The brouhaha sparked by Seymour Hersh’s recent piece exposing Pentagon plans to attack Iran was generated, in part, by his revelation that American agents had crossed the border and were spying on the Iranians on their own territory: Tony Blankley got so bent out of shape by this that he called for prosecuting Hersh, citing the section covering espionage in the U.S. Code:
“18 United States Code section 794, subsection (b) prohibits anyone ‘in time of war, with intent that the same shall be communicated to the enemy [from publishing] any information with respect to the movement, numbers, or disposition of any of the Armed Forces … of the United States… or supposed plans or conduct of any … military operations … or any other information relating to the public defense, which might be useful to the enemy … [this crime is punishable] by death or by imprisonment for any term of years or for life.'”
Oh, chill out, Tony! Because it doesn’t look like we’re talking about exposing the movement of American troops:
“The Guardian has learned the Pentagon was recently contemplating the infiltration of members of the Iranian rebel group, Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) over the Iraq-Iran border, to collect intelligence. The group, based at Camp Ashraf, near Baghdad, was under the protection of Saddam Hussein, and is under US guard while Washington decides on its strategy.
“The MEK has been declared a terrorist group by the State Department, but a former Farsi-speaking CIA officer said he had been asked by neo-conservatives in the Pentagon to travel to Iraq to oversee ‘MEK cross-border operations”. He refused, and does not know if those operations have begun.’ “
But some sort of operation has begun, as Hersh makes all too plain, and I rather doubt that the Pentagon is using American infiltrators if others are readily available.
The commie nutjobs of the MEK — a weirdo cult that has already proclaimed its leader, Maryam Rajavi, the “President” of Iran — don’t quite qualify as American “armed forces.” Even if they are on the payroll….