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-- Iranian recon ships probe US Naval Squadron
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quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo sure it is, you see in the "Gulf of Persian incident" no one claimed they were attacked. simple huh? please tell me yuor're cognizant enough, unlike Lemonade, to at least make that ditinction?

Of course, but that's not the distinction I was making, and I think you know that. The focus of my argument is not on whether or not someone was attacked. The focus on my argument isn't even whether or not our Navy reasonably perceived those boats to be a threat - by all means they had every right to consider them a threat. However, what I do want to focus on is whether or not our military made false claims about what had occurred, which parallels that of the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

First off, I really didn't have much of an issue with the U.S. editing the video and auditing portions of the tape to make it come together. Seemed pretty reasonable to me where the audio was coming from and matching up to the video feed. No biggie.

But what was bothersome was that the Pentagon revealed on Wednesday that the threatening voice heard on the audio clip was "not directly traceable to the Iranian military" and didn't originate from the boats because the recording didn't have any "ambient noise --- the sounds of a motor, the sea or wind.":

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/20...dent/index.html

And then on Thursday we learn from the Pentagon that the verbal threat heard "may not even have been intended against U.S. targets."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...8011000692.html

Next, we have experts saying that the voice wasn't even Iranian, but but could have been a "Pakistani, South Asian or an American trying to sound Iranian, but it definitely didn't sound Iranian."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...8011103730.html

Then we have a formal Naval officer commenting on the NYTimes blog that the threat came from "some loser monitoring the events at a shore facility" because the radio channel is often used by many people hurling racial slurs and threats:

quote:

Folks, I�ve sailed through that area, in my past life as a surface warfare officer aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer (I also stood watch as officer of the deck (OOD), the person responsible for driving the ship.) I can tell you right now that this harassment episode is totally believable; these ships no doubt were trying to interfere with our ships� navigation through those waters, and really put themselves in danger. The fact that our ships came close to firing really helps me understand the immediacy of the perceived threat. What we DO need to be careful about, though, is where that "explode" comment came from. All ships at sea use a common UHF frequency, Channel 16, also known as "bridge-to bridge" radio. Over here, near the U.S., and throughout the Mediterranean, Ch. 16 is used pretty professionally, i.e., chatter is limited to shiphandling issues, identifying yourself, telling other ships what your intentions are to avoid mishaps, etc. But over in the Gulf, Ch. 16 is like a bad CB radio. Everybody and their brother is on it; chattering away; hurling racial slurs, usually involving Filipinos (lots of Filipinos work in the area); curses involving your mother; 1970�s music broadcast in the wee hours (nothing odder than hearing The Carpenters 50 miles off the coast of Iran at 4 a.m.) On Ch. 16, esp. in that section of the Gulf, slurs/threats/chatter/etc. is commonplace. So my first thought was that the "explode" comment might not have even come from one of the Iranian craft, but some loser monitoring the events at a shore facility. The Navy even seemed to admit as much today when they said the transmission could not be traced directly to the small boats. So I hope everybody exercises great caution here and doesn�t jump to conclusions, given the circumstances and potential for escalation. What I do want everybody to know is that those Navy crews are doing their damned best out there, and given the current situation/previous experience with the USS Cole, would certainly be justified in shooting at any small craft that makes aggressive runs at them, especially after being warned. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/20...#comment-281887

Finally, we now have a report from the Navy Times that the threat may have been a prank from a local heckler:

quote:

The threatening radio transmission heard at the end of a video showing harassing maneuvers by Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz may have come from a locally famous heckler known among ship drivers as the "Filipino Monkey." http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/...n_radio_080111/

Not to mention that there's no video feeds that demonstrate any boxes being dumped by the boats in the first place.

From a translation from Juan Cole, "Hamshahri reports in Persian that Sayyid Mahmoud Jazayeri said that questioning passing ships is a completely routine activity for the Iranian speedboats. Jazayeri accused Washington of attempting to paper over its serious defeats in the Middle East with this gimmick."

The link he gives:

http://hamshahrionline.ir/News/?id=43152

He also notes that the Iranian press is suspicious about the timing of the videotape because it was released just as Bush was taking his trip to the Middle East to convince the Arab allies of the US to have common cause with Israel against Iran. Judging from Bush's ridiculous dismissal of his entire intelligence agencies' assessment on Iran's nuke building to Israel's Olmert:

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...597&forumid=66&

It's hard to be completely dismissive of their suspicions.

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