Iranian Threat

[MickeyFinn]

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23027415-663,00.html

THE Pentagon has released a video and audio tape that appears to confirm its charge that Iranian speedboats swarmed US warships in the Strait of Hormuz and radioed a threat to blow them up.

The video, which the Pentagon said was taken from the bridge of the destroyer USS Hopper, showed fast boats approaching the warships at high speeds and racing around the Hopper, the USS Port Royal and the USS Ingraham.

A man's voice is heard in an audio recording speak in English amid a sailor's urgent warnings to stay clear of the ship.

"I am coming to you... You will explode in a few minutes,'' the voice is heard to say.

he Pentagon has said that two of five Iranian speedboats also dropped white floating boxes in the path of the Ingraham, but that was not evident in the four minute 20-second video file.

The blue-hulled speedboats appear first as small objects on the horizon, approaching the Hopper.

A sailor in the bridge of the destroyer is seen in the video picking up a radio handset and identifying his vessel as a coalition warship engaged in a transit in international waters.

"You are approaching coalition warships in international waters,'' he says as the ship's horns begin to sound.

"Establish communications, identify yourself and state your intentions. Over.''

The video then jumps to shots of the speedboats circling and darting among the two trailing US warships - the Port Royal, a cruiser, and the Ingraham, a frigate.

The Pentagon has said that the speedboats were believed to belong to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard navy, but no Iranian flags or markings were apparent on them in the video tape.

The US sailor in the video refers to them as five unidentified small craft.

The video ends but the audio continues with the sound of the man's voice saying,
I am coming to you.''

The same voice as the sailor seen in the video is heard warning: "Inbound small craft, you are approaching a coalition warship operating in international waters. Your identity is not known, your intentions are unclear...

"Establish communications now, and alter course immediately to remain clear,'' he said.

"We request you alter course immediately to remain clear.''

At that point, the other voice is heard to say: "You will explode in a few minutes.''

US President George W. Bush blamed Tehran for the "provocative'' face-off.

"We viewed it as a provocative act. It is a dangerous situation and they should not have done it, pure and simple,'' Mr Bush declared in his first public remarks on the incident.

"My message today to the Iranians is, they shouldn't have done what they did,'' he said.

"I don't know what their thinking was, but I'm telling you what I think it was, I think it was a provocative act.''

Iran denied the US charges that its patrol boats had threatened to blow up the American ships.

"What happened between the Guards and foreign vessels was an ordinary identification,'' Ali Reza Tangsiri, commander of the Guards' naval forces in the region, told the Mehr news agency.

He said the Guards' naval forces had a right to monitor and identify "any vessel entering Persian Gulf waters'' to the northwest.

[Figtoria]

George sure does want you guys to go to war with Iran.

Some of my Navy friends are REALLY thrown that this encounter was reported to the media. It normally wouldn't have been.

Those kinds of things normally aren't. My friends were on a boat once that sat and watched a private ship be boarded and the people taken ransom by pirates and the media never said a word about that.

Gee, does something smell funny?

[Post]

If things haven't smelt funny for a while, maybe. I believe the US is suffering from the same issues as living by a cow manure processing plant, though - after a while, the smell is just the status quo.

[Allison]

It's absolutely absurd. If that's the best they've got to convince the American people that Iran is a threat, then that's pretty lame.

[]LoL[Harm]

Speedboats...commmmmmme on! Next they'll convince us those speedboats could assault New York!

[Allison]

Iran says the video is fabricated. Big surprise there. But, isn't it sad that, in light of how little faith I have in our executive branch right now, I find Iran's version of events just as plausible as our own?

[Grundy]

they were tiny model boats!

[Golmacmourna]

I suppose its conceivable that Iran was trying to goad a smoking gun out of us, but if that's the case, I don't know what purpose it would serve. We've proven once that the rest of the world isn't willing to oppose us militarily when we do something unpopular, and if precidence counts for anything, we'll be on our 3rd anschluss before Britain and France honor their treaty obligations (sort of satire, sort of not).

[MickeyFinn]

The swiss will help by sending knives though

[Golmacmourna]

It won't be a help unless there's an attachment for a roll of toilet paper and soap.

[spyder913]

I'm sure this one can hold some soap and TP:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/images/products/zoom/giant_swiss.jpg

[Noleader]

We will be in Iran within the next 4 years... I don't think Bush will go to war before the end of his term but I know the next President. They are all part of the same think group (CFR). Just a change of management not of policy.

[Cavan]

I believe the USS Cole was attacked by a similar craft...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing

[Muadi]

"THE Pentagon has released a video and audio"... They only do this when they have a goal in mind.

NL... I would bet the US will attack within 1-2 years... I think your 4 years is a bit too generous. I also don't belive the our current President would do it again...but he might....

[Yoggoth]

Didn't the US blow up a commercial airliner for a lesser offence than this?

So if you drive up to a US military vessel these days stating you are going to blow them up nothing happens?

[spyder913]

Didn't the US blow up a commercial airliner for a lesser offence than this?Huh? I'm going to go with "no" on that one, unless you have a reference.

[Yoggoth]

I think this is what I was thinking about
http://www.videosift.com/video/US-Navy-shoots-down-Iranian-passenger-jet

[Golmacmourna]

chances are when you make the statement 'hasn't the US military done X' where X is some horrible thing, it's true. That's how having a military works; you can train soldiers all you want, but they're going to bite someone's kid at some point, no matter what you do.

[Solomente]

It's absolutely absurd. If that's the best they've got to convince the American people that Iran is a threat, then that's pretty lame.

Nothing more is needed. Some scary speedboats and threats from "brown people" is all it takes to get the rednecks darting out of their trailers and demanding blood before "they bring the war over here."

[PoxTheSmall]

I lived in Cyprus when I was a kid, on the Turkish side. All the boats in the harbor were required to run the Turkish flag.

They say that the link these boats have to the Iranian army is the fact that one of the boats was running an Iranian flag. If that's the case then anyone who runs a flag isn't just patriotic, but in the military.

[MickeyFinn]

If that's the case, I'm outraged. Is there a link?

[Allison]

Another thing to consider is that the voice heard on the tape didn't come from the Iranian boats. The Navy now says they can't be sure where it came from, because it was on an open channel, marine channel 16. And aparantly, it's not unusual to hear pransksters on that channel in that part of the world. Which was what I had wondered about the first time I heard the audio. These are open boats with outboard motors zipping around ... and the audio from the guy sounds like he's sitting in his living room.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/01/navy_hormuz_iran_radio_080111/

[Allison]

This is just so ridiculous that they released this trash and tried to spin it as if it had some significance. And what really irks me is how many people will only remember the original story, and will be convinced that Iranian craft are threatening American ships. Like all those people who still believe that Saddam Hussein planned 9/11. Grrrr.

I hope the media does it's job and rips this fantasy-land story to shreds.

[Cavan]

We forget so quickly in this country I guess....

The USS Cole was attacked by a similar craft when it was docked in Yemen... (we lost 17 United States Soldiers that day) ...should the Navy forget what has happened in the past? I'm not saying that the voice heard from the boats was "from" the boats.. but the Iranian video shows only ONE ship in communications with the US Battle ships... and that boat is at a stand still.... there were 5 reported boats in the encounter...

The Iranians are just lucky they backed off when they did... because the ship was ready to blow them out of the water...

[Golmacmourna]

arg! Allison! You're off-message!

the message is the tremendous restraint shown by our professionals in harm's way!

filthy liberals. You'll find a way to twist *anything*. You're all angry inside.

[Allison]

We forget so quickly in this country I guess....

The USS Cole was attacked by a similar craft when it was docked in Yemen... should the Navy forget what has happened in the past?

Absolutely not. No one has forgotten the Cole. And it's because of that that I'm sure the Navy no longer allows small craft to get that close.

If the boats had gotten any closer, or presented a serious threat ... the Navy would have been within its rights to blow them out of the water. No argumetns there.

But this is a non-event. Were the boats harassing the Navy ship? Probably. Was there a voice of undetermined origin issuing a threat? Sure. But the worst it could be is the guard trying to provoke an incident. Or, it could just be a bunch of guys having a laugh ... or anything between the two.

I'm not saying it was nothing. Im just saying that we don't know what it was. The public doesn't need to know about every boat that approaches a Navy ship or every rogue voice that pops up on an open marine channel. That stuff happens every day. And while this particular event may look like something more, it's not unusual enough to release to the media, except for propaganda purposes. And that's exactly what it is, propaganda.

[Noleader]

propaganda.

Hit the nail on the head.

Cavan must I remind you of the Gulf of Tonkin...

[Bedpost]

I'm not saying I agree with this being reported. But at what point does it become ok for the media to report about it?

When the Iranian boat does get shot out of the water?

It's not like they made it up that the boats were close by....

What if this was a dry run to see how close they could get to a naval vessel before they blow them out of the water. I obviously don't have nearly enough information about the incedent to make that call.

I don't have a problem with it being reported. I have a problem with it though if there really wasn't any exchange and that they didn't know that the voice was from those boats.

It's probably not something that should have been reported, but it was probably within a few feet of being something report worthy. (meaning they were about to blow the Iranians out of the water

[Allison]

I don't have a problem with the media reporting it. If they got their hands on it, I wouldn't expect them not to show it. What I have a problem with is that the Pentagon released it to them.

I agree with you though that it approaches being report-worthy. And if our president weren't currently trying to make a case for strikes against Iran, if this was just some interesting video footage that was released to show what the Navy has to deal with, or just for its novelty (civilians don't usually get to see that sort of thing), then I wouldn't have a problem with it. My only problem is that it was released by the Pentagon and painted as a hostile act when no one can confirm that that's what it was.

[Solomente]

The important point in my mind is that this relatively pointless exchange (assuming it actually happened as described) is enough fuel on the fire to get people talking about ridiculous actions such as putting those crazy Iranians in there place.... let's nuke em all to hell.... and so on and so forth that you hear Joe Blow spouting on Main Street USA.

I don't suppose anyone remembers the time the US military shot down a civilian Iranian airliner, killing everyone on board. Wait, what am I thinking - that was an accident. Let's go invade their country because someone in a speed boat might have made an empty pathetic threat directed at a US Warship capable of destroying major ocean-faring vessels and leveling several city blocks...

We better just annihilate the entire speed boat industry, just to be safe.





Jet skis too.

[spyder913]

The important point in my mind is that this relatively pointless exchange (assuming it actually happened as described) is enough fuel on the fire to get people talking about ridiculous actions such as putting those crazy Iranians in there place.... let's nuke em all to hell.... and so on and so forth that you hear Joe Blow spouting on Main Street USA.I haven't heard anybody saying we should do anything to Iran, aside from the White House.

I don't suppose anyone remembers the time the US military shot down a civilian Iranian airliner, killing everyone on board. Wait, what am I thinking - that was an accident.Personally, I don't remember this. But I was 8 at the time, so hopefully I can be forgiven =(

[Golmacmourna]

I haven't heard anybody saying we should do anything to Iran, aside from the White House.


My last essay for undergrad in history involved a lengthy description of why we would inevitably invade iran after we were finished in Iraq. So it's the Whitehouse, and me.

[MickeyFinn]

Well, Iranians aren't crazy. Their leader though...

[Post]

Neither are we as a country. Fortunately, that's been enough to prevent our leaders from taking us into unnecessary wars.

[MickeyFinn]

Our country isn't crazy, you're right about that. To say that we're educated (on the average) might be a stretch

[Golmacmourna]

educated people are the ones who want to go to war! You read about history, and it's like sex... you're sick of just hearing about it, and you want to try it out for yourself--but you've plumbed the depths of carnal knowledge in your search, and as a result, your appetites (by which I mean my appetites) are, when described in unrelenting black and white, so Caligulan as to warrant investigation and perhaps censure. This despite the fact that I am gentle and friendly, like a baby elephant.

What I'm saying is, nobody look at my harddrive.

Educated people love war. Especially since their education usually entitles them to a high tower from which to view the action via telescope.

[MickeyFinn]

Genghis Khan must have been a damned genius.

[Allison]

I don't suppose anyone remembers the time the US military shot down a civilian Iranian airliner, killing everyone on board.



I can still remember the bloated bodies floating in the water. That was messed up. :/

[Noleader]

Bush is just getting stupid in his reasoning for going into Iran. He is back to claiming weapons when his own administration has said they are not pursuing weapons.

I fear anytime people speak in absolutes about items that no one but the party in question can know for sure. Bush just wants war or we elected a scrying dish.

[Solomente]

Well, Iranians aren't crazy. Their leader though...

I fail to see how Iran's leader is crazy... or at a minimum, at least any more crazy than any other leader (our own included).

[Golmacmourna]

well. The whole 'there was no holocaust' thing is upsetting. I mean... at least with evolution, the best evidence that it's not happening is the morons who believe it's not happening. There is a very legitimate argument to be made that only God, who is responsible for the devil, and allows bad things to happen, intelligently designed a creature (the human being) who can gleefully take advantage of logic in everyday circumstances, and then suspend it, like an anvil above daffy duck, whenever they like. The holocaust, on the other hand, is kind of hard to deny. Considering that Germany goes out of its way to cop to it at every opportunity.