Two-Faced Tony Turns On Tehran

©Martin Rowson

Release of Iranian Diplomat exposes US and British origin of Iraqi death squads and "sectarian" bombings

The 15 British Marines (who were in fact spying on Iran) were barely off the plane yesterday morning before Blair, Smeagol-like, turned on the Iranians and, with no evidence whatsoever, accused them of being responsible for the - timely from Blair's point of view - deaths of 4 British soldiers in Iraq.

As disingenuous as ever, Blair squeaked:

"It's far too early [to point to any Iranian involvement in that particular attack], but the general picture, as I have said before, is there are elements at least of the Iranian regime that are backing, financing, arming terrorism in Iraq."

Blair's "general picture" of Iraq and who is responsible for the daily carnage there is surreal indeed and like all surrealist works, diverges greatly from actual reality. The fact is, there is not one shred of objective unbiased evidence that Iran is involved in any way with attacks on US or any other illegal forces in occupied Iraq, and before anyone suggests it, US intelligence reports have long since ceased to be anything but the deranged imaginings of the Ziocons, so don't even go there.

Along with his contemptible attack on the Iranians, Blair insisted that there had been "no deals" done to secure the release of the 15 British spies, a statement which, you will be unsurprised to learn, is also a barefaced lie and a clear attempt to save his pompous English ass from ending up on the already overflowing scrapheap of British political history and thereby joining the long list of sorry excuses for human beings that define it.

Two days ago, Jalal Sharafi, the second secretary of the Iranian embassy in Iraq, who was abducted from his car in Baghdad in early February, just happened to walk out of captivity and into the Iranian embassy earlier this week at the height of the "hostage crisis". Coincidence? Why, of course it is!

At the time of his abduction by men wearing Iraqi army uniforms, US military spokesman in Baghdad, US army Lt Col Christopher Garver stated: "we've checked with our units and it was not a [multinational forces - Iraq] unit that participated in that event". Yet Sharafi walks free in Baghdad in the Middle of the negotiations over the 15 British spies.

You 'do the logic', and then realise that lying is standard operation procedure for government officials. For more on the death squads in Iraq and who is behind them, see this SOTT editorial.

Then today, Blair set the damage control spin machine into overdrive with a "news conference" for the 15 released British spies, complete with that heart-warming symbol of centuries of brutality - the Union Jack flag.



At the top of the sheet given to the sailors by the Ministry of Defence the words "READ THIS" in big bold letters was written.

And like the trained monkeys that they are, the Marines had no choice but to comply. Here's what they said:

"On arrival at a small Iranian naval base we were blindfolded, stripped of all our kit and led to a room where I (Lieutenant Carman) declared myself as the officer in charge and was introduced to their local commander.

Two hours later, we were moved to a second location and throughout the night were subjected to random interrogation.

The following morning, we were flown to Tehran and transported to a prison - where the atmosphere changed completely.

We were blindfolded, our hands were bound, we were forced up against the wall. Throughout our ordeal we faced constant psychological pressure.

Later, we were stripped and dressed in pyjamas. The next few nights were spent in stone cells approximately 8ft by 6ft, sleeping on piles of blankets.

All of us were kept in isolation. We were interrogated most nights and presented with two options.

If we admitted we had strayed, we would be back on a plane to the UK pretty soon. If we didn't, we faced up to seven years in prison.

None of the guards spoke English, we were blindfolded at all times and kept in isolation from each other.

Watch the video where Lt. Felix Carman reads from a prepared script at this link.

Does anyone know what 12 days solitary confinement in a stone cell with blindfolds, bound hands, little or no sleep, regular interrogation and "constant psychological and emotional pressure" looks like?

Put it this way, regardless of how staged these pictures were or were not, it doesn't leave you looking like this:

Day 5



Day 7



Day 11



Day 12





A number of people have pointed out the fact that in the photos of the "hostages" in Iran, some were smiling and waving while others were not. This is due to the fact that there were a mix of Marines and Sailors among the 15, and it was, more or less, all of the sailors that were smiling and waving, while the marines were stern faced. This fact reflects the difference in training and job profile between the Sailors and Marines and how aware each group was of the reality of what they were doing in the Persian Gulf.

Basically, the Marines know that their job is to attack and undermine the Iranians. To the Marines, the Iranians are the enemy, which is reflected in their demeanour.

From the sailors POV, they are there to "help" with stopping smugglers, which could also be of benefit to the Iranians. So to the Sailors then, the Iranians were not necessarily the enemy, which is reflected in their demeanour.

The official story that they were just doing their job of searching for "smugglers" is of course, laughable. Such activities are undertaken in countries where normal conditions prevail, NOT in a country like Iraq, which is as war torn as any. "Searching for smugglers" is no one's priority in Iraq, but serves the MOD well as a cover story because it appears to the British public that "their boys" are carrying out innocent, heck! even helpful activities in Iraq, and darn those Iraqis for not being grateful!

So to be convincing, they searched the odd boat that was unloading cars or whatever, and the gormless sailors were there to make it look convincing, and indeed the sailors themselves, dupes that they are, actually believed that this was the extent of what they were involved in, if only as a cover.

The Marines were there to do the real job - spying on Iraq, planning/setting up infiltrations into Iran - keeping in contact with British assassination (SAS) teams already in Iran - passing details to US teams in Iran and to the US government etc.

In short, they are very clearly engaged in hostile acts towards Iran, and if the tables had been turned, and Iranians had been caught in America doing the same thing, they would now be being tortured in Guantanamo. No doubt WHATSOEVER.

The main point at this stage however is that the spin machine has gone into action in an attempt to undo the Iranian "coup de media". For example, the Scotsman reports:

The Iranian soldiers had changed out of military uniforms and were now dressed all in black, their faces masked. For the 14 male hostages, the worst moment of their ordeal had arrived. The belief that they were being taken to the British Embassy in Tehran for imminent release had evaporated. Instead, at a detention centre, blindfolded and with their hands secured with plastic cuffs, they were all made to face a brick wall.

Then guns were cocked and a British captive cried out: "Lads, lads. I think we are going to be executed." At that point, one of the hostages vomited: at least one of the others thought someone had just had their throat cut, and that it was blood hitting the floor.

Hmmmm.... now why would any of the British hostages automatically associate the sound of vomit hitting the floor with someone's throat being cut? Are British children reared to instinctively know and associate these sounds with one another? Of course, I forget! They were in "Arablandia", where people cut each other's throats as a matter of course and on a daily basis.

The poster boy for the gormlessness of the Sailors has to be Sailor Arthur Batchelor. From my brief analysis of the 'cut of his gib', I have decided that this poor misguided child would have cracked if an Iranian Republican Guard has so much as looked at him in the wrong way, and his bright and sunny disposition therefore constitutes reasonable evidence that it is unlikely that there was any mal-treatment.







Indeed, it is exactly Batchelor's likely naivety that we can rely on to get the closest approximation to the truth of what conditions were really like. He stated:

"Iranian behaviour was humane, we were fed, watered 3 times a day"

which is far cry from "constant psychological pressure", blindfolds, handcuffs, stone cells, "gun-cocking" etc. as reported by his superiors who were given the job of spreading lies and disinformation once they arrived home.

On a lighter note; I had to chuckle at the fact that Batchelor was so short and hobbit-like that there wasn't a suit in all of Iran to be found to fit him.