Enforcing the baseline narrative

by anderson

In the burgeoning Youtube video scrap erupting around presumed kidnapped Iranian nuclear scientist, Shahram Amiri, the accusations by Iran are being challenged.  Shahram Amiri went missing about a year ago, on a pilgrimage to Mecca, with Iranians claiming video evidence of Amiri stating that he had been kidnapped in Medina by Saudi Intelligence (GIS), tortured, and was at the time living in Arizona -- presumably shipped there.

Now some other video has responded to this.  The new video is Amiri saying, hey, no sweat!  Everything's fine!  Love it here.  And the US denies abducting him.

In denying the abduction of Amiri, a US official told the BBC, and I do not hesitate to quote:

"It's absurd for anyone to say that the United States is in the business of torturing people into false claims of defection - or anything else. That's not how we work."

Now, wrap your noggin around that.  Amazing, really.  Tortured false confessions for the invasion of Iraq.  Tortured false confessions during 9/11 Commissioning questioning*.  But that's not how we work.  What I'd like to know is where do they find guys who can say this, or who can be molded into saying this?  Because that has to be a deep, dark, dank place.

But let's think about this from the bizarre non-kidnapping frame.  This act, were it to have been entirely voluntary, would see a devout Muslim on pilgrimage to Mecca suddenly, somewhere near Medina, throw up his hands and say, "Fuck it! Phoenix, here I come!"

No weirder, I suppose, than being kidnapped by Saudi Intelligence, tortured for nuclear secrets, and shipped to Phoenix, where the golfing is lovely.  Actually, in our day, the former is much weirder.  The curious feature is that both stories appear to have happened, as told by Amiri himself.

That's not normal.

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*An interesting corporate media note:
The article referenced about torture and the 9/11 Commission was
originally reported on apparently former MSNBC News site, Deep
Background.  It was an excellent article.  So excellent, in fact, I had
it in my bookmarks toolbar -- right in the middle.  I had not checked it
in awhile, but I have referenced
it repeatedly.  Now, it is gone.  It has been preserved elsewhere
for obvious reasons.  And, as far as I can discern, the entire "Deep
Background" site is completely gone.

Which really can mean only one thing:
for the corporate media, there are no more secrets!  Hooray! to that.
NBC has decided that they don't need no stinking Deep Background site,
because there is no deep background. Ha! it's all just conspiracy
theories! all that deep background stuff.  Kooky stuff, like the CIA
spraying LSD on France!  Crazy shit!  Who thinks that up?