The lying game or WMD All Over Again

In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger compares the current drum-beating for war against Iran, based on a fake "nuclear threat", with the manufacture of a sense of false crisis that led to invasion of Iraq and the deaths of 1.3 million people.

It's not only Pilger though who's denouncing the British, American and Israeli lies trying to push us all once again into yet another war of aggression.

There's also Phillip Giraldi (WMD All Over Again) who shows just how co-ordinated an effort there is really going on in the US, specifically the media - Washington Post - and across the political divide. He also reveals what the ulterior motive for sanctions really is: "sanctions are an extremely blunt instrument. In practice they never work and only solidify support for a rogue regime, witness Cuba. Once sanctions are in place negotiations cease, virtually guaranteeing a slide to war, which is precisely what Howard Berman and The Washington Post would like to see develop." And Washington, London and Tel Aviv...

He finishes "Remember the WMD, pilotless drones, chemical weapon labs, and mushroom clouds? The same song is being sung again, but this time everyone should recognize a con job when they see it coming."

Then there's Glenn Greenwald (Talking about Iran on the TV) who debated on MSNBC with Washington Post Editorial Page writer Jonathan Capehart ("fresh back from Israel" - where he presumable refined his talking points...well, refined may not accurately describe those comments, but anyway) and Arianna Huffington:



It's important to note Greenwald's comments that "the entire time when I was speaking, MSNBC was flashing scary video of Iran testing its missiles (though it omitted video of this and this), interspersed with this melodramatic and frightening caption:



It’s genuinely hard to overstate the effect of visuals like this, transmitted over and over and over to a population."

Greenwald leads us to Scott Ritter's interview on Democracy Now (Politically Motivated Hype). Scott Ritter was former UN weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991-1998:

"Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has a complete inspection regime conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency. It’s not been found to be in noncompliance. And yet, here we are condemning Iran for doing its job, declaring a facility, inviting inspectors in. And the conclusion it’s reached from this? That they’re producing nuclear weapons. This is politically motivated hype designed to create a situation this coming Thursday that will find the United States unable to reach any sort of agreement with Iran about its nuclear program.
...
if you’re the Iranians and you make a decision that you strategically require an additional source of energy, such as nuclear energy, to supplement your domestic energy usage so that you free up your oil production and gas production for exportation, so you can earn money, this is a big deal. This isn’t insignificant. And so, you’re building this capability. Israel and the United States say they want to bomb it. What do you do?

Well, the first thing you do is you build redundancy, and that’s what this new Qom facility represents. It’s redundancy. It’s a backup to the Natanz primary facility. Again, it’s been declared, no nuclear material has been diverted. But it’s there as a backup. The second thing you do is you fire off missiles in a warning that you have an inherent right and capability of self-defense.

Israel launched a massive air exercise last year, in which it demonstrated the ability to fly hundreds of aircraft, you know, the distance necessary to strike targets in Iran. The United States is carrying out exercises with Israel as we speak. You know, the bottom line is it’s the United States and Israel which are the more aggressive of the players here. Iran is not an aggressor. Iran has not attacked anybody. Iran is simply trying to do that which it is legally allowed to do: produce enriched uranium for the purposes of nuclear power. It’s Israel, which, by the way, is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, claims it will never be a signatory and has a massive nuclear weapons capability—it’s Israel and the United States which are creating a crisis out of nothing. "

And finally all this is backed up by outgoing IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei ( "no credible evidence" that Iran is developing nuclear weapons).

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Other news:

• Shocking news that the "the second highest ranking official at the United Nations’ Mission to Afghanistan, was sacked today by the body following a public falling out with mission chief Kai Eide regarding last month’s fraudulent election in the nation." His crime? His "insistence on a full investigation into the alleged massive ballot stuffing that marred" the recent Afghan 'elections'.
• The release of the famous EU report on last years Georgia-South Ossetia conflict which manages to find both sides at fault! Georgia for starting the conflict and wait for it, Russia for 'retaliation' “far beyond the reasonable limits of defense”. Perhaps they ought to have a look at the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts too, or perhaps even the recent Israeli genocide in Gaza...it would make interesting reading if they kept to the same criteria!
  
• Another 'truly shocking' story by Andy Worthington "Judge’s Ruling Confirms Innocent Gitmo Detainee Tortured To Make False Confessions".
• Shocking seems to be the word of the day considering this next item that Borev flagged: "RAF leaflet box kills Afghan girl". "The box should have broken apart in mid-air but struck the young girl intact." Note the scary comment under the photo 'The RAF tries to reach local people with leaflet drops'. No one can say they didn't reach that little girl, who remains nameless, no British paper has yet published her name and only the Daily Mail has published her age. She was 6 years old. If it had been a British girl we would akready know everything about her and her life. I have checked the BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, Times, Scotsman twice, Sky News - there's nothing on her name - while the Independent thought it only important enough as a 3 liner at the very end of the ousted US diplomat report above. Disgusting behaviour by the British press. Yet again.