it’s border with Gaza for food and medical supplies and to allow those needing medical treatment to leave.

So Gaza is somewhere between the original “concentration camps” in which millions of black South Africans and Dutch boer colonists were held and left to starve by the British in the 19^th century; and the Warsaw ghetto uprising during the second world war when many Poles, including Jews, tried to fight off the occupying German forces; except, that it’s in slow motion – the ghetto is not destroyed in weeks but over decades.

The aims of the Siege –

Over-throwing the elected Palestinian government,

Dividing and Conquering Palestinians,

Distracting attention from killings in and annexation of the West Bank

The Israeli government and military’s aim in enforcing the blockade is simple – to starve and bomb the entire population of Gaza, including many children, in order to try to force the elected Palestinian government out of power (22) – (23). This also helps keep Hamas and Fatah divided, weakening Palestinian opposition to Israel – and it distracts attention from Israel’s continuing annexation of West Bank land and Israeli forces and settlers’ constant killings of Palestinians there – more than half civilians, as in Gaza. (“left wing” Labor Party governments, “centrist” Kadima, “right wing” Likud governments and coalition governments all operate the same policy in Israel)

Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister mucked up during ‘Operation Cast Lead’ when he openly admitted that ““What I think we need to do is to reach a situation in which we do not allow Hamas to govern.” (24)

Hamas won the January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections and offered negotiations with Israel, at first with the precondition of Israel withdrawing back to it’s pre-1967 war borders; then later without preconditions. The Israeli government refused, placed pointless preconditions on negotiations; and had sanctions imposed on the West Bank and Gaza.

The Israeli government has never recognised the right of a sovereign, independent Palestinian state to exist alongside it – and annexes more Palestinian land every month.

Israelis including Professor Yossi Alpher and former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami point out these preconditions were not placed on past, successful, peace negotiations with Jordan or Egypt – and call for the preconditions on negotiations to be dropped (25), (26).

The former heads of Mossad and Shin Bet (Israeli intelligence and military intelligence)  Efraim Halevy and Shlomo Gazit, have also called for negotiations with Hamas. Gazit called the Israeli government’s preconditions “ridiculous, or an excuse not to negotiate” (27), (28).

A poll in March 2008 showed 72% of Israelis wanted negotiations with Hamas (29).

Instead of negotiating the Egyptian, Israeli and US governmentsco-operated to arm and train the armed wing of Hamas’ rival Fatah. Fatah is the largest party in the PLO and was formerly headed by Yasser Arafat and now headed by Mahmoud Abbas. In 2007 Fatah, desperate to escape sanctions imposed by Israel and the Quartet on both the West Bank and Gaza at the time; and encouraged to fight Hamas by the Israeli and US governments   ,  attempted to overthrow Hamas by force. They succeeded in the West Bank, but failed in Gaza. Both sides,  Hamas and Fatah, then began murdering anyone suspected of supporting the other party, armed or unarmed, civilian or combatant, in the territory they held. (This episode is generally misleadingly described in the Western media as Hamas “seizing power by force in Gaza”, probably because that’s how our governments’ press officers have briefed them to say it in order to avoid embarrassment to their allies in the Israeli government).

The sanctions on the West Bank were then lifted (though occupation and settlement there continues), but those on Gaza remain.

Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah  is certainly the democratically elected Palestinian, but Ismael Haniyeh of Hamas is equally the democratically elected Palestinian Prime Minister – and Abbas has gone far beyond the powers granted to the President under the Palestinian constitution.. For instance he’s appointed his own Prime Minister and cabinet. Under the Palestinian constitution he has no power to do so ; only parliament does – and Hamas won a a majority in parliament.

Don’t be fooled by Israeli propaganda about “peace” in the West Bank, where Fatah is now in control, either. The occupation continues there, with more Palestinian homes bull-dozed and more Palestinians killed by settlers and Israeli soldiers every week. Children and teenagers throwing stones at Israeli watch towers are still shot dead with live ammunition in “self-defence” by Israeli troops in the West Bank the same way the civilians on board the Gaza flotilla were shot. So are Palestinian demonstrators in the West Bank, protesting against the bombing of Gaza or the annexation of their farmland, or for an end to the civil war between Fatah and Hamas.  Some are entirely peaceful, others are throwing stones at Israeli watch towers, armoured vehicles or troops in body armour with helmets. The stones are always described as “rocks” in Israeli military versions of events, though it’s unlikely that 9 year olds or 14 year old Palestinian boys could throw stones large enough to qualify as “rocks” before they’re shot.  Even Palestinians who are just going about their work on their farms or walking home are often shot. (Israeli Arabs demonstrating against the Gaza war got similar treatment from Israeli police, much like Israeli Arab protesters (and bystanders) during the Intifada in 2000 – many have already been arrested for protesting against the attack on the Gaza flotilla) (30) – (37).

A new Israeli military directive in the West Bank will also allow Palestinians to be summarily deported, clearing the way for more settlers (38). While Israel’s government claims it has no room for Palestinian refugees driven out by Israeli forces in the 1947 and 1967 wars, or their descendants, it welcomes settlers from anywhere in the world who have one Jewish grandparent or a Jewish partner under a 1970 amendment to Israel’s “Law of Return” (39). While they’re still talking about ‘Judenrein’ areas the reality now is apartheid between Jews and Arabs much like South African Apartheid between blacks and whites in the past.

Israeli governments, while condemning Hamas’ religious extremism, refer to the West Bank as ‘Judaea and Samaria’ – biblical names; and many Israelis – including high ranking former Military judges - believe this land was granted to the Jews by God (40) – (41).

Israeli governments say they will not allow a government hostile to them to exist in Gaza or the West Bank. Where do they get the right to have a veto on who is democratically elected to government in another country? Their only claim to that right is by force of arms, which is no more legitimate than the Chinese “right” to occupy Tibet is now, or the German “right” to occupy Poland was in the Second World War.

Israeli governments and politicians object that Hamas’ armed wing are terrorists, killing civilians on the orders of Hamas leaders. Yet Israeli military forces are also war criminals, killing ten times the number of civilians every year on the orders of the Israeli government. Palestinians were given no veto when Ariel Sharon, the architect of the Sabra and Shatila massacres, was elected Prime Minister of Israel and allowed to order new war crimes against Palestinian civilians. They did not get to starve all Israelis until they replaced this war criminal. Nor did they get support from other governments for getting rid of the Olmert government after the Gaza war crimes last year; nor are they likely to get it to replace the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, who ordered attacks with live ammunition on unarmed civilians on ships travelling to Gaza.

The Only Solution

There is only one solution to the Israeli-Palestinian “problem” and that is for the democratically elected war criminals to be forced to sit down with the democratically elected terrorists and negotiate a peace deal that creates either a viable Palestinian state; or else a single state with equal rights for Jewish and non-Jewish people, for Arabs and non-Arabs, for all to live as equals ; rather than the current system – an Israeli mixture of apartheid and occupation which can only produce more extremism and violence by both sides.

What you can do

Don’t expect much from the British or American governments unless they get a lot of hassle from their electorate about this though. The Obama administration merely said it was “concerned” and “regretted the loss of life”, while one of the new British government’s priorities, announced the day before the attack on the Gaza flotilla, is to change the law eliminate any chance that Israeli politicians involved in ordering the war crimes against civilians in Gaza in 2008 to 2009 might be arrested and made to stand trial for it if they visit Britain (42) – (43). Then Britain can be a safe haven for war criminals from all over the world - whether from the Israeli government, Hamas' armed wing, Afghan Taliban - whatever.

What you can do:

• Email your MP and ask them to speak out against the blockade of Gaza and the attack on the aid flotilla. and to demand the immediate release of all the people from the flotilla who are being held without trial in Israel. You can this through www.writetothem.com by typing in your postcode.
• Boycott Israeli produce – if it’s made or grown in Israel, don’t buy it.
• Sign the Avaaz international petition for an independent investigation into the causes of the killings on the Gaza aid ships
• Write to newspapers condemning the attack on the convoy and the Israeli blockade of Gaza and call for the release of the 600 people held without trial by Israel. Newspapers vary in what length of letters they’ll publish, but most won’t publish letters longer than 200 words. They’re much more likely to publish letters on a particular topic if they get a lot of letters on that subject though.

 

List of Sources

(1) = Times 31 May 2010 ‘Deadly clashes at sea as Israel intercepts Gaza-bound aid ships’,http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7140957.ece (mentions Turkish TV video showing “melee” with “sticks and fists”)

(2)  = guardian.co.uk 31 May 2010 ‘Israel attacks Gaza flotilla - live coverage’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/may/31/israel-troops-gaza-ships (scroll down to video posted at 11.19 am on 31^st May)

(3) = See (1) above

(4) = Haaretz 31 May 2010 ‘Israel tows Gaza aid ships to Ashdod after 10 activists killed in clashes with navy’, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-tows-gaza-aid-ships-to-ashdod-after-10-activists-killed-in-clashes-with-navy-1.293089

(5) = Haaretz 10 Dec 2004 ‘IDF admits Qassam was not transported in UN ambulance’,
http://www.haaretz.com/news/idf-admits-qassam-was-not-transported-in-un-ambulance-1.137189

(6) = Haaretz 31 May 2010 ‘Israel Navy commandos: Gaza flotilla activists tried to lynch us’,
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-navy-commandos-gaza-flotilla-activists-tried-to-lynch-us-1.293089

(7) = BBC News 31 May 2010 ‘Deaths as Israeli forces storm Gaza aid ship’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/10195838.stm

(8) = BBC News 01 Jun 2010 ‘UN urges inquiry into Israel convoy raid’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/mobile/world/middle_east/10201165.stm, “Of the 679 surviving activists, who were brought to the Israeli port of Ashdod, only 50 agreed to be voluntarily deported and more than 30 are being treated in hospital for their injuries, reports the BBC's Wyre Davies in Jerusalem...That means that almost 600 people, from several countries, are still being held in detention centres across Israel and are being questioned by the authorities. ...Israel has imposed an information blackout, making it difficult to gather first-hand accounts from the campaigners.”

(9) = Jerusalem Post 01 Jun 2010 ‘600 activists held in Beersheba jail’,
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=177091

(10) = Haaretz 31 May 2010 ‘Israel clearing passengers from Gaza flotilla now docked in Ashdod port’,http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-clearing-passengers-from-gaza-flotilla-now-docked-in-ashdod-port-1.293339

(11) = Times 31 May 2010 ‘Fears grow for Britons on board Gaza ship’,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7141223.ece

(12) = Human Rights Watch 13 Aug 2009 ‘White Flag Deaths’
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/08/13/white-flag-deaths

(13) = Amnesty International 02 July 2009 ‘Israel/Gaza: Operation "Cast Lead": 22 days of death and destruction’, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE15/015/2009/en

 (14) = See (7) above

(15) = Primo Levi ‘If This is a Man’

(16) = UNocHA IRIN news 21 Apr 2009 ‘OPT: Signs of worsening malnutrition among children’,
 http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84018

(17) = guardian.co.uk 01 Feb 2010 ‘UN find challenges Israeli version of attack on civilian building in Gaza war’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/01/gaza-war-report-accuses-israel (cites UN investigation which found Israeli forces targeted and destroyed hundreds of factories including Gaza’s largest flour mill during the 2008-2009 ‘Operation Cast Lead’ attacks)

(18) = See http://www.duncanmcfarlane.org/Israel-Palestine/notdemocratsversusterrorists/#_ftn1 for full list of sources on Israeli military snipers targeting Israeli children, and links to the online ones

(19) = BBC News 31 May 2010 ‘Deaths as Israeli forces storm Gaza aid ship’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/10195838.stm

(20) = Guardian blog ‘No gourmets in Gaza’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2009/jun/16/gaza-blockade-israel-food ,
(links to many sources on the tunnels into Gaza and the effects of the blockade)

 (21) = Independent 30 Mar 2010 ‘Israel allows first shipment in three years’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-allows-first-shipment-in-three-years-1930677.html

(22) = New York Times 03 Jan 2009 ‘Is the Real Target Hamas Rule?’,http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/world/middleeast/04assess.html

(23) = Guardian 06 Jan 2009 ‘Israel looks to drive out Hamas’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/06/gaza-israel-hamas

(24) = See (23) above

(25) = Forward 20 Oct 2006 ‘Preconditions for a Problematic Partner’,http://www.forward.com/articles/5948/

(26) = Times 26 Feb 2009 ‘Peace will be achieved only by talking to Hamas’,http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article5804266.ece

(27) = Forward 09 Feb 2007 ‘Experts Question Wisdom of Boycotting Hamas’,http://www.forward.com/articles/10055/

(28) = Interview with Efraim Halevy in Mother Jones Magazine 10 Feb 2008 ‘Israel's Mossad, Out of the Shadows’, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/02/israels-mossad-out-shadows

(29) = Newsweek 07 Mar 2008 ‘‘We’ll Have to Talk’’, http://www.newsweek.com/2008/03/06/we-ll-have-to-talk.html#

(30) = Times 29 Jul 2008 ‘Palestinian child shot dead by Israeli soldiers’,http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4425395.ece

(31) = AP 14 Feb 2009 ‘Long-term truce for Gaza near agreement, says Hamas’,http://www.heraldscotland.com/long-term-truce-for-gaza-near-agreement-says-hamas-1.902709 ; “In the West Bank city of Hebron, staff at a local hospital said a teenage boy was killed by Israeli army fire during a clash between troops and stone-throwing Palestinian youths. Doctors at Alia hospital named the dead boy as Izzadine Jamal, 14. They did not know if he was among those attacking the Israelis. The army said dozens of Palestinians hurled stones at a military guard tower next to an Israeli settlement and a soldier shot the ringleader.”

(32) = guardian.co.uk 27 Apr 2009 ‘Non-violent protests against West Bank barrier turn increasingly dangerous’http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/27/israel-security-barrier-protests

(33) = Independent 12 Mar 2010 ‘West Bank rises up in a new 'white' intifada’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/west-bank-rises-up-in-a-new-white-intifada-1920120.html

(34) = BBC News 22 Mar 2010 ‘B'tselem says live bullets may have killed Palestinians’,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8580150.stm

(35) = AFP 30 Mar 2010 ‘Palestinian teen killed as Israelis fire on Gaza protests’,http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gnJHlk7vviX8bcc0-vb85dwEyASw

(36) = Haaretz 28 Dec 2008 ‘Israeli Arabs protesting Gaza campaign clash with police’,http://www.haaretz.com/news/israeli-arabs-protesting-gaza-campaign-clash-with-police-1.285539

(37) = Cook, Jonathan (2006) ‘Blood and Religion – The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State’ , Pluto Press, London, 2006 , pages 34, 38-40, 43-44, 51-54, 66-70

(38) = Haaretz 31 May 2010 ‘Several Israeli Arab protesters arrested in mass rallies over Gaza flotilla deaths’, http://www.haaretz.com/several-israeli-arab-protesters-arrested-in-mass-rallies-over-gaza-flotilla-deaths-1.293199

(39) = Guardian.co.uk 11 Apr 2010 ‘Israeli groups fight orders allowing army to jail West Bank residents’http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/11/israeli-groups-attack

(40) = Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) ‘Law of Return’,http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/1950_1959/Law%20of%20Return%205710-1950

(41) See 38 above ‘The Israeli military said the purpose of the orders was "the extradition of those residing illegally in Judea and Samaria," an Israeli term for the West Bank.’

(42) = guardian.co.uk 26 Oct 2009 ‘West Bank land belongs to Jews, says Israeli army judge’http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/26/west-bank-jews-army-judge

(43) = AP 31 May 2010 ‘Obama administration concerned about Gaza incident’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9104666

(44) = Guardian 30 May 2010 ‘Ministers move to change universal jurisdiction law’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/30/change-universal-jurisdiction-law

 

A government excluding the Conservatives would only need to survive a few months to deliver PR for the next election

Nick Clegg is deciding whether to back a Conservative minority government or one of Labour and the smaller parties - he would get a better deal from the latter

The Conservative party are not offering the Lib Dems any solid pledge on a referendum on Proportional Representation. Cameron offering an all party commission on electoral reform does not specify who would appoint the members, nor give any guarantee that commission would recommend a referendum on PR, nor any guarantee that Cameron would accept it’s recommendations if it did

A minority government or coalition of all parties other than the Conservatives would represent around the same percentage of the electorate – at over 60%, that a Liberal-Conservative one would at 59.1%. The Conservatives got just 36.1% of the vote, merely the largest minority, so they have no unique right to form a government.

First past the post results in the votes of millions being binned unrepresented if they don't vote for the party that got the majority (or more often the largest minority) of the votes in that constituency. It also distorts how people vote as a result by encouraging them to vote for a party they see as bad in order to keep out one they see as worse. It results in 'safe' seats which result in big parties looking after the interests of big donors to party funds rather than those of voters.

P.R on the single transferrable vote or the additional member systems systems (the latter being the one used in Scottish Parliament elections) would allow people to vote positively for the candidate or party they agreed with most and would ensure that everyone's vote counted equally and was represented.

We need to scrap the backwards, undemocratic and archaic first past the post system now - and replace it with PR (STV) or PR (AMS).

A coalition or minority government of all parties except the Tories might well be unstable and find it difficult to agree on anything except a bill on PR and not making big public spending cuts until the economy recovers, but those two issues would be plenty – and they would disagree on them far less than Liberals and Conservatives would be likely to. Labour, with less seats, are also more likely to offer a solid pledge on a referendum on P.R than the Conservatives are.

Brown may need to pledge to step down as Labour leader within the next few months to get that deal. By doing so he would be remembered as a Prime Minister who put democracy and the good of both his party and the country before his own career. He might well even be made a Minister in the new government.

Clegg only needs a coalition or minority government which includes a pledge on a referendum on PR within months. It doesn’t need to survive long to do that – and then the next election would be under P.R. - with very different results, whether thye next election is months or years away.

If Clegg accepted a deal that does not deliver full PR (which excludes the 'Alternative Vote'), whether from the Conservatives or Labour, his party will split and most Lib Dem voters will abandon his party entirely.

Even if propping up the Conservatives or Labour lost the Lib Dems half the votes they got in the last election at the next one, they would still increase their number of seats under PR. Currently they have under 10% of the seats in parliament (57 seats) from 23% of the vote. Even if their vote halved in a future PR election (and it would be unlikely to as under PR more people would feel they could vote Lib Dem without letting Labour or the Conservatives in) they would get 12.5% of the seats, or 81 seats - a big increase.

Supporting any government without pledges on PR and delaying spending cuts would put the Lib Dems in the same position they were in in the Scottish Parliament in the past - as the junior partner in a coalition with little influence on most of government policy, but being held responsible for all government policy by the voters - and losing seats in future as a result.

Whether it's Labour or Conservatives we need to avoid big public sector job losses leading to another recession - and we need P.R

Well - in complete contradiction to my own guesses before the election Labour increased it's majority in my constituency due to fear of a Conservative government (full result here) After spending a week organising my campaign, election communication and website and three weeks knocking on doors and ringing doorbells I got well and truly gubbed with 670 votes, 1.4% of the total number cast. It is a 48% increase on my vote last time but still irrelevant to the result as a whole.

(Thanks very much though to everyone who voted for me and everyone who campaigned for me and all the people who were polite or friendly on the doorstep when i interrupted their tea or their TV programmes or their baths and showers, or getting the kids to bed.)

(I’m still considering standing on the second vote on the Scottish parliament’s regional list for the South of Scotland next year, but not decided yet. The additional member system is as favourable to small parties and independents as the first past the post system for Westminster elections is unfavourable, but the list has 500,000 voters on it across a vast area – and many voters don’t realise that voting for a big party twice in Scottish Parliament elections will usually result in no additional seats for that party.)

I can’t blame people here for being scared of a Conservative government and voting Labour out of fear of it as bad rather than much worse.

On top of that the Conservatives (pretty much the UK equivalent of the Republicans) have won the largest number of seats in parliament - and whether they or Labour win they've both said they'll make cuts in public spending bigger than Thatcher did - as Labour Chancellor Alastair Darling said before the election. They won't touch military spending, or private finance initiatives, or public subsidies to arms firms, or public subsidies to privatised rail firms - nor raise taxes on the highest earners, nor close down tax havens.

So that means lots of public sector workers sacked (the local councils have already started by sacking the lollipop ladies and men (road safety wardens) for road crossings at primary schools.

More people made unemployed would mean reduced demand in the economy, which will result in knock on job losses in the private sector. This would likely lead to a "double dip recession" like the one Japan suffered in the 1990s, with the job losses killing the recovery of the economy.

All in all it looks pretty grim unless the big parties’ leaders step back from the brink or the smaller parties and some back-bench Labour MPs on the left of the party can prevent it – which I hope they can.

We certainly will have to cut public spending and/or increase taxes to avoid the risk of ending up a bit like Greece (though our public spending and debt as percentages of GDP are lower than Greece’s and we can vary the interest rate as we have our own currency, so we’ll hopefully avoid that fate). The question is who to tax and what cuts to make. We can’t afford to make large numbers of public sector employees unemployed any more than we can afford to continue without any cuts our tax rises. The most important thing is not that we eliminate the debt rapidly but that we rebuild an economy that can pay off that debt rather than slash and burn into a vicious circle of rising unemployment.

I'm still hopeful that we might get proportional representation for future elections if the Lib Dems stick to their guns on demanding PR in return for any kind of support for a minority government. That would mean that in future elections people could vote for the candidate or party they agree with most instead of mostly voting negatively against the party they dislike most and for one they only see as slightly less bad.

Nick Clegg would be a fool to accept David Cameron's vague promises of an all party electoral commission to discuss reform - he needs to hold out for a solid commitment to bring in proportional representation - and would be more likely to get that from Labour, who have less seats and so are more desperate to make a deal - and who at least believe that public services should exist and be well funded, unlike most Conservatives, even if both parties (and the Lib Dems) have gone for the over-charging and service cuts resulting from PFI and PPP deals.

Why I owe Gillian Duffy an apology - and Murdoch owes us all one

Today it's been revealed that the entire Gillian Duffy incident was created by Murdoch, who has switched from backing New Labour back to backing the Conservatives, just as he did under Thatcher.

It's normal in an interview by a TV station for them to remove their mike from the lapel of the interviewee at the end of it. Sky News - owned by News International, a Murdoch company, didn't do that with Gordon Brown.

Murdoch used to back Thatcher in elections in return for getting her to allow tax avoidance and tax cuts benefitting him and his firms and deregulation of media ownership so he could expand his business empire.

Then he allied to Blair and New Labour with the same deal. Now he's gone back to the Conservatives again - and his TV stations and newspapers have followed suit.

It also transpires that the Sun newspaper offered Mrs Duffy tens of thousands of pounds to say she hated Gordon Brown and would vote Conservative. She turned down the bribe and stuck to her principles. While I'm standing as an independent candidate because i've little time for most of 'New Labour's policies I can only admire her for that - and I used to be a Labour voter, like her.

Time to end the hysteria about "them immigrants" and deal with the reality

Much is being made in the media of a Mrs Duffy's hurt feelings over Gordon Brown saying she was a bigot after she complained about 'the immigrants'.

It looks a lot like the Blairites have set Brown up here, but apart from that what about the feelings (not to mention the lives) of "the immigrants", many of them genuine refugees fleeing torture or death or people who lived in dire poverty and came here to work hard and earn a living?

I doubt they’ll feel good that people in Britain frequently talk about being sick of all immigrants.

If anyone thinks that prejudice against all immigrants and refugees is any better than prejudice against all black or Asian people, or all people of a particular religion they’re wrong.

In the 1920s and 1930s unthinking hatred of Jews was considered normal and rational. Refugees and migrant workers are the Jews of today. Unthinking hatred of them is considered acceptable by too many people.

Mrs Duffy has a point on free immigration from Eastern Europe to the UK, but then there are also a million British immigrant workers in other EU countries; and Poles come here partly because they have a surplus of skilled trades-people - plumbers, carpenters, joiners and electricians - and we have a shortage of them as our government hasn't made companies and tradespeople take on apprentices.

I'm not opposed to a referendum on whether to leave the EU either. I'd vote to stay in, but would accept whatever the majority decided.

I disagree with many of the things Gordon Brown has done and said, on PFIs and PPPs, rail privatisation, Iraq, unfair taxes, Afghanistan and many other issues, not least sending genuine refugees back to torture or death to pander to unthinking hatred of ‘immigrants’. On this he was right though. Mrs Duffy’s comment was unthinking prejudice, probably based on ignorance and endless rants containing completely made up “facts” from the Daily Mail, the Sun, the News of the World and too many politicians of both the main parties who have fed the hysteria about immigrants which has boosted the pathetic BNP.

It’s time to end this hysteria and deal with reality. Other than within the EU, Britain already has one of the harshest immigration policies in the world. Immigration is caused by mass poverty and mass hunger caused by ‘free’ rather than fair trade, by natural disasters, by dictatorships (often backed by our own governments) and by wars.

Scotland, with a low birth rate and ageing population, would not have enough people of working age to pay the pensions of its pensioners if it wasn’t for immigration.

Most refugees and migrant workers don’t live on benefits either – they work. People applying for refugee status (asylum seekers) aren't allowed to work while waiting for their claim to be heard, are deported if it's rejected and mostly work if it isn't. While waiting for their claim to be heard they get much lower benefits than unemployed British citizens do.

For some of the sources on these facts and more details see http://www.duncanmcfarlane.org/election/immigration/ and Thirteen Myths about Asylum Seekers

The future business, the big society and efficiency savings – political euphemisms and what they actually mean

Morlocks - Is Gordon Brown's policy of only travelling forwards through time ignoring the seriousness of the Morlock menace?

Listening to the party leaders’ election campaign speeches reminds me of great euphemisms from the near and distant past, like “strategic interrogation” and “tactical questioning” (both used as euphemisms for torture by Coalition forces’ press officers in briefings to journalists in Iraq).

“The Future Business”

Good to hear that Gordon Brown is “in the future business”. That’s lucky because as yet no means of travelling backwards in time has been discovered, though it may risk losing him the Dr. Who vote.

I also have a policy of travelling linearly through time - and solely in a forwards direction.

It’s hard to imagine that any candidate or party leader is likely to say “No – i disagree – we should go backwards into the past as fast and as far as possible and damn the inconvenience, the dangers, the costs and the sheer impossibility of doing so –it’s the only way to counter the Morlock menace, which the other parties and candidates are dangerously complacent about”.

What Gordon is really saying is “don’t judge us on our record in government, judge us on what we promise we’ll do in future.”

“The Big Society”

David Cameron’s Big Society policy of encouraging volunteer work would be great if he was suggesting it as an addition to well funded public services rather than as a replacement for them. (Volunteers do some amazing work and are often as good as professionals at it – sometimes better).

The reality of the Conservative ‘encourage volunteering’ policy though is that the wealthy and well educated will be allowed to set up their own schools and run their own local services. Having done so are they likely to be willing to pay enough tax to fund public services for others which they won’t use themselves, but are for people who aren’t so fortunate? I doubt it. The usual conservative ideology is to ask why those struggling in poverty or on low incomes don’t do everything for themselves.

As a result state schools and hospitals will become hugely over-stretched and under-funded – like those in America, while those who can afford it get private care or run their own schools – a two tier health service and a two tier education system.

‘Big society’ in this case is just a euphemism for ‘small, underfunded public services, which most of the well-off but selfish people i represent don’t want to pay for so unwashed oiks can use them’.

To be fair Alastair Darling has also said that if Labour are re-elected there will be a 25% cut in public spending, cuts, in his own words, bigger than those under Thatcher. So neither main party can be trusted not to cut vital public services.

“Efficiency Savings”

While talking a great deal about necessary cuts and efficiency savings none of the leaders of the three biggest parties – Labour , Conservatives or Liberal Democrats – have said a word about scrapping Private Finance Initiatives or Public Private Partnerships, which are the equivalent of hugely over-priced hire purchase schemes, resulting in increased costs along with service cuts.

None of them have suggested renationalising the railways, nor even ending massive public subsidies to the privatised rail companies.

Nor has there been any suggestion of cracking down on huge cost over-runs on British Aerospace contracts for the Ministry of Defence, nor of ending the ‘Export Credit Guarantees’ which ensure that if BAE sells arms to a foreign dictatorship which then doesn’t pay for them taxpayers foot the bill.

No “efficiency savings” in the world could save taxpayers as much money as scrapping these three main areas of waste. Every government and opposition in history has claimed it could save huge amounts of money but running public services more efficiently – what happens in practice is some cuts and un-necessary reorganisation which merely causes temporary chaos.

Groundhog Day of Fear of Iran and its nuclear programme – Part II

Obama administration and Israeli government plans to destroy Iran with sanctions and bombing &ndash

including depleted uranium bunker busters and tactical nuclear weapons

‘Tell every child in the arms of it’s mother

The F-15 is a homicide bomber’

Michael Franti – Yell Fire

An early tactical nuclear weapon designed to be dropped as a bomb from a plane in the 1960s - photos of more recent versions remain hard to come by

In my last post on the Iranian nuclear issue I focused on the risks of the US developing an effective means of defending itself against long range nuclear missiles – and so being able to consider using nuclear weapons on other countries without fear of nuclear counter-attack, as it did against Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

This of course misses out the evidence for the much more immediate risk of deaths from sanctions and air strikes against Iran by the US and Israel (their plans being to use ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons dropped by planes).

Many see the US-Russian strategic nuclear weapons reduction treaty as promoting peace and avoiding the risk of unnecessary wars and deaths –yet it’s also being used as propaganda for sanctions or war on Iran (if it seeks a single nuclear deterrent weapon compared to the reduced complement of over 1,500 each for the US and Russia (1) – (2))

I covered the likely effects of Obama’s plans for “stronger” sanctions on Iran, comparable to those previously enforced against Iraq, in my last post – large numbers of civilian deaths due to hunger and lack of medical supplies. However, as with Iraq sanctions may also be a softening up process for another invasion and ‘regime change’ (3) – (4).

The Obama administration’s new policy on nuclear first strikes has been widely praised, yet it permits nuclear strikes on countries which the US deems to have breached the non-proliferation treaty – like Iran – the exact wording being:

“The United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.”(5)

Of course the US alleges that Iran is not in compliance with the Treaty (though Iran was one of the first countries to sign it).

According to the renowned American journalist Seymour Hersh, Obama’s Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who served in the same position under Bush, travelled to Europe in 2007 to try to persuade the British government and other NATO allies to back the idea of tactical nuclear air-strikes on Iran, targeting suspected nuclear programme sites (6).

Former CIA counter-terrorism officer Phillip Giraldi told journalists that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had opposed the idea, but that the plan included “a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons”(6)

Israel has similarly had plans for using tactical nuclear weapons in airstrikes on Iran since at least 2007 (7).

A US tactical nuclear missile in Germany

In March this year President Obama ordered large quantities of bunker buster bombs delivered to the US air base at Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands (8). The Chagos Islands are British dependencies (former colonies) in the Indian Ocean, previously inhabited by the Chagos Islanders, but the US and British militaries forcibly deported them from their homes in the 1950s to make way for the US military, navy and air-force bases.

If the ‘bunker busters’ are anything like the ones the US supplied to Israel during the 2006 Lebanon war they’ll also include Depleted Uranium, dust from which causes high rates of cancers for decades afterwards – and so effectively ‘weapons of mass destruction’ (9) (more on this later).

Diego Garcia was one of the staging posts for the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq.

Some see this as preparation for US airstrikes on Iran, others claim the original destination for the bombs was Israel, with Obama sending them to Diego Garcia a sign that he wouldn’t back Israeli airstrikes on Iran (10), (11).

It could mean that Obama plans to make the operation an American one though.

Dan Plesch, the Director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at London University, told reporters
“They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran...US bombers are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours” (12).

A US F117 Nighthawk stealth bomber drops a 'bunker buster bomb' in military tests in Utah

During the 2008 Presidential election Obama made a campaign pledge in a speech to AIPAC (the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee):

“I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. That starts with aggressive, principled diplomacy without self-defeating preconditions... we cannot unconditionally rule out an approach that could prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” (13)

In other words it starts with “aggressive principled diplomacy” and then goes on to sanctions, then military action.

Like Bush before him he made clear in his AIPAC speech that the main function of diplomacy is to get international support for “action” against Iran :

“Our willingness to pursue diplomacy will make it easier to mobilize others to join our cause. If Iran fails to change course when presented with this choice by the United States”

Obama’s description of Iran in his speech could have come from Bush or Cheney :

“The Iranian regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and raise the prospect of a transfer of nuclear know-how to terrorists. Its president denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map. The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

The false claims are identical to the ones made by the Bush administration. First that there is definitive proof that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. There isn’t any. Second that if Iran got nuclear weapons it would give them to terrorist groups, which is as ludicrous as Bush administration claims that Saddam would give nuclear weapons to Al Qa’ida or Palestinian terrorist groups if he had them. In fact when Saddam did have WMDs in the form of chemical warheads for his Scud missiles - and was at war with the US in 1991 - he neither used them on other countries nor gave them to terrorist groups, because the first would have been personal and national suicide and the second would have been national suicide by proxy. His only attacks on Israel and Kuwait with scuds used conventional warheads. (14).

The same holds for Iran’s government. It’s current top officials – Supreme Leader Khameini, Guardian Council chairman Rafsanjani and then Revolutionary Guard Officer Ahmadinejad, were all involved in persuading Ayatollah Khomeini (not noted as a great moderate either) to make peace with Iraq in 1988 rather than risk total defeat if the US joined the war directly on the Iraqi side (15) - (16).

If some in Iran’s government want a nuclear weapon it’s almost certainly for the same reason most countries want one – to possess a deterrent in order to deter attack from countries with stronger conventional forces – and to avoid being in the situation Japan faced in 1945 when it couldn’t deter the US attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, massacres of civilians exceeded only by the Holocaust itself, the Turkish genocide of the Armenians and the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

Michael Axworthy, a former British diplomat who was in Iran many times from the 1970s till 2000 and is an expert on the country’s politics, agrees:

“Important Iranian religious leaders have declared that nuclear weapons, and all weapons of mass destruction, are immoral and unacceptable, and this matters. We should take those statements seriously (not least because, during the Iran/Iraq war, Iran refrained from retaliating with chemical weapons when Saddam Hussein used those weapons against Iranian troops, and against civilians. Many Iranian veterans are still suffering the after-effects of those weapons).

The NIE [US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran] concluded last November that Iran had not been pursuing a nuclear weapon program since 2003. But western governments have good reason to believe that at various points they have pursued a nuclear weapon program. The explanation for this apparent contradiction could be that the Iranian leadership has wanted to develop a capability, short of an actual weapon, that would still serve as a deterrent. In other words, to have all the elements ready to produce a weapon if necessary, but not the weapon itself. The only practical value of nuclear weapons is as a deterrent, as is well known.” (17)

Michael Axworthy, a former diplomat and expert on Iran

Ahmadinejad did not say he would “wipe Israel off the map” either. He made the same speech Khomeini had made every year since the Islamic Revolution against the Shah’s dictatorship in 1979, in which he said that he hoped that the “illegal regime which rules over Quods [in Jerusalem] will be erased from the pages of history” (18) – (20).

That is fairly clearly a call for “regime change” rather than a threat of nuclear Holocaust – and Ahmadinejad in interviews with French television channels compared Israel to the former Soviet Union, pointing out that the people of the Soviet Union had overthrown their government and the country no longer exists as a result. Israel and the US, both of which actually have nuclear weapons and actually plan to use them to attack Iran, are never accused of calling for a “nuclear Holocaust” against Iran when they talk of nuclear air strikes or “regime change” (18) – (20).

Even foreign policy hawks like Michael O. Hanlon and former CIA officer and adviser to the US government Bruce Reidel say airstrikes could not stop Iran developing nuclear weapons and would set back support for reformists (though they don’t make the obvious comparison of September 11^th boosting the Bush administration and weakening support for progressives in the US for several years) (21).

They don’t point out that air strikes (especially nuclear ones) might well end any divisions in Iranian politics over whether to build a nuclear deterrent or not and ensure that they produce them as a deterrent to further attacks if they weren’t making them before.

Admittedly they go on to call for wider sanctions but “focusing on high-technology goods and weapons transfers”, which sounds less bad than those on Iraq – but then US governments frequently misrepresented how extreme sanctions on Iraq were.

O’Hanlon and Reidel say that “the option of a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities...has nonetheless survived the U.S. presidential transition as a last resort should diplomacy and economic sanctions fail to persuade Tehran to put its nuclear programme back under proper restrictions and inspections.”

They also point out that if the US or Israel attacked Iran then Iran could increase training and supplies to America’s opponents in Iraq and Afghanistan – and to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the West Bank and Gaza to target Israel.

If, as seems to be the case, nothing will be accepted by the Israeli government , US Republicans or many right wing Democratic members of congress as evidence that Iran is not trying to develop nuclear weapons, this policy, if followed to it’s logical conclusion, can only result in bombing Iran, just as the Bush administration’s demand that Iraq give up its WMD programmes while refusing to accept the mountain of evidence from UN inspectors and others that it largely had inevitably led to war.

Nor is there any reason to believe, from the past behaviour of the Iranian government, that it would risk a nuclear counter-strike by initiating nuclear war on Israel or any other ally of the US directly or by proxy through terrorist groups, any more than Saddam would have.

If air strikes targeting suspected nuclear facilities go ahead civilian ‘collateral damage’ is guaranteed, both due to missing targets – and more commonly due to wrongly identifying civilian targets as military or nuclear programme facilities. In the 1991 Gulf War the US dropped ‘bunker buster’ bombs like the ones Obama is storing at Diego Garcia. One took out what US commanders believed to be a ‘command and control centre’ that might contain Saddam Hussein. In fact the Al Ameriyeh bunker in Baghdad contained hundreds of civilians, using it as an air raid shelter – and 408 were killed.

A modern 'bunker buster'

Hundreds more cases of civilian deaths due to wrongly identified targets (and even targeting of civilian targets) took place in the Gulf war and continued in ‘patrolling the No-Fly Zones’ between 1991 and 2003, resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths caused directly and indirectly by bombing (22) – (24). They continued in Kosovo and Serbia in 1999, in the Iraq war and in airstrikes in Afghanistan from October 2001 to present.

If tactical nuclear weapons are used then a legacy of radiation sickness, still births, illnesses, high rates of fatal cancers among infants and deformities may result for decades, as for decades after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and in the years since US and British forces used depleted uranium (DU), napalm and compounds with similar effects and white phosphorus in Iraq from 1991 on (24) – (32).

The most recent examples have come from Fallujah where the rates of birth defects among newborn babies have increased massively since the April and November 2004 assaults by coalition forces employing DU and white phosphorus (33) – (36).

A girl in Fallujah , Iraq , who was born without a left hand - one of the less distressing of the huge number of birth defects among children born there since the 2004 Coalition assaults

Given Obama’s own words and his retention of Gates as Defence Secretary plus another extremely aggressive Israeli government – and their plans for tactical nuclear strikes on Iran - there is much more risk of Iranians being the victims of a nuclear attack than of them initiating one.

As the number 10 petitions website is down for the period of the election i’ve created an international online petition calling for no wide ranging sanctions, military strikes or war on Iran, to be delivered to the US, British and Israeli governments if it gets a decent number of signatures. Please take a moment to sign it if you agree.

 (1) = BBC News 26 Mar 2010 ‘US and Russia announce deal to cut nuclear weapons’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8589385.stm

(2) = BBC News 04 Apr 2010 ‘Global map of nuclear arsenals’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7979757.stm

(3) = CNN 30 Mar 2010 ‘Obama, Sarkozy discuss Iran sanctions, global economy’,  http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/30/obama.sarkozy/index.html

(4) = BBC News 30 Sep 1998 ‘'UN official blasts Iraq sanctions',http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/183499.stm

 (5) = Guardian 06 Apr 2010 ‘Barack Obama's radical review on nuclear weapons reverses Bush policies’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/06/barack-obama-nuclear-weapons-review

(6) = Independent 02 Oct 2007 ‘US plan for air strikes on Iran 'backed by Brown'’,http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-plan-for-air-strikes-on-iran-backed-by-brown-395716.html

(7) = Sunday Times 07 Jan 2007 ‘Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran’, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1290331.ece

(8) = Sunday Herald 14 Mar 2010 ‘Final destination Iran?’, http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/world-news/final-destination-iran-1.1013151

(9) = Independent 28 Oct 2006 ‘Robert Fisk: Mystery of Israel's secret uranium bomb’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-mystery-of-israels-secret-uranium-bomb-421960.html?cmp=ilc-n

(10) = See (8) above

(11) = DEBKAfile 08 Apr 2010 ‘Obama recalls bunker-buster bomb kits to bar Israeli strike on Iran’,http://www.debka.com/article/8665/

(12) = See (8) above

(13) = US National Public Radio 04 Jun 2008 ‘Transcript: Obama's Speech at AIPAC’,http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91150432

(14) = Nye , Joseph S. & Smith , Robert K. (1992), ‘After the Storm' , Madison Books , London , 1992 , - pages 211-216 (Nye is a former CIA officer)

(15) = Takeyh, Ray (2006), ‘Hidden Iran - Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic, Times Books, New York, 2006, hardback edition - pages 170-174

(16) = Pollack, Kenneth M.(2004), ‘The Persian Puzzle', Random House, New York, 2005, paperback edition - pages 231-233

(17) = Los Angeles Times 05 Jun 2008 ‘IRAN: Writer says war won't stop nuclear program’, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/06/iran-writer-say.html

(18) = Takeyh, Ray (2006), ‘Hidden Iran - Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic, Times Books, New York, 2006, (hardback edition)

(19) = Guardian Comment Is Free14 Jun 2006, ‘Lost in Translation’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/jun/14/post155

(20) = Iranian Television Broadcasts President Ahmadinezhad's Interview With French TV "Exclusive interview" with Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad by David Pujadas of French TV's TF2 Channel on 22 March 2007 – recorded Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 1 Sunday, March 25, 2007 (reproduced as second item below article on Professor Juan Cole’s website at http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/ahmadinejad-i-am-not-anti-semitic.html

“(Ahmadinezad) Let me ask you this question: where is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics now? Was it not wiped off (the map)? How was it wiped off? We have a totally humanitarian solution for Palestine. We have said that all the Palestinians should take part in a free referendum so as to end the 60 year old war. The outcome is clear from now. It is because of the same outcome that America and Britain are refusing to yield.

(David Pujadas) Let us clarify everything. Do you really wish to wipe Israel off the face of the earth? Do you have a plan for this job or are you in fact making such a prediction?

(Ahmadinezhad) Look, I told you the solution. I think the people of Palestine also have the right to determine their own fate. Let them choose for themselves, the Christians, the Jews and the Muslims. That is, all the Palestinians who belong to that land can participate in the referendum. I think the outcome of such a referendum is already clear. We saw what happened in last year's elections (when they voted for HAMAS).”

(21) = Financial Times 28 Feb 2010 ‘Do Not Even Think About Bombing Iran’, by Michael E. O'Hanlon, Director of Research and Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy  & Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0228_nuclear_iran_strategy_ohanlon_riedel.aspx,
(an editorial for the Financial Times reproduced on the Brookings Institution’s website, as only registered members can read archived FT articles)

(22) = Bennis , Phyllis & Moushabeck  , Michael (Editors) (1992)  ‘Beyond the Storm’  ; Canongate Press , London , 1992, paperback, pages 326 – 355

(23) = Lee , Ian (1991) ‘Continuing Health Costs of the Gulf War’, Medical Educational Trust , London , 1991

(24) = Pilger , John (1998) ‘Hidden Agendas’ Vintage , London , 1998, pages 29-30 ,49-53 ,614

(25) = BBC News Online 30 Jul 1999 ‘Depleted Uranium ‘threatens Balkan cancer epidemic’’,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/408122.stm

(26) = BBC News 27 Aug 1999 ‘Depleted uranium study 'shows clear damage'’,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/431817.stm

(27) = Independent 25 Jan 2000 ‘The evidence lies dying in Basra’,http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-evidence-lies-dying-in-basra-727276.html

(28) = Independent 10 Jan 2001 ‘These children had cancer. Now they are dead. I believe they were killed by depleted uranium’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/these-children-had-cancer-now-they-are-dead-i-believe-they-were-killed-by-depleted-uranium-705543.html

(29) = BBC News 18 Mar 2003 ‘US to use depleted uranium’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/2860759.stm

(30) = Independent 25 Mar 2003 ‘Robert Fisk: The shocking truth about 'shock and awe'’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-shocking-truth-about-shock-and-awe-592285.html?cmp=ilc-n

(31) = BBC News 01 Nov 2006 ‘Depleted uranium risk 'ignored'’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6105726.stm (confirms US and British forces in Iraq still using Depleted Uranium in 2006 despite WHO study finding link with high cancer rates, especially among children)

(32) = Independent On Sunday 10 Aug 2003 ‘US admits it used napalm bombs in Iraq’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-admits-it-used-napalm-bombs-in-iraq-589508.html

(33) = BBC News 04 Mar 2010 ‘Falluja doctors report rise in birth defects’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8548707.stm

(34) = CBS News 04 Mar 2010 ‘Docs Blame U.S. Weapons for Fallujah Birth Defects’,http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-6266684-503543.html

(35) = guardian.co.uk 13 Nov 2009 ‘Huge rise in birth defects in Falluja’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/13/falluja-cancer-children-birth-defects

(36) = Today Programme 04 Mar 2010 ‘Child deformities 'increasing' in Falluja’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8548000/8548926.stm

The big threat of nuclear war is not from Iran but from US missile shields and anti-missile lasers

The real nuclear threat of nuclear war is not from Iran but from missile shields and laser systems that could allow a nuclear armed state to make a nuclear attack without fear of a nuclear counter-strike just as happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945

A US anti-missile laser test in February

While a ridiculous amount of attention is being paid to whether Iran might develop one nuclear weapon and so possess the same nuclear deterrent that the UK, France, the US ,Russia, China and Israel have had for decades there is  no discussion in the media of the much bigger risk of nuclear war posed by the advances in anti-missile technology being made by the US (such as the first successful test of plane mounted lasers which took down a ballistic missile in February). The assumption seems to be that projects like this and the ‘missile shield’ network across Europe are ‘purely defensive’, when in fact they could return the world to the situation at the time of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, when the US felt free to use nuclear weapons on Japan’s civilian population because it could do so without any fear of a nuclear counter-strike (1).

(Obama also offered last year to drop the European ‘Missile Defence Shield’ plan if the Russian government would help the US put pressure on Iran (2))

The US-Russian strategic warheads reduction deal has been part of Obama’s attempt to paint a rosy picture of a future without nuclear weapons, as an attempt to persuade the world to back sanctions and war on Iran to prevent it getting nuclear weapons, with the BBC reporting that it would allow Obama and Putin to take the “moral high ground” in taking action against Iran. Yet the treaty merely reduces the number of deployed nuclear warheads by about 30%, leaving the US and Russia with 1,550 deployed warheads each (and presumably an unspecified number of warheads which won’t be deployed – or else the word would be redundant) (3).

Yet they simultaneously claim Iran can’t be trusted with a single one – and make no mention of Israel’s arsenal – estimated at 80 deployed warheads. The risk of an accidental launch of one of the thousands of warheads which Russia and the US will still possess is greater than the risk of Iran starting a nuclear war. Despite the fear mongering Iran’s Ayatollahs and the commanders of the Revolutionary Guard have never shown much enthusiasm for national suicide – most of the current senior Ayatollahs and veteran Guard officers having been responsible for persuading Khomeini to negotiate an ignominious peace with Iraq in 1988 rather than risk direct US involvement and certain defeat (4) - (6).

Plans for ‘stronger’ sanctions on Iran are also being presented by the Obama admistration as if they were a ‘peaceful’ measure which would kill no-one. In fact, if they’re anything like the UN sanctions imposed on Iraq from 1991 till 2003 at the demand of the US government they’re likely to result in deaths in the millions. Two heads of the UN sanctions programme on Iraq - Dennis Halliday and Hans Von Sponeck – resigned in disgust at the number of children who died as a result of sanctions over 12 years – at least 5,000 a month or over 700,000 over 12 years). In practice sanctions which aren’t targeted specifically on a small number of products or individuals kill people on a scale comparable to war (7) – (9).

Some supporters of the Iraq war continually claim the war was necessary in order to end the sanctions, which is not true ; the sanctions could have been lifted without any risk of Saddam ‘invading his neighbours’ or ‘gassing his own people’ (things he could only do when the entire world was arming and funding him against Iran) or using WMD on us or our allies (he had the chance in the 1991Gulf war and didn’t, because he knew the response would have been nuclear) , still less ‘giving them to Al Qa’ida or other terrorist groups’ (which would have been national suicide by proxy for Iraq even if Saddam and Al Qa’ida hadn’t been bitter enemies) (10).

What’s more the invasion has not led to an increase in food supplies for Iraqis but a reduction to a quarter of the food rations provided under sanctions and Saddam (and that’s the ones who aren’t refugees within their own country and so unable to get anything but aid from charities and the UN as they aren’t at the address they were at on the ration list) (11).

Sadly facts never get in the way of those hyping non-existent ‘threats’ for their own reasons – at the Iraq Inquiry Tony Blair spent half his time calling for ‘action’ against Iran, as oblivious to the risks of action being far greater than the risks of inaction in this situation, probably because he never has to suffer the effects of the actions he calls for.

 

(1) = guardian.co.uk 12 Feb 2010 ‘US 'Star Wars' lasers bring down ballistic missile’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/feb/12/star-wars-laser-ballistic-missile

(2) = guardian.co.uk 03 Mar 2009 ‘Obama offers to drop missile project if Russian helps deal with Iran’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/03/obama-russia-iran-nuclear

(3) = BBC News 26 Mar 2010 ‘US and Russia announce deal to cut nuclear weapons’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8589385.stm

(4) = BBC News 04 Apr 2010 ‘Global map of nuclear arsenals’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7979757.stm

(5) = Takeyh, Ray (2006), ‘Hidden Iran - Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic, Times Books, New York, 2006 - pages 170-174

(6)  = Pollack, Kenneth M.(2004), ‘The Persian Puzzle', Random House, New York, 2005 paperback edition - pages 231-233

(7) = CNN 30 Mar 2010 ‘Obama, Sarkozy discuss Iran sanctions, global economy’,  http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/30/obama.sarkozy/index.html

(8) = BBC News 30 Sep 1998 ‘'UN official blasts Iraq sanctions', http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/183499.stm

(9) = Guardian 29 Nov 2001 ‘The hostage nation’, by Hans Von Sponeck & Dennis Halliday’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/nov/29/iraq.comment

(10) = Nye , Joseph S. & Smith , Robert K. (1992), ‘After the Storm' , Madison Books , London , 1992 , - pages 211-216 (Nye is a former CIA officer)

(11) = See sources 82 to 90 on this link