Indy Media Watch

No, not George Galloway's next election result but a comment on the Global Indymedia Page here.

To the article:

US/Israel plan nuclear attack on Iran to control oil and defend the dollar

comes this reply:

I think I just lost all respect for this site.....

Your quoting blogs as news now? Joint nuclear strike by Israel and the US on Iran. Are there any facts to back this up? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to incite hate like this? Dozens died over a cartoon, what kind of results are you trying to get by publishing this?

You just lost all respect? What took you so long...

Other comments make equally valid points:

What nonsense. Well, I don't say it's impossible, that the States or Israel would attack Iran, but this feature is more like a conspiracy theory than information.

And anyway - Israel wouldn't attack iran just because to "protect the dollar", in the first case it would attack it because Iran is led by an antisemitic islamo-fascist goverment, who doesn't have any problem with killing innocent people for the fucking jihad. And yes, there IS a difference between eliminatory antisemitism and US-imperialism!

On the other hand - in Isreal you pay with Shekel, not with Dollar. You're just reproducing antisemitic stereotypes of the bad, bad "eastcoast-jews", who are just about money.

This is no anticapitalist article but pure populism.
Shame on you, Indymedia!

PS.: Why don't you make a feature about anti-islamistic resistance in Iran? Like the strikes in Therean, that were taking place last weeks? Support the progressive resistance, not fascist like ahmedinejad!

I have made similar points in the past. The response continues:

Iranian credibility is low because the UN's atomic watchdog has found that:
a) Iran signed the non-proliferation treaty in order to get access to information, material etc. about nuclear energy, and agreed to various restrictions (including inspections) to ensure compliance.

b) Iran has been found to have been lying about its compliance since approx. 1989. It has acquired Pakistani nuclear weapons technology, been engaged in various subterfuges to acquire technology from the west, has built multiple sites (often in civilan areas) for the different processes needed for manufacture of nuclear weapons and weapons grade uranium (a very different process than for peaceful uses), declined many western (and now Russian) offers to provide enriched non-weapons grade uranium which could only be used for peaceful purposes (in return for disposing of Iran's hidden facilities) etc. etc.

c)Iran combines this behaviour with an extremist, fundamentalist theocratic government, which has both in terms of propaganda, and in terms of funding, supported the spread of other extremist Islamic theocracies throughout the middle east, including through the support of hate filled groups like Hamas and Hezbollah who believe (as does the Iranian government) that only Moslems have a right to be the majority in middle eastern nation states.

The failure of the article writer to provide any of this context, I suppose is his or her right. However, it makes me regard the article as - at best - highly slanted propaganda of an extremist trying to advance a sick agenda, and at worst as the raving of a person detached from reality.

The choice of IMC to have it on the site, is a sign of why these sites remain marginal.

"Marginal" is an understatement.