If a journalist wanted to report the war against Iraq, he or she had to be embedded.
If you weren't embedded, you would be shot at by the crusading forces of democracy.
Not just Al-Jazeera.
ITN's Terry Lloyd and his Lebanese interpreter, Hussein Osman, were shot dead by US forces right at the start of Iraq War 2.
The massacre of the people and the razing of the city of Fallujah was an act of medieval revenge conducted with C21st barbarity.
White phosphorus burning, consuming, sizzling the flesh of women, of children, to the bone itself.
The metaphysical purpose of Operation Phantom Fury was to avenge the killing of four dogs of war - employees of Blackwater aka Xe aka Manchurian Global.
To create Fear.
To create Terror.
There are even claims that US officials demanded that Al-Jazeera journalists immediately leave Fallujah as a pre-condition for truce talks at the height of the slaughter.
If a global power is butchering women and children as part of a strategy of Terror, it needs a Propaganda Ministry.
Not journalists.
It needs Fox News.
To praise the heroic Operation Vigilant Resolve.
To cheerlead for Team Neocon.
It needs CNN:
Quote:CNN incorrectly reported on October 14, 2004, that the US offensive assault on Fallujah had begun and broadcast a report from a young Marine outside Fallujah, 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert, who announced that "troops have crossed the line of departure." Hours later, CNN reported their Pentagon reporters had determined that the assault had not, in fact, begun. The Los Angeles Times reported on December 1, 2004, that, according to several unnamed Pentagon officials, the Marine's announcement was a feint--part of an elaborate "psychological operation" (PSYOP) to determine the Fallujah rebels' reactions if they believed attack was imminent.
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War." Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta." The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
22-06-2009, 08:54 PM (This post was last modified: 22-06-2009, 08:59 PM by Jan Klimkowski.)
Magda - some excellent imagery in your post #25 in this thread.
I wonder who owns the graphic design, costs-plus, contract?
Here's more intriguing iconography:
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War." Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta." The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
Paul Rigby Wrote:Ah, yes, another of those spontaneous “colour revolutions” – and hard on the heals of Obama’s terribly sincere apology for 1953 and all that:
Quote:The elected Iranian leader attends SCO meeting:
CIA Discovered Planning “Soft Revolution” in Early 2009
Global Research, June 24, 2009
Mehr News Agency - 2009-06-19
Quote:TEHRAN, Jan. 19 (Mehr News Agency) — Iran has broken up a CIA-backed network that sought to carry out a “soft revolution” in Iran through people-to-people contacts.
The “soft revolution” plan is based in Dubai and is similar to a U.S. plan that targeted the Soviet Union in 1959 [1989? PR], the director of the counterespionage department of the Intelligence Ministry told reporters at a press conference here on Monday.
He said the CIA was seeking to implement the plan under the cover of scientific and cultural contacts between Iranian and U.S. nationals.
Unfortunately, some Iranian nationals, especially cultural and scientific figures, were deceived through such activities, he added.
“The U.S. intelligence agency was seeking to (repeat) its experiences of color revolutions through such public contacts with influential persons and elites.”
The CIA tried to attain its goals by taking advantage of people-to-people contacts, joint studies, efforts to share scientific experiences, and other similar projects, he added.
The soft revolution plan was carried out through “NGOs, union protests, non-violent demonstrations, civil disobedience… and (efforts to) foment ethnic strife” all across Iran, the official stated.
Four of the people who led the network inside Iran were actively and intentionally cooperating with CIA agents, he noted.
These four persons were put on trial, some others were pardoned, and some others were acquitted due to lack of sufficient evidence, he explained.
These four persons confessed and videotapes of parts of their confessions will be released soon, he noted.
He only named two of the persons, the brothers Dr. Arash Alaei and Dr. Kamyar Alaei.
The Intelligence Ministry official said that $32 million of the $75 million allocated by the U.S. Congress to destabilize Iran was spent on this project.
The CIA used institutions such as the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Soros Foundation, AIPAC, and charity organizations and sought the help of William Burns and other people in the United States and agents in the Azerbaijan Republic, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait.
He stated that the CIA enlisted scientists, physicians, university professors, clergymen, artists, athletes, and dress designers for its plot.
He went on to say that these people were invited to the United States in groups of 10-15 people, with visas issued for them in Dubai in the shortest possible time, and according to their professions, they participated in scientific seminars and toured various states, and when they returned home they were asked to write “analyses” of the situation inside Iran.
The CIA was actively seeking to recruit more people for the network, who also would have been invited to visit the United States, he added.
These persons were ordered to put pressure on the government to change its policy and to sow discord between the government and the people, he explained.
The Intelligence Ministry found out about the secret plan from the very beginning and “even allowed the operation to be conducted to a (certain level) so that we could inform talented people with full confidence that they should not be deceived by such scientific centers,” he stated.
The Iranian Intelligence Ministry countered the plot by “infiltrating” the network and even derailed it from its path by providing false information, but the CIA eventually discovered the ruse, he explained.
Advice for Obama
The official advised the incoming U.S. administration to avoid repeating the previous “failed” policies toward Iran.
He made the remarks one day before Barack Obama is officially inaugurated as the next U.S. president.
The Intelligence Ministry official said the U.S. is discrediting its scientific and charity organizations by allowing the CIA to use them as cover for its activities.
“It is not in the interests of scientific and political institutions (to allow themselves) to be used by the CIA for its hidden agenda.”
Employing such organizations to conduct spy activities will create skepticism about them that will be very difficult to eliminate, he noted.
NEWS: Second US amphibious strike group arrives off Iran's shores [On Jun. 20, the day the crackdown began in Iran, the U.S. expeditionary strike group known as LHD-5 Bataan or "Amphibious Group Two" passed through the Suez Canal, military sources reported Tuesday.[1] -- The commanding officer of the USS Bataan called the group "a versatile force that's able to respond to tasking at a moment's notice." -- Stratfor's naval update map showed the group to be in the Persian Gulf as of Jun. 24.[2] -- PR human interest stories from the Bataan assault group failed to mention where the group was or where it was headed.[3] -- The Daily News of Jacksonville, NC, reported that the group deployed (from its homeport of Norfolk, VA) in May before training had been completed for its maritime security mission.[4] -- BACKGROUND: Global Security's out-of-date description (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/a.../lhd-5.htm) of the group says that "The principal mission of WASP Class ships is to enable the Navy/Marine Corps team to accomplish a seamless transition from the sea to a land battle, primarily as the command ship of an Amphibious Ready Group. LHDs are specifically designed to lay off a troubled area of the world, and insert forces ashore by helicopters and 50 m.p.h. LCAC hover craft."[5] -- The USS Bataan, which is 844 feet long and carries (http://www.navsource.org/archives/10/08/0805.htm) 1,894 marines (plus 184 surge) as well as dozens of attack aircraft, can be seen leaving Norfolk on May 13, 2009, in this high-quality photograph. (http://www.navsource.org/archives/10/08/10080530.jpg ) -- LHD-5 is said to be relieving the LHD-4 Boxer group, which has been in the region since January. (http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/01/ma...nt_010709/) -- Thus the U.S. now has two expeditionary strike groups off the shores of Iran. -- (By the way, as of Jun. 25, the USS Bataan's web site (http://www.bataan.navy.mil/default.aspx) is still misreporting its location.) --Mark] http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/8782/
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
Quote:Consider this scenario: A CIA-trained sharpshooter takes position on a rooftop in Tehran. His contact on the street below, waiting with a camera, calls. “She just got out of the car. A perfect target.” He takes aim. Shoots. He disappears.
On the street, the contact takes the video of the young woman, her face visible and unscarred, helped by people on the street around her, bleeding to death.
Within an hour, the video arrives to an Iranian contact in the Netherlands, to the BBC, to the Voice of America. It becomes part of a much bigger story.
Is that what happened to Neda Agha-Soltan? We admit it. We don’t know.
But you don’t know either. And the story outlined above is—if anything—more reasonable and more believable than the story spread and repeated ad infinitum by the powerful Western media propaganda machine.
The young woman, whoever she sympathized with, was in no confrontation with the authorities. Nor with paramilitary forces. She was away from the main demonstration. Why, when there were no significant gunfights and no big fighting in the area, would any state official, police or army, shoot an unarmed woman who wasn’t even at the protest and who had no political history?
How was it that the photographer had contact with the media most closely connected with the intelligence forces of the two major former colonial powers in Iran—Britain and the U.S.?
Coincidences happen. But here a lot happened at once. Was someone behind it?
What we can be sure of is that the corporate media based in the imperialist countries are powerful weapons that in times of crisis sow confusion among the masses and mobilize public opinion in support of the rulers and to demonize the oppressed and exploited.
In these times of the Internet, we have to remember that disinformation spreads with the same lightning speed as information.
________________________________________
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Dr. Amy L. Beam (Educator, IT professional, writer and editor)
TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 2009
HOW THE WRONG NEDA PHOTO BECAME IRAN'S FACE OF FREEDOM
Quote:On the evening of June 21, 2009, I, Dr. Amy L. Beam, was watching the unfolding events of Iran simultaneously at my computer and on Al Jazeera and CNN TV. I am in Europe. The TV newscasters kept repeating that this had become a Twitter Revolution in Iran. I've never before used Twitter to search for news, but this prompted me to. I logged onto twitter.com and searched for "Iran demonstrations". I saw the top search term was #iranelections so I searched for this and kept updating my search every minute. Twitters were pouring.
This is how I saw the Twitter posting that had a link to the youtube video of Neda being shot in Iran. It had just been uploaded. About 120 people had viewed it within several minutes. I was curious to know the dead woman's name so I emailed the person who uploaded the video. He thought the name was Neda Soltani. He explained that this video had been sent to him, outside of Iran, by the doctor who had been at Neda's side as she bled to death. The doctor's friend shot the video with his cell phone. The doctor also sent an explanatory note.
So I went immediately to Facebook and searched for Neda Soltani. A number of Neda profiles came up along with photos. Some had last names similar to Soltani. I decided I would try to eliminate the Neda's who were still alive, so I wrote to Neda Soltani, the beautiful Iranian woman wearing a patterned headscarf whose photo has become famous:
Quote:"Dear Neda,
I am trying to identify the Neda Soltani shot to death in Tehran June 20. I can only do this by process of elimination. Please reply if you get this. Thank you.
Amy"
She replied about an hour later:
Quote:"My Dearest Amy,
First, I should like to thank you for your compassion, and care.
It feels so good to know people around the world care for us!
I am not the one you are looking for, but I want you to know I am grateful.
Pray for the safety of my people.
Best,
Neda Soltani"
She and I then became "friends" on Facebook so we could post messages to one another. I also became friends with Hamed R. who is the man who uploaded the video file of the Neda who was shot to death.
The LIVING Neda Soltani (woman in the patterned headscarf) decided to do some research herself. She found a website written in Farsi about the Neda who was killed and she translated it from Farsi to English. She then posted this on my Facebook wall. And HERE'S WHERE THE MISTAKE WITH THE PHOTO HAPPENED:
For those of you familiar with Facebook, you know that whenever someone posts a message on your wall, the thumbnail profile photo and the name of the person doing the posting appears above his or her comment. So, of course, the name and photo of the living Neda Soltani appeared above the English and Farsi information about Neda Agha-Soltan, the woman who was killed.
Hamed R. and others who were viewed this posting on my Facebook wall by the living Neda Soltani made the unintentional mistake of thinking the photo of the person who posted the Farsi-English translation was the photo of the woman who was killed. So the photo of Neda wearing the patterned headscarf was copied and reposted EVERYWHERE within minutes and hours.
By the time I woke up June 22, the wrong photo of the living Neda Soltani was being displayed on TV, blogs, youtube videos, placards and banners around the world. Neda Soltani emailed me via Facebook begging for help to correct the mistake. I have spent hours posting corrections and asking people to remove her photo. Most people do; some people seem hell-bent on ignoring the truth and they insist on spreading this photo as the symbol of the Neda who was killed.
Some people changed their own Facebook profile photo to that of the woman in the headscarf and changed their name to Neda Soltani. One young man explained he did it three days after Neda's death to honor her memory. I am sure people meant no disrespect; they only wanted to honor her. When informed of the mistaken photo they removed it. However, as fast as one false "Neda Soltani" Facebook page is removed or corrected, another one appears.
The real, living Neda Soltani has removed her photo from her Facebook. However, now when you search for Neda Soltani on Facebook a whole list of profiles comes up. Thus, the REAL Neda Soltani, who is very much alive and very distressed, can no longer use her Facebook which was pretty much her main form of communication. If all these people who changed their Facebook names to Neda Soltani only knew what a problem they have caused for her, I feel sure they would remove the name. I know they only mean to honor the Neda who was killed.
Now the dilemma arises of knowing who is the real living Neda Soltani and do I really speak for her. I have screen shots of my Facebook private message postings between us but wish to keep them private. I communicate with her by private email now.
On June 23, Neda Soltani again emailed me the following. I have thought hard as to whether to share her private email, but in order to make people understand the gravity of this mistaken identity with her photo and her request to the world to correct the mistake, here is her email to me. I have removed some of the content to protect her privacy:
Quote:Dear Amy,
I'm having a hard time accessing facebook.
and to tell you the truth, I'm very scared!!!!
All around the world they are talking about my photo, which has turned into The symbol of liberty, rebellion, etc.
i'm in danger!
i don't know what to do!
thanks for ur caring compassion
i wish i could see u, and embrace u...
take care
neda
It reminds me of the "Saddam bayoneted my baby" scam, run by the Bush I regime's propagandists during the Kuwaiti prelude to the first Iraq War.
Quote:Suffer the Little Children
Every big media event needs what journalists and flacks alike refer to as "the hook." An ideal hook becomes the central element of a story that makes it newsworthy, evokes a strong emotional response, and sticks in the memory. In the case of the Gulf War, the "hook" was invented by Hill & Knowlton. In style, substance and mode of delivery, it bore an uncanny resemblance to England's World War I hearings that accused German soldiers of killing babies.
On October 10, 1990, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus held a hearing on Capitol Hill which provided the first opportunity for formal presentations of Iraqi human rights violations. Outwardly, the hearing resembled an official congressional proceeding, but appearances were deceiving. In reality, the Human Rights Caucus, chaired by California Democrat Tom Lantos and Illinois Republican John Porter, was simply an association of politicians. Lantos and Porter were also co-chairs of the Congressional Human Rights Foundation, a legally separate entity that occupied free office space valued at $3,000 a year in Hill & Knowlton's Washington, DC office. Notwithstanding its congressional trappings, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus served as another Hill & Knowlton front group, which - like all front groups - used a noble-sounding name to disguise its true purpose.80
Only a few astute observers noticed the hypocrisy in Hill & Knowlton's use of the term "human rights." One of those observers was John MacArthur, author of The Second Front, which remains the best book written about the manipulation of the news media during the Gulf War. In the fall of 1990, MacArthur reported, Hill & Knowlton's Washington switchboard was simultaneously fielding calls for the Human Rights Foundation and for "government representatives of Indonesia, another H&K client. Like H&K client Turkey, Indonesia is a practitioner of naked aggression, having seized . . . the former Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1975. Since the annexation of East Timor, the Indonesian government has killed, by conservative estimate, about 100,000 inhabitants of the region."81
MacArthur also noticed another telling detail about the October 1990 hearings: "The Human Rights Caucus is not a committee of congress, and therefore it is unencumbered by the legal accouterments that would make a witness hesitate before he or she lied. ... Lying under oath in front of a congressional committee is a crime; lying from under the cover of anonymity to a caucus is merely public relations."82
In fact, the most emotionally moving testimony on October 10 came from a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of Nayirah. According to the Caucus, Nayirah's full name was being kept confidential to prevent Iraqi reprisals against her family in occupied Kuwait. Sobbing, she described what she had seen with her own eyes in a hospital in Kuwait City. Her written testimony was passed out in a media kit prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait. "I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital," Nayirah said. "While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where . . . babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."83
Three months passed between Nayirah's testimony and the start of the war. During those months, the story of babies torn from their incubators was repeated over and over again. President Bush told the story. It was recited as fact in Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security Council. "Of all the accusations made against the dictator," MacArthur observed, "none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City."84
At the Human Rights Caucus, however, Hill & Knowlton and Congressman Lantos had failed to reveal that Nayirah was a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her father, in fact, was Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the US, who sat listening in the hearing room during her testimony. The Caucus also failed to reveal that H&K vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado had coached Nayirah in what even the Kuwaitis' own investigators later confirmed was false testimony.
If Nayirah's outrageous lie had been exposed at the time it was told, it might have at least caused some in Congress and the news media to soberly reevaluate the extent to which they were being skillfully manipulated to support military action. Public opinion was deeply divided on Bush's Gulf policy. As late as December 1990, a New York Times/CBS News poll indicated that 48 percent of the American people wanted Bush to wait before taking any action if Iraq failed to withdraw from Kuwait by Bush's January 15 deadline.85 On January 12, the US Senate voted by a narrow, five-vote margin to support the Bush administration in a declaration of war. Given the narrowness of the vote, the babies-thrown-from-incubators story may have turned the tide in Bush's favor.
Following the war, human rights investigators attempted to confirm Nayirah's story and could find no witnesses or other evidence to support it. Amnesty International, which had fallen for the story, was forced to issue an embarrassing retraction. Nayirah herself was unavailable for comment. "This is the first allegation I've had that she was the ambassador's daughter," said Human Rights Caucus co-chair John Porter. "Yes, I think people . . . were entitled to know the source of her testimony." When journalists for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation asked Nasir al-Sabah for permission to question Nayirah about her story, the ambassador angrily refused.86
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War." Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta." The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
I am also reminded me quite strongly of the shooting of Woman Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan Embassy in 1984.
Her death at the hands of an unknown gunman in the Libyan embassy caused a massive siege of the embassy and resulted in a huge rift in diplomatic relations between the UK and LIbya that eventually saw Margaret Thatchler authorize the flights of US F-111 bombers from British based USAF bases to bomb Libya.
Some years later it was revealed via use of forensic analysis that the bullet that killed Fletcher could not have been fired from the 2nd floor of the Libyan embassy as stated by official investigation, but rather came from the sixth floor of an adjoining building which hosted a secret joint MI5-CIA observation nest.
Fletcher was murdered to create a public outcry and to foster the attitude that it was okay to allow USAF warplanes to launch from the UK to bomb Libya - a de facto declaration of war by the UK.
The French would not allow the F-111's to overfly French airspace forcing an added 2,600 nautical miles flight for the aircraft to and from the target. During the raid, the French embassy was badly damaged by US bombs. Fortunately, this was an "accident" as OBVIOUSLY the French embassy in Tripoli hadn't been targeted in revenge for their bloody-mindedness.
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
I am also reminded of the snipers in Venezuela that shot into the crowds of anti-Chavistas killing several. The primed and ready media whores claimed them to be the Chavistas shooting but a foreign crew filming them, incidentally as they were meaning to film the protests, exposed them as anti-Chavistas.
With the Iranian scenario I wondered why this woman on the sidelines, not protesting had been singled out, quite deliberately by the looks of it, when there were all these 1,000's of others in the street rioting. Why her and not the protestors which the guards were supposed to be repressing?
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
Ditto selected Brit special forces soldiers tasked to shoot innocents in Northern Ireland to cause mayhem and destabilization -- or indeed, being responsible for bomb atrocities there and on the UK mainland also.
It is classic Gladio-type strategy of tension destabilization operations.
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
The sources are Jeff Stein, who is a frequent MSM TV talking head and thus a connected insider, and Bob Baer who is a ? Yes. Baer is precisely ?
Plus ret Admiral Lyons, who used to run Navy SEALS "Red Cell counter-terror" operations.
Is this bitching amongst insider factions? Or a flicker in the aether revealing deep geopolitical twitchings far from preterite sight?
Whatever, Mir-Hossein Mousavi certainly has an interesting history:
Quote:Mousavi, Celebrated in Iranian Protests, Was the Butcher of Beirut
By Jeff Stein | June 22, 2009 7:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
He may yet turn out to be the avatar of Iranian democracy, but three decades ago Mir-Hossein Mousavi was waging a terrorist war on the United States that included bloody attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.
Mousavi, prime minister for most of the 1980s, personally selected his point man for the Beirut terror campaign, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-pur, and dispatched him to Damascus as Iran's ambassador, according to former CIA and military officials.
The ambassador in turn hosted several meetings of the cell that would carry out the Beirut attacks, which were overheard by the National Security Agency.
"We had a tap on the Iranian ambassador to Syria," retired Navy Admiral James "Ace" Lyons related by telephone Monday. In 1983 Lyons was deputy chief of Naval Operations, and deeply involved in the events in Lebanon.
"The Iranian ambassador received instructions from the foreign minister to have various groups target U.S. personnel in Lebanon, but in particular to carry out a 'spectacular action' against the Marines," said Lyons.
"He was prime minister," Lyons said of Mousavi, "so he didn't get down to the details at the lowest levels. "But he was in a principal position and had to be aware of what was going on."
Lyons, sometimes called "the father" of the Navy SEALs' Red Cell counter-terror unit, also fingered Mousavi for the 1988 truck bombing of the U.S. Navy's Fleet Center in Naples, Italy, that killed five persons, including the first Navy woman to die in a terrorist attack.
Bob Baer agrees that Mousawi, who has been celebrated in the West for sparking street demonstrations against the Teheran regime since he lost the elections, was directing the overall 1980s terror campaign.
But Baer, a former CIA Middle East field officer whose exploits were dramatized in the George Clooney movie "Syriana," places Mousavi even closer to the Beirut bombings.
"He dealt directly with Imad Mughniyah," who ran the Beirut terrorist campaign and was "the man largely held responsible for both attacks," Baer wrote in TIME over the weekend.
"When Mousavi was Prime Minister, he oversaw an office that ran operatives abroad, from Lebanon to Kuwait to Iraq," Baer continued.
"This was the heyday of [Ayatollah] Khomeini's theocratic vision, when Iran thought it really could export its revolution across the Middle East, providing money and arms to anyone who claimed he could upend the old order."
Baer added: "Mousavi was not only swept up into this delusion but also actively pursued it."
Retired Adm. Lyons maintained that he could have destroyed the terrorists at a hideout U.S. intelligence had pinpointed, but he was outmaneuvered by others in the cabinet of President Ronald Reagan.
"I was going to take them apart," Lyons said, "but the secretary of defense," Caspar Weinberger, "sabotaged it."
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War." Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta." The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
