Iran, Venezuala plan attack on USA.
usamamasan1
Posts: 4,695
U.S. officials are investigating reports that Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats in Mexico were involved in planned cyberattacks against U.S. targets, including nuclear power plants.Allegations about the cyberplot were aired last week in a documentary on the Spanish-language TV network Univision, which included secretly recorded footage of Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats being briefed on the planned attacks and promising to pass information to their governments.
A former computer instructor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico told Univision that he was recruited by a professor there in 2006 to organize a group of student hackers to carry out cyberattacks against the United States, initially at the behest of the Cuban Embassy.
In an undercover sting, instructor Juan Carlos Munoz Ledo and several selected students infiltrated the hackers and secretly videotaped the Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats.
Reports about Iran’s involvement in the suspected plot come amid the Islamic republic’s refusal to return a sophisticated, unmanned U.S. spy plane that crashed inside its borders this month. Iranian officials have laid claim to the drone, vowing to research it for its technology.
Calling the reports “disturbing,” State Department spokesman William Ostick said federal authorities are examining the cyberplot allegations but added that U.S. officials “don’t have any information at this point to corroborate them.”
Sen. Robert Menendez, New Jersey Democrat and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, called for hearings in the new year about Iranian activities in Latin America.
Some House lawmakers called for the expulsion of a Venezuelan diplomat in the U.S. who is implicated in the suspected plot.
The Univision documentary fanned fears among lawmakers that Iran’s recent diplomatic outreach in the region, particularly to Venezuela’s anti-American leftist President Hugo Chavez, might be a front for nefarious activities.
Earlier this year, U.S. prosecutors charged an Iranian official based in Tehran with trying to recruit a Mexican drug cartel to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States by bombing a Washington restaurant.
“If Iran is using regional actors to facilitate and direct activities against the United States, this would represent a substantial increase in the level of the Iranian threat and would necessitate an immediate response,” Mr. Menendez said.
An aide to Mr. Menendez told The Times that the Univision report, which also said that Iranian extremists were recruiting young Latin American Muslims, is “one of a variety of concerns we have about Iran’s efforts to engage with countries and other actors in the region.”
Next year’s hearing will examine Iran’s “political and commercial outreach, as well as more nefarious activities,” the aide said.
“We monitor Iran’s activities in the region closely,” Mr. Ostick said. “That vigilance led to the arrest of the individual responsible for the recent assassination plot” against the Saudi ambassador.
“We constantly monitor for possible connections between terrorists and transnational criminals.”
A congressional staffer said members of the Senate subcommittee and their staffs had requested a classified intelligence briefing before the hearing.
In the secretly recorded meetings with the Venezuelan and Iranian diplomats, the hackers discussed possible targets, including the FBI, the CIA and the Pentagon, and nuclear facilities, both military and civilian.
The hackers said they were seeking passwords to protected systems and sought support and funding from the diplomats.
At one point in the documentary, according to a translation provided by Univision, Iran’s ambassador to Mexico at the time, Mohammed Hassan Ghadiri, is seen telling the students that it was “very important to know about what [the United States has] in mind, attack Iran or not.”
Interviewed from Iran by Univision, Mr. Ghadiri acknowledged meeting the students and consulting Tehran about whether the Iranian government should back the attacks.
“I wrote to Iran that a person can do this. They said do not allow him in [the building] anymore because this not an embassy’s job,” he said.
The ambassador denied any involvement in a plot, telling Univision that the students’ sting was a provocation by “CIA agents.”
“They proposed this, and we told them that this is not our job. We rejected it,” he said. “We don’t have any interest in doing those types of things.”
“A good ambassador with good intentions would have thrown [the hackers] out and contacted the Mexican authorities,” said the documentary’s director, Gerardo Reyes. “Instead, he listened to them, he asked questions, he made suggestions.”
One of the other diplomats implicated by the documentary - Livia Antonieta Acosta Noguera, then the second secretary at the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico - is currently the Venezuelan consul in Miami.
Students secretly taped her asking for more information about the planned cyberattacks and promising to pass it along to Mr. Chavez via his head of security, Gen. Alexis Lopez.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican and chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to urge her to investigate and expel Ms. Antonieta if the reports are true.
The consul represents “a potential threat to our national security,” Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen said in the letter, which was co-signed by Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and David Rivera, both Florida Republicans; and Albio Sires, New Jersey Democrat.
Officials at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington and the consulate in Miami were unavailable for comment Tuesday.
In Venezuela, Mr. Chavez denied the allegations in the documentary.
“They are using a lie as an excuse to attack us,” he said of the U.S. during a TV and radio address. “We must be on our guard.”
Meanwhile, Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi shrugged off President Obama’s request for the return of the unmanned spy plane and demanded an apology from the United States, the Associated Press reported.
Tehran last week identified the drone as the RQ-170 Sentinel and said it was captured over the country’s east. U.S. officials say the aircraft malfunctioned and was not brought down by Iran, the AP reported.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... la/?page=1
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A former computer instructor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico told Univision that he was recruited by a professor there in 2006 to organize a group of student hackers to carry out cyberattacks against the United States, initially at the behest of the Cuban Embassy.
In an undercover sting, instructor Juan Carlos Munoz Ledo and several selected students infiltrated the hackers and secretly videotaped the Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats.
Reports about Iran’s involvement in the suspected plot come amid the Islamic republic’s refusal to return a sophisticated, unmanned U.S. spy plane that crashed inside its borders this month. Iranian officials have laid claim to the drone, vowing to research it for its technology.
Calling the reports “disturbing,” State Department spokesman William Ostick said federal authorities are examining the cyberplot allegations but added that U.S. officials “don’t have any information at this point to corroborate them.”
Sen. Robert Menendez, New Jersey Democrat and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, called for hearings in the new year about Iranian activities in Latin America.
Some House lawmakers called for the expulsion of a Venezuelan diplomat in the U.S. who is implicated in the suspected plot.
The Univision documentary fanned fears among lawmakers that Iran’s recent diplomatic outreach in the region, particularly to Venezuela’s anti-American leftist President Hugo Chavez, might be a front for nefarious activities.
Earlier this year, U.S. prosecutors charged an Iranian official based in Tehran with trying to recruit a Mexican drug cartel to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States by bombing a Washington restaurant.
“If Iran is using regional actors to facilitate and direct activities against the United States, this would represent a substantial increase in the level of the Iranian threat and would necessitate an immediate response,” Mr. Menendez said.
An aide to Mr. Menendez told The Times that the Univision report, which also said that Iranian extremists were recruiting young Latin American Muslims, is “one of a variety of concerns we have about Iran’s efforts to engage with countries and other actors in the region.”
Next year’s hearing will examine Iran’s “political and commercial outreach, as well as more nefarious activities,” the aide said.
“We monitor Iran’s activities in the region closely,” Mr. Ostick said. “That vigilance led to the arrest of the individual responsible for the recent assassination plot” against the Saudi ambassador.
“We constantly monitor for possible connections between terrorists and transnational criminals.”
A congressional staffer said members of the Senate subcommittee and their staffs had requested a classified intelligence briefing before the hearing.
In the secretly recorded meetings with the Venezuelan and Iranian diplomats, the hackers discussed possible targets, including the FBI, the CIA and the Pentagon, and nuclear facilities, both military and civilian.
The hackers said they were seeking passwords to protected systems and sought support and funding from the diplomats.
At one point in the documentary, according to a translation provided by Univision, Iran’s ambassador to Mexico at the time, Mohammed Hassan Ghadiri, is seen telling the students that it was “very important to know about what [the United States has] in mind, attack Iran or not.”
Interviewed from Iran by Univision, Mr. Ghadiri acknowledged meeting the students and consulting Tehran about whether the Iranian government should back the attacks.
“I wrote to Iran that a person can do this. They said do not allow him in [the building] anymore because this not an embassy’s job,” he said.
The ambassador denied any involvement in a plot, telling Univision that the students’ sting was a provocation by “CIA agents.”
“They proposed this, and we told them that this is not our job. We rejected it,” he said. “We don’t have any interest in doing those types of things.”
“A good ambassador with good intentions would have thrown [the hackers] out and contacted the Mexican authorities,” said the documentary’s director, Gerardo Reyes. “Instead, he listened to them, he asked questions, he made suggestions.”
One of the other diplomats implicated by the documentary - Livia Antonieta Acosta Noguera, then the second secretary at the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico - is currently the Venezuelan consul in Miami.
Students secretly taped her asking for more information about the planned cyberattacks and promising to pass it along to Mr. Chavez via his head of security, Gen. Alexis Lopez.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican and chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to urge her to investigate and expel Ms. Antonieta if the reports are true.
The consul represents “a potential threat to our national security,” Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen said in the letter, which was co-signed by Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and David Rivera, both Florida Republicans; and Albio Sires, New Jersey Democrat.
Officials at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington and the consulate in Miami were unavailable for comment Tuesday.
In Venezuela, Mr. Chavez denied the allegations in the documentary.
“They are using a lie as an excuse to attack us,” he said of the U.S. during a TV and radio address. “We must be on our guard.”
Meanwhile, Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi shrugged off President Obama’s request for the return of the unmanned spy plane and demanded an apology from the United States, the Associated Press reported.
Tehran last week identified the drone as the RQ-170 Sentinel and said it was captured over the country’s east. U.S. officials say the aircraft malfunctioned and was not brought down by Iran, the AP reported.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... la/?page=1
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Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Godfather.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... mM5zkMFtME
b) Why (if we wanted to attack) would nukes be necessary? Too many innocent lives lost. If we REALLY needed to attack, go for strategic military targets and be done with it.
So basically, this is basically sensationalist bullshit.
Quelle surprise!
They know, they just aren't saying. Because the truth is not flattering, and makes this administration look even more inept- if that is even possible.
can't wait for the next war, I was worried that America War Central starring Congressman Dipshit was going to get canceled in only its second season. Sure the spin off in Libya kept people interested, but this should really get things going again nicely...Wonder who will be the enemy in season 4?
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
We can also save a ton on transportation costs during the invasion which will be huge help to the economy.
I say we attack France, they'll never see it coming, we gain an important foothold into Europe and get some great Cooks and Vineyards. :ugeek:
You know... we spy on China and have means in place to disrupt their communications systems in case of War.
In your opinion... China should Nuke Us.
...
P.S. I know your response is meant to be a joke.
Hail, Hail!!!
http://www.reverbnation.com/brianzilm
Didn't we bust Israeli Spies gathering information on us?
One senior American diplomat explains that inside the State Department “everybody knows that Israel spies on us. When someone is caught, they’re ‘punished’ by being promoted.”
In 2006, a Pentagon judge stated categorically: “The Israeli government is actively engaged in military and industrial espionage in the United States.”
Technology Theft
Israel obtains significant advantage by systematically stealing American technology with both military and civilian applications.
US-developed technology is then reverse engineered and re-exported minus research and development costs, providing a huge advantage against foreign competitors. Sometimes, the military technology winds up in the hands of a US adversary.
http://centurean2.wordpress.com/2011/12 ... ainst-u-s/
...
Does this mean we are currently at War with Israel? We should nuke them, too... I guess.
Hail, Hail!!!
Yes. My conclusion was that Mr. Godfather isn't stupid. To really believe that Nuking Venezuela and Iran was a smart thing for America to get tangled up in, considering the economic state we are currently experiencing.
...
Are you saying you think he is stupid enough to actually believe that?
Hail, Hail!!!
Well... first off, I asked, 'Are you saying you think he is stupid enough to actually believe that?'. That is different from me telling you what to say. I just want you to tell me if you do AGREE with me... that Mr. Godfather is smart, not stupid and was saying that, just as a joke.... or that you believe the opposite to be true.
Besides... aren't you the one who said I was jumping to a conclusion? I'm pretty sure it was you who said that... not me. Because why would I send a YouTube to myself that said I was jumping to my own conclusion? Who does that?
And since you claim I was jumping to this conclusion (that Mr. Godfather is not stupid)... doesn't it mean that my conclusion is different from your perspective? Because if it were the same conclusion... that is is not a smart thing to do... go around nuking countries in the middle of a serious economic crisis whilst in the midst of a war in one country and a military withdrawal from another. Wouldn't that be a moronic thing to do? (starting 2 more wars with 2 different countries on 2 different continents).
It would actually help if you SAID what you meant... rather than letting a YouTube video speak for you.
Hail, Hail!!!
so you mean this?
this is the jump to conclusion. please, try to keep up. Or were you not saying what you meant. you must be confused.
Yes. This is a conclusion based upon the moronic premise that since Venezuela and Iran are cyber spying on us that they should be nuked.
If Venezuela and Iran should be nuked for spying... shouldn't Israel be nuked for doing the exact same thing?
...
The conclusion being... it is moronic to think nuking anyone is going to solve a problem... and not create a million more problems.
Hail, Hail!!!
Which is EXACTLY what I SAID! I said, "I know you (Godfather) are joking (about nuking them)".
...
You're the one who posted the YouTube video about jumping to a conclusion... do you KNOW what the phrase, 'Jumping to a conclusion' means? It means that the conclusion i have come to (that Godfather is not stupid and that the comment was a joke) was the opposite to what your percieved reality is.
Hail, Hail!!!
Thank you.
That was the most sensible thing you've said in this thread.
...
And don't worry... the next boat will come by sometime next week to pick you up.
Hail, Hail!!!
Holy crow...it all makes sense!
THE SABOTEURS UNVEILED!!!
Quick, alert The Porch!!!
Hail, Hail!!!
That's clever.
More promoting of violence against Iranians on the AMT.
Pearl Jam fans calling for nuclear war. This place never ceases to amaze me.
Right.
Many people will swallow any bullshit that the U.S media lapdogs spew out in order to keep the war machine - arms industry - moving forward with huge profits for the 1%.
And to think that the bullshit in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq occurred just 8 years ago. Some people really have short term memories. Or does their willingness to accept this bullshit stem from something else? Does it lie in some fundamental feeling of insecurity and inadequacy that causes them to crave the sight of U.S troops massacring brown-skinned foreign people in order for them to feel good about themselves?
So you object to dropping nuclear bombs on Iran and Venezuela for economic reasons?
Looks like you could be right:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... NTCMP=SRCH
War on Iran has already begun. Act before it threatens all of us
Escalation of the covert US-Israeli campaign against Tehran risks a global storm. Opposition has to get more serious
Seumas Milne
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 December 2011
They don't give up. After a decade of blood-drenched failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, violent destabilisation of Pakistan and Yemen, the devastation of Lebanon and slaughter in Libya, you might hope the US and its friends had had their fill of invasion and intervention in the Muslim world.
It seems not. For months the evidence has been growing that a US-Israeli stealth war against Iran has already begun, backed by Britain and France. Covert support for armed opposition groups has spread into a campaign of assassinations of Iranian scientists, cyber warfare, attacks on military and missile installations, and the killing of an Iranian general, among others.
The attacks are not directly acknowledged, but accompanied by intelligence-steered nods and winks as the media are fed a stream of hostile tales – the most outlandish so far being an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US – and the western powers ratchet up pressure for yet more sanctions over Iran's nuclear programme.
The British government's decision to take the lead in imposing sanctions on all Iranian banks and pressing for an EU boycott of Iranian oil triggered the trashing of its embassy in Tehran by demonstrators last week and subsequent expulsion of Iranian diplomats from London.
It's a taste of how the conflict can quickly escalate, as was the downing of a US spyplane over Iranian territory at the weekend. What one Israeli official has called a "new kind of war" has the potential to become a much more old-fashioned one that would threaten us all.
Last month the Guardian was told by British defence ministry officials that if the US brought forward plans to attack Iran (as they believed it might), it would "seek, and receive, UK military help", including sea and air support and permission to use the ethnically cleansed British island colony of Diego Garcia.
Whether the officials' motive was to soften up public opinion for war or warn against it, this was an extraordinary admission: the Britain military establishment fully expects to take part in an unprovoked US attack on Iran – just as it did against Iraq eight years ago.
What was dismissed by the former foreign secretary Jack Straw as "unthinkable", and for David Cameron became an option not to be taken "off the table", now turns out to be as good as a done deal if the US decides to launch a war that no one can seriously doubt would have disastrous consequences. But there has been no debate in parliament and no mainstream political challenge to what Straw's successor, David Miliband, this week called the danger of "sleepwalking into a war with Iran". That's all the more shocking because the case against Iran is so spectacularly flimsy.
There is in fact no reliable evidence that Iran is engaged in a nuclear weapons programme. The latest International Atomic Energy Agency report once again failed to produce a smoking gun, despite the best efforts of its new director general, Yukiya Amano – described in a WikiLeaks cable as "solidly in the US court on every strategic decision".
As in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the strongest allegations are based on "secret intelligence" from western governments. But even the US national intelligence director, James Clapper, has accepted that the evidence suggests Iran suspended any weapons programme in 2003 and has not reactivated it.
The whole campaign has an Alice in Wonderland quality about it. Iran, which says it doesn't want nuclear weapons, is surrounded by nuclear-weapon states: the US – which also has forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as military bases across the region – Israel, Russia, Pakistan and India.
Iran is of course an authoritarian state, though not as repressive as western allies such as Saudi Arabia. But it has invaded no one in 200 years. It was itself invaded by Iraq with western support in the 1980s, while the US and Israel have attacked 10 countries or territories between them in the past decade. Britain exploited, occupied and overthrew governments in Iran for over a century. So who threatens who exactly?
As Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, said recently, if he were an Iranian leader he would "probably" want nuclear weapons. Claims that Iran poses an "existential threat" to Israel because President Ahmadinejad said the state "must vanish from the page of time" bear no relation to reality. Even if Iran were to achieve a nuclear threshold, as some suspect is its real ambition, it would be in no position to attack a state with upwards of 300 nuclear warheads, backed to the hilt by the world's most powerful military force.
The real challenge posed by Iran to the US and Israel has been as an independent regional power, allied to Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas movements. As US troops withdraw from Iraq, Saudi Arabia fans sectarianism, and Syrian opposition leaders promise a break with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, the threat of proxy wars is growing across the region.
A US or Israeli attack on Iran would turn that regional maelstrom into a global firestorm. Iran would certainly retaliate directly and through allies against Israel, the US and US Gulf client states, and block the 20% of global oil supplies shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. Quite apart from death and destruction, the global economic impact would be incalculable.
All reason and common sense militate against such an act of aggression. Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel's Mossad, said last week it would be a "catastrophe". Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, warned that it could "consume the Middle East in confrontation and conflict that we would regret".
There seems little doubt that the US administration is deeply wary of a direct attack on Iran. But in Israel, Barak has spoken of having less than a year to act; Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, has talked about making the "right decision at the right moment"; and the prospects of drawing the US in behind an Israeli attack have been widely debated in the media.
Maybe it won't happen. Maybe the war talk is more about destabilisation than a full-scale attack. But there are undoubtedly those in the US, Israel and Britain who think otherwise. And the threat of miscalculation and the logic of escalation could tip the balance decisively. Unless opposition to an attack on Iran gets serious, this could become the most devastating Middle East war of all.
Nobody ever wants to admit it, it's not all of us. there's too much information in this country to blame ignorance, were being manipulated.