Monday, November 01, 2010

More Times Humor?

From today's New York Times -
The three American hikers accused of espionage by Iran stepped off an unmarked dirt road — inadvertently crossing from Iraq into the Islamic republic — only because a border guard of unknown nationality gestured for them to approach, the lone hiker to be released said Sunday.
This just keeps getting better. First we were expected to believe that they were hikers in Iran, which however unlikely, is conceivable if they were naive and stupid enough. Iran is not at war.

Now we are to believe they were hikers in Iraq. Presumably they had signed up for an REI-led group and it got out of hand? And they have credentials as activists (whatever the hell that means) in the anti-US, anti-Israel left and were affiliated with the ISM (the International Solidarity Movement - a virulently anti-American, anti-Israel and often openly antisemitic organization.) And they just happened to stumble across the border into Iran.

Now in theory even James Bond goes on vacation. But when you catch 007 near your nuclear facility that is not the first thing that comes to mind. As much as I am not a fan of the Islamic Republic, I have to agree that the charges of espionage brought by Iran seem considerably more likely than their story that they are three little lambs who have lost their way.

The United States and Israel both ought to be, and one assumes are, conducting espionage in Iran. We ought to go to every possible effort to protect and rescue our people if they are caught. But these folks seem to be no friends of either country.

It seems to me that the mere fact of their American nationality puts the United States under scant obligation to get them out of Iran.

Yet the Times continues to describe them as "hikers". But then again the Times routinely refers to terrorists as "militants", so either their grasp on reality is not snug or their truthfulness is not ironclad.


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