Thread: How to make (fake) a crisis in international affairs

How to make (fake) a crisis in international politics
or How to create the news...

Interesting article on Moon of Alabama on how major international news stories can be created out of thin air, leading to international condemnation/demonisation of countries...

From Cooperation To World Threat - Iran And Eritrea Rumors

Two weeks ago an Eritrean opposition site published a rumor about cooperation between Iran and Eritrea to revamp an old refinery in Assab, Eritrea.

That rumor developed into a story on U.S. blogs, news sites and Israeli TV about imminent deployment of Iranian ballistic missiles, troops, submarines, helicopters and UAVs to the city of Assab to control the Red Sea.

Iranian ships and submarines have deployed an undisclosed number of Iranian troops and weapons at the Eritrean port town of Assab at the Horn of Africa in the Arabian Sea just below the Strait of Hormuz.
As such, the port town is in a unique postion its location allows it to control and monitor one of the world's most strategic shipping routes.

Now right-wing sites like Blackfive are concerned:

This is exceptionally bad news as a quick look at the map will show.

One might see this as bad news if it would be true. But the report is totally false.

Below I document how this story developed, grew and proliferated throughout the Internets within a quite short time-frame.

Some background:

Eritrea is a dirt poor country with some 5.5 million inhabitants at the Red Sea. It is a dictatorship and has border conflicts with Ethiopia and Djibouti. It has a somewhat strategic position at the Bab-el-Mandeb street which connects the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.


The harbor city of Assab has some 100,000 inhabitants. In the early 1960s the Soviets built a small refinery there with a capacity (pdf) of 18,000 barrels per day. The refinery was shut down in 1997 for lack of spare parts and money.


Eritrea, a former Italian colony, had good relations with the U.S.until the Bush administration through Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer took sides with Ethiopia in a UN moderated border resolution and even supported Ethiopia in buying arms from North Korea. Israel uses a former Soviet navy base on the Eritrean Dahlak Archipelago to refuel its sub-marines that patrol in the Arabian sea.

In May the Eritrean president visited Tehran and in the following months several Memoranda of Understanding were signed between the two countries on cultural and economic cooperation. Iran is now also mediating between Djibouti and Eritrea.

Now back to the scare story.

The very first source and the one and only all following reports have been build upon is the Eritrean opposition site selfi-democracy.com of the Eritrean Democratic Party. On November 25 it published this (pdf):

Top Secret Deal?

IRAN TO CONTROL THE ERITREAN PORT OF ASSAB: (source : from inside Eritrea) According to news received from Eritrea, Iran is to revamp the Russian built Assab refinery. Iran will refine its crude in Assab to cover the shortages it faces at home and of course Eritrea benfits from not having to import expensive refined products.

But, the motive behind this deal is believed to be more political and strategic than economic. Iran, due to its conflict with the West and in particular with the US, is under embargo which may be further extended and tightened if it continues with its nuclear programs. Thus, Iran may be trying to find some renegade states to help her break the embargo and who could be a better partner for this than Eritrea’s President Isayas.

Isayas’ personal blind hate of the US administration and everything it stands for is boundless and he will spare no effort to upset the Americans. Strategically Iran and Isayas, with the cooperation of some rebel Somali Islamist groups, are also colliding to control the Bab El Mandeb Straights in case of any escalation of conflict with the United States and Israel. According to our source some high ranking members of the Eritrean regime are saying that the President is playing with fire and that the consequences for Eritrea could be grave.

There is a lot of innuendo in there but not one word about Iranian soldiers, ships or submarines. Iran refines some 2.1 million barrels of oil per day in its own country and is expanding that capacity to 3+ million bl/day. To revamp a small and old 18,000 bl/d refinery in Eritrea would do nothing to help Iran "to cover the shortages it faces at home". There is also no other public record of any cooperation between Iran and Eritrea with regards to the defunct refinery. Iran is usually very eager to publish such cooperation. All that's left is rumor and speculation.

Another Eritrean site, asena-online, picked up the selfi-democracy story on November 26. Its item is in a language I can not read (Tigrinya) but it is less than 80 words long and at the end links back to the selfi-democracy item. I therefore doubt that it adds any additional information.

On November 29 the Sudan Tribune takes the original report and adds some rather fantastic points:

November 29, 2008 (ADDIS ABABA) — An Eritrean opposition website, selfi-democracy.com, said that Iran’s submarines have deployed an undisclosed number of armed Iranian troops and weapons in the Eritrean port town of Assab.

The unconfirmed report claims that Iran recently sent soldiers and also a number of long-range missiles after Iran signed an accord with Eritrea to revamp the Russian-built Assab Oil refinery.
...
The Eritrean opposition website now reports that Iran will refine its crude oil in Assab to cover shortages it faces at home, which will benefit Eritrea by not having to import expensive refined products.

But the report argued, “The motivation behind this deal is believed to be more political and more strategic than economic.”

The last cited sentence and some others in the full piece are word by word from the selfi-democracy report quoted above. It is the only source given in that article. But the original selfi-democracy report does not include a word about anything military like submarines.The Sudan Tribune writer simply invented those "Iranian submarines" but attributed them to selfi-democracy.

The last sentence of the Sudan Tribune piece adds something unrelated:

Meanwhile, four NATO unmanned surveillance planes were reported to have flown for about half an hour earlier this week in Eritrea’s Red Sea region.

The Sudan Tribune piece was composed by one Tesfa-alem Tekle. Tesfa-alem

is an Ethiopian journalist based in Mekelle, northern Ethiopia. He holds a degree in English from Addis Ababa University and an advanced diploma in Journalism. He has worked as public relation officer for various international organizations in Ethiopia. He has been writing for both local and international media since 2001. He is the currently the Reuters correspondent for northern Ethiopiais

An Ethiopian, arch enemies of Eritreans, picked an Eritrean opposition report about a refinery repair in Abbad, added lots of Iranian weapon nonsense and published that in the Sudan Tribune.

The same day another Eritrean opposition site, Eritrea Daily, mixes the above three versions and some fantasy into its own report:

29 November 2008-- An Eritrean website in Tigrigna, asena-online.com, reported on Wednesday that Iran has stationed its troops in Eritrea.

Citing sources from inside Eritrea, same website said that using submarine ships heavily armed units of the Iranian army have landed in the Eritrean sea port of Assab. The Iranian troops are slated to be stationed in the city of Assab reportedly under the pretext of protecting the Russian-built Eritrean Assab Oil Refinary. Earlier, on Tuesday, yet another Eritrean website, selfi-democracy.com, had, quoting also sources from inside Eritrea, reported that Eritrea tyrant Afewerki had granted Iran complete and exclusive control over the Eritrean Oil Refinary with the mandate to revamp, manage, and exercise complete authority over production and maintenance of the facility.
...
Asena-online further reported that the Iranian troops were loaded with a good number of ballistic and long-range missiles.

Moreover, this same website also submitted that according to reports coming from inside Eritrea, Iran flew surveillance missions over the skies of the Eritrea part of the Redsea using 2 UAV(NATO) accompanied by 4 helicopters for 30 minutes around 4 pm on Tuesday.

This is the first piece that mentions missiles.The last sentence seems to be a garbled and extended version of the last sentence in the Sudan Tribune piece while adding Iranian UAVs from thin air. It is also very doubtful that Iranian submarines would be able to operate at that distance from their home and be able to carry land troops.

The McClatchy Tribune Information Service distributed the Sudan Tribune report via Comtex.

The Israeli 'selective translation' propaganda service MEMRI picked up on December 1:

Eritrean Opposition: Eritrea Granting Iran Control Of Strategic Red Sea Port

Eritrean opposition websites reported that Eritrea has granted Iran total control of the Red Sea port of Assab, which overlooks the Bab Al-Mandeb straits.
...
According to the report, Iranian submarines deployed troops, weapons, and long range missiles in the port of Assab, under the pretext of defending the local oil refinery.

MEMRI names selfi-democracy, the Sudan Tribune and Eritrea Daily as its sources.

On December 3 the Corner at the National Review has 'Top News' that points to some Persian site's report:

Eritrean opposition claims Eritrea has provided the Assab base on the Red Sea to Iranian submarines

On December 8 a right-wing zionist (James Woolsey, Abraham H. Foxman, ..) site, The Cutting Edge News, carries a longer piece mixing various parts of the above:

Iranian ships and submarines have deployed an undisclosed number of Iranian troops and weapons at the Eritrean port town of Assab, according to opposition groups, foreign diplomats, and NGOs in the area.
...
Using protection of the Eritrean refinery as a pretext, Iran has set up its military operation there, and has been patrolling with unmanned surveillance drones.
...
President Isayas has granted Iran complete and exclusive control over the Eritrean Oil Refinary with the mandate to revamp, manage, and exercise complete authority over production and maintenance of the facility. Iran will refine its crude oil in Assab to cover shortages it faces at home, which will benefit Eritrea by not having to import expensive refined products.

The Eritrean Democratic Party, an opposition party, pointed to trepidation within the Eritrean regime, indicating that some high-ranking members are saying that the president is playing with fire with Iran and that the consequences for Eritrea could be grave.

The piece is written by one Joseph Grieboski who is the Cutting Edge Foreign Editor, President of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, which he founded himself and which was "twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize" (by whom?), and Secretary General, Interparliamentary Conference on Human Rights and Religious Freedom. In 2007 that conference got a $250,000 earmark through the State Department. One recent conference was in Grieboski's hometown Scranton:

Scranton will enter into a sister-city relationship between Scranton and Mekele, Ethiopia, a city of 169,000. Doherty said he first met officials from Ethiopia during the institute’s diplomatic dinner at the Scranton Cultural Center in July.

Grieboski also lobbied Congress against the 2007 "Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act". He is obviously pro-Ethiopia and anti-Eritrea.

During the last few days a lot of blogs and news sites reproduced and discussed the Cutting Edge report.

An Israeli TV station's report on December 9 also seems to be based on the Cutting Edge piece:

According to local reports Iranian troops and a large number of long range ballistic missiles have also been deployed at a military base at the port and Iranian unmanned drones daily patrol the area.

Closing the circle a day later, the Eritrea Daily, one of the original rumor spreaders and the one which added the Iranian UAVs, repeats the Israeli TV report.

Starting from a rumor over some Iranian-Eritrean cooperation on an old refinery, several interested sites add military aspects, submarines, missiles and UAVs, to build a world-threatening scenario. MEMRI, NRO, an Ethiopian lobbyist and Israeli TV spread the rumors. Bloggers take it from there.

This is a bit like the game of telephone or Chinese Whisper played out on the Internets. But here everyone adds a bit of disinformation until a cooperation rumor builds into threat to the world within just 12 days.



Next: The UN Security Council plans to sanction Eritrea for stationing Iranian strategic missiles.

More details at:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2008/12...stic.html#more