Down But Not Out: Craig Murray And Chris Floyd Ride Again!

[UPDATED below]

Some of my favorite bloggers have been seriously inconvenienced by hacker attacks [and/or system failures] lately.

Craig Murray [photo] has seen his site taken down, but a backup site has been set up here, at least for the moment, and a new site is in the works and should be ready shortly.

Chris Floyd's site, Empire Burlesque, was hacked again [or maybe not; see below] and was down for a while, but it's back again now. Chris has kept his previous site active in case of emergencies, and that's here.

Atlantic Free Press and Pacific Free Press are back online again, too, after being similarly hacked [or whatever happened].

Chris Floyd explains what happened.

UPDATE: devilsadvocate has suggested in the comments that perhaps Empire Burlesque, Atlantic Free Press and Pacific Free Press all went down due a hardware failure crash rather than a deliberate hack. I haven't been able to verify or this one way or another, and it could be that Chris Floyd's explanation (to which linked above) was mistaken.

There is no such question, however, about what happened to Craig Murray's original site. If I ever learn more about this situation, I will share; in the meantime I thank newjesustimes for reminding me that this question was still open.

The London And Glasgow Attacks In Perspective

Unfortunately I was not able to keep up with the breaking news from London and Glasgow, and I am only now catching up.

Fortunately for me, Craig Murray has been making all kinds of sense about the car-bomb-wannabe pseudo-attacks that happened, or almost nearly happened, in several recent posts on his blog. Links and excerpts appear below; in my opinion the following posts are all worth reading in their entirety:

June 29: London Bomb - Cui Bono?

Whoever was behind the apparent car bomb in London, it almost certainly wasn't the police explosives experts who made it safe, and we should acknowledge the heroism it takes to do that job.

Peter Clarke, the Met's anti-terrorism point man, gave a press conference claiming he was not going to speculate, but then doing everything he could to indicate it was an Islamic plot. He referred to other recent cases, including the Barot case, in which night clubs were mentioned as targets, and the use of gas canisters in cars discussed. The one bit of modus operandi pointing another way - the fact it wasn't a suicide bomber - he was at pains to explain away by speculating that the driver had lost his nerve.

Of course the last time a nail bomb was actually exploded among clubbers in Central London, it was by a homophobic fascist. So it is right to keep an open mind. But whoever did this, the only people who can possibly benefit are the vast and ever-burgeoning security industry of all kinds, and those who want discord between the Islamic World and the West. Unfortunately, the extremists on all sides are strengthened by this incident.

June 29: Bombs and the Great Wen

A good rule is to look at what did happen, not what might have happened. Consider this:

a) Nobody committed suicide. Rather than follow Scotland Yard's Peter Clarke and speculate that was because the driver lost his nerve, let us admit that it is at least possible that nobody was intended to commit suicide. If suicide was not part of the modus operandi, that vastly increases the number of groups and individuals who might have been responsible.

b) No bomb exploded and nobody was killed. There seems a general presumption that was because the trigger failed, or was defused in time. That is possible, certainly. It could well be so. But there is another possibility that cannot be ruled out yet - perhaps the thing was not meant to explode, perhaps no-one was meant to be killed. Perhaps it was meant to look like a convincing bomb, even like a convincing failed bomb. If you accept that as a logical possibility, that would bring in even more individuals and organisations who might have been responsible. To be up for a bomb scare is very different to being up for a bomb.

Let me be quite clear again: Islamic extremists may very well be responsible. I am not saying they are not. I am saying nobody knows yet. But let me expand a bit on my Cui Bono theme.

There are plenty of companies - and wealthy individuals - making huge amounts of money from both the War on Terror and its equally ugly sister, the War in Iraq. There has been much speculation that Brown will edge away from both of these. If British troops were to withdraw from Iraq, for example, that could reduce the access currently enjoyed by companies, including Aegis and BAE, to billions of dollars of US government contracts for arms and mercenaries. These companies make money out of killing. Death is their business. Today's car bomb - and the immediate media presumption it is Islamic terrorism - certainly forces Brown further into the War on Terror. The fact that the Iraq war is the root cause of an upsurge of terror in the UK, strangely does not negate the surge of political support for the War that this sort of incident brings as a reflex reaction from our leaders.

I am not saying it was Aegis or BAE. I am saying don't be one-eyed about the possibilities. Look at the list of amazing things in London above. Do I really believe that there are wealthy people in London who would stage this sort of thing to protect or further their financial interests? Yes, I do.

June 30: Glasgow Airport Incident

It will take a little time to work out what has happened in Glagow. From eyewitness accounts, this does seem like a definite attack, but an eyewitness on BBC News 24 has just described seeing two men get out of the car and try to torch it with bottles of petrol. The BBC also have a photo plainly showing the car well ablaze on the pavement, under the canopy and pointed towards, but not having penetrated, or apparently reached, the airport doors. This would have to have been taken after the occupants got out as it is very well ablaze. This is hard to reconcile with continued journalists' reports of the car being inside the terminal building.

Anyway, four people have been arrested, so we should get some answers on this one fairly quickly. At least two of the arrested men were Asian. There is no simple equation between Asian and Muslim but in the UK, and particularly in Glasgow, it does increase the likelihood. Fortunately, on the information so far, it seems nobody has been killed.

Thankfully, whatever is happening, we do not appear to be facing a wave of attacks by sophisticated terrorists with good bomb making skills.

June 30: Home Grown Terror

According to Willie Rae, Chief Constable of Strathclyde Police, there are clear links between today's Glasgow incident and the London car bombs. He declined to expand further, but I presume he meant more than that both events involved cars and petrol. A copycat crime is, in a sense, always linked to the crime it copies. But Willie Rae is not the Metropolitan Police, with its track record of lying to us, so I am prepared to believe that he knows something more substantial.

I still cannot understand why the Met does not release the CCTV footage of the London suspects. As the suspects must realise that they will have been caught on CCTV, I can't think of a single sensible motive for witholding it.
...

Thank goodness the only injured in Glasgow were the attackers, and one member of the public, who is not in danger. Fortunately, amateur does not do justice as a description of these attackers - absolute rubbish comes closer to it. It is worth noting that, if the London car bombs had ignited, they would probably have burnt like the Glasgow car, and almost certainly would not have had the kind of explosive force that the media tried to claim. Gas canisters are designed to withstand fire without exploding; they will eventually vent and the gas flare as it comes out. That is what looked on TV like it might have been happening in the back of the car in Glasgow.

Petrol and gas can be a deadly effective component of a bomb, and even a very small quantity of high explosive would have made the London car bombs potentially devastating. But there was no explosive present - I have held back on blogging on this aspect until I could confirm that fact from my own sources.

So this is not al-Qaeda, and we are not dealing with trained bomb-makers. [...] This threat will indeed remain with us until we stop being an acolyte for US foreign policy. Nobody is attacking Ireland - if Western hedonism and culture were the target, Ireland should be in big trouble.

July 2: Terror Attacks

The link between the Glasgow and London bombs now appears to be fairly convincing, particularly as much of the confirmation is coming out of Scotland rather than from the discredited Met. What we have this time appears not to be home grown discontent, but more direct blowback from our Middle Eastern policy. I make no apologies for having noted at the start of this series of events that, while this was likely to be terrorism perpetrated by Islamic extremists, there were other possiblities and we should not straightaway jump to that conclusion.
...

Now it does appear that Islamic extremists were indeed responsible for both Glasgow and London.

But my question cui bono? was also helpful in pointing out that these terrorist attacks are not only callous and inhuman, but extraordinarily stupid. Islamic terrorism fills those who hate Muslims with unholy glee. You only have to surf the internet for five minutes to prove that. At the same time it sends those of us who try to improve community relations, and it sends the established Muslim communities in the UK, into deep despair. Those in the security, weapons and mercenary industries who make billions from continued War are rubbing their hands and counting the cash.

From a slightly different point of view, Gwynne Dyer predicts that the stillborn attacks will have a much greater impact in the USA than in the UK.

Excerpts from Dyer's most recent column, via the Framingham (MA) MetroWest Daily News:

More competent terrorists might have killed dozens of people, of course, but it's safe to say that this incident will be taken more seriously in the United States than it is in Britain itself or anywhere else in Europe.

An occasional terrorist attack is one of the costs of doing business in the modern world. You just have to bring a sense of proportion to the problem, and in general people in Europe do.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued the obligatory statement that Britain faces "a serious and continuous threat" and that the public "need to be alert" at all times. But there were none of the efforts to pump up the threat, the declarations that civilization itself was under attack, that were standard issue when Tony Blair was running the show.
...

Most European cities have also been heavily bombed in a real war within living memory, which definitely puts terrorist attacks into a less impressive category. So most Europeans, while they dislike terrorist attacks, do not obsess about them. They know that they are likelier to win the lottery than to be hurt by terrorists.

Russians are also pretty cool about the occasional terrorist attacks linked to the war in Chechnya, and Indians are positively heroic in their refusal (most of the time) to be panicked by terrorist attacks that have taken more lives there than all the attacks in the West since terrorist techniques first became widespread in the 1960s.

In almost all of these countries, despite the efforts of some governments to convince the population that terrorism is an existential threat of enormous size, the vast majority of the people don't believe it.

Whereas in the United States, most people do believe it.
...

Inexperience is one reason: American cities have never been bombed in war, so Americans have no standard of comparison that would shrink terrorism to its true importance in the scale of threats that face any modern society. But the other is relentless official propaganda: the Bush administration has built its whole brand around the "war on terror" since 2001, so the threat must continue to be seen as huge and universal.

Ridiculous though it sounds to outsiders, Americans are regularly told that their survival as a free society depends on beating the "terrorists." They should treat those who say such things as fools or deliberate liars, but they don't. So the manipulators of public opinion in the White House and the more compliant sectors of the U.S. media will give bigger play to the British bombings-that-weren't than Britain's own government and media have, and they will get away with it.

I don't always agree with Gwynne Dyer, nor do I always agree with Craig Murray, but they both seem close to the mark on this one.

I may change my mind about this, but not without letting you know.

Craig Murray: The End Of Liberty

Nobody here has had anything to say about the police-state power-grab unveiled most recently in the UK, and that's ok with me. Or perhaps I should rephrase: the lack of comments is not nearly as troubling as the plan to give the police more powers -- powers they haven't even asked for!

But it didn't get past Craig Murray, whose most recent item at Atlantic Free Press is called "The End of Liberty". The former UK ambassador writes:

I am in general opposed to violence, except as a last resort. And I know that the police are not all fascists. Many policemen don't like the drive against civil liberties any more than I do. But, even granted that they are only doing their job, I can promise you this. The first policeman who stops me as I am peacefully going about my lawful business, and demands to know who I am and where I am going, will get punched on the nose.

As the government whittles away our basic freedoms, there comes a point where you either resist, physically, or we all lose our liberty. I think Reid and Blair's new proposal for a police power to "Stop and question" takes us to that point.

Of course, having skin of a regulation Scottish blue colour, I am not likely to be stopped. Jean Charles De Menezes was killed for having a slightly olive complexion and dark hair, and it is people of his hue and darker who will in fact be stopped and questioned.

The proposal is obvious madness - if the government was looking to provoke young British Muslims, no tactic would work better. Which does lead us, quite seriously, to be forced to question whether Reid and Blair are trying deliberately to cause an even further deterioration in community relations. There are two possibilities: either they are trying to provoke more "Islamic" violence, or they are very stupid.

Come to think of it, there is a third possibility. They may be trying to provoke more Islamic violence, and be very stupid.

Sign me up for the "third possibility".

And thanks once again to Craig Murray, who appears to be way too honest for the Foreign Service.

Craig Murray on Disputed Nautical Borders; Islam, Whisky and Women; Dissent at the BBC; and the Things You Learn Late in Life

Craig Murray has been dropping little bits of vital truth all over the place recently, including these choice bits from his column in Sunday's Observer:

As a former head of the Maritime Section of the Foreign Office, I have spent a great deal of the week dashing between television and radio studios to give interviews about the Iran captives. In the first Gulf War, I lived in an underground bunker, working in the Embargo Surveillance Centre. I worked with naval staff and was very heavily involved in the real-time direction of Gulf interdiction operations. So I'd like to think I know a little bit about this stuff.

There were farcical elements to the whole incident. In truth, no one -- British, Iraqi or Iranian -- could say whose waters the sailors and Marines were in. The military failure was due to the fact we have nothing in the area between a warship and a rubber dinghy; it reminded me of the Cod War with Iceland all over again (do you remember that one? We lost it).

Some would say the sight of the former captives now selling their stories is even more farcical. Others would put it even more strongly. But I digress.

Still less can I understand why we have warships attempting to collect Iraqi vehicle excise duty. These patrols, maintained at enormous expense to the British taxpayer, have hardly made significant seizures (though some will suggest a deterrent factor). Up the Gulf by ship is not how the insurgents are largely supplied. The looting of thousands of tonnes of munitions from the disbanded Iraqi army was enough to keep them going for many years.

Ah, yes. We've talked about that here, too.

On Islam and life in general, including the danger that Sharia Law will be imposed in Britain:

I have never been much attracted to Islam, as my hobbies are drinking whisky and chasing women. But the very many British Muslims I know, some of them very radical, have no problems with my lifestyle or any intention of imposing their religion on the rest of the UK.

On dissent in the UK and the BBC's treatment of it:

One thing I note during my week in broadcasting studios is the extraordinary disconnect between the BBC presentation and what ordinary people can see. I was genuinely sorry for the young people who were captives, but there seemed to be very little in the hundreds of hours of BBC TV coverage that would give a stranger the slightest clue that the majority of British people do not think our troops and navy should be there in the first place. Amazingly, Sky News is much more open to dissent and gives much fairer representation to anti-war voices than the BBC.

And all this serves as a mere run-up to the column's stunning conclusion:

There's a line in "La Isla Bonita" [...] that had always startled me.

"Last light I dreamt of some dago" had always seemed a strange thing to sing, even in less politically correct times.

I now see on the [karaoke] machine it was "San Pedro" with which Madonna fell in love, though I'm not sure yet whether it was a place or the holy old fisherman.

I also discovered that the Abba line from "Super Trouper" is not the improbable "When I called you last night from Tesco" but, rather "from Glasgow". Which is -- if you'll forgive me, Glaswegians -- even less romantic.

I can't help thinking they broke the mold when they made Craig Murray. But where would we be without him?

Captured British Sailors Return Home From Iran

The island nation celebrates the news contained in this account from the Guardian:

Captured British sailors arrive home

The 15 British sailors and marines freed by Iran are back on British soil today after 13 days in captivity.

The 14 men and one woman left Tehran on a British Airways flight this morning and touched down at London's Heathrow airport at 12.02pm.

They travelled in business class and were flying on in waiting helicopters to the Royal Marines Base Chivenor, near Barnstaple, north Devon.

Escorted to the airport by Iranian revolutionary guards, the Britons were installed in business class, with the few paying passengers in that section shunted into economy.

In a final PR flourish by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who announced their release yesterday at the end of a 90-minute monologue on regional history and global politics, the captives were handed gifts from the Iranian president as they left.

There's more on this "flourish" from Pakistan's news service Dawn:

Iran tv shows British sailors laden with gifts

Iran broadcast new pictures of 15 British sailors preparing to fly out of Tehran on Thursday, showing them opening an array of traditional gifts before departing.

The 14 men and one woman smiled and laughed as they sipped tea and waited to board their plane in the plush surroudings of the presidential lounge at Tehran's international airport. The pictures aired on Iran's Arabic language channel Al-Alam showed the sailors opening gifts that ranged from traditional handicrafts to Iranian pistachio nuts. Their luggage, packed into a combination of matching traditional Iranian woven bags and sports holdalls laid on by the authorities, was also shown.

This is the only event in the series that makes perfect sense, but it still leaves us with a barrel full of questions:

Did the British stray into Iranian waters? If so, did they do so intentionally? Were their commanders looking to establish a pretext? If so, the effort appears to have failed.

Or did they simply make a mistake?

Or did the Iranians "reach out and touch someone" in Iraqi waters? And if so, what was the point?

Did Craig Murray's intrepid work, promoting the truth about a disputed international boundary -- in the face of hostile opposition -- play a part in freeing the captured British sailors?

And has the Iranian president's "PR flourish" -- indeed the timely release itself -- knocked the teeth out of Operation BITE? And did they use my idea? Or did they think of it themselves? We may never know.

Things are now potentially set up for a much better Good Friday than I was expecting. But I can't shake the feeling that we are still being led on a long, slow march to a long and horrible war with Iran.

Unless...

Iran Pardons British Sailors As 'A Gift To The British People'

The spin doctors who are trying to start America's Next War are going to find this news a bit disappointing, I would think, although normal people won't find it too awful:

Ahmadinejad says Iran will free British sailors

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Wednesday that his government would release the detained 15 British sailors and marines promptly.

He said the sailors would be taken to Tehran airport at the end of the press conference that he was addressing.

He said he had pardoned the sailors as a gift to the British people and to mark the birthday of Islam's Prophet Muhammed and Easter.

He pardoned the sailors and announced their release minutes after he gave medals of honor [see photo] to the Iranian coast guards who intercepted the sailors and marines, saying Iran will never accept tresspassing of its territorial waters.

"On behalf of the great Iranian people, I want to thank the Iranian Coast Guard who courageously defended and captured those who violated their territorial waters, the president told a press conference.

He then interrupted his speech and pinned a medal on the commander of the Coast Guards involved in capturing the British sailors and marines in the northern Gulf on March 23. Two other Coast Guards came on to the podium and saluted during the ceremony.

"We are sorry that British troops remain in Iraq and their sailors are being arrested in Iran," Ahmadinejad said.

He criticized Britain for deploying Leading Seaman Faye Turney, one of the 15 detainees, in the Gulf, pointing out that she is a woman with a child.

"How can you justify seeing a mother away from her home, her children? Why don't they respect family values in the West?" he asked of the British government.

This report from USA TODAY contains an enhanced version of the bogus map produced by the British MoD last week and comprehensively debugged by former Ambassador Craig Murray, whose work seems to have hurt the situation none at all. But rather than admitting the boundary inserted by the British was uncertain at best and mendacious at worst, the USA today art department created a new, slicker, map, with the same bogus boundary line drawn in.

So, the British sailors will soon be free but our big media will still be lying most of the time. Oh well -- half a loaf is always better than none. And we're still working on the other half.

Interesting And Productive Days For Former Ambassador Craig Murray

Regular readers of this space may recall that a former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who just happens to be an expert on disputed maritime boundaries, disputed the story told by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) as well as the map the MoD issued "supporting" its position in the so-called "hostage crisis".

As you probably know unless you've been hibernating, the Iranians have 15 British sailors who were detained after boarding an Indian merchant ship in water that the British said were clearly Iraq's, while Iran has claimed them for its own.

Ambassador Murray's sudden presence in the public sphere -- with actual information apparently proving the opposite of what the Brits were officially saying -- displeased those who would prefer a fact-free zone, and predictably his calm and reasoned words were greeted with all manner of heat and very little light.

A reckless fool writing a blog for Foreign Policy (propaganda arm of the CFR and one of the more overt neocon mouthpieces) called him a "gadfly", which is not one of the more common terms for former Ambassadors. But it's quite accurate, at least in the eyes of those whose preferred operating mixture is three parts spin and one part hate. Plenty of others (the neocon mouthpiece symphony?) called him much worse.

Fortunately -- and more to the point -- Craig Murray has received some support from serious and neutral places and his point of view now seems to be gaining traction -- or possibly even holding sway already, even as we speak.

As documented over the last few days on his website... (The following short excerpts are selected from long and very interesting pieces, and I invite you to read them although I know most of you don't have time to do so. And so, without further ado...)

The upshot of the brouhaha is as follows:

April 1, 2007: First step towards a realistic approach?

Many thanks to the Mail on Sunday for being the first bit of the mainstream media ready to give a fair hearing to what I have been saying, and to try and understand the situation rather than just belt out propaganda.

At a working level, Whitehall is trying to get reality back into the British position, though this may get stomped on again by the spin doctors. One of my many friends within the FCO has seen minutes between officials discussing "Craig Murray's points" on the border question and whether admitting the border is unclear could be a path to getting our people back (Freedom of Information request for that minuting, anyone?).

The Observer today gives the first hint that the MOD may be looking to backtrack on its unsustainable border claims:

"But the Ministry of Defence hinted for the first time it may have made mistakes surrounding the incident. An inquiry has been commissioned to explore 'navigational' issues around the kidnapping and aspects of maritime law."

April 1: German Armed Forces University: British Boundary Map "Fictitious"

Translated from the German:

In today's printed version of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Prof Khan of the University for the Federal Armed Forces in Munich confirms Craig Murrays statement:

"In their presentation, the British have effectively drawn a fictitious line in their attempt to prove where exactly the soldiers were when taken captive instead of showing a clear border. They couldn't have done the latter in any case as the border between Iran and Iraq around Shatt el-Arab is not clearly identifiable."

April 2, 2007: Back to Normal

It has been a very hectic few days, but they have been productive. I seem to have helped convince the mainstream media of the obvious truth that the maritime boundaries in this part of the Gulf are disputed and fuzzy, and that the real situation is much less clear than the British map. The BBC has at last started routinely to refer to the boundary as disputed and unclear. The support from the Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail helped enormously to turn the tide, as did the serious piece in the New York Times.

Last night I did Newsnight, BBC News 24 and a pre-record for this morning's Breakfast TV. In all cases the BBC introduction stated that the border was disputed and complex as reported fact before I started, which made it much easier.

April 3, 2007: Turning the Tide in the Gulf

We really do seem to have turned the media tide on this one. The maritime law experts now feel it is safe to pop out of the woodwork and make plain there is no clear boundary, and the politicos are waking up to the fact that the disputed boundary gives you the diplomatic solution.

From Reuters today:

By Luke Baker | Tue Apr 3, 10:10 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Shifting sands and a poorly defined maritime border could give Britain and Iran enough room to save face in their 12-day stand-off over a group of detained British sailors and marines, border experts say.

Because the maritime boundaries off the Shatt al-Arab waterway, drawn up in 1975 but not updated since, are open to a certain degree of interpretation, Britain and Iran could "agree to disagree" over exactly who crossed into whose territory.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday the next 48 hours could prove critical as both the British and Iranian governments have sought to moderate their positions after several days of heightened tension.

"It's certainly not an irresolvable dispute," said Martin Pratt, the director of the International Boundaries Research Unit at Britain's Durham University.

"The fact that the coastline is constantly shifting means more issues would need to be taken into consideration than if the coastlines were more stable and there was agreement on exactly where the baselines along the coast were."

Both the Iranian and British governments appear to have softened their stances in the past 24 hours, with each highlighting their desire to reach a negotiated solution.
...

"You can't be dogmatic about a maritime boundary that hasn't been properly agreed," he said.

Maritime lawyers said they expected British and Iranian officials to be able to sort out the wording of any agreement themselves, without turning to an outside arbiter such as the United Nations, which has handled maritime disputes in the past.

On Monday, Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, called for a "delegation" to determine whether the British sailors were in Iran or not, but didn't define what sort of delegation.

"I think there's plenty of scope in the uncertainty of the situation to be able to craft some kind of solution," said Richard Harvey, the head of admiralty and casualty practice at law firm Reed, Smith, Richards, Butler.

"It strikes me that a) there is a lot of scope for disagreement and therefore b) quite a lot of scope for agreement."

...

I know from my FCO moles that we are now adopting this line in the diplomacy. As long as they can stop Blair saying anything else stupid for a couple of days, I do think we can hope to see the captives home before too long.

It is amazing that it is only four days since I was denounced quite widely as a "Traitor" and "Scum" (and several still worse things - see the Harry's Place blog. Or don't - its nauseating) for saying what now everyone is coming to accept as the truth. There is no clear boundary in these waters. We were stupid to pretend, for propaganda and spin, that there is.

The former ambassador is a gentleman and a scholar, as well as a man of peace and goodwill. But we knew that a long time ago, didn't we? And in fact, that's exactly why he is no longer an ambassador, isn't it?

Does the DHS still allow us to ask such questions?
Yeah, but you don't get any answers anymore.
Right, but that's not DHS, that's FOI.

Regarding Iran's Treatment Of The Detained British Sailors

Two recent columns in the Guardian have put the Iranian treatment of the 15 detained UK sailors in perspective, and I recommend them highly.

On Friday there was a serious treatment from Ronan Bennett, excerpts from which follow (with my emphasis):

A peculiar outrage

It's right that the government and media should be concerned about the treatment the 15 captured marines and sailors are receiving in Iran. Faye Turney's letters bear the marks of coercion, while parading the prisoners in front of TV cameras was demeaning. But the outrage expressed by ministers and leader writers is curious given the recent record of the "coalition of the willing" on the way it deals with prisoners.

Turney may have been "forced to wear the hijab", as the Daily Mail noted with fury, but so far as we know she has not been forced into an orange jumpsuit. Her comrades have not been shackled, blindfolded, forced into excruciating physical contortions for long periods, or denied liquids and food. As far as we know they have not had the Bible spat on, torn up or urinated on in front of their faces. They have not had electrodes attached to their genitals or been set on by attack dogs.

They have not been hung from a forklift truck and photographed for the amusement of their captors. They have not been pictured naked and smeared in their own excrement. They have not been bundled into a CIA-chartered plane and secretly "rendered" to a basement prison in a country where torturers are experienced and free to do their worst.

As far as we know, Turney and her comrades are not being "worked hard", the euphemism coined by one senior British army officer for the abuse of prisoners at Camp Bread Basket. And as far as we know all 15 are alive and well, which is more than can be said for Baha Mousa, the hotel receptionist who, in 2003, was unfortunate enough to have been taken into custody by British troops in Basra. There has of course been a court martial and it exonerated the soldiers of Mousa's murder. So we can only assume that his death - by beating - was self-inflicted; yet another instance of "asymmetrical warfare", the description given by US authorities to the deaths of the Guantánamo detainees who hanged themselves last year.
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We all know in our bones that soldiers and civilians in revolt don't mix. Ask any historian. Ask them about what British soldiers did in Kenya, French soldiers did in Algeria, and Americans in Vietnam. While you're at it, ask them what the RAF did in Iraq under British rule in the 1920s (gassed Kurds, in case you've forgotten).

We must all hope that Faye Turney and her comrades are returned to their families safely and soon. Then perhaps we can compare their accounts of their treatment with what Moazzam Begg and the Tipton Three have to say about Guantánamo, what Prisoner B has to say about Belmarsh, and what the men arrested with Baha Mousa can tell us of his screams on the night he died.

Saturday, the inimitable Terry Jones, ex of Monty Python's Flying Circus, said much the same thing, but in an entirely different manner:

Call that humiliation?

I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this - allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God's sake, what's wrong with putting a bag over her head? That's what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it's hard to breathe. Then it's perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can't be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.

It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn't be able to talk at all. Of course they'd probably find it even harder to breathe - especially with a bag over their head - but at least they wouldn't be humiliated.

And what's all this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right? It's time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilised world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement. That's one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay.

The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn't rush into charging people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it's just invaded. The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all the privacy they want for almost five years, and the first inmate has only just been charged. What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush to parade their captives before the cameras!

What's more, it is clear that the Iranians are not giving their British prisoners any decent physical exercise. The US military make sure that their Iraqi captives enjoy PT. This takes the form of exciting "stress positions", which the captives are expected to hold for hours on end so as to improve their stomach and calf muscles. A common exercise is where they are made to stand on the balls of their feet and then squat so that their thighs are parallel to the ground. This creates intense pain and, finally, muscle failure. It's all good healthy fun and has the bonus that the captives will confess to anything to get out of it.
...

What is so appalling is the underhand way in which the Iranians have got her "unhappy and stressed". She shows no signs of electrocution or burn marks and there are no signs of beating on her face. This is unacceptable. If captives are to be put under duress, such as by forcing them into compromising sexual positions, or having electric shocks to their genitals, they should be photographed, as they were in Abu Ghraib. The photographs should then be circulated around the civilised world so that everyone can see exactly what has been going on.

Many thanks to Chris Floyd for mentioning "A peculiar outrage" and to Larisa Alexandrovna and Craig Murray for catching "Call that humiliation?"

I thought Murray's comments were especially worth repeating here:

Baha Musa was undoubtedly no terrorist; yet this father was also undoubtedly beaten to death by Briitish soldiers when in British detention in Iraq. Nobody was convicted. He was by no means the only one.

Two wrongs do not make a right; nor was that the fault of any of those held captive in Iran. I pray that the Iranians treat them very well indeed - even better let them go immediately.

But the truth is that, thanks to Blair and Bush, we have no right any more to lecture any other country on universal rights and treatment of captives.

Veteran Intelligence Professionals Analyze The UK/Iran 'Crisis'

This message from former intelligence professionals Ray Close, Larry Johnson, David MacMichael, Ray McGovern (photo), and Coleen Rowley, was posted earlier today at Robert Parry's site, Consortium News dot Com. In view of its importance, I reproduce it here in full.

From: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Brinkmanship Unwise in Uncharted Waters

The frenzy in America’s corporate media over Iran’s detainment of 15 British Marines who may, or may not, have violated Iranian-claimed territorial waters is a flashback to the unrestrained support given the administration’s war-mongering against Iraq shortly before the attack.

The British are refusing to concede the possibility that its Marines may have crossed into ill-charted, Iranian-claimed waters and are ratcheting up the confrontation. At this point, the relative merits of the British and Iranian versions of what actually happened are greatly less important than how hotheads on each side -- and particularly the British -- decide to exploit the event in the coming days.

There is real danger that this incident, and the way it plays out, may turn out to be outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s last gesture of fealty to President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and “neo-conservative” advisers who, this time, are looking for a casus belli to “justify” air strikes on Iran.

Bush and Cheney no doubt find encouragement in the fact that the Democrats last week refused to include in the current House bill on Iraq war funding proposed language forbidding the White House from launching war on Iran without explicit congressional approval.

If the Senate omits similar language, or if the prohibition disappears in conference, chances increase for a “pre-emptive” US and/or Israeli strike on Iran and a major war that will make the one in Iraq seem like a minor skirmish. The impression, cultivated by the White House and our domesticated media, that Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-majority states might favor a military strike on Iran is a myth.

But the implications go far beyond the Middle East. With the Russians and Chinese, the US has long since forfeited the ability, exploited with considerable agility in the 70s and 80s, to play one off against the other. In fact, US policies have helped drive the two giants together. They know well that it’s about oil and strategic positioning and will not stand idly by if Washington strikes Iran.

Lying Poodle

Intelligence analysts place great store in sources’ record for reliability and the historical record. We would be forced to classify Tony Blair as a known prevaricator who, for reasons still not entirely clear, has a five-year record of acting as man’s best friend for Bush. If the President needs a casus belli, Blair will probably fetch it.

Is there, then, any British statesman well versed in both the Middle East and maritime matters, who is worthy of trust? There is. Craig Murray is former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan (until he was cashiered for openly objecting to UK and US support for torture there) and also former head of the maritime section of the British Foreign Office, and has considerable experience negotiating disputes over borders extending into the sea.

In recent days, former ambassador Murray has performed true to character in courageously speaking out, taking public issue with the British government’s position on the incident at hand. He was quick to quote, for example, the judiciously balanced words of Commodore Nick Lambert, the Royal Navy commander of the operation on which the Marines were captured:

“There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that they were in Iraqi territorial waters. Equally, the Iranians may well claim that they were in their territorial waters. The extent and definition of territorial waters in this part of the world is very complicated.”

Compare the commodore’s caution with the infallible certainty with which Blair has professed to be “utterly confident” that the Marines were in Iraqi waters, and you get an idea of what may be Blair’s ultimate purpose.

Writing in his widely read blog, Murray points to a “colossal problem” with respect to the map the British government has used to show coordinates of the incident and the Iran/Iraq maritime border—the story uncritically accepted by stenographers of the mainstream press. Murray writes:

“The Iran/Iraq maritime boundary shown on the British government map does not exist. It has been drawn up by the British Government. Only Iraq and Iran can agree on their bilateral boundary, and they have never done this in the Gulf, only inside the Shatt because there it is the land border too. This published boundary is a fake with no legal force...Anyway, the UK was plainly wrong to be ultra-provocative in disputed waters...

Here's the map. (Click the image to enlarge it.) Four positions are marked: the place where the British say the HMS Cornwall was, the place where they say the sailors were taken, the place where the Iranians originally claimed the event occurred and the place where they later said it happened. Go ahead and measure the distances. All four positions are closer to Iran than they are to Iraq. In the absence of an agreed-upon border, this fact weighs in favor of Iran's claims.

“They [the British Marines] would under international law have been allowed to enter Iranian territorial waters if in ’hot pursuit’ of terrorists, slavers, or pirates....But they were looking for smuggled vehicles attempting to evade car duty. What has the evasion of Iranian or Iraqi taxes got to do with the Royal Navy?”

Ambassador Murray has appealed to reason and cooler heads. To state what should be the obvious, he notes it is not legitimate for the British government to draw a boundary without agreement of the countries involved:

“A little more humility, and an acknowledgement that this is a boundary subject to dispute, might actually get our people home. The question is are we really aiming to get our people home, or to maximize propaganda from the incident?”

War Dreams

What is known at this point regarding the circumstances suggests Royal Navy misfeasance rather than deliberate provocation. The way the UK and US media has been stoked, however, suggests that both London and Washington may decide to represent the intransigence of Iranian hotheads as a casus belli for the long prepared air strikes on Iran.

And not to be ruled out is the possibility that we are dealing with a provocation ab initio. Intelligence analysts look to precedent, and what seems entirely relevant in this connection is the discussion between Bush and Blair on Jan. 31, 2003 six weeks before the attack on Iraq.

The “White House Memo” (like the famous “Downing Street Memo” leaked earlier to the British press) shows George Bush broaching to Blair various options to provoke war with Iraq. The British minutes -- the authenticity of which is not disputed by the British government -- of the Jan. 31, 2003 meeting stated the first option as:

“The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach.”

Not to mention the (in)famous Tonkin Gulf non-incident, used by President Lyndon Johnson to justify bombing North Vietnam.

The increasingly heavy investment of "face" in the UK Marine capture situation is unquestionably adding to the danger of an inadvertent outbreak of open hostilities. One side or the other is going to be forced to surrender some of its pride if a more deadly confrontation is going to be averted.

And there is no indication that the Bush administration is doing anything other than encouraging British recalcitrance.

Unless one’s basic intention is to provoke a hostile action to which the US and UK could “retaliate,” getting involved in a tit-for-tat contest with the Iranians is a foolish and reckless game, for it may not prove possible to avoid escalation and loss of control. And we seem to be well on our way there. If one calls Iran "evil,” arrests its diplomats, accuses it of promoting terrorism and unlawful capture, one can be certain that the Iranians will retaliate and raise the stakes in the process.

That is how the game of tit-for-tat is played in that part of the world. What British and American officials seem not to be taking into account is that the Iranians are the neighborhood toughs. In that neighborhood, they control the conditions under which the game will be played. They can change the rules freely any time they want; the UK cannot, and neither can Washington.

Provocative behavior, then, can be very dangerous, unless you mean to pick a fight you may well regret.

Someone should recount to Tony Blair and Ayatollah Khameini the maxim quoted by former United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix just last week:

"The noble art of losing face
Will someday save the human race."

By:

Ray Close, Princeton, NJ
Larry Johnson, Bethesda, MD
David MacMichael, Linden, VA
Ray McGovern, Arlington, VA
Coleen Rowley, Apple Valley, MN

Steering Group
Veteran Intelligence Professionals
for Sanity (VIPS)

Many thanks to VIPS and Robert Parry.

Craig Murray: UK Likely Wrong In Iranian Dispute; Western Media Mum

The former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has reportedly told a British paper that the British sailors held by Iran were quite likely wrong to be where they were and that the Iranians were within their rights to detain them. Explosive stuff, were it widely known in the UK, for instance. And that likely explains why no British paper, no American paper, and for that matter no paper outside of Iran is running the story.

It did appear in Iran, from Press TV dot IR, on two different days, under two different headlines ("Britons detention is Iran's right: ex-British diplomat" and "Murray: Detention of British marines legitimate"), but with identical text:

A former British diplomat says it is Iran's legal right to protect its sovereignty and the detained Britons should not have entered Iranian waters.

The UK's former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, told the Daily Mirror on Monday, "In international law the Iranian government were not out of order in detaining foreign military personnel in waters to which they have a legitimate claim."

For the Royal Navy to be interdicting shipping within the twelve mile limit of territorial seas, in a region they know full well is subject to a maritime boundary dispute, is unnecessarily provocative, he added.

Murray noted that, "This is especially true as apparently they were not looking for weapons but for smuggled vehicles attempting to evade car duty. What has the evasion of Iranian or Iraqi taxes got to do with the Royal Navy? The ridiculous illogic of the Blair mess gets us further into trouble."

Murray then requested "the Iranian authorities" to "now hand the men back immediately," arguing that "Plainly they were not engaged in piracy or in hostilities against Iran."

He said the Iranians well demonstrated the ability to exercise effective sovereignty over their waters.

I've been thinking of blogging about this story, and wondering whether it were true or false. If you focus on what we've been told about Iran, you might tend to think the story was probably false. But if you focus on who's been telling us about Iran, you might think otherwise.

How can you decide? Here's one idea: wait and see what happens. That's what I did. And soon enough there was another story, from Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) via Muslim News dot Co dot UK. This time the headline reads: "Iran's arrest of sailors was legitimate, says former UK envoy" and the text has a few more details:

Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray Monday supported Iran's decision to arrest 15 UK marines in the Persian Gulf last week.

"In international law the Iranian government were not out of order in detaining foreign military personnel in waters to which they have a legitimate claim," Murray said, who was also a previous head of Foreign Office's maritime section, carrying out negotiations on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

"For the Royal Navy, to be interdicting shipping within the twelve mile limit of territorial seas in a region they know full well is subject to maritime boundary dispute, is unnecessarily provocative," he said.

The former envoy said that this was "especially true as apparently they were not looking for weapons but for smuggled vehicles attempting to evade car duty."

"What has the evasion of Iranian or Iraqi taxes go to do with the Royal Navy?" he questioned in comments on his webpage, set up after he was sacked from his post in 2004 after criticizing British foreign policy.

While working for the Foreign Office, Murray was also head of the UK's Embargo Surveillance Centre, analyzing Iraqi attempts to evade sanctions and providing information to UK military forces and to other governments to effect physical enforcement of the embargo.

He said that under international law, Britain would have been allowed to enter Iranian territorial waters if in "hot pursuit" of terrorists, slavers or pirates."

But added "they weren't doing any of those things."

"Plainly, they were not engaged in piracy or in hostilities against Iran. The Iranians can feel content that they have demonstrated the ability to exercise effective sovereignty over the waters they claim," the former envoy said.

He criticized the "ridiculous logic" of Prime Minister Tony Blair, saying he was creating a mess that "gets us further into trouble."

The Daily Mirror, which has been an outspoken opponent of the Iraq war, reminded its readers Monday that "if the UK had never joined the disastrous invasion of Iraq, the 15 would not have been put in a position where they could be seized."

In its editorial on the incident, it also said that "US threats in the recent past to launch military strikes on Iran have inflamed tensions."

Did you catch the crucial detail? I'll give you the key paragraph again:

"What has the evasion of Iranian or Iraqi taxes go to do with the Royal Navy?" he questioned in comments on his webpage, set up after he was sacked from his post in 2004 after criticizing British foreign policy.

Aha! His webpage! I know it. I've been there. I've got it bookmarked. Why didn't I just check it out before? LOL @ WP!!

Guess what? The Iranians are not lying about this one! Murray has done three posts about this situation and nowhere does he contradict any of the quotes attributed to him above. Links and excerpts follow (and the emphasis is mine).

March 23, 2007 : British Marines Captured By Iranians

The capture of British Marines by Iran has happened before, then on the Shatt-al-Arab waterway. It will doubtless be used by those seeking to bang the war drum against Iran, though I imagine it will be fairly quickly resolved.

Before people get too carried away, the following is worth bearing in mind. I write as a former Head of the Maritime Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The Iranians claimed the British soldiers had strayed into Iranian territorial waters. If they had, then the Iranians had every right to detain them for questioning.

The difficulty is that the maritime delimitation in the North West of the Persian Gulf, between Iraq, Kuwait and Iran, has never been resolved. It is not therefore a question of just checking your GPS to see where you are. This is a perfectly legitimate dispute, in which nobody is particularly at fault. Lateral maritime boundaries from a coastal border point are intensely complicated things, especially where islands and coastal banks become a factor.

Disputes are not unusual. I was personally heavily involved in negotiating British maritime boundaries with Ireland, France and Denmark just ten years ago, and not all our own boundaries are resolved even now. There is nothing outlandish about Iranian claims, and we have no right in law to be boarding Iranian or other shipping in what may well be Iranian waters.

The UN Convention on the Law of The Sea carries a heavy presumption on the right of commercial vessels to "innocent passage", especially through straits like Hormuz and in both territorial and international waters. You probably won't read this elsewhere in these jingoistic times but, in international law, we are very probably in the wrong. As long as the Iranians neither mistreat our Marines nor wilfully detain them too long, they have the right.

March 26, 2007: British Marines Captured By Iran

I explained that in international law the Iranian government were not out of order in detaining foreign military personnel in waters to which they have a legitimate claim. For the Royal Navy to be interdicting shipping within the twelve mile limit of territorial seas in a region they know full well is subject to maritime boundary dispute, is unneccessarily provocative. This is especially true as apparently they were not looking for weapons but for smuggled vehicles attempting to evade car duty. What has the evasion of Iranian or Iraqi taxes go to do with the Royal Navy? The ridiculous illogic of the Blair mess gets us further into trouble.

Incidentally, they would under international law have been allowed to enter Iranian territorial waters if in "Hot pursuit" of terrorists, slavers or pirates. But they weren't doing any of those things.

Having said all that, the Iranian authorities, their point made, should now hand the men back immediately. Plainly they were not engaged in piracy or in hostilities against Iran. The Iranians can feel content that they have demonstrated the ability to exercise effective sovereignty over the waters they claim.

Any further detention of the men would now be unlawful and bellicose. One of the great problems facing those of us striving hard to prevent a further disastrous war, this time on Iran, is that the Iranian government is indeed full of theocratic nutters.

March 27, 2007: Captured Marines (Again)

My two earlier posts have caused quite a stir, so here are some further observations.

Sadly, but perhaps predictably, both the British and Iranian governments are now acting like idiots.

Tony Blair has let it be known that he is "utterly confident" that the British personnel were in Iraqi waters. He has of course never been known for his expertise in the Law of the Sea. But let us contrast this political certainty with the actual knowledge of the Royal Navy Commander of the operation on which the captives were taken.

Before the spin doctors could get to him, Commodore Lambert said:

"There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that they were in Iraqi territorial waters. Equally, the Iranians may well claim that they were in their territorial waters. The extent and definition of territorial waters in this part of the world is very complicated".

That is precisely right. The boundary between Iran and Iraq in the northern Persian Gulf has never been fixed. (Within the Shatt-al-Arab itself a line was fixed, but was to be updated every ten years because the waterway shifts, according to the treaty. As it has not been updated in over twenty years, whether it is still valid is a moot point. But it appears this incident occurred well south of the Shatt anyway.) This is a perfectly legitimate dispute. The existence of this dispute will clearly be indicated on HMS Cornwall's charts, which are in front of Commodore Lambert, but not of Mr Blair.

Until a boundary is agreed, you could only be certain that the personnel were in Iraqi territorial waters if they were within twelve miles of the coast and, at the same time, more than twelve miles from any island, spit, bar or sandbank claimed by Iran (or Kuwait).

That is very hard to judge as the British government refuse to give out the coordinates where the men were captured. If they really are utterly certain, I find that incomprehensible. Everyone knows the Gulf is teeming with British vessels and personnel, so the position of units a few days ago can hardly be valuable intelligence.

I've snipped some technical but nonetheless very interesting material about international boundaries. Click the link and read the whole post if you're interested.

Here's the rest:

Anyway, the UK was plainly wrong to be ultra provocative in disputed waters. They would be allowed to enter Iranian territorial seas in hot pursuit of terrorists, pirates or slavers, but not to carry out other military operations.

The Iranians had a right to detain the men if they were in seas legitimately claimed as territorial by Iran. Indeed, it is arguable that if a government makes a claim of sovereignty it rather has to enforce it, possession being nine parts of international law. But now the Iranian government is being very foolish, and itself acting illegally, by not releasing the men having made its point.

The story leaked by Russian intelligence claiming knowledge of US plans to attack Iran on 6 April has had great publicity in Iran, if very little here.

I do believe a blog or two may have covered it.

Personally I doubt it is true. But it seems to me a definite risk that the Iranians will decide to keep the marines against that contingency.

That would be very unfortunate. The Iranian government, by continuing to hold the British personnel, are foolishly providing new impetus to Bush and Blair, whose attempts to bang the war drum against Iran have so far met profound public scepticism. We don't need any more oil wars.

After all this, the former ambassador concludes with good ideas for each side:

If Blair actually sought the release of our people, rather than anti-Iranian propaganda, he would stop making stupid macho noises and give an assurance that we intend to resolve not only this problem but all disagreements with Iran by peaceful means, and give specific reassurance that no attack is imminent.

But if the Iranian government wait for Blair to behave well, the marines will rot for ever. They should let the men (and woman) go now, with lots of signs of friendship, thus further wrongfooting Bush and Blair.

Now that's diplomacy!

So ... where are the British press? As far as I can tell, the only national paper which has mentioned him recently was the Guardian, in a piece headlined "Iran's Border Muddles Captivity Issue" which doesn't go nearly as far as Murray does in the text quoted above. It does quote him in this context:

``Until a boundary is agreed, you could only be certain that the personnel were in Iraqi territorial waters if they were within 12 miles of the (Iraqi) coast and, at the same time, more than 12 miles from any island, spit, bar or sand bank claimed by Iran,'' said Craig Murray, former chief of the Maritime Section of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

That means ships operating near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab - where marshes and sandbars make navigation difficult and where ``ownership'' of the water is ambiguous - could easily run into trouble.

The article also quotes Richard Schofield of King's College in London, whom it calls "an expert on the waterway", as saying, "We have to accept the British claim with as much salt as the Iranian claim," and "There's a lot of room for making mischief, if that's what you want to do."

But it stops short of presenting Murray's position in full.

Is that "censorship"? or "good news judgement"? or is it "half a loaf is better than none"?

And what's with all the other "news" on this topic? Do they all treat it as if the British were definitely in the right and the Iranians who captured them were definitely in the wrong? Or not? We're all reading and hearing different things; and I am interested in how you see this story being played.

Maybe more to the point, Craig Murray says the British are the ones who are being unnecessarily provocative. Is anybody else painting it that way?

Personally, I would love to see Iran "let the men (and woman) go now, with lots of signs of friendship, thus further wrongfooting Bush and Blair."

But we shall see. Like it or not, we're still dealing with a government that's full of theocratic nutters. Or maybe two of them. Or maybe even more.

But what if the Iranians gave back all fifteen Brits, and give them each a gorgeous Persian carpet for themselves, another for their commanders a third for the queen? And what if they gave each of them a few thousand euros worth of credit at the Iranian Oil Bourse? How could Britain bomb them then?

Just a thought. Use it if you like.