Opinion Editorials, October 2007
Ottaway's Warmongering: The lesson from Iraq is to nuke Iran
By Christopher King
ccun.org, Redress, 16 October 2007
Christopher King considers the case of his
British Member of Parliament, Richard Ottaway, who says he regrets voting
for the Iraq war but appears to support attacking Iran. He argues that
Ottaway is a symptom of a political culture “in which morality and ethics
are those of expedience masked by pretence”.
Richard Ottaway, my local Member of Parliament, voted in support of the war in Iraq. I had written to him three letters and emails urging him to vote against it but he ignored the million of us who marched in London against the war, so my small effort counted little.
A couple of years later, when the full disaster was unfolding and Tony Blair’s deceptions were evident, I wrote again reproaching Richard. He replied, saying that he “...bitterly regretted having voted for the war”.
Well, it was something. The Iraqis might not think much of it and my personal opinion is that every MP who voted for the war should be in prison for dereliction of duty but that isn’t the way our justice system works. You can be imprisoned for stealing say, a car, but start an illegal war that wastes seven billion pounds, kills about 200 of our soldiers and more Iraqis than Saddam ever killed, as well as creating millions of refugees and you’re OK.
I have digressed slightly. Anyway, a few days ago I noted that Richard had said in the House of Commons, in relation to the UK government facilitating trade with Iran:
"Is the minister aware that Iran is exporting terror, threatening to wipe Israel off the map, manufacturing nuclear weapons and manufacturing bombs to kill our troops? He is using taxpayers’ money to support the economy that has paid for that. Does he accept that that is nothing short of a policy of appeasement, and will he stop it?” (Hansard, 9 October 2007, oral answers to questions, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Iran)
Wait a minute! He’s doing it again! Where does he get this rubbish? It’s Iraq all over again. What terror is Iran exporting exactly? What targets have they attacked? Anywhere? After the lies about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, its purchase of uranium, nuclear centrifuge components and involvement in the 9/11 attack, we must have evidence.
The Iranians make it no secret that they are enriching uranium as they have every right to do under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, but they have no nuclear weapons nor the ability to build them. Richard should look up the International Atomic Energy Agency reports. Moreover, the Iranians say that they don’t want them and probably really don’t. It’s safer. It makes it difficult for others such as Israel to justify using nuclear weapons on them. Still, nuking a non-nuclear state has been done.
The Iranians are manufacturing bombs to kill our troops? About six months ago the US Army put on an exhibition in Iraq to convince newsmen that Iran was doing just that – and failed miserably. It was their best shot and they had nothing. No-one on the spot believed them. And no names were to be mentioned. All the accusations against Iran were to be non-attributed. Everyone has learned from Colin Powell’s disgraceful UN performance about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
We still hear anonymous claims from the White House, the US Army or some British government department that Iran is giving the Iraqis the technological know-how to make sophisticated armour-piercing munitions. I thought that these ridiculous accusations had been disposed of years ago but they’re still being repeated. Anyone with access to the internet can readily find the relevant information. An average car-maintenance workshop gives facilities enough to make an explosively-formed projectile or shaped charge that can knock out an armoured troop carrier and even a tank. This is DIY technology. Based on the Munroe effect, it has been around for about a hundred years, is used in a wide variety of munitions as well as in oil drilling practice. Iraq has, we might notice, a lot of oil wells. Moreover, the Iraqi army, unwisely disbanded, doubtless had hundreds of people who were trained in improvising these munitions. It’s standard special forces training. Iranian help here would be totally superfluous. Anyone who says otherwise hasn’t done his/her homework or is relying on others’ lack of technical knowledge.
As for the accusation against Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad that he wants to “wipe Israel off the face of the map”, I am assured by a Farsi speaker that this is a mistranslation. Has Richard checked this with, say, a Farsi speaker at London University? No? Well, he should. When he voted on invading Iraq he did so without carrying out what in business terms would be called “due diligence”, that is, particularly in any big deal, one investigates carefully to assure oneself of the facts. When the lives of millions of people and their welfare are at stake, not to mention vast sums of public money, it must be a matter of vital, critical and over-riding importance.
So why is my MP again doing the same thing that he did before the Iraq invasion at a time when both the Israelis and White House are longing to bomb Iran and are desperately seeking an excuse? I will not speculate on what, precisely, is in his mind but it is clear that what is not there is the concept of due diligence. For his own reasons, he will probably support the bombing of Iran as he did Iraq and does not care about the truth of the matter. Unhappily, that appears to be the view not only in the British Parliament but of US politicians as well.
Let us then consider the realities of the situation. Iran will probably be bombed. The political will is there together with disregard for truth. The justification is the same as that for invading Iraq – Iran has weapons of mass destruction, is a danger to the West and is supporting terrorism. Our politicians’ motivations are various and, in a sense, it does not matter what they are, whether careerism, venality or Zionism. There is a big problem, however, and it is this: when US and UK claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction were investigated, they were found to be false. Similarly the case of the bombed pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. And the 50 or so attempts to assassinate Saddam when whole families were wiped out on the word of informers. What an opportunity! If one were to owe money, all one had to do was to tell the Americans that Saddam was hiding in one’s creditor’s house and the Americans would solve the problem with a state-of-the-art, satellite-guided, precision-targeted bomb, delivered by an F15 supersonic all-weather fighter equipped with multi-mission avionics flown by an intelligent, young man who probably believes that he is protecting his country and is concentrating on his flight performance and promotion prospects. One might get a reward as well. Fantastic. But I digress again. The point is that, actually, no-one cares a damn about due diligence. They’re only foreigners and if they’re dead they can’t make a fuss. But it can be embarrassing to be seen to be wrong. So what to do in bombing Iran if one intends to do it anyway?
Note that US politicians will not rule out the use of nuclear weapons, and therein lies the solution. Nukes solve this potentially embarrassing problem. No evidence afterwards. You can say that the Iranians have anything you like. The site where evidence would be is vapourised, melted to slag or so radioactive that it can’t be investigated for hundreds or even thousands of years. A small dirty nuke with a casing of cobalt should make things radioactive enough to keep investigators away for a very long time.
The US wouldn’t do that? We have the precedent of Japan, two bombs and two entire cities. I know, everyone was angry, it was a new toy, the Japanese were unarguably out of order and payback for Pearl Harbour was wanted, but why two bombs? Didn’t anyone say in the three days between them, “Wow! What a bang! What a mess! Do we need the other one?” If so, what was the reply? Did anyone stop to think and allow some ethics to kick in? Who would have imagined 10 years ago that the USA could set up Guantanamo outside law, approve torture, implement a system of “extraordinary rendition” and ignore the deaths of half a million Iraqi children through sanctions? With UK collaboration. A political culture whose ethics support these things, or on a more intimate scale will wipe out a whole family of three or four generations on the unsubstantiated word of an informer, could surely use nuclear weapons in Iran. It seems too that, if the bombing of Iran goes ahead, it would be intended to destroy the whole infrastructure of the country. The advantages of this in lessening the possibility of retaliation, making a ground invasion more feasible and lessening Iranian influence in the area are obvious. And nukes or no nukes, the oil will stay safely in the ground until the US, probably with the UK, can bring democracy, freedom and oil contracts to Iran.
We have until now thought, and have indeed been encouraged, to believe that our politicians have simply made mistakes about Iraq. That they meant well but their best intentions went awry. That President Bush is a regular Texas fella who is merely not too bright, that he and our sincere Tony Blair are good Christians, impelled by the wickedness of others to do things repugnant to them but necessary. I do not believe it. It is much more serious than that. It was never intended to reconstruct Iraq. It was always going to be just a military occupation. That is what all the material evidence shows. Everything else is weasel words. So what, I wonder, is in the mind of Richard Ottaway MP that restrains him from investigating the facts about Iran? Whatever it is, it is clear that our political environment is now dominated by people in whom humanitarian sentiments are dead. We now live in a post-Christian, that is, non-Christian culture in which morality and ethics are those of expedience masked by pretence. Popular demand has long been for a truly secular culture and this is what it looks like. If any cogent ethical framework exists at all, it is that of the Torah, the Old Testament, that has always been an integral part of the Bible and has always lain just beneath the surface of Western culture. Others do not matter. If you do not want to live in a world like this you had better do something about it.
*Christopher King is retired consultant and lecturer in management and marketing. He lives in London, UK.|
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