Iranian weapons? BFD

Sunday, February 11, 2007 by Dave Winer.

The NY Times ran this story on Saturday, today there's a mysterious US press briefing announcing that they had discovered that weapons imported from Iran to Iraq are killing American soldiers. So what exactly are we supposed to conclude from this? They don't say. 

On the Sunday talk shows, the politicos don't say what's obvious to this voter.  

1. If you don't want Americans blown up by Iranian weapons, get them out of Iraq. 

2. It's a big surprise? We're calling them names, threatening them, moving our aircraft carriers into their ports, and we're supposed to be shocked that they're helping people who are fighting with us in Iraq? I would be surprised if it were otherwise, if they weren't helping them.  

3. Who's providing more weapons to our enemies, Iran or the U.S.? I don't have the slightest doubt that the American taxpayer is the largest single source of support for people killing Americans in Iraq. We're pumping billions of dollars into Iraq every month, a lot of that must be in the form of weapons. Our supposed allies in Iraq are actually Sunni or Shi'ite militia. There are virtually no non-partisans in Iraq, everyone is on some side, and aside from the Americans and British, they're all trying to blow our guys up.  

4. We'll leave behind a power vacuum in Iraq if we leave now? Seems doubtful to me. The place is already in chaos. We have 150,000 troops in Iraq (or thereabouts) in a country of 27 million people. How many of them are armed? Even if it's only ten percent of the populace that's still about 15 Iraqi combatants for every American. We're not keepting them from killing each other now, we're not keeping the peace, but we are getting killed. And here's the thought that scares me the most -- it could get a lot worse. 

5. Reality-check. Does the U.S. government have any credibility on such things? The people doing the briefing did it on the condition of anonymity. That the Times, of all the publications, is willing to report this as a straight news story is unreal. How stupid are we supposed to be, according to them? Pretty damned stupid, it seems.