Friday, March 17, 2006

Pajamas Media Doesn't Just Report History, It Helps To Make It

Talk about Gonzo Journalism:


Back in mid-February Pajamas Media went to Washington to cover the Intelligence Summit and did video interviews with Congressman Hoekstra (chair of the House Intell Committee), former DCI Woolsey and Richard Perle, among others. In all those interviews we discussed our idea - new to all of them - that the myriad untranslated Saddam tapes and documents be released to the blogosphere for translation.

The three men all, to one degree or another, liked the idea, although they were surprised by it. Today, it was announced that at the instigation of Hoekstra these documents have been released by the Pentagon for ... and this is how it was worded on the Brit Hume Show on Fox News ... for translation by the blogosphere.

One of the documents already translated by Iraq the Model here.

Here's some info on some of the documents already translated.

If you read nothing else today, make sure to go to this site.

Jveritas provides a translation of a document linking Iraq and Osama bin Laden CMPC-2003-001488 (hat tip: Jawa Report):

In the Name of God the MercifulPresidency of the RepublicIntelligence ApparatusTo the respectful Mr. M.A.MSubject: InformationOur source in Afghanistan No 11002 (for information about him see attachment
1) provided us with information that that Afghani Consul Ahmad Dahestani (for information about him see attachment
2) told him the following:1. That Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan are in contact with Iraq and it that previously a group from Taliban and Osama Bin Laden group visited Iraq.2. That America has proof that the government of Iraq and Osama Bin Laden group have shown cooperation to hit target within America.
3. That in case it is proven the involvement of Osama Bin Laden group and the Taliban in these destructive operations it is possible that American will conduct strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
4. That the Afghani Consul heard about the subject of Iraq relation with Osama Bin Laden group during his stay in Iran.
5. In light of this we suggest to write to the Commission of the above information.
Please view… Yours…
With regards
Signature:……,
Initials :
A.M.M, 15/9/2001
Foot note:
Immediately send to the Chairman of CommissionSignature:………….


There's more there and more to come.

I BELIEVE THE RELEASE OF THESE DOCUMENTS WAS CAREFULLY TIMED.

THEY ARE BEING RELEASED NOW AS PART OF THE EFFORT TO PREPARE US FOR A MAJOR ASSAULT ON IRAN.

JUST WATCH.

14 comments:

A. Eteraz said...

So now we're going to be in Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq?

We can't contain the bullshit in Iraq and now we're going to take on a nation of 60 million which actually has a standing army and is rabidly nationalisic, and has Russian and Chinese arms, and an airforce.

I smell the draft.

Pastorius said...

No, I don't think we'll be sending in an army, Eteraz.

I don't think we can afford another Democracy Project.

Pastorius said...

By the way, what do you think should be done about Iran?

Epaminondas said...

I am not and have never been in favor of troops on the gound in Iran.

Even though, not some, not most, but ALL of the Iranians I know tell me their families keep asking them 'where are the marines?' The problem is that even if 97% support us, 3% x 60,000,000 = too much for a volunteer army.

I feel bad for these people. They are lead by crazed bigots circling a well waiting for the messiah to crawl out after they do their part in creating armgeddon.

KILL THE MULLAHS NOW.
Decapitiation stikes along with the nuclear strikes.
Repeat as necessary, b.i.d

Pastorius said...

Epa, Just to claify, you mean strikes on nuke facilities, right? You're not callin for nuking Iran, are you?

Cubed © said...

AA,

You told Eteraz that he "...should only be scared if you're a trained military pilot."

Yeah, or maybe this, too: "...should only be scared if you're a trained nuclear submariner within range of Iran's coast with your finger on the launch buttons of all those multitasking warheads aboard. . ."

I agee that no draft is necessary in order to do what's minimally necessary to achieve our goal. Our goal would be simply to destroy their capacity to wreak havoc upon anyone else. Pastorius is right - this would not be another idiotic "democracy project."

My personal favorite would be to set off an EMP above every significant city in the country. They wouldn't be able to turn on a light bulb, much less launch any missiles.

Actually, you should meet the pilots and the submarine crews; they don't scare very easily. . .

Oh, and maybe, just for good measure, we should drop a bunker-buster down that well the Mahdi is supposed to come crawling out of.

Ep,

Yeah, we would definitely have to limit ourselves to methods not requiring foot soldiers. Two million or so poor Iranian SOBs eager to die for their share of the virgins, white raisins, pearly boys, or whatever they think is awaiting them, is definitely a waste of too many of our fine young men. Besides, there would be the "irregulars," too - all those folks who signed up to become martyrs. It just isn't worth it.

"Kill the mullahs" is a wonderful notion. Why, the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini himself once said, "Those who oppose the mullahs oppose Islam itself; eliminate the mullahs and Islam shall disappear in fifty years."

Works for me!

Pastorius said...

I have wondered if it is possible that we may have developed a non-nuclear EMP weapon. If so, we could basically walk into their country and remove the nuke material by hand. Of course, we'd have to fight their army, but look what we did to Hussein's army and they fought the Iranian army to a draw.

Pastorius said...

By the way, it seems like everyone thinks we're gonna use nukes. I really don't think that's gonna happen guys.

Oscar in Kansas said...

Sorry to be the buzz kill but it ain't gonna happen. Not ground troops certainly. As I've posted before i will be stunned if the Bush administration attacks Iran in any way. I don't think it will happen via planes, trains or automobiles.

The costs, military, political (domestic and international) and economically, are simply too high in the immediate term. Sure Iran having a nuke has a cost, but it is a potential cost for the long term.

I've argued this in more detail elsewhere and I don't want to bore everyone but short of an Iranian attack on US soil or a major ally, I can't imagine a situation where a Republican president with such low poll numbers in an election year would order a preventative airstrike on Iran.

Where is the payoff? Where is the benefit, politically speaking? The rewards are invisible (Iran doesn't get the bomb which is pretty much status quo minus the Iranian retaliation [economic, terrorist, political, etc]). But costs are real and tangible and immediate. Politcally how is this a winner?

I fear and dread the Iranian bomb as much as anyone but I don't see how we stop them without paying a price that most politicians and many Americans would find unbearable.

I will gladly pay Pastorius the steak dinner I bet on this if we bomb Iran but cold political calculus leads me to the conclusion that the Iranians will develop the capacity to build and deliver an atomic device.

From the Iranian point of view it's a win-win. If we bomb them then they get a united Iran fired up by nationalist emotion and envigorated by Shi'a mystical martyrdom. Thus their political rivals are crushed and the Revolution is re-energized. If we don't bomb them, they get the bomb and all the prestige that goes with it.

We have a weak hand. The best we can do is play for time and hope that avian flu resolves this problem for us.

Oscar in Kansas said...

Oh by the way I agree with Pastorius' last comment. We will not use any unconventional weapons on Iran, nuclear or otherwise.

Moreover, at this time the US will not launch a nuclear first-strike on any nation. Period. At one point we would have done so against the USSR but as the Russian capacity to wage war on that scale decays (along with the rest of Russian society) that policy decays with it.

I hate to keep repeating myself on this issue but we are virtually out of options on Iran. We have to start thinking about how to manage a world where Iran has a nuclear weapons capacity. Not this year and probably not next but it is inevitable.

Anonymous said...

What about biological warfare?

The U.S has been investing time and money on this for decades, yet really havent used it.
Wonder if this situation with Iran is what they have been waiting for??

Pastorius said...

i love anonymous commenters. it is my suspicion, mr. anonymous, that you are posing such a question, and phrasing it the way you do, simply to tar america, and this blog.

No, I don't think we'll use bios on Iran.

Pastorius said...

Thomas,
I had forgotten about our bet. I rcall that there is a bottle of champagne involved as well.

Why do you think Bush has begun making the case for war, if he will not actually attack?

Epaminondas said...

anonymous... are you aware that the US had PLANS to fight WW2 since the early thirties, when our standing army was about 60,000 men

Plans indicate your brain is working.
It does not indicate WHAT you are going to actually do tomorrow morning.

One may PLAN how to fight a war, depending on what the opposition does.

If the a galactic twerp of Iran hands off a gallon of ricin to Fadlallah to dispense in Phila we do A, but if they continue to just jerk the world around w/rgd to building nukes, we do b...which might be, for instance, make Israel a part of NATO, making it mandatory for all of Nato to attack Iran and Hizbollah if Iran attacks.

However, no matter what, when we are speaking of nukes, pre-emption will ALWAYS cost less in lives than failure of deterrence.

Or as an ex-Irgun member out it, his enemy was not the children of Baghdad.