Iranian nuclear scientist hung for espionage
The Associated Press reports that Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist who may or may not have defected to the US in 2009, was hung by the neck in Iran last week, apparently as punishment for engaging in espionage against the islamic Republic. Amiri disappeared while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and reappeared in the United States. Ostensibly, his disappearance was to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons, but he said that he was Shanghaied by western governments. The following year, he returned to Iran;
On Tuesday, Iran announced it had executed a number of criminals, describing them mainly as militants from the country’s Kurdish minority. Then an obituary notice for Amiri circulated in his hometown of Kermanshah, a city 500 kilometers (310 miles) southwest of Tehran, according to the Iranian pro-reform daily newspaper Shargh.
Manoto, a private satellite television channel based in London believed to be run by those who back Iran’s ousted shah, reported Saturday that Amiri had been executed. BBC Farsi also quoted Amiri’s mother saying her son’s neck bore ligature marks suggesting he had been hanged by the state.
Senator Tom Cotton lays Amiri’s conviction and execution at the feet of Hillary Clinton and her hacked email server, according to the Washington Examiner;
“I’m not going to comment on what he may or may not have done for the United States government, but in the emails that were on Hillary Clinton’s private server, there were conversations among her senior advisors about this gentleman,” [Senator Tom Cotton] said on “Face the Nation.” Cotton was speaking about Shahram Amiri, who gave information to the U.S. about Iran’s nuclear program.
The senator said this lapse proves she is not capable of keeping the country safe.
“That goes to show just how reckless and careless her decision was to put that kind of highly classified information on a private server. And I think her judgment is not suited to keep this country safe,” he said.
While I don’t doubt that Hillary Clinton is an incompetent boob, someone needs to show me the emails about Amiri before I believe it. It’s just too coincidental.
Category: Politics
While we appreciate the help he may have provided to the US, he had to have known the risks, especially under this current administration. You accept a lot of money from us and then believe it when Iran says “all is forgiven, come on home”, he’s lucky his family isn’t dead too…
I just read several excerpts from the bitches emails, talking about this guy and they referred to him as “our friend”, doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that if she calls someone her friend, then he is in her pocket….the dirtbags in charge of Iran know it as well! Just another body to be counted on her resume!!
Nothing that libs do =surprises me anymore.
I don’t doubt that those emails were the reason he was found and hung…
“At this point, what difference does it make?”
Pardon me while I go puke.
People can say what they may about how Trump WOULD be an unstable POTUS, but Hillary HAS BEEN an unstable part of the current administration that is responsible for the deaths of many Americans and intelligence assets.
Serious question: is it hanged or hung? On his radio program decades ago, G. Gordon Libby used to have a riff about the hung guy was hanged or something like that.
“Hanged” is the correct expression in this context.
No, he had a big schlong. Hung is correct.
We’ll take your word for it, 2/17. (smile)
Another page of my secret life is revealed.
well, it’s okay in today’s Army.
Don’t feel bad. I was always tasked with being the observer for the Urinalysis.
Ive seen more big black dicks than the Kardashian Sisters.
I’m thinking about writed a book about it . Working title is “Memoirs of a Meatgazer”
2/17…Are you saying he was “well hung” or “well hanged”?
Both. I assume that the hangman was a professional and, thus, the scientist was well hanged, probably very well hanged. And since the scientist was hung like a horse, he was well hung. So, yeah, he was well hung when he was well hanged.
Pictures are hung. People are hanged.
There were emails about him sent to Clinton,some discussing his return to Iran to spy for the US.
His name was never mentioned, but circumstances mentioned were so specific, that it could not have been anyone else but him.
CNN broke the story a year ago.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3728222/Hillary-Clinton-discussed-executed-Iranian-nuclear-scientist-advisers-private-server-referring-friend.html
Wasn’t it pretty much public knowledge that he defected to the U.S., and didn’t the CIA even take the unusual step of stating publicly that he was an intelligence asset way back when he returned to Iran? I could have sworn we even publicly acknowledged paying him a few million dollars for the information.
Now if only we had a couple of well executed cruise missile strikes we might get most of their scientists…
https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_August_Web/IPS-0086/DOC_0C05769440/C05769440.pdf
https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_August_Web/IPS-0086/DOC_0C05769554/C05769554.pdf
https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_August_Web/IPS-0098/DOC_0C05771240/C05771240.pdf
Ir may well be that Wide Load’s email exchanges effectively served this scientist up but, seeing how he’s dead, I have to ask, “What difference does it make now?”
Benghazi.
Yep. That’s five lives lost that are directly traceable to Clintoon’s incompetence and/or indifference – 4 in Benghazi and one in Iran.
And the question comes to mind: how many more?
Probably several more we’ll never hear about.
Methods and sources. You’d think people with just a modicum of knowledge of OPSEC would have busted the Clinton’s decades ago.
Chinese nukes, anybody?
Seems to me a lot of people end up dead around the Clintons.
But, Iran is a nation of peace and happiness. They told us so. That’s why we signed that nuclear deal with them. They aren’t going to do anything bad or naughty to anyone, especially their own citizens or former citizens.
I heard they have no gays there. Probably no L’s, B’s, or T’s either.
Yeah that whole throwing gays off roofs or hanging them, or torturing them, etc., is all just rumors. Total rumor. Iran just doesn’t have that “phenomenon” within their borders. Ahmadinejad said so himself.
1st thing I thought yesterday when I read about this on the news, a case of collateral damage from some foreign gov’t hacking queen Clintons so secure emails…I can’t stand the Clintons, I met Bill once for a 1 & 1/2 hours, 1 on 1 in 1989 when he was at a governors meeting at a local hotel/conference center, I knew the state of Arkansas pilot, since he had previously flown out of are facility as corporate pilot, they had if I recall correctly a King Air 300 and they were weathered in here in NJ because of severe thunderstorms in Tennessee & Arkansas and were on hold, so since it was late I gave Bill the nickle tour of the modern facility we had, he was rather a good old boy type for a politician, came on like we were long lost buddies as matter of fact, I didn’t know any thing about him at that time other than that he was a governor of a state I only ever drove thru when I transferred from Cannon AFB to go to Lakenheath UK via McGuire AFB after a 15 day leave at home in NJ in 1977, well to make a long boring story short, when I got home that night finally after departing the guv at about 0100, I said to my ex-wife, I met the governor of Arkansas and we hung out together, gave the tour and sat around the pilots lounge with Bill McK???? his pilot chit chatting about BS and I remember stating to her “nice guy, BUT, he made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck especially when he put his arm over my shoulder like I was a long lost buddy” now when the hairs of my neck stand up, it is my early warning signal of some thing bad…always has been to this day and I never ignore it…then in 1992 when his contigent
continued:
contingent for his election came to this FBO, I guess he liked my hospitality, by this time I was not working for the FBO but for a LBO firm out of Manhattan as a member of the aircraft maintenance dept, well these little darling arrogant girls came into our hangar and started ordering us around, telling us we couldn’t bring our G4 out for an engine run up that we needed to do for a MX check before going on a long trip across the pond for a week, well my boss basically told them to fuck off and we did what we needed to do, they were not happy,anyway we already knew something about Bill & Hill by them, especially the bit about being a draft dodger, most of us were veterans of either the USAF, Marine Corp. airdales or Army helicopter pilots…too shorten the story, when the motorcade taking them from their leased 727 was taking them out of the backgate past us, we had all worn a piece of old military garb or ball caps with service logos on them and when the limo with Bill & the Hill went past us we all did an about face, cleanly and nicely done by a bunch of guys who had been out awhile I might say, and decades before the NYPD did this to Blasio, we turned our backs on them and wouldn’t move till they were out of sight…never ever voted for Clinton nor never will
The guy was a dumbass for going back to Iran.
The Persians understand how to do counterintelligence, permanently.
Jonn, I’m willing to bet that Cotton, my senator by the way, knows more than he can reveal. If Hillary and her staff discussed Top Secret material about this scientist, then it’s likely still Top Secret or higher and cannot be publicly disclosed.
That’s what’s so damned infuriating about this whole mess: Clinton and the Obama admin can hide the true seriousness of their criminal mishandling of classified material behind the wall of its still being classified, a sort of reverse Catch 22.
Don’t vote FOR Trump; vote AGAINST this evil bitch and her criminal party!
I imagine the emails could have played a role, but not a direct one and not where you can really assign blame.
Amiri wasn’t a covert US asset – we identified, back in 2010, that we paid him $5M for info. It’s possible he could have tried to spin this as part of the blackmail, and lacking any real financial trail of that, maybe VAJA/MOIS was unsure of his loyalty. Word is he was locked up even while his ‘return’ was celebrated, though. In that scenario, the e-mails discussing his situation could certainly tip that calculation towards his having willingly cooperated with the USA, leading to a clear decision to execute him.
That said, the e-mails weren’t conveying classified information since he wasn’t an asset. Further, since this is happening now, it seems more likely that if the information that lead to this decision came from the e-mails, it came from the e-mails found in the FOIA releases, and not a hack. If they’d had it sooner, they’d have executed him sooner.
Much as I dislike Mrs. Clinton, I find it hard to lay this at her feet. You can argue that if her server hadn’t been compromised, these unclassified e-mails wouldn’t be in public domain, and the Iranians wouldn’t have confirmation… but that’s assigning blame on Hillary for what is, in effect, an issue of transparency with respect to the FOIA releases.
It’ll be interesting to see if more (reliable) information comes out in the next few days that sheds some light on why Amiri left and what, exactly, happened more recently to lead to this.
In a July 2010 email to then-Secretary of State H. “Wide Load” Clinton, Senior Adviser Wiz Kid Jake Sullivan wrote, “The gentleman … has apparently gone to his country’s interests section because he is unhappy with how much time it has taken to facilitate his departure. “This could lead to problematic news stories in the next 24 hours.”
Does anyone want to claim that Sullivan’s concern was for the scientist? It sounds to me like this email alone would have blown the scientist’s kidnap claim apart and marked his path to the hangman. But, hey, maybe that’s just me.
No disagreement on Sullivan – his concern was about the media cycle, not the scientist.
As for the e-mail, like I said above (and below), I certainly think if there was any doubt about his story, the e-mail would’ve sealed his fate. But it’s a bit of a stretch to assume the Iranians stole that e-mail from Clinton’s insecure server and then to assign blame on her if he was an unclassified asset, since unclassified discussions do happen via e-mail regularly.
Since Clinton herself was a classifying authority, you can argue she should’ve known, but CIA runs assets, not State, so surely the handlers would’ve requested classified status if this was considered that sensitive? If they didn’t, I can’t blame Mrs. Clinton.
In other words, if this wasn’t classified then it’s hard to see who did anything wrong other than maybe not classifying this. If it was classified, then there are a couple of issues to answer before knowing who is responsible. And yes, one of those potential people is obviously Mrs. Clinton. Another is whoever is putting classified information out via FOIA files on State’s website.
There’s just not enough information right now to be reasonably certain of anything.
LC, state has it’s own intelligence branch and with its network of embassies and consulates, I’d wager you they probably run more assets than the CIA.
True, but CIA dwarfs State in size, and uses the same network of embassies and consulates for its own officers. Plus I’d give you ten to one odds that an Iraniun nuke guy gets CIA attention – to the best of my knowledge, they get any and all WMD stuff.
State does a very respectable job, but they’re a tiny fish.
I need more sleep – that was a very amusing typo. Iranian, not ‘Iranium’, as apt as that is.
So, in other words: the email pilfered from Clintoon’s unsecured and illegal server were responsible for the death of a former US source.
Regarding the reason for the timing, go ask the Iranians. I’m guessing it’s related to the recent revelation that we effectively paid them $400M+ ransom to release some other US citizens recently, and that this was their way of giving us the finger. But I could be wrong.
And I wouldn’t be too sure that those emails aren’t among that were determined to have contained classified information. Those were released by DoS last August. The IC did a comprehensive review some months later – and flatly disagreed that all of the email that DoS said was OK was “unclassified”.
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=63954
So, in other words: the email pilfered from Clintoon’s unsecured and illegal server were responsible for the death of a former US source. That depends – was the e-mail pilfered from the server, or was it seen in the recent FOIA releases? The fact that State has e-mails discussing what I (currently) assume to be an unclassified issue isn’t surprising; that’s pretty much the norm, isn’t it? Day-to-day business happens like that. Rather, the first question is why wasn’t it classified to begin with? And there’s a lot of possible answers to that – incompetence is one, absolutely. As is the fact that if a foreign asset decides that they’re going to turn themselves in and go native, they’re of no more use to us and probably more of a liability than an asset. Do we still protect someone under those circumstances? Mind you, I certainly don’t think Mrs. Clinton intentionally outed a problematic asset in the hopes that someone in his home land had access to her unclassified e-mails. But I also don’t think he’d necessarily be classified at that point, either. Ultimately, if we’re going to assign blame to Mrs. Clinton if it was found to be traced to a hacked e-mail, do we also assign blame to Congress for the investigation that lead to the release of e-mails if it’s found to trace to that? I’m guessing it’s related to the recent revelation that we effectively paid them $400M+ ransom to release some other US citizens recently, and that this was their way of giving us the finger. Maybe, but I find it unlikely they kept him on ice for this long if they had learned of his cooperation with the US from those e-mails a long time ago. And I wouldn’t be too sure that those emails aren’t among that were determined to have contained classified information. I’d think if the IC had found these e-mails to contain classified information, State would’ve taken them offline now. Sure, they’d still be out there in the wild, but these particular ones are still online at State in all… Read more »
I’d think if the IC had found these e-mails to contain classified information, State would’ve taken them offline now. Doubtful. One would hope that even State wouldn’t be that stupid. But we ARE talking DoS, so maybe they would be. Removing/redacting something that’s already been approved for release and made public is generally worse than doing nothing, and is in fact counterproductive. Doing that after public release highlights the fact that there is something of importance in the information removed that should have been withheld. Comparing the two then often allows the adversary to determine precisely what that is. That is exactly how the Soviets learned about the Wigner Effect in graphite-moderated reactors (discovered early-on “the hard way” by the US during the Manhattan Project). The Wigner Effect was to require design changes in US plutonium production reactors and recovery processes, and caused substantial initial delay in US plutonium production. The Soviets were tipped off to the existence of the Wigner Effect through a blunder on our part involving the premature release, then later redaction, of a critical item of information. The original version of the Manhattan Project’s first official history – the Smyth Report – contained a reference to the Wigner Effect. (A single sentence in the report referring to the effect was deleted.) A relatively small number of copies of the report were made public before the reference was noticed and deemed important enough to remove. It was removed from subsequent publicly-released editions. Unfortunately, the Soviets got a copy of both versions. They compared the two and noticed the change – and correctly deduced that the change was due to the effect referenced in the deleted material being of great impact on the US project. This in turn led to the Soviets not making the same error in designing their plutonium production reactors (or in changing the design during construction, fixing it before beginning production). That in turn saved the Soviets substantial time in creating their first nuclear device (as well as saving them substantial cost and effort). Once information has been publicly released, later changes only highlight… Read more »
I can agree with that, even though I think the reality is somewhat situationally dependent. However, I wasn’t trying to say we’d take it down to remove the risk… I was just saying that I think there must surely be a process whereby the government would take them down, even if that was the worst thing to do. A bit like how they warned people with security clearance not to ready the Wikileaks stuff back in 2010. Joe Public? Oh, he could read it, but some S2 on Bragg would be in deep shit if they did the same. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but that doesn’t stop the government.
I don’t know for sure, and I do hope we learn more in the days ahead (but we probably won’t), but I think the odds are it was unclassified.
Completely different situations and principles. One involved avoiding an administrative and operational headache; the other involves tipping a potential adversary to exposed sensitive or classified information.
Some of the Wikileaks material was reputedly classified (and properly marked as such). The fact that classified material was leaked and publicly posted on the Internet did NOT change the fact that it’s classified. Information remains classified until properly declassified, even if it’s been leaked.
Someone perusing the Wikileaks material on a government computer would have thus created a classified “spill” by introducing classified material into a system not authorized to process same. Those are a serious pain for all involved – and have a major impact on productivity, as well as consume significant time/effort/$$$.
The USG and DoD had zero control over the Wikileaks material once it was posted on the internet. The best the USG could do in that case was to limit the admin “damage” in terms of lost systems, productivity, effort, etc . . . by administratively prohibiting viewing of that material on USG/DoD networks and/or implementing blocks to known locations of the material.
Removing or altering a previously-released document posted to a government system, in contrast, is a conscious act by the government. To a watchful adversary, that’s an indicator that we might have inadvertently exposed something significant that should have remained unreleased. If the adversary is competent and interested in the subject area, you can bet they’ll compare the two versions to find the changes – and will “pull the thread” from there.
LC. Your desire to be fair and open to alternative possibilities is something that is reasonable. However, when the person to whom that fairness extends is H. Wide Load Clinton, then guffaws and knee slaps are in order. She who lies straight faced and without a hint of blush is not deserving of any benefit of the doubt in any matter. She is a conniving, deceitful, sunning, dishonest, manipulative creature.
If there’s a prolific their in the area, and suddenly something goes missing, you can’t instantly blame the known thief and call the case closed. You have to go where the evidence leads you, even if that bastard is guilty of countless other crimes.
I don’t trust Mrs. Clinton to tell the truth about any questionable actions, and I agree she’s dishonest.. but in this case it doesn’t seem it’s her fault.
Thief. Not their. I’m guessing auto-correct got me.
LC. Were you on the OJ Simpson criminal trial jury?
Sounds like he was on the jury, 2/17. “The glove didn’t fit, so he had to acquit.” Benefit of the doubt and all that.
Sunning? No. Cunning? Yes.
I wonder how many other people have died due to Killer Cankles inability to manage her e-mails? Anyone want to take a guess?
I’ll play your silly little game. How many have had mysterious accidents because they knew something about her? How many killed themselves because they had information about her that couldn’t be revealed?