Posted by
ApolloSpeaks on Saturday, December 10, 2011 12:05:38 PM
U2 spy plane
Drone unmanned spy plane captured by Iran
Reminiscent of the Cold War incident in May of 1960 when a high flying U2
surveillance plane was shot down over Russia with its pilot Gary Powers captured by the Reds Iran has captured an unmanned drone aircraft that was on a surveillance mission over that country. The shooting down of the U2 was the beginning of a series of major setbacks for the United States in its international struggle with the Soviet menace. First came Castro's Cuba declaring itself a communist state and aligning itself with the Kremlin and its policies. Then in April of 1961 came the Bay of Pigs fiasco after John Kennedy took office. Two months later Kennedy got his clock cleaned by Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna; and in early August up went the Berlin Wall dividing the German city into free and commie. The U2 spy plane was launched from Peshawar, Pakistan and was on a mission to photograph ICBM sites and a plutonium production facility. The Drone was launched from neighboring Afghanistan.
According to Wikapedia, "The U2 incident severely compromised Pakistan's security and worsened relations between the US and Pakistan. As an attempt to put up a bold front, Pakistani General Khalid Mahmud Arif while commenting on the incident stated that, "Pakistan felt deceived because the US had kept her in the dark about such clandestine spy operations launched from Pakistan’s territory (see)."
Reuters reports that according to Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official now with the Brookings Institution, the Drone incident could complicate US relations with Afghanistan, “This crash suddenly puts Afghanistan into the Iran crisis, which will make (Afghan President Hamid) Karzai very nervous and worried,” said Riedel. “He is already a proxy in a war with Pakistan. Now he is a proxy in a covert war with Iran the Afghan people knew nothing about (see)."
The capture of the Drone comes in the wake of another serious CIA setback with Iran where dozens of US spies were caught and arrested in Lebanon and Iran (see).