Well, that was my reaction on hearing Gordon Brown's speech to The Knesset this afternoon. Brown talked not of Iran's nuclear energy programme, but its 'nuclear weapons' programme, even though there is no evidence whatsoever that such a programme exists.
Back in 2003, in the lead-up to the illegal invasion of Iraq, the propagandists for war talked of Saddam's WMD as a matter of fact- even though, once again, there was no evidence of their existence. The 'Iranian nuclear threat' is simply Iraqi WMDs Mark 2. It beggars belief that those who used bogus claims to take us into a disastrous war five years ago are now trying to do exactly the same thing again.
UPDATE: There's a good piece from Jonathan Steele on Brown's 'nuclear weapons' claim on Comment is Free.
9 comments:
Brown must have gone out of his mind.
Israeli papers have reported that he has condemned recent efforts by British unions to implement a boycott against Israel on the grounds of its treatment of the Palestinians.
Is there any other leader in the world would denounce his own voters in a foreign country?
Israelis won't vote for you Mr Brown, and I certainly will never do.
Dan,
Britain and the US (at least as regards their foreign policy) are run solely for the benefit of Israel. Hadn't you realized that?
Neil:
looking forward to your comments on Karadzic as an antidote to the total unanimity of our media that he is the most evil man that ever lived (except Milosevic, of course)
Dan,
Britain and the US (at least as regards their foreign policy) are run solely for the benefit of Israel. Hadn't you realized that?
Neil:
looking forward to your comments on Karadzic as an antidote to the total unanimity of our media that he is the most evil man that ever lived (except Milosevic, of course)
Anyone who suggests Karadzic is not evil is either foolish, malign or indifferent to reality.
Irrespective of US actions during the Third Balkan War, Karadzic bears responsibility for the massacre at Srebrenica in 1995.
No amount of reverse spin or 'yeah, but what about Holbrooke' or conspiracy theories about 'the West' plotting to break up Yugoslavia can get around the fact that militant Serbian nationalism had a life and an agenda of its own.
I would be interested to see the contortions of truth determined to prove the opposite just because they hate the USA or because they fail to see that Milosevic's regime was not 'socialist' but based on cronyism and gangsterism.
Next people will be saying Arkan was a 'true patriot'.
It is certainly legal for Iran to build a civil nuclear programme, indeed as signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty we are obliged to support that right.
Incidentally Dubai is also expanding its generating capacity by 4,000 MW but it is going for coal which may be marginally cheaper than nuclear.
Meanwhile our capacity is declining & we are going for windmills at 5 times the price.
(As regards Karadzic - if the bodies found at Srebrenica are the 3,800 Serb civilians murdered by Oric then Karadzic is innocent - if they aren't where exactly are they. It is now possible to tell, with fair probability, the ethnicity of bodies by DNA. The fact that the ICTY refuse to do so, or let anybody else do so, speaks volumes)
dan: I certainly won't be voting for Brown either. Nor David Cameron for that matter.
Hi Nigel: I'll be commenting on Karadzic later.
Karl: Milosevic's regime was socialist enough for the greedy privateers who had it in their sights. Around 70% of the economy was in public ownership- in today's profit-hungry neoliberal world order, that will never do!
Neil: yes, people forget that Iran is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. We have this strange situation whereas the British govt is in favour of nuclear power here, but not in Iran!
We have this strange situation whereas the British govt is in favour of nuclear power here, but not in Iran!
Why does a staggeringly oil-rich country need to go to the colossal expense of developing nuclear power in the first place?
And in the absence of a straightforward answer, is it any wonder that people will look for an ulterior motive? Especially given Iran's sabre-rattling rhetoric, and North Korea's nuclear bomb?
Seriously, Neil, while I agree with you that there are all sorts of reasons for not going to war with Iran, I do think you have to be extraordinarily naive not to believe that they're trying to develop nuclear weapons on the side. Why on earth wouldn't they, given that that's what everyone thinks they're doing anyway?
hi neil,
I enjoy your writing. Never posted here. continue the great work.
roger.
"Why does a staggeringly oil-rich country need to go to the colossal expense of developing nuclear power in the first place?"
So it can sell all the (soon to be even more) staggeringly expensive oil it to us owns rather than using it themselves?
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