Bob CollinsIt was, as usual, a fascinating and insightful hour of Midday today when Gary Eichten invited Sen. Al Franken to answer listener questions, but the most fascinating answer was this one: “I don’t know.”
Gary’s question: Is the U.S. killing Iran’s nuclear scientists?
“I think we have been doing stuff that is clandestine to slow down their nuclear program,” the senator said. “I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s what we’re doing.”
Asked if assassinations are “justifiable,” however, Franken paused and then didn’t answer the question, which could have easily been done using either “yes” or “no.”
“I don’t…. I would like to get a briefing on that… It’s very interesting; you go to a special room for briefings and I’d like to find out what the deal is there,” he said.
Find the subject being discussed at 27:39
Of course, if the U.S. is resorting to assassination, a U.S. senator wouldn’t be saying so, but one would figure out another way of answering the questions without a lie. Taking Franken at his word, it might lead one to wonder how many U.S. officials do know the answer?
“I want to categorically deny any U.S. involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran,” said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Shahshank Joshi, an analyst with the Royal United Services Institute in London, suggested the assassinations were the work of someone or some country with a heart:
The actual weapon used was a magnetic bomb, which contributed to the very careful blast that left passengers dead but others outside the vehicle unharmed,” he told Radio Free Europe, noting that the West has been pushing sanctions and negotiations in dissuading Iran from joining the nuclear club..
“The suggestion, therefore, is that either this was a group not involved with those sanctions or a state that was impatient with those sanctions and didn’t think they would work anyway,” he said.
The assassinations have been real life Mission Impossible. In the latest hit, two men on a motorcycle put a magnetic bomb on Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan’s car, killing him and the driver.
