Wednesday, January 09, 2008

War Against Iran

Let's keep this simple. Any Bush administration statements about Iran are lies. Period. End of discussion.

The latest whopper claims that Iranian speed boats "provoked" U.S. war ships in the Strait of Hormuz by threatening to blow them up. They even have a nice little video showing the alleged provocation.

Hooman Majd at Huffington Post sizes up the situation very simply. It's a fake.

"The video, which shows what is claimed are Iranian boats speeding around U.S. ships, doesn't show any of the boats hurtling directly towards any of the navy ships, nor does it show what the Pentagon claimed the Iranians then did, namely dropped "white boxes" in the water. (I would have opened fire at those, wouldn't you?) The audio tape is even less convincing, mainly because the person speaking doesn't have an Iranian accent and moreover, sounds more like Boris Karloff in a horror movie than a sailor in the elite branch of Iran's military. (The tape is also separate from any video.) Any Iranian can immediately identify Persian-accented English, particularly if the speaker has had little contact with the West, as is the case with Revolutionary Guardsmen and sailors."

So, we have a bad Iranian accent, video and audio that don't match, and video that doesn't even show what it purports to show. We also have a president visiting Israel, the only other country on earth that thinks killing thousands of Iranians is a good idea.

The NIE report that convincingly showed that Iran has no nuclear weapons program is just one month old. Apparently that is enough time for Bush to continue telling very obvious lies in order to start his newest war of aggression.

So this week's questions shouldn't be whether Hillary cried on purpose or if her tears swayed voters, but how she will vote when Bush presents a resolution to go to war with Iran. How will Obama vote? My guess is that both will ultimately vote yes to some "compromise" which allows both of them to have it both ways. Stay tuned.