{"id":183821,"date":"2012-11-08T21:58:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-09T02:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2012\/11\/08\/weve-always-been-at-war-with-eastasia\/"},"modified":"2012-11-08T21:58:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-09T02:58:00","slug":"weve-always-been-at-war-with-eastasia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2012\/11\/08\/weve-always-been-at-war-with-eastasia\/","title":{"rendered":"We&#8217;ve Always Been at War with Eastasia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Pentagon is claiming that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/11\/09\/world\/middleeast\/pentagon-says-iran-fired-at-surveillance-drone-last-week.html\">Iranian aircraft fired on a US drone while in international airspace<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Iranian warplanes shot at an American military surveillance drone flying over the Persian Gulf near Iran last week, Pentagon officials disclosed Thursday. They said that the aircraft, a Predator drone, was flying in international airspace and was not hit and that the episode had prompted a strong protest to the Iranian government.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">The shooting, which involved two Russian-made Su-25 jets known as Frogfoots, occurred on Nov. 1 and was the first known instance of Iranian warplanes firing on an American surveillance drone. George Little, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said the Defense Department\u2019s weeklong silence about the episode was a result of restrictions on the discussion of classified surveillance missions. He answered questions about it during a Pentagon news conference on Thursday only after it had been reported by news organizations earlier in the day.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">Even so, the failure to disclose a hostile encounter with Iran\u2019s military at a time of increased international tensions over the disputed Iranian nuclear program \u2014 and five days before the American presidential election \u2014 raises questions for the Obama administration. Had the Iranian attack been disclosed before Election Day, it is likely to have been viewed in a political context \u2014 interpreted either as sign of the administration\u2019s weakness or, conversely, as an opportunity for President Obama to demonstrate leadership. <\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cOur aircraft was never in Iranian airspace,\u201d Mr. Little said. \u201cIt was always flying in international airspace.\u201d <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yeah, right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pentagon is claiming that Iranian aircraft fired on a US drone while in international airspace: Iranian warplanes shot at an American military surveillance drone flying over the Persian Gulf near Iran last week, Pentagon officials disclosed Thursday. They said that the aircraft, a Predator drone, was flying in international airspace and was not hit &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[964,1034,1006],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foreign-relations","category-iran","category-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183821"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}