Constant's pations

If it's more than 30 minutes old, it's not news. It's a blog.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Iran: Foreign fighter claims are not credible

We've previously talked about black propaganda: [ Here ]

A specific news report related to foreign fighters in Iraq is another example. [ Ref ]

The issue is Iran is getting blamed. Small problem: The US cannot credibly blame Iran for a problem that does not exist.

We judge the "foreign fighter" terminology is designed to lay the foundation for a military attack on Iran, and not relqated to actual foreign fighters.

Previous estimates put foreign fighters at 6%, rather meaningless. [ Ref ] DoD admitted to AlJazeera the number of foreign fighters captured in Falluja, Iraq was only 5%. [ Ref]

The news article appears to be from Centcom Contractors paid to provide news releases to the Iraqi press.

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Notice the public comments about delarlations: These could be left by the US military or other sources of black propaganda. The residents supposedly making these comments could be fabricated.

Notice the aritcle mentiond specific names, but does not provide any specific comment about how they know that the people are or are not foreign fighters.

Read the article closely and you'll see it's very similar to how the Powell and Rice statements are in re Iraq WMD: Using images, but no facts.

Also, notice the "high figures" -- 75% clearned -- implying that the Iraqis are doing something. Small problem: None of the Iraqi batallions can independently act; this means that US troops -- and embedded reporters -- should be able to confirm. We have nothing.

This activity is also similar to Operation Steel Curtain on the Syrian Border, another PR campaign by the US military.

Also notice the shift in the focuse from "hatred toward Americans" and then a quick shift to "foreign fighers." We have no infomration why the hatred against Americans was credibly shifted to foreign fighters, especially when there are no bonafide foreign fightrs.

The other problem is that the article mentions AlQueda, but this is a red herring -- if this were a real problem, we'd hear about the AlQueda reports in Afghanistan which has little resistance. Note, the US has since 2001 periodically engaged in neogitiations with the Taliban -- yes, the very people we were supposedly in Afghanistan to fight.

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The problem with the story is the use of "foreign fighters" without any explanation of where this assessmenet comes from; or why things have changed since the 6% number.

It remains to be understood what relationship the author has with DoD, or what role DoD has in providing background information to the author. [ AP Author ]

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2002: PsyOps in Iraq [ Click ]