Heads up,
Cat Walkers! Today's psy ops propaganda is the story that Iran has
100 new suicide bombers ready to attack the US, Britain and Israel should there be a military conflict. What a coincidence that this story should break just as Bush meets with Blair and Olmert to plan the next war.
The first source for the latest martyr story according to date sorting on Google News was IranFocus.com, a website registered to a London address and linked to the (CIA sponsored) anti-Iran terror group MEK, but the echo chamber has taken it up through a single article attributed to the Associated Press correspondent in Tehran.
Despite the AP article saying that the event appeared staged for the media, it appears only the AP gives it coverage and the photo is of a single, scary looking, hijab-wearing woman. There is no coverage of the event by the official Iranian news agency. Hmmmmmm . . .
Contrast the rather boring picture above with the opening sentence of the story:
Under a banner showing coffins draped with American, British and Israeli flags, more than 100 Iranian men and women pledged Thursday to become suicide bombers - if necessary - to defend their country and Islam.
Flag draped coffins! Where's that picture? THAT would be a great picture! Instead we get a studio headshot of an anonymous woman.
Iran insists its nuclear program is only for peaceful energy purposes, but Washington and allies believe Iran also seeks to develop atomic weapons.
It's unclear how the potential suicide bombers are recruited or trained, although several claimed to be Basiji members. Officials claiming to represent the group refused to give details and the event appeared largely staged for the media. Some of the women volunteers held their children on their laps.
Notice the nice juxtaposition of the nuke program with the suicide bombers and little bitty babies? That's the way psy ops should be written, dammit! They're getting good at this.
The first instance of the story is found at IranFocus.com, so let's start by looking at who's behind them. According to Shakti Das, the folks behind IranFocus are tied to US-sponsored anti-Iran terrorists:
Administrative Contact:
Jazayeri, Mo IRANFOCUS.COMKYORSw@privacypost.com
Iran Focus
PO Box 54238
London, W14 9ZA
Indeed the meta description from the Iranfocus.com site claims it is: "A network of analysts and correspondents worldwide with access to intelligence sources"
If one goes to find out who is behind the IRANFOCUS.COM all they say is that it's supposed to be a non-profit, but they give no board of directors or sources. They give no address to send funds/donations. It's obvious to me who they are.
Who is behind IranFocus? The MEK, now cooperating with the CIA as part of the effort to promote regime change, although still listed as a terrorist organisation. From Iranian Truth we learn that the MEK has a history of making up lies to propagandise regime change which gets echoed in the more credulous mainstream:
I've written several times about my distrust of several news sources by hard-line monarchists or the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organziation (a.k.a MKO, MEK, National Council of Resistance of Iran, NCRI, People's Mojahedin of Iran, PMOI, etc.) as well as those who rely on these sources as "news". Reading news from one of these agencies isn't about reflecting on different interpretive accounts of events. This isn't like choosing between the New York Times and Washington Post where there are different "spins" on the same source of information. Both the Time and the Post believe they are being objective, but in different ways. Relying on news sources by hardline monarchists and the MKO, is about choosing an agency that absolutely lies or exaggerates incidents in order to enhance their own political objective. Let us take Iran Focus as an example.
Let's roll, Cat Walkers!
We have another front page story with unattributed sources, pictures inciting fear, dubious motivations and a rapid escalation of hysteria.
Let everyone in the blogosphere and media know that this is yet another suspiciously timed story from the NRO, AEI usual suspect sources in their never-ending promotion of war against Iran.
Let's turn up:
- anything about Brian Murphy, variously styled as AP's Middle East correspondent or "religion writer", (nothing at SourceWatch.org) and his links to the usual suspects. (It's possible that like Chris Wattie from the National Post he had no idea he wrote this.);
- anything that substantiates or debunks the suicide bomber story from other non-AP contaminated media;
- anything that ties this to the phony stories about badges for Iranian Jews, Fakhravar or other recent psy ops ploys;
- anything about Headquarters for Commemorating Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement or their putative leader Mohammed Ali Samadi;
- a timeline for AP stories about the martyrs (first one I've found on FOX in December 2004 with no byline is here).
I take this opportunity to congratulate pinche tejano, paul2port, waterdancer, Steven D and snafu for contributing WBTC diaries this week that help us pull back the curtain every time these evil bastards start pulling the propaganda levers to make the media machine jump into motion.
Also a hat tip to TeleGeek, for originating the title of this diary and doing some of the early cross checking on the story.
Finally, many thanks to all who helped dig out stuff on Fakhravar on Tuesday. I've had confirmation of our suspicions by e-mail from an Iranian American who tracks events in Iran closely who had never heard of Fakhravar before the right-wing took him up as their new poster boy for regime change and says he is unknown inside Iran. I'll write it up as soon as I can for posting (the timeline is particularly interesting), but wanted this suicide bomber story investigated as a matter of urgency.
"Walk back the cat" is spy slang for retracing the train of evidence and assumptions until the double agent, the false source or the analytic error is identified.