The Cuban news website cubadebate.cu put a story up yesterday sourced back to Iranian Press TV stating that 12,000 US troops have disembarked in the Libyan town of Brega. The Press TV account alleges:
Although the deployment is said to be aimed at generating stability and security in the region, the troops are expected to take control of the country's key oil fields and strategic ports.
Brega, the site of an important oil refinery, serves as a major export hub for Libyan oil. The town is also one of the five oil terminals in the eastern half of the country.
cubadebate's translation into Spanish has gone viral -- it's been shared by 77 facebook users in the eight hours it's been up -- and the Press TV report itself has been cited by at least a dozen, probably more, CT-minded websites. I saw one site (no link because it's probably anti-semitic, but it's the vanguard news network) that simply repeated Smedley Butler's famous tirade against Big Stick era imperialism under the Press TV headline.
The curious part here, though, is that Press TV sources the information back to "Asharq Alawsat," a London based newspaper that identifies itself as "the world's premier pan-Arab newspaper." Asharq Al-Awsat, however, has nothing in its English-language online edition even remotely resembling a story about a US troop landing in Brega. In fact, the most recent article turned up by a search of their site for the word Brega dates back to November 11, 2011, and is about the election of Abdul Raheem al-Keem as the country's interim prime minister.
A little agit-prop from the Iranians and their unusual Cuban allies, which has succeeded in suckering in the mouth-breathers and knuckle-draggers who are always looking for excuses to rail against imperialism and global plots to keep us in the dark...