by emptypockets
Iraqi and Iranian news media are proving that silly season is a cross-cultural phenomenon by giving wind to conspiracy theories about the British military depositing metazoan "bioweapons," including badgers, snakes, and rabid dogs, in the country as a Parthian gift. The New York Times derides the naivete of these nervous villagers:
The Iranian news media have gotten in on the act too, claiming that foreign forces have been fitting squirrels with miniaturized surveillance devices and sending them scurrying across the border to spy. Iranian news reports, monitored by the BBC, recently referred to 14 spy squirrels being captured by alert Iranian intelligence officials before the animals could take action against the nation.
It's a fun story. Now, if only the NYT had shown a similar skepticism five years ago when reporting the over-the-top bioweapon conspiracy theories that got us into this mess in the first place.
p.s. while past NYT Iraq reporting has been criticized for its use of anonymous sources, this one stands to me out for having, weirdly, an anonymous author! "An Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting."
Posted by: emptypockets | July 31, 2007 at 10:05
Having sensational silliness is part of having a free press. The New York Times just issues a correction about Naomi Wolf's role in the Al Gore '00 campaign - it turns out she had NOTHING to do with the picking clothes in "earth tones". If the Basra Gazette issues a correction in 2015 that there were no British super badgers and they regret the error they'll still be a year ahead of The Grey Lady.
Posted by: joejoejoe | July 31, 2007 at 10:28
Fret not folks. Cheney has known about the Brit's enhanced squirrel techniques for some time now and has launched a a double super secret program to close the squirrel gap. The program, known as ESP for Enhanced Squirrel Program, has been determined by the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel, in an opinion written by David Addington for Albertoad Gonzales' signature, to be fully compliant with SPCA guidelines and laws in spite of the large but classified number of squirrels lost in development. Gonzales, asked about the ESP while under oath in a committee hearing, testified that he really can't remember any double super secret squirrel programs and has no idea how the 150,000 squirrels died in Langley last year.
Posted by: bmaz | July 31, 2007 at 10:52
We have seen this before - you'd better believe it!!!
http://www.nei.ch/squirrel/dilbert.htm
Posted by: JeffinBerlin | July 31, 2007 at 11:10
Am I the only one who believes that spy squirrels and man-eating badgers would make more sense that what we say we are doing?
Posted by: William Ockham | July 31, 2007 at 11:38
Certainly couldn't be any less effective now could they?
Posted by: bmaz | July 31, 2007 at 11:52
Five years ago. Maybe the bio weapon was covered under the five year spy law Plame and Fitz got all excited about(sorry, that was planned and we all know about Harvard and all those spies) . The squirrel has been caught and killed, maybe it's wrong to talk about him like that.
As far as the bio terror, maybe it's a trade for what women do to men. Anyhow, alot of money is going into the new counter anti bio terror lab and States are competing; bad time to mention the five yer law.
Posted by: FRE | July 31, 2007 at 11:55
WO - If Squirrel is involved, where is Moose?
Posted by: bmaz | July 31, 2007 at 12:00
You know, squirrels have been spotted here in Michigan. Rumor has it that the Repug State Party HQ staffers are training them up and using them to nibble through the Internet cables for well known liberal bloggers.
Posted by: Mensch71 | July 31, 2007 at 13:05
Still, the NYT does the administration's bidding, by running that misleading data mining tripe, and NOT the real story: Comey's objections were to the use of American grey squirrels to spy domestically. Of course, following a bad experience at summer camp as a child, he'd always hated Wisconsin, so he had no objection to genetically engineering the man-eating badgers.
Posted by: biggerbox | July 31, 2007 at 13:26
here's one of the squirrels
Posted by: Lee | July 31, 2007 at 17:25
here's one of the squirrels
Posted by: Lee | July 31, 2007 at 17:29
Wait a minute, Lee. AS they say in a little community east of me "Now, that ain't no squirrel!"
Posted by: Flo | August 03, 2007 at 22:50
Wait a minute, Lee. AS they say in a little community east of me "Now, that ain't no squirrel!"
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