http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...13/wiran13.xml

Austrian sniper rifles that were exported to Iran have been discovered in the hands of Iraqi terrorists, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

More than 100 of the.50 calibre weapons, capable of penetrating body armour, have been discovered by American troops during raids.

The Steyr HS50 is a long range, high precision rifle The guns were part of a shipment of 800 rifles that the Austrian company, Steyr-Mannlicher, exported legally to Iran last year......(excerpt)




More hard cold evidence against the mullahs. How will the Democrats explain away this one?

That's it ! I'm convinced.

Let's bomb Austria !

We have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here.






The new overseas threat. Time
to lay the smack down on those
savage Apfelstruder-eaters !

in all honesty you dont find it intersting that hardware that was purchased last year by iran is ending up in iraq................ do you have anything to say about that

Gix,

No shit....are you surprised??

no i am not suprised...... but what are we going to do about it...... These guns wheren't sent to iraq for show... They where sent to take out our boys.........

I don't know what we are going to do about it. I think anything via ground forces in Iran is out of the question. We could hit them with air strikes or threaten to hit them with air strikes....not sure if that will improve or just exacerbate the problem in Iraq.

What should we do Gix? Invade Iran? That seems to be what you are suggesting. Do you want a third front for an already over taxed military?
I don’t find Iran’s influence in Iraq the least bit surprising. The United States currently occupies the countries on both the Eastern and Western borders of Iran. If our enemies occupied Mexico and Canada, wouldn’t you want to gain some sort of advantage by influencing the indigenous population to resist their occupiers?
Why is Iran able to have this influence? Could it be because Sadaam is no longer in power? Like it or not, Sadaam had a stabilizing effect in the region. What we have now is an empowered Iran, attempting to become the center of power and influence in the region, and they are no friend of the United States or our allies in the region.
GWB opened the door for Iran and at this point, there is no closing it. We could occupy Iraq for the next ten or twenty years and the end result will be the same. Whether it is lead by radical Islamic factions is still yet to be determined. We wont know until the dust settles from what could be a regional war between the Shia and Sunnis involving Saudi Arabia, the Kurds, Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Iran and Iraq.
The geo political ramifications of the Neo Con experiment with democracy are far more serious than they ever imagined, and far more complex than they now realize.

__________________
"If you don't know where you are going, you will probably wind up somewhere else."
- Laurence J. Peter

There isn't much we can do about it, aside from tightening security on the Iraq-Iran border, and trying to contain the militias.

What is certain is that all this agitation is a distraction from the real issue: the civil war in Iraq. This PR effort has one clear goal--war with Iran, the facts on the ground be damned. But the Sunni insurgents are responsible for the vast majority of attacks on US troops. So why all this outrage at Iran ? If you're in the business of appraising foreign meddling, you should be more worried about the rich Saudis funding the Sunni insurgents and terrorists:

CAIRO (AP) — Private Saudi citizens are giving millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq and much of the money is used to buy weapons, including shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles, according to key Iraqi officials and others familiar with the flow of cash.

Saudi government officials deny that any money from their country is being sent to Iraqis fighting the government and the U.S.-led coalition.

But the U.S. Iraq Study Group report said Saudis are a source of funding for Sunni Arab insurgents. Several truck drivers interviewed by The Associated Press described carrying boxes of cash from Saudi Arabia into Iraq, money they said was headed for insurgents.

Whatever the extent of Iran's support of the Shia insurgents, that backing isn't responsible for the vast majority of Americans killed.

Example : over the last six months (Aug. '06 to Jan. '07):

US/UK soldiers KIA: 461.
Maximum number of US/UK soldiers potentially KIA by Shia insurgents (eastern and southern Baghdad, provinces of Babil, Wasit, Qadisiyah, Najaf, Maysan, Dhi Qar, Muthanna, Basrah): 69.

That's 15% of American and British hostile fatalities, which is a very small proportion compared to the share claimed by the Sunni groups (the other 85%), mostly in Baghdad and in the provinces of Anbar (a household name now, unfortunately), Salah ad-Din and Diyala.

So where's the outrage at Saudi Arabia ? Why this Iran kerfuffle ? Every neighboring country has some level of involvement in Iraq, but we don't resort to bombing all of them. These recent blusters are just disingenuous PR tactics. And the good ol' Daily Telegraph never fails to dutifully swallow the latest media ops, anonymous leaks and other assorted skullduggeries.

Actually Iran said, when they were purchased, that they were going to be used to help control smuggling on the border. The American government raised hell but Austria approved the sale.

__________________
Standing on the corner,
Suitcase in my hand,
Jack is in his corset and Jane is in her vest,
And me, I'm in a Rock & Roll band.

Graybeard, your post is a nice outward zoom that pretty much covers all the bases.

Our ability to control events in Iraq is quickly fading, with or without more boots on the ground. Sunni tribal insurgencies, Baathist resurgences and Islamic terrorists on the one side, Shiite militias and death squads on the other. We are theoretically striving to remain neutral, but we have for all practical purposes sided with the Shiites, as we support their government, which itself partakes in the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad (no reconstruction money for Sunni neighborhoods, etc.). And we don't have a choice, really. Any other course of action would result in a widespread Shiite insurgency, with Iran fanning the flames--we have no control over unfolding events, hence we're forced to follow along.

And that is why we have no clear goal or destination.