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Iran Seizes USA RQ-170 Spy Plane

Submitted by Sargeant A story receiving very little attention is the news that the Iranians have in their custody one of the USAF’s most secret weapons a RQ-170 Spy Plane aka a “Drone”. Not even the closest of US allies have been able to get their hands on one of these machines let alone have…

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Submitted by Sargeant
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A story receiving very little attention is the news that the Iranians have in their custody one of the USAF’s most secret weapons a RQ-170 Spy Plane aka a “Drone”. Not even the closest of US allies have been able to get their hands on one of these machines let alone have access to its technological equipment.

When this story first broke the US said it had lost control of a drone which was on patrol over the Afghan/Iranian border and the US also hinted that it had crashed but there were sophisticated systems on board which would make it self destruct by fire on impact. The Iranians countered that they had the drone which they brought down by seizing control of its systems over its territory. I thought that the Iranians were engaging in some sort of propaganda war and certainly they were bluffing and didn’t have a complete drone, perhaps they had some burned out parts etc. Imagine a few days later the Iranian produced a complete drone looking like it just left the hangar and the US was left with egg on its face.

Then I thought of another US secret flight which was brought down over enemy territory. (Even then although I was knee high to a grasshopper I was interested in International Affairs). In 1960 Frances Gary Powers flying a U2 sophisticated spy plane over Russia was shot down by the Russians. The Russians knew that the US were conducting spying missions over their territory but at that time their planes or missiles couldn’t reach the U2 height of 70,000 feet so the US was surprised when the Russians brought down the plane.

How did the Russians do it? The Russian found out the planes were serviced in Turkey and blackmailed a Turkish technician to sabotage the altimeter so when Powers thought he was flying high, he was actually at a lower altitude. The U2 plane did have the means for the pilot to destroy the plane in the event that something went amiss but Powers parachuted out and was captured by the Soviets.  The US stopped the U2 flights over Russia and Nikita Khrushchev (Soviet Leader) used the incident to embarrass the US in his famous shoe banging speech at the UN.

Fast forward to 2011, could the Iranians somehow been able to acquire the means to control the drone or were they acting as surrogates for another country? In the murky world of International espionage anything is possible but now that the Iranians have the drone you can be sure that the Chinese and the Russians will soon their hands on have the technology.

18 responses to “Iran Seizes USA RQ-170 Spy Plane”

  1. David Avatar
    David

    Has anyone ever heard of the concept of a Trojan Horse?

  2. David Avatar
    David

    Not BU David

  3. Green Monkey Avatar
    Green Monkey

    From Veteranstoday.com:

    The Great Chinese-Iranian Stealth Reconnaissance Drone Theft Caper

    This industrial sector no longer manufacturers in the USA. In fact I served as a technology advisor to a certain member of the House Committee on Science and Technology.

    It was during that period of time 1994-2000, that certain free trade agreements were being passed and ratified, specifically NAFTA, GATT, and membership for China within the WTO.

    Al Gore Undermined National Security With His Military Electronic Component Outsourcing

    In conjunction with that disastrous misguided US economic policy, the military under the direction of then Vice President Al Gore was “streamlining” US Military procurement protocols.

    Mr. Gore implemented a set of policies which relaxed the stringent manufacturing and testing procedures required to pass the tight Mil-Spec 883-C2 standards for all military electronic hardware and systems.

    The net result was the Pentagon could continue to buy all the weapons systems they desired but with cheaper off the shelf components.

    After all, they were in many instances the same part, just made to civilian standards, not manufactured to Mil-Spec, which we were assured were just as good and please consider the cost savings.

    The net result was the company that I was associated with had an excuse to shut down their dedicated military use product divisions.

    They could now sell off the shelf components to the military customers for use in sophisticated advanced systems, profitability goes up, and people get laid off, cost and overhead is reduced, good business, right?

    So how does this ancient political history relate to the Iranian capture of a 5th generation US Spy Drone? The simple answer is: the outsourcing and off shoring of critical US technology industries.

    At the time of the passage of the disastrous trade bill I cite above, the USA was #1 in the world for semiconductor production and technology, since then the USA has willingly ceded that position to China and today is not even in the top 10 semiconductor producers.

    China is now the country of origin for the majority of semiconductor devices used within US Military systems. There are very few companies left who even manufacture in the USA.

    We have all watched action adventure movies on TV where some young, brilliant, wonder, hacker has a back door into the super secret computer system.

    Most of the time this is a software item, but if the hacker(s) are clever enough, in this case perhaps the Chinese Government itself, the backdoor can be of the hardware variety.

    Back Door Hardware Hacking

    Very rare, impossible to detect and it must be conceived well in advance. I have direct knowledge of this type of hardware backdoor; you probably have it near you as you read this.

    Anyone who has a cell phone has a system with a hardware backdoor installed. Even if the phone is powered off the FBI can turn on the device and listen to any conversation within range of the cell phone.

    Your cell phone, even turned off, can also be used to locate the cell phone using embedded GPS technology. This is required for every cell phone sold within the USA.

    Now that you understand the concept of the hardware backdoor, then apply this concept to the stolen stealth drone the Iranians now possess.

    More at:
    http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/12/10/the-great-chinese-iranian-stealth-reconnaissance-drone-theft-caper/

  4. David Avatar
    David

    @Green Monkey

    Is this article suggesting that a downside to creating a global space and the need to feed the thirst of capitalism by reducing cost of production has comeback to bite the US government by compromising natioanl security?

  5. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    “Exclusive: Iran hijacked US drone, says Iranian engineer”

    In an exclusive interview, an engineer working to unlock the secrets of the captured RQ-170 Sentinel says they exploited a known vulnerability and tricked the US drone into landing in Iran.
    http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-iran-hijacked-us-drone-says-iranian-engineer-164100415.html

  6. David Avatar
    David

    Could this mean that the vaunted US weopons system maybe suspect i.e. vulnerable to attack?

    Wow talk about smart warefare.

  7. David Avatar
    David

    Check out how the Iran/US matter might escalate.

    Iran TV shows ‘US spy confession’ December 18, 2011

    Iranian state television shows what it says is the confession of an alleged CIA spy – an American man of Iranian descent.

  8. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    Nuclear knowhow, S300 are Iran’s price for Russian, Chinese access to US drone

    Iran is driving a hard bargain for granting access to the US stealth drone RQ-170 it captured undamaged last week, as Russian and Chinese military intelligence teams arriving in Tehran for a look at the secret aircraft soon found. debkafile’s Moscow sources disclose that the price set by Revolutionary Guards commander Gen. Ali Jaafari includes advanced nuclear and missile technology, especially systems using solid fuel, the last word on centrifuges for enriching uranium and the S-300PMU-1 air defense system, which Moscow has consistently refused to sell Tehran.

    This super-weapon is effective against stealth warplanes and cruise missiles and therefore capable of seriously impairing any large-scale US or Israeli air or missile attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites.

    http://www.debka.com/article/21560/

  9. David Avatar
    David

  10. Green Monkey Avatar
    Green Monkey

    Holy False Flag Black-op, Batman!

    British Intelligence Reports…..
    Mossad ran 9/11 Arab “hijacker” terrorist operation

    By Wayne Madsen

    British intelligence reported in February 2002 that the Israeli Mossad ran the Arab hijacker cells that were later blamed by the U.S. government’s 9/11 Commission for carrying out the aerial attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. WMR has received details of the British intelligence report which was suppressed by the government of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair.

    A Mossad unit consisting of six Egyptian- and Yemeni-born Jews infiltrated “Al Qaeda” cells in Hamburg (the Atta-Mamoun Darkanzali cell), south Florida, and Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates in the months before 9/11. The Mossad not only infiltrated cells but began to run them and give them specific orders that would eventually culminate in their being on board four regularly-scheduled flights originating in Boston, Washington Dulles, and Newark, New Jersey on 9/11.

    The Mossad infiltration team comprised six Israelis, comprising two cells of three agents, who all received special training at a Mossad base in the Negev Desert in their future control and handling of the “Al Qaeda” cells. One Mossad cell traveled to Amsterdam where they submitted to the operational control of the Mossad’s Europe Station, which operates from the El Al complex at Schiphol International Airport. The three-man Mossad unit then traveled to Hamburg where it made contact with Mohammed Atta, who believed they were sent by Osama Bin Laden. In fact, they were sent by Ephraim Halevy, the chief of Mossad.

    The second three-man Mossad team flew to New York and then to southern Florida where they began to direct the “Al Qaeda” cells operating from Hollywood, Miami, Vero Beach, Delray Beach, and West Palm Beach. Israeli “art students,” already under investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration for casing the offices and homes of federal law enforcement officers, had been living among and conducting surveillance of the activities, including flight school training, of the future Arab “hijacker” cells, particularly in Hollywood and Vero Beach.

    In August 2001, the first Mossad team flew with Atta and other Hamburg “Al Qaeda” members to Boston. Logan International Airport’s security was contracted to Huntleigh USA, a firm owned by an Israeli airport security firm closely connected to Mossad — International Consultants on Targeted Security – ICTS. ICTS’s owners were politically connected to the Likud Party, particularly the Netanyahu faction and then-Jerusalem mayor and future Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. It was Olmert who personally interceded with New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to have released from prison five Urban Moving Systems employees, identified by the CIA and FBI agents as Mossad agents. The Israelis were the only suspects arrested anywhere in the United States on 9/11 who were thought to have been involved in the 9/11 attacks.

    Continued at:

  11. Green Monkey Avatar
    Green Monkey

    David, can you fix the formatting on the last few posts in this thread so the text doesn’t override the margins and get obscured by the text in the sidebars? Ok, I know Iranians, (formerly referred to as Persians) are not Arabs, but they live in what is considered the Middle East region and as the 1953 overthrow of their democratically elected PM, Mohammed Mossadiq, by an acknowledged CIA/MI6 conspiracy goes to show, they are all part of the "lets ensure we maintain control the oil" game.

    The ‘Arab spring’ and the west: seven lessons from history Drawing on the British Pathé archive, Seumas Milne picks out the recurrent themes of imperial efforts to control the Middle East There’s a real sense in which, more than any other part of the former colonial world, the Middle East has never been fully decolonised. Sitting on top of the bulk of the globe’s oil reserves, the Arab world has been the target of continual interference and intervention ever since it became formally independent. Carved into artificial states after the first world war, it’s been bombed and occupied – by the US, Israel, Britain and France – and locked down with US bases and western-backed tyrannies. As the Palestinian blogger Lina Al-Sharif tweeted on Armistice Day this year, the "reason World War One isn’t over yet is because we in the Middle East are still living the consequences". The Arab uprisings that erupted in Tunisia a year ago have focused on corruption, poverty and lack of freedom, rather than western domination or Israeli occupation. But the fact that they kicked off against western-backed dictatorships meant they posed an immediate threat to the strategic order. Since the day Hosni Mubarak fell in Egypt, there has been a relentless counter-drive by the western powers and their Gulf allies to buy off, crush or hijack the Arab revolutions. And they’ve got a deep well of experience to draw on: every centre of the Arab uprisings, from Egypt to Yemen, has lived through decades of imperial domination. All the main Nato states that bombed Libya, for example – the US, Britain, France and Italy – have had troops occupying the country well within living memory. If the Arab revolutions are going to take control of their future, then, they’ll need to have to keep an eye on their recent past. So here are seven lessons from the history of western Middle East meddling, courtesy of the archive of Pathé News, colonial-era voice of Perfidious Albion itself.

    More commentary and embedded videos of historical Pathé news reals follow at: BTW, lesson 4 of 7 from the article linked above:

    4. People in the Middle East don’t forget their history – even when the US and Europe does The gap could hardly be wider. When Nasser’s former information minister and veteran journalist Mohamed Heikal recently warned that the Arab uprisings were being used to impose a new "Sykes-Picot agreement" – the first world war carve-up of the Arab east between Britain and France – Arabs and others in the Middle East naturally knew exactly what he was talking about. It has shaped the entire region and its relations with the west ever since. But to most non-specialists in Britain and France, Sykes-Picot might as well be an obscure brand of electric cheese-grater. The same goes for more than a century of Anglo-American interference, occupation and anti-democratic subversion against Iran. British media expressed bafflement at popular Iranian hostility to Britain when the embassy in Tehran was trashed by demonstrators last month. But if you know the historical record, what could be less surprising?

  12. David Avatar
    David

    @Greeen Monkey

    It was the HTML in the comment before yours.

    Thanks

  13. David Avatar
    David

  14. Green Monkey Avatar
    Green Monkey

    Gotta laugh at the Yanks now desperately trying to pin the blame for 9/11 on the current “enemy du jour”, i.e. the Iranians. Fortunately more and more Americans are waking up and coming to the conclusion that they have been conned big time as to who was ultimately responsible for 9/11, but will enough people wake up so that when the next false flag attack(s) takes place the sheeple won’t hysterically jump on the bandwagon to immediately start a war on the designated patsy and fall guy? One can only hope.

    After 10 years, US blames Iran for 9/11

    A US judge has signed a judgment that finds Iran, the Taliban and al-Qaeda responsible for 9/11, counter to the FBI’s official reports relating to the incident.

    Press TV talks with James Fetzer, founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth in Madison about why Iran has only now been included in the list ten years after the fact and why Saudi Arabia was excluded from the list even though 15 of the alleged highjackers were from Saudi Arabia according to the FBI list. Mr. Fetzer outlines numerous facts and references that indicate a strong involvement by Israel in 9/11, but Israel is also not listed on the US default judgment. What follows is a newly corrected transcript of the interview.

    snip

    James Fetzer: There’s an evasion of responsibility here. In fact, multiple investigations by independent journalists have revealed that Israel, the MOSSAD, played a key role on 9/11 that includes research by Alan Sabrosky, Christopher Bollyn, Wayne Madsen; there are websites devoted to this, ‘Rediscover 9/11′ for example. Look up “the dancing Israelis”; look up “Urban Moving Systems”; look up “ICTS” and you’ll find ample indication that Israel was profoundly involved in 9/11.

    Press TV: Let’s go with the line our other guest is saying about Israel in terms of wanting regional countries to be added to this list and also at the same time, from what I understood, for them to have friction between each other – throwing Saudi Arabia against Iran, pitting themselves against each other through this court case. Do you agree with that?

    James Fetzer: Yes I do agree with that and the representatives of the American Enterprise Institute have now acknowledged that the issue with Iran has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, but rather with it having an increasingly strong sphere of influence in the Middle East.

    Israeli newspaper are publishing that this court decision transforms our understanding of 9/11, but that’s complete and utter rubbish.

    Steve Pieczenik who was a high official of the government in five different administrations has observed that he was told by a high-ranking military officer, whom I believe to have been General Richard Myers, that 9/11 was an inside job and that Osama Bin Laden died in December of 2001.

    At some point these lies and charades have to come to an end. The US is making itself look idiotic (idiotic. and I would say also increasingly desperate /GM) by presenting all of these claims; pinning all of these tails on the donkey; all of these countries. We might as well have heard that Libya was responsible for 9/11 – or may be next it will be Russia or China. The situation is ridiculous.

    James Fetzer, a former Marine Corps officer, is McKnight Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota Duluth and the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth.

    http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/12/24/after-10-years-us-blames-iran-for-911/

  15. Green Monkey Avatar
    Green Monkey

    Our Last Christmas in the Old America

    Enjoy it while it lasts
    by Justin Raimondo, December 26, 2011

    As the world celebrates the birthday of the Prince of Peace, the Lord of War looms large over the land. The shrikes and talking heads are screeching for Iranian blood, and there are ominous signs in the stars. The war god’s acolytes flood the airwaves with “a complex of vaunting and fear,” as an old prophet once put it, and men of peace are disdained as “weak,” “dangerous,” and “extreme.”

    Who will save us from the coming slaughter?

    There is no Savior, no man on a white horse or divine sacrificial offering who can stop or appease the gathering demons: they will quaff their chalice of blood, have their pound of flesh, these cannibals of the spirit who demand human sacrifice as the price of propitiation. Blood, honor, “national security,” “world leadership,” the “free world” – these are the words they will invoke, the ritual prayers to the great god Mars that will excuse the thousands killed, tens of thousands maimed – and for what?

    snip

    In the end, it boils down to pure economics, and the numbers add up to … war. How else to mask the Depression behind the veil of wartime “necessity”? Can you think of a better way to channel the righteous anger of a slowly-awakening people away from the warlords of Washington and toward some foreign Enemy? Before the peasants with pitchforks come marching up the hill, better to put a sign on the road: TRAFFIC DIVERTED – NO ENTRY.

    snip

    The window is closing rapidly, but we still have a choice of roads: we can reject the path taken by our government, and the leadership of both parties, and venture into the nearly uncharted wilderness, down a little-known trail leading to deflation. This means a radical contraction, in every sense – one that allows us to revamp, retool, and redeem ourselves, while ridding ourselves of the burden of empire and debt. The sins of past profligacy and overweening pride must be paid for: there is no avoiding that. Delaying the day of reckoning will only prolong the pain – and block the path to full recovery. Is there a leader who will tell us what we do not want to hear, and summon the bravery to inspire endurance?

    This is a decision our rulers will never make, for reasons I needn’t bother going into: they would sooner commit mass suicide than give up their delusions of grandeur, which infuse the very air of Washington, D.C., and induce hallucinations in its drugged inhabitants. Especially prevalent is the hallucination of “American exceptionalism” – the self-infatuated idea that we, alone among the nations of the world, are exempt from the wrath of the gods, who would normally punish such hubris as ours.

    http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/12/25/our-last-christmas-in-the-old-america/

  16. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    Seems things are heating up in the Strait of Hormuz! The Iranians are threatening a closure if further sanctions are imposed because of their nuclear programme. A significant amount (approx. a sixth) of the world’s economy oil needs passes through this vital waterway. Expect the price of oil to start rising astronomically. Poor Bim will really be up a creek if the cost of oil skyrockets even though the Gulf of Paria is as peaceful as heaven.

  17. Green Monkey Avatar
    Green Monkey

    Lets suppose one star date out in deepest, darkest space Captain Kirk and the Star ship Enterprise passes through a space warp and encounters an alternate universe and an alternate Earth. On this alternate Earth Spock discovers that, illogical or not, the USA = Iran, China = USA, Mexico = Iraq, Canada = Afghanistan. Earth history is somewhat different than the history he was taught back in high school on planet Vulcan.

    From Examiner.com:
    If the US was attacked by a criminal empire: analogy to confront US-Iran history

    Would it help to understand the facts to imagine if the US was in Iran’s position? This analogy is the conservative history (non-contested as far as I know) of what the US has done to Iran.

    Written from an American perspective, here’s the story of what the world would look like to Americans if we were the victims:

    In 1953, the CIA (China Intelligence Agency) overthrew the Eisenhower administration, installing a vicious dictator, Dick Tator, who lorded over us until we deposed him in 1979. Ike had been elected in our democracy, and had the brass to demand renegotiation of oil contracts to increase the American share of the profit above 15%. The Chinese had helped develop our Texas oil fields from their occupation during the last world war. Ike’s threat of nationalizing our oil fields drove China over the edge. Their CIA staged Operation Ajax, put Ike in prison until 1956, and then kept him under house arrest until his death.

    The Chinese-installed puppet, “President” Tator, was welcome in Beijing, with the Chinese people not perceiving the irony and hypocrisy of their Cold War fighting for “freedom and democracy” while supporting a dictator who destroyed democracy in our country. CIA helped train Dick Tator’s own secret service, who imprisoned and executed hundreds of thousands of Americans who defied Tator’s dicts in any way. When Tator developed cancer and fled the US in 1979, he received medical treatment in China. The new US government demanded extradition to the US for mass murder against his own citizens. China refused.
    history#ixzz1ixncRGMj

    http://www.examiner.com/nonpartisan-in-national/if-the-us-was-attacked-by-a-criminal-empire-analogy-to-confront-us-iran-history#ixzz1ixlbqG6J

  18. Green Monkey Avatar
    Green Monkey

    Former Intelligence Analysts Urging Obama to Stop Rush to Iran War

    A torrent of war propaganda against Iran is flooding the American political scene as U.S. neocons and Israeli hardliners see an opening for another war in the Middle East, a momentum that ex-CIA analysts Ray McGovern and Elizabeth Murray urge President Obama to stop.

    By Ray McGovern and Elizabeth Murray

    President Obama needs to put an abrupt halt to the game of Persian Roulette about to spin out of control in the Persian Gulf. If we were still on active duty at the CIA, this is what we would tell him:

    This informal memorandum addresses the escalating game of chicken playing out in the waters off Iran and the more general issue of what can be done to put the exaggerated threat from Iran in some kind of perspective In keeping with the informality of this memo and our ethos of speaking truth to power, we may at times be rather blunt. If we bring you up short, consider it a measure of the seriousness with which we view the unfolding of yet another tragic mistake.

    The stakes are quite high, and as former intelligence analysts with no axes to grind, we want to make sure you understand how fragile and volatile the situation in the Gulf has become.

    We know you are briefed regularly on the play by play, and we will not attempt to replicate that. Your repeated use of the bromide that “everything is on the table,” however, gives us pause and makes us wonder whether you and your advisers fully recognize the implications, if hostilities with Iran spin out of control.

    You have the power to stop the madness, and we give you some recommendations on how to lessen the likelihood of a war that would be to the advantage of no one but the arms merchants.

    If your advisers have persuaded you that hostilities with Iran would bring benefit to Israel, they are badly mistaken. In our view, war with Iran is just as likely in the longer term to bring the destruction of Israel, as well as vast areas of Iran — not even to mention the disastrous consequences for the world economy, of which you must be aware.

    Incendiary (but false) claims about how near Iran is to having a nuclear weapon are coming “fast and furious,” (and are as irresponsible as that ill-fated project of giving weapons to Mexican drug dealers).

    In our view, the endless string of such claims now threaten to migrate from rhetoric to armed clashes to attempted “regime change,” as was the case nine years ago on Iraq. You know, we hope, that influential — but myopic — forces abound who are willing to take great risk because they believe such events would rebound to the benefit of Israel. We make reference, of course, to the reckless Likud government in Israel and its equally reckless single-issue supporters here at home.

    http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/01/11/former-intelligence-analysts-urging-obama-to-stop-rush-to-iran-war/

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