While the investigation continues into the deadly attack on a U.S. helicopter in Afghanistan which resulted in 38 U.S. and Afghan deaths, the lack of information has led some right-wing pundits to point the finger at Iran. Last night, CNN’s John King interviewed Frances Townsend, [...]]]>
While the investigation continues into the deadly attack on a U.S. helicopter in Afghanistan which resulted in 38 U.S. and Afghan deaths, the lack of information has led some right-wing pundits to point the finger at Iran. Last night, CNN’s John King interviewed Frances Townsend, a former Homeland Security adviser to George W. Bush, and Brad Thor, a thriller novelist.
Thor quickly jumped to the conclusion that Iran was responsible for the attack, leading John King to interject that the site of the helicopter crash — just southwest of Kabul — was much closer to Pakistan than Iran. But that didn’t stop Townsend, taking cues from an aspiring Tom Clancy, to continue the baseless hypothesizing about Iranian involvement. Thor started off by pushing the conversation toward Iran:
THOR: The Afghan government is completely corrupt and it’s riddled with Iranian spies. [...]
KING: I’m not discounting the importance of any Iranian relationship, but this to me, based on the history and people you talk to, is a Pakistan issue, not necessarily an Iran issue, right?
TOWNSEND: That’s right John, except to Brad’s point, look, we have seen an increasing amount of Iranian involvement and support in Afghanistan. And oh, by the way, they have been spoilers inserting themselves into Afghanistan and undermining U.S. efforts. You know, the Iranians don’t always come in the front door and oftentimes they work through proxies and they insert themselves to cause Americans and American forces difficulty around the world. We saw it in Iraq, and that makes sense to everybody since that’s a neighbor, but we see it in places like Afghanistan as well.
THOR: Fran’s analysis is always spot on. It’s why I enjoy watching her so much. I’d like to add that there’s word out that whatever took down the helicopter might be known as an IRAM, an improvised, rocket assisted, mortar. We first saw this with Shiite extremists in Iraq with Iranian fingerprints all over them. And that’s why I’m so concerned. They call these things in the military “flying IEDs.” We don’t have confirmation on what brought this helicopter down but that and the fact that the Iranians have so penetrated not only the Afghan government but a lot of the indigenous support at our forward operating bases and around the country of Afghanistan makes me wonder. You know, the Taliban, they’re good but man, I don’t think they’re that good. I really think this has the fingerprints of Iranian cooperation on it.
Watch it:
A Lexis Nexis search for “Iran AND Afghanistan AND helicopter” turns up no relevant news accounts of Iranian involvement in the attack. It would seem that Thor and Townsend are currently the only pundits to subscribe to the Iranian-bogeyman theory of how the U.S. suffered its single worst day of casualties in Afghanistan. (HT: antiwar.com and Bahman Kalbasi)
]]>On January 28th, MSNBC’s Richard Engel and Rachel Maddow had a surprisingly frank [...]]]>
On January 28th, MSNBC’s Richard Engel and Rachel Maddow had a surprisingly frank discussion about the U.S. role in backing Mubarak. Engel told Maddow that “many Egyptians see the U.S. having stood solidly by President Mubarak while the government grew more and more corrupt.” Engel held up to the camera a teargas canister which had been fired at protesters and read the writing on the side:
‘Made in the USA by Combined Tactical Systems from Jamestown, Pennsylvania.’ And [the protesters] say this is the kind of support that the United States has been giving to the Egyptian government.
This public questioning of U.S. foreign policy for the past thirty years occurred not on Al Jazeera (which continues to have some of the best coverage out of Cairo) or on liberal blogs, but as part of a major network’s programming.
The shift in tone from the U.S. news media continued through the weekend. On Monday, CNN’s John King asked Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) how the Congressman’s support of Hosni Mubarak fit in with the U.S.’s interest in promoting democracy in the Middle East.
King started by questioning McCotter’s representation of the protesters as subversive elements [see the transcript here].
KING: Your initial statement as the crisis unfolded from Friday, said, “Right now freedoms radicalized enemies are subverting Egypt and our other allies.”
We have correspondents who have been out in the streets in these demonstrations, and they say, yes, there are some members of the Muslim Brotherhood there, but by and large it is middle class Egyptians, young and old, who are frustrated with their government. Who have had no political rights. The elections have been a sham. They want Mubarak to go. What’s wrong with that?
MCCOTTER: Well, it’s the same thing we saw in 1979 with the Shah, where you had a very broad-based popular coalition that was subverted by the Khomeinis of the world, and the radical Islamic factions within there. So what you have to do is find a way to separate the movement of the young people and of the middle class and others-separate them from the radical elements within the Muslim Brotherhood, who have not renounced the goal of Sharia law on a global basis, or the return of the Caliphate, which would be a disastrous not only for the Egyptian people but for the peace process in the Middle East, the Suez Canal and international commerce, and the interest of the United States.
King went on to press McCotter on the U.S.’s inconsistent record of promoting democracy:
KING: President Bush pushed for elections in the Palestinian Territories, as you know, and Hamas won those elections. Some said it was a big mistake on the president’s part, President Bush’s part to do that, when they weren’t ready. And Hamas won that election. An others have said, you know what, not it’s not. It’s not a mistake. The United States should stand for democracy, let the people have their will and Hamas will prove it can either deliver services or it can’t. Again, why not do the same in Egypt? If somebody is maybe not friendly to the United States in the first round, we take our chances the second round.
MCCOTTER: Because if the individuals come in, as we saw in Iran, as we could see with the potential takeover from the Muslim Brotherhood, not only is it not in the best interest of the United States, it is not in the best interest of the people of Egypt, any more than it was in the best interest of the people of Iran.
King again challenged McCotter’s talking point that the Muslim Brotherhood would take over a future government, saying, “Most of our people who have been there for a long time, and have reported on the region, said maybe they would get 25 or 30 percent.”
The major network news outlets are way behind in reporting on the tangled U.S. Middle East policy which, thirty years after the Camp David Accords, continues to hinge on backing authoritarian Arab governments and unconditionally defending Israel against accusations of human rights abuses. But the scenes of Egyptian security services attacking protesters with U.S.-supplied equipment and the administration’s unwillingness to openly take sides against Mubarak is clearly making many Americans take note and ask questions.
That frustration, along with the questioning of U.S. policy, has long been kept under a lid by those who warn that changes of government in U.S.-aligned Arab states would bring the rise of radical Islamists who would work against U.S. and Israeli interests. The protesters on the streets of Egypt don’t look like radicals to U.S. viewers. A-list talking heads are starting to ask real questions about the assumptions and strategies used to justify U.S. support for rulers like Hosni Mubarak.
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