Bartholomew's Notes

From Reza Kahlili at WND :

Iran has 170 ballistic missiles aimed at Tel Aviv, many with biological warheads, WND has learned.

According to a source who served in Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and who recently defected, the Islamic regime has 170 missiles targeted at Tel Aviv from underground silos, some of which are armed with biological warheads.

…As reported in the Washington Times in August, a commentary in Mashregh, the media outlet of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, confirmed that the Islamic regime not only has weapons of mass destruction but has armed its terrorist proxies with them, including Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. The commentary warned Israel that if the fighting in Syria does not stop, an all-out attack on the Jewish state will be launched and that at zero hour, Tel Aviv will be the first city to be destroyed.

Note that “as reported in the Washington Times” is actually a self-citation. I discussed Kahlili in July: apparently he worked as some kind of informant for the CIA in Iran in 1980s, although his claim to have infiltrated the Revolutionary Guards is regarded with scepticism by security experts.

Kahlili purports to have continuing access to privileged information about Iran that no-one else can verify or even assess, and this has provided the basis for a stream of highly dramatic claims over the past few months, all published at WND.  In April, a “source in the Revolutionary Guards” told him about Iranian “terror cells” in the USA; the following month, a former officer “who defected to a country in Europe” warned that “the Guards’ intelligence office also runs operations out of mosques and Islamic centers around the world”; in July “a former Revolutionary Guards official who has now defected to a country in Europe said that Iran has other secret nuclear sites not known by the West where scientists are working on the nuclear bomb project.”

On one occasion in he provided a link to an external site in Persian which contained an interview with a “former Iranian official”, but other than that we just have to take his word for it all (that article, also from July, was entitled “40,000 Iran Agents in Western Hemisphere”, although the url suggests it was originally called “Army of Iranian Sadists Poised for US Invasion”).

So, does Kahlili have access to stream of defectors with new intelligence information? That seems highly unlikely – but if all his information is coming from someone who defected in April or May (at the very latest), why is it all coming out piecemeal, month after month? And why is the supposed source publishing his revelations via a fringe-right website known primary for promoting conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s birth and citizenship?

Kahlili’s August Washington Times piece was at least based on a published source:

Israel will be obliterated by chemical, microbial and nuclear bombs, Iran is warning, but those weapons of mass destruction will be used first on Tel Aviv by Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad at the start of a decades-old Muslim dream of destroying the Jewish state.

An alarming commentary last week in Mashregh, the media outlet of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, confirmed that the Islamic regime not only has WMDs but has armed its terrorist proxies with them. Mashregh speaks for the regime.

No reference is given, although I was able to trace the source back to here. The article is tricky to interpret for those of us confined to Google Translate, but it’s clearly belligerent and sanguinary. Here’s the automatic translation for the relevant passages (I’ve avoided tidying it up, in case I accidentally introduce distortions):

…Armed groups armed with weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological and nuclear) that have been able to get them through the black market, and certainly will be aimed at Tel Aviv.

…However, although the stated goals of Zionist alliance, allied forces quickly sought to dominate Syria’s chemical arsenal will claim. But who can guarantee that this group of countries listed above have not already equipped with weapons., Or weapons of mass destruction have been traded on the Tel Aviv after the Soviet collapse in a failed.

Certainly, the screed is hateful, and, given official censorship in Iran, it also reflects on the country’s government. But it hardly amounts to being an intelligence source.

Mashregh News also came to wider attention in September, when it published a piece claiming that homosexuality is a Jewish conspiracy. Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, who, although a polemicist, has scholarly expertise on Iran, describes the agency as having “close ties to the Revolutionary Guard”.

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WND promotes a new product from Jonthan Cahn:

The newest, fast-paced, highly produced, one-hour teaching DVD from Jonathan Cahn and the WND Films team that brought you “The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment” is called “The Masada Mystery.”

For 2,000 years, God kept a scroll hidden on top of Masada in the Israeli wilderness waiting for the Jewish people to come back to the land and uncover it. Discover this awesome prophecy of God and what it has to do with you in Cahn’s “The Masada Mystery.”

Cahn is the author of The Harbinger, which, like The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment, claims that events on and after 9/11 parallel the Biblical account of God’s wrath against Israel’s faithlessness. The book is currently a top-selling Christian paperback in the USA. Cahn’s “Masada Mystery” seems to be a recycled effort from before he was famous – it’s also listed as a DVD and CV on his own website, although dated to 1998.

As far as I am aware, the only source to have published anything about “a scroll hidden on top of Masada” is a certain Donovan Joyce, who wrote a crank paperback in the 1970s entitled The Jesus Scroll (subtitle: “a timebomb for Christianity?”). Joyce claimed to have been shown the scroll by a certain “Dr Grosset”, and that it contained Jesus’ own account of his life after surviving the crucifixion. Inevitably, Jesus had married Mary Magdalene and become a father, and he also described himself as the last Hasmonean king of Israel. Alas, however, Grosset then took the scroll to the Soviet Union and was never seen again, so we have to take Joyce’s word for it all.

Historically, of course, this is drivel – and to believing Christians, utterly repellent. Does Cahn think there’s some truth in it, or does he have an alternative bunkum yarn about a scroll on Masada? It’s not clear, but I’m not about to buy the video to find out.

However, it is worth noting that WND‘s trailer for the video has very little to do with historic Christianity; although Cahn is supposedly a Messianic Jew who accepts Jesus as the Messiah, the trailer presents a religion in which the State of Israel has completely displaced Jesus. Cahn is heard in full flow:

In the early 60s, Israel decided to return to its ancient grave [Masada]. This night a most profound fulfilment of God’s prophetic word – the resurrection of Israel.

…The nation of Israel lives, the God of Israel lives, and you are his children. Therefore rise up to life in the same power; L’chaim, to life. Amen.

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Oh noes; from Chuck Rogers at Conservative Fact Check (H/T LGF):

As of today, “TechDude” is no longer on our masthead.

One of our readers has shown us strong evidence that “TechDude” is using credentials that aren’t accurate; in fact, they are copied from somebody else.

…I should point out that I have not met “TechDude” in person. He contacted me via email shortly after this site was launched, and pointed me to his work featured on the Atlas Shrugs blog. I was impressed, and offered him the (unpaid) position as our resident technical expert.

When I confronted him with the information about the plagiarized credentials, he first claimed not to be the same “TechDude” who had forged those credentials. But then I pointed him toward his emails in which he claimed to be the same “TechDude” who had helped Atlas Shruggs [sic] with their Obama forged birth certificate investigation, in which Pamela Gellar listed those same credentials…

“Techdude” was promoted by Geller in 2008, after the Obama campaign published a copy of Obama’s Certificate of Live Birth in June of that year; she described him as “an expert by occupation” (italics in original), and she commended his “superb and detailed analysis”. Geller did not just “list” his credentials; she guaranteed their veracity:

I know who Techdude is and I have checked him out thoroughly. He is he is an active member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, American College of Forensic Examiners, The International Society of Forensic Computer Examiners, International Information Systems Forensics Association – the list goes on. He also a board certified as a forensic computer examiner, a certificated legal investigator, and a licensed private investigator. He has been performing computer based forensic investigations since 1993 (although back then it did not even have a formal name yet) and he has performed countless investigations since then.

TechDude’s “findings” consisted of interminable ramblings about “heat maps” on the image and such, and she was still promoting the supposed “mystery” in January 2011.

Was Geller hoodwinked, or was she in on the deception? [Or is there another explanation? – see update below] After all, she doesn’t usually care about the provenance of her information; examples include her promotion of Joel Gilbert (creator of the bogus “Obama wears a Muslim ring” claim, which she endorsed and then quietly deleted from her site); of Ulsterman (a hoaxer who claimed to have inside information that Obama had tried to prevent the operation against Bin Laden); and, most infamously, of a long crank screed by one of her own commentators (a certain Rudy Schultz) that included the claim that Obama’s father was Malcolm X (although Geller later distanced herself from the claim, complaining bitterly that “the Malcolm X claim is one minor part” of the story, and that she herself didn’t believe it).

Eventually, of course, Obama released his long-form birth certificate, in April 2011; inevitably, Geller and others immediately asserted that this must be a forgery, too.

So where does Conservative Fact Check‘s discovery of TechDude’s apparent dishonesty leave Birtherism? Rogers has reassurance for those whose faith may have been shaken:

I don’t doubt for a second that Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery — many other people, including Mr. Donald Trump, have said the same thing, so the evidence is overwhelming.

UPDATE: It seems that it’s slightly more complicated: it’s possible that TechDude lied to Rogers about his identity, rather than lying to Geller about his credentials. Obama Conspiracy Theories explains:

While the association between Adam Fink and TechDude is well known, and has been so since imaging expert Neal Krawetz published it in August of 2008, the best information I have is that TechDude is not impersonating Adam Fink; he IS Adam Fink. Fink denied this, but the evidence is pretty solid to the contrary.

So we have TechDude who either lied about his credentials, or lied about not being Adam Fink.

The relevant point is that whoever he is, his image analysis of Obama’s original birth certificate image was a fraud. He deliberately altered the image to make it look suspicious and this was fully covered in  Dr. Krawetz’ article.

…someone posting as G at the Barackryphal web site did further research, reporting the conclusion that TechDude and Fink were one and the same.

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