Another Huge Surprise!,

[seapower]

Iran has been implicated in a failed attempt to kill one of Our's and some of Their Neighbor's. How can that be, I thought they were "peace loving"? I'm sure this will just get swept under the rug, time will excuse the attempt. Oh I forgot, they released the "spying hiker's", so all is good. Frank

[longfisher]

As usual, Frank accepts and pablum the oft-lying government feeds to him without question. Are you really that simple, Frank?

Why is it Frank that even in your senility you accept what this lying government says where there is such a history of their lies? Where are the WMDs? Was the Tonkin Gulf Incident really what it was made out to be by LBJ? Were U.S. troops in Cambodia during the Vietnam conflict at the same time their presence there was being denied by Nixon. Didn't Bill Clinton actually have sex with "that woman". Is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act really going to reduce insurance costs in America by billions like Obama said? Did Iran's President really say, "I want to wipe Iran off the map.", or, was it a deliberate propoganda distortion by the West to make simple people like you endorse another war in teh Middle Eash?

And what makes you think this is anything but another attempt to reinforce the lies about what the President of Iran said and to make simple people like you sacrifice more of your treasure, blookd and kin for another unneeded war?

Lying to us is their pasttime. I'm quite confident they snicker with glee when so many of you swallow it up. And, you, Sir, swallow it all whole like a woman of ill repute.

Why aren't you saying, "Well, it sounds pretty bad but I've been lied to by this government before and I'd like them to share the evidence so I can determine for myself if the word "linked" used to connect Iran and this plot is worthy of my concern." Why isn't it that when they don't come up with the evidence openly but rather declare it Top Secret you don't demand transparency or you will disregard it? Why can't you bear in mind the endless lies they tell the citizens when you evaluate what they say now.

Remember, the little boy who cried wolf? At least, the villagers in that story were bright enough to question when repeated lies were told to them.

Why? Because you're a shill for the government. Anything they say, propoganda or not, you're going to accept. Why do you accept it without question? Because it feeds into that mean spirited side of you that wants to kick someone's butt whose smaller than you. Because you're a perfect bully like most here on this board. And, that tendancy to bully makes you blind to history as the psychological thrill of exerting power through a bullying collective called the U.S. without ever having to actually get your own fists in the fight is enormously satisfying to you.

SHOW ME BELIEVABLE EVIDENCE OF A LINK THAT WILL STAND UP TO SCRUTINY AND WITH TOTAL TRANSPARENCY. DON'T JUST RUN YOUR MOUTH ABOUT ONE. BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T SHOW ME EVIDENCE I JUST MIGHT BELIEVE THIS IS BUT ANOTHER PERCEPTIONS MANAGEMENT EFFORT OUT OF THE PENTAGON LIKE SO MANY THAT HAVE COME BEFORE IT.

If you do show me such evidence then I just might believe you, but it's hard in light of all the lies and manipulations you have laid on me in the past.


LF

[seapower]

It'll take to destroy a reactor? Tick-tock, tick-tock,....... Frank

[WahooKing]

SHOW ME BELIEVABLE EVIDENCE OF A LINK THAT WILL STAND UP TO SCRUTINY AND WITH TOTAL TRANSPARENCY. DON'T JUST RUN YOUR MOUTH ABOUT ONE. BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T SHOW ME EVIDENCE I JUST MIGHT BELIEVE THIS IS BUT ANOTHER PERCEPTIONS MANAGEMENT EFFORT OUT OF THE PENTAGON LIKE SO MANY THAT HAVE COME BEFORE IT.

If you do show me such evidence then I just might believe you, but it's hard in light of all the lies and manipulations you have laid on me in the past.

LF

The Iranian will have his day in federal court...something you adamantly preach...And at the 95% fed. conviction rate...Odds are not in his favor.

Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old U.S. citizen who also holds an Iranian passport, was charged along with Gholam Shakuri, who authorities said was a Quds Force member and remains at large in Iran. The Treasury Department listed addresses for Arbabsiar in two Texas cities — the Austin suburb of Round Rock and the Gulf city of Corpus Christi — and prosecutors say he frequently traveled to Mexico for business.

The complaint filed in federal court says Arbabsiar confessed that his cousin Abdul Reza Shahlai was a high-ranking member of the Quds Force who told him to hire someone in the narcotics business to target Al-Jubeir. U.S. authorities described Shakuri as Shahlai's deputy who helped provide funding for the plot. Shahlai was identified by the Treasury Department in 2008, during George W. Bush's administration, as a Quds deputy commander who planned the Jan. 20, 2007, attack in Karbala, Iraq, that killed five American soldiers and wounded three others.

Arbabsiar, Shakuri, Shahlai and two others — Qasem Soleimani, a Quds commander who allegedly oversaw the plot, and Hamed Abdollahi, a senior Quds officer who helped coordinate — were sanctioned Tuesday by the Treasury Department for their alleged involvement. The department described all except Arbabsiar as Quds officers.

A senior U.S. official told NBC News that U.S. intelligence has a "high degree" of confidence that the "Quds Force at the highest levels" was involved in the alleged plot and that this was not some "rogue operation."

The complaint alleges that early this year Arbabsiar approached the DEA informant, who he believed was associated with a well-known Mexican drug cartel with access to military-grade weapons and explosives and had a history of assassinations.

Justice Department officials say Arbabsiar initially asked the informant about his knowledge of plastic explosives for a plot to blow up a Saudi embassy. But through subsequent meetings in Mexico over the past six months in which they spoke English, secretly recorded for U.S. authorities, Arbabsiar offered $1.5 million for the death of the ambassador. He eventually wired nearly $100,000 to an account number that the informant provided, authorities said.

The DEA informant is no stranger to criminal activity; the criminal complaint reveals he was charged with violating drug laws in the United States but the charges were dismissed when the informant cooperated with several drug investigations. The complaint said the informant has continued to provide reliable information that has led to numerous drug seizures and is paid for his work.

According to transcripts of their recorded conversations cited in the complaint, the informant told Arbabsiar he would kill the ambassador however he wanted — "blow him up or shoot him" — and Arbabsiar responded he should use whatever method is easiest. The plot eventually centered on targeting Al-Jubeir in his favorite restaurant and Arbabsiar was quoted as saying killing him alone would be better, "but sometime, you know, you have no choice." Arbabsiar dismisses the possibility that 100-150 others in the restaurant could be killed along with the ambassador as "no problem" and "no big deal."

Arbabsiar was arrested Sept. 29 at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and was ordered held without bail during his brief first court appearance Thursday afternoon. Prosecutors said he faces up to life in prison if convicted.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44861178...news-security/

[scattered_grass]

Can't we just get rid of them already..

[longfisher]

The Iranian will have his day in federal court...something you adamantly preach...And at the 95% fed. conviction rate...Odds are not in his favor.

Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old U.S. citizen who also holds an Iranian passport, was charged along with Gholam Shakuri, who authorities said was a Quds Force member and remains at large in Iran. The Treasury Department listed addresses for Arbabsiar in two Texas cities — the Austin suburb of Round Rock and the Gulf city of Corpus Christi — and prosecutors say he frequently traveled to Mexico for business.

The complaint filed in federal court says Arbabsiar confessed that his cousin Abdul Reza Shahlai was a high-ranking member of the Quds Force who told him to hire someone in the narcotics business to target Al-Jubeir. U.S. authorities described Shakuri as Shahlai's deputy who helped provide funding for the plot. Shahlai was identified by the Treasury Department in 2008, during George W. Bush's administration, as a Quds deputy commander who planned the Jan. 20, 2007, attack in Karbala, Iraq, that killed five American soldiers and wounded three others.

Arbabsiar, Shakuri, Shahlai and two others — Qasem Soleimani, a Quds commander who allegedly oversaw the plot, and Hamed Abdollahi, a senior Quds officer who helped coordinate — were sanctioned Tuesday by the Treasury Department for their alleged involvement. The department described all except Arbabsiar as Quds officers.

A senior U.S. official told NBC News that U.S. intelligence has a "high degree" of confidence that the "Quds Force at the highest levels" was involved in the alleged plot and that this was not some "rogue operation."

The complaint alleges that early this year Arbabsiar approached the DEA informant, who he believed was associated with a well-known Mexican drug cartel with access to military-grade weapons and explosives and had a history of assassinations.

Justice Department officials say Arbabsiar initially asked the informant about his knowledge of plastic explosives for a plot to blow up a Saudi embassy. But through subsequent meetings in Mexico over the past six months in which they spoke English, secretly recorded for U.S. authorities, Arbabsiar offered $1.5 million for the death of the ambassador. He eventually wired nearly $100,000 to an account number that the informant provided, authorities said.

The DEA informant is no stranger to criminal activity; the criminal complaint reveals he was charged with violating drug laws in the United States but the charges were dismissed when the informant cooperated with several drug investigations. The complaint said the informant has continued to provide reliable information that has led to numerous drug seizures and is paid for his work.

According to transcripts of their recorded conversations cited in the complaint, the informant told Arbabsiar he would kill the ambassador however he wanted — "blow him up or shoot him" — and Arbabsiar responded he should use whatever method is easiest. The plot eventually centered on targeting Al-Jubeir in his favorite restaurant and Arbabsiar was quoted as saying killing him alone would be better, "but sometime, you know, you have no choice." Arbabsiar dismisses the possibility that 100-150 others in the restaurant could be killed along with the ambassador as "no problem" and "no big deal."

Arbabsiar was arrested Sept. 29 at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and was ordered held without bail during his brief first court appearance Thursday afternoon. Prosecutors said he faces up to life in prison if convicted.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44861178...news-security/

I very much like your first sentence wahooking. It is what I preach and it's something that is very likely to get a conviction, as you point out. Therefore, why is this so acceptable to you in the case of an alleged foreign terrorist but not in the case of an alleged American terrorist even when the foreigner, presumably, doesn't enjoy the full panoply constitutional rights and the American citizen presumably did?

I don't begrudge the outcome, innocent of guilty. I don't pre-judge the sentence if found guilty. As long as the trial is fair and is not a show or kangaroo trial intended to whip up American sentiment for a strike on Iran I'm perfectly happy to see the man arrested, indicted, tried and, if found guilty, punished.

What I cherish and what you should if you're not an un-American hater of our freedoms is that the process adhere to the rule of law.

But most especially, why do you sneer at the prospect of my preaching that the government should comport itself in a constitutional manner?

I just don't get you. And, you call yourself a conservative, I'll bet. Some conservative you are.

LF

[longfisher]

I understand from the international press that Panetta visited with the Israeli military's chief of staff on that date or about that date to dissuade Israel from bombing Iran in an uncoordinated fashion as he and, presumably, the President fear a regional war if they do.

Apparently, the motivation for the Israelis to attack is that they fear the U.N. Security Council as it's currently configured could reach a compromise with Iran along the lines of the recent Iranian proposal to shut down their reactor enrichment program below 20% if they could obtain from the West enough 20% enriched uranian to power their medical isotope reactor. It's estimated that approximately 800,000 Iranians are dependent on either diagnostic isotopes or therapeutic isotopes every year and with the embargoes against Iran it's hard for them to obtain them.

This is approximately the same deal proposed by Turkey more than a year ago and which was quashed by the U.S. and, of all things, too late. Huh? Too late for what? Too late to avoid a regional war in which thousands of Americans and millions of Arabs and Jews would die?

U.S. foreign policy makes absolutely no sense as it's so Israel-centric.

Anyway, Netanyahu and the Israeli militarists are reported to fear that the deal heavily favored by the Europeans, Russia and China would allow Iran to retain a nuclear capacity much like Japan has and that it would over time give them breakout capability to develope an atomic weapon. This would blunt Israel's current monopoly on nuclear terror in the Middle East. This, in turn, could possibly have substantial implications for the soon to be restarted peace talks with the Palestinians (perhaps after they are admitted to the U.N. as an observer state and then, as a consequence of their status, gain access to the International Criminal Court to challenge Israeli oppression, aggression and occupation. And, it might well end some hawk Israeli dreams of Greater Israel which would span the area from the Suez to the Euphrates.

Israel's only real concern at this point, it is reported, is to find a way either to get one of three things, American blessing, American acquiescence or American participation. In any of those cases, the U.S. would likely find itself involved in another but much larger land war in Asia, something our overstretched military can scarcely afford and something out and world economy absolutely cannot afford.

Hence, Panetta's visit to Israel.

LF

[longfisher]

So, tell me again how difficult it is get justice in the American courts for terrorists and why foreign terrorists can be successfully prosecuted in a courtroom whereas U.S. citizens not even charged with crimes related to terrorism must be summarily executed.

LF

[longfisher]

Iranian Terror Plot: Fake, Fake, Fake

Not even good propaganda

by Justin Raimondo, October 12, 2011

| Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum


Fake, fake, fake – I’m talking about the latest anti-Iranian propaganda coming out of Washington, which claims the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were involved in a “plot” to take out the Saudi ambassador to the US and blow up both the Saudi and Israeli embassies. The narrative reads like a formulaic melodrama: two Iranians, one a naturalized US citizen, purportedly approached someone they thought was a member of a Mexican drug cartel – according to the indictment [.pdf], it was a “sophisticated” drug cartel, not the plebeian sort – and proposed paying him $1.5 million to murder Adel al Jubeir, the Kingdom’s ambassador in Washington – oh, and by the way, the Iranians supposedly said, “Are you guys any good with explosives?”

The key to understanding just how fake this story is can be found in the New York Times report, which informs us:

“For the entire operation, the government’s confidential sources were monitored and guided by federal law enforcement agents, Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District, said in the news conference. ‘So no explosives were actually ever placed anywhere,’ he said, ‘and no one was actually in ever in any danger.’”

Translation: the whole thing is phony from beginning to end.

This is another one of US law enforcement’s manufactured “anti-terrorist” triumphs, where the feds set somebody up, fabricate a “crime” out of thin air, and then proceed to “solve” a case that never really existed to begin with. This has been the general pattern of our “anti-terrorist” operations in the US since the beginning – because finding and catching real terrorists is much too hard, at least for our Keystone Kops. Instead of going out and actually, you know, looking for the Bad Guys, and then apprehending them, they lure some unsuspecting Muslim immigrant into a trap, and spring it when the time is right.

The long narrative spun by the indictment tells us everything but what we really need to know, which is: how is it that these two Iranian “terrorists” just happened to meet up with a Mexican drug cartel assassin who just happened to be a longtime DEA informant? I guess that would be giving too much away: far better to spice up the story with scary details, such as the conversation between one of the alleged plotters and the informant, in the course of which the former says “If you have to blow up the restaurant and kill a hundred Americans, well then f*ck ‘em!”

The credibility rating of this story, taken on its face, is close to zero. Let’s say the Iranians really were plotting to kill the Saudi ambassador on American soil: would they contract it out to the Mexican Mafia, send all kinds of traceable money wires from Iran to the US, and not care if they killed a hundred Americans in the process of achieving their goal? Or would they send some fanatic, who would not only do it for free but also eliminate himself (or herself)? This flimsy ****-eyed tale is so transparently fake that it’s an embarrassment to the United States of America. Can’t our spooks do better than this?

This fabrication marks a new trend in the field of anti-Iranian war propaganda. Previously, the War Party was relying on the same technique they used in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq: the old “weapons of mass destruction” gambit. The big problem with that is it’s old, and tired: no one believes it anymore [.pdf]. Once burned, twice shy, as the saying goes. This latest lie is a fresh angle on a continuing theme, merely substituting Iran for the traditional bogeyman known as al-Qaeda.

That this story involves the Mexican drug cartels, and Attorney General Eric Holder proclaiming that we’re going to “hold the Iranian government accountable,” has got to be some kind of sick joke: after all, here is a man who stood by and watched while US law enforcement agents let guns travel over the US border to arm those very same cartels. Is this “coup” for the Justice Department the pay-off for that harebrained scheme – and when is Holder going to be held accountable?

That our government would float a narrative like this without any apparent regard for the basic rules of fiction-writing – create believable characters who do believable things – is Washington’s way of showing contempt for the Iranians, the American people, and anyone else who stands in the way of their war agenda. They don’t care if it’s not believable. They think Americans will swallow anything, that we’re too busy trying to survive day-to-day, these days, to inquire much further than the “official” account. And of course our brain-dead media, which is reduced to a chiefly stenographic role, isn’t going to ask any inconvenient questions.

This story is very scary – not because it’s credible, or believable, because it is neither. However, it’s the most frightening story I’ve heard in quite a while because it shows that the US government is bound and determined to go to war with Iran, no matter what the consequences. Throwing caution to the winds, our rulers have decided to go all out against Tehran – all the better to mask our current economic malaise under the damage done by the tripling and quadrupling of oil prices. This way, Obama can blame our crashing economy on Tehran, rather than his own discredited policies – and sideline the Republicans, who have been criticizing him for being “soft” on Iran.

The making of American foreign policy is all about domestic politics. By preparing the country for war with Iran, Obama will not only defang the GOP, but also appease the all-important Israel lobby, which has been beating the war drums for years.

What Obama and his gang are hoping is that the American people are too tired, too beaten down, and too broke to care enough about this latest exercise in war propaganda to question it. Certainly the “mainstream” media, which is Obama’s loudest cheering section, isn’t about to question it.

Here is where the administration has probably miscalculated: people are just angry enough to wonder “why now?” They’re just broke enough to resent being asked to pay for yet another holy crusade overseas. And they’re just tired enough of the bullsh*t that gets reported as “news” day after day to start asking all kinds of uncomfortable questions about this latest offering by the Washington fable factory.

The Americans are already backing away from the assertion that the Iranian government is directly responsible for the actions of these two individuals, averring that top Iranian officials didn’t “necessarily” know what was going on. As the details of this case become known, Holder’s story is going to start unraveling like a substandard sweater – and you can read all about that unraveling right here, at Antiwar.com….

[Big Fish Billy]

I find myself wondering how far some of these foreign crackpots would get if our FBI undercover agents didn't suggestively make it easy for them.....kind of reminds me of this......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fT-jX11poU