FBI stops Iran assasination attempt on Saudi Amb. to US

[Samuel]

I don't see why anyone would take Glenn Greenwald seriously. His most recent article is comparing this plot and Alwaki's death and accusing the US of hypocricy. He isn't exactly objective or accurate.

I do believe this is the first time in the recorded history of the post-9/11 era that a mid-eastern Muslim state has actually demanded counselor access to one of their citizens accused under terrorism statutes, via the Swiss charge d'affair. It will be interesting to see how he is treated in light of that.

That is probably why the administration decided to have a public trial.

Cole never asserts any such thing. However, the fact that the FBI routinely enables cockamamie terrorist plots and then crows about defeating them is a matter of objective fact.

Moreover, there is every reason to think, as Jeffrey Toobin suggests is a possibility, that Arbab was entrapped into this plan by a criminal drug runner in the pay of the US government, who suggested most of the key details to Arbabsiar in the first place. If the latter was as mentally disturbed as the WaPo report makes him sound, he may have been particularly suggestible and therefore an excellent subject for entrapment.
...
That anyone in the DOJ or the US foreign policy establishment would take all this seriously is not plausible. I conclude that they are being dishonest, and that this is Obama’s turn to wag the dog as he faces defeat at Romney’s well-manicured hands next year this time.

[Vympel]

I don't see why anyone would take Glenn Greenwald seriously. His most recent article is comparing this plot and Alwaki's death and accusing the US of hypocricy. He isn't exactly objective or accurate.

Poisoning the well, and a stupid attempt to do so, too. The US is obviously hypocritical in these matters, everyone who doesn't wear ideological blinders knows that.

[MarshalPurnell]

http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releas ... ted-states

The Alleged Plot

The criminal complaint alleges that, from the spring of 2011 to October 2011, Arbabsiar and his Iran-based co-conspirators, including Shakuri of the Qods Force, have been plotting the murder of the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. In furtherance of this conspiracy, Arbabsiar allegedly met on a number of occasions in Mexico with a DEA confidential source (CS-1) who has posed as an associate of a violent international drug trafficking cartel. According to the complaint, Arbabsiar arranged to hire CS-1 and CS-1’s purported accomplices to murder the Ambassador, and Shakuri and other Iran-based co-conspirators were aware of and approved the plan. With Shakuri’s approval, Arbabsiar has allegedly caused approximately $100,000 to be wired into a bank account in the United States as a down payment to CS-1 for the anticipated killing of the Ambassador, which was to take place in the United States.

According to the criminal complaint, the IRCG is an arm of the Iranian military that is composed of a number of branches, one of which is the Qods Force. The Qods Force conducts sensitive covert operations abroad, including terrorist attacks, assassinations and kidnappings, and is believed to sponsor attacks against Coalition Forces in Iraq. In October 2007, the U.S. Treasury Department designated the Qods Force for providing material support to the Taliban and other terrorist organizations.

The complaint alleges that Arbabsiar met with CS-1 in Mexico on May 24, 2011, where Arbabsiar inquired as to CS-1’s knowledge with respect to explosives and explained that he was interested in, among other things, attacking an embassy of Saudi Arabia. In response, CS-1 allegedly indicated that he was knowledgeable with respect to C-4 explosives. In June and July 2011, the complaint alleges, Arbabsiar returned to Mexico and held additional meetings with CS-1, where Arbabsiar explained that his associates in Iran had discussed a number of violent missions for CS-1 and his associates to perform, including the murder of the Ambassador.

$1.5 Million Fee for Alleged Assassination

In a July 14, 2011, meeting in Mexico, CS-1 allegedly told Arbabsiar that he would need to use four men to carry out the Ambassador’s murder and that his price for carrying out the murder was $1.5 million. Arbabsiar allegedly agreed and stated that the murder of the Ambassador should be handled first, before the execution of other attacks. Arbabsiar also allegedly indicated he and his associates had $100,000 in Iran to pay CS-1 as a first payment toward the assassination and discussed the manner in which that payment would be made.

During the same meeting, Arbabsiar allegedly described to CS-1 his cousin in Iran, who he said had requested that Arbabsiar find someone to carry out the Ambassador’s assassination. According to the complaint, Arbabsiar indicated that his cousin was a “big general” in the Iranian military; that he focuses on matters outside Iran and that he had taken certain unspecified actions related to a bombing in Iraq.

In a July 17, 2011, meeting in Mexico, CS-1 noted to Arbabsiar that one of his workers had already traveled to Washington, D.C., to surveill the Ambassador. CS-1 also raised the possibility of innocent bystander casualties. The complaint alleges that Arbabsiar made it clear that the assassination needed to go forward, despite mass casualties, telling CS-1, “They want that guy [the Ambassador] done [killed], if the hundred go with him f**k ‘em.” CS-1 and Arbabsiar allegedly discussed bombing a restaurant in the United States that the Ambassador frequented. When CS-1 noted that others could be killed in the attack, including U.S. senators who dine at the restaurant, Arbabsiar allegedly dismissed these concerns as “no big deal.”

On Aug. 1, and Aug. 9, 2011, with Shakuri’s approval, Arbabsiar allegedly caused two overseas wire transfers totaling approximately $100,000 to be sent to an FBI undercover account as a down payment for CS-1 to carry out the assassination. Later, Arbabsiar allegedly explained to CS-1 that he would provide the remainder of the $1.5 million after the assassination. On Sept. 20, 2011, CS-1 allegedly told Arbabsiar that the operation was ready and requested that Arbabsiar either pay one half of the agreed upon price ($1.5 million) for the murder or that Arbabsiar personally travel to Mexico as collateral for the final payment of the fee. According to the complaint, Arbabsiar agreed to travel to Mexico to guarantee final payment for the murder.

Arrest and Alleged Confession

On or about Sept. 28, 2011, Arbabsiar flew to Mexico. Arbabsiar was refused entry into Mexico by Mexican authorities and, according to Mexican law and international agreements; he was placed on a return flight destined for his last point of departure. On Sept. 29, 2011, Arbabsiar was arrested by federal agents during a flight layover at JFK International Airport in New York. Several hours after his arrest, Arbabsiar was advised of his Miranda rights and he agreed to waive those rights and speak with law enforcement agents. During a series of Mirandized interviews, Arbabsiar allegedly confessed to his participation in the murder plot.

According to the complaint, Arbabsiar also admitted to agents that, in connection with this plot, he was recruited, funded, and directed by men he understood to be senior officials in Iran’s Qods Force. He allegedly said these Iranian officials were aware of and approved of the use of CS-1 in connection with the plot; as well as payments to CS-1; the means by which the Ambassador would be killed in the United States and the casualties that would likely result.

Arbabsiar allegedly told agents that his cousin, who he had long understood to be a senior member of the Qods Force, had approached him in the early spring of 2011 about recruiting narco-traffickers to kidnap the Ambassador. Arbabsiar told agents that he then met with the CS-1 in Mexico and discussed assassinating the Ambassador. According to the complaint, Arbabsiar said that, afterwards, he met several times in Iran with Shakuri and another senior Qods Force official, where he explained that the plan was to blow up a restaurant in the United States frequented by the Ambassador and that numerous bystanders could be killed, according to the complaint. The plan was allegedly approved by these officials.

In October 2011, according to the complaint, Arbabsiar made phone calls at the direction of law enforcement to Shakuri in Iran that were monitored. During these phone calls, Shakuri allegedly confirmed that Arbabsiar should move forward with the plot to murder the Ambassador and that he should accomplish the task as quickly as possible, stating on Oct. 5, 2011, “[j]ust do it quickly, it’s late . . .” The complaint alleges that Shakuri also told Arbabsiar that he would consult with his superiors about whether they would be willing to pay CS-1 additional money.

Since you can't be arsed to read the fucking thread before commenting authoritatively on it, reposted.

Your claim that Cole is not asserting the "plot" was manufactured by the FBI and has no real connection to Iran is the only laughable backpeddling. If you had, again, read the fucking thread, you would have noted the much-discussed possibility of elements of the Quds Force acting on their own without official Iranian government support as a possible explanation for why they went through a cartel contact.

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 hapless 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.

Oh, yeah, like that doesn't just heap skepticism on the whole story? And saying the plot was something the evil neocons would have dreamed up on acid while "cackling madly" at the idea of anyone stupid enough to believe it certainly doesn't convey the impression that Cole thinks the thing is completely manufactured?

[Vympel]

Since you can't be arsed to read the fucking thread before commenting authoritatively on it, reposted.

Reposted what? The FBI's asinine and incredible assertions? Who gives a shit? Oh, I better be quiet now, the oh so credible US government, a pack of proven liars if there ever was one, have spoken!

Your claim that Cole is not asserting the "plot" was manufactured by the FBI and has no real connection to Iran is the only laughable backpeddling.

Then quote where he does so, you illiterate fucking idiot. This is something you've made up in your mind.

If you had, again, read the fucking thread, you would have noted the much-discussed possibility of elements of the Quds Force acting on their own without official Iranian government support as a possible explanation for why they went through a cartel contact.

Riggghhhht, meanwhile the very notion of the FBI enabling a dumbassed plot by a known scatter brained imbecile cannot be countenanced, right?

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 hapless 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.

That's Glenn Greenwald, you dumbfuck. Not Juan Cole. And enabling a plot is not the same thing as manufacturing a plot. Learn to fucking read.

[Samuel]

I don't see why anyone would take Glenn Greenwald seriously. His most recent article is comparing this plot and Alwaki's death and accusing the US of hypocricy. He isn't exactly objective or accurate.

Poisoning the well, and a stupid attempt to do so, too. The US is obviously hypocritical in these matters, everyone who doesn't wear ideological blinders knows that.

Yes, because killing a member of a terrorist organization is the exact same thing as murdering a government official of another country who you aren't a war with. The fact is he is to compare them, but is so ideologically driven that he doesn't see it. Since he is so clearly wrong on that issue, why should I trust anything he says is accurate? Do I have to rebut everything Rush Limbaugh says or can I discount it until I have such a claim from more reliable sources?

[Vympel]

Yes, because killing a member of a terrorist organization is the exact same thing as murdering a government official of another country who you aren't a war with. The fact is he is to compare them, but is so ideologically driven that he doesn't see it.

Yes he does, you schmuck. Its right there in his post. The whole point of his post is noting how rare it is for the craven, lick-spittle American media to even notice an accusation of a double standard in how the US deals with the world.

[Samuel]

Yes, because killing a member of a terrorist organization is the exact same thing as murdering a government official of another country who you aren't a war with. The fact is he is to compare them, but is so ideologically driven that he doesn't see it.

Yes he does, you schmuck. Its right there in his post. The whole point of his post is noting how rare it is for the craven, lick-spittle American media to even notice an accusation of a double standard in how the US deals with the world.

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/13/the_la_ ... singleton/

Today we have a pleasant and exceedingly rare surprise: a major media outlet noting that the very behavior which the U.S. Government and all Serious People are now righteously condemning is behavior in which the U.S. itself routinely engages.

This is him saying the two are the same. I can get more from the article if you want, but I figured the opening paragraph was the way to go.

Edit: Since it may be unclear I'm saying he doesn't see how they are different.

[MarshalPurnell]

Reposted what? The FBI's asinine and incredible assertions? Who gives a shit? Oh, I better be quiet now, the oh so credible US government, a pack of proven liars if there ever was one, have spoken!

So yeah, you will dismiss any description of the evidence against the accused? Of course the assertions will be backed up in court, and assuming the list does bear any resemblance to reality, there is the wire-transfer, a confession, and a recorded telephone call tying this back to the Quds Force.

Then quote where he does so, you illiterate fucking idiot. This is something you've made up in your mind.

Samuel already did, but again...

Moreover, there is every reason to think, as Jeffrey Toobin suggests is a possibility, that Arbab was entrapped into this plan by a criminal drug runner in the pay of the US government, who suggested most of the key details to Arbabsiar in the first place. If the latter was as mentally disturbed as the WaPo report makes him sound, he may have been particularly suggestible and therefore an excellent subject for entrapment.
...
That anyone in the DOJ or the US foreign policy establishment would take all this seriously is not plausible. I conclude that they are being dishonest, and that this is Obama’s turn to wag the dog as he faces defeat at Romney’s well-manicured hands next year this time.

Riggghhhht, meanwhile the very notion of the FBI enabling a dumbassed plot by a known scatter brained imbecile cannot be countenanced, right?

So where does your scatterbrained imbecile get $100,000 to wire in from overseas? How did the FBI get Shakuri to talk about the plot from Iran?

That's Glenn Greenwald, you dumbfuck. Not Juan Cole. And enabling a plot is not the same thing as manufacturing a plot. Learn to fucking read.

Oh, I put up the wrong quote. I feel awful. Of course they make the same "argument" which is that the plot had no substance, and then sneeringly imply the FBI probably just entrapped and manipulated the accused and this is all warhawk propaganda. Which was raised and discussed to death in the thread you have refused to read. If you were Chocula making a point less likely to be viewed with sympathy by the SDN population you would be ripped apart for this. Breathlessly posting a knee-jerk opinion piece of predictable views as a definitive refutation and ignoring pages of discussion is bullshit forum behavior.

[Vympel]

So yeah, you will dismiss any description of the evidence against the accused? Of course the assertions will be backed up in court, and assuming the list does bear any resemblance to reality, there is the wire-transfer, a confession, and a recorded telephone call tying this back to the Quds Force.

No, I will rightly note that said evidence is pathetic, as has already been detailed by people who don't have their head up their ass.

Samuel already did, but again...

Are you dumb? That's not saying the FBI manufactured a plot, so yeah, you're still wrong. And it is completely justifiable to moot this as a possibility, because - again - the US has a proven track record of enabling these lame terror plots. But keep ignoring that fact.

So where does your scatterbrained imbecile get $100,000 to wire in from overseas?

From any dillhole with $100K. ZOMG, only a nation could get together this kind of serious money

How did the FBI get Shakuri to talk about the plot from Iran?

So what if they did? That doesn't prove Iranian government involvement.

Oh, I put up the wrong quote. I feel awful. Of course they make the same "argument" which is that the plot had no substance

Because it doesn't. Its like something out of a B-grade comedy, and the fact that anyone is scared of this transparent joke of a plot by such a transparent loser is something they should all be ashamed of.

and then sneeringly imply the FBI probably just entrapped and manipulated the accused and this is all warhawk propaganda. Which was raised and discussed to death in the thread you have refused to read.

If it was discussed to death with the incompetence with which you seek to do so - aka "but the FBI says!" - then I can safely say I missed nothing.

If you were Chocula making a point less likely to be viewed with sympathy by the SDN population you would be ripped apart for this.

Aww, is diddums butthurt that this forum isn't reactionary right-wing warmonger enough to jump all over the entirely pedestrian idea that this plot is a joke?

[MarshalPurnell]

No, I will rightly note that said evidence is pathetic, as has already been detailed by people who don't have their head up their ass.

Lessee. Arbabsiar approaches a cartel contact, who, unknown to him, is an informant for the DEA working in cooperation with the Mexican government. He has an end in mind (kill the Saudi Ambassador) and evidently, money from overseas to pay for this. The FBI, working with the informant, channels the plot in such a way that Arbabsiar is never actually meeting with anyone who would carry it out and is increasingly invested in working with the FBI rather than, say, going lone-wolf. The FBI waits until it has reams of wire-tap evidence and a very significant funds transfer from overseas (showing both intent and capability) before arresting Arbabsiar. The accused then reportedly confessed in a Mirandized interrogation conducted by the FBI, and set up his co-conspirator Shakuri, allegedly a high ranking officer in the IRGC and the Quds Force, to blab about his end of the plot on a recorded telephone call.

Of course such tactics have been used before, and if they had been netting Ku Klux Klanners or anti-abortion extremists the same people denouncing them would instead be applauding the vigilance of the law enforcement community and pouring scorn on the accused.

If Arbabsiar were just a self-radicalized schmuck, why didn't he just buy a rifle and shoot up a crowd somewhere? Who came up with "kill the Saudi Ambassador?" That's not exactly a target likely to occur to a home-grown Islamist radical. That is by far more the target of a government than a terrorist organization. And while you may pooh-pah a "mere" $100,000 transfer, that is a lot of money for an individual and it was coming from overseas. Arbabsiar was willing to stay in Mexico with the cartels as a hostage for the rest of the money, which suggests either that he had plenty of confidence that it would be forthcoming or that he was a suicidal lunatic. And the call to Shakuri discussed, of course, paying out the rest of the money to the cartel contact. If Shakuri is a member of the IRGC as alleged, and one would imagine the corroboration would come out at trial, the balance of evidence is pretty strongly that organs of the Iranian state were acting in this matter.

And while contracting out an assassination to the cartels was seriously stupid, Iran does have a history of using others to carry out its dirty work. It relied on Palestinian terrorist groups acting as freelance muscle to conduct numerous political assassinations in Europe in the 1980s and early 1990s; a German court found the Iranian government, including specifically Ayatollah Khamanei, then-President Rafsanjani, and the Iranian Intelligence Ministry to have criminal responsibility for a number of such assassinations. They used their Hezbollah proxies in Buenos Aires to carry out the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center there. They have no such easily accessible proxies in the US, and only the cartels would have the reach and possible willingness to carry out a major attack in the US- and if the Iranians thought the bombing could be blamed on someone else, like Al Qaeda, then their delusion of cooperation with the cartels might make more sense. But especially if the Al Quds force was acting on a rogue impulse without input from higher authorities they may simply have had no choice but to risk such an unreliable conduit- and while the Al Quds Force and IRGC are most certainly organs of the Iranian state with significant influence in the government, they may have the ability to act without the sanction of higher authorities.

Are you dumb? That's not saying the FBI manufactured a plot, so yeah, you're still wrong. And it is completely justifiable to moot this as a possibility, because - again - the US has a proven track record of enabling these lame terror plots. But keep ignoring that fact.

You are a dishonest fucktard desperately trying to avoid admitting that you are wrong. That is exactly what entrapment is; and Greenwald went even further in alleging it was a "wag the dog" moment. Both of them, and Raimundo, and your own comments, are so obviously steeped in a knee-jerk, bile-spewing denial of possibility that any other spin on them is impossible. The really fucking funny thing is, that's exactly the same thing we saw with the hawks in this thread, just as a different side of the same coin. Rush to judgment, reliance on sensationalist rhetoric, refusal to consider, think about, or even acknowledge inconvenient facts - it's all the same damn sins you accuse those "Faux

From any dillhole with $100K. ZOMG, only a nation could get together this kind of serious money

And a "dillhole" willing to pay $100,000 to a Mexican cartel to murder an ambassador in your capital isn't a concern... why? And that ignores that Shakuri was the purported source of the money, and that in turn links it to the IRGC.

So what if they did? That doesn't prove Iranian government involvement.

If Shakuri is, as alleged, a member of the Quds Force it damned well does show involvement by an organ of the Iranian state. The details of the plot suggest that, perhaps, the agent or the Quds Force was operating without sanction of the government proper, and that was discussed in the thread you refuse to read. Of course if it had been Iranian authorities producing a call by a "CIA agent" conspiring to assassinate someone in Iran I know you'd be crowing about how Uncle Sam obviously got caught.

Because it doesn't. Its like something out of a B-grade comedy, and the fact that anyone is scared of this transparent joke of a plot by such a transparent loser is something they should all be ashamed of.

The details of the plot are nothing to be concerned about. The implication that agents of a foreign state, with or without that government's sanction, are willing to plot the murder of diplomats in your capital is quite alarming.

If it was discussed to death with the incompetence with which you seek to do so - aka "but the FBI says!" - then I can safely say I missed nothing.

I assumed you would bother to apply a little bit of critical thinking skills to what the FBI says it has on hand. Obviously that isn't the case, so I spelled it all out for you above. Of course, "RAEG I DON'T BELIEVE TEHY LIE" is pretty much a perfect save against all logic, and going by your behavior I expect you to deploy it again.

Aww, is diddums butthurt that this forum isn't reactionary right-wing warmonger enough to jump all over the entirely pedestrian idea that this plot is a joke?

No, I'm disgusted by your douchebag behavior and the blatant hypocrisy of the forum. Too many posters who revel in denouncing their opponents as reactionary, knee-jerk, biased, prejudiced sheeple only absorbing narrative they agree with... are just the same damn thing only in a different ideological flavor. Thanks for providing such an excellent example of that.

[Simon_Jester]

There's a line between two kinds of FBI activity here. One is the FBI letting a would-be criminal keep working at becoming a criminal until he's accumulated enough rope to hang himself. The other is the FBI actively encouraging a potential criminal to commit greater and greater crimes until he's "caught red-handed" doing something loathesome... but which there's no evidence they'd ever have worked themselves up to do if not progressively tempted into it by the FBI.

From the look of it, I'd say that this was the former. The would-be assassin already had money and an objective before the FBI even found out he existed; he just didn't have the means. Under the circumstances, pretending to supply the means as a way of making sure what was going on and gathering enough evidence to convict (and to pursue charges against any unknown helpers he might have had) makes some sense.

Which is not to say the latter doesn't or can't happen- it just doesn't seem to have happened this time.

[Vympel]

Lessee. Arbabsiar allegedly does stuff according to the FBI

Your point? I know you have a hard time getting past this, but the reason people have a hard time taking this ludicrous plot seriously is because it is obviously a ludicrous story.

You are a dishonest fucktard desperately trying to avoid admitting that you are wrong. That is exactly what entrapment is; and Greenwald went even further in alleging it was a "wag the dog" moment. Both of them, and Raimundo, and your own comments, are so obviously steeped in a knee-jerk, bile-spewing denial of possibility that any other spin on them is impossible. The really fucking funny thing is, that's exactly the same thing we saw with the hawks in this thread, just as a different side of the same coin. Rush to judgment, reliance on sensationalist rhetoric, refusal to consider, think about, or even acknowledge inconvenient facts - it's all the same damn sins you accuse those "Faux

Were you saw caught up in trying to appear like Mr Golden Mean that you forgot to finish your sentence? In any event, nothing you've said here has any substance at all, dumbfuck. I think its hilarious that you think some massive loser former used car salesman, whom everyone has described as one of the biggest idiots to ever walk the Earth in recent history (apart from you, that is), could not credibly create in the mind of a rational observer that this asinine, unserious "plot" of which you are so terrified has all the hallmarks of a "wag the dog" moment - i.e. a ludicrous manufactured crisis, being taken advantage of for political ends.

And a "dillhole" willing to pay $100,000 to a Mexican cartel to murder an ambassador in your capital isn't a concern... why? And that ignores that Shakuri was the purported source of the money, and that in turn links it to the IRGC.

Who says, dumbass? I like it how you effortlessly shift gears from "but $100,000! Iran!" to "someone paid $100,000 to a Mexican cartel to murder an ambassador in the capital!" too.

If Shakuri is, as alleged, a member of the Quds Force

And there's no reason to believe thats the case, just like there's no reason to believe the Quds Force would entrust such a highly sensitive mission of obviously huge political consequences to a complete fucking imbecile used car salesman from Corpus Christi, who we know from the DOJ Complaint told preposterous falsehoods about him.

it damned well does show involvement by an organ of the Iranian state. The details of the plot suggest that, perhaps, the agent or the Quds Force was operating without sanction of the government proper, and that was discussed in the thread you refuse to read. Of course if it had been Iranian authorities producing a call by a "CIA agent" conspiring to assassinate someone in Iran I know you'd be crowing about how Uncle Sam obviously got caught.

Translation: "well you just hate America and love Iran!" Pahlease.

The details of the plot are nothing to be concerned about. The implication that agents of a foreign state, with or without that government's sanction, are willing to plot the murder of diplomats in your capital is quite alarming.

Only if you're a chronic bed wetter. I wonder, will you ever get tired of diving under the bed everytime a comical non-plot by some incompetent idiot is trotted out to scare you? And if Iran were behind this Monty Python plot, well, thats the most effective refutation of Iran-as-the-new-Nazi-Germany I've ever heard.

I assumed you would bother to apply a little bit of critical thinking skills to what the FBI says it has on hand. Obviously that isn't the case, so I spelled it all out for you above. Of course, "RAEG I DON'T BELIEVE TEHY LIE" is pretty much a perfect save against all logic, and going by your behavior I expect you to deploy it again.

On the contrary, the reasons why the FBI's claims are simply not credible are a bit more complicated than "the US government has a history of outright dishonesty" - as numerous observers have noted by reference to the actual facts of the case. Noting the US government has a history of said dishonesty merely serves as a ready made retort to idiots like yourself who think "but the government says" is an automatic response to any criticism.

See the difference?

No, I'm disgusted by your douchebag behavior and the blatant hypocrisy of the forum. Too many posters who revel in denouncing their opponents as reactionary, knee-jerk, biased, prejudiced sheeple only absorbing narrative they agree with... are just the same damn thing only in a different ideological flavor. Thanks for providing such an excellent example of that.

Your substance free "oh both sides are as bad as each other and here I am in the snug Golden Mean!" crock of shit is as stupid as it is predictable. Go cry about it someplace else.

[Shroom Man 777]

I believe there's a profound difference between "reactionary knee-jerk biased" assholes who immediately start shrieking about starting a war, and "reactionary knee-jerk biased" assholes who distrust their government and question the competence of the intelligence it's provided because, uh, the last time it ended up with thousands of their own soldiers dead in some shitty godforsaken war - which is something the latter loathes and wishes to avoid, but the former embraces tightly while touching their tralala?

Shit, if your people had more of the latter back in 2003...

[Thanas]

The US reaps what it sows. Anybody who thought that invading countries without consent and pumping people full of lead would have no consequences whatsoever is an idiot.

Of course other nations will go "but you gave us carte blanche to do whatever you want, because you do it yourself".

[Simon_Jester]

Why is anyone surprised that a country might try some wild-assed and failure-prone plot to do something of questionable value on foreign soil? Western intelligence agencies have done this sort of thing- the CIA's infamous for getting up to weird, involuted stuff like this. The KGB did too- assassinations using frankly bizarre methods like umbrella-stabbings, proxies of all kinds, bugs hidden in all things imaginable.

Why should Quds Force be any less prone to weirdness and complicated schemes to achieve goals that aren't particularly logical? Intelligence is a strange environment, people in it often get hair-brained schemes and try to execute them through unreliable and unexpected intermediaries, and it doesn't get less strange just because you work for a government that says its prayers five times a day.


So while I can understand wanting to withhold judgment, I don't see how the FBI's claims are "ludicrous," or why we should be quicker to assume they outright fabricated wiretapped conversations which they intend to present in court than that they caught an agent of Country X in some elaborate ploy against Country Y. While they may have some of the details wrong, there's nothing about this case which gives me any strong reason to doubt that it's substantially what happened- like there has been with other 'terrorism' cases and probably will be again, and like there certainly was in Iraq.

The intense doubt seems especially odd to me since we're not seeing much sign from the US government that there's any intention to use this as manufactured justification to war in order to get rid of Iranian weapons of mass assassination or whatever. Why would they make up a story and bring it to a public trial without having some important response in mind?


Am I saying this justifies fighting a big war or something? No. Am I saying that this justifies drone assassinations of US citizens in foreign countries, or any other specific US action? No.

But I want to point out that there's really nothing about this case that makes it all that far out of line with the things we know various countries, including Iran, can and have done to each other in the past- that the story itself can easily be substantially true, with the FBI actually having the evidence it plans to take to court, and with no fabrication on their part.

[MarshalPurnell]

Your point? I know you have a hard time getting past this, but the reason people have a hard time taking this ludicrous plot seriously is because it is obviously a ludicrous story.

As predicted, it's the hands-in-ears defense. You ignore the evidence without addressing it. Since there is no interpretation of Arbabsiar's behavior that makes sense from a "lone wolf" terrorist perspective, much less being entrapped in a conspiracy actively created by the FBI, you just declare the whole thing ludicrous. In essence you are accusing the FBI of lying about the case and evidence, without having the slightest grounds to beyond that you do not want to believe it. How does that differ in the slightest from what you accuse the "right-wing reactionary hawks" from doing? How is your post any better reasoned than anything Chochula says?

Were you saw caught up in trying to appear like Mr Golden Mean that you forgot to finish your sentence? In any event, nothing you've said here has any substance at all, dumbfuck. I think its hilarious that you think some massive loser former used car salesman, whom everyone has described as one of the biggest idiots to ever walk the Earth in recent history (apart from you, that is), could not credibly create in the mind of a rational observer that this asinine, unserious "plot" of which you are so terrified has all the hallmarks of a "wag the dog" moment - i.e. a ludicrous manufactured crisis, being taken advantage of for political ends.

A complete idiot who made contact with someone in the cartels (since, you know, informants are kind of worthless without some connection to actual criminal conspiracy), was verifiably working with at least one accomplice in Iran, provided a large down payment on a plot to murder a foreign ambassador... Where did he get his motive? Where did he get his pre-existing objective? Where did he get his resources?

But the plot is stupid, therefore it can't exist! Just like it would be really stupid to have a hired gunman burst into a restaurant and mow down a bunch of Kurdish activists right in the middle of goddamned Berlin... oh wait the Iranians have done that before too.

Who says, dumbass? I like it how you effortlessly shift gears from "but $100,000! Iran!" to "someone paid $100,000 to a Mexican cartel to murder an ambassador in the capital!" too.

We have Arbabsiar discussing paying "more" money to the cartels with Shakuri, who promises to take it up with his superiors. So who the fuck do you expect paid the $100,000 down payment, the assassination fairy? We have Shakuri indirectly admitting to having paid the earlier installment, Shakuri is in Iran, and though you haughtily dismiss the possibility the FBI obviously has some reason to believe Shakuri is a member of the IRGC.

And there's no reason to believe thats the case, just like there's no reason to believe the Quds Force would entrust such a highly sensitive mission of obviously huge political consequences to a complete fucking imbecile used car salesman from Corpus Christi, who we know from the DOJ Complaint told preposterous falsehoods about him.

Which is again, "the Americans are lying." This will come to trial and the FBI will be obliged to present their evidence linking Shakuri to the IRGC, assuming it's not as simple as Shakuri demonstrably acting in other capacities as a public member of the IRGC via Iranian media or something equally mundane. At the worst he may have lied to Arbabsiar about being a member, since Arbabsiar boasted of the connection to the informant and repeated it in his confession, and the link was again made in the recorded telephone call. Of course, who else in Iran would have access to hundreds of thousands of dollars and a desire to kill the Saudi Ambassador?

But waaah, the plot isn't real! It's all manufactured bullshit! Entrapment! Shakuri can't even be demonstrated to exist!

Translation: "well you just hate America and love Iran!" Pahlease.

No, you're just a knee-jerk, reactionary hypocrite who refuses to engage or believe evidence if it points to a conclusion you don't want it to. You stepped into this lengthy thread without even bothering to read it, posting up an inflammatory opinion piece you endorsed with your own dismissive rhetoric, and expected everyone to fall in line supporting it.

Only if you're a chronic bed wetter. I wonder, will you ever get tired of diving under the bed everytime a comical non-plot by some incompetent idiot is trotted out to scare you? And if Iran were behind this Monty Python plot, well, thats the most effective refutation of Iran-as-the-new-Nazi-Germany I've ever heard.

Because nations other than the US never do stupid stuff? Of course if they are willing to try once they are very likely to be willing to try again, and may get smarter or luckier. Perhaps if Arbabsiar had gotten in contact with a real cartel member his torso would have turned up in Tijuana six months later, but then again... maybe not. Maybe "Al Qaeda" would have gunned down the Saudi Ambassador next month.

But yeah this is incoherent. You've spent all of your posts claiming the plot effectively doesn't exist, being manufactured by the FBI with no evidence of connections to Iran. Now you want to claim that even if it did, it doesn't matter. Because, of course, you will stubbornly resist implications you don't like regardless of circumstances or context.

On the contrary, the reasons why the FBI's claims are simply not credible are a bit more complicated than "the US government has a history of outright dishonesty" - as numerous observers have noted by reference to the actual facts of the case. Noting the US government has a history of said dishonesty merely serves as a ready made retort to idiots like yourself who think "but the government says" is an automatic response to any criticism.

See the difference?

Those "references to the actual facts of the case" would be where? Certainly not in your postings, where you just call the entire plot "ludicrous" and dismiss it outright. Certainly not in the overblown rhetoric of the editorials you posted, which just insist that Arbabsiar had to be stupid, that the plot was never in danger of killing anyone, and therefore was probably invented by the FBI with Arbabsiar entrapped within it to further a nefarious political agenda. There is nothing Greenwald, Cole, Raimundo, or you say that does not boil down to "the government has to be lying about the case;" and your "retort" is all that has been offered to further that claim.

Your substance free "oh both sides are as bad as each other and here I am in the snug Golden Mean!" crock of shit is as stupid as it is predictable. Go cry about it someplace else.

No, you just refuse to address my argument because you don't like the implications. The sequence of events in the case make it clear that Arbabsiar initiated the plot on this end, that he had support from someone in Iran with considerable resources, and that he quite honestly believed that his confederate was a member of the Quds Force and would pay the cartels off at the end of the assassination so much he volunteered to be a hostage to people who do this kind of shit. You could argue that Shakuri was the liar, though I expect that will be clarified further. You can certainly argue that the plot was stupid and stood no chance of success, which is certainly the case.

You, on the other hand, have chosen to argue that the plot didn't exist in any meaningful sense and refuse to engage the evidence presented by the FBI, which of course is the only source of details. You dismiss it with a blanket categorization as "ludicrous" without providing any particular reasoning behind it, and if confronted by the logical implications of what the FBI say it has you go "LOLO NO YANKS LIE." There is no point to even discussing the matter if you refuse to admit any grounds for argument exist.

As for the predictable "golden mean fallacy" bullshit, news flash jackass. Being on the left doesn't make you immune to common flaws of reasoning. You are particularly demonstrating the tendency to seek out a comforting narrative over objective perspective, the emotional rewards of rejecting points inconvenient to your own preconceived narrative, and the difference between "reason" and "rationalization." The assumptions that only people you disagree with can be mistaken, that the truth must self-evidently lie in your own side, and that anyone who dares to contradict you must be a vile, retarded specimen holding to the viewpoint you identify with your enemies- yeah, those can get pretty universal and are just as poisonous regardless of who is holding them. Which again, you are providing a wonderful example of.

[Edi]

To be honest, there are many political motives in the US to blow this up into massive proportions even if it's gnatshit at the bottom of an open pit mine. So much so in fact that unless there is extraordinary evidence presented that this was indeed what the FBI claims it to be, there is no reason whatsoever to believe the claims. That's how badly US credibility is shot.

I'm willing to keep an open mind about it and if they do indeed present that evidence in full and open court, I'll believe. But not before.

[Alkaloid]

I don't get this. The US has repeatedly lied throughout its history. Why is now any different. Did the Gulf of Tonkin, Bay of Pigs and our UN appearence or Iran Contra all go down the memory hole?

No, it's just that for most of its history, the rest west has regarded the US like a big dumb dog. Sure, he's breaking things and shitting everywhere he shouldn't, but he's at least trying to do things right, he's just a bit dim. Now we have hit the stage where we are no longer comfortable assigning to stupidity what we can assign to malice.

[Edi]

That's how badly US credibility is shot.

I don't get this. The US has repeatedly lied throughout its history. Why is now any different. Did the Gulf of Tonkin, Bay of Pigs and our UN appearence or Iran Contra all go down the memory hole?

Bay of Pigs and Gulf of Tonkin were both related to the cold War, where, if you recall, the opposite side was a nation that spanned more than half a continent and had intercontinental nuclear missiles and armies numbering in the millions and where direct conflict was out of the question and was therefore often waged by proxy.

Iran Contra also goes largely as part of the Cold War and is easily understood in that frame of reference.

The frame of reference for the present day is very, very different in that there is no existential threat to the US, no matter how much the neocon bedwetters would like you to believe that a Muslim takeover of the world is imminent. The previous administration went to a war of retaliation in Afghnistan (which was quite understandable). It then abandoned that effort to wage another war in Iraq, started under completely false pretenses, instituted a network of secret prison and torture of prisoners in the War on Terror as standard practices and generally did nearly everything possible to flush Us credibility down the toilet. And once the war in Iraq was winding down, they ramped up the efforts in Afghanistan that they had left to deteriorate and started making noises about Iran that sounded very much like the noises they made about Iraq (that were proven to be lies through and through). They've also trumpeted a few hundred extremists hiding in caves as a greater existential threat to the US than its Cold War opposites.

The current administration has continued every single policy of the previous administration in these areas and even gone further in some respects. And right on cue when the election cycle starts ramping up in the US, lo and behold, we get this "Serious, Massive Iranian Terror-Plot of DOOM" where the Super Secret Amnesiac Used-Car Salesman of Tehran is going to implement a master plan worthy of SPECTRE or the main villain from Inspector Gadget and that this is clearly evidence that Iran means to wage war on the US when the FBI spokesmen are on record stating that nobody was ever in any danger from the plot.

I trust you'll pardon us for being a tad skeptical.

[Shroom Man 777]

I believe there's a profound difference between "reactionary knee-jerk biased" assholes who immediately start shrieking about starting a war, and "reactionary knee-jerk biased" assholes who distrust their government and question the competence of the intelligence it's provided because, uh, the last time it ended up with thousands of their own soldiers dead in some shitty godforsaken war - which is something the latter loathes and wishes to avoid, but the former embraces tightly while touching their tralala?

Shit, if your people had more of the latter back in 2003...

Yes, but you have to admit there is a beautiful irony here. I was against the Iraq war on the grounds it would kill lots of innocent people. Now, when the government is deliberately targeting individuals so as not to kill lots of innocent people, you have people attacking it for that!

Unilaterally assassinating people now including US citizens and also those within blast radius via drone strikes and missiles, or just disappearing them to be indefinitely detained in blacksites to face torture, quietly in low-profile secret operations is not as bad as a war that turned out to be based on false pretenses, that ended up getting thousands of your own people killed in the line of duty and hundreds of thousands more of innocents in the affected region needlessly killed.

I just wish the US stopped doing this in other people's countries, and to these other countries' citizens.

[Samuel]

Bay of Pigs and Gulf of Tonkin were both related to the cold War, where, if you recall, the opposite side was a nation that spanned more than half a continent and had intercontinental nuclear missiles and armies numbering in the millions and where direct conflict was out of the question and was therefore often waged by proxy.

That is related to the magnitude to the threat and what the US could pass as necesary for survival of the free world. It has nothing to do with credibility which is about how often and how big were American lies. I think people go there expectations raised by the 90s where the most famous lie was about who the President had sex with.

[Simon_Jester]

To be honest, there are many political motives in the US to blow this up into massive proportions even if it's gnatshit at the bottom of an open pit mine. So much so in fact that unless there is extraordinary evidence presented that this was indeed what the FBI claims it to be, there is no reason whatsoever to believe the claims. That's how badly US credibility is shot.

I'm willing to keep an open mind about it and if they do indeed present that evidence in full and open court, I'll believe. But not before.

I don't think it's reasonable to say that anyone's credibility is that shot without a motive. Since the US government isn't doing most of the things consistent with their having such a motive (like attacking Iran, or even raising all that much of a stink about this as far as I can tell), I don't believe they do have such a motive.

If the US government tells me the sky is overcast, I may stick my head outside and check, but I'm not paranoid enough to see an overcast sky and think "the US government must be conducting an elaborate hoax to fool me into thinking the sky is overcast!" That way, conspiracy theories lie- and if we're going to believe in conspiracies, why should we expect this to be a US conspiracy to fake the existence of an Iranian conspiracy, rather than an actual Iranian conspiracy? I would think Occam's Razor applies here.

Has the Iranian government denied the plot? Are they actually less credible than the US government?

The intense doubt seems especially odd to me since we're not seeing much sign from the US government that there's any intention to use this as manufactured justification to war in order to get rid of Iranian weapons of mass assassination or whatever. Why would they make up a story and bring it to a public trial without having some important response in mind?

I conclude that they are being dishonest, and that this is Obama’s turn to wag the dog as he faces defeat at Romney’s well-manicured hands next year this time.

That's how badly US credibility is shot.

I don't get this. The US has repeatedly lied throughout its history. Why is now any different. Did the Gulf of Tonkin, Bay of Pigs and our UN appearence or Iran Contra all go down the memory hole?

The US has repeatedly lied, and repeatedly told the truth- when the US talked about the Gulf of Tonkin it was bullshit; when the US talked about the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and blamed them on Al Qaeda it was telling the truth. When McCarthy talked about KGB infiltrators he was full of shit; and yet there were actual KGB agents in various US organizations, who actually existed and sent real messages back to Moscow, even if they weren't people McCarthy knew about.

Before you accuse someone of lying, you should have a reason- the fact that the same country has lied before is not in itself proof that they are lying now, unless they always lie or unless they have some compelling reason to lie. What's the reason? Why is the US trying to stir up shit with Iran, and why isn't the US acting on the pretext for action it's supposedly engineered?

... And right on cue when the election cycle starts ramping up in the US, lo and behold, we get this "Serious, Massive Iranian Terror-Plot of DOOM" where the Super Secret Amnesiac Used-Car Salesman of Tehran is going to implement a master plan worthy of SPECTRE or the main villain from Inspector Gadget and that this is clearly evidence that Iran means to wage war on the US when the FBI spokesmen are on record stating that nobody was ever in any danger from the plot.

I trust you'll pardon us for being a tad skeptical.

Ah. And yet- if this is a fake plot, why is the FBI saying it's not a threat?

Let us separate two possibilities here. One is that the plot was real, but had no chance of succeeding, and that US politicians are making too much of it. The other is that the plot is a total fabrication from the ground up, there never was a plot.

In the first case, the FBI would have real evidence that the plot existed. In the second, they have fake evidence. In the first case, the politicians may bloviate about the plot, but the FBI will likely stick to the evidence and charges they can make stick in court, because they're going to have to prove it. In the second case, the FBI's fake evidence would be tailored to prove whatever the politicians wanted it to prove.

Why is the second more consistent with the FBI's behavior than the first?

Unilaterally assassinating people now including US citizens and also those within blast radius via drone strikes and missiles, or just disappearing them to be indefinitely detained in blacksites to face torture, quietly in low-profile secret operations is not as bad as a war that turned out to be based on false pretenses, that ended up getting thousands of your own people killed in the line of duty and hundreds of thousands more of innocents in the affected region needlessly killed.

I just wish the US stopped doing this in other people's countries, and to these other countries' citizens.

I totally agree with this.

I just think all this weird conspiracy-theorism about how the US is inventing an elaborate fake assassination plot as part of a plan to declare war on Iran (which Obama has shown virtually no interest in doing these past three years) is, well, weird. I don't think there's anything particularly implausible about the idea that this assassination plot existed, basically as described. I also don't think the US should fight a war over it even if there was one, or that the US should be assassinating people itself, or anything else. I don't want to huff and puff and be a moron about this.

But it's weird watching people go to the "US LIES!" end of the spectrum so fast and so enthusiastically that they don't even stop to consider that Iranian intelligence organs actually could arrange a screwy plot through intermediaries, just as organizations like the CIA and KGB do and did all the time.

[Simon_Jester]

Ghetto Edit:

You know what this reminds me of?

I once read an article by Robert A. Heinlein about his travels in the USSR circa 1960. He was already well into his libertarian anti-communist political phase then, so the entire article was shot through with denunciations of the communist system. Some of his denunciations were, I think, reasonable. Nobody likes the fact that you're not free to talk to common citizens of the country, or that you are effectively prevented from seeing certain things that the government doesn't intend to show off, or that the official public history of the USSR glosses over certain events like the Kerensky government and the annexation of the Baltic states.

But I remember him going on about how the Russians were lying about the size of Moscow- claiming it was about ten times its actual size, and basing this heavily on anecdotal observations and comments by a War College friend of his whose estimates turned out to be wrong (he seems to have been fooled by Soviet disinformation about the rail network around Moscow into thinking there were fewer rail lines going into the city than there really were). So Heinlein prints in this article that Moscow in 1960 must "really" have been a city of, what, half a million people or so... when at the time it was much larger than that, and is now around 10 million people today when Russian census figures are a matter of public record.

And that's a blot on Heinlein's record- that he was so reflexively paranoid about any claim made by the Soviets that he would dismiss something like that, when no 'Sovietologist' took such arguments seriously and when the US never made any effort to 'correct' the figures on the size of Moscow. It was just him being bizarrely paranoid. It's all very well to take anything and everything in Pravda with a grain of salt, since it's all propagandized, but that doesn't mean you should go out assuming the sky is green just because the other guy says it's blue.

I feel like there's something similar going on here- the assumption that the US must be lying, even when there is no obvious advantage in lying and obvious disadvantages to lying, when the basic story is reasonably plausible.

Next we'll be talking about how the US Census misstates the population of Chicago to make it look artificially large.

[MarshalPurnell]

I don't get this. The US has repeatedly lied throughout its history. Why is now any different. Did the Gulf of Tonkin, Bay of Pigs and our UN appearence or Iran Contra all go down the memory hole?

No, it's just that for most of its history, the rest west has regarded the US like a big dumb dog. Sure, he's breaking things and shitting everywhere he shouldn't, but he's at least trying to do things right, he's just a bit dim. Now we have hit the stage where we are no longer comfortable assigning to stupidity what we can assign to malice.

Yes, the British Empire got to cover a quarter of the world's surface by being a paragon of rectitude. King Leopold's Congo Free State was just a breakdown in employer-labor relations. The Vietnamese invited France to rule their country for a while. "White Australia" was just a figment of my imagination. The Suez War was a tea party, and the SAS totally did not kill Republican paramilitaries without giving them the chance to surrender during the Troubles. And the period of 1933-1945 is completely unremarkable in German history.

Please, by all means, go on about the historical moral superiority of the "rest of the West" to the United States.

[Alkaloid]

They aren't better, dude, it's a matter of perception. Half the things you just listed don't exist anymore. so they aren't perceived as untrustworthy, they are perceived as history.