This evening I watched Jon Snow's exclusive interview with President Ahmadinejad in Tehran. The interview was introduced by video clips of Iranian missiles, a truck of armed soldiers which read 'we will crush America under our feet', and then shots of American convoys being blown apart. Finally there was a video of several American troops being blown up by a roadside bomb. This, presumably, is all the work of Iran- who 'have been accused by the Americans of fighting a proxy war in Iraq'. Enter Jon Snow, Ahmadinajad, a large persian rug, and the backdrop of a beautiful garden.

The eyes of the world are pointed at Ahmadinejad; it is Iran in the dock, not the country that has invaded the two countries to the left and right of Iran. All of Jon Snow's questions were straight from White House press releases.

His finest moment was asking the President of Iran:

"can you say, (again a sort of hand-on-heart moment), can you say that no Iranians have been or are involved in the killing of British soldiers? Can you reassure the parents of the soldiers who have died?"

It's a nice patriotic sentiment, but one which he has never extended to Iraqi or Afghan families. Jon Snow probably has the privilege of being the last western journalist to interview Ahmadinejad, before his country is destroyed in a wave of bombs. He had the rare opportunity of giving Iran a voice against the tide of lies which has streamed from the West, but he capitulated, presumably because his career is dearer to him than the lives of numerous Iranians. Just for variety, Snow asked Ahmadinejad about poverty in Iran, and mass inflation, and why he had not done anything about it. Of course, tightened and renewed sanctions, and a global economic blockade might have something to do with it, but it wasn't the world in the dock.

Now a good journalist might ask why Iran is accused when Saudi Arabia escapes even a mention. A good journalist might also see that most of the weapons used against the Americans are infact American- smuggled through Saudi Arabia (exported originally from the US), lost by the Iraqi army, or remaining from the eighties when Iraq was given mountains of arms to the man who the US eventually lynched.

Then, finally, we had Alex Thompson, describing Ahmadinejad's words as full of 'love and peace', while Richard Dalton and Jonathan Rugman ridiculed the war-hungry Iranian, from that position of neutrality that we know and trust. Alex Thompson announced that the Foreign Office have yet to comment on the interview, but it is obvious that, come the morning, the road map to war will be drawn, and this interview will be used as justification.

Channel 4, the 'thinking man's' channel, has tonight enabled yet another war on an innocent people, and peddled lies and propaganda to an extent we have not seen since late 2002.

I feel sick to the stomach- as I sit here with a warm beer, trembling with anger, I realise how important the work of medialens is, but also how we have been completely and utterly betrayed. I'm enraged, yet no one from my family has been killed by a bomb yet. Yes, I can now see how 'terrorism' (whatever this means now) is becoming legitmate resistance.

If you want to watch this filth, masquerading as 'balanced' journalism, click here.


 http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/iranian+president+says+sorry+to+uk/794447


PS....sorry for the anger, but I'm sure you will understand when you watch this.
Ollie