اهداف جامعه ایرانی چیست؟ « ما چگونه فکر می کنیم» و آنچه که در ایران مهم انگاشته می شود.

۱۳۸۶ فروردین ۱۰, جمعه

Iran Broadcasts New Video of Seized Britons (nytimes.com)

Published: March 30, 2007

LONDON, March 30 — Iranian television’s Arabic-language channel broadcast footage on Friday of a captured British Royal Marine seeming to apologize “deeply” for entering Iranian waters without permission. Iran also released what it said was a third letter from Faye Turney, the only woman among the captives, in which she purportedly complained of being “sacrificed” to British and American policies.

Al Alam TV, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Iran’s official Arabic-language television station broadcast today a new video of one of the British sailors seized a week ago.

Multimedia

Video Video: The Apology

The newest moves by Iran added to a deepening sense of revulsion and frustration among British officials.

Iranian television identified the latest Briton to be displayed as rifleman Nathan Thomas Summers. The marine was one of 15 British soldiers seized on March 23 and his appearance followed similar televised and written statements by Leading Seaman Turney.

As the confrontation between Britain and Teheran has mounted, British newspapers have taken to calling the episode a “hostage crisis,” and some analysts have said it shows the narrow limits of British authority four years after the invasion of Iraq. Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed “disgust” at British personnel being “paraded” and “manipulated.”

“They have got to be released,” he told a television interviewer.

Mr. Summers was shown wearing olive-and-sand-colored camouflage fatigues with the words “Royal Navy” and a small union jack badge on the shirt. He was seen sitting next to Leading Seaman Turney and another unidentified marine. Their whereabouts have not been publicly disclosed. Britain insists that the sailors were “ambushed” while operating under United Nations and Iraqi authority, 1.7 nautical miles within Iraqi waters.

In television footage that seemed to jump between camera angles as if it had been edited, Mr. Summers said Britain had promised after a similar incident in 2004 that its naval vessels would not trespass in Iranian waters.

“Again I deeply apologize for entering your waters,” Mr. Summers said.

In what was said to be Leading Seaman Turney’s third letter, the 26-year-old sailor went further than in previous letters when she has said she and the other personnel were in Iranian waters when they were captured, and apologizing for that. The previous missives were supposedly to be sent to her family and to parliament.

Addressed to the British people, the latest letter said: ”I am writing to you as a British serviceperson who has been sent to Iraq, sacrificed due to the intervening policies of the Bush and Blair governments.”

“Whereas we hear and see on the news the way that prisoners were treated in Abu Ghrayb and other Iraqi jails by the British and American personnel, I have received total respect and faced no harm,” the letter in her name said. “It is now our time to ask our government to make a change to its oppressive behavior towards other people.”

The British Foreign Office in London said the “manipulation” of its service personnel was “outrageous.”

The official IRNA news agency also publicized remarks by Mr. Summers, purportedly saying: “We entered Iranian waters without permission and we were detained by Iranian coast guards. I would like to apologize for this to the Iranian people.”

“Since our detention on March 23, everything has been very good and I’m completely satisfied about the situation,” he was quoted as saying.

His comments echoed remarks by Leading Seaman Turney about the alleged well-being of the Britons. In news clips interspersed with footage of their capture, some of them have been shown sharing a meal. The video shown on Friday depicted the three service personnel seeming to be smiling and relaxed.

Britain has been seeking international backing for its demand that Iran release the service personnel immediately, but failed to win full United Nations Security Council support on Thursday for a toughly-worded statement to that effect. Instead, the Security Council voiced “grave concern.”

On Friday, Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy supreme, called the Iranian action a “big mistake.” He was speaking as he arrived at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Germany where Britain might press its European partners to support punitive action against Iran by suspending export credit guarantees crucial to trade between Iran and Europe.

The British authorities are also weighing a letter sent by the Iranian Foreign Ministry to the British Embassy in Tehran on Thursday, apparently softening Iran’s demand for an apology but seeking a guarantee that British naval vessels will steer clear of Iranian waters in the future.

But Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, said there was “nothing in the letter to suggest that the Iranians are looking for a way out.” She also said it was “quite appalling and it is completely contrary to normal international convention to use people who are detained against their will, who have been detained for days now, to whom consular access is denied ... to use them for blatant propaganda in this way. I am quite horrified.”

However, it is unclear which part of the Iranian government has final control over the Britons’ destiny, with many news reports saying they are being held by Revolutionary Guards.

Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government is under domestic pressure to show itself as taking a hard line to force the release of the prisoners. But their prolonged detention has highlighted the constraints on Britain’s ability to put pressure on Iran, which is also in dispute with the west over its nuclear program.

In The Independent newspaper on Friday columnist Matthew Norman said British moral authority had been eroded by its association with the United States in the invasion of Iraq and the campaign against terrorism.

“What is crystal clear is that Iran would never have dared so blatant an act of brinksmanship were it not convinced, quite correctly, that the Iraqi misadventure has rendered Britain too nervous and demoralized, not to mention militarily overstretched, to respond with serious force,” he wrote.

“Gunboat diplomacy is a thing of the past, even if we could find a spare gunboat,” Mr. Norman said. “The days when Britain had the stature, self-confidence and façade of moral authority to play sergeant to the U.S. chief inspector on the global stage are over, and the villains know it.”

Iran seeks bilateral resolution to crisis (ft.com)

By Daniel Dombey in London and Fidelius Schmid in Bremen

Published: March 30 2007 15:08

Iran said on Friday it was seeking a diplomatic resolution of the dispute over its detention of 15 British sailors and marines, but the UK said Tehran had not made any concessions.

“The two governments have been closely examining and discussing the case,” the Iranian embassy in London said in a statement. ”This case can and should be settled through bilateral channels,” it added, censuring Britain for taking the issue to the United Nations Security Council.

In a press statement issued on Thursday night that fell well short of the UK’s initial draft, the Security Council called for British consular access to the detainees, and requested “an early resolution of this problem, including the release of the 15 United Kingdom personnel”. Britain had wanted the Security Council to call for the detainees’ immediate release.

On Friday, the Iranian embassy also released the text of a letter delivered to Britain the previous day which denounced what it said was Britain’s “illegal act in violating Iranian waters” and called on the UK to “guarantee to avoid the recurrence of such acts”.

While the UK insists that the personnel were in Iraqi waters, and has used GPS data to support its claim, Tehran says the sailors and marines were 0.5 km within Iranian territorial waters.

“There is nothing in the letter to suggest that the Iranians are looking for a way out,” said Margaret Beckett, UK foreign secretary. She also said that Iran had acted “completely contrary to normal international convention” in using the detainees “for blatant propaganda.”

Iran also released what it said was a third letter by Leading Seaman Faye Turney, the only woman among the 15 captives, which called on the UK to leave Iraq. It also showed footage of another detainee, Nathan Thomas Summers, who apologised for crossing into Iranian waters “without permission”.

Meeting in Bremen, Germany, European Union foreign ministers on Friday called for Iran to release the 15 UK sailors and marines held captive, but expressed caution about following London in suspending normal business with Iran.

“I think we have to be careful,” said Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU external relations commissioner. “We are in a very delicate moment.”

The ministers are planning to issue a formal declaration of support on Friday night.

Massive U.S. war exercises threaten Iran

While blaming Tehran

Massive U.S. war exercises threaten Iran

Published Mar 29, 2007 8:57 PM

On March 27, the Associated Press reported that the U.S. had launched its largest naval exercises in the Persian Gulf since the invasion of Iraq.

Two immense aircraft carriers, the USS Eisenhower and the USS Stennis, were steaming off the coast of Iran, each one accompanied by a carrier strike group of vessels and planes. All together, more than 100 planes were involved in this obvious attempt to intimidate the Iranian people with a show of military might.

The magnitude of the operation was sketched by the AP: “Each carrier hosts an air wing of F/A-18 Hornet and Superhornet fighter-bombers, EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare aircraft, S-3 Viking anti-submarine and refuelers, and E-2C Hawkeye airborne command-and-control craft. Also taking part were guided-missile destroyers USS Anzio, USS Ramage, USS O’Kane, USS Mason, USS Preble and USS Nitze; and minesweepers USS Scout, USS Gladiator and USS Ardent.”

The Eisenhower had moved to the Gulf from the coast of Somalia, where in December it provided cover for an invasion of that country by thousands of Ethiopian troops, coordinated by U.S. special forces. Washington’s objective was to break the political power of the popular Islamic Courts Union and firm up a “transitional government” of discredited “warlords” who had lost control of the country. As usual, the public relations flacks in Washington explained this outright aggression with one pat phrase: the “war on terror.”

British sailors, marines detained

Iran must have known that the current exercises were about to take place when on March 23 its navy stopped a vessel in the Shatt al-Arab waterway between Iraq and Iran and detained 15 British sailors and marines.

There are two accounts of why this happened. The U.S.-British account is that the British sailors were in Iraqi waters inspecting civilian ships suspected of smuggling and that the Iranians had no right to detain them.

The Iranian account is that the British had entered Iranian waters. It says the 15 detained sailors and marines have not been harmed but are being questioned to determine whether their violation of Iran’s sea boundaries was “intentional or unintentional.”

Meanwhile, the media in both Britain and the U.S. are pumping up an international crisis over the seizure of the 15. If they report at all on the huge war exercises going on, it is to give the impression that the U.S. is just responding to the “evil bully,” Iran.

How low can the monopolized corporate media go—especially the television “news” programs aimed at a mass audience? Lower than a snake’s belly.

They won’t ask the most elementary questions about this preposterous story, even though the whole world knows by now that the residents of both the White House and Downing Street are a pack of liars.

However, independent-minded people in the West should be able to figure this all out. There is plenty of historical precedent to understand what is going on.

First of all, it makes no sense that Iran would deliberately enter Iraqi waters and seize British naval personnel just as U.S. carriers were bearing down on its coast to carry out war maneuvers. The Iranians know very well that the U.S. is the world’s superpower when it comes to military might and would not help it create a pretext for aggression.

Second, the U.S. and Britain have long been in a partnership to dominate the oil-rich Middle East; it should be remembered that the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. once controlled most of Iran’s oil. It DOES make sense that they would concoct a provocation just before the U.S. war maneuvers began.

Third, isn’t it suspicious that the charge against Iran came from London and Washington, not from Baghdad? Didn’t this allegedly happen in Iraqi waters?

Fourth, even though several accounts have appeared in the Western media—including in the series on U.S. military threats against Iran by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker magazine—about U.S. special forces operating clandestinely inside Iran, promoting secessionist groups and gathering intelligence, the Iranian government has so far taken no action that might inflame its already tense relationship with Washington.

Finally, the penetration of a country’s territorial waters by U.S. warships or spying vessels has happened before.

Gulf of Tonkin, USS Pueblo

In August 1964, Congress passed a resolution that was later cited by President Lyndon Johnson as his authority to escalate the war in Vietnam. The so-called Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was based on a supposed “attack” by North Vietnamese patrol boats on U.S. warships in international waters. Later, with the publication of the Pentagon Papers, this pretext for the war was shown to be totally false.

In January 1968, the ship USS Pueblo and its crew of 83 men were captured by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea after entering the DPRK’s waters. The U.S. claimed the ship was on an innocent mission—until its captain apologized to the Koreans and admitted publicly that it had been intercepting the Koreans’ electronic communications.

No one outside the U.S./British high command knows where the present crisis is leading. It must not be allowed to become the excuse for an escalation of the imperialist military intervention in the Middle East, which has already brought so much misery and destruction to the region and to the soldiers coerced and tricked into going there.


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