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How I Know Blair Faked the Map
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Even that very limited agreement is arguably no longer in force. Since it was reached in 1975, a war has been fought over it, and ten-year reviews - necessary because waters and sandbanks in this region move about dramatically - have never been carried out.
But what about the map the Ministry of Defense produced on Tuesday, with territorial boundaries set out by a clear red line, and the co-ordinates of the incident marked in relation to it?
I have news for you. Those boundaries are fake. They were drawn up by the MoD. They are not agreed or recognised by any international authority.
To put it at its most charitable, they are a potential boundary. It is accepted practice, where no boundary exists, to work by a rule-of-thumb idea of where a boundary, based on a median line between the two coasts, might be.
But to elevate that to a hard and fast boundary, and then base a major international incident on being a few hundred yards one side or the other, is out of order." _Craig Murray
It should be noted that the onboard radar on the Cornwall would have spotted any approaching Iranian patrol boats, since the radar has a range of 30 miles. So allowing the Brits to be captured appears to be deliberate.
And then there's the curious case of the disappearing Lynx helicopter. This arrived with the boarding party as standard procedure to provide "top cover". The MOD briefing mentions only that it "returned" to the scene of the crime (pictures of GPS over anchored (un-named) vessel to "validate" GPS data - which in the picture are actually variant from figures given in the briefing).
Mark Urban on NewsNight last night (the mouthpiece for the MOD) said it returned for re-fuelling to the Cornwall, some few miles. Do the Navy pilots regularly go out on sorties with inadequate fuel for the completion of the mission leaving their boarding parties without "top cover" ? The Missing Lynx... indeed."
Here is what a British expert had to say to the BBC:
Richard Schofield, an expert in international boundaries at King's College London, questioned whether the dispute would be eased if the Royal Navy released co-ordinates of where the sailors were seized.
"Releasing the co-ordinates wouldn't necessarily help us as there is no formally agreed boundary," he said.
"It isn't clear the incident happened off the water of Shatt al-Arab. We are talking about territorial waters beyond." In other words, the Brits engaged in belligerent behavior in "no-man's-land". Their lame excuse was that they were looking to collect taxes on cars possibly being smuggled into Iraq. What a brilliant reason to start a war!
Here's an audio track that gives some details on how these scuzzbuckets operate.
"Iran and Iraq have never agreed on a boundary of their territorial waters. There is no legal definition of the boundary beyond the Shatt al-Arab."
"When the British announced the border and the location point of the boat, it confused me. I thought I recalled, from the incident a couple years ago, that there was something very squirrely about that water border between Iran & Iraq. Yet here the Brits had a diagram with a nice clear boundary line. No mention is made of boundary uncertainty or the ship's path or recent past incidents in any reports I found.
Has the press entirely given up the old-fashioned journalistic principle of recapitulating background and relevant historic details at the end of a news report, establishing historical context and perspective? Or do reporters no longer have memory or knowledge of even the recent past?
Of course, with Abdullah of the Saudis calling US occupation of Iraq "illegitimate", others in that neighborhood may soon make the argument that British & US ships have no right to be on the Iraqi side of the border either."
"The Royal Navy boarded the ships not to conduct inspections on weapons smuggling, but to look for tax evaders. Their government's handling of the resulting situation has been thoroughly stupid and confrontational, especially as expressed in remarks by Tony Blair and Ms. Beckett.
"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," said former British Ambassador Craig Murray, (who also headed the Maritime Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1989 to 1992) adding "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."
UNCLOS provides that, in the absence of an agreed boundary, neither side should attempt to enforce territorial water claims beyond a median line. It is very plain that this is for the purpose of conflict avoidance, and does not prejudice either state's rights in the eventual resolution of the boundary dispute. Britain has been repeatedly obnoxious in its violations of Iranian territory, on land & sea. Is a simple apology too much to ask? Blair and Bush have no right any more to lecture any other country on universal rights and treatment of captives.
[Not to mention being an act of piracy. As another commentator said, "They are illegal invaders of Iraq claiming permission from a puppet government while the legitimate government is partly murdered and partly imprisoned.
Boarding a foreign vessel at gunpoint is piracy and unless things have changed over the decades the maximum sentence for piracy under naval law is execution.
it *was* hanging from a yardarm or being chained to "traitors-gate" on the Thames next to the Tower of London for 3 tides under U.K. maritime law originally - did it get changed?
These stupid globalists are looking for WW III. I hope I survive to see their faces when they finally get their wish."]
["All England had to do was just say sorry it was a mistake and it wouldn't happen again. And the 15 would be released--no big deal. Just imagine if Iran gunboats were boarding American or Brit cargo ships and checking for smuggling of Lada cars or Panda bears?
The West has always being meddling in this area . Millions have died for oil lust. England pieced Iraq together and is still trying to make it bigger by stealing Iran's territory. All the Middle East was stolen from what was once the Turkish Empire on lies. English @sshole terrorist pirates !"] end quote, edited for grammar, spelling & punctuation.
In claiming HMS Cornwall was within Iraqi territorial waters, the British government and the media have covered up the fact that there is no agreed upon Iraqi-Iranian maritime border, as other bizarre coincidences and dubious circumstances surrounding the hostage crisis begin to emerge. (Such as the staged "Hollywood production" filming of the lady sailor the day before she was captured). This smells like another Jessica Lynch staged affair, merged with another "Gulf of Tonkin" affair. I wonder how many servicemen they will kill this time to prevent the truth from being told.
As the Moon of Alabama blog points out, "That boundary is simply not well defined and Iran and Iraq have fought several wars about the Shatt al-Arab and its waterways. There is no binding or otherwise recognized international agreement about the maritime boundaries." See the full-size map here, along with full details.
"If one would use a maritime boundary defined by equidistance from the Iraqi and Iranian coastlines, as is commonly (see Art.7) done in such cases, the result would be something like this purple line."
As becomes obvious from looking at the map, taking the equidistant measurement from the Iraqi and Iranian coastlines, the ship is clearly within Iranian territory.
Iranian news source IRNA claims that this represents Britain's sixth violation and trespass of Iranian territory in the last three years, while also stating that the western media has been complicit in "a wave of propaganda campaign against Iran immediately after Iranian border guards arrested British marines."
Even if you dismiss judging territorial water boundaries by the method detailed above, the fact is that the media parroted carte blanche the British government's version, without even pointing out that there is no recognized and agreed upon Gulf water boundary between Iraq and Iran.
Former British Ambassador Craig Murray and others are highlighting the fact that the maritime border between Iraq and Iran is contested, and the British have essentially manufactured a border to make it appear as if HMS Cornwall was within Iraqi territorial waters. The mainstream media has uniformly failed to address this issue.
According to high ranking CIA officials, Defense department officials, former UN officials and retired US air force Colonels, the British and Americans have been running Black Ops inside Iran for months, (fomenting riots and unrest, shooting policemen in the streets and carrying out exactly the same kinds of terrorist bombings that the lying two-faced Neocons say they are trying to stop in Iraq. And do you know that a lot of THOSE [in Iraq] are Black Ops too?) and the current affair of 15 captured Brit sailors was probably intentional (intended as a provocation). The idea that the Brits are deliberately trying to provoke and escalate the situation is bolstered by the FACTS that the Brits are using a bogus map that has no force of law, and have violated Iranian territorial rights six times in 3 years.
"The inescapable conclusion (including the "coincidental" filming by BBC who "coincidentally were on the Cornwall filming our brave lads" and it appears sassy mother of 3 year old child is interviewed) is that this is Gulf of Tonkin version 2.0 presented by Dodgy Dossier of the MOD with fake legal reasoning. Which is bad news all round. Maybe we will get to see if those Iranian Sunbursts can destroy aircraft carriers after all."
Today, we have this: "British forces stormed Iranian consulate in Iraq's southern city of Basra and surrounded the office during a shootout with unknown gunmen in Iraq on Thursday, Islamic Republic of Iran's consulate announced.
"British forces sealed off the Iranian consulate in Basra. They went inside for 10 minutes and after that there was intense gunfire on them," Iranian Consul Mohammed Reva Nasir told reporters in Basra.
"This is a provocative act against the Iranian consulate in Basra. I believe it has something to do with the British detainees in Iran," he said."
"As others have pointed out the question is what are the British and American warships doing in Iraqi waters?
The answer is they have invaded and occupied Iraq and are now using its territorial waters as a base of operations from which to cause an "incident" to be used as "cover" for the destruction of as much of Iran as is possible.
It is unclear what will happen once they do that, but it will not be good. It will be very, very bad it seems to me for everyone on Earth.
How can it be that the whole world watches this unfold and does nothing to prevent it?
I'm not making this up. If you don't believe it, you've just been too damned lazy to do a bit of research. I don't CARE what people "think" any more, mostly because the kind of people who get upset DON'T THINK. Or read, except for the pablum puke put out by the corporate "news" media. Their broadcasts are so devoid of factual content, all they can do is make "fat jokes" and threaten to lynch Rosie O'Donnell for asking questions about 9/11. Rosie may have made mistakes in the past about gun rights, and she may have a lesbian lover, but despite that, she is a better human being than ANY of the smarmy Neocon media whores... O'Reilly, Savage, Limbaugh, Bonaduce, and Scarborough foremost. Bonaduce was quick to cry foul, claiming his own family had received death threats after he appeared in a You Tube video being asked about 9/11 conspiracies, but it seems he has no qualms about advocating the murder of Rosie O'Donnell.
In the face of all this, the Iranians are being amazingly cordial and reasonable.
"A) 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 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."
The whole situation is highly suspicious.
Recently, U.S. forces grabbed 5 Iranian government officials in Iraq, and still hold them captive.
"Iran also released on Thursday new footage of the British crew being seized which it said showed they were illegally in Iranian waters.
Iran's state TV also showed a military briefing in which charts were shown indicating the crew were in Iranian waters. This is in accordance with the recognized code for determining international boundaries.
(And all the Brits can produce is a fake map that has no force of law?)
Before the release of the second letter Prime Minister Tony Blair said Iran's decision to show footage of LS Turney was a "disgrace".
"I just think it's completely wrong, a disgrace actually, when people are used in that way," he said. Oh, you mean like the way the U.S. Military used Jessica Lynch? And then murdered the soldiers who talked about what really happened?
Personally, I think both Bush and Blair need to be bitch-slapped.
First of all, the Brits had no business boarding ships in an area where the border has been disputed for centuries. Secondly, the Iranians' GPS could have been fed false information from a plane, drone, or satellite. False Flags and set-ups have a long and sordid history. So even if the Iranians were wrong (and it looks like they were NOT wrong) it would be wise for the Brits to tread lightly. But then... they aren't really looking for a peaceful resolution here. After all, this is the sixth time they have trespassed in less than 3 years.
Their hubris is astounding. All that "righteous indignation"... makes me want to barf.
Secondly, there are 2 U.S. Carrier Fleets (USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, which this week took part in war games exercises in the Gulf with another carrier, USS John S Stennis) in the Persian Gulf for a reason, and they (or their replacement) will be used... SOON! Having 2 Carrier Fleets in the Persian Gulf at the same time is a bit of a strain on the credibility of Bu$hCo's attempt to project an image of "just trying to get along", as this is the biggest build-up since 2003, just before the Iraq War began.
"As pointed out above, the main issue is that the Limeys were operating out of territory unlawfully and illegally captured by them and the Yanks, who launched their attacks from aircraft carriers and missile cruisers on the sea, which makes the invasion itself and the occupation of Iraq an act of piracy. That they also sent in forces from land (Kuwait) is irrelevant. Therefore, as criminals cannot resort to the law to protect any of their acts, the whining protests of the Limeys against the Iranians are to be ignored. The Iranians are to be commended for capturing the Limey pirates.
The Nimitz will relieve the Eisenhower and join the Stennis. Don't be surprised if the Eisenhower heads for Venezuela or the Mediterranean. However, there could be 3 carriers in the area in early April (April 6!!) with 3 more available on short notice.
Don't be surprised if we see a “dirty bomb” event or even a suicide bombing at the mall, conducted by a crazed Muslim patsy or mental patient with a Persian surname.
"How is it that the Iranian speedboats were able to surprise the Limey landing party (or is it called "OA Team" these days?)? It's not like a boat on water has any place to hide. And why did the Cornwall not fire on the Iranian speedboats when they saw them coming towards the landing party? And did the Limey pirates' landing party lack any weapons at all to be able to repulse the Iranians before they got close enough to surround them? That's readiness for you!
All this points to the conclusion that the Limeys deliberately sent their boarding party to provoke the Iranians and get captured, just as the Israelis sent their forces into Lebanon to be captured by Hezbollah last summer so that they would have a pretext to attack Lebanon. Bliar seems to be doing everything to scuttle a settlement/agreement with the Iranians so that the Limeys will have an excuse to attack Iran. Since he is out of office in a month anyway he doesn't have anything at stake like the Americans and Israelis do, which has prevented them up till now from launching an attack on Iran. So the Limeys attack Iran and NATO (North Atlantic Terrorist Organization) buddy Amerikkka is obligated to join the fray to protect their asses." The Brits have a long history of screwing the Iranians.
If there is an attack on Iran, it is probable that China will dump massive quantities of U.S. government bonds on the market, resulting in a catastrophic collapse of the dollar. Buyers are already shifting away from the dollar to other currencies, notably the yen. Oil futures are already climbing, with some analysts predicting that an American attack could push oil prices above $200 a barrel, resulting in worldwide economic collapse. This will be on the scale of another Great Depression, except that this time around, the NWO intends to eliminate 80% to 90% of the world's population. And they shall think that they do "god" service. IMHO, the rider of the red horse may be about to begin his ride.
Today, we have Blair and Bush demonstrating to the world what self-conceited, arrogant, hypocritical obnoxious @-holes they are, while the Iranians have treated their captives with courtesy and civility, even showing video of all 15 of them well-rested and eating a meal, and offering to allow the Brits to visit them, requesting only the civil courtesy of a polite apology. The only "proof" Britain has produced to show that the capture took place in "Iraqi territory" is a snapshot of a handheld GPS device, and a bogus map that they invented. C'mon guys! This is the Persian Gulf in the heat of a military build-up! HOW ABOUT LIVE C-130 OR SATELLITE SURVEILLANCE PHOTOS AND VIDEO??! That area HAS to be the most heavily-surveiled area on the planet right now. They want us to believe a SNAPSHOT taken after the fact? (Ever heard of Ken Trentadue? Well, at least they didn't have to get the FBI Crime Lab to fabricate this one.) Where is the satellite imagery? Where were all the support vessels (and all the radar coverage!) when this "capture" was happening? It's not POSSIBLE that they didn't know the Iranian patrol boats were coming. This absolutely STINKS of conspiracy to provoke a war. Bush and Blair actually have the unmitigated audacity to whine about the Iranians "violating the Geneva Convention" (for showing a video of 15 sailors hale and hearty after their capture). In case you haven't been paying attention, BUSH AND BLAIR are two war criminals who for 4 years have expressed no outrage whatsoever over the U.S. and British criminal use of depleted uranium, white phosphorus, cluster bombs, and microwave weaponry in civilian-occupied areas of Iraq. And then there's the whole topics of "extraordinary rendition" and of C.I.A. and British MI6 activities in Iran...
Which, by the way were responsible for the past 54 years of hellish conditions in Iran, beginning with the overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953. Mossadegh's great "sin" against Britain was that he wanted to keep a small part of British Petroleum's profits for the people of Iran, rather than allow BP to bleed Iran dry. He was pro-Western and had just defeated the communists in Iran. "If there had not been a military coup, there would not have been 25 years of the Shah’s brutal regime, there would not have been a revolution in 1979 and a government of clerics,” Ibrahim Yazdi, a former foreign minister and leading member of a political party that traces its origins to Mossadegh’s National Front, told the Christian Science Monitor on the 50th anniversary of the coup and installation of the Shah. “Now it seems that the Americans are pushing towards the same direction again." Bullying and attacking Iran now only bolsters tyranical control of Iran by its unpopular rulers.
"Of course, the average American, who likely would have a difficult time finding Iran on a map, is almost completely ignorant of these historical facts. He does not know that the Shah’s secret police, SAVAK, trained by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad, “became a law unto itself, having legal authority to arrest and detain suspected persons indefinitely” and “operated its own prisons in Tehran (the Komiteh and Evin facilities) and, many suspected, throughout the country as well. SAVAK’s torture methods included electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, and the extraction of teeth and nails,” according to the Federation of American Scientists."
Furthermore, the average American is oblivious to the fact that our beloved CIA funded and encouraged Sadaam's right wing terror groups, the MEK in Iran. Bush continues to rant about Iran's dreaded nuclear ambitions, despite the fact that they were 9 years from development even BEFORE the Russians stopped development. There is NO REASON for war, other than to grab the oil.
Finally, Britain’s largest newspaper, in fact the highest circulation newspaper in the world, neocon Rupert Murdoch’s Sun, amidst banner ads of naked women showing off curvy derrieres, declares Leading Seaman Faye Turney “was forced on the orders of ranting president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to write a letter of apology to the Iranian people.” Civility is beyond the pale for Bush and Blair, just as it was for "Poppy" Bush ("I will never apologize for the United States"). They are the kind of rude, obnoxious bullies who need to be taken away from their S.S. agents and beaten senseless. Shrub is no better than his daddy. He is known for drunkenness and (recently, in front of press witnesses) calling Laura a "c**t".
That's a quote. If you want to get mad, get mad at the drunken slob who uttered it. If you're mad at me, stuff it.
The Iranians remember Iran Air Flight 665 vividly. And there is no lack of recent provocations.
Even if British allegations of "wrong-doing" are true, this detention of the British sailors by Iran is a shade better than being kidnapped in Afghanistan, Iraq, or on the streets of Milan, Italy, and “extraordinarily” rendered by the CIA and sent to Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Morocco, or Uzbekistan to be tortured.
Oh... by the way... Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez and Rice have been lying about THAT for years. They were so desperate to get some monstrous "admission" out of KSM that they authorized torturing his 7 and 10 year old sons. And after all that torture, we have gained... what? NOTHING. Most detainees are completely innocent and many were captured only for the "bounty" money. Unfortunately for them, they looked "Arabic".
No doubt Ahmadinejad’s alleged rant is mild when compared to water boarding or the sort of severe trauma inflicted on prisoners at the Bagram torture facility (said to be comparable to being run over by a bus) or for that matter rape by way of chemical light at Abu Ghraib.
You can read the rest of the article for yourself. Another flaming a-hole, Rupert Murdoch, uses his media control to brainwash two thirds of the world's population in favor of the Neocons' agenda of world conquest. What a waste of human skin.
I'm sick of the hypocrisy of the Neocons. According to them it's right when British and American forces capture Iranian Intelligence operatives (who were also government officials and had some right to be talking with their neighbors) but wrong and evil when Iranians capture British intelligence operatives trespassing in their waters. On the Moon of Alabama blog you will find this comment, telling it like it is. VERY enlightening.
Iran has Oil, Gas and Uranium, while European countries have to import their own uranium, Iran can sell enriched uranium 30% cheaper than the whole world. This is serious control over future energy, and ENERGY CONTROL is what the globalists are after, in order to secure world domination and perpetual tyranny (the New World Order). Before attacking Iraq, they made plans to have a hundred years of war. And you thought they cared about 3000 people on 9/11.
I'm sick of the lies being told by Bush and his cronies. And I'm in real good company.
Click here for a more complete list.
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." – Teddy Roosevelt
"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." – Mark Twain
"In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." – Mark Twain
Click here for Sean Penn's letter to Bu$hCo. (audio).
More braying jackasses weigh in against freedom of information. Obviously, debating the facts is beyond their mental capacity and morally out of their league. Anybody more than 8 years old should see through their act.
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