another sad chapter....

[phylo_roadking]

And just to remove ANY ambiguity on this....

This has never been a stretch where there has been any dispute over

IF you want to be VERY specific and regard this statement as applying ONLY to the locations given by Iran.....

...at the time of the 1975 Algiers Agreement you're right there would NOT have been any dispute - because given the shifting currents and sands they would have been DRY LAND!

Iranian land at that......

"This has never been a stretch where there has been any dispute over" is a quite beautiful piece of government Spin!

[phylo_roadking]

....along the lines of the statement made by an anonymous spokesman for the Foreign Officed today in response to Moscow's request to extradite Boris Berezovsky.....who has recently called for an armed overthrow of Vladimir Putin's regime.....

"We deplore any calls for violent overthrow of any sovereign state"

SINCE WHEN?

[lwd]

...

None of the three gives the RN the legal right to be stopping and searching shipping under the auspices of the Iraqi government (the MoDs words, remember!) at that location and time.Doesn't give the Iranians the right to sieze anyone, but they weren't pretending to operate under a non-existent authority!!!

The fact that it was in pretty much universally recognised Iraqi territory and operating under UN madate doesn't give it these rights? Hardly a non-existant authority.
...

This has never been a stretch where there has been any dispute over.

The Shatt-All-Arab???
[/quote]
I think you will find it is not in the Shatt but in the sea off it's mouth. In that context this makes sense and I have not seen any indication that the Iranians didn't recognise it. Especially since once it was pointed out they changed the coordinates.

that even if British craft had strayed into what Iran claims as its waters, under international law, Iran had no right to seize the sailors.

Correct - I never said they did! But I DID say they were less wrong than the RN!!!

No they had less right. The British had a UN mandate and were stopping a commercial boat and siezed nothing. The Iranians had no such mandate and sized naval personel and equipment in at best disputed waters.

[phylo_roadking]

lwd, can I ask something? Do you only read the posts I make in answer to you or are you (i hope) reading the rest? I'm asking because....

and operating under UN madate doesn't give it these rights?

Se my comments up above to Sid about the Madate question; everyone including me ASSUMED they were working in respect of the mamdates until the MoD made that silly statement saying they were working under the auspices of the Iraqi government. Which took them out from under the legal umbrella of the Mandates - plonkers.

The fact that it was in pretty much universally recognised Iraqi territory

Universally recognised does not mean legally so!

In that context this makes sense and I have not seen any indication that the Iranians didn't recognise it.

Didn't recognise it??? Lwd, look back at ANY press release discussing the Iranian position! THEY recognise Iranian water as being measured from the straight baseline! Isn't that the point of what we've been discussing? Doh?

I think you will find it is not in the Shatt but in the sea off it's mouth

If you even look at the MoD's map you'll see the little dotted red Algiers Agreement line stretching out some twenty mile into the Gulf.... the Agreement - or lack of it now since 1980 - deliniated the Iranian-Iraqi division right out into the Gulf, this IS what we've been talking about all along....

The British had a UN mandate and were stopping a commercial boat and siezed nothing. The Iranians had no such mandate and sized naval personel and equipment in at best disputed waters.

1/ The MoD pulled back from the UN Mandate as discussed.
2/ the issue of seizing anything isn't a goer here, its not about seizing. But DO read my comments up above about "smuggling" and the RN's rights to be acting to enforce Iraq's DOMESTIC laws on that.
3/ No, at best Iranian, middle case is disputed, and at worst Iraqi - ONCE you discount EVERYTHING said in the last four or five pages LOL which I see you do!

[Jez]

I've got to admit, if i were a towel wielding-head whacking-effigy burner in the middle east right now, i'd be looking at this debacle and to be honest, fancying my chances at fighting against us.

Regards, Jez

[phylo_roadking]

....especially when you check out JUST how efficacious IEDs and EFDs are proving aginst a range of "armoured" vehicles....!

[Cott Tiger]

I've got to admit, if i were a towel wielding-head whacking-effigy burner in the middle east right now, i'd be looking at this debacle and to be honest, fancying my chances at fighting against us.

Regards, Jez

Hi Jez,

Yeah, because our “clowns” and “cowards” are getting their arses kicked in Helmund province aren’t they?

Regards,

Andre

[Jez]

Cott,

I haven't read the most of the posts here so i can't really grab the angle that your coming from....

I just can't get my head around how bad this has turned out for the job in hand- that was already difficult in the first place.

It's bad news mate.

Regards, Jez

[sid guttridge]

Hi Phylo,

Who said anything about a university "research" paper. I said university paper. The writer was an undergraduate, which makes him a student, not a schoolboy. Why exaggerate an already good case? We have a lot of such overstatement here on Feldgrau. Why can't people tell it like it is without gilding the lilly?

".....sort of verges towards the lying end of things"? I have seldom seen so short a phrase containing more vagueness ("sort of", "verges", "towards"), but it does at least have the merit of telling it more like it really is.

Plagiarism is a different sin from lying, in the same way that theft or murder are. I would also question whether "plagiarism" is even an applicable word in this case. One can accuse academics or authors of plagiarism, but all information is grist to the mill of the intelligence community. The idea of rejecting any intelligence on the grounds that it has already been published by someone else is ludicrous! I would suggest that "Plagiarism", like "Bliar", is counter-spin.

Yes, Blair should have resigned on grounds of competence. He can defend against the "liar" accusations. All they do is divert a good case against his administration on grounds of incompetence into a weak personalised case against the man himself on "Bliar" grounds.

You have a good point about Knott falling on his own sword. In those days "taking responsibility" had consequences for the individual responsible. Today "taking responsibility" is just a formula of words meaning "It's a fair cop. I dunnit. These things happen. Let's move on". In my mind, to "take responsibility" means that the individual concerns suffers some penalty, either at his own hands out of a sense of honour like Knott, or by means ofd dismissal in disgrace where his own honour is lacking. Des Browne is currently mouthing that he "takes responsibility", without actually doing so.

You still haven't explained what right the Iranians had to seize anyone in a zone the possession of which was undefined by virtue of previous agreements being in abeyance. The seizure is the root of the problem. Without it we would not be having this discussion.

Nothing the British were doing was directed against the Iranian state. The vessel searched wasn't Iranian. Nor had it come from Iran or was it going to Iran. The Iranian Republican Guards themselves didn't apparently search the vessel or display any interest in it, let alone seize it, even though everyone agrees that it was in exactly the same place as the incident. They also changed their reported position of the incident after the fact. This all smacks of a bit of opportunism by some local Republican Guards that the Iranian Government was presented with during its holidays as a fait accompli and couldn't repudiate for reasons of internal politics. Once landed with this hot potato the Iranian Government made a bit of quick propaganda mileage and then dropped it as fast as possible.

Cheers,

Sid.

[michael kenny]

Plagiarism is a different sin from lying, in the same way that theft or murder are. I would also question whether "plagiarism" is even an applicable word in this case. One can accuse academics or authors of plagiarism, but all information is grist to the mill of the intelligence community. The idea of rejecting any intelligence on the grounds that it has already been published by someone else is ludicrous!

The article was copied exactly.
A 10 year old paper by a youth was presented as an intelligence document.
There was no credit given to the young man when the report was published
I think you will find that under all the definitions of plagiarism this example is the one that fits it exactly.
Could it even be a case of copyright theft?
That would make it a criminal matter!

Any views on the Niger fabrication?

[sid guttridge]

Hi Michael,

You have just copied a piece of my earlier post verbatim without acknowledgement, but that is not plagiarism. Copy and plagiarise are not exactly the same thing.

I am pleased to see that the "schoolboy" has been promoted to "young man".

Who are you suggesting conducted the "Niger fabrication"?

Cheers,

Sid.

[sid guttridge]

P.S.

To "plagiarise" is to present others' material as one's own.

I have just had a look at the text of the so-called "Dodgy Dossier". Its preamble reads:

"This report draws on a number of sources, including intelligence material....."

What ever other things the dossier may reasonably be accused of, plagiarism isn't legitimately one of them, because it doesn't claim that the contents are all the government's own work.

There are plenty of reasonable grounds to attack the dossier on. Why spoil a good case by propagandistic exaggeration?

Cheers,

Sid.

[phylo_roadking]

You still haven't explained what right the Iranians had to seize anyone in a zone the possession of which was undefined by virtue of previous agreements being in abeyance. The seizure is the root of the problem. Without it we would not be having this discussion.

Believe it or not, Sid, they had a right - which i didn't come across until I was doing some reading last night. Until then my opinion was as stated - that the Iranians were less wrong than the RN in doing what they were doing.

However, I was looking into the issue of what a state's citizens are allowed to do in International waters. Believe it or not, the Iranians WOULD have been guilty of kidnapping IF they had taken the personnel off a registered, named British vessel or any other nation's vessel at sea - where the comments made earlier about a ship's deck counting as national property apply. BUT it could be argued - if it had got as far as a court which maybe it should have, for FUTURE reference in the Shatt-Al-Arab - that the zodiacs weren't registered vessels. The Iranians have exactly the same right as anyone else to determine under what auspices actions like this are being carried out at sea...

Especially given the fact that according to the MoD the Cornwall was operating under the auspices of the Iraqi government, NOT the UN!

..and the Iranians have exactly the same rights of arrest as the RN UNTIL they determine who anyone carrying arms and inspecting ships at sea are, and why they're doing so! IF these are international waters AND the MoD is ever called upon to confirm what it said about the Iraqi government - then HMS Cornwall was acting as a PRIVATEER under the same provisions as the old "letters of marque" from the Iraqi government!

(ALL those old provisions were superceded in most parts of the world by the Geneva Convention and UNCLOS....but as we know those don't apply to Iran!)

THEN it all hinges on the issue of was this Iranian or International water; IF Iranian, well obviously the Royal Navy were then operating there without Iranian permission - which in Ye Good Olde Days was tantamount to war! And frankly the Iranians could do whatever they liked...!

[michael kenny]

,

You have just copied a piece of my earlier post verbatim without acknowledgement, .

No I did not. Look again and see your name is at the top of it........as it is with the quote directly above this sentence.

Clouding the issue does not change the fact that a schoolboy was used as a source to fabricate an excuse to attack another country. I never expected there would be those who think this is a form of 'intelligence'.

45 minutes anyone?

[sid guttridge]

Hi Michael,

You are accusing Blair of playing fast and loose with the truth while doing the same yourself.

I have no particular reason to defend Blair, but I would rather he was nailed by the facts than by propagandistic exaggerations.

All you are doing is building unnecessary flaws into the structure of your own otherwise arguable case. There was no schoolboy and plagiarism does not apply by its own definition. It's not as if Blair isn't vulnerable on numerous other charges, so why invent fictitious ones that undermine them?

Cheers,

Sid.

P.S. Yup. Fair comment. My name IS at the head of the quote. My apologies.