Glenn Greenwald writes: The most difficult challenge in writing about the Iranian Terror Plot unveiled yesterday is to take it seriously enough to analyze it. Iranian Muslims in the Quds forces sending maurading bands of Mexican drug cartel assassins onto sacred American soil to commit Terrorism — against Saudi Arabia and possibly Israel — is what Bill Kristol and John Bolton would feverishly dream up while dropping acid and madly cackling at the possibility that they could get someone to believe it. But since the U.S. Government rolled out its Most Serious Officials with Very Serious Faces to make these accusations, many people (therefore) do believe it; after all, U.S. government accusations = Truth. All Serious people know that. And in the ensuing discussion one finds virtually every dynamic typically shaping discussions of Terrorism and U.S. foreign policy.
To begin with, this episode continues the FBI’s record-setting undefeated streak of heroically saving us from the plots they enable. From all appearances, this is, at best, yet another spectacular “plot” hatched by some halpess loser with delusions of grandeur but without any means to put it into action except with the able assistance of the FBI, which yet again provided it through its own (paid, criminal) sources posing as Terrorist enablers. The Terrorist Mastermind at the center of the plot is a failed used car salesman in Texas with a history of pedestrian money problems. Dive under your bed. “For the entire operation, the government’s confidential sources were monitored and guided by federal law enforcement agents,” explained U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, and “no explosives were actually ever placed anywhere and no one was actually in ever in any danger.’”
But no matter. The U.S. Government and its mindless followers in the pundit and think-tank “expert” class have seized on this ludicrous plot with astonishing speed to all but turn it into a hysterical declaration of war against Evil, Hitlerian Iran. “The US attorney-general Eric Holder said Iran would be ‘held to account’ over what he described as a flagrant abuse of international law,” and “the US says military action remains on the table,” though “it is at present seeking instead to work through diplomatic and financial means to further isolate Iran.” Hillary Clinton thundered that this “crosses a line that Iran needs to be held to account for.” The CIA’s spokesman at The Washington Post, David Ignatius, quoted an anonymous White House official as saying the plot “appeared to have been authorized by senior levels of the Quds Force.” Meanwhile, the State Department has issued a Travel Alert which warns American citizens that this plot “may indicate a more aggressive focus by the Iranian Government on terrorist activity against diplomats from certain countries, to include possible attacks in the United States.”
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War in Context
… with attention to the unseen
Richard Silverstein isn’t buying it either. He sees the Shalit deal with Hamas as clearing the agenda for an attack on Iraq:
“If you read today’s news of our exposure of an alleged Iranian terror plot and the clear exaggeration the Justice Department is offering to explain the conspirators, their goals, and the means they attempted to use to achieve them, I think it reads like the U.S. and Israel preparing the world for an attack on Iran. Before they do, they need to ratchet up pressure, intensify the demonization campaign. They need to make Iran look the part of the villain before they strike.”
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2011/10/11/yediot-bibi-did-shalit-deal-because-he-has-something-bigger-prepared-for-iran/
Would you buy a bomb plot from a used-car salesman? The Obama administration seems fool enough to.
The best thing about this is the steady erosion of credibility for the FBI, and of trust in the US administration—of any level and any stripe. Has there been even one ‘so called’ terrorist plot that has not been mentored and engineered by the authorities? The police forces, that today seemed to be composed of dishonest goons and agent provocateur supervisors are increasingly tarred with this brush, making a full house of unreliable law enforcement services that seem ripe for becoming the facilitators of a fascist police state.
The wisest response to these kinds of stories are a laugh and then a big yawn. Given enough rope, these chicken littles will hang themselves in their own web of lies.
Sadly, just enough Americans are believing this garbage to continue the agenda.
I love this shit. Whats makes this latest fictional terror plot so interesting is how it can also be spun to justify our involvement in the Fast and Furious nonsense. “We were arming certain Drug Cartels in exchange for information regarding Iranian Boogy-Men.” “You see, everythings cool,man.” “USA, USA, USA!!! Land of the uninformed, moronic, cowards.
It’s a little surreal to use an accused terror plot to instruct the policy of all states. To ‘hold them to account’ for something they might have done seems a bit premature.
Is the public really meant to believe that a state actor would hire out what would be an act of war? As if they wouldn’t want to be truly responsible?
What have the ‘serious authorities’ been smoking? Can they send some down here to NZ and then we can reach the conclusion that the oil currently spilling onto our beaches was sent by Iran as a warning to our current ‘warming relationship’ with the USA!
…It’s now well known that both Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton are huilty of arming the Mexican drug cartels (Fast and Furious operation)… And now we see them inventing this silly plot that Iran is hiring Mexican hitmen to kill the Saudi Ambassador… What a bunch of morons they are thinking we’re going to believe such an absurd lie.
The Saudis hate Iran, and as Wiki leaks confirmed, want to reduce their power in the region. Saudi wahhabi don’t believe that the Shia are ‘real’ Muslims, and often consider them as ‘Kuffar’ and heretics. The animosity Sunnis have for Shia is another problem only worsened by US/Euro/Israel foreign policy.