The incident between Iran and America – What is the real Truth?

EDITOR: Malcolm Gladwell (author) opened my eyes to a possibility connected to recent events involving the United States of America (USA) and the Islamic Republic of Iran. You may recall that about two months ago the USA assassinated one of Iran’s top generals in a shocking extra-judicial killing. This event sparked international outrage and unified Iranians against America as demonstrated in their Parliament with chants of “Death to America,” and in many other parts of the country. It seemed as if the whole of Iran turned out to the general’s funeral.

Subsequently, an Iranian civilian plane with mostly Iranians onboard was shot down. There were no Americans onboard. The incident was attributed to a mistake by Iran’s Army. This was absolutely the worst thing that could have happened in the circumstances – it broke up the national unity and the world was no longer talking about what America did to Iran, but rather what Iran did to itself (a self-inflicted wound). The people of Iran were now carrying out mass protests against their government for “accidentally” killing its own citizens. The tables had obviously turned with a furious vengeance.

In his book Talking to Strangers, Malcolm Gladwell wrote about an incident which took place in 1996. It also involved the USA. Mr. Gladwell narrated that Cuba had become fed up with a Miami- based group called Brothers-to-the-Rescue which insisted, over an extended period of time, on flying missions into Cuban airspace and dropping pamphlets inciting uprising against the government. Cuba planned to do something about it. However, they wanted to minimise public relations fall-out both inside and outside Cuba.

What happened next is quite interesting.

It turns out that Cuba had spies in America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). These spies apparently organised for a retired US rear admiral to meet with top ranking members of the Cuban government. In the course of the meeting, the Cubans presented the option of shooting down the planes. The retired admiral took this information back to the State Department, but nothing was done about it.

Brothers-to-the-Rescue was not informed about Cuba’s position on their flights, and was therefore left in harm’s way.

Inevitably, the Cubans did shoot down the trespassing planes.

When that happened, the retired US admiral made an appearance on CNN and told the American public about his meeting with Cuban officials, the message he conveyed to the American government and the fact that nothing was done to inform or protect the flight operators. He further stated that the Cubans had acted just like Americans would act if a foreign country violated its airspace. The public was not so much angry with Cuba – it was angry with the American government for sitting on the information and doing nothing to prevent the incident.

A question arises – Did the United States of America infiltrate the ranks of the Iranian Army which “mistakenly” shot down the civilian plane?

R.Theodore L.V. Browne