Wampum

MSN is running the momentary topical variation on the Why-We-Must-Bomb-Iran "news". Even before all the KIA have been IDed (there were 18, not 14, KIA Wednesday, for a three-day total of 25, not 21, Marines killed in Anbar Province in 72 hours of anti-occupation partisan operations). It is obscene.

But suppose for a moment that the primary external function of Military Intelligence isn't accuracy in public (enemy) information, but affecting the public (enemy) information.

The claim is that Iran is sending shaped charge munitions, the kind usually delivered in HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) payloads on direct-fire weapons -- the primary weapon of tanks, helicopter- and man-packed rockets -- a few kilograms, sufficient to deliver a plasma jet capable of blowing a jet of liquid metal and hot gas into the crew or engineering compartment of an armored vehicle. The primary alternative is the kind usually used in steel structure demolition, again, comically small charges. These use high, or very-high brisance explosives, the kind I wrote about here and here discussing the RDX, HMX and PETN inventories abandoned in-place (transfered to the armed opposition's reserve) by US forces in Iraq.

The "proof" offered is that a 37-ton object was moved horizontally 40 feet, with a 180 degree rotation while off the ground.

So 14 Marines are killed by blast effect produced by being proximal to a large, low brisance explosive (their vehicle was the lifted, not shredded-in-place, except for secondary explosions of on-board munition and fuel, 37-ton object), and their lives are re-purposed to provide context for yet another fake "Iran" story.

Not too long ago MSN -- er -- US Intel -- was blaming the Russians for spiriting out high brisance ordinance. Then, like now, MSN and its sources (US Intel) couldn't tell if the Russians got 377 tons of IAEA controlled high brisance ordinance out by going west, into Syria/Lebanon, or east, into Iran. Of course, at that point, Syria was at the top of the short-list of "what's next" for Bush regime targeters.

I recommend reading Cole's take on it. Juan missed the timing of the PMOI bombings in Tehran and elsewhere a month ago, staged from Camp Ashraf in American Iraq, and the possibility of Iranian signaling they too have ordinance delivery capability also -- basic fence minding tit-for-tat that all force structures use to maintain perimeters of control. Juan also missed the unliklihood of central civil governmental involvement in something as absurd as this -- the Khatami government (cabinet) is preparing to stand-down, and Ahmadinejad's collection of interests and supporters are racing a 14 day Constitutional clock (4 days expired) to form the Ahmadinejad government (cabinet).

What else? I'm distracted by being a trailer elf with three elflings-in-charge on a we've-got-20-amps day before we go really off-grid for several days...

Oh. Way back in March, 2004, when I went to Rome for an ICANN meeting, I mentioned over dinner to Marwen Radwan, responsible for the Palestinian ccTLD, that the US should transfer control of Iraq to Iran, rather than the UN, since Iran has more interest in the future of Iraq than any collection of US client states, and since Iraq owes Iran reparations for the costs of the Iraq-imposed war, which Iran is unlikely to get from the US (which sponsored that war), or any collection of US client states. Basically, the shortest path to the end of militarism, and the risk of transformation of political conflicts into militarized conflicts, was to invite Tehran to take responsibility for much of Iraq, and responsibility to prevent militarized conflict between Iraqi militias and their power bases.

Iran has had effective political control over much of Iraq, except Al Anbar province, to the benefit of the GI's in Iraq, who are mostly getting hit in Al Anbar.

So, the question isn't why MSN is doctored, it is why MI at the theater (CENTCOM) and command (OSD) levels are messaging that Iran is the enemey, not the ally. At the onset of every cool season I get antsy about how quickly Patton's 3rd Army extracted from one line of march (east) and complete engagement in battle, pivoted, and attacked along another line of march (north) to meet a hard deadline.