Hail the conquering heroes. A tale of two headlines.

We live in an age where words no longer have meaning. Shame is gone. Moral relativity and Jerry Springer have won. The two stories from this morning's Telegraph tells the dismal tale about what is next for the fab fifteen, and a hint about the consequences of their moment in history. I add the photos of real heroes from a less enlightened era.

Real Heroes

Tobruk, Libya. 25 April 1953. Group portrait of five Victoria Cross winners, members of the Australian and New Zealand Coronation Contingent, in the Tobruk War Cemetery, during their brief stay while on their way to England to attend the coronation of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. They are, left to right: Private (Pte) F. J. Partridge VC, (Australia); Pte E. Kenna VC, (Australia); 215003 Sergeant J. D. Hinton VC, (New Zealand); Pte R. Kelliher VC, (Australia); Sergeant R. R. Rattey VC.

The Fab Fifteen, post ordeal
(I feel sorry for the three on the right)

MoD: Captured crew can sell their stories

By Emma Henry and agencies
Last Updated: 10:17am BST 08/04/2007

The 15 British service personnel held captive in Iran have been given official permission to cash in on their 13-day ordeal by selling their stories to the media.

The Ministry of Defence said it had taken the unusual decision because of the "exceptional circumstances" surrounding their situation.

It means that the eight Royal Navy sailors and seven Royal Marines can now look forward to five or six-figure payouts.

However the move could also expose them to criticism from others in the Armed Forces who have suffered as a result of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan but have not been allowed to profit in the same way

The MoD said they attracted similar intense media interest as someone who had won the Victoria Cross - the military's highest award for gallantry in the face of enemy fire.

"Serving personnel are not allowed to enter into financial arrangements with media organisations. However, in exceptional circumstances such as the award of a Victoria Cross or events such as those in recent days, permission can be granted by commanding officers and the MoD," the statement said.

____________________

Buoyant Teheran warns of further kidnappings

By Gethin Chamberlain, Philip Sherwell and Tim Shipman, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:56pm BST 07/04/2007

Hardliners in the Iranian regime have warned that the seizure of British naval personnel demonstrates that they can make trouble for the West whenever they want to and do so with impunity.


President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: a PR bounce

The bullish reaction from Teheran will reinforce the fears of western diplomats and military officials that more kidnap attempts may be planned.

The British handling of the crisis has been regarded with some concern in Washington, and a Pentagon defence official told The Sunday Telegraph: "The fear now is that this could be the first of many. If the Brits don't change their rules of engagement, the Iranians could take more hostages almost at will.

British hostages freed.

The Iranians let them go. The Iranians squeezed the propaganda lemon dry. The news conference showed the Brits smiling in nice suits, bowing and chatting with their Iranian captors. They looked more like a visiting football team than British captives being returned.

The Iranians played it smartly. The Iranians won a real propaganda victory.

Things are not always as they seem. We need to wait for some answers. I find it hard to understand the hows and whys, but will listen with an open mind.

Sorry Independent, there was a botched raid, but under Jimmy Carter.

The Independent thinks they got it solved. American ineptitude in a botched raid and snatch of Iranian spies. Yea, yea, yea. Truth be told, it makes little difference at this time. Britain under the pusillanimous leadership of Tony Blair is prepared to sacrifice vulgar national interests to sentimentality. But before we fall into the Iranian trap of having a go at Blair and the British, we need to give the real credit to the most deserving. There was a botched US raid, but it was under the botched presidency of the very botched Jimmy Carter. The Iranians won that round and they seem to be doing all right again.

A very smug Iranian, Mr Larijani

This being reported in the Telegraph One of Iran's most senior politicians offered new hope for the swift release of 15 captured British sailors and marines, saying direct negotiations were underway and that the situation was "quite resolvable".

Tony Blair has responded by saying that the next two days will be "fairly critical" for diplomats in a Scottish radio broadcast this morning.

During an interview on Channel 4 News last night, Ali Larijani, chief of the Iranian National Security Council, indicated the fourteen men and one woman would not face a show trial.

And today, Iranian radio cited Mr Larijani saying that the British Government has started diplomatic talks with the foreign ministry in Teheran in order to "resolve the issue of the arrest of the British military personnel."

He suggested that Britain would need to send a diplomatic delegation to Teheran, admit that its Navy had made a mistake by straying into Iranian waters and guarantee that the error would not be repeated.

The Prime Minister said the remarks seemed to offer "some prospect but the most important thing is to get these people back."

No, Mr. Blair that is not the most important thing. Too bad the British have a Jimmy Carter for a PM, but they do and that is there choice.

Just to remind you:

AMERICA CAN'T DO A THING'
by Amir Taheri
New York Post
November 2, 2004

November 2, 2004 -- AMERICANS will certainly have 9/11 in mind when they vote today. But they should keep another date in mind, too — one almost exactly a quarter-century ago: Nov. 4, 1979. A clear path runs to 9/11 from the day of the raid on the U.S. embassy in Tehran and the seizure of American hostages.

The 1979 embassy attack came at a time when the administration of President Jimmy Carter was trying to prop up the new Khomeinist regime in Tehran.

Carter had decided to support Khomeini in the context of the so-called "Green Belt" strategy developed by National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. That strategy was based on the assumption that the United States and its allies were unable to contain the Soviet Union, then expanding its zone of influence into Africa, the Indian Ocean region and, through left-leaning regimes, in Latin America. To counter that expanding threat, Brzezinski envisaged the creation of a string of Islamic allies that, for religious and political reasons, would prefer the United States against the "godless" Soviet empire.

The second stage in Brzezinski's grand strategy was to incite the Muslim peoples of the Soviet Union to revolt against Moscow and thus frustrate its global schemes.

The Bzrezinski strategy had been partly inspired by Helene Carrere d'Encausse, who, in her book "The Fragmented Empire," predicted the disintegration of the Soviet Union as a result of revolts by Muslim minorities.

When the Islamic revolution started in Iran, the Carter administration saw it as the confirmation of its assumption that only Islamists could muster enough popular support to provide an alternative to both the existing regime and the pro-Soviet leftist movements.

The Carter administration went out of its way to support the new regime in Tehran. A ban imposed on the sale of arms and materiel to Iran, imposed in 1978, was lifted, and a 1954 presidential "finding" by Dwight Eisenhower was dusted off to reaffirm Washington's commitment to defending Iran against Soviet or other threats.

Also to symbolize support for the mullahs, President Carter initially rejected a visa application for the exiled shah to travel to New York for medical treatment.

Just weeks after the mullahs' regime was formed, Brzezinski traveled to Morocco to meet Mehdi Bazargan, Ayatollah Khomeini's first prime minister. At the meeting, Brzezinski invited the new Iranian regime to enter into a strategic partnership with the United States. Bazargan, concerned that the Iranian left might bid for power against the still wobbly regime of the mullahs, was "ecstatic" about the American offer.

The embassy raid came just days after the Brzezinski-Bazargan meeting in Morocco and, by all accounts, took Khomeini by surprise. It is now clear that leftist groups opposed to rapprochement with the United States had inspired the raid.

Khomeini saw it as a leftist ploy to undermine his authority. He was also concerned about the possibility of the United States taking strong military and political action against his still fragile regime.

Deciding to hedge his bets, the ayatollah played a double game for several days, waiting to gauge the American reaction.

According to his late son Ahmad, who had been asked to coordinate with the embassy-raiders, the ayatollah feared "thunder and lightning" from Washington. But what came, instead, was a series of bland statements by Carter and his aides pleading for the release of the hostages on humanitarian grounds.

Carter's envoy to the United Nations, a certain Andrew Young, described Khomeini as "a 20th-century saint," and begged the ayatollah to show "magnanimity and compassion."

Carter went further by sending a letter to Khomeini.

Written in longhand, it was an appeal from "one believer to a man of God."

Carter's syrupy prose must have amused Khomeini, who preferred a minimalist style with such phrases as "we shall cut off America's hands."

As days passed, with the U.S. diplomats paraded in front of TV cameras blindfolded and threatened with execution, it became increasingly clear that there would be no "thunder and lightning" from Washington. By the end of the first week of the drama (which was to last for 444 days, ending as Ronald Reagan entered the White House), Khomeini's view of America had changed.

Ahmad Khomeini's memoirs echo the surprise that his father, the ayatollah, showed, as the Carter administration behaved "like a headless chicken."

What especially surprised Khomeini was that Cater and his aides, notably Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, rather than condemning the seizure and the treatment of the hostages as a barbarous act, appeared apologetic for unspecified mistakes supposedly committed by the United States and asked for forgiveness and magnanimity.

Once he had concluded that America would not take any meaningful action against his regime, Khomeini took over control of the hostage enterprise and used it to prop up his "anti-imperialist" credentials while outflanking the left.

The surprising show of weakness from Washington also encouraged the mullahs and the hostage-holders to come up with a fresh demand each day. Started as a revolutionary gesture, the episode soon led to a demand for the United States to capture and hand over the shah for trial. When signals came that Washington might actually consider doing so, other demands were advanced. The United States was asked to apologize to Muslim peoples everywhere and, in effect, change its foreign policy to please the ayatollah.

Matters worsened when a military mission to rescue the hostages ended in tragedy in the Iranian desert. The force dispatched by Carter fled under the cover of night, leaving behind the charred bodies of eight of their comrades.

In his memoirs, Ahmad nicely captures the mood of his father, who had expected the Americans to do "something serious," such as threatening to block Iran's oil exports or even firing a few missiles at the ayatollah's neighborhood.

But not only did none of that happen, the Carter administration was plunged into internal feuds as Vance resigned in protest of the rescue attempt.

It was then that Khomeini coined his notorious phrase, "America cannot do a damn thing."

He also ordered that the slogan "Death to America" be inscribed in all official buildings and vehicles. The U.S. flag was to be painted at the entrance of airports, railway stations, ministries, factories, schools, hotels and bazaars so that the faithful could trample it under their feet every day.

The slogan "America cannot do a damn thing" became the basis of all strategies worked out by Islamist militant groups, including those opposed to Khomeini.

That slogan was tested and proved right for almost a quarter of a century. Between Nov. 4, 1979, and 9/11, a total of 671 Americans were held hostage for varying lengths of time in several Muslim countries. Nearly 1,000 Americans were killed, including 241 Marines blown up while sleeping in Beirut in 1983.

For 22 years the United States, under presidents from both parties, behaved in exactly the way that Khomeini predicted. It took countless successive blows, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, without decisive retaliation. That attitude invited, indeed encouraged, more attacks.

The 9/11 tragedy was the denouement of the Nov. 4 attack on the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

E-mail: amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com

Remember how the grovelling worked for Bigley?

Britain's feeble response
British government shows weakness, helplessness in face of Iranian audacity
Shlomo Papirblatt Ynetnews
Published: 04.02.07, 14:47 / Israel Opinion

The abduction of the British marines and sailors by Iranian forces in Iraq's territorial waters – according to Britain – is beginning to look like one of Britain's and the West's most embarrassing moments: A blundering weakness and helplessness on the British government's part vis-à-vis the defiance and audacity coming from Teheran.

The story resembles a disparaging script written with the sharp talent of a BBC series. An Iranian marine force surrounds the boat of 15 soldiers who are on a regular patrol of Iraqi waters.

Under the threat of firearms they surrender unconditionally, they are taken away, moved to Teheran, displayed on TV and publicly ridiculed. A headscarf covers the head of the only female soldier and her announcement, which is undoubtedly coerced, attacks the forceful policies of Britain and the US in Iraq.

In addition, senior Iranian officials are making announcements as if they are planning to put the soldiers on a show trial, an act that defies every international law.

Limited response
Meanwhile in London, as well as in other European capitals whose foreign policies are united, weak protest against Iran is being sounded - protests that clearly won't budge a single hair on the head of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A complaint is being filed with the UN Security Council, but its recent resolutions are being treated as though written on ice during a heat wave. And that's it. This is where the boldness and response of those who sent the abducted soldiers to battle ends.

Is the initial instinct to fold and the helplessness against unflinching terror by an insane ruler once again working against the British government and its European allies?

I am not saying, heaven forbid, that the solution has to come from the arsenal of military responses at this point in time. There are other options, and they too are unequivocal in character.

Free on the streets of London
For example, it is well known that the Iranian ambassador is still walking freely on the streets of London, free to enjoy the theatre and excellent Indian restaurants, as are Iran's diplomatic representatives in other European countries.

They continue to come to work, according to rigid protocol prevalent between normal countries – as if it was such a country and as if nothing had occurred in the Persian Gulf. No one is threatening to take them to the nearest airport and to politely but firmly put them on the next plane back to Iran.

By the same token, Western diplomats are continuing to sip mineral water or grapefruit juice at cocktail parties in Teheran, and representatives of large European economic enterprises are rolling economic opportunities from side to side. Wouldn't a freeze on of all this activity hint to the sane people in the Iranian government that it's about time they do something about the radicals who are leading them by the nose?

It is incumbent on the leaders of the West to at least try, before they turn into a laughing stock.

Iranian Islamism challenges the West again. Is it part of a last gasp?

..."as soon as the Islamists come to power: All islamist regimes end up in dramatic failure. That some Islamists today turn violent and even suicidal, is only an indication of their failure to realise their plans. Eventually Muslims will have to wake up to the reality that they are no longer the masters of history, but a deprived and underdeveloped minority in the global community. Only when Muslims face this reality, they will be able to proceed."

Iran has its reasons for taking the British hostages.It is clearly not to impress the West. Is it possible that it is for their bigger goal of rallying Islam behind them? Iran is after all the bastion of Islamic purity. This article from Radio Netherlands

"Muslim reformers intellectually dishonest"
by Michel Hoebink
27-03-2007

Muslim modernist reformers are intellectually dishonest. Many are merely using religion as a means to mobilise people for their modernisation projects. That is the bold claim made by secular Syrian thinker Sadiq Jalal al-Azm. But he nevertheless admits that reform of Islam is badly needed.

He jokingly calls himself the 'official atheist of the Arab world'. Since the publication of his book Critique of Religious Thought in 1969, Sadiq Jalal al-Azm is one of the most prominent secularist thinkers in the Muslim world.

The now retired professor of European philosophy at the University of Damascus belongs to a generation of western-educated intellectuals who, contrary to their expectations, gradually saw the Muslim world turn more and more religious. Being an atheist became increasingly dangerous, but Sadiq al-Azm never felt the urge to leave.
He divides his time between Damascus and Beirut and universities in Europe and the US. He also spent a few months in the Netherlands, at the NIAS research institute in Leiden. In the Netherlands, he is a well-known figure because some of his work has been translated into Dutch and in 2004 he was awarded the prestigious Erasmus prize, together with two Muslim modernist thinkers: the Moroccan Fatima Mernissi and the Iranian Abdolkarim Soroush.

What is the difference between you and modernist reformers such as Fatima Mernissi and Abdolkarim Soroush?

"People like Mernissi and Soroush pretend to reform Islam from the inside. They reform Islam as good Muslims. The group to which I belong does not do this. I want to reform the thinking of Muslims too, but I never pretended to do this from inside Islam or as a Muslim. I never made a concession on this matter."

So they are pretending?

"Since the 19th Century, modernist thinkers have been haunted by rumours that they are not real believers, that they merely use religion as a means to mobilise people for reforms. And they even say so themselves: Until today, many of these reformers argue that, if you want to convince the people, you have to speak to them in their 'own language', that is to say: in religious terms.

This may be a valid argument, but it also reveals the instrumental way in which they think about religion.

I admit that it is easy for me to criticise them: I am a man of ideas, a public intellectual who is sometimes called upon to give his supposedly studied judgement on matters of public interest. I'm not involved in organising people and directing movements and so on.
Let me put it this way: In my view there is a division of labour in this effort of modernising Muslim societies.

Both approaches are valid. We need people who work on the inside and we also need people who work from the outside. But personally I think there is a certain intellectual dishonesty in this claim to reform Islam from the inside."

Can Islam be reformed at all?

"I think so, but it requires a departure from the literal text of the Koran. That's a radical step, because the Muslim masses cling to the idea that the Koran is literally true. But it is obvious that the literal text of the Koran simply cannot be applied in modern society.
Take for instance the corporal punishments prescribed in the Koran. Radical Islamists want to impose them, but they are a minority.

The majority of Muslims have split personalities on this matter: They insist that this is the penal law of Islam and at the same time they admit that it is inapplicable. What I propose is to resolve this contradiction and officially state that the shari'a corporal punishments are obsolete.

The problem is that most of my colleagues who claim to reform Islam from the inside do not address this problem, probably because they fear it will alienate them from their audiences. Modernists such as Fatima Mernissi keep playing this game of quoting texts of Koran and Prophetic Traditions in support of their case, implicitly assuming the literal truth of these texts. And if they do not find anything that supports them, they twist and torture the meaning of the text until it suits their demands.

But what about more radical reformers such as Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd who look at the Koran as a historical text and admit that it can no longer be literally applied?

People like Abu Zayd are more honest in asking the question: What can the Koran mean to us today, in light of modern scientific knowledge? But what annoys me is that they keep speaking in the name of the 'real Islam.' Historically speaking, Muslims are divided among hundreds of groups who all claim that they possess the 'real' or 'true' Islam.

As a critical intellectual you can't seriously claim that you possess the 'real Islam'. All you can say is: This is the way it makes sense to me personally."

Some people believe that religion is on the rise again in the whole world, and especially in the Muslim World.

"I think the process of secularisation is irreversible, in Europe and the US but also in the Muslim world. The present so-called revival of religion is just some sort of last spasm, a desperate effort to cling to something that in fact has already disappeared. In the Muslim world, Islamists present themselves as an alternative for western culture, but they do not really have an alternative: Their slogan 'Islam is the solution' is an illusion. Islam simply cannot solve the problems of the 21st Century.

That becomes clear as soon as the Islamists come to power: All islamist regimes end up in dramatic failure. That some Islamists today turn violent and even suicidal, is only an indication of their failure to realise their plans. Eventually Muslims will have to wake up to the reality that they are no longer the masters of history, but a deprived and underdeveloped minority in the global community. Only when Muslims face this reality, they will be able to proceed."

The Iranian government needs an attitude adjustment.

Very few EB readers and commenting members will find much fault with this assessment from the Telegraph.


Heading for war with Iran

By Simon Heffer
Last Updated: 12:13pm BST 30/03/2007

I start to wonder whether it might not be time for us to get as nasty with other countries as they do with us.

As we wait anxiously to see what will happen to our 15 hostages - for that is what they are - in Teheran, we should feel undiluted rage at the behaviour of other countries and institutions towards us.

Mind you, when those third parties witness the drivelling weakness of the Foreign Office over the last week, and in particular the pathetic show put up by our Foreign Secretary - who must surely be just about the worst in our history - who can blame them?

There is no doubt the 15 were in international waters when captured, or that they were undertaking a United Nations mission in pursuit of upholding UN resolutions. Yet the best the UN itself can do is pass a weak-kneed resolution describing its “grave concern”, rather than a tougher one calling upon all nations to “deplore” Iran’s behaviour.

This is all the fault of Russia, to whom Mr Blair routinely cosies up, and whom the civilised world invites to its annual G8 summit meetings. Russia seems to think it isn’t worth “deploring” the kidnap of our sailors, so we had better start to show Russia what we think of it: by uninviting it from the G8 this year, and every year until it learns some manners.

When not busy ordering the murders of his opponents, Vladimir Putin seems to enjoy hobnobbing with the leaders of civilised countries, so such a sanction would hurt.

We don’t have the means to engage in gunboat diplomacy with Iran, and any special forces operation would be fraught with risks both for the hostages and their rescuers.

For the moment, ever-stricter sanctions on Iran seems the only answer. America is resolute about this. So too, oddly, is the world’s greatest sanction-busting nation, France. So the scope for tightening the economic ratchet on Iran, and the means to do so, look healthy.

However, we should be under no illusions about the effectiveness of such weapons.

Saddam Hussein, after all, was put under sanctions for years. Real hardship was caused to his people, but almost none at all to him and his ruling clique.

President Ahmadinejad of Iran has already threatened Britain about our involvement of “third parties” - that is, the UN - in the present dispute, showing his utter contempt for that organisation.

He would treat sanctions with similar disdain, happily cutting off the noses of his own people to spite their faces. And all the time, the threat he and his inherent instability pose to us all would never cease growing.

Whatever the immediate outcome of this crisis, Britain has some hard decisions to make. Is it worthwhile, any longer, to work through the United Nations?

So long as a morally warped nation like Putin’s Russia calls the shots in the Security Council, no.

We can make debating points about how odd it is that Putin deplores Islamic nutters when they attack his forces but is relaxed about them attacking ours, but in the end there is no point in bothering.

The UN showed itself to be weak with Saddam Hussein. It is no better now.

If we are going to continue to try to be a player in the Middle East, then we have to throw in our lot with the Americans, for no-one else makes the blindest bit of difference there.

The capricious, and indeed downright wicked, behaviour of the Iranians towards our sailors confirms one other thing: that the civilised world cannot let the Ahmadinejad regime develop nuclear weapons.

It is not just his oft-repeated enthusiasm for wiping Israel off the face of the earth that should worry us: it is what this madman might decide he wants to do to anyone else within range.

This is no time for our clueless Government to be mothballing the Navy and cutting down the other services. For, at some stage, Iran’s lethal contempt for the rule of international law is going to mean war.

Iranian outrage continues.

Forced to wear the Islamic head scarf that identifies a woman to be without normal human rights and against the Geneva Convention, a British sailor, is paraded on Iranian TV. I am sure we can shortly expect to hear from all civil libertarians and those interested in international law.

TEHRAN, Iran Mar 28, 2007 (AP)— Iranian state TV showed video Wednesday of the 15 British sailors and marines who were seized last week, including a female captive who wore a white tunic and a black head scarf and said the British boats "had trespassed" in Iranian waters.

The British government protested Iran's broadcast of the captured crew as "completely unacceptable." The British military had earlier released what it called proof that its boats were in the territorial waters of Iraq not Iran when they were seized.