Iran
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How Truth Slips Down the Memory Hole by John Pilger
Source: Antiwar.com One of the leaders of demonstrations in Gaza calling for the release of the BBC reporter Alan Johnston was a Palestinian news cameraman, Imad Ghanem. On 5 July, he was shot by Israeli soldiers as he filmed them invading Gaza. A Reuters video shows bullets hitting his body as he lay on the… Continue reading
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Total power drives you totally mad by Willliam Bowles
17 July 2007 One tends to think of those who rule as being ruthlessly logical in their application of power; after all, maintenance of the status quo should surely be one of their major objectives? But their loss of legitimacy, obvious to all except the most myopic and self-delusional points to something quite fundamental taking… Continue reading
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From ‘al-Qu’eda’ to ‘Abductions’-the deceptions continue By William Bowles
17 May 2007 It’s ages since I’ve dumped on my favourite newspaper, the Independent for its ‘news’ coverage but I broke down and bought the damn thing because of what I found on the front page this week. Under the head of “An American Nightmare” (15/5/07) we read that US troops have been “kidnapped” by… Continue reading
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To Nuke or not to Nuke? That is the question By William Bowles
2 April 2007 “All options are on the table” – President Bush on Iran For well over a year now pundits on both the left and the right have been telling us that the US/Israel Axis is about to bomb/invade Iran; those on the right say it with glee and on the left with understandable… Continue reading
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Beware the Ides of March By William Bowles
25 March 2007 “Inspired” “Engineered” “Involvement” “Intelligence” “Circumstantial” “Link” — The BBC hedging its bets on alleged Iranian involvement in the ‘insurgency’ in Iraq “There is intelligence about this [Iranian involvement], but no hard proof” BBC 6pm News, 23/3/07 Well we all know what ‘intelligence’ means but this didn’t stop the same ‘news’ broadcast leading… Continue reading
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So what gives? By William Bowles
12 March 2007 ‘[We come not as] conquerors or enemies, but as liberators.’ — Lieutenant General Sir Stanley Maude, Commander in Chief of British forces in Iraq, after entering Baghdad in March 1917. According to the best estimates, the dozen years of sanctions following Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait led to something like one million deaths… Continue reading
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Media Lens: BBC News Website Editor Responds On Amnesty Coverage
25 April 2006 — Media Lens On April 21, we published a Rapid Response Media Alert: ‘Demonising Iran – BBC Distorts Amnesty International Press Release,’ (www.medialens.org/alerts/06/060421_demonising_iran.php). Yesterday, we received this response from Steve Herrmann, editor of the BBC News website: Continue reading
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Mixed(up) Messages By William Bowles
The hysteria being generated around Iran’s alleged nuclear ‘ambitions’ (the media’s favourite newspeak word these days) serves several purposes; one, it conveniently diverts attention away from the situation in Iraq; two, it acts as a warning to any other country challenging US imperialism’s increasingly desperate bid for global domination and, it also serves to divert… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Demonising Iran – BBC Distorts Amnesty International Press Release
21 April 2006 — Media Lens In a recent speech at New York’s Columbia University, John Pilger commented: “We now know that the BBC and other British media were used by MI6, the secret intelligence service. In what was called ‘Operation Mass Appeal‘, MI6 agents planted stories about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction –… Continue reading
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From the Cold War to the Long War – only the name has been changed to protect the guilty By William Bowles
This past 10 April the Guardian published an extremely misleading article that is worth addressing for everything that it doesn’t say concerning US plans for the future and its so-called ‘long war’ against ‘international terrorism’ and it sums up the corporate media’s treatment of the continuation of the Cold War by another name. Continue reading
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Beware the Ides of March By William Bowles
Unlike many of my brethren (and not for the first time), I am seem to be out of step about the apocalyptic visions that are currently populating the Webosphere concerning an immanent invasion of Iran. Continue reading
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The Devil lives in the detail – Demonising Iran By William Bowles
The Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory (and Israel is not), and to which the BBC reluctantly concedes Iran is in compliance with, was as Simon Jenkins points out, pretty much set up by the then nuclear ‘club’, with the view to keeping everyone else out. Meanwhile, the US is adding to… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Iran – The Media Fall Into Line
Writing in the Guardian last month, Timothy Garton Ash observed: “Now we face the next big test of the west: after Iraq, Iran.” Garton Ash thus blithely ignored the fact that every last scrap of evidence coming out of Iraq has pointed to only one conclusion – that Iraq’s “big test” was in fact the… Continue reading
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Devious Dealings and Dire Threats – Iran, the EU and the Petro-dollar – Anglo-US brinkmanship By William Bowles
Introduction: I first published the essay reproduced below (Iran: First it was ‘October Surprise’ – now it’s No Surprise) back in June, 2003 and dug it up whilst doing research on this essay on the latest saga involving the most devious ruling classes of modern times, the US and the UK and I think it… Continue reading
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The US-Iran ‘crisis’ – it’s the oil stupid By William Bowles
Anybody who doesn’t think control of energy sources is at the root of USUK actions in Iraq and elsewhere is suffering a serious (but hopefully treatable) delusional disease of denial. Even the most cursory exploration of the 20th century reveals the centrality of oil to pretty well every event of any significance, and in no… Continue reading
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The Iran ‘crisis’ – the bullshit continues By William Bowles
A story in the London Independent (14/1/06) is typical of the kind of propaganda war being waged by the UK and the US over Iran’s alleged programme to acquire nuclear weapons. In fact, the story is a model piece, worthy of dissection for the various messages it carries to a public which has been deliberately… Continue reading
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Prime (Time) Evil By William Bowles
Iran’s relations with its erstwhile partners in Europe seem to be hurtling downhill like a snowball out of control.– Bridget Kendall, BBC diplomatic correspondent, 27 October 2005 No prizes awarded for what inspired this classic piece of state propaganda but it speaks reams about the relationship between the state and the corporate media. After all,… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Bambi Journalism – The Art Of Professional Naivety
9 January 2006 — Media Lens On October 20, 2005, we published a Media Alert, ‘Real Men Go To Tehran,’ www.medialens.org/alerts/05/051020_real_men_go_to_tehran.php We detailed media reactions after an anonymous British official had accused Iran of supplying Iraqi insurgents with sophisticated roadside bombs that had killed eight British soldiers and two security guards since May, 2005. Tony… Continue reading
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On the road to Damascus By William Bowles
Oil in the next war will occupy the place of coal in the present war, or at least a parallel place to coal. The only big potential supply that we can get under British control is the Persian and Mesopotamian supply .… Control over these oil supplies becomes a first class British war aim –… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Real Men Go To Tehran
20 October 2005 — Media Lens The Roman historian Tacitus observed: “Crime once exposed has no refuge but in audacity.” What better example than Tony Blair’s declaration at an October 7 press conference: “There is no justification for Iran or any other country interfering in Iraq.”? (Adrian Blomfield and Anton La Guardia, ‘Stop meddling in… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 