How the CIA Staged Sham Academic Conferences to Thwart Iran’s Nuclear Program | Hacker News Reader

How the CIA Staged Sham Academic Conferences to Thwart Iran’s Nuclear Program

propublica.org

76 pointseni28 comments

And let us not forget the endless string of assassinations carried out by foreign intelligence agencies against Iranian nuclear scientists [0][1][2][3][4], indiscriminately killing civilians – women and children.

Of course, we as a nation are so overwhelmingly vilified by US media that such tragedies happening to us don't get awarded the label of "Terrorism."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majid_Shahriari [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fereydoon_Abbasi [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masoud_Alimohammadi [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darioush_Rezaeinejad [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostafa_Ahmadi-Roshan

I'm certainly no fan of the CIA and the fucked up shit it's done (and still doing), especially to your country. But isn't there a difference between a somewhat targeted assassination and an attack which's only target is maximum civillian damage (aka the typical terror bomb plot)? I don't want to justify these actions, I just think there is a qualitative difference.

Sure, there's a difference. There's also a difference between first and second degree murder, but they are both still murder.

From what I can tell, most terrorists want to achieve a more specific goal than just to maximize civilian damage. Here are some groups which are called terrorist organizations:

Earth Liberation Front: carries out property damage related to fur farming, meat packing, GMO research, logging, etc.

Army of God, a Christian anti-abortionist group: kidnapped a doctor who performed abortions, and his wife, murdered or attempted to murder abortion providers, and carried out clinic bombings and arson.

In both cases the goal was to increase the perceived costs of respectively exploiting the environment and carrying out abortions.

What is the difference between a targeted murder of a foreign scientists by the CIA and a targeted murder of an abortion provider?

(I use "murder" because I think "assassination" is a fancy name partially meant to justify murder as an aspect of state power.)

Thank you, good points. It is probably more of a spectrum than I previously stated. Though I'd personally also wouldn't call the ELF or Army of God terrorist organizations. That I'd reserve for untargeted civillian attacks that have the intent of striking fear. But given that the US government considers these organizations terrorist, it's only fair to call their CIA a terrorist organization.

One problem is that "terrorism" is not well defined.

If you use the definition "untargeted civillian attacks", then that excludes the 9/11 attacks. As I understand it, the targets were: the World Trade center, as a symbol of US economic power, the Pentagon as the center of US military power, and flight 93 was headed towards DC, so perhaps the Capital building or the White House, as an attack on political power.

The goals of those who planned and carried out 9/11 was not simply to strike fear. "Al-Qaeda and bin Laden cited U.S. support of Israel, the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, and sanctions against Iraq as motives."

I stopped reading after

> To show his sincerity and goodwill, the agent put his hand over his heart. “Salam habibi,” he said.

Either the reporter, or the CIA hasn't done their research. Habibi is Arabic, and that's not how Iranian greet each other, especially if they want to show sincerity and goodwill.

Agreed. It'd be akin to saying "hola amigo" to an American scientist.

Are you agreeing with Amir or Cacti? "Hola amigo" is an expression that many US Americans understand and do occasionally use to greet one another.

I think that answers your question. He's just drawing a more familiar parallel.

With Amir.

Given the context of an intelligence officer knocking on an unfamiliar person's hotel room door unexpected and asking them to defect, I think "salaam habibi" would strike most Farsi speakers as a bizarre and malapropos greeting.

"Hola amigo. I’m from the CIA, and I want you to board a plane with me to the United States."

I see it as an indicator of careless journalism that the author is citing an unnamed source "familiar on the matter" about a 10-year-old conversation that he seems not to have transcribed into the right language. I put it into the same category of people who ask what part of Mexico the Puerto Ricans are from.

I get what you're saying, but "hola amigo" is a really bad example of it. There are 40 million Spanish speakers in the US and tens of millions more use Spanish phrases routinely as a personality quirk. "Hola" and "amigo" are both words that I'd expect most Americans to understand, and I wouldn't bat an eye if a CIA agent greeted my in that way, assuming the context wasn't too formal.

Maybe a better example would be... well, if they put their hand over their heart and said "salaam habibi" to an American scientist.

Yeah, maybe I watch too many movies, but "hola amigo" feels like a totally appropriate greeting before you're about to do some shady spy shit. I think that it's actually a good greeting because it indicates to the other person that this interaction is about to be a bit informal.

>"Hola amigo" is an expression that many US Americans understand and do occasionally use to greet one another

I suppose that depends on your definition of "US Americans".

Americans that live in the US? How many valid definitions are there?

Actually my fellow comrade, people say that kind of stuff fairly often.

"According to a person familiar with this encounter, which took place about a decade ago"

Although I doubt the "mistake" was unintentional.

Are you kidding? CIA never makes mistakes! They're the greatest, flawless intelligence agency in the world!

https://www.rt.com/news/fsb-detain-cia-agent-253/

You're sharing a Russia Today article?

RT used to be half-way decent. Some might argue that they've turned up the agitprop dial a bit recently.

RT has always been a Russia propaganda arm. They were never decent. It's interesting to read every once in a while, but only to see Kremlin talking points.

RT was specifically created by the Russian government to influence foreigners.

It's a brand new account with negative karma and two comments, both pro-Russian in context.

Either it's somebody's sock puppet account or someone new who doesn't understand that HN really is different from Reddit and a higher level of intellectual discourse works much better here.

Perhaps the agent was acting as an Arab while at the conference, and was obviously not Persian? Perhaps the Iranian had relatives who were Arab? Maybe the agent acted like the guy was Arab when they first bumped into each-other, to throw off the idea he was looking for Iranians, and this is like an inside joke to be friendly?

I mean, there are plenty of possibilities here, including that the person describing the event is describing it second hand well after a decade has passed.

Don't be in such a rush to judgement; you might learn something.

this is a great thread for ngate. HN debating whether or not the CIA's tradecraft was up to snuff.

“I’m from the CIA, and I want you to board a plane with me to the United States.”

I'm sure his salutation was forgiven...the offer is what makes him think a trillion things a second.

Isn't it bad that we are talking about American spycraft against a rival, regarding a method they may still need to employ? This isn't like researching the Bay of Pigs.

if u want to know what iranian nuclear scientists do for a living.. they don't make bombs :P https://www.thenewenergyindustry.com/project/the-story-of-me...

But maybe now it make sense why they want to thwart their research efforts and destroy their 'reactors' ? ;P

When I loaded it, I was like wow, this looks like some free energy non-sense. Then it was!

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