Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Bombs Over Where?

This article just came out over NYT.com, and I, for one, am a bit perplexed:

An American raid and airstrike killed 32 people in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City today, in what American military officials described as the latest assault on a network linking Iraqi militants with money and deadly roadside bombs from Iran [emphasis mine --mt].
I'm confused because, given all the warmongering concerning Iran these days, I think I would have noted direct proof of Iran's government being involved in Iraq.

Then I recalled the summer two years ago, immediately after the London Bombings, when it was starting to become clear that the U.S. had gotten itself into a war it couldn't win. Blair started to make some outrageous claims. NBC tried to claim a similar thing, but again without any direct evidence. Let's just make a quick logic check on the MSNBC article:

(P) Explosives were smuggled over the Iranian border into Iraq.
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(Q) The Iranian government is supplying explosives to insurgents in Iraq.

Well, then, by that logic:

(P) American made weapons are smuggled from Iraqi police forces to the Resistance.
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(Q) The American government is supplying weapons to insurgents in Iraq.

I would be fine being wrong about this, but the BBC re-reported the same issue a year and a half later, and it appeared to still be without supporting evidence. The U.S. government, around that time, noted that it didn't need to give any proof of this claim. Sure. Then by THAT logic, I don't need to offer you any proof that the U.S. government killed Pat Tillman. You just have to believe it.

Even after all this, another three months went by, and FOX had this to say. THAT article isn't even about roadside bombs, but instead about the day's events in Iraq. If you have all this proof, why the hesitancy?

Finally, this is from this morning. By mid-afternoon, as noted above, apparently we now have enough information to claim that roadside bombs of this type are definitively from Iran.