About Those Missiles…
One of the more interesting cables revealed by Wikileaks involved a meeting between Russian and US diplomats that touched on the question of Iran-North Korea collaboration. One of the key charges made by the Americans was that a number of BM-25 ballistic missiles had been shipped, in various states of construction, from North Korea to Iran in 2005. If you read the cable, you’ll note that the Russians are surprised by the claim, and refuse to give it much credence. The Russian objections seem quite sensible to me, although the US diplomats have some decent responses. An article in the WaPo today gives some detail about the motivations of both sides, and puts into severe question the claim that 19 whole missiles were transferred. This degree of doubt (and, you know, reporting) was utterly absent in the New York Times coverage of the same cable, which failed to even note Russian objections to the US claims. See also.
I also kind of have to wonder whatever happened to this report, which involved essentially the same missile.
Iran was able to build and launch a satellite, why would they look to North Korea for missile technology? I’m not saying they didn’t buy missiles from North Korea, but this is rocket science and Iran isn’t a technological backwater.
Why would Iran have any relations with the Hermit Kingdom, at all? Would it make them eligible for special prizes in the axis-of-evil club or something?
1. North Korea is pretty good at missile tech, which isn’t all that surprising for a Soviet style economy.
2. Both North Korea and Iran are under heavy scrutiny and sanctions, which makes it difficult to buy the stuff from other sellers.
You are not suggesting that the US government might hype nonexistent weapons of mass destruction are you? We all know that could never happen.
I think this might be a major problem with US intelligence gathering. I saw that the origin of this report was a German newspaper, but I would speculate that there is good money out there for anyone hinting at insidious schemes by the Khamanei government.
Explain to me again why “progressives” like Jon Stewart are rushing to assure everyone that Wikileaks’ latest “dump” contains nothing of value?
It’s not nothing of value. It’s nothing of especial HARM.
Julian Assange isn’t a fictional character. He doesn’t have a cabal of operatives burrowing deep inside U.S government for the sole purpose of destroying it. The document dump didn’t include all of our most cherished secrets; it was instead a collection of trivia, embarrassing anecdotes, and some items of legitimate, but not earth-shaking, interest and relevancy.
Then you pivot over to clips of people calling for Assange to be assassinated (while placing comical accent on his French-sounding last name) and tried for treason, which makes said people look like the insane fearmongers they are. Not hard to understand. I hope this explanation was helpful.
Oh… CLASSY link, dude. For reals.
Not to mention the phoney rape charge. A fews Swedes are getting some big bucks from the Pentagon for that nonsense.
You obviously misunderstood me. I’m pointing out that Farley’s analysis of the cables published by Wikileaks shows, contrary to the assertions of “progressives” like Jon Stewart, that Wikileaks’ work is in fact very valuable.
Why are so many on the “left”, rather than defending Wikileaks from outrageous attack, currently trying to trivialize the work that Wikileaks does?
Because ultimately they are both dubious about Assange’s motives and reflexively support the establishment position out of fear of the unknown.
The people pushing that there is a big distinction between these leaks and the Pentagon Papers confuse me though. The only differences are that Ellsburg was an American and the documents he released were much more highly classified. Both expose official lies in the pursuit of foreign wars.
If you read the cable, you’ll note that the Russians are surprised by the claim, and refuse to give it much creedence.
Probably because they didn’t think the Iranians would be able to import the missiles, since they have no Airplane.
I thought he meant they would listen to the U.S. diplomats’ arguments for about as long as it takes to listen to “Proud Mary,” but not so long as “Suzy Q.”
Cheerfully corrected!
After all the source of the US intellgience seems to be that they heard it through the grapevine . . .
It is encouraging to see the Libertarians, with their to-the-core belief in limited government, rushing to Assange’s defense. No doubt the tea partiers are assembling at this very moment.
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