Diplomacy bad!

Aaaahh, only in the world of Mad Mel could the news that America is sending diplomats to Iran, along with a senior official to talk about various nuclear related topics, be taken as a sign of impending doom.

Unless this is all an elaborate bluff, the suspicion must be that what the Bush administration is now focused upon is not safeguarding the survival of Israel and the freedom of the world but on winning the presidency for the Republicans.

Wait, Bush was focused upon safeguarding the freedom of the world? Since when?

Meanwhile Israel is being isolated by America, which is giving Iran a further gift of the thing it most craves –

Chocolate? Also, and maybe this is just the coffee talking, but if Israeli planes are being stationed at US bases in Iraq for an attack, and the deployment of another aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf signal some sort of abandonment and isolation, then I'm not sure how much more support Mad Mel would consider to be acceptable. One of Jordan's presumably titanium reinforced bras?

time to build its nuclear weapons capability.

Oh. Not chocolate then. Also, would this be the nuclear weapons program that was stopped in 2003?

What should be happening now is that the Iranian regime should be under the maximum economic diplomatic and military pressure, treated as a pariah state and kept guessing about the possibility of a US attack, all in order to weaken and destabilise it.

Because that sounds so unlike what is currently being done.

History teaches us, after all, that war is the inevitable outcome of appeasement because, instead of preventing bad people from doing bad things, it galvanises them further to do so. When the Americans talked to the Japanese, the result was Pearl Harbour. When Chamberlain talked to Hitler, the result was the invasion of Poland. And when Britain tried to appease the Arab Nazis in 1930s Palestine by offering to reward them for their terrorist intransigence by giving them half the land promised to the Jews, the result was the Arab war of annihilation against the reborn Jewish state -- a war which continues to this day.

Reminder: The history of diplomacy spans 1930-1945. Kissinger, Metternich, Machiavelli et al can fuck right off.

Moreover, Iran is as strong as it is today only because of the astounding fact that America has refused to fight back in the war that Iran has been prosecuting against it now for almost three decades.

Oh psh. Iran was just another bitchy attention whore looking to bait America, Mel. I mean, geeze, haven't you heard the phrase "Don't feed the trolls"? Look what happened last time we ignored that advice, with Bin Laden. He just won't shut the fuck up anymore. Do you really want us to have to suffer 20,000 video messages from that smirking bastard, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Shit, he annoys me enough as it is.

It is however quite staggering to witness this change in attitude towards Israel by a man who had been arguably the most pro-Israel American president in history. Yet now he is giving the impression that – in the prescient cry of Ariel Sharon – Israel is to play the role of Czechoslovakia in 1938, with William Burns about to join the EU in sealing its fate in a re-run of the Munich agreement.

I totally got that from his speech on the 60th Anniversary of Israel's founding:

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Clearly a deceitful, shify, tree-hugging Chamberlain fan-boi if ever I saw one. You give him hell Melanie! Incidentally, and as an aside, I am loving this current trend of hard-right commentators and politicians tearing each other apart. May it long continue.

It is that systematic accommodation with genocidal terror and the sacrifice of truth and justice on the altar of appeasement which is the single most important reason for the never-ending Middle East impasse -- and why the whole of the free world is now about to be held to ransom.

Let it never be said that Mad Mel is not capable of reasoned, sober and not at all hysterical pronouncements on world events.

But thank God that article is finally over. My penace to the international blogging community is paid for another week.

UK law is SPECIAL? WTF?

The comments by Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and de facto head of the Church of England, that Sharia Law in the UK is "inevitable" have sparked waves of predictably tedious righteous indignation.

While the most fanatical members of the right wing press, such as Melanie Phillips, have seen fit to frame this in the context of "dhimmitude", "abject religious and cultural surrender to Islam" and other code words of the Eurabia conspiracy theorists, even the mainstream press have run scare stories about sharia law being used in Britain, should the Archbishop get his way.

But lets examine his comments in context.

He wanted parts of Sharia Law to be adopted by communities who already consider themselves Islamic, with the consent of all parties involved, to try and reach decisions on some court rulings, such as those covering marriage, divorce and property after death in the family. To quote him, he said "The whole idea that there are perfectly proper ways the law of the land pays respect to custom and community, that's already there."

The question is therefore not the introduction of Sharia Law into the UK, but the realization of the fact many people already try to use these laws in their everyday lives, often without any transparency, oversight or courts of appeal. By integrating it into UK law, it not only helps prevent abuses, but also helps soften the opinion of many Muslims towards the current government and UK society, who feel that there is an "us and them" dynamic at work, which forces them to chose between loyalty to the state and loyalty to their religion.

There is also the fact that Orthodox Jews already operate under this system in UK law. You'd think someone like Melanie Phillips, who proclaims her Jewishness at every opening that is offered, would realize that, and accept that this is a natural extension of the rights already afforded to some citizens.

Notably, the Times and Telegraph newspapers have tried to make arguments on the basis that the UK is a Christian nation (a claim more plausible than similar ones made in the USA) and that UK laws are based on Christianity, with its history of tolerance and respect for the individual. This second claim is not only theoretically dubious, given statements in the Bible about the role of women, but historically inaccurate and misleading as well. In the past, the state has sanctioned both the persecution of Jews and Catholics using Christian rhetoric, and the most exemplary laws of our modern society are derived from the Danes, not Christianity. There is no haebus corpus or presumption of innocence in the Bible, after all.

Finally, there is the argument that Muslims when over here should put up with "our" laws or leave. This is the most pathetic and rhetoric based of all the arguments given so far, for two reasons. Firstly, many of the Muslims who identify as such ARE British Muslims, and live here. Secondly, the idea that you cannot criticize or attempt to change the policy of the state is about the single most anti-democratic statement I have heard. I most certainly do not agree with our government aiding "extraordinary rendition", should I move to Switzerland? Most interestingly, this argument has been put forward by conservative critics who....wait for it.....mostly disagree with the Labour government's policy in many areas! Why don't they move to somewhere like America or France, where a conservative government holds power? Because they're hypocrites, that's why.

The question is not one of "dhimmitude", or "cultural surrender", its about should religion at all have a right to make and in part shape how laws are executed in this country?

People should remember the CoE is a dying religion, one that while on paper is impressive in its status as the religion on the state, has little official following or real political clout. By opening up a debate on religiously influenced execution of law, they are engaging in nothing more than a shameless power grab, while using the UK Muslim community as a "human shield" for the press to rip apart.

That is what this is really about.

I myself do not really care one way or another, so long as the law is applied consistently. I would prefer a totally secular country, in terms of law, but we don't even have that now, so all the atheists out there should turn their attentions away from frothing denunciations of the excesses of the Saudi courts and perhaps consider why we allow Bishops to still sit in the House of Lords, why our official Head of State also is the head of the State religion, and is ordained in both roles by God, without question.

Secondly, some of these people should perhaps be questioning the totally idiotic and repressive secular laws that are being passed by our government currently. For all their crying about the (very real) plight of women under fundamentalist Islamic regimes, I see little criticism from our media over the proposed reintroduction of stop and search laws, which are proven to target ethnic minorities massively, nor the use of ASBOs by police officers to punish people for being assholes (which, contrary to popular belief, is not a crime).

All of these people would have us believe that UK law is something special, a near perfect being, pure in its conception, which is being brutally mixed with a nasty, foreign, alien legal system. WAKE THE FUCK UP ASSHOLES, UK LAW AIN'T ANYTHING SPECIAL EITHER! By placing UK law on a pedastel, the media are subconsciously reinforcing culture and the state as the supreme arbiter of how we should live our lives in the UK. If there are elements of sharia law that seem more "fair" and useful in their pursuit of Justice, then by all means they should be adopted. Equally, all laws that are not useful in that respect should be disregarded, regardless of where they came from. Otherwise, the law isn't worth the paper its written on. Unjust laws don't become any more just simply because they're rooted in our own culture and history.

I mean, seriously, are some of you people pulling our legs here?

New feature: The Weekly Fisking of Mad Mel

Some would say I am encouraging making fun of the politically challenged and clearly insane with this feature. And they are right. I really can't think of a more amusing way of spending my time except for dismantling the paranoid rantings of Mad Mel (cut me some slack, its Monday morning). Besides, if I cannot poke fun at someone who is foolish enough to put their ramblings into print for all to see, who can I do it to?

So, to todays feature from the Diary of Mad Mel: The War against the West

As has often been remarked, the capacity of the intellectual classes to deny the need for action against tyranny never ceases to amaze.

Indeed. Our support of Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt are morally reprehensible.

If you want to tap into British denial of the need to confront the threat from Iran, listen to last night’s Moral Maze on BBC Radio Four.

Oops, wrong country. Sorry about that. But wait, isn't Iran actually one of the more democratic states in the Middle East, with a government that allows elections and has multiple parties that run for seats? Of course, there is the power of the Supreme Leader and Guardian Council are affronts to constitutional republics everywhere - but no more so than the monarchy in Saudi Arabia or military dictatorship in Egypt.

Particularly astounding was the suggestion that we should stop ‘demonising’ Iran

There is a little tradition in history you may have heard of Mel, its called "diplomacy". Its generally accepted among its practitioners that the best way to go about its functions is not to try and act like the country you are dealing with is full of irrational murderous madmen - even if this may be the case. Now, I'm no expert, but if we want to get Iran to get something, soft words and a big stick are generally accepted as workable methods.

and of course, there were the inevitable claims that America is fabricating evidence that Iran is involved in Iraq

Some of them plausible. No doubt Iran are acting in Iraq, but as I have pointed out, attacks that clearly have an Iranian influence are not decried as such, while less obvious and unprovable assertions, such as IEDs being supplied, have been uncritically accepted by the majority of the right-wing media, who mostly ignore that Iraq was armed to the teeth with conventional weapons and IEDs are easy as hell to make. Why would an insurgent buy them from outsiders if his cousin Abdul nicked as many as his family could carry in the months when no-one was guarding the many military complexes that litter the Iraqi landscape?

the idea that America, which is in such difficulties in Iraq, would actually choose to embark on an all-out war with Iran at this juncture, with all the appalling risks involved, not least to the world economy, simply in order to ‘cover up’ its difficulties in Iraq, is bizarre in the extreme.

You are assuming that American interests are in making the region more secure - whereas it has been suggested that in fact, with the conditions in Iraq continuing to get worse, the best idea may be to plunge the region into chaos and get out. Obviously, I disagree, but certain military personnel do not. Leaders before have willingly chosen to bite off more than they can chew. You also are making an implicit assumption that America is trying to "cover up" its problems in Iraq with Iran. That rules out a whole host of other possible motives as to why America is trying to confront Iran, including the ideology of the administration and wider geo-political aims.

It is not helped, of course, by the appallingly ham-fisted way in which the Bush administration has presented its evidence about Iranian roadside bombs blowing up coalition soldiers in Iraq. No sooner than the munitions were unveiled complete with serial numbers when General Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, popped up to say ‘that does not translate that the Iranian government, per se, for sure, is directly involved in doing this.’

Damn that pesky truth getting in the way, eh?

This is hopeless. How can the west be defended when America is not even able to present a coherent case for the involvement of Iran in Iraq?

Defended from what? Thats a rather huge jump in logic there Mel. Iran is rightly interested in Iraq - its on its border and should the USA not keep control, violence could spill over into its own country. That Iran is using Iraq to attack the USA is a huge stretch in logic. And that is where evidence comes in.

The evidence of this involvement has been known for years. This was finally rammed home when a group on Iranian officers was captured in Iraq, whose documents left the Americans aghast at the vast extent of Iran’s involvement in Iraq

Yes, Iraq again. We all know about the consulate raid, mostly because it was extremely foolhardy and a step off declaring war on Iran. But it details involvement in Iraq, no where else. Can you see where this is going? Iran's involvement in Iraq is more to do with it being next door to them then US troops being there. Far more.

The problem, as ever, is the US administration is deeply divided over this evidence and what to do about it, as it has been over Saddam Hussein and the war in Iraq, with the intelligence community trying to cover up its own incompetence and elements within the military deeply unwilling to open up another front against Iran.

Yes, the oh so hesitant US administration, who are well known the world over for holding evidence in high regard and considering others points of views. Come off it Mel, even you can't keep a straight face writing that sort of shit.

Meanwhile, Iran speeds towards genocide, with people still scoffing that it’s ‘only rhetoric’.

Nope, its a lie. Sorry, but those of us who do a little thing called "research" know by now that the translation to which you refer is a lie created out of the American Free Enterprise Institute, a Neo-Conservative think tank whose knowledge of Farsi is either abysmal or purposefully crafted to build popular support for war. Also, Iran has vast quantities of chemical and biological weapons. If it wanted to, it could have wiped Israel off the map years ago. I think something about 80-200 nuclear warheads tends to focus the mind on rhetoric as opposed to action.

You too may want to partake in "research" at some point. Its very fulfilling.

We have been under attack by Iran since 1979, when Khomeini came to power and declared war upon the west and his intention to wipe out Israel and Islamise the world.

We have always been at war with Oceania, too. Oh please, this is too much! Iran, after the revolution, was invaded by our proxy in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein, if you recall correctly. They spent 8 years fighting a futile war in which over a million Iranians died, after a period of repression at the hands of another US-backed dictator. Of course their rhetoric is going to be extreme.

I notice you also use the past to justify the present. Could that have anything to do with Iranian youth now having a generally positive attitude towards the USA and the rights it supposedly stands for? But of course, you can't allow your readers to think of that. Iran has no internal politics, its a homogeneous, Israel hating state of religious fanatics through and through, right?

Like I already said, if Iran wanted to wipe Israel off the map, they have the weapons to do it. Also they're far more concerned with trying to wrest away leadership of the Islamic world from Saudi Arabia than trying to Islamise the unbelievers. How much do you actually know about modern Middle East history and dynamics, Mel?

Now, with the clock at five minutes to nuclear midnight, we are still in disarray. Washington is mired in vicious internal in-fighting. Our elites continue to demonise America and Israel, thus paralysing our politicians and paving the way for a second holocaust.

Iran has not even managed to produce enriched uranium yet. A working bomb is years away, if that is their intention at all. I believe it is, personally, but they will have to moderate between any possible future military program and the money that could be made by using nuclear power internally and selling oil to foreign states. For states with weak economies like Iran, hard foreign currency is likely to take precedence over an abstract nuclear threat, unless the USA and Israel keep muttering their own arsenals in relation to Iran in diplomatic circles.

Demonise them? Well, yes. Lets see, torture, misleading the public, ignorance of human rights, war mongering...the sort of thing we denounce states like Iran for their use of. I think those are grand grounds for such a thing. Or dare you suggest we just blindly trust our leadership to do the right thing, like some sort of dictatorship?

Already dealt with the "second Holocaust" red herring.

Meanwhile, we plunge ever deeper into total irrationality, with demented conspiracy theories about 9/11 being given a respectful hearing — as here on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show and here.

When are we going to pull ourselves together?

People in irrational belief shocker! Have you considered you own views at all, as I'm convinced they are every bit out of touch with reality as those of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists, yet the Daily Mail sees fit to employ you. The BBC was covering them because there is a sizeable American movement who do believe in this conspiracy theory, no matter how wrong they are. Or would you rather the BBC ignored its own editorial guidelines on impartiality?

And what does that have to do at the topic at hand? Oh yes, nothing. I forgot. It was just a small sliver of irrational hate at the end of a rant that looks like it was drafted by Richard Perle when he was 10 years old. And possibly on meth.