Russia Lambastes Reports Ship Had Missiles For Iran

[Purveyor]

Source: Reuters

By Amie Ferris-Rotman

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow on Tuesday denied reports a cargo ship that went missing in the Atlantic for almost a month had been carrying a Russian air-defense system to Iran that was detected by Israel.

Russia's foreign minister said the circumstances of the ship's disappearance would become clear in due course.

The Maltese-registered Arctic Sea was officially carrying timber from Finland to Algeria when it was boarded on July 24 by a group of 8 men. They were charged with kidnapping and piracy after it was intercepted by Russian warships off Cape Verde.

Since then there has been speculation that the ship, manned by a crew of Russians, Estonians and Latvians, was carrying a secret cargo.

Media reports over the weekend, citing military sources in Israel and Russia, said the Arctic Sea had been loaded with S-300 missiles at the naval port of Kaliningrad without the Kremlin's knowledge. Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, had been monitoring and tipped off Moscow.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5873QW20090908

[Soylent Brice]

1. missiles for sale! missiles for sale!

S-300 missiles for sale!

i'm really not kidding,

so who'll start the bidding,

Do I hear a dollar?

A nickel?

A penny?

Oh, isn’t there, isn’t there, isn’t there any

One nation that will buy this old missile for sale,

This S-300 missile for sale!?

[dipsydoodle]

2. Given that Russia borders the Caspian Sea

why bother to take the long route ?

Arctic Sea Iran arms link denied :

Russia has denied media reports that a cargo ship which was apparently hijacked in July was carrying Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the reports that the ship had illegal arms on board were "absolutely untrue".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8243714.stm

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. The really shocking thing is that the West is so pathologically mendacious,

I don't want to believe that it could point the finger in any kind of censorious way at another nation outside its orbit. I don't want to believe that any nation could sink lower; it would be too much to take on board. Surely, we can be allowed to cling to a few desperately modest illusions, if illusions they be.

I mean, there is a theoretical possibility that the Russians are lying about that ship not being stuffed to the gunwhales with nuclear missiles. But I've just been listening to very brief clips of crooked right-wing media infotainment news types bad-mouthing Hugo Chavez as one of the very worst dictators in the wrld. Oliver Stone exposed what a risible lie that was, since Hugo's rule is far more democratic that that of the US or the UK, just to begin with. If the national MSM remorselesly attacked our Governments of the day, they'd be shut down, have their licences taken away from them post haste. (We currently only have the one corporatist party, so all criticism is a charade, anyway). In Venezuela, Ugo has humoured the right-wing tumours and allowed them to carry on spewing their bilge.

Worse, I thought of the national leader in central Asia who boils his political foes alive, who we don't mind doing business with at all. He's our kind of guy. Tough on terrorists and any politically-hostile human beings generally, since they could become terrorists.

It makes it so hard to even want to believe our leaders. Their pathological mendacity in the matter of geopolitics is one of the few things I've come to feel I can rely on, in my own mind, in an inceasingly unstable and zany world. Banal it may be, but there seems to be an almost reassuring consistency and predictability about the mendacity of those pathologically estranged for any semblance of truth not of their own "manufacture" - unless you happen to be one of their victims, of course.

[Old and In the Way]

4. crooked right-wing media infotainment news types

I think you're on the right track, but I'd add: "crooked right-wing media misinfotainment news types".

Truth has been the casualty of our corporate media's desire to give both sides equal time (except Fox, of course)...but we both can't be right. Either Bush started an illegal war or he didn't. Either the Bush administration outed a NOC or they didn't. Either the Katrina results were a criminal act of negligence by our government or it wasn't. etc., etc., etc. Both sides cannot have the truth.

We are a poorer country for this abdication of our media to actually report the truth and expose the lies.

[Joe Chi Minh]

5. Of course. I think it's the reason for the "...tainment" suffix. Meaningless pabulum.

But we're not all liable to confuse the characters portrayed in soaps with the actors who play them. Some of us would really like truthful, informative broadcasts on current affairs. We can tell the difference between fact and fantasy most of the time.