US Intercepts Iranian Order For Attack On US Embassy In Iraq 433
cold fjord writes "Another NSA story? The Wall Street Journal reports, 'The U.S. has intercepted an order from Iran to militants in Iraq to attack the U.S. Embassy and other American interests in Baghdad in the event of a strike on Syria ... U.S. officials said they are on alert for Iran's fleet of small, fast boats in the Persian Gulf ... U.S. officials also fear Hezbollah could attack the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. While the U.S. has moved military resources in the region for a possible strike, it has other assets in the area that would be ready to respond to any reprisals by Syria, Iran or its allies. ... Israel has so far been the focus of concerns about retaliation from Iran and its Lebanese militant ally Hezbollah. The commander-in-chief of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps said last week that an attack on Syria would lead to the "destruction of Israel." ... The Iranian message, intercepted in recent days, came from Qasem Soleimani, the head of Revolutionary Guards' Qods Force, and went to Iranian-supported Shiite militia groups in Iraq, according to U.S. officials.' What's interesting is this Washington Post story from 2011: Iran's Quds Force was blamed for attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq."
Keep the Distraction Machine Running (Score:5, Insightful)
Situation normal.
Re:Keep the Distraction Machine Running (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:WSJ is not exactly a credible source (Score:4, Insightful)
All Rupert Murdoch newspapers are warmongering tools.
BS Detectors at Maximum, Mr. Sulu (Score:5, Insightful)
Within the last 10 years, both the United States and Israel have been busted for faking intelligence for supporting military strikes. The IDF, all of three years ago, was caught dubbing hair on fire anti-semitic [maxblumenthal.com] slurs onto tapes from the Freedom Flotilla.
And, of course, remember that the U.S. and Israel have already committed multiple acts of war upon Iran, whether by Stuxnet or assassinating their nuclear scientists.
I'm supposed to trust this? (Score:5, Insightful)
First, look at the source. I'm sure that the US intelligence agencies will all run to the Wall Street Journal with leaked information. Next, there have been no facts presented for anything else they have been banging a war drum on. Not just for this, but for decades. Are we really supposed to keep trusting known liars and a corrupt media system?
We also have this [cbslocal.com] one.
Not only do I not trust a corrupt media and politicians, I want them out of our country. Maybe a good first step in war is to start parachuting politicians into these foreign countries where they clamor for war?
Re:BS Detectors at Maximum, Mr. Sulu (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey now, haven't you learned that any criticism of Israel is antisemitic?
Timing is suspect (Score:5, Insightful)
The day after Snowden reveals NSA snoops secure internet traffic ...
Do we even trust the media anymore? They are just a tool for beating the war drums now.
Wasn't the whole CIA-Iran coup thing started with planting false stories in the media. How do we know that we aren't being fed planted stories?
The U.S word is no good (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:America would deserve it... (Score:5, Insightful)
As a former U.S. service member, I'm with this guy. Both sides of the Syrian civil war are equally "bad guys". Sometimes going to war is warranted, getting involved in Syria isn't.
Care Factor 0 (Score:0, Insightful)
If Israel gets attacked. Its the cause of a large amount of Middle East unrest
Iran / Iraq (Score:3, Insightful)
Since I paid attention to the TV "news" as a teen or thereabouts, we (the west) have been at war with Iraq, then Iran, then Iraq, and now Iran is getting the propaganda treatment ready for another skirmish. Eric Blair must have used this for his 1984. I know people have short memories, aren't interested, claim it's god's will, or prefer "reality" TV to life beyond their sad lives, but come on, surely I'm not the only non-historian to see we're vacillating between these two?
We (the west, most likely US and UK) must be looking to supply Iraq (old UK territory) with a huge amount of expensive weaponry and military contractors, just like we did with Iran, and Iraq before them. It's not just the oil, it's the contracts, and it's not just the US. It's the old British and French regions constantly having to fight among themselves and the US led oil occupancy campaigns.
Re:The fishy smell just got worse. (Score:5, Insightful)
So supposedly the US and British found evidence that Syria had used sarin, but refused to divulge the details.
Well, that bit would make sense. If you divulge too many details, you leave clues as to how to came by your information which puts your spies and methods at risk. Which leads me to the next part...
Now a mystery communication putting Iran and Syria together if attacked. First of all if they had intercepted this, why would they tell every one about it. Now Iran is going to find another form of communication since this one is compromised. The whole scenario is playing out like a bad 80's conspiracy movie.
Agreed, releasing this doesn't make much sense from a US standpoint, IMO; if we had this info, why the hell would we make it public knowledge that we had it !? Seems it would've been smarter if we had played dumb and covertly made preparations to thwart any such attacks.
Re:WSJ is not exactly a credible source (Score:3, Insightful)
Nonsense. The WSJ (on the right) and NYT (on the left) are the two most intellectually solid papers in the US. Both have, over the last 20 years, been responsible for first breaking any number of very important stories.
Anybody who dismisses either of these papers because they happen to dislike the owners or the story being told doesn't deserve to be taken seriously.
Re:BS Detectors at Maximum, Mr. Sulu (Score:3, Insightful)
One or two nutjobs that nobody cares about have labeled legitimate anti-israel criticism as anti-semitic.
Yet people like you make it sound like some big widespread thing so that you can feel like oppressed victims.
I dunno... it's from ColdFjord of all people. (Score:2, Insightful)
I dunno... it's from ColdFjord of all people. I mean, he's radically in favor of the NSA and anything that even remotely justifies their existance and current illegal activities is going to be spun as god's own truth. If he's involved in the discussion and the NSA is on topic, then I simply have to take everything with a fist-sized grain of salt. I'll just look elsewhere for information on who said what about Iran.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
No credibility (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the US has lost all its credibility in the world since it became known where all of the 'credible documents' about Iraq came from. I'll believe there were chemical weapons used but most likely it was the rebels, trying to get other countries involved in their war.
Also, as a European, I'm getting ever so tired of hearing how 'America is the policeman of the world'. Why not let the Middle East countries clean up their own mess for once? The added bonus being a lot less angry Muslims giving the US the stinkeye.
Re:And if they do this, we have to do that, and... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:BS Detectors at Maximum, Mr. Sulu (Score:2, Insightful)
Umm... not that I want to justify the US in doing all their nastiness in the middle east but Iran hasn't exactly been laying olive branches at our feet. As bad as our government is, I'm under no delusion about what's going to happen once the psychopaths in charge of that country have nukes. In my opinion Israels justified in doing just about anything they want to prevent that from happening because I doubt there will be an Israel anymore after it does.. or an Iran for that matter. I think the only thing that maybe makes such a situation not so terrifying is that somehow North Koreas managed not to go bat-shit crazy since they got their nukes. But then again, North Korea and Japan do not have the religious zealotry that Iran and Israel do. God help us all indeed.
Re:America would deserve it... (Score:5, Insightful)
And here I thought you'd got control of yourself, cold fjord; all the submissions have been bumping up your karma rating, and I hadn't seen anything inflammatory from you lately.
Being unsurprised at tit-for-tat has nothing to do with being an Anti-US sympathizer. What you'll find though is that there are a growing number of people who are against the US government's foreign policy, because it costs lives, often without appearing to have any benefit to the US as a whole (only to businesses who have a vested interest in some foreign country).
When Israel says "let the Muslim world handle this" and the UN almost unilaterally takes a "don't touch this" attitude, then some nation issues orders to retaliate if the US conducts an unprovoked assault on another nation, when said nation is known to be high on the list of "next targets", WHY IS THE US GOVERNMENT IGNORING THE REST OF THE WORLD, INCLUDING MANY OF ITS OWN CITIZENS, TO CONSIDER ATTACKING, AND THEN IS IN A HUFF WHEN ANOTHER NATION GIVES ITS OPERATIVES SIMILAR INSTRUCTIONS?
You can't have it both ways, as your comments about 9/11 so clearly indicate.
Show me the number of Americans killed by terrorists, averaged over the past decade -- I'll show you the number of Americans and non-Americans killed by American corporate and governmental greed and negligence. Neither have much of anything to do with this discussion.
Re:America would deserve it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:America would deserve it... (Score:3, Insightful)
By the way, I've got a question for you. I don't think that the collapse of the World Trade Center from the 9/11 attacks in New York, crushing thousands of people to death, resulted in the "Tree of Liberty" growing any stronger from the blood shed. Do you? Do you think they were just not "patriotic enough" to make a difference?
Building seven called, there is something wrong with the party line. Architects and Engineers have additional questions. [ae911truth.org] Of course you may not want facts to get in the way of your absurd level of delusion. Either that or your masters will be mad if you look at facts (I'm not so sure after reading many of your posts)
Is there any point where you think too much American blood can be shed in slaughter instead of battle? Or is every American killed at work or shopping by terrorists another tick mark toward "liberty" to you - the more Americans murdered the "freer" you feel?
Last time I checked, more people die from accidental slip and falls in the bathtub than die by terrorism. You repeat an appeal to emotion argument handed down to sheep, goodie for you. Many people understand what was meant when we were told "Those that give up Liberty for a bit of temporary security deserve and get neither." In fact there are a tremendous amount of similar anecdotes from Jews in Germany prior to a tyrannical take over by Hitler, many more from Russia before Lenin, many more in China before Mao, etc... Perhaps you have somehow convinced yourself that human nature does not exist in the USA or that some magic shield protects you from tyranny. Either way, you are delusional.
Re:America would deserve it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes you did. If you had any brains you should have known the US acts like the worlds bully. If you were too blinded by your idea of "patriotism" too see it, now's the wakeup call.
Oceana has always been at war with Eurasia. (Score:5, Insightful)
At least this week.
I think America has finally realized they're being lied to; hell, Obama doesn't even look like he believes what he's saying, and that's suicide for a politician.
This will not end well, however it goes.
I advocate a full Nuclear Strike; It makes as much sense as everything else.
Re:BS Detectors at Maximum, Mr. Sulu (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering past history, Iran has not started any wars in the region. The US-backed Iraq has. Iran with nukes will probably only use them to prevent US and Israeli attacks. Even better if they get rocket technology to deliver them: hey, US, you attack and we'll probably loose but some of your cities will be finished too. I think it would actually promote peace since it would prevent US agression.
Re:America would deserve it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now This "Snowden" Shit Has Hit the Fan (Score:4, Insightful)
We can at least capitalise on the public's fear that we get everything, and use that plausibility to say what ever the hell serves our agenda!
Ladies and gentlemen I remind you this comes from agencies that are PAID to LIE.
I'll say this. If they had factual intercepts of private Iranian military communication wit this level of detail? They'd find more value in HIDING this capability, then by showing the hole poker-hand. Instead, they release this as a PR move to push a war agenda.
You can bet, when an unnamed official source produces actual evidence of this eavesdropping capability? He will be prosecuted as a traitor - and probably hounded to Moscow.
Re:Keep the Distraction Machine Running (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole story is an outright lie - to set up a desired chain of events, where striking Syria illegally will create an incident that can be trumped up as Iranian in origin, thus justifying an attack on the actual desired target.
You folks were all played REALLY badly, on the Iraq bait-n-switch. If you want to go for this one, will you at least walk down my Carnival Midway, first?
I have some "P.T. Barnum" theories, I'd like put to test...
Re:America would deserve it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Any man who is a slave to orders is a weak link to humanity. A true warrior always considers the value of those orders and only obeys them if they are appropriate, if those orders represent a threat to that warriors society than that warrior is duty and honour bound to act upon the threat and not act out those orders, that is the law, look it up.
Re:America would deserve it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Seems like the guy who joined the military without being aware of its history would be the actual idiot.
Re:And if they do this, we have to do that, and... (Score:5, Insightful)
"The full on assault of Libya, and Iraq took 14-20 days. and we rolled over their defenses with minimal to no losses of our own. Do you honestly think iran would last longer than 30 days againist a full on military strike?"
And how many days did it take America to "roll over" Vietnam?
America is the World's pre-eminent super power but as soon as their boys start returning home in body bags, they lose the taste for war. Do you think Iran doesn't know this?
You can't compare Iran with Iraq. Iran is 4 times as large, over twice as populated and (unlike Iraq) largely ethnically homogenous and pretty unified. They lost between 300 000 and 600 000 in their war with Iraq and suffered chemical attacks but they still repelled the invaders (who were being assisted by the US). Can you image America taking even a small percentage of those casualties?
I don't want to sound down on America, but if you think this is going to be a walk in the park, you're going to get your asses kicked.
Re:Keep the Distraction Machine Running (Score:5, Insightful)
You may have hoped for a massive TL;DR response, but I read some of it. Several other lines were untrue: Al-Qaida in Iraq (it came during the war to support the insurgents, was not there to begin with), the fact that 9/11, I quote, "underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations" (a few knives are hardly a WMD; if anything, 9/11 underscored how easy it is to pull off a terrorist plot with simple tools and some out-of-the-box thinking), the possibility that Iraq would use WMDs in a surprise attack against the US or pass them to terrorists.
I asked myself, and I answered myself that the sheeple would not care if no WMDs were not found after the war was started. Who started the war needed an excuse to get it started, not to justify himself afterwards. No WMDs were found, yet I don't see Bush, Rumsfeld and all other war criminals (because that's what they technically are) being brought to court and sentenced to death by hanging (which is what was normally dished out for the crime of war of aggression [wikipedia.org] at Nuremberg).
Re:Keep the Distraction Machine Running (Score:3, Insightful)
This has as much to do with Obama as the Iraq war had with Bush. Obama is not calling the shots.
If you think this has any relation to a "red line" remark, you've been reading far too much American media. The U.S. media has been systematically ratcheting up public support by polluting public forum with rhetoric and hijacking the narrative with prepared talking points. It's cute you still believe in free press.
Like it's been said before. This has everything to do with Syrian pipelines and geopolitics. Yes, pipelines. Multiple. The only news organizations reporting on it are The Guardian and Aljazeera.
Huh? England *very* much wants this as does all of NATO. Oh, are you talking about English citizens? They don't matter in this decision.
Re:America would deserve it... (Score:4, Insightful)
The really sad part about it is that you are actively not protecting your family. You're doing them a disservice by being involved and serving a morally corrupt institution. That enemy combatant that you so wantonly wish to kill? He has his own family and friends. And guess what, he wants to KILL YOU to protect his family and friends, because in his eyes, you are the evil enemy soldier that's out to get his family.
Protect your actually family first, from real and immediate harm. Instead of from the fictional boogey-man that the government tells you is out to harm your loved ones. In reality, war is between governments. And if you choose to be a decent human being, you'll realize that the only real war you need to fight is the one against those who will take your freedom to be a good human, and turn you on your fellow man.