U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns this week:
The United States has “irrefutable evidence” that Tehran is transferring arms to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, a top U.S. diplomat told CNN Wednesday, noting that NATO forces have intercepted some of the arms shipments.
“There’s irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this and it’s a pattern of activity,”
This was already covered by mole333 as well as bink, and there is some good background on why this is pretty much totally inconceivable. I’ll touch on it a bit more below, but I want to take a different angle as well.
U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns this past February:
I’ll resist the temptation to draw an organizational chart, for obvious reasons. They’re part of the Iranian defense and intelligence establishment. They’re a major part of the Iranian government. Therefore, the actions of that force are the responsibility of that government. If that force is supplying technology for Shiite militants, that government is responsible.
Of course, that was immediately smacked down by many, including now former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace. And this new claim, no doubt, will be smacked down by many who point out the sheer insanity of Iran helping the Taliban.
For starters, as noted by historian Gareth Porter, Iran helped the US in 2001 and 2002 with respect to fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Other history of the Taliban and Iran being the most unlikely of bedfellows is noted in both of the diaries I link above, so I won’t belabor this point too much.
What I want to point out here is the same disinformation campaign (which we all were waiting for) that we saw back in 2002. And the same traps are being laid as well as fallen into here. Democratic Presidential candidates are, by and large, repeating the “Iran must never get nukes” line. Forget the fact that outside of a fairly neutered Ahmadinejad, the Iran leadership may be “hardliners” but they probably don’t want a nuclear holocaust. Ditto for most Israelis (and please don’t hijack this diary into an Israel thread). And while there already is a nuclear Pakistan (with al Qaeda and Taliban elements known to be in the country) as well as a nuclear North Korea – we aren’t bombing them back to the stone age, right?
Giuliani has rolled out his “keep America on offense” meme, which is basically a recipe for never ending war in some country somewhere. Lieberman has come out for military strikes on Iran. And so on and so on and so on…..
Can we all step back from the edge here for a second and see what is going on? In February, it wasn’t too long before the warmongers were forced to slink off with their tail between their legs when their hypocrisy (after all, if there were munitions “made in Iran” found in Iraq, what about all of the munitions we have provided to others throughout the years), tenuous links (even if it was made in Iran, it could have been bought on the black market or certainly not sanctioned by the government) and failure to see the irony in their assertions (under that scenario where Iranians = Iran, wouldn’t Saudi nationals funding Sunni insurgents = Saudi Arabia funding Sunni insurgents and torture by US elements = torture by the US government? Actually, that last one is most certainly true) was exposed.
But they didn’t go away – they just regrouped for another round of kool aid and bullshit. Although this one is, to me, even worse than the last time. It combines wild assertions that would be tantamount to us providing Sunni insurgents with weapons, even though these insurgents were targeting US troops a few months or weeks earlier – all for the promise to not do it again (oh wait, scratch that one….) with a healthy dose of fear – since most Americans don’t know that there is a long history of hate between the Taliban and Iran.
And while the US is crazy or stupid or shortsighted enough to actually arm their enemies, that doesn’t mean that other countries – “even Iran” – would do the same. What is the benefit here to Iran? They can already fuck with the US in Iraq – not just militarily but also diplomatically and politically. They can already fuck with the US ships that have amassed in the region.
They have absolutely no reason to piss off their buddy in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai. Which reminds me, wasn’t Karzai buddies with Zalmay Khalizad who is a PNAC signatory and has his fingerprints all over the US foreign policy since 2000? So a neocon buddy (Karzai) who “many say” was a puppet of the Bush administration pledges his friendship to Iran. Hmmmm….seems like a bit of a conflict of interest for those who want to bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran and those who can say that Karzai is “with us” but Iran is “against us”.
But I digress….
The point here is that this is most likely (and I only say most likely because it “only” makes no sense on any level) complete bullshit – but even bigger bullshit than “Saddam was working with bin Laden on 9/11”.
Yet, the same lying liar who lied in February is now being trotted out again to lie – but this time only a less credible or believable lie. And again with “there is credible evidence that we can’t show you”.
It was bullshit in 2002 and 2003. It was bullshit in February. And it is bullshit now.