Now the IDF is Saying That They Just Killed "Mercenaries"

Yeah, I wouldn't believe it either if I didn't read it.

The IDF has identified one of the passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara , which navy commandos commandeered earlier this week, as the ringleader of a group of mercenaries who were recruited from a city in northwest Turkey, according to new details from the military’s ongoing investigation of the Gaza flotilla.

The IDF identified a group of about 50 men – of the 700 on board – who were well-trained and were stationed throughout the ship, mostly on the upper deck, where they laid an ambush for the IDF soldiers who rappelled onto the deck from helicopters.

The members of this violent group were not carrying identity cards or passports. Instead, each of them had an envelope in his pocket with about $10,000 in cash. The defense establishment suspects the funding for the mercenaries may have come from elements within the Turkish government.

According to sources within the defense establishment, one member of the group, who appears to have been the ringleader, traveled to the city of Bursa in northwest Turkey and allegedly recruited mercenaries for the flotilla there.

They went on to say "there were no innocents among the dead".

So, let's leave aside the fact that all of this is totally unsourced, exceedingly implausible, and no excuse for gunning them down from helicopters. Let's also ignore the fact that the IDF (tried to) seized all the cameras, thus ensuring that there could be no independent verification of their claims.

Are they seriously trying to claim that the American teenager they shot four times in the head was not an innocent? Or the cameraman? Or the doctor?

Unless we see proof, REAL proof, and assertions from people who are willing to be more than just anonymous "sources", from an organization that may have had a hitlist...I'm not buying it.

And neither should you.

Edit: Wait, is this the line they were pushing that Blumenthal knocked down? The one I mentioned earlier? Sure, I mentioned that this was going to be a "zombie lie" that "can easily be revived over, and over, and over again." But usually you have to wait a little longer, guys!

Anyway, considering there are "sources" within the IDF that still insist that they won in Lebanon in 2006 and that Saddam shipped all his nukes off to Syria, I wouldn't pay too much attention to this, unless it gets traction elsewhere.