Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Iran to return US secret drone... as a toy

RT | Reports say the US is to get its top secret surveillance drone back from Iran. The catch is, the device, intercepted in December, has been reduced to 1:80 of its original size and is being marketed as a popular toy.

­Iranian state radio was quoted by Associated Press as saying on Tuesday that the US RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone toy models would soon be on sale in Tehran.

They are expected to sell for 70,000 rials – around US$4.

One of the models will even make it to the White House in response to a formal request from Washington last month asking Iran to return the top-secret device.

State radio reports that the model will be of the original aircraft, but one eightieth of the actual size.

The top secret US drone was intercepted over the Iranian town of Kashmar, some 225 kilometers from Iran’s border with Afghanistan, in early December.

Engineers with the Iranian military confirmed they had managed to hijack the system inside the craft with ease and bring it to a safe landing without incident.

Since then, the Obama administration has asked Iran to return the drone, but Tehran has refused, claiming that its incursion into Iranian airspace had rendered it Iran’s property.

Reports also suggest the trophy might be put on public display after a thorough examination, and in a year or two it may be put up for auction.

4 comments:

Temple3 said...

How do you say, "Eat a dick up, beeee-yatch!" in Farsi? 

Fredceely said...

Almost 20,000 rials to the dollar?  That puts them up with the kip over in Lao, joke currency, Monopoly money.  If you buy something in Lao and try to pay with kip, people's eyes grow sad, their shoulders fall, and they let out a low breath.  "Do you have Baht?" they ask, "any American dollars?" 

It's a shame we can't all just get along, as the great man said.  Almost every single Iranian that I have ever met has been very gracious and friendly (except maybe for a tendency to bargain more than Americans are comfortable with).    Someday, maybe.  After all, we're friends with the Vietnamese now. 

CNu said...

are we actually "friends" with the vietnamese, or, have they merely become economically compliant? IOW - did the U.S. achieve its military objectives in Vietnam after all.

Fredceely said...

Are we friends with the Vietnamese?  No, not really, no more than with anybody else.  They play us; we play them.  They do, though, bear us surprisingly little residual animosity for the colossal errors that we made there, and they definitely want to rise in the world economy, and they know that a good relationship with us is imperative.  They're very hard-nosed businessmen actually, they'll hold their own.  For Vietnam, the traditional enemy is China, and they're looking for back-up in their South China Sea conflict with China.  So who's playing who? 

I don't know the whole Thompson story, but anyone who wishes to become "truly Thai" is suffering from an inability to separate fantasy from reality.  Not going to happen, ever.  It is possible, however, to learn enough to function well as a foreigner in Thailand.  Good language skills are a must, including reading skill, and one must learn how to be polite in detail, which is also a challenge.   Love the culture, warts and all, embrace the king and the temple, and be friendly to people in their own language and you'll probably be okay.  I may finally fail, but it is increasingly likely that I will die trying.   

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