Truthiness? [UPDATED]

dr. elsewhere here

[UPDATE at end of this post]

Recently a friend and I were lamenting the drumbeats to wage war on Iran, and became mutually fascinated by the character of Ahmadinejad, Iran’s new president. We recalled that, right after his election, some of the ’79 hostages claimed he was the ringleader of their kidnappers. Soon other hostages disputed this claim, and the assertion merged with other murk into something like the memory hole.

Still, we could not help but note the reports of this man’s inflammatory rhetoric and how it seemed to be an exact mirror reflection of our own, playing right into the plans, both past and future, of the neocon march to world hegemony. By all reports, he seems to be mocking Bush’s “bring it on” attitude, certainly playing with fire by fueling the many US excuses to attack.

Then we reflected a bit on the outcome of the ’79 hostage crisis, and remembered that this episode actually ended up benefiting Ronald Reagan, and gosh, was it not also the case that these terrorists ended up working with our man Ollie North and others in sabotaging negations throughout the ’80 campaign, and then further to fund the Contras in Latin America.

So, given the possible connection between Ahmadinejad and covert US operations, and given the maniacal nature of the guy’s rhetoric, we wondered if he might just be a US puppet, installed expressly to incite the kind of inflammatory responses that would justify our nuking their bunkers.

Hey. If you’re not paranoid, you’re not paying attention, right?

Well, it turns out there might not be need for so much complication even if there is every reason to be paranoid.

Jeff Wells happened to be watching a Russian news site recently, and they streamed a press conference with this guy, this Ahmadinejad.

Seems he does not quite act the part when he is live and in person. Seems he can actually be reasoned, measured, informed, and eager to negotiate. He also brings up the fascinating but very important point that Iran cannot be building nuclear weapons because this expressly violates Islamic law.

So. With what are we left? Still beating drums? Check. Still paranoid? Double check. Still dangerous? Triple check. But what appeared to be a tangled inside job is even more inside than that. It appears that the puppet is not Ahmadinejad, but may be instead the US media.

Gosh. I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

[UPDATE]

I sat on this story for a bit before posting, but it still bothered me. Of course, the whole stinking mess bothers me, from Iran hostage soup to nuke Iran nuts, and it was a bit hard to sort it out.

So I chatted with said friend who also felt bothered, but zeroed in on the problem instantly by pointing out that there is ample evidence that Iran - and other countries claiming Islam as their law (think Saudi Arabia, for starters) - is not above duplicity, religious laws notwithstanding.

Given my quick faulting of the American press (not to worry; they're not getting off the hook here), I decided to look around, and found on the English Al Jazeera site an article that addressed just that duplicity on both sides of the inflammatory rhetoric, giving a history from the hostage soup to the nuke 'em nuts.

Of course, I remain pseudo-shocked. But is this getting just ridiculously layered with lies here, or am I the only one feeling more than a tad tipsy with all this "truthiness"?

Reverential nod and hat tip to "said friend;" you know who you are.
;-)