The War-Mongers Find Their Great White Whale
Der Speigel reports that a German ship that allegedly picked up Iranian weapons in (US-dominated) Djibouti and headed from there towards Syria has been stopped to check whether the allegation it contains arms is correct.
A German-owned freighter loaded with weapons from Iran was stopped on Friday near the Syrian port of Tartus in the Mediterranean Sea, SPIEGEL has learned.
A few days prior, the Atlantic Cruiser, owned by the Emden carrier Bockstiegel, had allegedly picked up heavy military equipment and munitions meant for Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s regime from an Iranian freighter at the Djibouti port. The cargo, desperately needed reinforcements for Assad’s crackdown on dissidents, was supposed to be unloaded on Friday.But defectors from inside the Syrian government had learned of the delivery and warned the shipping company. On Friday the Atlantic Cruiser suddenly changed course, heading for the Turkish harbor of Iskenderun instead. Then the ship stopped some 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of Tartus, sailing in circles for the next few hours.
“We stopped the ship after getting information on the weapons cargo,” shipping agent Torsten Lüddeke of Hamburg-based C.E.G. Bulk Chartering told SPIEGEL.
Iran? Check. Providing arms to Bashar al-Assad? Check. Exposed by (western-backed) rebels? Check.
The whole thing seems made to order for those trying to sow war against Iran and its allies.
The best part of this–at which none of the newspapers reporting on this seem to have blinked–is the name of the shipping company that chartered the ship:
the ship had been chartered by an Odessa, Ukraine-based company called White Whale Shipping
Hahahahaha! This is rich! We’re hunting a white whale in the eastern Mediterranean as people try to gin up another war.
hummmm. i smell cia or one of its derrivitives here: charter of german freighter by odessa, ukraine “White Whale Shipping” to pick up “military equipment” from an iranian freighter @ Djibouti to go to syria, then diverted to turkey and finally stopped by Hamburg-based bulk charter agent??!!!
only thing left out is bulk charter parent corp is Lusitania, inc.
There was NO CHANCE there would not be a White Whale post. I have been awaiting this.
p.s. i think i’d edit the word “find” in the title to “create.”
really enjoy your work, ew. recent topic on economics reminds me to ask if you’ve read the 3 free chapters @ webofdebt.com.
karen
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/germany-may-sell-2-more-dolphin-subs-to-israel-for-117b-01528/
They are doing their best to keep this off of the MSM.
But then again I am sure they are for “defensive” purposes. :-)
@karenjj2 @1: And I thought the CIA had no sense of humor, well except for their work product of course.
@karenjj2:
Well, there is one more thing: the captain’s name might be Herman Melville, or something resembling it.
Thing that came to my mind right away was Moby Cheney (was it supposed to?) (signature or finger point?)
@thatvisionthing:
Moby Death.
i’m confused.
the spokesman for the hamburg chartering corp said that corp stopped the ship after discovering the cargo was arms.
did they not know that previously? how could they insure a vessel without knowing the nature of the cargo.
and loaded in djibouti – a tiny east african country whose large military base has been leased by the american military?
i wonder where one would store a ship-load of heavy weaponry in djibouti?
nice wide-angle map and a bit of background:
http://www.gettingaround.net/pages/poc-djibouti.php
@orionATL: Yeah, that’s why I made that note about Djibouti in the post. Purportedly, cargo was transferred from an Iranian to this German-owned Ukranian chartered ship under the watchful eyes of the American military.
Uh huh.
Hamburg is the owner, White Whale is the chartering company. They had said cargo was pumps.
So does that make the Germans terrorists too? Their ties are more concrete than the Iranians or Syrians at this point.
@emptywheel:
thanks for the clarification.
these american (if that’s what this one is) games are too clever by half,
e.g., the “scary iran assassination” plot/story of a few months back,
plus a very dangerous (as reported here recently) stuxnet computer virus,
plus the plot that has got jeffrey sterling in trouble – a crackpot, very expensive effort, to give faulty atomic bomb design plans to iran via a turncoat russian scientist.
these are all one with “kill castro with an exploding cigar” plot of the early 60’s.
how much more of this crap do we have to fund before we begin funding strategic actions, rather than tactical games ?
@Mary McCurnin: Same thing.
Plus, didn’t Democracy Now just have a story about the big arms smuggler who got sentenced and his squirmy ties to MobyD? Yeah, they did:
Connection? (Plus, how did that even make sense for Bush to outlaw Cheney’s bosom business buds in the full flush of their lovely GWOT?)
My brain is very small.
Forgive my ignorance, but I thought that Russia and China blocked all resolutions against Syria … I wasn’t aware of there being anything “wrong” with arming Assad.
Now all they need is Colin Powell out of retirement and onto the floor at the UN to spin out more lies though maybe, on second thoughts, Hillary is probably as experienced a liar.
@bmaz: When I first saw this I misread the headline as “The War-Mongers Find Their Great White Male”.
Somebody really wants gas prices in the US to skyrocket so Obama doesn’t get reelected. Yeah, Bibi, I’m looking at *you*.
@RealityZone: That’s because nobody in the US — nobody sane, anyway — wants another war, especially one tailor-made to destroy the world’s economy. But Sheldon Adelson wouldn’t mind if tanking the economy meant defeating Obama in November.
@Phoenix Woman: #17 and 18
Too many GWWs in the GOP and allies to keep track of them all, and they’re d__ks too, sometimes even named that way.
Aaaarrrghhhhhh! And still 5 months to talk like a pirate day.