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Colbert Returns, Discovers That an Impeached President Can Wage War With No Understanding of the Consequences

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Jay C1/07/2020 10:29:19 am PST

From last thread:

re: #222 ericblair

re: #213 Jay C

BTW, do we know that that Arabic translation is, in fact, a copy of the original, delivered at the same time as the original “draft”? (Neither document is signed, I notice). I mean, even in this day and age I don’t think everything should be dismissed as fake unless reliably proven otherwise - but when the Trump clownshow is involved, more than the usual dose of skepticism is warranted.

Also: the Arabic letter has a bunch of extra text in the lower left corner: too much to hope that it says: “ignore this letter”???

I’ve done enough time as an action officer for these kinds of government documents. I’m guessing it’s in Farsi, not Arabic, although I don’t know either language. I’d assume the extra text is the translator’s name and details. It depends from country to country which language(s) the document is delivered in, but in this case the Iranians probably wouldn’t put their translation on a US DoD letterhead.

Most official documents are delivered electronically, even at high levels, and you won’t be able to do much with an electronic signature between different governments, so it’s either a picture of a signature or just the text of the name as signature. So having a blank signature block in the final document wouldn’t be strange.

Any document of significance gets formally staffed per a checklist, and nobody is going to “accidentally” send out a draft to the fucking recipient before that. Drafts are marked DRAFT all over them to avoid this kind of thing. I have no idea what actually happen here because this kind of confusion is not possible if there had been any sort of normal process for this.

Thanks for the clarification. Though why the letter would be in Farsi is curious, as it is addressed to an Iraqi official: I would think it would be in whatever the standard official language is in Iraq - Arabic (??) .

Still, while we know the English version is “real” - even if “not intended to be actual” - I just wonder how “genuine” that translation (in whatever language) might be: whether the “official” Arabic (?) translation delivered with the original, something the Iraqis made for their own use, an outside fake, or what? Normally, I’d think the letterhead (and the fact that the English version has been - reluctantly - verified by the USG) would speak to its authenticity, but then again, Trump…