US: Iran ‘Training’ Taliban Fighters
Accusation Appears Based on Weekend Claims of Taliban 'Commanders'
US Army Lt. Col. Edward Sholtis today accused Iran of providing both “materiel” and training for “Taliban elements” in Afghanistan. Another, unnamed US official also claimed that Iran was conducting small-scale weapons training for Taliban fighters.
The allegations appear to be based at least partially on claims by two unnamed Taliban “commanders” who say that the Iranian government was paying for them to attend a three month training course in IED attacks in the Iranian city of Zahedan.
Such allegations from US officials crop up from time to time, but are never given much credence, given the history of animosity between the Taliban and the Iranian government. Officials never seem to present a plausible reason for Iran’s Shi’ite government, which only barely tolerates its Sunni minority, to back a Sunni militant group which openly calls for the death of all Shi’ites as heretics.
It is entirely plausible that Taliban forces might be in Zahedan, a Sunni dominated city along the border which is teaming with militant factions who regularly attack the Iranian government and the city’s Shi’ite minority. Claims that the two are working together, however, seem to center primarily around American assumptions that every faction not on good terms with the United States must secretly be in cahoots.
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unnamed source
March 24th, 2010 at 6:28 am
WeII I am an unnamed source myself. This is bullshit
epppie
March 24th, 2010 at 10:21 am
What's more plausible is that the US is supporting terrorists and insurgents in Iran. But as we know by now, accusations against Iran don't have to be any more plausible than accusations against any nation the US wanted to attack have had to be. What's signifigant about these accusations is that they are putting forward an out and out casus belli. The outcome of the Petraeus affair is, however paradoxical it may seem, the final accelerations towards war with Iran. This assertion of a casus belli is the critical step. It will pass largely unnoticed by most of the antiwar movement, of course, which has – in the mad case of the health 'reform', proven itself to be completely subservient to the Man with a Little Blood on His Hands…and a smile on his face…so much better than a sneer…
Eugene Costa
March 24th, 2010 at 11:28 am
And yet again the show goes on. To boredom add transparency and incompetence–both fatal to the Spectacle.
Much devolves on language: American English-speaking barbarians, especially among the military and political elite, continue to neglect the fact that the Iranians speak an Indo-European language which is, like Russian and ancient Greek, long on conditionals.
No doubt the price of oil is a hugely conditioning item, shared also with the Chinese, who had to add mathematics and western logic to their language to get a grip on how western imperialists talk and think.
Purely from the philological point of view, the British, who always had accomplished scholars, were better at this sort of thing, though still ultimately incompetent.
Albright, Rice, Clinton–it's a such joke among diplomatists it probably has a number by now–"Joke 3455", or something like that.
IndigoRain
March 24th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
"US Army Lt. Col. Edward Sholtis today accused Iran of providing both “materiel” and training for “Taliban elements” in Afghanistan." Just one more piece of evidence that the US Government desperately wants their war with Iran.
IndigoRain
March 24th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
What "evidence" does the US Government have to justify a war with Iran? Iran's got nukes (or they're making them), they might use them or hand them over to terrorists who might use them, they're aiding our enemy (or enemies) in Afghanistan and Iraq, they're threating our friends and allies (OK, maybe one friend and ally but who's counting), they're repressing their own people, they're state sponsors of terrorism, their President is nutty and has said bad things about our friends and allies (OK, maybe one friend and ally), they're sequestering Saddamn's mighty WMD arsenal to use against us, they threaten the whole world, and they never apologized to us for holding our people hostage back in '79-80.
IndigoRain
March 24th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Those Iranians are bad people and any more BS we can dig up about them to justify our war against them we will be sure to let everyone know about right up to the last second we start dropping our nukes and bunker busters on them and ruin their country so we can occupy it and then ruin it some more. Or maybe I have it all wrong and soon America and Iran will be exchanging flowers and gifts and working on that big free trade deal that won't benefit anybody.
protobone
March 24th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
U.S. Army Maj. Slaughter Vicarious, today accuses Iran of "passing gas. Although there is no 'actual intelligence' on Iran's gas passing, It is fair to assume they are."
humanist_xy
March 24th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
In summer of 1998 Taliban executed nine Iranian diplomats in Mazar Sharif, Afghanistan. Ever since there is a deep unhealable hatred between Iranian regime and Taliban.
The allegation of Iran training Taliban sounds so ridiculous. Not only because of the animosity between the two but because Iran is very careful not to provide US / Israel with a smoking gun or any excuse to anger their superpower enemies.
If one can convince the sheeple of gross lies such as Iraqi WMD, fraud in June Iranian Election or Iran is months away from getting a nuclear bomb (which will be dropped immediately on Americans or Israelis), then, a smaller lie like “Iran training Taliban” is way easier to believe.
We are living in an amazing time of all kinds of imaginable deceptions which are solely designed to increase the wealth and power of a few.
Mark
March 24th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
What a pile of crap, the war mongers will say and do anything to get a war going with Iran. If it happens you can be sure the fall of the US isn't far away. The resulting damage to the rest of the world will be unimaginable. There's not alot of money in a scorched planet nobody benefits.
Paul
March 24th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
I think I am correct in saying that the Presidents of Iran and Afghanistan recently met. I have also seen reports of commercial agreements. All this indicates that diplomatically the two countries are co-operating. This story like much else that the Americans believe just does not conform to any sort of common sense judgement.
What is so frightening about the USA state of mind is that it is so very rooted in fantasy. It is almost as though they believed in devils and magic. They really do make no sense.
sammy
March 24th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
Hmmm,…… "claimed by two unnamed Taliban "commanders"..sounds like a pair of Mossad moles to me. Pretty fishy.
James
March 25th, 2010 at 3:15 am
A big lie and an act of desperation
Arial
March 25th, 2010 at 3:18 am
This is called a CIA disinformation factory.And it is an old hat