ForumGarden

I mentioned this in the wikileaks thread but want to point out the huge implications of what happened over one of the cables from Russia regarding Iran and missile capabilities.

The New York Times story says:

Secret American intelligence assessments have concluded that Iran has obtained a cache of advanced missiles, based on a Russian design, that are much more powerful than anything Washington has publicly conceded that Tehran has in its arsenal, diplomatic cables show.

which is essentially true because Americans have concluded that for reasons not necessarily based on fact. But then follows with:

Iran obtained 19 of the missiles from North Korea, according to a cable dated Feb. 24 of this year.

which is utter bullocks. The cables they are taking the story from show that the American diplomat stated what the Americans think and the Russians stated that there is no reason to believe it is true. To the best of their knowledge, no such transfer took place. That was the message of the cable. The Americans already knew what their conclusion was, the cable was to inform what the Russians thought.

source

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world ... .html?_r=2

The NYTimes have said they agreed to censor the wikileak document at request from the White House.

My beef: If they didn't want to accurately convey the content they shouldn't have covered that cable at all. To cover it and alter it to completely reverse the meaning of the cable is completely irresponsible journalism.



I think this deserves its own thread. It's not about wikileaks or if the cables should be available, it's about whether or not a newspaper should intentionally misreport an event.

This is a reasonably good assessment of what went askew, where, and how

Times Missile Story Missing a Half : CJR

Well Koan that guy in your second link can't even get it all right. The R-27 (Nato SSN-6- Serb) was tested/fired hundreds of times by the USSR and has a good record. 93% success rate with an accuracy of about 1 to 2 KM with a 1 megaton warhead and a range of 2400 to 3000km depending on the model. The K-219 'Widowmaker' was armed with these missiles.

The fact that our writers don't seem to be able to put facts together in a manner that makes sense leads to things like this. I think he was trying to say that Russia has never seen any tests outside it's borders of this missile I doubt highly the USSR or Russia ever gave ANYBODY working examples of this missile. The engineering plans and data from testing? Very possible.

I could of course be wrong in my interpretation also.

Iran could have gotten plans for this and could in fact build these missiles if they did. It is also just a missile and anything the Iranians may build will behave like a missile. Just like the airplanes design thing. I can see Russia being blamed for Iran having as missile simply because the missile is shaped like a missile.

It's not so complicated as trying to figure out who has what. It's a simple matter of what the cable said and what the NYTimes say it said. The two don't match and NYTimes has admitted the White House interfered with their story.

The NYTimes have said they agreed to censor the wikileak document at request from the White House.


Well then, so much for freedom of speech. We can depend on American journalists to be as obedient to Washington as Russia Today is to the Kremlin. Scarey. Wasn't it Google who kicked Wikileaks off its server? Maybe Wiki should go to China?

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State."

-- Dr. Joseph Goebbels