George Stephanopoulos, Your Black Helicopter Is Waiting

By Steve Hynd

Last night, George Stephanopoulos interviewed Iran's President Ahmadinejhad and asked him about reports that Osoama bin Laden was living in Iran. The question came straight from a Fox News report on Monday about a documentary called "Feathered Cocaine".

In it, Alan Parrot, the film�s subject and one of the world�s foremost falconers, makes a case that Bin Laden, an avid falcon hunter, has been living comfortably in Iran since at least 2003 and continues to pursue the sport relatively freely. He is relaxed, healthy and, according to the film, very comfortable.

This is an allegation that Alan Parrot has been making since at least 2004, and which he finally convinced two Icelanders to make a film about. The last time it surfaced, in 2009, Mr. Parrot made some outrageous allegations about U.S. official incompetence (emphasis mine):

Osama Bin Laden is in Iran, asserts Alan Howell Parrot, the director of The Union for the Conservation of Raptors (UCR), who for many years served as a Falconer for the rulers of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and members of Saudi Royal family. In that capacity he was a regular guest in the seasonal Falconry-hunting camps and had access to all participants. Parrot has been offering evidence of Bin Laden's sighting in Iran since November 2004 to a great number of U.S. government officials at the Department of Defense, the FBI, Senators and even to the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Gen. Michael V. Hayden. Government officials who asked to remain nameless confirmed Parrot's contact with the government. Still, no one responded.

Remember, that's the Bush administration he's talking about. He's also accused former terrorism czar Richard Clarke of "tipping off" a UAE sheik about a plan to bomb Bin Laden in return for signing a $1.6billion fighter jet deal Clarke had brokered.

Mr Parrot told Fox on Monday that "I am not political". If so, however, he has a funny way of showing it. Back in 2009, I discovered, and Crooks & Liars posted about, his writing for rightwing website Stand Up America founded by Maj. General Paul E. Vallely, who advocates military force to change the regime in Iran. The Islamophobic rant from Parrot I found is sadly now gone from that website, but Nicole Belle quoted a sizeable chunk in her C&L post, easily found via a Google search:

Muslims are extraordinarily averse to admitting self-fault, and accepting blame. This is a UNIVERSAL feature among devout Muslims. Why?

For many years I have watched the cultural phenomenon of �Majelis�, where strict protocol governs how a person publicly relates to the sheikh or the prince, and everyone�s actions are more controlled than in Louis IV palace of Versailles. There are many, many subtle things that have to be done just right, to qualify as an honored guest in Majelis. Westerners always offend Majelis protocol, even when the Westerners think they know the system backwards and forwards; their Arab hosts forgive these Westerners, with a smug deductive conclusion that their Western guest is an uncivilized �barbarian�.[..]

Certainly that perception among Muslim leaders (that Westerners are simple and na�), is behind their ability to manipulate our media and some of our political leaders. When they succeed in manipulating us to achieve their own Islamic agendas, at the same time these Islamic colonialists spit on the ground and revile us even more than before.

As Nicole wrote at the time: "Oh, that sounds REALLY credible. Gosh, can't imagine why he wasn't taken more seriously at the CIA."

But apparently, George Stephanopolous is quite willing to take the word of an islamophobic nutter repeated via Faux News and challenge the president of Iran with those outlandish accusations, without doing even a modicum of research.