Facts on the Ground

You have to love the absolute absurdity of Andrea Seabrook's interview with Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post on Sunday's ATC. The gist of the story is that the drop in US casualties in Iraq is due to Iran "tamping down" Shiite militia violence in Iraq.

There's one little problem with this meeting of the delusional minds. There is no substantiated evidence of Iran having a role in US troop deaths in Iran. All this bogus talk about deaths of US troops due to Iranian "meddling" really heated up about a year ago. This line about Iran killing US troops was pointed out as being a bit of a Pentagon-cooked fantasy by McClatchy News early on, but NPR has never let a lack of evidence stop it from repeating Pentagon statements - especially regarding Iran. Even a magazine like The American Conservative (!!!) saw through this sloppy propaganda back in September - but not NPR.

What is really amazing is that this interview assumes that Iran was supplying the deadly EFP weapons, that they were training US-killing Shiite militias, and that now that killing has stopped. De Young says, "No one's saying that the flow of weapons has stopped; they actually don't know this. You know that Iran, according to the administration, is responsible for most of these sophisticated roadside bombs that have been a huge cause of US casualties in Iraq." Does Seabrook challenge the premise?

Not a bit, she swallows (gulps) and says, "Did they say why they think Iran is acting in a more positive way?"

Seabrook notes that Gates and the Pentagon are still suspicious of the Iran and De Young explains this by telling her, "part of that is because they really just look at facts on the ground; they say, as the State Department says, that there's no real evidence that these weapons aren't still coming and the Iranians are not still training." Wrap your head around that.