More on Iran


Yesterday I wondered whether it made sense for alleged Iranian made weapons to bear inscriptions in Roman lettering and Gregorian dates. The same point is made here (Neocon Iranian Mortar Ruse Fizzles), at a site called Global Research, with which I'm not familiar. I don't know whether the writer has any expertise or not, but for what it's worth, he observed:

Of course, as this is a sloppy neocon ruse, as per usual, there is a problem here. Can you guess what it is?

If you guessed the date, you win a Cupie doll. For some reason the geniuses at the Pentagon have failed to explain why the Iranians used a date from the Christian Gregorian calendar and not one from the Islamic Persian calendar. According to the Muslim calendar, the date stenciled on this mortar shell should read 1427, not 2006. And why did Iran, a country speaking and writing in Persian, a language written in a version of the Arabic script, decide to label their shells in English? Maybe they thought it would fool the infidels?

Good questions, all of which deserve definitive answers. If his, and my, suspicions are correct, then the neocons are far stupider than anyone ever imagined. Even I can't believe that, which is one reason why I'm not willing to be dogmatic on this point.

The linked article was written yesterday. The same author (Kurt Nimmo) has another piece today (Pentagon Caught Red Handed in an attempt to Frame Iran: Iran Does Not Manufacture 81MM Mortar Shells), with supportive links that seem to check out, in which he makes the case that the mortar rounds showcased by the Americans could not have been made in Iran because they are smaller than anything Iraq is known to manufacture and that, in fact, they are more likely of Pakistani origin. Do Pakistanis use the Gregorian calendar? It's more likely I guess, because of the long British occupation. If I had my days free I'd spend them checking this stuff out, but it does seem like the kind of stuff someone at the New York Times should be doing instead of swallowing the BushCheney line whole, or participating in entertaining but essentially useless gaggles at the White House listening to Tony Snow come up with new ways to evade questions.

NOTE: Edited to correct typos (Hopefully I got them all)
Posted: Tuesday - February 13, 2007 at 10:22 PM          

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