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No One Is Buying Iranian Terror Allegations
Iran Terror Plot: No Evidence
The day before Attorney General was subpoenaed about what he knew about the Department of Justice and Drug Enforcement Agency's "Fast and Furious" operation to get weapons to Mexico's largest drug cartel, the U.S. government announced that the Iranians planned to kill a Saudi ambassador on U.S. soil.
And they said - you guessed it - that it was DOJ and DEA who broke up the plot.
But no one is buying it ... not even the pro-war mainstream media.
The New York Times notes in a post entitled "U.S. Challenged to Explain Accusations of Iran Plot in the Face of Skepticism":
The Obama administration on Wednesday sought to reconcile what it said was solid evidence of an Iranian plot to murder Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States with a wave of puzzlement and skepticism from some foreign leaders and outside experts.
Senior American officials themselves were struggling to explain why the Quds Force, an elite international operations unit within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, would orchestrate such a risky attack in so amateurish a manner.
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American officials offered no specific evidence linking the plot to Iran’s most senior leaders.
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Mr. Zarate and senior American officials said the assassination plan did not have the hallmarks of a Quds operation. “It was very extreme and very odd, but it was also very sloppy,” Mr. Zarate said. “If you look at what they have done historically, they can put operatives on their targets and execute. They usually don’t outsource, but keep things inside a trusted network.”
One problem for President Obama and his administration is that since American intelligence claims about Iraq’s illicit weapons proved false in 2003, assertions by the United States about its adversaries have routinely faced skepticism from other countries.
“Of course, that is in people’s heads. Everyone is extremely skeptical about U.S. intelligence revelations,” said Volker Perthes, an Iran expert who is the director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin.
CNN notes the growing skepticism about the allegations.
Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer says that an FBI insider told him the dubious terror plot to assassinate a Saudi ambassador which has been blamed on Iran was likely manufactured by the Obama administration, because no information about the plot even exists within FBI channels:
Glenn Greenwald writes:
The most difficult challenge in writing about the Iranian Terror Plot unveiled yesterday is to take it seriously enough to analyze it.
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For brazen irony, how can this be beat?
Tom Kean, former chairman of the 9/11 Commission said the alleged plot “surprises me.” Speaking to CNN’s Erin Burnett, Kean said the plot is “pretty close to an act of war. You don’t go in somebody’s capital to blow somebody up.”
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So facially absurd are the claims here — why would Iran possibly wake up one day and decide that it wanted to engage in a Terrorist attack on U.S. soil when it could much more easily kill Saudi officials elsewhere? and if Iran and its Quds Force are really behind this inept, hapless, laughable plot, then nothing negates the claim that Iran is some Grave Threat like this does — that there is more skepticism expressed even in establishment media accounts than one normally finds about such things. Even the NYT noted — with great understatement — that the allegations “provoked puzzlement from specialists on Iran, who said it seemed unlikely that the government would back a brazen murder and bombing plan on American soil.” The Post noted that “the very rashness of the alleged assassination plot raised doubts about whether Iran’s normally cautious ruling clerics supported or even know about it.” The Atlantic‘s Max Fisher has more on why this would be so out of character for Iran.
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The Christian Science Monitor details the many reasons why “Iran specialists who have followed the Islamic Republic for years say that many details in the alleged plot just don’t add up.”
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After 24 hours of media hysteria — there’s this Reuters article, which — under the headline “Officials concede gaps in U.S. knowledge of Iran plot” — reports:
Iran’s supreme leader and the shadowy Quds Force covert operations unit were likely aware of an alleged plot to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, but hard evidence of that is scant, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.
The United States does not have solid information about “exactly how high it goes,” one official said. . . .The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said their confidence that at least some Iranian leaders were aware of the alleged plot was based largely on analyses and their understanding of how the Quds Force operates.
Greenwald notes in a separate post:
Here is a profile of the Lex Luthor super-villain behind the dastardly Iranian Plot, compiled based on interviews with those who have long known him. He’s described variously as a “scatterbrained, hapless businessman,” “absentminded and shifty.” “a joke” who “was pretty disorganized, always losing things like keys, titles, probably a thousand cellphones,” who “never spoke ill of the United States” and who wasn’t remotely religious — in other words, the pefect target for the FBI to transform into an “operative” by waving money and glory in front of his face, and exactly the kind of person the actual Quds Force would never use for a real plot.
Steve Watson notes that the suspect is a semi-retarded sex-crazed druggie:
Local media in Austin and San Antonio spoke to several of Arbabsiar’s acquaintances in Round Rock and Corpus Christi, who described him in most unflattering terms, saying that they doubt Arbabsiar could have had any meaningful involvement in the supposed international ploy.
“He used to drink, smoke pot, go with the prostitutes,” Tom Hosseini, an Iranian who has known Arbabsiar since college, told reporters, adding “His first wife left him because he would lose his keys every other day. This guy is not a mastermind.”
Hosseini also told reporters that in college Arbabsiar earned the nickname ‘”Jack” for his affinity for whisky, confirming that he wasn’t in any way religious and that “he couldn’t even pray, doesn’t know how to fast.”
Describing Arbabsiar as rude, offensive and unfriendly, others noted that he was a “floundering” businessman who at various points had tried his hand in running a restaurant, a convenience store and a used car lot.
“He was pretty disorganised, always losing things like keys, titles, probably a thousand cell phones,” David Tomscha, who ran the small used-car yard with him, said. “He wasn’t meticulous with taking care of things.”
“He never spoke ill of the United States,” Mr Tomscha added. “I always thought he liked it here, because he could make money. He loved to make money.”
Arbabsiar, who has a history of run ins with the law and minor criminal offences, was described in other accounts as having a preoccupation with traveling to Iran in order to procure the services of cheap Persian prostitutes.
Another local acquaintance, Mitch Hamueen, scoffed at the DOJ suggestion that “Chevrolet” was a code word for the alleged terror operation.
“He probably wasn’t talking in code, he was probably talking about an actual Chevrolet,” he said.
“He’s the fall guy,” Hamueen said. “They’re looking for a fall guy.”
Reporters also spoke with Arbabsiar’s apparently estranged wife who told them “I know that his innocence is going to come out.”
The Obama administration contends that Arbabsiar tried to hire assassins from a Mexican drug gang to carry out the murder of ambassador Adel al-Jubeir during a visit to the United States.
However, the head of the drug gang turned out to be a DEA agent posing as a Mexican Los Zetas gangster. The story has all the hallmarks of classic FBI entrapment tactics that have characterized almost every major terror bust in recent times.
Indeed, a study published this year by the New York University School of Law found that the threat of homegrown terror in America has been “manufactured” by entrapping Muslim men into crimes they otherwise would not commit. And see this.
And Pepe Esobar writes:
As for the Washington mantra that "Iran has been insinuating itself into many of the struggles in the Middle East", that's undiluted Saudi propaganda. In fact it's the House of Saud who's been conducting the fierce counter-revolution that has smashed any possibility of an Arab Spring in the Persian Gulf - from the invasion and repression of Bahrain to the rash pre-emption of protests inside Saudi Arabia's Shia-dominated eastern provinces.
The whole thing smells like a flimsy pretext for a casus belli. The timing of the announcement couldn't be more suspicious. White House national security advisor Thomas E. Donilon briefed King Abdullah of the plot no less than two weeks ago, in a three-hour meeting in Riyadh. Meanwhile the US government has been carrying not plots, but targeted assassinations of US citizens, as in the Anwar al-Awlaki case.
So why now? Holder is caught in yet another scandal - on whether he told lies regarding Operation Fast and Furious (no, you can't make this stuff up), a federal gun sting through which scores of US weapons ended up in the hands of - here they come again - Mexican drug cartels.
So how to bury Fast and Furious, the economic abyss, the 10 years of war in Afghanistan, the increasing allure of Occupy Wall Street - not to mention the Saudi role in smashing the spirit of the Arab Spring? By uncovering a good ol' al-Qaeda style plot on US soil, on top of it conducted by "evil" Iran. Al-Qaeda and Tehran sharing top billing; not even Cheney and Rumsfeld in their heyday could come up with something like this. Long live GWOT (the global war on terror). And long live the neo-con spirit ....
Escobar says that the government keeps changing its story about the plot:
Of course, the decision to go to war against Iran (like most of our current policy) was made before 9/11 (and see this).
The Brookings Institution wrote in 2009:
It would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be.
Indeed, the U.S. has used fake intelligence to attempt to frame Iran.
And it is well-documented that the U.S. has repeatedly used terrorism against Iran:
- The CIA admits that it hired Iranians in the 1950?s to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected president
- Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh says that the Bush administration (and especially Dick Cheney) helped to fund groups which the U.S. claims are terrorists against Iran (see confirming articles here and here).
- The New York Times, Washington Post, Raw Story and others are reporting that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former national security adviser Fran Townsend and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey – who all said that the terrorists were going to get us if we didn’t jettison the liberties granted under the Bill of Rights – are now supporting terrorists in Iran.
- Jimmy Carter’s former National Security Adviser and Obama’s initial foreign policy adviser - Zbigniew Brzezinski - told the Senate that a terrorist act might be carried out in the U.S. and falsely blamed on Iran to justify war against that nation.
- Congressman Ron Paul told Congress: “I am concerned, however, that a contrived Gulf of Tonkin- type incident may occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran”
- And a member of the British Parliament stated that “there is a very real danger” that the American government will stage a false flag terror attack in order to justify war against Iran and to gain complete control domestically
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If you wanna go to war so badly, be our guest and stand on the front line...it takes a lot more courage than sitting in your cozy apartment posting rubbish in the comment sections of blogs.
Typical response from another spoiled coward. No one is talking about war. The article is about deny the Iranians plotted to kill some Saudi bastards. They are all scum as far as I;m concerned. We don't need to lift a finger - they will kill themselves off on their own and then blame us or Israel. You know nothing.
"as far as [your] concerned" the world is a simple place
This "war" between Shia (mainly Iran and other ME areas and 60% of Iraq) versus Sunni (Saudi Arabia and other areas) has been going on since 680 AD or 1,331 years.
http://www.aim.org/guest-column/sunnis-and-shiites-why-do-they-fight/
Shiites are descended from Muhammad’s daughter, Fatima, and his son-in-law, Ali. In the years that followed Ali’s assassination in 661 A.D., leadership of Islam was claimed by the Ummayad dynasty, a Sunni sect. Nevertheless, Ali’s followers continued to claim his son, Hussein, the Third Imam, as the rightful heir. After years of bitter dispute, Hussein and his Shia followers migrated north from the Arabian Peninsula into Iraq.
In 680 A.D. Hussein found himself surrounded by Ummayad forces at Karbala, in present day Iraq. With only a handful of supporters to defend him, Hussein and 72 of his men were captured and beheaded, and their women taken captive. The battle was a defining moment in the split between Sunnis and Shiites.
Israel is a (quiet) ally of the Saudis. Who owns DC and the white hut now? Saudis have major investments or deals with every US TV network and have think tanks, law firms and you name it in DC.
No one over there is our "friend." No way the Iranians would use a used car saleman to kill a Saudi ambassador in DC. The Iranians are evil but they are not stupid. This is an Obam smoke screen to cover up Fast & Furious and to boost his poll numbers and to try to save Holder. If you want to be angry - be angry the Kenyan muslim who faked Bin ladens death then to placate his Saudi puppetmasters he set up the SEALs to die and also silence them. The muslims must have really loved the SEAL set up and their "murder."
They all suck.
aren't you the stealthy lil trollboy!?!? Just the right number of truths, packaged with a modicum of 'half truths' and the main course of outright lies to do the job what your masters sent you here to do....very slick stuff Freddie...
Even the Israel-bashers gonna give you a pass...bonus on paycheck...
ummm, wait a minute....
http://www.aim.org/guest-column/sunnis-and-shiites-why-do-they-fight/
your chosen expert - Paul R Hollrah why, isn't he the guy who... http://www.fsmarchives.org/article.php?id=1238390 ... pontificating on that devilish ISLAM...makes sure the gullible goyim get their gander up bout those dangerous box cuttin rag heads?
FamilySecurityMatters... http://fedupusa.wordpress.com/family-security-matters - uh huh, front line of the Sionist offensive against Christian-Muslim reconcilation...we all go to war an kill each other so your puppetmasters/paymasters can clean up and declare victory for the hegemonic talmudic racial supremacists...
yea, yu slick Freddie, slick like a BP oil spill.
btw, Barry ain't no 'Muslim' Kenyan, just an ordinary Kenyan with an Indonesian Muslim stepfather courtesy of CIA ...note to handlers...sloppy work boys! Another deep ZH asset DESTROYED!
has been going on since 680 AD or 1,331 years
And I thought the Irish had long memories..
if stupidity were a superpower...you'd be superman.
quote of the day! You get my vote for best comment.
Remember Iran has been running after its lost legitimacy as modern democratic nation since Mossadegh 1953!
Remember that Saud kingdom has been a slave of US MIC and Oil Lobby since the same time frame.
So this deal was set-up by USA in the mid fifties, and Israel showed its muscles to the world in 1956 Suez initiative.
The Iran regression since 1979, the Iran-Irak war, the Irak retro-agression in Kuwait, the US retaliation in 1991, the final Irak agression by USA in 2003 are chess moves around the OIL patch.
Now with peak cheap oil staring us all in the face, The USA HAS to pre-empt ANY tendency by local power structures to move out from the US power umbrella. So both IRan and Pakistan are potentially on the 'hit list'.
Timing now a question of when the US Oligarchy feels they are losing their grip on world economy and financial ponzi construct. Then push will go to shove...or so the MIC and OIl lobbies will claim from Congress and WH.
This is the logical sequence to pax Americana. It will not end well as the US Oligarchs will not relinquish their power easily. All is fair in love and war! The man in the WH is just a puppet front to the real power in US society.
You're funny...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-CKMWiKp2I
Like warmonger Cheney who took 4 draft deferments because he was too cowardly to serve in Vietnam??
Five deferments...but who's counting? And he's had a heart attack for each deferment. Karma's a beeotch.
I'm counting, Pops.
That fat S.O.B. probably did more behind the scenes to ruin the military than any other single person. I have been watching him since the early 70's, when he was laying pipe for the drive toward privatization and building a mercenary military. When the history boks are written, Cheney will be shown for the charlatan he is as the damage he caused over a period of 35 years is fully understood. A chicken hawk, neo-con, flag-waving, fake patriot who lied and cheated, and lined his pockets all along the way, while sowing the seeds of America's decline.
Karma, indeed.
Whole story stinks of a Mossad op - i.e. Urban Moving Systems
God loves him so much He's been trying to call him home for decades.
who's defending Iran?
what is your problem with Iran compared to say Goldman Sachs?
(I like your name, my cousin twice removed was a henge )
There is some angle here I have figured out relative to the 'Fast and Furious' debacle and this announcement. It's not just the fact that it is being used to deflect attention away from Eric Holder. We know the narcissistic Obama will never admit a mistake, and will never fire anybody. So something in me says they are fully capable of manufacturing something that will then morph into some kind of 'justification' for 'Fast and Furious' and Holder's subsequent perjury before Congress. A couple of possibilities:
As usual, the war-favoring idealogues Rush and Hannity are jumping on the 'National Security' implications and ignoring the obvious fishiness of this. We, however, have some better journalists down here in Phoenix and they will not let things go so easily.
Please don't be distracted from the single point that one country is arbitraging a resource by global sourcing with meaty military tools (one form factor) whereas another has remained a sovereign and independent (Founding Fathers form factor) and remains a hostage in the media, any message getting hammered twice in a binary scenario.
+1
Exactly. A clumsy attempt to make Holder look good. An American agent and many Mexicans died thanks to Fast and Furious. It was designed to get rid of the Second Amendment. Another Soros plan like OWS.
Gawd I get tired of all these "second amendment is under attack" statements. Hear them non-stop from right-wingers, mostly those who hated Hilary, but now, for some odd reason, since she's been banging hard on the war drums?, not much mention. Anyway...
Like they give a shit? GW said that the Constitution was just a "goddamned piece of paper." Fuck it enough with all the GOP vs. Dems BS, it has to do with POWER, and, do you think they really are going to fuck around with little shit like the Second Amendment when they've got the most powerful military that history has ever known? one that uses drones, sound cannons and god only knows what else (EMPs)?
NO, this is about scaring people into SIDING WITH THEM. Don't ya know it, those radical <fill in the blanks> are out to get us and we cannot protect ourselves no matter what lead we're packing. This has more to do with MENTAL than physical (it's an issue of "confidence").
"There is some angle here I have figured out relative to the 'Fast and Furious' debacle and this announcement."
It's funny. All the conspiracies seem to be "Everyone else" against the US, but NEVER the US against anyone else. You're only a conspiracy fruitcake in the MSM if you believe the US government is capable of a conspiracy. The rules DO NOT apply to the US I guess. Please see "Iran/Contra" affair circa 1986 for my point.
I hear the exception concept also applies to our fiat currency
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Nancy says its time for my nap ...
Hannity harped on this for awhile...Limbaugh spent most of today's show attacking "Republican oligarchs" and driving a wedge between RINOS and TP. Excellente. I suspect that in a day or two we will stop hearing about this pitiful farce...except for the echoing laughter.
...come on man, take a look back and then look ahead.
Eric "Empty Suit" Holder's Perfect Alibi For Fast & Furious
Bitch hasn't even shown up for work yet...
Holder used to work for a terrorist organization called Chiquita
Seriously? Wasn't that General Smedley Butler's favorite company [under the name United Fruit]?
Holder is the perfect guy to work for Obama who is himself the Grand Canyon of empty suits
I'm leery of anyone who wears a suit to anywhere other than a wedding or a funeral. And if someone's got more than one suit...
They're all there to look good, to act as distractions from the game behind the scenes. ALWAYS been the case. Anyone not knowing this is wet behind the ears (and can, themselves, be a distraction [misshapened info, lots of times infected with party politics]).