Anyone got an idea about this?

16 Comments

1. 

   Connecticut Man1 on June 8, 2007 at 11:19 pm

   Ferris? Buehler?
   Buehler?!?

2. 

   Gaianne on June 9, 2007 at 3:08 am

   It’s a NATO story, repeated without further investigation by ABC.  Buyer beware!  

   Some were identical to Iranian supplied goods previously discovered in Iraq.”

   THAT story was part of the propaganda war against Iran.  Those weapons, neatly marked in Latin (English) lettering, were of debatable origin, to say the least.  

   (Iranians speak Farsi–Persian.  How do they mark their ordinance?  I certainly do not know, but I doubt they use codes designed to be read by ABC’s viewers.)  

   ABC itself is linking THAT story to THIS one.  Not a good omen for its veracity.  But a point of persuasion if you have already fallen for the previous con.  

   Also, the war in Afghanistan is going much worse than anyone is letting on.  Excuses will soon be needed.  

   IN SHORT–more bunk.  Feed for the sheeple.  

   BTW–There is a pattern here, seen endless times in US policy during and since the Vietnam War:  We invade country X, and soon “find” the insurgents of X are getting weapons from country Y. So we invade country Y, and soon “find” the insurgents of country Y are getting weapons from country Z.  So we invade country Z . . . –Now:  It is possible that county Z was the original military target, and the invasions of X and Y were just the means of getting there.  But it is also possible that the sequence is the result of delusional thinking among planners who must find excuses for the original failure (in X).  Either way, the pattern shows that policy is no longer rational, even in the crude, bottom-line sense of loss-benefit pay-off matrices.  

   • 

     Connecticut Man1 on June 9, 2007 at 10:59 am

     THAT story was part of the propaganda war against Iran.  Those weapons, neatly marked in Latin (English) lettering, were of debatable origin, to say the least.

     Iran marks them in Farsi, but Pakistan marks them in english, which is part of what discredited the previous claims of Iran’s involvement.

     ABC is linking to this, or one of the comments? I’ll have to check… heh

     • 

       Connecticut Man1 on June 9, 2007 at 11:24 am

       I misread that linking part… Yes, I agree 100%

       • 

         Gaianne on June 10, 2007 at 12:38 am

         “Linking” nothing to do with the internet.  Sorry for the archaic usage.  

3. 

   Indianadem on June 9, 2007 at 8:38 am

   Milo Minderbinder lives!

4. 

   on June 9, 2007 at 9:02 am

   http://www.scl.cc/home.php

5. 

   JanetT in MD on June 9, 2007 at 9:32 am

   It strikes me twice as odd given previous claims like this that have been discredited in the past.

   I think this is more of the “If you tell a story often enough and get it into enough American newspapers, it magically then becomes the TRUTH” …..or close enough for Administration posturing. The first step, of course, is getting the Republican presidential candidates to repeat it… and then you ask the Democratic candidates why they aren’t taking this news seriously and what would they do… and eventually, no one cares that the story has been discredited after the fact each time it appears. This is more of the “Unnamed official” bullshit.

   It is highly unlikely Iran would label its ordinance in English.  Also just because ordinance might have been manufactured in Iran doesn’t mean it wouldn’t end up on the thriving black market in weaponry and ammo currently in that part of the world right now.  But WE sell arms to Pakistan, and lord only knows where it goes from there. We provided arms to Iraq in the past, and we KNOW a lot of those arms have vanished into the ether. If they really found arms labeled in English, you tell me where those are more likely to have come from.

   The Iranians are Shi’ites. Their government is a theocracy. The Taliban are Sunni–also a theocracy. Cooperation between them?  VERY unlikely.  

6. 

   Steven D on June 9, 2007 at 10:33 am

   I posted about this a while back.  Here’s my take:

   Link

   • 

     Connecticut Man1 on June 9, 2007 at 12:22 pm

     As a side note: Something I wrote a while back on the old propaganda effort that is relavent to this diary.

     Perpetuating The PowerPoint Lies

     The White House was told twice to redo the PowerPoint presentation purporting Iranian ties to American deaths. According to The National Journal the intelligence community demanded that the presentation be rewritten and washed of overstated claims:

     At least twice in the past month, the White House has delayed a PowerPoint presentation initially prepared by the military to detail evidence of suspected Iranian materiel and financial support for militants in Iraq. The presentation was to have been made at a press conference in Baghdad in the first week of February. Officials have set no new date, but they say it could be any day.

     Even as U.S. officials in Baghdad were ready to make the case, administration principals in Washington who were charged with vetting the PowerPoint dossier bowed to pressure from the intelligence community and ordered that it be scrubbed again.

     This still wasn’t enough scrubbing top get the facts straight and so some of the misinformation still persists. The NewsTimes provides one of the many arguments to support Murtha’s plan to require fully trained and EQUIPPED American soldiers before they can be deployed in theater:

     News Times Live Editorial:
     “Almost four years later, the armor problems remain. It’s not a matter of money; it’s a matter of planning.

     This week, the Pentagon admitted that there is a shortage of armor to protect troops involved in the president’s so-called ‘surge’ that will add more than 20,000 American military personnel to the Iraq war.

     The president spent part of Wednesday’s news conference alleging that Iran is supplying new deadly weapons to Iraqi insurgents. But what is he doing to require that American troops have the armor they need to protect themselves against these new weapons?

     Known as ‘explosively formed penetrators,’ these weapons are now inflicting 70 percent of the American casualties in Iraq.”

     Yes the armor problems still remain, but so does the misinformation campaign that the lying Bush administartion intended to seed in the news. There are two major problems with the “evidence” supplied by the military and the Bush administration.

     1. About 170 out of the over 3000 American deaths are POSSIBLY attributable to the Iranian supported Shia militias. A drop in the bucket. The vast MAJORITYof the IED’s and other weapons used to kill Americans are planted or used by the Sunnis. A group that Iran does not support. However, Saudi Arabia sends truckloads full of money to the Sunnis is Iraq, the Sunnis that are largely responsible for the most deaths and injuries of American soldiers in Iraq. I don’t think the Sunnis are buying cakes and cookies with that Saudi money.

     2. Some of the weapons that the military showed as evidence of being supplied by Iran had markings written in English. Iranians mark weapons they manufacture in Farsi, although, Pakistan manufactures the same/similar weapons and marks them in English. Other weapons, like EFPs, that are purported to be too sophisticated to have been made by the Shia or the Sunnis, and therefore “must be coming from Iran”, are similar to weapons that many other groups like Hezbollah and the IRA have made in the past, according to Middle East expert Juan Cole. (Scroll down, click on the Juan Cole video)

     The Danbury NewsTimes bit on the EFPs lie, and blaming Iran. As noble as the real thrust of the Editorial may be, it is still perpetuating  Bush propaganda.

     The evidence clearly points to countries that are known supporters and financiers of the Sunnis (IE: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc.) and/or just the easy spreading of information on typically used weapons amongst terrorism groups everywhere. And just whose name pops up to reenforce this manipulation of inteligence?

     U.S. military commanders in Iraq have shown members of Congress explosive devices that bear Iranian markings as evidence Tehran is supplying Iraqi militants with bombs, a senior U.S. government official said Saturday.

     One of the lawmakers, independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, said he has seen some of the evidence, though he would not be specific. “I’m convinced from what I’ve seen that the Iranians are supplying and are giving assistance to the people in Iraq who are killing American soldiers,” said Lieberman, who was attending an international security conference in Munich.

     Republican Neocon extremist and propagandist Joe Lieberman. And pushing a lie that was already laid to rest over year ago:

     Against the inference that this all comes from Iran is the concept that Iraqis themselves would be capable of copying a design and therefore do not need to get bombs from Iran.

     And there have been a number of news reports over the last year expressing scepticism, even among military personnel, about the link to Iran.

     The Washington Post reported last October that British troops in the south doubted the claim.

     A year ago, the London Times said that British officers in Basra had stopped making any such claim, saying only that the technology matched bomb-making found elsewhere in the Middle East, including Lebanon and Syria.

     While reporters and news agencies across the country are starting to catch whiffs of Bush Neocon propaganda, and pointing out some of the stinkers, they are still missing some of the really BIG lies. And most of them relate to the Drumbeat for War with Iran that is just a repeat of Iraq lies all over again:

     Much of the intelligence on Iran’s nuclear facilities provided to UN inspectors by US spy agencies has turned out to be unfounded, diplomatic sources in Vienna said today.

     The claims, reminiscent of the intelligence fiasco surrounding the Iraq war, coincided with a sharp increase in international tension as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran was defying a UN security council ultimatum to freeze its nuclear programme.

     That report, delivered to the security council by the IAEA director general, Mohammed ElBaradei, sets the stage for a fierce international debate on the imposition of stricter sanctions on Iran and raises the possibility that the US could resort to military action against Iranian nuclear sites.

     I’m just waiting for the fictitious mushroom clouds to start to reappear…

   • 

     boran2 on June 10, 2007 at 10:35 am

     Your post was subsequently picked up by NPR’s Taking Aim.

7. 

   Nancy LeTourneau on June 9, 2007 at 10:51 am

   I’m watching a show on c-span right now with author Mike Evans and his book “The Final Move Beyond Iraq.” What an idiot!! Of course he’s talking about Iran and his historical case for how we’ve made mistakes is to blame Carter for not supporting the Shah enough!!

   His choice of a historical point to begin his analysis is indeed intersting. No mention of our involvement in the coup that set up the Shah.

   So, since Carter is to blame for the situation in Iran, our best policy according to him, is to start a “stealth econimic war” against Iran (not sure about how he’d do that – hasn’t worked so well in Cuba) and if that doesn’t work – bomb them.

   Where do they find these idiots??!!!

   • 

     Steven D on June 9, 2007 at 3:44 pm

     At the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, usually.

8. 

   chocolate ink on June 9, 2007 at 12:58 pm

   Last I knew Iran was 100% behind our invading Afghanistan as they are enemies of the Taliban and were also one of the first countries to step up and allot millions to help rebuild Afghanistan sans the Taliban…so now in a few short years they decided they love the Taliban-I kinda don’t think so.

   As for weapons themselves-weapons have no loyalty to manufacture of origin.

9. 

   k9disc on June 10, 2007 at 5:12 am

   Is this a Joke?

   The coalition diplomatic message says the demolition charges “contained the same fake U.S. markings found on explosives recovered from insurgents operating in the Baghdad area.”

   It sounds like a Python Skit.

   I’m not buying that TinFoil Hat Bullshit!

   Team B – Proudly sitting under tinfoil for the last 35 years.

   What a sick joke.

   • 

     k9disc on June 10, 2007 at 5:39 am

     Palin – NATO Official
     Cleese – Skeptical Embedded Reporter
     Idle – Stenographer to Power Embedded Reporter
     Gilliam – Dick Cheney

     NATO Official: (kneeling down in front of a wooden box…)
     “O…..f Course They’re Iranian Arms! They’ve got Made in the USA all over them. Cunning Iranians.”

     Stenographer: “Iranians Supply Weapons to Terrorists… oops, ‘Cunning Iranians’. Da dat dah. Alright, think I’ll get a cup o’ tea.” (leaves room)…

     Skeptic: (leans over NATO Official) “You…uh, don’t suppose it could ‘ve come from somewhere else?”

     NATO Official: (stands up wiping his hands off) “Nope, don’t think that’s a possibility, a’tall. We’ve been running ‘cross these fake ‘Merican arms all over theater, chap. Cunn-nning Iranians.”

     Skeptic: “It’s not like the US ever, uh… sold arms to  the iranians, overthrew countries and tried to cover it up or anything like that now is it.”

     NATO Official: (looks sideways, grabs belt then walks  stiffly) “What is it you’re, uh, suggestin’ there buddy?”

     Skeptic: “Mmmmmm? N’thing? Absolutely n’thing. Cunning Iranians?”