The Iranian Kursk?

TEHRAN, Iran - Mourning and anger mixed in Iran Wednesday as a newspaper reported that officials may have known of problems with a military transport before it took off and slammed into an apartment building, killing at least 115 people.

A photographer for the Hamshahri newspaper who was aboard the flight told his wife before takeoff that the pilot was refusing to fly the C-130, the newspaper reported Wednesday.

"Mohammad Karbalai-Ahmed, Hamshahri's photographer, called his wife and told her that the flight was delayed apparently because of a technical problem and the pilot refuses to take off," the newspaper said. The paper did not identify the wife by name.

Now we know who the media blames:

Iranian flights often face delays due to technical or logistical problems. U.S. sanctions imposed after the 1979 Islamic revolution hinder the aviation industry from purchasing spare parts for its fleet of American-made aircraft.

This sort of reporting reminds me of the type of stuff we used to get about Iraq back in the bad old days when reporters were afraid to say anything that would even appear "insulting" to the leader because they might get googled and then they might get booted (or, end up like Karazemi; beaten, raped and dead if they ever go back to Iran).

The real deal here is that the mullahs and their corrupt pet dogs in the "ministries" are stinking rich, sucking the money off the top of the oil sales and just spending enough to keep Iran running internally while the rest of it goes to purchasing missiles, building secret nuclear plants, you name it, that's what they are doing with it.

The fact that they can't buy American parts is bogus because they could buy new planes with some of that money from their friends the Russians or the French.

So, while it may be true that the reason the plane was not in good repair was the sanctions, it did not mean that the plane could not be replaced or that it had to fly at all. Except, of course, the mad mullahs and their cohorts were so eager for the 87 reporters from their sanctioned television stations to go down and do some propaganda reporting, showing the all powerful military to the Iranian people (ie, don't rise up because we are strong; don't be afraid of the Americans because we are strong; pick one), that they totally disregarded the welfare of these journalists.

Probably some petty buearocrat officer was so afraid what would happen if he didn't get the reporters their to take pictures, that he told the pilot to get on the plane and take off lest he be subject to extremely unhealthful circumstances.

Well, the officer and these reporters may end up being the martyrs the mullahs proclaim them, but for a different cause.