While everyone here is distracted by the debate over whether a cracker is tasteless bread dough or a sacred slice of man/god meat, the right-wing source of outrage du jour is a widely published photograph of an Iranian missile test in which one of the missiles was clearly photoshopped into the picture. Gary Farber cuts through the crap and points out that yes, government propaganda agencies will lie to you. So?
If the right wing wants to fuel more hysteria to incite war with Iran, though, it seems like a mistake on their part to emphasize that one quarter of their weaponry are digital confabulations.
Anything to speed up Armageddon, am I right?
Its going to be sad when Israel goes ahead and bombs Iran, sure because of this stuff that the U.S. will back them up and we don’t.
I don’t know about the political debate, but that picture made its rightful place into Photoshop Disaster. :P
http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/2008/07/iranian-govt-persian-pixels-pwned.html
Am I the only one who suspects that the American right wingers and the Iranian hardliners are secretly collaborating? If they’re not they should think about it. Saber rattling from the Iranians boosts support for the fascists here at home, and our threats help prop up the theocrats over there. Where would Ahmadinejad and Cheney be without one another?
Is it? I mean, if the Iranians can photoshop in additional missiles, imagine what they can photoshop out. Did you see any plutonium centrifuges in that photo-op? Perhaps you should be asking yourself… why?
Absence of evidence is the very proof of existence. If it didn’t exist, why would they be trying to hide it? Eh? Eh? Yeah. QED, bitches.
You are not alone; the X-Files had an episode where a government insider stated that Saddam Hussein was a US employee paid to act up to distract the public from whatever Clinton did that week.
Conspiracy theories are never original.
The thing that gets me about the saber-rattling at Iran is that the U.S. military is hard pressed in occupying and pacifying Iraq. Iran has over twice the population of Iraq (70 million vs 29 million). Where are the neocons going to find the troops to invade and occupy Iran?
Oh well, qbsmd, I guess you’re right.
(It strikes me that your X-Files episode isn’t so far fetched. The US did find Hussein a useful ally against the Iranians back in the 80s. Gave him weapons and everything.)
Am I the only one who suspects that the American right wingers and the Iranian hardliners are secretly collaborating?
Two groups that have the same end goal in mind don’t have to be collaborating to work towards that same end goal.
For example, bin Laden has it on the record that he wanted oil at ~$140 per barrel back before 9/11. The oil companies also want a high price for oil. Does that mean that they’re collaborating? That the oil companies and bin Laden conspired to create events that would push up the price of oil? No – it just means that they have similar goals and can work independently (or take advantage of each other’s actions) to reach them.
Similarly, if there’s a faction in the US government that wants to start a war with Iran and there’s a faction in the Iranian government that wants to go to war with the US, does that mean those factions are collaborating together to start a war? Doubtful. Especially because their end goals are completely different (for starters they probably disagree with the important question of “who’s going to win”). Does that mean that they can’t work independently and take advantage of each other to reach their goals? Of course not.
Don’t look for conspiracy where human nature is just as easy an answer. You’ll make yourself more paranoid than you need to be.
Nony Nony: Mine wasn’t a serious suggestion, of course.
I like this comment posted in Photoshop Disasters:
I’m curious… what do people think about the link to the “miracle” PZ linked to? Credible scientific analysis? Is the story credible? I don’t know. I haven’t found anything to the contrary via google yet. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Has anyone read Seymour Hersh’s article “Preparing the Battlefield” in the New Yorker? The administration is funding covert ops that essentially committs terrorist attacks inside Iran, and the Democrats (Reid & Pelosi) acquiesced to it! They’re helping out the same group of people that produced Khalid Shiek Mohammed, mastermind of 9/11! And this is at the same time that the Taliban is again ascendant in Afghanistan & Pakistan, able to threaten our major supply line in the Khyber pass. Why is nobody shouting about this!?! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…
Religious nuts think alike automatically. No collaboration necessary. In fact, they do it best when they hate each other most.
Am I the only one who suspects that the American right wingers and the Iranian hardliners are secretly collaborating? If they’re not they should think about it. Saber rattling from the Iranians boosts support for the fascists here at home, and our threats help prop up the theocrats over there. Where would Ahmadinejad and Cheney be without one another?
It is deliciously ironic, but it isn’t necessarily because of direct collaboration. The only things wingnuts hate more than leftists are the wingnuts of the “Other”, because much of wingnut doctrine—whether white Republican, black supremacist, or Islamic terrorist—teaches that “We” are better than the “Other”, which inevitably leads to conflict when the “Other” asserts its own superiority. It isn’t surprising that when the wingnuts of one group rattle their sabers, the wingnuts of another group in turn are motivated to brandish their own swords.
That said, I think it highly improbable that the Repubs are going to get away with invading another country. Iraq and Afghanistan still lie in disrepair and continue to devour our soldiers, and if the disproportionate amount of media attention given to Obama and Clinton accurately represents general public opinion, it seems that the greater plurality of the American people are fucking sick of the GOP. The elephant is just too old and battle-scarred to start another stampede.
I just don’t understand the modern-day Republican. On the one hand, they denounce teh librulz for tax-and-spend policies, and yet by far the biggest drain on American resources and economy is the war. How do they mend that paradox in their minds?
I don’t think we’re going to invade Iran either. I do think, though, that a lot of people, here but in Iran as well, stand to reap political benefits from ratcheting up the tension, and launching the odd missile. The color coded terror alerts don’t work anymore (they were already old in 2004), so getting into a spat with the Iranians will have to do.
Doctored photos? Imagine what the right wing will do if Iran frabicacted intelligence about a threat of WMD’s and invaded a country as a result.
O! friend PZ, you should tread easy
on missile tabulation.
If it’s false–so? You could also
be called a cyber fabulation.
The catholic fits o’er sacred Ritz
invade your classes docile
and paint you prof to anti-saint
with no transition’l fossil.
ice
It strikes me that your X-Files episode isn’t so far fetched. The US did find Hussein a useful ally against the Iranians back in the 80s. Gave him weapons and everything.
That isn’t a conspiracy, that was common knowledge, besides we have, like everyone else, had less then savory allies when facing a worse common foe. Look who was one of our major allies in World War II, the one regime who may have been even more murderous then the Axis.
AdamNelson #15
The neocons believed the Iraqi War would pay for itself. As soon as Iraq was taken over, Halliburton would exploit the oil. In 2002 two of Halliburton’s main divisions were the Energy Services Group (ESG) and KBR (formerly Kellogg Brown & Root, now a independent company). ESG provides products and services for oil exploration and production. KBR is a construction company specializing in oil fields, pipelines and refineries.
Unfortunately, the idea the Iraqi War would be self-supporting turned out to be wishful thinking. So instead Bush and his minions continue to pay for the War with the national credit card.
Republicans keep bleating about how Bush can’t be dumb, since he has degrees from Yale and Harvard. Unfortunately, for a man with a Harvard MBA, Bush is extremely ignorant about basic economics.
(.)(.)
If the right wing wants to fuel more hysteria to incite war with Iran, though, it seems like a mistake on their part to emphasize that one quarter of their weaponry are digital confabulations.
I dunno – these imaginary WDMs can be very destructive. And what if they photoshopped a picture of a missile right onto a picture of the White House!
I realize that attacking the GOP is a pastime on this site and among its readers. However, I must take exception with the us of the term “hysteria” in this case.
Is it hysterical to say that Iran is arming itself with offensive weapons? No, because Tehran has made no secret of that.
Is it hysterical to say that Iran supports terrorist organizations like Hezbollah? No, because, again, Tehran has made no secret of that (unless you assume that these groups are not terrorists, of course).
Is it hysterical to cite the ideology of the regime in Tehran as being a danger to the region and to our security? Unless you assume that their calls for – an apocalyptic war against Israel, the destruction of various Sunni states or their long-standing desire to see the “Great Satan” either converted or destroyed – are all for show, then I think it is quite reasonable to look at them askance.
Is it hysterical to be suspicious of Iran’s nuclear program? I don’t see how one cannot be suspicious of a program wrapped in secrecy. You may decide to believe in Tehran’s statements of having a purely peaceful program or you may think that an Iran with nuclear weapons is acceptable. But does the contra position make one hysterical?
As for the desire to go to war, if the United States wanted a casus belli, we already have one. The shipment of Iranian arms and personnel into Iraq is well documented. This equipment and the training hostile forces have received from Iran have been used against the people and government of Iraq and Coalition forces. If all we wanted was an excuse, Tehran has already given one to us.
The fact is, this Administration has not been “rushing to war” with Tehran. Quite the opposite, in fact. Whether you agree with the Administration or not, how can one look at over five years of talks (admittedly, mostly through the EU-3), numerous concession packages and a lack of active reaction to Iranian interference in Iraq or the continuing supplying of groups like Hezbollah and Hamas as they attack a sovereign member of the United Nations? One may not like the specific tactics followed. Some of you are certainly in accord with Obama and think direct talks on a wide range of issues is the way to move forward. You may be right. That does not mean that the policies followed, however, are an attempt to “incite war.”
Not that anything I write is going to matter to the dogmatic (politically) consumers of this site. So, let the ad hominem attacks and ideologically based mouth frothing begin!
Bah! WDM -> WMD@22. The only WDM I know of is the World Development Movement, a commie front organisation I belong to.
Is it very bad of me to sort hope that the Iranians go ahead and bomb the shit outta Israel?
The biggest issue I have with it – by now – is pretty much the unjustness of making Palestine uninhabitable with the fall-out.
And the civilian casualties, of course …
The thing that gets me about the saber-rattling at Iran is that the U.S. military is hard pressed in occupying and pacifying Iraq.
It gets me, too. And here’s why: the US spends vastly more on its military than any other country in the world. Yet, we have a military that is so high tech with such an inefficient logistical train, that they are tapped out trying to fight simultaneous pacification actions against two 2nd world countries.
Chuck Spinney – one of the leading lights of the 80’s military reform movement – summarizes the problem brilliantly here:
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/defense_death_spiral/intro.htm
I always seem to wonder how Iran who spends a grand total of $6 bill. on military expenditures, or 1% (one percent !) of the US, and is more or less at the opposite side of the world can be such a great threat to the US’s national security.
I really wonder what are those pills that so many people take that seem to make them so easily paranoïd and then let their governement do all kinds of stupid things.
Don’t Americans realise that letting Israel attack Iran which is now extremely likely to happen anytime time soon, and supporting them or even worse entering into this war is actually going to have much more detrimental effects to their own well being than the alternative ? Once oil prices will have sky rocketted well above 250$, that this will have precipitated the economy into a deeper stagliationary crisis, that the middle east will be on fire, that Bush or the next administration will be calling for additional funds or maybe a draft, will they finally understand the mess they are getting into ?
You see I’m not that optimistic about all this, I still don’t trust that the American public opinion will be able to influence politicians in the most rational way. Will this influence the result of the presidential election ? Will the whole Iraq fiasco have served them a lesson ?
Actually, it was a well known “right winger” who originally broke this story – Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/30597_Irans_Photoshopped_Missile_Launch
There are several updates. Also, Charles is having a long run of anti-creationist/ID posts that are annoying many of his commenters. Those posts tend to get over a thousand comments.
So, there is SOME crossover between the left and the right, particularly on the question of religion, of all things.
Oh you poor martyr. Are those big, bad, nasty libruls going to be mean to little, innocent you?
There are several problems with the saber-rattling against Iran.
The U.S. already has its hands full. The U.S. has most of its military in Iraq, Afghanistan and, to a much lesser extent, the Balkans and Korea.
The Bush administration has refused to properly finance the Iraq War and occupation. Coupled with the current recession, the country cannot afford to get involved in another foreign adventure.
Bush and his lackeys squandered American prestige in the pursuit of Saddam Hussein. There were so many obvious lies given by the Bush administration about why we HAD to invade Iraq that the administration is the boy who cried wolf. Even if Iran is a genuine threat to world peace, very few people are going to believe the Bushites when they howl and cry about Iran.
Americans do not like long wars. The public dissatisfaction with Iraq will make it very hard for the government to do anything about Iran. “But the Iranians have nucular weapons.” “Yeah, right, first produce Saddam’s WMD and then we might believe you.”
I’m not saying that Iran isn’t a threat to world peace. I am saying that it will be difficult for the U.S. to do anything about it.
Wow, they’re learning to fake their military capabilities almost as well as we do. We should be worried. (I’m referring to the patriot missile and it’s possible 0% success rate. For good measure, throw in the test missile we shot down that turned out to be equipped with a homing beacon.)
We’re supposed to believe that 1/4 of those missiles not launching shows how inept they are, but we’re told that, after almost two decades of research and many, many billions spent, our Anti-Ballistic-Missile system is a huge success because they’ve managed to shoot down exactly one missile (that wasn’t outfitted to help out the anti-missile system) out of dozens of tries.
Yep. I guess I do have to believe in government propaganda.
#23 dimanes, don’t even bother. The science-related writing and commenting here are fun to read, but threads like this are a fetid swamp of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Save yourself the trouble.
The failure of one of the four missiles shown in the doctored pic may encourage the warmongers into thinking that the Iranians can do less damage, lessening their retaliatory capabilities. This would increase the chances of a strike against Iranian facilities.
The Iranians don’t have a fission bomb, so the chances of large-scale physical damage to Israel/Palestine is very low. Any Iranian missiles that can reach Tel Aviv could probably do about as much damage as a comparable number of German V-2s did to London. The only way that the Iranians could do a significant amount of damage would be to use a warhead of poison gas or made it a dirty bomb, but this would then make a lot of problems with Iranian propaganda efforts.
Any kind of attack on Iran would be almost solely by the Air Force and the Navy – similar to the campaign against Serbia. There would be bombing of military targets and some selected high-value civilian targets. The Army and the Marines know that they are incapable of sending any forces other than a few special forces units into Iran.
It’s an insidious political plot. You see, they will invade Iran from Iraq, using the troops already there. That way they will be able to say that they are withdrawing from Iraq, while invading Iran at the same time, and garner votes from both sides of this issue.
They don’t actually consider, or care, what happens to Iran or Iraq afterwards.
BMcP at 19:
That isn’t a conspiracy, that was common knowledge…
By far, the worst of what we (and other countires) do is common knowledge; the conspiracies are merely preparatory. Iraq was the aggressor in in the Iran-Iraq war.
…we have, like everyone else, had less then savory allies when facing a worse common foe.
Hussein’s attack was intended to take advantage of confusion and disorganization following Iranian revolution, the previous year, in 1979. During this revolution the Iranians ousted the Shah, by all accounts an unjust and totalitarian ruler. This irritated the Americans, who had propped up the Shah’s regime in return for access to Iranian oil. Hussein, meanwhile, also wanted Iranian oil, and was willing to deal with the Americans as the Shah had before him. This is roughly (though with some simplification) what united American and Iranian interests in the 1980s.
It is hard for me to understand how the Iranians come out of this situation as “worse.”
Does anyone with an ounce of sense actually think Iran is an actual threat? Seriously.
Ahmadinejad is a figurehead, and his rhetoric is about as dangerous as “Baghdad Bob’s.”
The Iranians can’t possibly go after the US directly; the entire right wing is acting like it’s Iran that has a couple of carrier groups parked just off its coastline. I’d love to see that.
Also, thanks to Bush and that moron David Frum (our apologies for sending him to you, but we didn’t want him either), Iran got put on notice that the Bush Administration was gunning for them for no apparent reason (“Axis of Evil,” anyone?), and they’ve, as the rest of us, learnt from observation that about the best way to keep the Americans from kicking the shit out of your country is to develop nuclear weapons, fast. It seems recently that you folks’ government only ever seems to go for the shitpot dictatorships that don’t actually have a chance of fighting back.
Is it very bad of me to sort hope that the Iranians go ahead and bomb the shit outta Israel?
Yes, I’d be very pissed at you if you sat back and didn’t at least protest ifwhen the Iranians hypothetically blew up a bunch of my good friends. The Israeli government sucks. Israelis don’t necessarily.
Hell, the American government sucks, but if I said, “Is it very bad of me to hope that the entire rest of the world bombs the shit out of the US because of what the Bush Administration has done?”, every American on this board would be complaining that I was being unfair and that collective punishment is not fair, immoral, unethical, et cetera. I thought Saddam Hussein sucked (albeit not as badly as about thirty five other contemporary dictators I could name), but I don’t think it’s just or fair that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dying because someone in the US decided it would be a good idea to “bomb the shit out of” them…
As with poster #11, I’m curious about the purported “miracle” presented here.
The item may well be human cardiac tissue, but that has nothing to do with it benig a transubstatiation anyway, as one could through sleight of hand replace a wafer with a piece of heart.
I could find nothing about it from anything but pro-catholic sites, and am curious about two claims – that it’s 1200 years old, and that it’s preserved without preservatives. If it is as old as claimed (certainly possible) I’m curious about the “preservation”, or whether it’s simply well dried. I rather doubt it’d be made available for analysis though :) They have nothing to gain by allowing it to be analysed, as the results could easily disprove the story, but confirmation of the age/state doesn’t prove that a miracle happened, just that it’s a really old piece of meat.
11 and 38:
About this particular “miracle,” I know nothing. Whatever it is, though, it’s typical of a whole genre of miracle stories, connected to a new wave of cracker devotion that took hold of Europe in the later middle ages, from the 13th and 14th centuries onwards.
So, first of all, there’s no way that it dates from the eighth century, whatever they believe at Lanciano. A lot of miracles tend to be repeatedly backdated, because they sound more august that way.
Second of all, this is hardly a unique case. The dried out “relics” left over from a number of these supposed miracles have been tested and frequently turn out to be bits of human tissue (or so the clerics claim, anyway). There’s a standard and rather obvious process at work, whereby the religious develop a legend about a particular saint or miracle, some time goes by, and then somebody “finds” relics of said saint/miracle. Often (though, from what I can tell, not in this case) an entire subsidiary legendary tradition grows up to explain why the evidence was previously missing, why God chose to reveal it at this point, etc.
Anyway, sorry to be obvious.
Well its pretty obvious that right-wingers with access to U.S. military anthrax mailed it to Democrats and media they saw as anti-Bush… killing several people by doing so. So a little photoshop job is nothing.
“Any kind of attack on Iran would be almost solely by the Air Force and the Navy – similar to the campaign against Serbia. There would be bombing of military targets and some selected high-value civilian targets.”
The U.S. should be very careful in assuming that Iran has little or no means with which to retaliate in the case of such an attack. Does anyone really think they’re simply going to sit back and take it? A few things to remember:
Iran has more than twice the population of Iraq.
Unlike Iraq, Iran has not had its infrastructure and military systematically undermined by 10 years of bombing and sanctions.
Iran has tremendous influence in the two most powerful parties in Iraq (Dawa and the Supreme Council).
Iran’s western mountains overlook the Persian Gulf, and they are known to be in possession of some pretty sophisticated anti-naval weaponry.
Regardless of whether our attack is primarily air and naval or not, assuming that that will lessen any potential fallout is simply ridiculous. Iran can call for an uprising in the Shia portions of Iraq, disrupt oil production and transit in the region, and can probably effectively retaliate against our air and naval forces on their own.
That last might have come first, and answered your question.
Thanks muchly for the link, P.Z., as ever!
Tyler @41
My point was that there is not much that the US can do to Iran other than destroy a lot of infrastructure and kill people. We don’t have enough non-nuclear ordinance to effectively shut down the whole country. The costs will be enormous: doubling the cost of oil at the minimum, probably more like quadrupling the price. All the Iranians would have to do is hit one tanker in the gulf and insurers would freeze all the tankers going to the area. The odds that the Iranians would be able to hit at least one tanker and possibly a Navy warship of two is very high. Israel, with all their technology was not able to shut down the Hizbollah rockets in Southern Lebanon, so how could the US take out every shore-to-ship missile battery on the Iranian coastline? And I would expect the Iranians manning their missile batteries would feel that martyrdom is a good idea, so that they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot, even though they would be detected and killed in the process.
Of course, another big price jump for oil wouldn’t hurt profits in th’awl bidness. Just everybody else. And China would be really pissed, maybe enough to further the economic damage.
“My point was that there is not much that the US can do to Iran other than destroy a lot of infrastructure and kill people.”
K, sorry I misread you.
Unless you assume that their calls for – an apocalyptic war against Israel, the destruction of various Sunni states – dimanes
[citations needed]
Is it hysterical to be suspicious of Iran’s nuclear program? I don’t see how one cannot be suspicious of a program wrapped in secrecy. You may decide to believe in Tehran’s statements of having a purely peaceful program or you may think that an Iran with nuclear weapons is acceptable. But does the contra position make one hysterical? – dimanes
A declassified summary of the latest US National Intelligence Estimate found with “high confidence” that the Islamic republic stopped an effort to develop nuclear weapons in the fall of 2003. Of course, it’s well known these reports are actually written in Tehran.
As for the desire to go to war, if the United States wanted a casus belli, we already have one. The shipment of Iranian arms and personnel into Iraq is well documented. – dimanes
[citations needed]
If there’s an attack on Iran, the first salvo at least will come from Israel. Indeed, Shaul Mofaz, one of Israel’s deputy Prime ministers, made a direct threat of such an attack just last month. It would probably be timed to influence the US election, or possibly to ensure President-elect Obama (if he wins) is locked into the Middle East war by the time he enters office. In light of this, the Iranian missile tests (and the photoshopping) look more like an attempt at deterrence than preparation for a first strike.
dimanes #23,
well yes, it’s hysterical to believe that Iran, with 1% of the US military budget is capable to fund all these terrorist activities, to be such a great threat for the regional and US security, to fund such a formidable nuclear programme…
When the USA with a 100 times their budget can’t even control Iraq and Afghanistan for chissakes, you seem to believe Iranians are hundreds times more intelligent and efficient than Americans, is that what you are suggesting ?
As I said it seems those paranoïa pills you’re taking are working very well indeed.
Apparently it’s even worse than 1/4 of their missile force being fake:
http://www.drudgereport.com/flashim.htm
>
IRAN MISSILE TEST BLUFF: OLD ROCKETS, BOGUS VIDEO
Fri Jul 11 2008 15:18:02 ET
Many of Iran’s claims related to missile tests during “Great Prophet III” war games — appear to be smoke and mirrors!
The missiles tested DID NOT not have 2,000-kilometer range, the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to report on Saturday.
Iran DID NOT launch a Shahab-3 missile, able to reach Israel.
It was an older missile that was out of production, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE.
And a video showing what appeared to be many missiles being fired — is actually one missile, filmed from different angles!
NYT’s Bill Broad is planning to quote military insiders.
Developing…
>
And what pills are you on chump, where you’re suggesting “it is hysterical to believe” that Iran funds Hezbollah ?
The moon landing is a more contested fact than this. There is less consensus on IPCC reports than there is on this, you idiot. The film “Chariots of Fire” won an Oscar in the year this was news. FFS.
@ #37: Ah, yes. Good old “Baghdad Bob.”
Oddly, I’m not worried about Iran saber-rattling.
There’s an old Russian proverb which translates roughly as “rattling a saber makes noise, drawing one does not.”
I do not see Israel attacking Iran on their own hook anytime this decade. Israel’s politicians may make noise about it, but they haven’t really the long range capability for the kind of massive strike that would be called for.
I also don’t see “W” ordering any such attack during the remains of his administration. The two men will shake their fists at each other and sling insults, and then the next President will have to clean up the mess. I do not envy them the task.
How is publishing a picture of Iranian Rockets on the front page (NYT) considered right-wing war mongering? NYT is hardly hawkish.
And the point of the photoshopped picture is NOT omigod! Iranian propaganda! Its more that the newsmedia passed it along uncritically. The words gullible and slipshod come to mind.
Every time I see the title of this post, my first thought is to misread it as “Quaker canons in a digital age, and I expect to hear some lovely bit of contrapuntal music on a synthesizer or something.
…am I totally alone in this?…
Yeah, probably so.
Kilo,
it’s not hysterical to believe that Iran funds Hezbollah, but how much ? Do you have any idea how much ? No, the only thing you can say is, they fund Hezbollah, and repeat the same useless piece of neocon propaganda. How are you supposed to evaluate the real threat this represents ? Can you tell me exactly what has Hezbollah done so far in terms of fabulous military achievements ?
For chrissake, does Hezbollah represent a threat to the US’ national security ?
For chrissake, the USSR with more than 50 times the budget of Iran was for years supposed to be financing throughout the world various counter-revolutionary movements that were supposed to be a huge threat to the US and look what happened, and now you are telling me that Iran, with a tiny fraction of that budget, who doesn’t even have nuclear capabilities yet, who has no real military industry as such, who probably funds Hezbollah, Hamas and a few others with an amount per year not even equivallent to a day’s worth of what the American military spends in Iraq has replaced that threat, and we should really take it with the same level of severity ?
I really wonder how we managed to survive the years of the cold war.
Yes, you’re paranoïd.
Can’t you see that the biggest threat to national security actually comes from home-grown terrorism and that this threat grows proportionally to the failures of American international policies in the middle east and elsewhere ?
Welcome back Etha, you have been missed.
> For chrissake, the USSR with more than 50 times the budget of Iran was for
> years supposed to be financing throughout
> the world various counter-revolutionary movements that were supposed to be a
> huge threat to the US
Your characterization of Stalinism as “counter-revolutionary”, while probably a (freudian?) slip of the pen, might actually be true enough …
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Here’s teh realz original photo:
I’ve got a fever! And the only prescription is…
I just wanted to chew up a few bytes to say that you are a moron. Not that most people don’s already know that, but I just wanted to tell you myself.