Milan Rai

Iraq/Iran Interview

Milan Rai — 2007-03-10T01:48:31Z

Exclusively to ukwatch.net an interview with Milan Rai, activist and author on the continuing disaster in Iraq and the likelihood of an anglo/american assault on Iran.

What is the significance of the partial withdrawel of British troops from southern Iraq. Why has this occurred? what are the future implications if any?

The partial withdrawal is part of the strategy Britain has had from the beginning of the occupation: to exert maximum political, strategic and economic control over Iraq and its resources with the least political, financial, economic and military cost.

The partial withdrawal is designed to shift the burden of controlling Iraq in the interests of the West to Iraqi collaborators, as elsewhere in the world, and as so often in Britain's imperial history. British troops are being reassigned to the protection of the US logistical chain running up from Kuwait to central Iraq.

Paul Reynolds, World Affairs Correspondent of the BBC, points out that three of the roles that British forces will still have to carry out are:'securing supply routes', maintaining 'the ability to conduct operations against extremist groups' and to 'be there in support of the Iraq Army when called upon' (quoting Blair himself).

Reynolds comments: 'These are by no means minimalist tasks. The border watch will involve long range patrols, the supply route monitoring is vital to protect the huge convoys from Kuwait that supply the US army and the "extremist groups" - notably the Shia Mehdi army that opposes a British presence - could be hard to deal with.'

Why has the withdrawal occurred? Because it was always the plan. Why has it occurred now? Because the British military are impatient to withdraw combat troops from Iraq, which they regard as a dead end, and to transfer

them to Afghanistan, where they believe (probably wrongly) that they can win the war against the Taliban and other insurgents.

What are the future implications? Well, some of those implications will be felt in Afghanistan, unless public protests here (and there's the possibility of opposition from across the political spectrum) derails these re-deployments. Other implications are political, in the sense that the 'withdrawal'/'exit strategy'/'cut and run' mythology may undermine the mobilization of the anti-war movement against the occupation, such as it is. (...)

- / UK Watch

IED Lies

Milan Rai — 2007-02-13T00:55:00Z

(12 page, pdf)

The US claims that Iran supplies Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDS) to Iraqi insurgents.

No serious evidence has been provided.

On Sunday 11 February, anonymous US officials presented roadside bombs, and

components and fragments of bombs, and other weapons used by Iraqi insurgents,

claiming that they had been manufactured in Iran and smuggled into Iraq on the orders

of the highest levels of the Iranian Government. The language used by US Defence

Secretary Robert Gates, and by the briefers themselves, however, was tentative rather

than conclusive. Dramatic ‘evidence' that had been promised failed to materialize.

Claims that the serial numbers and quality of machining of weapons and components

could only have originated in Iran were not substantiated with any detail. No evidence

was produced that the weapons and components had come via government channels

rather than through criminal markets or informal and irregular contacts with Iranian

military units. The Iraqi party and militia closest to Iran has actually been recognized for

its support for the US occupation. One previous claims as to the Iranian provenance of

insurgent technology actually traces back to the IRA, who apparently acquired the

bomb-triggering capability with the knowledge and facilitation of the British

Government. Curiously, none of the British national ‘quality' dailies reports the

admission of one of the US briefers that there was ‘no “smoking gun” linking Tehran and

Iraqi militants'.

- / Justice Not Vengeance

Turning The World Upside Down

Milan Rai — 2006-05-23T21:45:00Z

This paper is being prepared for the June 1 - 7 2006 first Z Sessions on Vision and Strategy, held in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. These sessions gather activists from around the world to share ideas and experiences regarding social vision and strategy. This version is a draft, only...

The present world order is based on immense inequalities in wealth and power. In opposition to the present order are various popular movements - which are for the most part tending to converge in their thinking and their goals.

The question before us at ZSVS is what the international order might look like, and how we might get there, if the values which we who are gathering together share were to be expressed in both our ends and our means.

The dimensions of the global crisis are many. Three overarching human crises are problems of survival: the challenge of surviving human-induced environmental rupture; the challenge of surviving suicidal militarism; and the challenge of global poverty and hunger.

It is easy to say that the end-state we desire is a world in which we enjoy a sustainable planetary economy, a world of peaceful relations between co-operative societies, a world in which hunger and avoidable disease have been abolished. (...)

- / ZNet

Letters From Prison - 4

Milan Rai — 2005-11-30T19:13:00Z

No.16. Untitled

(Wednesday 23 November 2005)

Today I received a card from Suffolk asking “What is it we can do for the best result to stop all the madness?” While only a fool would attempt to answer such a question (see below for first attempt), I have to admit that it is much more fun to be challenged than congratulated.

In the 1980s, I was certain that the most pressing issue in the world was the threat of nuclear weapons. I could not understand why anyone could put energy into any other cause when the United States was about to deploy radically destabilising nuclear weapons bringing nuclear war much closer. Today similar arguments could be be put forward for climate change, or bird flu (which has political dimensions not yet explored in the mainstream media). But today there ismuch greater awareness of the need for autonomous movements operating with common values on parallel (and sometimes overlapping) agendas. (I'm not quite sure of the agendas there.) There is much greater mutual respect between movements than there used to be - and much greater interchange in so many ways between activists in different movements.

Just as there are tensions between “hairdresser” and “architect” modes of action, so there are tensions between single-issue politics, often international in scope, and local or community workplace organising which must arise out of, and be directed by, the attitudes and perceived interests of communities or workforces. (...)

- / Justice Not Vengeance

Letters From Prison - 3

Milan Rai — 2005-11-27T22:17:00Z

No. 10. Being Processed

(Saturday 19 November 2005?)

When the court usher told me to move from the witness box, where I had given evidence to the magistrates, to the dock, I knew that I was going to prison. As he led me in, for some reason he felt the need to say, “I'm not actually locking the door”. The magistrates were still out of the room and I carried on talking to my friends, who were sitting next to the dock. I told them the story of when I was first finger-printed.

At that time the law said that the police could not use force to take your fingerprints (or your photo). This was changed later and it's possible I had something to do with the change, as on a later occasion I successfully complained to the Police Complaints Authority about having my fingerprints taken by force. Anyhow, I had decided that I was going to resist fingerprinting. I was going to non-cooperate. I was going to lie down and go limp and refuse to take part. I was called to the fingerprint room. Before I had collected myself enough to lie down and go limp a huge bear of a policeman growled at me, “give me your hand and keep it completely relaxed or your fingers will break”. I silently approached him and silently held out my hands! (...)

- / Justice Not Vengeance

Letters From Prison - 2

Milan Rai — 2005-11-26T23:47:14Z

Random Remarks For Activists

No. 6. Circles of Commitment

(Friday 18 November 2005)

I have read, and believe, that the world is being driven mad by poor Powerpoint presentation. Slides should not be used for text, certainly not for long lists of bullet points, but for graphical presentations of ideas or data. Admittedly, these remarks are aimed at the radical social change activist community and the abuse of Powerpoint is not a major problem in these circles. Nevertheless, I believe this is a necessary preface to some remarks using a diagram - a diagram which I think can help us with the Super Hero complex which mainstream society uses to disempower us. (It disempowers us if we believe, as society tells us, that we are the Nothing-people on the fringes of the great. It also disempowers us if we delude ourselves into thinking we are the Elect, the Chosen Few.)

This box represents society and attitudes towards a particular cause - say Iraq. Area 1 are hostile to the movement, and opposed to withdrawal (for now we ignore subtleties). Inside the first/biggest circle, Area 2 are the neutral or open-minded. Next in are the sympathetic. Next (red circle) are those willing to take some action - signing a petition, writing a letter, going on a demo, other more forceful actions. Area 5 are those who have some connection to the movement. They subscribe to a movement paper, are members of a movement organisation, are on an email list, and so on. Next in are people who are active members of a local (or national) group. In the centre are the organizers; the people who book halls and speakers, who buy leaflets and organise stalls, who run the stewarding, legal support and media campaigning around demos and actions. (...)

- / Justice Not Vengeance

Letters from Prison

Milan Rai — 2005-11-23T03:29:00Z

Random Remarks for Radicals, Part 1

No. 1. Hairdressers and Architects

We hunger for meaning. We want to know that what we do makes a difference means something. We want to feel effective. This seems universal. This general need is even more acute for the activist. She wants to feel that she is having an impact; advancing the cause; making a difference to people, animals, precious things that are threatened or oppressed. But there is a real problem of trying to find ways of being effective and even more with feeling effective. For the radical political activist, who does not want simply to stop wars, change laws and so on, but who wants to overturn or transform dominant institutions, the problem is still more acute. How to feel you are having an impact on an entrenched tyranny, or a transnational corporation?

Things are perhaps easier when you are focused on incremental changes, and the situation of particular human beings. An Amnesty International group writing to a particular prisoner of conscience cannot overthrow a dictatorship but can improve the conditions of that prisoner, perhaps save their life, perhaps free them from imprisonment. That is a powerful form of effectiveness. (...)

- / Justice Not Vengeance

Iraq Interview

Milan Rai — 2005-10-26T22:06:00Z

The following is an exclusive interview with long-time activist and writer Milan Rai. Milan is the author of ‘War Plan Iraq' and ‘Regime Unchanged' and a leading member of Justice Not Vengeance (http://www.j-n-v.org). He is an advisor to UKWatch and a contributor to the UKWatch blog.

UKWatch: The situation in Iraq appears to deteriorate by the day. The USAF have been carrying out bombing raids on Iraqi cities, and insurgent attacks occur just about everywhere outside of Anglo/American bases. Robert Fisk recently commented that Iraq is the most dangerous conflict there has ever been for journalists to cover. Some commentators argue that the “coalition” has already lost the war and that it is now a question of when the British and Americans withdraw rather than if. What is your reading of the current situation?

Milan Rai: I don't believe that the US/UK have already lost the war. They may well lose the war, and be driven out by the scale of violence and chaos, but we are some way away from that right now.

As various people have pointed out, success for insurgencies mostly consists of not being defeated and crushed. By that score the many-stranded insurgency is currently successful. It doesn't follow that it will continue to be successful, or that the occupation forces are being ‘defeated'. (...)

- / UK Watch

Arrested

Milan Rai — 2005-10-26T22:05:00Z

Yesterday morning we rang out the names of the dead on the barriers in front of Downing Street.

The police around us, the Prime Minister's office in front of us, a friend of ours being harassed and searched across the road for filming us, under the threat of arrest, we read out the names of Iraqi civilians and of British soldiers.

Somehow, reading each name felt more painful than it had in Brighton or in Northwood. Somehow, the ceremony of remembrance had become more moving in these strange circumstances.

There is some deep human need not to be forgotten. We want to be remembered by those who come after us; we want to be remembered and respected.

Those who have died in this war, Iraq and Western, will be forgotten, and their memory not respected, if the leaders of this war have their way.

Reading the names of the dead, marking their passing with each ring of a bell, has been a meditation on the reason why we campaign about Iraq. (...)

Iraq Mortality

Milan Rai — 2005-10-26T04:40:00Z

In an exclusive for IraqMortality.org Milan Rai, Author of War Plan Iraq, Regime Unchanged, and Chomsky's Politics gives indepth analysis of the three major mortality studies conducted in Iraq; Iraq Body Count, The Lancet, and The UNDP Report. This document is presented to help activists more fully understand the differences and similarities between these studies.

For five days, begining on October 24th, almost 100 grassroots groups and individual activists in the US, UK, and Switzerland will toll a bell in their communities for Iraqis who have lost their lives in this war and for the families and loved ones they have left behind. This tolling of bells will also usher in the one year anniversary of the publishing of The Lancet Study on October 29th which estimates 100,000 Iraqi deaths due to the war and occupation.

INTRODUCTION

As the death toll in Iraq continues to grow, one question haunting the debate over the occupation is the scale of this loss. Supporters of the continuing war seek to confuse and obscure the issue by presenting existing estimates as in conflict with each other. However, when we examine the best-known Iraq mortality estimates, we find that they tend to support rather than contradict each other.

All known estimates agree that the death rate in Iraq, especially the rate of violent death, has increased dramatically since the US/UK invasion in March 2003. They all indicate that number of ‘excess deaths' (deaths that would not have occurred if not for the war) is staggeringly high. (...)

7/7: One Hundred Days of Denial

Milan Rai — 2005-10-16T03:40:00Z

THE BIG QUESTION

There had been British Muslims who have fought for al-Qaeda before, and there had been British Muslims who have carried out, or attempted to carry out, suicide bombings before. But Thursday 7 July was the first suicide bombing in Britain itself - 'suicide bombing' in its modern sense of the indiscriminate killing of civilians by a terrorist willing to kill herself or himself in the act of destruction.

The four suicide terrorist attacks were followed by four more attempted attacks on 21 July. All the indications are that there will be further al-Qaeda atrocities, perhaps even more serious in their severity, unless some solution is found. Given that the 7/7 bombers had almost no history which could have been used by the security services to detect them before their mission took place, the 'solution' is unlikely to be a purely police or intelligence affair.

The burning question of our time, then, is how Britain as a society can prevent more people deciding to become suicide bombers. Given the nature of the crime, no penalty is going to dissuade a potential bomber. There is going to have to be some other solution if the risk is to be successfully reduced.

What we need to know is how and why someone comes to decide to carry out such an appalling act. Only then can we attempt to find a set of measures that will reduce the chances of such decisions being made in the future. (...)

- / Justice Not Vengeance

'Young Muslims and Extremism' Report - Nearly Dead in the Water

Milan Rai — 2005-08-31T04:30:00Z

BURIED?

According to The Times today, 'Most people would rather read the back of a cereal packet than a letter from a bank, insurer or other financial service provider'.

It seems that most newspaper editors would rather report the back of a cereal packet than a letter from Michael Jay, the top civil servant at the Foreign Office, confirming that the war in Iraq is a major driver of extremism amongst Muslims in Britain.

As predicted yesterday, the leak in Sunday's Observer is completely dead in the major British newspapers (apart from one tiny mention - see first snippet).

(Incidentally, Channel 4 News' website frames the story as a case of 'inept' policymaking, again confirming our analysis yesterday. For non-British readers, Channel 4 News is the most independent and serious news bulletin on British television.)

The Daily Mail (posted 28 August) had more of Dr Liam Fox's interview with BBC News 24 (Fox is the Conservative's foreign affairs spokesperson, or 'shadow Foreign Secretary'):

'I think it would have been surprising if extremist elements in the country did not use the Iraq war as one of the means by which they sow dissent. Are we to have our foreign policy vetoed by minority groups in the country?'

The issue is not whether British foreign policy is to be vetoed by minority groups, but whether a foreign policy which is wrong in principle, disastrous in practice, and rejected by a majority of British people, is also increasing the risk of political violence in Britain itself. (...)

- / Justice Not Vengeance

Back Off The Front Page

Milan Rai — 2005-08-30T04:35:00Z

'YOUNG MUSLIMS AND EXTREMISM' REPORT - BACK OFF THE FRONT PAGE

A NOT VERY SIGNIFICANT EVENT

The media behaves predictably, burying stories that do not serve power.

On 10 July, just three days after the 7/7 bombings, The Sunday Times carried a front-page story about a secret government study of the sources of extremism in the British Muslim community, recognising that the war in Iraq (and British foreign policy generally) were a principal source of anger.

Apart from a few mentions in the Guardian, the Young Muslims and Extremism report was effectively removed from the record. Nothing appeared in the British papers on the Monday after The Sunday Times story.

Yesterday, 28 August, as we discussed in the Media Review, the Observer had a front-page story carrying another part of the correspondence around this report (without mentioning the earlier, more substantial leak). The link between the war in Iraq and the heightened threat of terrorism in the UK was once again accepted at the highest levels of the Government.

On past form, we would expect today's newspapers to be virtually devoid of any mention of this important leak.

Well, a pleasant surprise. It is mentioned. (...)

- / Justice Not Vengeance

Back On the Front Page

Milan Rai — 2005-08-29T04:57:00Z

'YOUNG MUSLIMS AND EXTREMISM' REPORT - BACK ON THE FRONT PAGE

A SIGNIFICANT EVENT

The Observer has published a leaked document from the heart of Government, once more establishing that the highest reaches of Whitehall were perfectly aware of the causal links between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the threat of terror in Britain.

This story is extremely important.

Not because this new leak increases our understanding of the links between the threat from al Qaeda and British foreign policy. It doesn't. It doesn't even reveal more about the level of comprehension of these issues within Government, or the depths of duplicity this Government will stoop to.

It does, however, offer an opportunity for concerned citizens to inject some more realism into the debate around the 7/7 and 21/7 bombings.

1) It offers the opportunity to press the international, national and local media with the crucial finding in the Home Office/Foreign Office 'Young Muslims and Extremism' report that the risk of terrorism in Britain increased with the onset of the war on terror.

That report says, 'The perception is that passive "oppression", as demonstrated in British foreign policy, eg non-action on Kashmir and Chechnya, has given way to "active oppression" - the war on terror, and in Iraq and Afghanistan are all seen by a section of British Muslims as having been acts against Islam.'

In other words, the threat had grown greater as British foreign policy was seen as growing more hostile to Muslims, with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

2) It offers us the opportunity to remind our fellow citizens that British intelligence warned Tony Blair on 10 February 2003, a month before the war, that invading Iraq would 'heighten' the risk of terrorism from al Qaeda.

The Joint Intelligence Committee, the apex of British intelligence, issued this warning to the Prime Minister: '[A]l-Qaida and associated groups continued to represent by far the greatest terrorist threat to Western interests, and that threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq.' (Intelligence and Security Committee, 'Iraqi weapons of mass destruction - intelligence and assessments' report, September 2003, p. 34)

3) This leak offers us the opportunity to remind everyone that an overwhelming majority of British people believe there is a connection between British foreign policy and the terrorist attacks in London.

The Guardian reported on 19 July, '33% of Britons think the prime minister bears "a lot" of responsibility for the London bombings and a further 31% "a little".'

That's two-thirds of the British people.

'Only 28% of voters agree with the government that Iraq and the London bombings are not connected.'

On 25 July, the Daily Mirror reported,

'23 per cent said the war was the main reason for the London bombings. Another 62 per cent believe that while Iraq was not the principle cause, it did contribute to the reasons behind the atrocities. Just 12 per cent said there was no real link.'

These are three messages which deserve to be heard at every level and in every corner of the mass media.

(...)

- / Justice Not Vengeance

The London Blasts: Media Review - Omar Bakri Mohammed

Milan Rai — 2005-08-16T00:01:00Z

Milan Rai, member of Justice Not Vengeance and Voices in the Wilderness UK, and author of War Plan Iraq and Regime Unchanged, continues giving his indepth review of the British media's coverage of the London blast.

Omar Bakri Mohammed - Some Comments. (...)

- / Justice Not Vengeance