Iran is arming Taliban, U.S. envoy claims

[sabra]

Source: AP

PARIS - A senior U.S. diplomat accused Iran on Tuesday of transferring weapons to Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan — the most direct comments yet on the issue by a ranking American official.

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, speaking to reporters in Paris, said Iran was funding insurrections across the Middle East — and "Iran is now even transferring arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan."

Iran's possible role in aiding insurgents in Iraq has long been hotly debated, and last month some Western and Persian Gulf governments charged that the Islamic government in Tehran is secretly bolstering Taliban fighters.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, U.S. Army Gen. Dan McNeill said Taliban fighters are showing signs of better training, using combat techniques comparable to "an advanced Western military" in ambushes of U.S. Special Forces soldiers.


Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19190994/

[BOSSHOG]

1. This is just incredible

In the perfect conservative world, Iran is supposed to "welcome us as liberators" and give up their religion and convert to christianity overnight. How could they possibly want to fight Americans? Its just something one can hardly "believe" since we all know christian americans are the most perfect life forms on the planet.

[Norquist Nemesis]

6. In the perfect conservative world

EVERYONE is supposed to welcome us as liberators and do as we say, but not necessarily as we do.

[Parche]

2. Iran

Didnt the US 'Arm' Iraq during the Iran/Iraq conflict back in the 80's????

So what is the difference? :hi:

[sabra]

4. and what about the muhajadeen against the Soviets?

[Parche]

17. Yes

Yes Sabra, right you are!!! :hi:

I dont know how this government can see any difference, or 'whine' about Iran arming them

There are alot of other Countries that 'arm' certain ones in this World also.

[classysassy]

5. Saddam

I believe the Iraqi were the one we armed.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. We armed both.

Iraq openly, Iran covertly.

[olddad56]

13. not to mention arming the Taliban during Afghanistan's 8 year war with Russia

It is so amazing that we invade the countries on both sides of Iran and expect them not to aid their desperate neighbors. We are the terrorists. We are the invaders. We are the enemy in that region of the world. Our government is the enemy in this part of the world. In all parts of the world. We are the bad guys.

[RufusTFirefly]

3. Well then, we'd better attack 'em....

... just to be sure.

Then again, what would Andy Card say about this? Is June as bad as August? Is the timing right? Or should we wait until sweeps week?

"From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August" -- Andrew Card

[Bonobo]

7. We armed them first.

[maddezmom]

8. everyone is arming someone

US confirms it is arming Sunni insurgents, paper to report
Source: Raw Story

A story slated for Monday's New York Times by veteran Iraq correspondent John Burns will reveal that the U.S. military has confirmed that it is arming Sunni insurgent factions to try to contain al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, RAW STORY has learned.

"With the four-month-old "surge" in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni groups with insurgent links that have promised to fight al-Qaida."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2876160

[sabra]

14. seems like Cheney might be behind this story being pushed really hard...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1096024

[maddezmom]

15. thanks for the link

going to go read it now :)

[ShortnFiery]

9. So what? We're arming Lebanon and Israel. I don't understand the outrage?

:shrug:

[Bucky]

12. The big deal is that until 2002 Iran was helping us against the Taliban

The Taliban are really bad people. Thanks to Bush, they've formed a powerful new ally--one of our former allies--and are starting to gain ground in Afghanistan.

Bush's King Midas touch again: everything he touches turns to shit.

[ShortnFiery]

18. "The Taliban are really bad people." = They're in Afghanistan - no excuse to bomb Iran even if ...

they supply weapons. We arm "many bad people" too and no one would dream of bombing the USA.

I'm sick of attacking OTHER sovereign countries. Iran has a right to have an interest because they are INDEED, a neighbor of Afghanistan.

Instead of saber rattling, how about The State Department begin a dialog with Iran? OH! That would not be *manly* and if nothing else, the BushBotBorg are warmongering "machismo on steroids." :(

[Lord Balto]

22. Yeah, but but but...

...they won't let us sell Big Macs in Tehran!

[BushOut06]

24. But we're the GOOD GUYS

You see, the rules don't apply to the good guys. They only apply to the bad guys, who want to impose their will upon the rest of the world.

Hmmmm.... PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!

[LibertyorDeath]

10. I hear they're responsible for global warming also

It's connected to all the OIL they have

they're gonna sell it and it's gonna get used

and that's gonna increase global warming.

The only way to stop them is to get control of that OIL

and help save the World's atmosphere.

USA USA USA!!!

[madrchsod]

11. attack iran?

good luck....

[laststeamtrain]

19. Cheney's Iran-Arms-to-Taliban Gambit Rebuffed (IPS)

Cheney's Iran-Arms-to-Taliban Gambit Rebuffed

Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Jun 11 (IPS) - A media campaign portraying Iran as supplying arms to the Taliban guerrillas fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, orchestrated by advocates of a more confrontational stance toward Iran in the George W. Bush administration, appears to have backfired last week when Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan McNeil, issued unusually strong denials.
The allegation that Iran has reversed a decade-long policy and is now supporting the Taliban, conveyed in a series of press articles quoting "senior officials" in recent weeks, is related to a broader effort by officials aligned with Vice President Dick Cheney to portray Iran as supporting Sunni insurgents, including al Qaeda, to defeat the United States in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

An article in the Guardian published May 22 quoted an anonymous U.S. official as predicting an "Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive in Iraq, linking al Qaeda and Sunni insurgents to Tehran's Shia militia allies" and as referring to the alleged "Iran-al Qaeda linkup" as "very sinister".

That article and subsequent reports on CNN May 30, in the Washington Post Jun. 3 and on ABC news Jun. 6 all included an assertion by an unnamed U.S. official or a "senior coalition official" that Iran is following a deliberate policy of supplying the Taliban's campaign against U.S., British and other NATO forces.

In the most dramatic version of the story, ABC reported "NATO officials" as saying they had "caught Iran red-handed, shipping heavy arms, C4 explosives and advanced roadside bombs to the Taliban for use against NATO forces."

Far from showing that Iran had been "caught red-handed", however, the report quoted from an analysis which cited only the interception in Afghanistan of a total of four vehicles coming from Iran with arms and munitions of Iranian origin. The report failed to refer to any evidence of Iranian government involvement.

Both Gates and McNeill denied flatly last week that there is any evidence linking Iranian authorities to those arms. Gates told a press conference on Jun. 4, "We do not have any information about whether the government of Iran is supporting this, is behind it, or whether it's smuggling, or exactly what is behind it." Gates said that "some" of the arms in question might be going to Afghan drug smugglers.

<more>

http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=38121
*

[Javaman]

20. And we are arming the sunni. okay. so when does battle royal begin? nt

[Lord Balto]

21. Is that the CIA branch of the Iranian Government?

or the NSA branch?

[Amonester]

25. Perhaps it's the Iran/Contra branch with a "New" name?

A "New" name, like in "New" Pearl Harbor.
:yoiks:

[fujiyama]

23. They just make shit up

My guess is these "Western and Persian Gulf" nations (unnamed that too - convenient isn't it?), are deflecting their own support of the Taliban. It makes a lot more sense for fundamentalist SUNNI governments in the Persian Gulf to support the Taliban insurgents than for Iran. Plus, it's already been indicated that the US itself is supporting Sunni insurgents, many with the EXACT SAME ideaology as the Taliban.

Also, why isn't the US pointing fingers at Pakistan, the one country that has been CONSTANTLY supporting the Taliban even after its supposed ousting from power?

No wonder our supposed war on terror is a failure. No one has even the slightest clue of the complex alliances in the middle east and the factions within Islam. Iran=bad, Taliban=bad, therefore Taliban=Iran! That's the logic this government is now using.

And Blair is a worthless irrelevant fuck. Go crawl into a dark hole and do humanity a favor and don't show your poodle ass ever again. Ideally the SOB could be tried, along with Bush, for war crimes. Too bad that will never happen.

[maddezmom]

26. Burns on CNNI this am

Iran funding insurrection across the ME...Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel

[maddezmom]

27. U.S. has 'irrefutable evidence' Iran is supplying Taliban in Afghanistan

U.S. has 'irrefutable evidence' Iran is supplying Taliban in Afghanistan
PARIS (CNN) -- The United States has "irrefutable evidence" that Tehran is transferring arms to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, a top U.S. diplomat told CNN Wednesday, noting that NATO forces have intercepted some of the arms shipments.

"There's irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this and it's a pattern of activity" U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told CNN, "if you see the Iranians arming Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank and, of course, arming Shia militants inside Iraq itself. It's very violent and very unproductive activity by the Iranian government."

In late May, U.S. and British officials simply said that weapons crossing the border from Iran to Afghanistan may be winding up in the hands of the Taliban, the hard-line Islamic militia that is battling U.S.- and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan.

Wednesday's accusations took the case against Tehran to the next level.

more:http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/06/13/wednesday/index.html

[SOS]

28. The Taliban? Bullsh!t.

Iran helped overthrow Taliban, candidate says
By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY - June 9, 2005 (edited)

Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards fought alongside and advised the Afghan rebels who helped U.S. forces topple Afghanistan's Taliban regime in the months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the guards' former leader says.
In an interview by e-mail, Mohsen Rezaie, a candidate in Iran's presidential elections next week, says the United States has not given Iran enough credit. He says Iran played an "important role in the overthrow of the Taliban" in 2001.

Even before U.S. forces entered Afghanistan, Iran backed the Northern Alliance. The alliance fought the ruling Taliban, a regime dominated by majority Pashtuns that imposed a harsh Sunni Islamic government.

The CIA refused to comment.

Predominantly Shiite Iran nearly went to war against the Taliban after the massacre of Afghan Shiites and nine Iranians in Mazar-e-Sharif in 1998.

James Dobbins, a former State Department official who worked with diplomats from Iran to create the first post-Taliban government, says the Iranians "were equipping and paying the Northern Alliance. Russia and India were also helping, but at the time, Iran was the most active."

After the fall of the Taliban, Iran offered to help train and equip a new Afghan army, Dobbins says. The offer was rebuffed by the Bush administration.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-06-09-iran-taliban_x.htm

[slipslidingaway]

29. Cheney's Iran-Arms-to-Taliban Gambit Rebuffed

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38123

Analysis by Gareth Porter*

"In the most dramatic version of the story, ABC reported "NATO officials" as saying they had "caught Iran red-handed, shipping heavy arms, C4 explosives and advanced roadside bombs to the Taliban for use against NATO forces."

Far from showing that Iran had been "caught red-handed", however, the report quoted from an analysis which cited only the interception in Afghanistan of a total of four vehicles coming from Iran with arms and munitions of Iranian origin. The report failed to refer to any evidence of Iranian government involvement.

Both Gates and McNeill denied flatly last week that there is any evidence linking Iranian authorities to those arms. Gates told a press conference on Jun. 4, "We do not have any information about whether the government of Iran is supporting this, is behind it, or whether it's smuggling, or exactly what is behind it." Gates said that "some" of the arms in question might be going to Afghan drug smugglers.

The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. McNeill, implied that the arms trafficking from Iran is being carried out by private interests. "hen you say weapons being provided by Iran, that would suggest there is some more formal entity involved in getting these weapons here," he told Jim Loney of Reuters June 5. "That's not my view at all."

[SOS]

30. From your link - It's Cheney BS again:

"The fact that the officials making the accusation about Iran and Afghanistan are unwilling to go on the record and the refusal of Gates and McNeill to go along with it suggests an effort by Cheney and his allies in the administration to do an "end run" around the official policy by conjuring up a region-wide Iranian offensive against U.S. forces."

Cheney is spewing his usual lies in an effort to bamboozle the US into another unprovoked war.

[slipslidingaway]

33. Yes and this is another reason that impeachment should be

on the table.

Thanks for the link you posted.

[bdamomma]

31. what bs they will do to initiate another war, with no regards to

the consequences.

[maddezmom]

32. Gates has now jumped on the bandwagon

Gates links Tehran to arms entering Afghanistan
13 Jun 2007 18:35:47 GMT
Source: Reuters
Alert Me | Printable view | Email this article | RSS <-> Text <+>

Background
Afghan turmoil
More By Andrew Gray

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany, June 13 (Reuters) - Iranian weapons are entering Afghanistan on such a scale that it is hard to believe Iran's government is not aware of the movement, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday.

U.S. officials have said for several months that they have evidence of Iranian weapons entering Afghanistan but have stopped short of linking the arms to the Iranian government.

But Gates said he had seen more information since the original evidence was uncovered.

"I have seen additional analysis in the interval that makes it pretty clear there's a fairly substantial flow of weapons," he said on a visit to U.S. military bases in Germany.

"Given the quantities that we're seeing, it is difficult to believe that it's associated with smuggling or the drug business or that it's taking place without the knowledge of the Iranian government," he told reporters at Ramstein Air Base in western Germany.

His comments came the day after U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns openly accused Tehran of arming Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

more:http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L13502610.htm


Let's see the information/intelligence...until then this stinks of Cheney propaganda.

[SOS]

34. "I have seen additional analysis in the interval"

or in other words,

"Cheney called me and told me what to say."

[SOS]

38. He's on the bandwagon (Thursday) with no evidence!

From today's NYT:

"Commenting on potential Iranian government involvement in the arms flow, Mr. Gates said, “I haven’t seen any intelligence specifically to this effect...""

They have no evidence and the Iranians hate the Taliban, but who cares? The media dutifully and unquestioningly reports this nonsense, just like in 2002.
It's incredible that Cheney is going to try this again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/world/middleeast/14gates.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[bemildred]

35. One trick ponies these guys. Keep trying the same thing, maybe it will work this time. nt

[Matilda]

36. Iran - spelled P-A-K-I-S-T-A-N.

Everybody seems to know that except the Bush Administration.

[Supersedeas]

37. So it begins....finally got that Cheney memo.