Iranian Navy in Running for Darwin Award

[kuzadd]

Until the next event...

Any bets on when the next Iran-centered international incident will occur?

Me thinks...not too long.

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Start! Start, you vicious bastard! Oh my god! I'm warning you! If you don't start, I'll count to three. 1, 2, 3. Right! That's it, you disgrace to the roads! I've laid it on the line to you time and time again! I'm going to give you a damn good thrashing! [Leaves for a few seconds to return with a rather pathetic branch and proceeds to repeatedly hit the the car]

---Basil Fawlty

Your right, and it will be instigated by the US or Britian, just like the past 2 have been.

Amazing to me, how some always eat this crap up?!

They'll eat it up again and again and again!

Cause really, who WANTS war with Iran. The US/Britian and of course Israel.

Do you "believers"( like any other cultish/religious fanatic) really think Iran wants to end up in the mess Iraq is in?

How gullible can anyone be, to believe that?

I especially loved the line about martyr boats, hilarious!

Aren't our canadian boys martyrs, "sacrificing" themselves for the "cause"

It's all to obvious and yet, the oblivious, toddle on.

I shake me head, it's all I can do!

[kuzadd]

"The remarks came after the US Navy withdrew the allegation that Iran had harassed US warships in the Persian Gulf. "

why are we discussing this? the navy already withdrew the allegation. it's still being spun though

The US withdrew the allegation, more face saving and no surprise there either!

It's still being spun! Of course it is.

Look at the audience there is for this garbage, this propaganda side show?

Just look on this forum for starters?

[DogOnPorch]

Your right, and it will be instigated by the US or Britian, just like the past 2 have been.

Amazing to me, how some always eat this crap up?!

They'll eat it up again and again and again!

That is merely your opinion of how things panned out. Just as valid as anyone else detached from the events by thousands of miles. You hold the monopoly on truth about as much as my cat holds investment portfolios.

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God was treated like this powerful, erratic, rather punitive father who has to be pacified and praised. You know, flattered.

---John Cleese

[kuzadd]

That is merely your opinion of how things panned out. Just as valid as anyone else detached from the events by thousands of miles. You hold the monopoly on truth about as much as my cat holds investment portfolios.

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God was treated like this powerful, erratic, rather punitive father who has to be pacified and praised. You know, flattered.

---John Cleese

I hold no monopoly on truth, I look at what happened, who looks to gain, who made what claims and who's claims stood up to scrutiny. I question, and read carefully ,zero blind acceptance

There are no all good and all bad guys in this world.

That is to naive.

Like the first incident, regarding the Brits and the US claims now.

The Brits and the US have egg on there face!

PS: my cat does not have investment portfolios!!

Glad your doesn't, I'd think you were eccentric or something

Edited January 16, 2008 by kuzadd

[DogOnPorch]

zero blind acceptance

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Poison...poison...tasty fish...

---The Simpsons

[kuzadd]

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Poison...poison...tasty fish...

---The Simpsons

don't be so hard on yourself.

It was obvious you blindly accepted the whole fairy tale, hook, line and sinker, and never asked one question of the entire situation.

Live and learn!

[buffycat]

don't be so hard on yourself.

It was obvious you blindly accepted the whole fairy tale, hook, line and sinker, and never asked one question of the entire situation.

Live and learn!

First off, welcome back!

Now, in Defence of the Dog - he isn't the only one!

This leads me to an observation which rings true on many threads. When a piece such as the OP is posted - then later it turns out that what was expressed in the initial article was untrue, or obviously exaggerated and 'enhanced' (read: still untrue!) - certain posters resort immediately to adhominen, smear, and off topic banter (read clueless derogatory one-liners). Never - never - do they address the fact that the opening article or theme has been debunked. They so WANT it to be true - to further and justify their belief system - that they just close their eyes and don't address one fact.

In this specific case wrt the Iranian speedboats and the 'recorded' voices - filipino monkey?? - it is clear that this whole event was reported for propaganda purposes only. That was clear the moment it came out to those with a few critical thinking skills. Yet - those who want this war, harbour their prejudices against an entire society, those who cannot separate a people from their government, convince themselves that it does not matter that the information was flawed - the war chant must continue. Such a black and white viewpoint.

Sad really.

They cannot seem to see that those of us who speak out against pre-emptive aggressive war policies are NOT supporting the 'socalled enemy' as they insist on saying we do. This is one of the more common adhoms - expressed often as "The left loves the terrorists" Which needs no explaining as to why it is so absolutely stupid.

I do not support the administration currently in power in Iran. I don't condone terror tactics no matter who is employing them, whether to others or their own citizens. Whether it is 'us' or 'them' because ultimately - the us and them is you and me, never those who are truly politicising for war and never those who sit in the 'boardrooms' reaping the profits. Yet the bleating jingoists continue despite the obvious lies.

I think Goebbels summed these citizens and their gullability up very well:

“Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

[M.Dancer]

That right it was staged. The US asked for the Boghammers to buzz their convoy....

[margrace]

That is merely your opinion of how things panned out. Just as valid as anyone else detached from the events by thousands of miles. You hold the monopoly on truth about as much as my cat holds investment portfolios.

So this is Kazzad's opinion, what is yours and why do you only make nasty remarks, that is not debating it is an attack.

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God was treated like this powerful, erratic, rather punitive father who has to be pacified and praised. You know, flattered.

---John Cleese

[margrace]

That right it was staged. The US asked for the Boghammers to buzz their convoy....

But the US denied it happened, what do you mean?

[DogOnPorch]

So this is Kazzad's opinion, what is yours and why do you only make nasty remarks, that is not debating it is an attack.

Don't worry, we're actually chums. Long history...lol. Same with buffycat, here.

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Oook, ook, okk aakkkk!! Aakkkk!!!

---2001: A Space Odyssey

[M.Dancer]

But the US denied it happened, what do you mean?

The US hasn't denied the Boghammers buzzed the boat and to the same effect the Uranians released videos showing same.

Please try to pay attention.

[weaponeer]

This is such a non-issue, just like that hostage situation with the Royal Navy. Even if there was some shooting, neither side would use it as a pretext for war since neither side really wants a war at this point. The Americans are all bluff; their military isn't half as good as they make it out to be--one of the few things that the war in Iraq has proven.

Obviously you have no idea what your talking about. The US Military is the best equipped on earth, and the best trained, there's no bluff. They have had trouble in Iraq & Afghanistan only because they refrained from unleashing that power on civilians. An all out war between the US military & the Iranian militray would be over before it started. Remeber what happened to Iraq in 1991. Have a clue before you comment about things you do not know about.....

[AngusThermopyle]

What appears to be overlooked or forgotten in this instance is a very basic rule concerning ships of war. It matters little who was pushing an agenda as far as the ships and crews are concerned. What does matter to them is the fact that unidentified vessels closed well within weapons range of the ships whilst not clearly declaring their intentions.

Any ship of any nation will regard such behaviour as an aggressive act and respond accordingly. None of the articles that I've seen mention the alert status of the ships. I can guarantee that all three went to action stations and closed up all departments in response. Just the act of closing with the ships whilst failing to identify intent is tantamount to an act of war.

For instance when we did blockade duty of Yugo we were constantly painted with aquisition and targeting radar on a daily basis, technically this was an act of war. We did not respond in a hostile manner and merely disrupted the signals to the best of our ability. However if we had called in strikes against the sites we would have been well within our rights to do so.

Likewise the American ships would have been fully justified had they sent the puddle jumpers to the bottom. They refrained from this course of action and do deserve recognition for this fact. Closing with a ship of war in such a fashion is in fact a hostile move, that applies to any nation, not just the Americans.

What the numbskulls in Washington do has little bearing on the ships and crews at the time. What matters to them is an identified threat, not each nations propaganda. Some here appear to want this downgraded to a harmless prank status. It is no such thing, it is an aggressive act deliberately designed to illicit a strong response. As to the radio transmissions, well frankly they are irrelevant. The act of closing with the ships is what matters and is of extreme relevance.

[JerrySeinfeld]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7175325.stm

There's testing resolve, probing defenses, and then there's begging to be de-selected because your genes and intelligence are unfit to pass on....

Some of Iran's behavior is like Matt Cooke or Esa Tikannen or Sean Avery: they are little f*ckers trying to piss you off and get you off your game - but in the end they're reasonably sure the ref will step in before anyone gets their hands on them.

[M.Dancer]

None of the articles that I've seen mention the alert status of the ships. I can guarantee that all three went to action stations and closed up all departments in response..

US sailors assumed battle stations and the captain on one of the ships was about to order an attack when the Iranian boats turned away, US officials said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7175325.stm

[kuzadd]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA17Ak03.html

How the Pentagon planted a false story

Senior Pentagon officials, evidently reflecting a broader administration policy decision, used an off-the-record Pentagon briefing to turn the January 6 US-Iranian incident in the Strait of Hormuz into a sensational story demonstrating Iran's military aggressiveness, a reconstruction of the events following the incident shows.

The initial press stories on the incident, all of which can be traced to a briefing by deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs in charge of media operations, Bryan Whitman, contained similar information that has since been repudiated by the navy itself.

The encounter between five small and apparently unarmed speedboats, each carrying a crew of two to four men, and the three US warships occurred very early on Saturday January 6, Washington time. No information was released to the public about the incident for more than 24 hours, indicating that it was not viewed initially as being very urgent.

The reason for that absence of public information on the incident for more than a full day is that it was not that different from many others in the Gulf over more than a decade. A Pentagon consultant who asked not to be identified told IPS he had spoken with officers who had experienced similar encounters with small Iranian boats throughout the 1990s, and that such incidents are "just not a major threat to the US Navy by any stretch of the imagination".

With the reports from Fifth Fleet commander Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff in hand early that morning, top Pentagon officials had all day Sunday, January 6, to discuss what to do about the encounter in the Strait of Hormuz. The result was a decision to play it up as a major incident.

The decision came just as President George W Bush was about to leave on a Middle East trip aimed in part at rallying Arab states to join the United States in an anti-Iran coalition.

The release reported that the Iranian "small boats" had "maneuvered aggressively in close proximity of [sic] the Hopper [the lead ship of the three-ship convoy]." But it did not suggest that the Iranian boats had threatened the boats or that it had nearly resulted in firing on the Iranian boats.

On the contrary, the release made the US warships handling of the incident sound almost routine. "Following standard procedures," the release said, "Hopper issued warnings, attempted to establish communications with the small boats and conducted evasive maneuvering."

The release did not refer to a US ship being close to firing on the Iranian boats, or to a call threatening that US ships would "explode in a few minutes", as later stories would report, or to the dropping of objects into the path of a US ship as a potential danger.

That press release was ignored by the news media, however, because later that Monday morning, the Pentagon provided correspondents with a very different account of the episode.

and on and on, imagine my surprise, therfore according to actual navy accounts, they did not go to battle ready. It wasn't until the Pentagon got throught with the story .........

At 9am, Barbara Starr of CNN reported that "military officials" had told her that the Iranian boats had not only carried out "threatening maneuvers", but had transmitted a message by radio that "I am coming at you" and "you will explode". She reported the dramatic news that the commander of one boat was "in the process of giving the order to shoot when they moved away".

CBS News broadcast a similar story, adding the detail that the Iranian boats "dropped boxes that could have been filled with explosives into the water". Other news outlets carried almost identical accounts of the incident.

The source of this spate of stories can now be identified as Bryan Whitman, the top Pentagon official in charge of media relations, who gave a press briefing for Pentagon correspondents that morning.

By January 11, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell was already disavowing the story that Whitman had been instrumental in creating only four days earlier. "No one in the military has said that the transmission emanated from those boats," said Morrell.

The other elements of the story given to Pentagon correspondents were also discredited. The commanding officer of the guided missile cruiser Port Royal, Captain David Adler, dismissed the Pentagon's story that he had felt threatened by the dropping of white boxes in the water. Meeting with reporters on Monday, Adler said, "I saw them float by. They didn't look threatening to me."

I deleted massive amounts from this story, so read in it's entirety from the link.

The boats never went to battle stations.

I'll repeat:

On the contrary, the release made the US warships handling of the incident sound almost routine. "Following standard procedures," the release said, "Hopper issued warnings, attempted to establish communications with the small boats and conducted evasive maneuvering."

[buffycat]

Kuzadd, I don't know why you are bothering... the folks that want to see more carnage and destruction will continue to do so - otherwise their carefully constructed worlds and belief systems will fall apart! And that is VERY scary for some folks! (they like the wool over their eyes, clouding their vision!!)

That said, it's quite clear that this whole thing is nothing but an exercise in propaganda (see the goering quote! ).

[M.Dancer]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA17Ak03.html

Speaking of propaganda....

The encounter between five small and apparently unarmed speedboats,

[AngusThermopyle]

I deleted massive amounts from this story, so read in it's entirety from the link.

The boats never went to battle stations.

I'll repeat:

QUOTE

On the contrary, the release made the US warships handling of the incident sound almost routine. "Following standard procedures," the release said, "Hopper issued warnings, attempted to establish communications with the small boats and conducted evasive maneuvering."

Actually Kuzzad what you just posted confirms that the ships did indeed go to action stations. Standard procedure when unidentified craft close in an aggressive manner is to close up and go to action stations. The deviation from course further confirms this. As I said earlier the crews of the ships deserve credit for exercising restraint. Even without radio transmissions the actions of the small boats in itself is tantamount to an act of war. Once again I will repeat that this is standard Navy doctrine, not exceptional or limited to the States alone. In Canada we follow the same procedural process in such instances.

[weaponeer]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA17Ak03.html

How the Pentagon planted a false story

The release reported that the Iranian "small boats" had "maneuvered aggressively in close proximity of [sic] the Hopper [the lead ship of the three-ship convoy]." But it did not suggest that the Iranian boats had threatened the boats or that it had nearly resulted in firing on the Iranian boats.

The release did not refer to a US ship being close to firing on the Iranian boats, or to a call threatening that US ships would "explode in a few minutes", as later stories would report, or to the dropping of objects into the path of a US ship as a potential danger.

That press release was ignored by the news media, however, because later that Monday morning, the Pentagon provided correspondents with a very different account of the episode.

and on and on, imagine my surprise, therfore according to actual navy accounts, they did not go to battle ready. It wasn't until the Pentagon got throught with the story .........

The source of this spate of stories can now be identified as Bryan Whitman, the top Pentagon official in charge of media relations, who gave a press briefing for Pentagon correspondents that morning.

I deleted massive amounts from this story, so read in it's entirety from the link.

The boats never went to battle stations.

I'll repeat:

Never went to BS. Of course you were there and would know, of course the article writer would know?? Those ships were at BS of their Captain should be fired. The problem with Iranian boats swarming is not new, it happened to the Brits, it has even happened to Canadian warships. Iran is playing a dangerousd game, and sooner or later enough will be enough and they are going to get hit. Personally I can't wait to see them get hit, they have had it coming for a long time....

[buffycat]

Personally I can't wait to see them get hit, they have had it coming for a long time....

I rest my case.

See Angus???? There are lots of folk here who can't wait for another blood soaked war!!

[weaponeer]

I rest my case.

See Angus???? There are lots of folk here who can't wait for another blood soaked war!!

NO!! I said I can't wait for them to get hit, to be put down so they do not get nukes and "wipe Israel off the map". I will explain it to you as soon as I find my sock puppets!!!

You see, it is people like you that cause wars, cause these problems. You don't have the balls to stand up to the Hitler's, Mao's and Amedeenijahad's of the world, you enbolden them and they strike. The the USA and the west has to clean up the mess and get blamed for the whole thing.

Keep denying evil, denyimg that there's anything wrong, it is all GW's fault, all the USA's fault........

[AngusThermopyle]

Hmmm, I do see what you meant. I cant say that I would want to see another war starting, war is never a good thing. Sometimes it is a necessary thing, the lesser of two evils, that however is still no reason to actively desire it.

On the other hand as someone who spent 13 years at sea before going land forces full time I can approve of the ships closing up. If they had done otherwise under the circumstances it would have grossly negligent of the commanders. As I said they showed admirable restraint. I believe this whole thing was a propaganda exercise from the get go, both on the behalf of Washington and the Iranians. It's pretty obvious that the intent was to provoke a strenuous reaction. Out of this whole fiasco it would appear that the only ones who exhibited any common sense were the ships crews. Both Washington and Iran appear to have behaved like a bunch of wankers.

[weaponeer]

Hmmm, I do see what you meant. I cant say that I would want to see another war starting, war is never a good thing. Sometimes it is a necessary thing, the lesser of two evils, that however is still no reason to actively desire it.

On the other hand as someone who spent 13 years at sea before going land forces full time I can approve of the ships closing up. If they had done otherwise under the circumstances it would have grossly negligent of the commanders. As I said they showed admirable restraint. I believe this whole thing was a propaganda exercise from the get go, both on the behalf of Washington and the Iranians. It's pretty obvious that the intent was to provoke a strenuous reaction. Out of this whole fiasco it would appear that the only ones who exhibited any common sense were the ships crews. Both Washington and Iran appear to have behaved like a bunch of wankers.

I do NOT want a war, but dealing with Iran now will be much easier than dealing with a nuclear armed Iran. That is reality. Those that are soft on Iran today will regert there position in years to come, and the world will have a monster that only the USA will be able to deal with.....