Gulf Daze 1
On the morning of Friday March 23, 2007 the world awoke to the news that “Iranians Capture British sailors (Toronto Star)” who according to U.S. and British officials, “had boarded a merchant ship in Iraqi waters of the Persian Gulf as part of efforts to protect the Iraqi coastline and its oil terminals.” As the story unfolds we learn that the boarding party of 15 sailors included 7 armed Royal Marines who were inspecting a “ship suspected of smuggling cars in the Persian Gulf.”
Is this normal operations procedure, or is it a rather larger than normal armed group for a simple custom inspection?
Did the British Navy believe that the suspected car smugglers might attack the boarding party and as in a Hollywood scripted ‘B’ movie, with guns blazing escape into the gulf, the British and American navies in hot pursuit? Or is it more likely that the British were expecting trouble from another quarter on this particular inspection and if so why and from where and whom?
Could it be that the sizable armed boarding party was necessary because the British Navy was conducting a deliberately provocative act?
A careful reading of the Toronto Star / AP article above reveals that despite British assurances to the contrary they were not conducting operations in Iraqi waters, they were in fact operating in an area of the Gulf just outside the “Shatt-al-Arab waterway” “an area that has “been in dispute for some time” according to Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl, a U.S. navy official in Bahrain. This area has not been covered by an international treaty since 1980 when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein cancelled a 1975 treaty that recognized the middle of the waterway as the border, and invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war.
So, yes it appears the British had good reason to muster a large armed contingent of sailors and Royal Marines because they knew they were operating in disputed waters and engaging in a provocative act which might illicit a strong Iranian response.
As the days progressed British and Iranians exchanged headlined verbal salvos. The mainstream media (MSM) quickly fell in line with the British Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence (MOD) handout barrage, each salvo falling in succession on the front pages of the MSM like dragons teeth cast from the hand of Ares the god of war, springing up as verbal Trojans in unquestioning allegiance to the British diplomatic offensive, never allowing any legitimacy to settle on the Iranian contention that the British had violated Iranian sovereignty.
Iran continued to hold the 15 British seaman and Marines in isolated captivity and refused to allow the British Government access to the detained seamen.
On the morning of Friday March 23, 2007 the world awoke to the news that “Iranians Capture British sailors (Toronto Star)” who according to U.S. and British officials, “had boarded a merchant ship in Iraqi waters of the Persian Gulf as part of efforts to protect the Iraqi coastline and its oil terminals.” As the story unfolds we learn that the boarding party of 15 sailors included 7 armed Royal Marines who were inspecting a “ship suspected of smuggling cars in the Persian Gulf.”
Is this normal operations procedure, or is it a rather larger than normal armed group for a simple custom inspection?
Did the British Navy believe that the suspected car smugglers might attack the boarding party and as in a Hollywood scripted ‘B’ movie, with guns blazing escape into the gulf, the British and American navies in hot pursuit? Or is it more likely that the British were expecting trouble from another quarter on this particular inspection and if so why and from where and whom?
Could it be that the sizable armed boarding party was necessary because the British Navy was conducting a deliberately provocative act?
A careful reading of the Toronto Star / AP article above reveals that despite British assurances to the contrary they were not conducting operations in Iraqi waters, they were in fact operating in an area of the Gulf just outside the “Shatt-al-Arab waterway” “an area that has “been in dispute for some time” according to Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl, a U.S. navy official in Bahrain. This area has not been covered by an international treaty since 1980 when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein cancelled a 1975 treaty that recognized the middle of the waterway as the border, and invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war.
So, yes it appears the British had good reason to muster a large armed contingent of sailors and Royal Marines because they knew they were operating in disputed waters and engaging in a provocative act which might illicit a strong Iranian response.
As the days progressed British and Iranians exchanged headlined verbal salvos. The mainstream media (MSM) quickly fell in line with the British Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence (MOD) handout barrage, each salvo falling in succession on the front pages of the MSM like dragons teeth cast from the hand of Ares the god of war, springing up as verbal Trojans in unquestioning allegiance to the British diplomatic offensive, never allowing any legitimacy to settle on the Iranian contention that the British had violated Iranian sovereignty.
Iran continued to hold the 15 British seaman and Marines in isolated captivity and refused to allow the British Government access to the detained seamen.
Up to this point March 27th to 29th the British had their way with both the mainstream media and the blogsphere, at least in the English language versions where their message triumphed. They trumpeted loudly their aggrieved innocence and demanded Iran’s immediate capitulation and return of the ambushed sailors and Marines who were now beginning to be referred to in media reports as ”the hostages.”
On March 28 we read that the only woman among the 15 captured seamen and Marines, Seaman Specialist Faye Turney, had granted the British daily the Independent “An exclusive interview … … hours before she was seized.” … …
“Faye Turney described how the crew of HMS Cornwall were well aware of the perils of operating in an area that had been targeted by suicide bombers. The 25-year-old mother, one of 15 sailors and Marines captured on Friday off the coast of Iraq, said: "I know by doing this job I can give [my daughter] everything she wants in life and hopefully by seeing me doing what I do, she'll grow up knowing that a woman can have a family and have a career at the same time. … …"
What an amazing coincidence and a propagandist’s dream come true that the Independent was able to provide the British public and the world with such an intimate insight into the life of this courageous and independent woman. Is it not incredible that it took the Independent five days to discover they had this heart rending interview? Had the reporter Terri Judd forgotten she had conducted the interview only hours earlier, or perhaps she was unable to get a line from Bahrain to London to inform her editors of their good fortune in having been granted this most newsworthy interview?
Is this a story of amazing coincidences or amazing planning? Many were beginning at this point to suspect the latter. As Michael Rivero pointed out on his website whatreallyhappened.com
“How fortunate and a massive stroke of luck that the Independent grabbed this exclusive interview with this soldier.... It’s almost as if someone "knew" what was coming and used this great empathy evoking token to full extent.
Kinda reminds me of how lucky the BBC was to report the collapse of WTC-7 22 minutes before it actually happened. - M. R.”
The Iranian claim that the British had been captured in Iranian Territorial waters was countered by an MOD map showing the location of British naval vessels during the incident to have been well within the clearly demarcated Iran-Iraq territorial water boundary.
By March 26 phony Tony Blair had attained full bellicose bluster warning that “Iran has only a few days to find a diplomatic solution to the escalating crisis”. No mention was made in this threat as to what non-diplomatic action was being contemplated should Iran’s intransigence continue beyond “a few days”, but apparently any attempt by Iran to present evidence to counter the British position would be viewed by Tony as a further escalation.
On March 23 the very day of the incident Former British Ambassador Craig Murray had already dipped his oar in the Gulf waters of dissension creating minor eddies and ripples of apprehension in the minds of the gulled English speaking publics. In a comment on his web site about the detention of the British tars he pointed out that
By March 26 phony Tony Blair had attained full bellicose bluster warning that “Iran has only a few days to find a diplomatic solution to the escalating crisis”. No mention was made in this threat as to what non-diplomatic action was being contemplated should Iran’s intransigence continue beyond “a few days”, but apparently any attempt by Iran to present evidence to counter the British position would be viewed by Tony as a further escalation.
On March 23 the very day of the incident Former British Ambassador Craig Murray had already dipped his oar in the Gulf waters of dissension creating minor eddies and ripples of apprehension in the minds of the gulled English speaking publics. In a comment on his web site about the detention of the British tars he pointed out that
“There is nothing outlandish about (the) Iranian claims, and we have no right in law to be boarding Iranian or other shipping in what may well be Iranian waters.”
The Iranians picked up on this immediately and used Murray’s comments to bolster their position. However the MSM were not allowing the reportage of any leeway from the Western Media’s line abreast propaganda barrage and consequently neither Murray nor Iran received much of an airing, if any, of their positions in the MSM at that time.
However by Wednesday March 28 a sea change was becoming evident. Deep web based undercurrents of skepticism were beginning to merge. The flow of logic and analysis provided by Murray and others was turning the propaganda tide against the British Navy which was now in danger of being swamped. While these strong undercurrents had not yet surfaced in the corporate media they were gaining strength in the blogsphere and it would surely be only a matter of time before they sunk the British Fleet Street propagandists.
On March 28 Murray led another foray that challenged the legitimacy of the MOD map pointing out that “there are two colossal problems with the map.”
However by Wednesday March 28 a sea change was becoming evident. Deep web based undercurrents of skepticism were beginning to merge. The flow of logic and analysis provided by Murray and others was turning the propaganda tide against the British Navy which was now in danger of being swamped. While these strong undercurrents had not yet surfaced in the corporate media they were gaining strength in the blogsphere and it would surely be only a matter of time before they sunk the British Fleet Street propagandists.
On March 28 Murray led another foray that challenged the legitimacy of the MOD map pointing out that “there are two colossal problems with the map.”
“A) The Iran/Iraq 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 their bilateral boundary, and they never have 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.
"B) Accepting the British coordinates for the position of both HMS Cornwall and the incident, both were closer to Iranian land than Iraqi land. Go on, print out the map and measure it. Which underlines the
point that the British produced border is not a reliable one.”
Murray who was also a previous head of the British Foreign Office's maritime section, carrying out negotiations on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, said.
None of this has as yet, even at this late date, reached the ears and eyes of any significant number of mainstream print and electronic ?BC media subscribers who are secure in their belief that they are well informed because they down their daily dose of MSM propaganda that passes itself off as news.
On this same day March 28, the day the Independent was featuring the propagandist’s dream girl Faye Turney, Iran aired video showing Faye wearing a headscarf and saying: “Obviously we trespassed.” Iran has also made public three letters purportedly written by Turney. The last of which contained an apology. The propagandist’s dream girl was quickly becoming a propagandist's nightmare.
On March 30th Faye was followed into the Iranian television hall of infamy by Royal Marine rifleman Nathan Thomas Summers who declared
On this same day March 28, the day the Independent was featuring the propagandist’s dream girl Faye Turney, Iran aired video showing Faye wearing a headscarf and saying: “Obviously we trespassed.” Iran has also made public three letters purportedly written by Turney. The last of which contained an apology. The propagandist’s dream girl was quickly becoming a propagandist's nightmare.
On March 30th Faye was followed into the Iranian television hall of infamy by Royal Marine rifleman Nathan Thomas Summers who declared
“We trespassed without permission,” ... ...“This happened back in 2004 and our government said that it wouldn’t happen again,”... ... “And, again, I deeply apologize for entering your waters.”
‘It was not known whether the marine spoke under pressure from his captors, but Summers said in the broadcast “our treatment has been very friendly.”
Britain criticized the broadcast and Iran’s treatment of the captives.
“I really don’t know why the Iranian regime keep doing this.” (Phony Tony fumed,) “I mean all it does is enhance people’s sense of disgust. Captured personnel being paraded and manipulated in this way doesn’t fool anyone,” Blair said. “What the Iranians have to realize is that if they continue in this way, they will face increasing isolation.”’
And indeed Britain garnered additional official support from the EU, Canada and the U.S. even as their propaganda offensive was crumbling.
The total hypocrisy and phony outrage of Tony Blair and the British Government’s regarding the treatment of the detained British military personnel is exposed as “A peculiar outrage” in a Guardian article of March 30 which contrasts the Iranian treatment of the 15 captured marines and sailors with the recent record of the “coalition of the willing” in the way it deals with prisoners.
Nevertheless as the new month begins “British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett - in what aides termed a 'step back' from confrontation - told an Iranian television reporter 'everyone regretted' the crisis had been allowed to develop. A 'way out' should be found, she said.” … …
And … “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.” So it would seem the British are changing their tack for the moment.
Blair and the British ‘war party’ are clearly losing the war of words at the moment. Nothing demonstrates this better than the April 1st Headline of 'The Mail on Sunday' “How I know Blair faked Iran map”, by Craig Murray.
The total hypocrisy and phony outrage of Tony Blair and the British Government’s regarding the treatment of the detained British military personnel is exposed as “A peculiar outrage” in a Guardian article of March 30 which contrasts the Iranian treatment of the 15 captured marines and sailors with the recent record of the “coalition of the willing” in the way it deals with prisoners.
Nevertheless as the new month begins “British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett - in what aides termed a 'step back' from confrontation - told an Iranian television reporter 'everyone regretted' the crisis had been allowed to develop. A 'way out' should be found, she said.” … …
And … “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.” So it would seem the British are changing their tack for the moment.
Blair and the British ‘war party’ are clearly losing the war of words at the moment. Nothing demonstrates this better than the April 1st Headline of 'The Mail on Sunday' “How I know Blair faked Iran map”, by Craig Murray.
Murray has been vindicated, rehabilitated, brought in from the cold. The web undercurrent has surfaced and the DOD/Fleet Street propaganda ship has been scuppered and is in danger of sinking. Hopefully it will take captain Tony to the bottom with it.
It is evident from the chronology of events described above that a large share of the credit for the British backdown must go to Craig Murray, other web-writers like himself and web sites like whatreallyhappened.com, and wakeupfromyourslumber.com which featured exposes of the MOD deceptions and propaganda. I doubt the mainstream media would ever have undertaken the task without the pressure generated by an awakened internet readership.
The danger however has not passed. The British, American and Israeli war parties are not going to abandon their war agenda because of one setback. They have Iran in the crosshairs and are ready to unleash the dogs of war at a moments notice.
It is evident from the chronology of events described above that a large share of the credit for the British backdown must go to Craig Murray, other web-writers like himself and web sites like whatreallyhappened.com, and wakeupfromyourslumber.com which featured exposes of the MOD deceptions and propaganda. I doubt the mainstream media would ever have undertaken the task without the pressure generated by an awakened internet readership.
The danger however has not passed. The British, American and Israeli war parties are not going to abandon their war agenda because of one setback. They have Iran in the crosshairs and are ready to unleash the dogs of war at a moments notice.
More on this subject coming up.
Newsmonger
Newsmonger
