Iran press conference and the released British sailors

Zita

Is anyone else watching the press conference by Iranian President? He seems to be talking a while now and I dont see his point yet. This is my first time listening to him, guess I need to be patient.

El Stuntman

Zita wrote:

Is anyone else watching the press conference by Iranian President? He seems to be talking a while now and I dont see his point yet. This is my first time listening to him, guess I need to be patient.

he makes more sense than Bertie in full flow anyway

Zita

El Stuntman wrote:

he makes more sense than Bertie in full flow anyway

Having listened for a while now, I am finding this Iranian Press Conf by their President, so interesting. To hear views of world politics from a country and culture so different to mine, is quite mind broadening.

El Stuntman

Zita wrote:

Having listened for a while now, I am finding this Iranian Press Conf by their President, so interesting. To hear views of world politics from a country and culture so different to mine, is quite mind broadening.

that's one way of putting it

personally, I think he's an extremely dangerous individual with the potential to kick off WW3

(Ahmedinajad that is, not Bertie)

Fratton Fred

Sailors released as a gift to Britain, commanders who captured them given medals, Britian not brave enough to tell their own people the truth. :rolleyes:

Teflon Ahmedinajad

good news about the sailors though.

El Stuntman

Fratton Fred wrote:

good news about the sailors though.

yes, nice PR coup for the Ayatollahs

stevedublin

El Stuntman wrote:

yes, nice PR coup for the Ayatollahs

are you being sarcastic? The Iranians just made a humiliating climbdown! How is that a PR coup?

Frederico

stevedublin wrote:

are you being sarcastic? The Iranians just made a humiliating climbdown! How is that a PR coup?

Actually, its not coming across as a humiliating climbdown. However, they made a mistake with that comment about the female sailor, grrr we dont like that.

Zita

I thought that the Iranian President was the vocal piece for the Ayatollah....
If its true or not, to free 15 military persons from a country like the UK, is significant. I wouldn't have thought it was a climb down. Its something they will be able to reiterate again and again, to show how they have mercy.
Not like some "western" militaries, who hold people without any rights at all.....

El Stuntman

stevedublin wrote:

are you being sarcastic? The Iranians just made a humiliating climbdown! How is that a PR coup?

magnanimous gesture of releasing the imperialist running pig dogs (or whatever the curent jargon is)....in the interests of regional security.....blah blah....

you can be assured it'll play well on the Arab Street

Akrasia

El Stuntman wrote:

that's one way of putting it

personally, I think he's an extremely dangerous individual with the potential to kick off WW3

(Ahmedinajad that is, not Bertie)

This is from today's edition of Democracy Now

ABC: U.S. Engaged in Secret War With Iran
ABC News is reporting the U.S. is engaged in a secret war with Iran. Since 2005, U.S. officials have been advising a Pakistani tribal militant group with ties to the Taliban on how to carry out deadly guerilla raids inside Iran. The Pakistani group – called Jundullah -- has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials. Most recently, Jundullah took credit for a bus bombing that killed at least 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in February. Officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight. Some former CIA officers say the arrangement is reminiscent of how the U.S. government used proxy armies to destabilize the government of Nicaragua in the 1980s.

It seems if anyone is going to be responsible for kicking off world war 3, it's more likely to be the leader of the country that is deliberately poking Iran with a Cattle prod hoping they'll react

Akrasia

Oh, and Bush still refuses to release the 11 Iranian Diplomats that were arrested in Iraq on january 11th.

These men are being held in an undisclosed location and in conditions that are most likely far worse than the British soldiers were held in. The men are still in detention despite pleas from the Iraqi government for them to be released

Zita

Akrasia wrote:

It seems if anyone is going to be responsible for kicking off world war 3, it's more likely to be the leader of the country that is deliberately poking Iran with a Cattle prod hoping they'll react

I haven't heard a truer word said.
Of all administrations, its the US administration that worries me the most.

El Stuntman

it's all about nukes baby

do we want the Ayatollahs to have them?

stevedublin

El Stuntman wrote:

magnanimous gesture of releasing the imperialist running pig dogs (or whatever the curent jargon is)....in the interests of regional security.....blah blah....

you can be assured it'll play well on the Arab Street

I guess they have put on a lot of spin.
Still, a few days ago they were saying they were going to put the sailors on trial unless they got an apology, now they are releasing them without any apology from the British from their alleged incursion. I think the Iranians just want war, but want the West to look like the aggressors.

Rebeller

El Stuntman wrote:

that's one way of putting it

personally, I think he's an extremely dangerous individual with the potential to kick off WW3

(Ahmedinajad that is, not Bertie)

Well, it's good to see that UK/US propaganda is still as effective as ever.

For another take on the so-called (now ended) "hostage" crisis have a read of this interesting article in the Independent (UK). Source available here

A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.

Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.

In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment.

Better understanding of the seriousness of the US action in Arbil - and the angry Iranian response to it - should have led Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence to realise that Iran was likely to retaliate against American or British forces such as highly vulnerable Navy search parties in the Gulf. The two senior Iranian officers the US sought to capture were Mohammed Jafari, the powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, and General Minojahar Frouzanda, the chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to Kurdish officials.

The two men were in Kurdistan on an official visit during which they met the Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, and later saw Massoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), at his mountain headquarters overlooking Arbil.

"They were after Jafari," Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Massoud Barzani, told The Independent. He confirmed that the Iranian office had been established in Arbil for a long time and was often visited by Kurds obtaining documents to visit Iran. "The Americans thought he [Jafari] was there," said Mr Hussein.

Mr Jafari was accompanied by a second, high-ranking Iranian official. "His name was General Minojahar Frouzanda, the head of intelligence of the Pasdaran [Iranian Revolutionary Guard]," said Sadi Ahmed Pire, now head of the Diwan (office) of President Talabani in Baghdad. Mr Pire previously lived in Arbil, where he headed the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Mr Talabani's political party.

The attempt by the US to seize the two high-ranking Iranian security officers openly meeting with Iraqi leaders is somewhat as if Iran had tried to kidnap the heads of the CIA and MI6 while they were on an official visit to a country neighbouring Iran, such as Pakistan or Afghanistan. There is no doubt that Iran believes that Mr Jafari and Mr Frouzanda were targeted by the Americans. Mr Jafari confirmed to the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, that he was in Arbil at the time of the raid.

In a little-noticed remark, Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian Foreign Minister, told IRNA: "The objective of the Americans was to arrest Iranian security officials who had gone to Iraq to develop co-operation in the area of bilateral security."

US officials in Washington subsequently claimed that the five Iranian officials they did seize, who have not been seen since, were "suspected of being closely tied to activities targeting Iraq and coalition forces". This explanation never made much sense. No member of the US-led coalition has been killed in Arbil and there were no Sunni-Arab insurgents or Shia militiamen there.

The raid on Arbil took place within hours of President George Bush making an address to the nation on 10 January in which he claimed: "Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops." He identified Iran and Syria as America's main enemies in Iraq though the four-year-old guerrilla war against US-led forces is being conducted by the strongly anti-Iranian Sunni-Arab community. Mr Jafari himself later complained about US allegations. "So far has there been a single Iranian among suicide bombers in the war-battered country?" he asked. "Almost all who involved in the suicide attacks are from Arab countries."

It seemed strange at the time that the US would so openly flout the authority of the Iraqi President and the head of the KRG simply to raid an Iranian liaison office that was being upgraded to a consulate, though this had not yet happened on 11 January. US officials, who must have been privy to the White House's new anti-Iranian stance, may have thought that bruised Kurdish pride was a small price to pay if the US could grab such senior Iranian officials.

For more than a year the US and its allies have been trying to put pressure on Iran. Security sources in Iraqi Kurdistan have long said that the US is backing Iranian Kurdish guerrillas in Iran. The US is also reportedly backing Sunni Arab dissidents in Khuzestan in southern Iran who are opposed to the government in Tehran. On 4 February soldiers from the Iraqi army 36th Commando battalion in Baghdad, considered to be under American control, seized Jalal Sharafi, an Iranian diplomat.

The raid in Arbil was a far more serious and aggressive act. It was not carried out by proxies but by US forces directly. The abortive Arbil raid provoked a dangerous escalation in the confrontation between the US and Iran which ultimately led to the capture of the 15 British sailors and Marines - apparently considered a more vulnerable coalition target than their American comrades.

The targeted generals

* MOHAMMED JAFARI

Powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, responsible for internal security. He has accused the United States of seeking to "hold Iran responsible for insecurity in Iraq... and [US] failure in the country."

* GENERAL MINOJAHAR FROUZANDA

Chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the military unit which maintains its own intelligence service separate from the state, as well as a parallel army, navy and air force

El Stuntman

stevedublin wrote:

I think the Iranians just want warQUOTE]

I don't think they're that crazy!

Zita

El Stuntman wrote:

it's all about nukes baby

do we want the Ayatollahs to have them?

Do we really want the US invading and manipulating countries for much longer?
Isn't the rest of the world tired of their version of democracy yet?

mike65

Well no great surprise by Iran, they've done the only thing they plausibly could do.

Mike.

Voipjunkie

El Stuntman wrote:

magnanimous gesture of releasing the imperialist running pig dogs (or whatever the curent jargon is)....in the interests of regional security.....blah blah....

you can be assured it'll play well on the Arab Street

I would imagine the Iranians are more concerned with the Persian Street than how Arabs react

Akrasia

stevedublin wrote:

I think the Iranians just want war, but want the West to look like the aggressors.

Can I visit you sometime in opposite land where down is up, up is down and Mary Hearney is a size 8 swimsuit model?

homah_7ft

It was just a question of how many weeks before they would be released. There was only one winner in this Iranian internal power play. Iran is looking to the bigger picture in recent years. They are really coming to dominate the region. Saddam was the only bulwark against Iranian expansion.

InFront

I thought Iran handled it very cleverly, especially the bit where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad requested that Tony Blair would not harm the soldiers for "telling the truth and realities".
Like all Governments, there was a certain amount of spin too, and Ahmadinejad was really heaping it on at that press conference. The world's media was watching him and he played surprisingly well. When Western propaganda is absolutely inevitable (and is invested in as absolute fact), it's good to see the Iranians having a go at it too, and this was certainly an excellent opportunity to ruffle some feathers - at least in Downing Street. Ahmadinejad has won the PR war for today, but of course there will be the same kinds of photo-shoots with the British Government when the people in question return to London.

Also, it would have been interesting to hear what the British negotiators had been saying in the past few days.

Beelzebub

El Stuntman wrote:

that's one way of putting it

personally, I think he's an extremely dangerous individual with the potential to kick off WW3

(Ahmedinajad that is, not Bertie)

If Bertie Aheemmm had brains, he would indeed be dangerous.:eek:

stevedublin

Akrasia wrote:

Can I visit you sometime in opposite land where down is up, up is down and Mary Hearney is a size 8 swimsuit model?

Hehe, I dont think the US wants to go to war with Iran, their troops are already overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Iranians would be a tough foe and the US may get bogged down in a stalemate. The Iranians know this and know that terrorism and a change of government in the US next year could result in the US withdrawing from the region leaving Iran to march into Southern Iraq maybe.

InFront

Northern Iraq, surely? Not that I think that's likely, but it seems less unlikely than the south.

stevedublin

InFront wrote:

Northern Iraq, surely? Not that I think that's likely, but it seems less unlikely than the south.

North, South middle, ah shur who cares! <joking!>
Well South Iraq has holy Shia shrines and the Shia population could view the Shia Iranians as liberators (also lots of oil there!).

homah_7ft

stevedublin wrote:

Hehe, I dont think the US wants to go to war with Iran, their troops are already overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Iranians would be a tough foe and the US may get bogged down in a stalemate. The Iranians know this and know that terrorism and a change of government in the US next year could result in the US withdrawing from the region leaving Iran to march into Southern Iraq maybe.

The Iranians would be happy to govern Iraq by proxy. Their links are in the South by the way with the largest oilfield being in the North near Kirkuk but generally there is a lot of undiscovered oil under all of Iraq.

Instant Karma

Have to say the Iranians played a great game there, they made their point perfectly and I don't believe for a second those sailors were ever in danger of being kept prisoner. It's actually interesting to read media reports about this now, Iran being protrayed in gernerally a slightly positive light.

stevedublin

The extremists in Iran are playing power games. They lost this round, but it wont be too long before they try something else. Watch this space.

Instant Karma

stevedublin wrote:

The extremists in Iran are playing power games. They lost this round, but it wont be too long before they try something else. Watch this space.

What country dosn't have extremists playing power games?

You could substitute US for Iran in your sentence there and it would still make just as much sense.

stevedublin

Instant Karma wrote:

What country dosn't have extremists playing power games?

You could substitute US for Iran in your sentence there and it would still make just as much sense.

True, I guess, but I just think that the US is more democratic and liberal and less likely to veer to extremism for very long.
I guess I just trust the US more, even though I hate their current government. I think the world is a more progressive and freer place with western cultural values than islamic values.

Akrasia

stevedublin wrote:

True, I guess, but I just think that the US is more democratic and liberal and less likely to veer to extremism for very long.
I guess I just trust the US more, even though I hate their current government. I think the world is a more progressive and freer place with western cultural values than islamic values.

what's the difference between a one party state controlled by Religious clerics, and a two party state controlled by billionaires? They're just different kinds of dictatorship.

cyclopath2001

mike65 wrote:

Well no great surprise by Iran, they've done the only thing they plausibly could do.

The sailors have been better treated than the 'unlawful enemy combatants' held in Guantanamo.

Good move by Iran, face saving all-round & makes them appear more reasonable than Bush.

stevedublin

Akrasia wrote:

what's the difference between a one party state controlled by Religious clerics, and a two party state controlled by billionaires? They're just different kinds of dictatorship.

The latter is not as repressive.

cyclopath2001

cyclopath2001 wrote:

The sailors have been better treated than the 'unlawful enemy combatants' held in Guantanamo.

LoL whilst I don't agree with Gitmo,I find all these comments about how well the sailors have been treated funny.
This is a country that executes homosexuals remember and whips girls that have unapproved boyfriends.
Iran were using their treatment of the sailors to hold themselves up as some false paragon of example and I don't buy it.
Had they not wanted to pretend that their justice system and values are some paragon of good example,I doubt these sailors would have had the holiday they seemed to have had.

Good move by Iran, face saving all-round & makes them appear more reasonable than Bush.

Again I don't buy it.His conference was 100% spin and taunts.While I've no doubt ahminajad likes to express himself in spin,I'm of the view that he didn't want a full enemy made of Britain,the security council member, as opposed to the half enemy they already were (half in the sense of being opposed to Irans nuclear objectives and policy towards Iraq etc).

El Stuntman

stevedublin wrote:

I think the world is a more progressive and freer place with western cultural values than islamic values.

well duh

it's time all the lefties here faced up to reality.

We are on the side of the US in the current undeclared war between fundamentalist Islam and liberal democracy.

we are all effectively Americans, some people really seem to hate that. I'm not sure why...

dragon_lordMTB

Is anyone else suprised by the conduct of the British Sailors and Commandos on the telly and in the interviews? It looks to me that they basically collaborated with the Iranian Authorities since they have been arrested.

Just really suprised that no-one in the papers or TV have talked about it.

ednwireland

what happened to name rank and number ????

NeverSayDie

Far as I know, that applies when held as a prisoner of war - ie, by the enemy. Iran and the UK are not at war, hence they were not prisoners of war, just detained by a foreign government in regard to an alleged criminal offence.

Akrasia

homah_7ft wrote:

The Iranians would be happy to govern Iraq by proxy. .

Which we can't allow because damnit, America thought of it first.

The off topic yet interesting discussion can be found here

Please remain on topic in both threads-Thank you

Call Me Jimmy

Tristrame wrote:

LoL whilst I don't agree with Gitmo,I find all these comments about how well the sailors have been treated funny.
This is a country that executes homosexuals remember and whips girls that have unapproved boyfriends.
Iran were using their treatment of the sailors to hold themselves up as some false paragon of example and I don't buy it.
Had they not wanted to pretend that their justice system and values are some paragon of good example,I doubt these sailors would have had the holiday they seemed to have had.

Again I don't buy it.His conference was 100% spin and taunts.While I've no doubt ahminajad likes to express himself in spin,I'm of the view that he didn't want a full enemy made of Britain,the security council member, as opposed to the half enemy they already were (half in the sense of being opposed to Irans nuclear objectives and policy towards Iraq etc).

QFT, people seem to be easily swayed by blatant propaganda. When I first saw the soldiers being paraded in front of cameras and suddenly being 'inspired' to write letters about their own country's modern day imperialism I was astonished. I was thinking, there is no way in hell that even one person could buy into this ****. And I would doubt very much that Iran or the US wants a full blown war.

Akrasia

Call Me Jimmy wrote:

QFT, people seem to be easily swayed by blatant propaganda. When I first saw the soldiers being paraded in front of cameras and suddenly being 'inspired' to write letters about their own country's modern day imperialism I was astonished. I was thinking, there is no way in hell that even one person could buy into this ****. And I would doubt very much that Iran or the US wants a full blown war.

Well, we'll probably see very soon whether they were coerced to say these things or whether they were speaking the truth. They'll almost certainly feature in some interviews over the next few days or weeks (Unless the MOD tell them to shut up which would lead me to believe that the MOD doesn'[t like what they would have to say.... (but that inference isn't very solid... It could be argued the MOD might want them to stay quiet to prevent them from inflaming the incident further)

The BBC rebroadcast interviews between the Soldiers and Iranian TV last night, and even when their return home was guaranteed and they were out of danger, they still held to the position that they had been wrongly trespassing in Iranian/disputed waters and that they had been treated very well by the iranian army.

wes

Call Me Jimmy wrote:

And I would doubt very much that Iran or the US wants a full blown war.

Why did the US then threaten Iran in 2003 with the entire Axis of Evil stuff? Its no coincidence that 2 out of the 3 threatened starting developing nuclear tech after one of the 3 was invaded.

Iran is rightly paranoid since they remember what the US and UK did to Mossadegh, so they could get there hand on oil. Then there was the years of oppression by the Shah, who was not only backed by the US and UK, but was put in that position by them. They even trained his secret police who brutally tortured and murdered thousands of Iranians.

What about the Iranians the US has captured? Any actual proof they were helping insurgents? Its amazing so many have forgotten about them already isn't. I wonder how they have been treated.

Now Iran played a very dangerous game by capturing these sailors and what they did was wrong and thankfully they were released unharmed.

However Iran is not the only aggressor here, the US and the UK have been just as aggressive with Iran. Is it any wonder that things have deteriorated so much?

Its also great to see that quite diplomacy solved this mess rather than more violence.

Akrasia

Oh, and the fact that the soldiers were treated so well is in stark contrast to the 11 Iranian diplomats held by 'the good guys' who have been held in an undisclosed location since january. It shows in black and white the double standards that are being appplied by the Media and the British and American governments (I haven't seen a single Media story that mentioned plight of the disappeared Iranian diplomats), and it's also really interesting that evidence for the guilt of the British soldiers was immediately demanded by the U.S. government all the worlds media, but no such evidence has been asked for or provided by the U.S. captors of the Irianians from Iraq.

Why are Britain and America exempt from following the same the standards they demand from their enemies?

Call Me Jimmy

wes wrote:

What about the Iranians the US has captured? Any actual proof they were helping insurgents? Its amazing so many have forgotten about them already isn't. I wonder how they have been treated.

Its also great to see that quite diplomacy solved this mess rather than more violence.

I haven't forgotten about the iranians the US captured, this thread is about the british the iranians captured.

And tbh, I don't think diplomacy solved anything, if iran didn't want to release them they wouldn't have. I think Iran was always going to release them, it was just a matter of how long should they make their point for.

Dr_Teeth

El Stuntman wrote:

We are on the side of the US in the current undeclared war between fundamentalist Islam and liberal democracy.

War is unnecessary.. secular democracy *is* the superior way to govern people but the only way to spread these values is by setting a good example to the rest of the world instead being of a cheat (Africa) and a bully (Middle East).

stevedublin

Dr_Teeth wrote:

War is unnecessary.. secular democracy *is* the superior way to govern people but the only way to spread these values is by setting a good example to the rest of the world instead being of a cheat (Africa) and a bully (Middle East).

I agree that setting a good example is usually the best way to spread the idea of secular democracy.
However, there are dangerous fanatics in the Middle East who want to spread an alternative way of governing people (Theocracy, Sharia Law etc.) and they are not content to peacefully setting a good example. Do you want these people to have access to nuclear weapons?

Jimboo_Jones

El Stuntman wrote:

well duh

it's time all the lefties here faced up to reality.

We are on the side of the US in the current undeclared war between fundamentalist Islam and liberal democracy.

so you want all us lefties to act more like ... say a war-mungering fundamentalist?

Akrasia

stevedublin wrote:

I agree that setting a good example is usually the best way to spread the idea of secular democracy.
However, there are dangerous fanatics in the Middle East who want to spread an alternative way of governing people (Theocracy, Sharia Law etc.) and they are not content to peacefully setting a good example. Do you want these people to have access to nuclear weapons?

How many of these supposedly imperialist Islamic countries have attacked the west trying to spread islam?

(answer = None of them)

How many countries has the west attacked over the last 50 years under the pretext of bringing 'freedom and democracy' (you might want to use a calculator to answer that question)