Knockoff Guns, War Buses and Other Embarrassing Iranian Weapons

The last week of September marks the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war that began in 1980. Formal ceremonies for Sacred Defense Week include a nationwide parade, war remembrance gatherings and—of the most interest to War Is Boring—theatrical unveiling events for new weaponry.

This year Iranian authorities extended the weapons unveilings into the first week of October—national police week in Iran—and then a few days more. The extensive show of military might came amid the growing threat of Sunni militia groups inside Iran.

Tehran is eager to project an image of strength. But that doesn’t mean all of this new weaponry is any good.

The last week of September marks the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war that began in 1980.

I worked for an international rent-a-rig company around that time and made friends with a few pro-Shah Iranians. One of 'em gave me a VHS of some Australian doctors over there right after the war, trying to help all the kids who were blinded in combat. There were hundreds. WTF?

It seems the Khomeini Krowd had convinced families to send their younger sons to the Iraqi front to be martyred. What the bastards did was send them out, running in front of the infantry waving their little green books (a la Mao's red books), to clear the minefields, which in many cases were of the German "Bouncing Betty" mine variety. (You trip the mine, a small charge blows it three feet high, then it explodes, spraying shrapnel or ball bearings in all directions.) When you are nine years old and up, three feet is about face level, and those who survived, were blinded for life.

There were some pretty pathetic scenes. One of the docs inspected a kid and said "We can't restore his sight, but we can stop the drooling." One of the older kids complained that he couldn't marry as no girl wanted a blind man for a husband. The one that got me was when the father told the docs that they could take his eyes to give his son sight, saying "they told me that you in the West could do that." When the docs told him that was impossible, you could see the despair and sense of betrayal come over the guy's face.

There was also scenes taken at the front during the war by some Aussie news team. One was a camera homing in on a guy setting a fuse on some kind of mine - we're talking a foot or two away. Suddenly the interpreter(?) yelled "What are you doing? You will blow us up!" The guy answered "Yes, and I will take these infidels with me." That's when it dawned on me what a bunch of nutcases these Muslims could be.

[sidebar] I was just a teen when WWII ended and was interested in the war but kept my mouth shut around the veterans, unless they brought up their experiences (most didn't). As a stockboy at a local Mom and Pop, I worked with an American Indian who looked like he once had smallpox as his faced was peppered with little white pock marks.

One day he started talking about the war and I mentioned that I was surprised the Army took him because of the smallpox thingy (dumb kid). He said he was hit in the face with one of those mines whose defective fuse blew a second too late (he called 'em "ping" mines). He said "The Germans used BBs instead of shrapnel, so I was lucky not to get blinded. The docs just spent an hour getting 'em out just like popping zits."

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