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."
America would deserve it... (Score:5, Interesting)
The fishy smell just got worse. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The fishy smell just got worse. (Score:5, Interesting)
So supposedly the US and British found evidence that Syria had used sarin, but refused to divulge the details.
Conversely, Russian officials are claiming that they've found evidence [rt.com] that the rebels had used sarin, but instead of keeping it on the D/L, they're passing the info along to the UN inspectors.
FWIW.
Re:Fine but leave my tranny wombat porn alone (Score:5, Interesting)
My first thought reading this was (assuming the story is true), "this is exactly what the NSA is *supposed* to be doing." They should be focusing on gathering foreign intelligence, NOT collecting bazillions of phone records of Americans and coercing American companies (Google/Microsoft/etc) to build backdoors and weaknesses into their software and servers.
So? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's say, for the sake of argument, this is a legitimate intercept that's been made public for the purposes of swaying public opinion in favor of the NSA's spying program. Were any of us upset that the US government is attempting to learn about the activities of other nations hostile to it? No, of course not.
But how does this supposedly justify any of the crap behavior we ARE upset about?
Do the Iranians use Verizon cell phones to give tactical orders to its sailors? Does Hezbollah use Gmail to coordinate its attacks? Maybe the G-20 ministers were going to kidnap an American right after the conference? Or perhaps its those NSA spooks' ex-wives that were going to aid and abet the Taliban in their next attacks?
Re:The fishy smell just got worse. (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if the message was authentic and there was a reason to release that information WHY is this going through the WSJ instead of from The White House?
The next question is WHO will call for the prosecution of the journalist at the WSJ who published this.
And WHO will call for the investigation and prosecution of who leaked that information.
Re:America would deserve it... (Score:5, Interesting)
As a US service member, I really don't want this to happen because I'll probably get sent there if this flares up and I've got less than 5 months left in the military. However, I think the US fully deserves it if they do carry out this attack on Syria.
Now you know how it felt in Vietnam. The funny (as in odd) thing is, the profiteers of that war are the same profiteers of this war. The funnier (even odder yet) the bought dog politicians of that war are the AIPAC bought dog politicians of this war.
Re:BS Detectors at Maximum, Mr. Sulu (Score:5, Interesting)
Gee I wonder how those psychopaths got into power. It's not like the CIA overthrew their democratically elected leader and installed their own lap dog leading to revolution a decade later instilling anti american feelings in the region or anything.
A few problems in this oft-quoted assumption:
1. The mullahs who later supported overthrowing the Shah also hated Mossadegh. It wasn't until after the Shah pissed off the mullahs (see item 2) that Mossadegh's overthrow became a talking point with them. They (as did the US) saw Mossadegh as having Marxist sympathies -- a very bad thing given Marxism's hostility towards religion. Grand Ayatollah Broujerdi (who Khomeini was a clerk for at the time) strongly supported the coup. This attitude continued despite a temporary alliance during the 1978-79 revolution, and a lot of Marxists were executed after Khomeini's rise to power. Even after the revolution, Khomeini continued to condemn Mossadegh, refusing to allow his birthday to be celebrated, stating that "if the US imperialists had not slapped Mossadegh in the face, then Mossadegh would have slapped Islam."
2. What really pissed off the mullahs (and their followers) was the Shah's attempts as liberalizing and secularizing Iran, in particular the elimination of official government privileges and funding for the clergy, removing religious influence from the schools (fx. by teaching evolution), and extending voting rights to women. You need to distinguish with what was grievances against the Shah were emphasized by the people in Iran, and what grievances were emphasized for external consumption to undermine support for him internationally.
3. A large segment in Iran were pissed off about it, but it certainly didn't instill anti-American feelings "in the region" as you put it. The peninsular Arabs did not want to wind up staring across the Gulf at a Soviet sympathizer, as they feared Mossadegh of being or at least becoming.
Also, while it's not a part of the cause/effect discussion, I have yet to see any of the folks who condemn Operation Ajax whenever the topic of US/Iranian relations comes up similarly condemn Operation Countenance (the earlier Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran).
Re:And if they do this, we have to do that, and... (Score:5, Interesting)
good let someone else do something for a change.
Let iran and syria claim the west was scared. the USA has literally marched and rolled over countries in the blink of an eye.
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?
The problem is not the initial strike and devastating military blow but the aftermath. the long term engagement planning. the USA simply doesn't plan for more than 6 months into the future. It is why we keep getting bogged down into quagmires. We remember the revolutionary war and bam George washington was president, and we had a constitution. What is often forgotten is the articles of confederation lasted for the better part of ten years before we got it right and we didn't have Britain, or France breathing down our backs trying to "help" us. while the French supported us we forced the british out we started the fight and we finished the fight. you can not build nation from the outside it must be built inside. these muslim countries don't want freedom and democracy they want Ayatollah's and dictators.
Stay the fuck out of syria. Let them use chemical weapons on each other. Islam is heading for a full on civil war between shia and sunni's. It is going to make the Spanish inquisition the protestant reformations look peaceful. Stay the fuck out of the area and let them kill each other. You can't change their mind so you might as well not get your hands bloody.
Re:Keep the Distraction Machine Running (Score:3, Interesting)
Iraq bait-n-switch? You need to spend less time getting third hand information and more time finding it yourself.
Here is the Iraq war resolution. Pay special attention to the whereas lines. They lay out the official reasons we went to war and to the best of my knowledge, the only one that has turned out to be untrue was the continuing WMD programs and stockpiles. Those reasons were the ones argued going into the war by Bush and Company.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ243/html/PLAW-107publ243.htm [gpo.gov]
The problem with the WMDs was that Iraq was trying to make it appear that they had them when they didn't and purposely thwarted efforts to verify their destruction per the UN security council resolution 686 (march 2 1991) and 687 (March 3 1991) that Iraq conceded to March 5th. If you think the WMDs were made up, then ask yourself why the government would lie to get us into a war and not put WMDs in the sand somewhere to keep it's citizens trusting of it. The bottom line was that Saddam feared Iran would find it a weakness if they verified they had no WMDs so he refused to allow that to happen.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/world/middleeast/03saddam.html?ref=world&_r=0 [nytimes.com]
You likely would have had better results if you used the Gulf of Tonkin as your example of being played REALLY badly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin [wikipedia.org]
I don't dispute this could all be a ruse. But the orders from Iran was a so called order if the US acted not something that would cause the US to act. We already know Iran feeds terrorist organizations and we already know who those organizations are. We have been able to piece the puzzles together since the mid 1980's.
In all seriousness, and I will likely be modded down for this because it's a negative on Obama. But he is a rank amateur in office who was attempting to gloat in some glory and made a statement that he is trying to wiggle out of. He drew a red line, he made a statement trying to act like the kid in class who wants to be more special or important then they are willing to be. He is the arm chair quarterback who thinks they can play the game better then those playing but when push comes to shove, refuses to suit up and get hit. So he made a statement, he is finding all sorts of opposition on it. England wants nothing to do with us on it as well as most of Europe. Russia warns us about getting involved (they are still pissed we ignored them on Libya). Russia claims the chemicals used were not weapons grade and the delivery mechanism was not military grade. They published that report with the UN. This could very well be a defining moment that restarts the cold war.
http://www.heraldonline.com/2013/09/05/5178949/russia-says-it-has-compiled-a.html [heraldonline.com]
This release equivalence of "all hell will break loose if we bomb Syria because Iran is making sure of it" is most likely an attempt to persuade congress to deny authorization. I don't think Obama had any intent of changing his calculus in the first place and either made the statement to feel powerful at the time or in the hopes that it would completely deter any usage of the chemical weapons. Now he is backed into a corner and I think he is strongly attempting to find a way out. If congress denies his use of force, he can blame them. The so called war weary citizens will be even more vocal now that it is known that we (not just our ally Israel) will be attacked by known terrorist organizations backed and funded by Iran.