Want to stop the next war?

Throughout the past five years, we have heard many allegations of faked evidence -- and I'm not just talking about the Niger documents or Curveball's wacky tales. Many skeptics scream "Bogus!" every time a new video and audio communication from Al Qaeda pops up. Some people have argued that the Nick Berg decapitation video was a hoax.

Firedoglake now forces us to confront the possibility that a very important piece of audio was produced by disinformationists. When Colin Powell made his case against Iraq at the United Nations, he presented several items of evidence, each of which has since been proven false or misleading -- except one: A surveillance recording of two high-level Iraqis discussing CBW.

A second-hand source reports that native Arabic speakers, upon hearing the tape, burst out laughing. The dialects were all wrong. Hilariously wrong. Imagine someone playing a recording of Jeff Foxworthy and then trying to convince you that you just heard the voice of Pierce Brosnan.

True, we don't have a first-hand source for this assessment. But we do have the tape. (Go for the clip labeled "modified vehicle.") We need someone who knows the dialects of the region to listen to this thing and to tell us if we have the real deal or an obvious ruse.

Acquiring proof of deception is more important than you may realise. When they next terror attack occurs, "evidence" of this sort will be used to blame Iran.

Want to stop the next war?

The American populace must learn that covert manipulators do create counterfeits. Such things do not just happen in spy novels.