Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Iran Accuses The West Of Using Lizards To Spy On Its Nuclear Program

AFP: Iran military official: West used lizards for nuclear spying

The former chief-of-staff of Iran's armed forces said Tuesday that Western spies had used lizards which could "attract atomic waves" to spy on the country's nuclear programme.

Hassan Firuzabadi, senior military advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was responding to questions from local media on the recent arrest of environmentalists.

He said he did not know the details of the cases, but that the West had often used tourists, scientists and environmentalists to spy on Iran.

"Several years ago, some individuals came to Iran to collect aid for Palestine... We were suspicious of the route they chose," he told the reformist ILNA news agency.

Read more ....

More News On Iran Accusing The West Of Using Lizards To Spy On Its Nuclear Program

Iran Says Enemies Used Lizards to Spy on Nuclear Program -- Newsweek
West sent lizards as nuclear spies, claims Iran defense official -- Ars Technica
Iranian Official Accuses West Of Using Lizards To Spy On Nuclear Program -- International Business Times
West Used Lizards to Spy on Iran's Nuclear Program – Military Official -- Sputnik International
No, Iran, Lizard 'Spies' Can't Detect Uranium -- Live Science

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

*Facepalm*

But I bet on RT the commentators will eat it up and call it Zion/US lizard spies etc etc sickening

James said...

Geico!

Anonymous said...

James' comment wouldn't look so stupid and gullible if he checked the story out at its source, instead of relying on English-language media (almost all US owned, or based in countries aligned with the US) to tell him what the Iranians had supposedly said. Turns out it's fake news thanks to sloppy translation, and the 'journalists' who wrote the English language news stories failed to check the details first hand, or even hire translators.

I don't speak Farsi, but I went to the story's source, the INLA news website, and ran the story through Google Translate. Hassan Firuzabadi clearly did NOT talk gobbledygook about lizards magically detecting 'atomic waves'. (The literal machine translation is 'atomic spells', and I think it's same to assume that the guy was not talking about witches or wizards.)

Read the full article, and use some common sense about translation errors, and it's a boring story with no 'atomic lizards' nonsense. It transpires that he was talking about how suspected spies had been taking samples of local wildlife including lizards, in order to assess the background radiation around Iranian nuclear facilities. And that's it. No 'Zionists are using magic lizards against our mighty nation' nonsense. Just 'they were taking samples of local wildlife'.

All of which is highly plausible, because it's precisely what nuclear scientists and environmentalists would do if they wanted to sample the radiological footprint of an atomic facility in Europe or the US. They do it RIGHT NOW around nuclear facilities in the West, all the darn time.
Environmental samples are invaluable in radiological 'fingerprinting'.

We do something similar with nuclear sampling every time the North Koreans detonate a nuke. The USAF 'sniffer' plane circles near to DPRK airspace and collects air samples, filtering out radioactive alpha, betta and gamma-emitting particles, looking for the chemical traces of neutron-activation in airborne particles, and so on. This helps to 'fingerprint' the atomic bomb's radiological characteristics. You'd be nuts not to expect Western intel agencies to try to collect plant, animal, water and soil samples from around DPRK nuclear facilities, too.

So, this ridiculous story is merely a fake news story about a down-to-earth statement made by an Iranian who used to be very senior in their government (and is now retired) that is inexcusably twisted by US media in order to mock the Iranians, by way of lousy translation and journalistic lack of ethics. Disgusting racism, frankly.

James said...

Geico!

Anonymous said...

Thanks to Anon for a succinct and helpful understanding of the posted story. It is not fake. It is not posted in a helpful manner. That said: who would bother with the story in any case had not we led to it by what seemed an odd and perhaps funny twist given it...in sum: sometimes, dumb things can be helpful or useful

James said...

Geico!

B.Poster said...

Anon (1st anon),

Thank you for the insight. I think it may have been mistranslated on purpose to demonize the US. After all many are going to buy into this story as the evil, brilliant, and nefarious up to old tricks trying to hurt dear, sweet, and innocent Iran.

First of all the "west" isn't really interested in spying on Iran. Most of the "west" can't wait to do business with Iran. They would gladly undermine any US interest just or otherwise in this area in order to get at that business. Secondly, the US is to hopelessly divided and to beset by messaging problems to pose any kind of real threat to Iran. The Iranian government needs a foreign devil. The US is perfect for this.

Anonymous said...

Wow James your so funny. Guess you ended up here as a comedian for a reason.....

James said...

Geico!