India has suffered from both Hindu and Muslim terrorist groups. So the attack on an automobile outside the Israeli embassy in New Delhi could easily have been carried out by an Indian group. Israel’s government, a master of spin and propaganda, immediately blamed the bombing on Iran and Hizbullah. But there is no evidence for this cynical allegation, which makes no sense. India is Iran’s economic lifeline, and Tehran would not likely risk such an operation at this time.
India gets 12% of its oil from Iran and sees an $8 billion annual export opportunity in filling the trade vacuum left by unilateral US and European boycotts of Iran. Contrary to a bad Reuters article, Indian officials denied Tuesday that the bombing would affect trade ties. (Logical because no evidence points to Iran.)
Indian investigators are first rate. Based on the modus operandi, their initial thesis is that the attack was the work of the “Indian Mujahidin” group. It had used a similar remote controlled sticky bomb, placed by a motorcyclist, in an attack on Taiwanese tourists outside the Jama Masjid cathedral mosque in 2010. IM is a Sunni group, not connected to Iran, and doesn’t like Shiite Muslims (Iranians are Shiites). IM like other Sunni radicals support the Palestinians and they are unhappy with increasingly close ties between India and Israel.
American media that just parrot notorious thug, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in this unlikely allegation are allowing themselves to be used for propaganda. Why not interview Indian authorities on this matter? They are on the ground and have excellent forensic (“CSI”) abilities. Stop being so lazy and blinkered; that isn’t journalism.
in a contest for spin and propaganda, i would pit india against anybody.
India does not have anywhere near the same connections in the Western press and discourse that Israel has. That’s how for decades managed to portray itself as “victim of Arab aggression” while in reality it was always an aggressive expansionist colonial enterprise bent on ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population.
Not “journalism,” fer shur, except in the way that language “grows” by re-definition via usage, but then what is, in the Narrative Flood any more? (You probably know that “sophisticated” used to mean “adulterated, tainted,” nothing like the aspirational horror that it has become.)
Thank you for doing a little local fog-dispelling. The interchange in the post on “Catholic beliefs” sure limns a nice selection of what the whole Narrative game is really all about — Wrong-wingers doing their best to beat the rest of us down into the Good Old Days when serfdom was in flower, and the Powers That Be (secular and religious) could waltz around, taking heads at their pleasure and forcing all the ordinary people to fund their wars and games and ornamentation.
Please keep on swimming against the flood…
I know that India and Israel cooperate closely on defense projects, so this could easily have been a Pakistani-based group, as well.
Surprisingly, even BBC World News got caught up in the Israel propaganda buzzsaw – and BBC maintains a well-staffed bureau in India.
I can’t believe how many years that US and Israel have threatened war against Iran.
Glenn Greenwald has a new twist on this round of threats. In the Iraq invasion, the press followed the lead of the government in beating war drums. Then the press later said it made mistakes. This time around the press is leading — ahead of the government in proclaiming the Iran threat.
The main stream media is increasing irrelevant shown by the non stop coverage of the crazy Republican presidential primary. Maybe the media are out to create a publicity campaign where they are in the lead so to increase audience ratings. Or maybe we have reached a tipping point where the loss of on the order of 25,000 journalists over the last decade finally has left the media even more in the dark. Or, maybe as I read Glenn Greenwald’s excellent new book “With Liberty and Justice for Some” that the media is just carrying out their in the super entity which contains corporations and the government.
Here is the link to Glenn’s article
link to salon.com
It is very difficult at this point to jump into any conclusion about who carried out those attacks, but I think the following passage is quite instructive:
“…it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.) ” — Brookings Institution’s 2009 “Which Path to Persia?” report, pages 84-85.
Viewed their actions from a little distance, Israel clearly needs Iran to do something to make the US do the job it cannot do, at least not conventionally.
Watch/Expect a false-flag operation. Stuff like this “terrorist” attack, or that Iranian plot by some nutty used-car salesman to kill the Saudi ambassador, is prep work, to prepare the MSM and the Little People, for a larger Blow Which Must Be Answered.
Everything is not going totally Iran’s way, in terms of edging out US/Likud power (ie, Syria), but they are doing well enough. The one thing Iran CANNOT do is give these guys an excuse…even if provoked, which the sanctions are. Even to the point of absorbing a (not unexpected at some point) sucker punch from Israel, and not retaliating is such a way as to draw the US in.
But, Israel (or at least the Likud), ultimately, will be cashing-in on all this media prep-work.
Wow, excellent find Farhang
agreed.
Why should we assume that any attack – or apparent attack – on an Israeli facility would have to have been done by Iranians? Israel has made itself so many enemies throughout the Middle East and even the world that, like “Who shot J.R.?”, almost everyone is a suspect.
Let’s not forget that the Pakistani-based terrorists who attacked Mumbai three years ago targeted the city’s Jewish cultural center.
Anyone have any idea what the nature of any possible goals or aims of “the US” might be in picking this fight with “Iran?” Or is that the kind of question that has the same kind of answer you get to “What are the US national interests here?”
It’s amazing, the amount of futile, destructive, de-stabilizing, horrific stuff that “just happens,” because the money to pay for it, and the “equipment” that so often seems to define the “mission,” is so freely to hand, and it all is so far out of sight. Just because some cowboy or jackal or sociopath-in-power looks around and says, “Hey, we can get away with this!” or maybe “Wow! I can get rich off of this tiny little bit of abusive statecraft, all plausibly deniable, all Ollie North-ish, and there’s a well-paid gig for me in the Security Industry once I cop my pension from the Feds.”
Cue the stirring, rising, martial music, the Hellfires, and rappelling Secret Troopers…
OIL
So the conflict that threatens to shut down the Straits of Hormuz and cause a massive global spike in oil prices is motivated by oil?
I think you’re knee is jerking. Not everything is about oil.
Yes, it is not always about oil. It’s about control, of course. It’s interesting to note that the conflict in the middle east is also about water. Turkey is building massive dams and water installations on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers with money largely from the US. This is also what this is all about. You control the water in the region and you really really control the region. But, it’s about controlling the region, from what I can gather.
I prefer Juan’s “take” to most that I’ve read on “who dun it.” The world has long known anonymous assassination. And has long known back-flag operations (and even an anonymous “op” can be “black-flag” if the actor publicly blames someone else). Oh, for the comforting old days when those who sent in the bombers proudly announced their claim for responsibility.
Today, Israel and the USA have upped the ante, so to speak, in the anonymous sweepstakes, with DRONES which are (at least potentially) capable of anonymous destructive action.
The fog-of-war is getting ever foggier. Perhaps that’s what we can learn from recent events.
And speaking of the MSM and the Narrative, in the category of Dirty Doings, episode 4,310,595,202, we have a little reminder about how skulduggery and sneakery are so much a part of human nature that even the Holy Universal I know What God Wants Catholic Church’s underpants are on fire:
There’s more juicy details at link to news.yahoo.com, and elsewhere on google.
I’m sure the Old Mitred Guys and the Lean and Hungry Loyolaists have nice doctrinal workarounds to quash any qualms about such patent venality, of course.
Always a question about the real nature of any institution, whether it’s the thing that the Founding Fathers’ edifice has become, or those other aedificia that take our money and our credulity with a smirk and a sneer…
What about the coordination with the foiled attack in Tbilisi?
I would also be careful with the “sticky bomb” argument. Reuters reported a plastic bag with grenade and detonator, while AP talks about a magnetic bomb; whichever true will lead us to different analysis.
Let’s take a deep breath and not jump to any conclusions about who did or did not commit the attack on the official Israeli Embassy vehicle in New Delhi. It could have been Indian Muslim terrorists; it could have been (more than likely was) Pakistani Muslim terrorists; and it could have been Iranian terrorists, either tied to Iranian intelligence or the Revolutionary Guards.
The wise course of action would be to let Indian authorities complete their investigation and let the chips fall where they may.
Bibi blamed Iran within hours before even the dust settled down or smoke evaporated. How Netanyahu new right away?
It appears like the case of Gulf of Tonkin, when USA blamed Vietnam & attacked it.
Was it hatched out by Mussad and Netanyahu new it all along?
“Bibi blamed Iran within hours before even the dust settled down or smoke evaporated. How Netanyahu new right away?”
The most likely conclusion is he did not know, Shahid. The Israelis reflexively blame Iran, but it does not mean the attack was a “black flag” job “hatched by Mossad.” There are enough conspiracy theorists running amok without you adding to it with unsubstantiated accusations. As I stated in my post above, let’s take a deep breath and let the Indian authorities complete their investigation.
Who used fake American, British, French, German & other passports to murder a Palestinian in a Dubai Hotel?
Could Iran or some other country use the fake passports of the above countries to kill a person in a third country & get away with just a slap on the wrist?
Bill, before you said, “let’s take a deep breath and let the Indian authorities complete their investigation”, you already pointed out all the usual suspects including religion.
Bill, “The most likely conclusion is he did know”.
The “Indian authorities” can be trusted to “complete their investigation” only after a small sum has changed hands.
Right. It was hatched by Mossad.
Send my regards to the Tooth Fairy
Google “Lavon Affair” if you want to know how Israel operated 55 years ago.
Take a deep breath and drop the chips, of course, Yeah, and then bring out the salt shaker and bushwah detectors to try to figure out what really happened, and then apply the color of lipstick chosen by whatever ascendant drivers of “policy” decide is the spin-and-paint job to be applied, for whatever immediate or long-term goals they may have in their sights, to cue the rest of us, or at least our limbic systems and tribal compulsions, what we are supposed to believe, and who we are to hone in on as the Enemy du Moment. Who of course have to be some flavor of “terrorists.” To keep the so easily directible flow of fear going strong and fast.
The attacks in Georgia and now Bangkok make the Pakistani militant angle much less likely.
Blaming Iran is just an excuse to hasten the bombing of the country. The US and other leading governments of the world should know better than to believe the insidious and mischievous logic of Israel’s political leaders who are just itching to attack Iran. Thankfully India has come out with this statement in spite of its close friendship with Israel which is going to prove dangerous one day for sure.
Israel is owever hated by most countries of the world because of its unfair policies towards Palestine ,its occupation,and brutality .But they cannot do anythking about it because Israel is fully backed by the greatest military power in the world.
Here is a Valentine card for all of the faithful ICers.
link to funnyordie.com
Did he really say “Indian investigators are first rate”? I want whatever it is you smoke.
Anyone who calls someone a ‘notorious thug’ can’t complain about the practice of journalism elsewhere. By the way, this is one of many attacks. Several have been foiled. Intelligence activity indicated Iran was mobilizing proxies against Jewish targets abroad and waiting on possible American ones too. This was two months ago. Let’s not forget the assassination attempt in the US. Perhaps a broader viewpoint than knee jerk anti-Israeli invective would be a worthwhile approach to improved journalism.
Iranian men were behind the Bangkok bombing.
link to bangkokpost.com
Stay tuned.
It appears to be the work of Indian Mujahideen (a Pakistan inspired Islamic terrorist group) and Iran may have nothing to do with this attack. I would advice Israel to focus more on Pakistan and dont worry about Iran (its leaders are all bark no bite). Pakistan is all bite and no bark.
Consider why Israel once helped Khomeini, and now claims Iran is an existential threat, once helped Hamas, and now claims it is an existential threat, etc. It doesn’t care about Pakistan because all these threats are cultivated on schedule. After Israel nukes Iran, then it will tell us all that Pakistan is an existential threat. Or that someone else is an existential threat. Rinse and repeat.
Prof Cole,
Might you wish to reconsider your thesis, in light of today’s events in Thailand? Also, you omit to mention the simultaneous attack in Tbilisi.
I can’t imagine a Hindu terrorist. It just seems like an oxymoron. That said, of course, I do appreciate the counter-point you present :)
There were (are?) Hindu terrorists in Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers.
@Phud1: “Hindu terrorists in Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers”.
And @Ron: “That’s probably the worst comment I read on juancole.com in a long time. The Tamil Tigers who invented suicide bombings are Hindu.”
Ron, probably your’s is the worst comment. All of top LTTE leadership is Christian.
Prabhakaran alias Pirapaharan (Christian convert, a Methodist)
S.P.Tamil Selvam – Christian
Balraj (Balasegaram Kandiah) – Christian
Pottu Amman (Christian)
Charles Anthony – Christian
Anton Stanislaus Balasingham – Christian
Soosai (Thillaiyampalam Sivanesan) – Christian
Marcelin Fuselus aka Victor
Thenmozhi Rajaratnam (nickname Dhanu), Rajiv Gandhi’s suicide bomber assassin – Christian.
Lawrence Thilagar
Jesumy Fernando aka Kennedy
I would describe LTTE as “Tamil nationalist” rather than Hindu terrorist. If you would like to give a religious color to it, them better describe it as “Christian terrorist”.
sorry to bust your bubble but LTTE was mostly converted Catholics including their leader Prabhakaran
“I can’t imagine a Hindu terrorist. It just seems like an oxymoron.”
That’s probably the worst comment I read on juancole.com in a long time. The Tamil Tigers who invented suicide bombings are Hindu. Terrorism is not limited to any religion and in fact has not much to do with religion but rather political situations.
Most of the leadership of the LTTE were Christian including Prabhakaran.
The avowed philosophy of the LTTE was based on Marxism and they followed the lead of the virulently anti-Hindu Tamil political parties across the channel in Tamil Nadu.
Unlike Islamic terrorist group that make reference to the Koran, the LTTE never made any reference to any religious text.
Tell that to the victims of the Hyderabad riots several years back.. Anyone can be a terrorist.
I don’t see anything about the bombings in Thailand from Juan.
Could it be that alleged bombers captured happen to be Iranian?
Does the fact that the bomber in Bangkok is Iranian sway your opinion? It sways mine.
link to bangkokpost.com
Oh yes, obviously, it is indubitably, now, forever, and beyond peradventure, totally and finally established that the “bombers” were IRANIAN! This Sarajevo Moment could not possibly be one of the wag-the-dog things that our Serious Players, and Theirs, and the sociopaths and psychopaths that form those “terrorist organizations” (never forget Timmy McVeigh and his chums) pull every day, and of course there’s only one irrefutably logical next step: BOMB BOMB BOMB, BOMB BOMB IRAN!!!! RIGHT?
Because Everyone Knows that if you’ve seen one Iranian, you’ve seen them all! They’re ALL JUST LIKE THAT! if in fact, at the end of the day, it turns out that the legless carcass was actually born in Iran and sent by the Ayatollahs to provoke US into destroying their country. And was of course part of the current Horrible Threatening-Regioinal-And-World-Stability (per BIBI, and FOX) Great Iranian World Domination and Nose-Tweaking Conspiracy! to take away our Cherished Freedoms To Be Wiretapped And Arrested And Held Without Trial Or Bail! and pollute our Precious Bodily Fluids!
Let us focus all our puny attention on a couple of little incidents among all the violence that’s done every day in this sorry human-infested world, incidents of disputable provenance and of an importance that’s determined by the FOXiest of us for the rest of us, and decree that despite the Flights of the Reapers and all those Hellfires and cannon fire used to “light up the Wogs” at wedding parties and in the form of families gathering firewood and of political and criminal competitors of “our friends” in Somalia who we, the doofus CIA/”contractor” thugs, “bump off,” and myriad other Hot Spots, and all the other shit that’s going on every minute of every day, and because we are an evil, stupid, destructive, rapacious species, let’s get us another round of World of WarCraft cooking! We got STOCK in the SYNDICATE, remember — Milo Minderbinder, who got the Army Air Corps to bomb its own troops on contract to the Germans, for cost plus ten percent, is always telling us that everyone has a share! link to norighttobelieve.wordpress.com See how simple it is?
The table is set, the lamps are lit — time for the next, great, so-very-profitable feast of death. link to firstworldwar.com Thank goodness I am old enough that I can just sit back and watch, this time around…
Stupid damn humans. What a waste of good air and water.
You’re throwing a tantrum, sticking your fingers in your ears and going into your canned patter, because you’ve been faced with facts you find inconvenient for your pre-existing narrative.
Try joining the reality-based community.
Nice set of pejoratives. Gee, friend, how does one determine what “reality” is in this “community” you talk about? The Realists can’t even agree on the provenance of the Bad Guys who did the one thing that maybe can be demonstrated to have actually occurred, a couple of explosions in several locations. You “Realists” are happy to assign the plotting and carrying out of whatever actually happened to whoever your favorite suspect is, in aid of pushing your particular views of what’s good for your particular tribe. Without waiting for any supposedly dispassionate results of some kind of investigation. And glossing over the immense and kind of hard to dispute history of thousands, maybe millions, of similar “terrorist actions” done under false flags or out of some vengeance or other or just as part of some complex strategem that’s aimed at “destabiolization” or “misdirection” or any of dozens of other pages in the Experienced Players’ manual of dirty tricks and hacks in the Great Game. And the Realists are all too ready to try to convince each other of one or another set of “facts” as part of ooching along whatever the current Big Play is — like ginning up another “war of choice,” on Iran this time.
So YOU know, or do you just believe you know, how those explosives got to where they detonated, by what impulses and incentives and motives and machinations? Sure seems to be a wide variety of surenesses even in this little corner of webworld.
You got a lot of nerve yakking at ME about fitting “facts” to “pre-existing narratives.” And a lot of nerve claiming that what all the gritty-jawed Gamers are foisting on the rest of us, as part of the frikkin’ other bigger Murdoch-approved Narrative, is “reality.” WMD? “Existential threats?” “National interests?” “World Terrorism?” “The War On Drugs?” “Areas of Operations?” “Rendition?” Bullcrap.
At root, for Realists, it’s about power, and money, and the huge bureaucracy and parasitical economy that’s all about World of WarCraft and the Game of RISK ™, with actual bloody carcasses to chortle or pretend to wail over, and with endless, artful attempts to lipstick and paint the pig to make the rest of us, who have to fund and fight your wars of choice and stupidity and convenience, believe we are somehow doing God’s work, or at least riding the Grand Tides of History.
You’re going to criticize someone else for writing pejoratives?
Really? You?
Do you ever go back and read what you write, JT?
And now you, you of all people, are insisting on waiting for a formal report before drawing even tentative conclusions – since when have you EVER held yourself to that standard? Pray tell, are you going to stop writing that Israel is behind the assassination of Iranian scientists until someone issues a formal report?
Anyway, calling me a “realist” is laughably wrong-headed, so much so that I don’t even think you understand what the term means in international affairs. It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the merits of the rest of your canned patter.
Since you have no recent posts running that are specific to this, I will post this photo of the Marine sniper unit proudly displaying its Stars & Stripes with a Nazi SS flag in Afghanistan:
link to godsownparty.com
I am really upset about this and I want to provoke as much discussion about it as I can. If a context with the embassy attack story is needed, I guess I can ask the question, do you think that these Marines and their banner and their representation of the United States people and government bears any comparison with the accusations our media hurls daily against Iran of wanting to exterminate the Jews?
Who are these warriors fighting for? Do they consider me part of the America they wish to control the world for, or will they come hunting for me one day? I think these are bigger questions for the citizen of a democracy than the supposed threat of everyone who’s not American.
Doesn’t matter. One can choose which one of his enemies to retaliate against when he is attacked. Iran has the right to retaliate against Saudi Arabia when attacked by Israel. Israel has the right to retaliate against Iran when attacked by Pakistanis. When you pose as an enemy to someone you making him more vulnerable to any attack from anyone and you must be ready for retaliation even if you did nothing.
Juan, perhaps you have no street fighting experience. The reason for retaliation is to force your enemies to protect you from your other enemies.
Q — was that tongue in cheek, or do you really believe that’s how the world works? Wow. “The reason for retaliation is to force your enemies to protect you from your other enemies.” I guess maybe the Warlords in Israel are unclear on that notion? Ever read any Hobbes? Looked up the definition of “anomie?” Run across the history of the Byzantine Empire? Got any notion of allies-of-convenience and the branch of the Great Game called “common enemies?”
He who lives with retaliation will die with retaliation. However, both Israel and Iran, are in the business of retaliation as is the US government. US attacked Iraq in retaliation to Al-Qaeda attack. Iran is expecting Golf states to prevent Israel from attacking her or else Iran will retaliate against them all.
US government must get out of the business of retaliation and outright decapitate all dictatorships for at least her own national interest if not for humanity in general.
What are you talking about?
Israel dealing out all sort of destruction in Beirut and throughout Lebanon, as opposed to limiting its actions to striking Hezbollah directly, in 2006 was a perfect example of “forcing your enemies to protect you from other enemies.” Israel was trying to punish the Lebanese government for not doing enough to reel in Hezbollah.
We do not know at this time who committed the bombings of Israeli vehicles in India and elsewhere. However, the time honored query “who benefits?” points to a few conclusions:
1. A false flag operation on the part of the Israelis cannot be excluded. Their eagerness for war with Iran is no secret. They can count on a compliant western media to spin the bombings as possibly the work of Iran, which said media has already done.
2. The Israelis have many other enemies in the region, and they cannot be excluded from participation either.
3. Iran is unlikely to be behind the bombings. They know very well that Israel and the U.S. could use such an act to justify an attack on Iran. Further, as Juan Cole and others have pointed out, India has gone to great lengths to import Iranian oil. Iran is not likely to want to endanger that relationship with bombing adventures.
We will need further reports to figure out what actually happened–if we ever find out. What stands out for me is that Iranian involvement in the bombings appears less likely than other scenarios.