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The answer is Yes.Mark wrote:Anyone recall the USS Cole 12 Oct 2000??? How soon we forget. I don't think the parents of the 17 sailors who died have forgotten.
Investigator makes a great point here. Why is it that when an incident like this comes up there is such a rush from many here to paint America or its service men and women in the worst possible light? Many of you seem to ignore the very real possibilitiy that evil people in the Middle East or anywhere else for that matter would like nothing more than to provoke or harm American interests and create potential deadly situations where our soldiers are at extreme risk. Like Aussie continually sumises America becomes that scapegoat for any problem hat arises. Have you all become that cynical of your own country and your military personel where you only suspect evil deeds coming from us?
The Pentagon has admitted that the footage of Iranian Revolutionary Guard speedboats 'buzzing' US Navy warships on January 6 may have been compromised. They have confirmed that the voice heard threatening that "I am coming at you - you will explode in a couple of minutes" could have come from a source other than the speedboats.
The incident was first brought up by the White House on January 7. Washington claimed then that the US craft had been on the verge of firing on the Revolutionary Guard boats until the Iranians abruptly turned away. A video which appeared to back their claims up was released on January 8, on which the voice, ostensibly that of an Iranian, threatened the US Navy officers over the radio.
The Iranians had originally downplayed the incident, claiming through their Foreign Ministry that it was a case of mistaken identity. However, they were angered by the release of the US video, which they immediately labelled as fake, and released their own footage.
In the Iranian version, the communications between the two sides are remarkably innocuous, with no warnings of explosions. Tehran claims that the US is using the incident to justify their presence in the Gulf and to provoke a crisis there.
(how do you judge us?)its easy to see a lot of you have gone way to far
(by what measure do you meet out this standard?)This is wrong.
(How do you know?)You risk condemnation.
(as a society and in general yes, personally I would not agree to that. We have sacrificed everything but each other to be able to say that. And I believe that we can.)The truth is that we live IN the great and spacious building
(not here brother!)We have the truth, yet still we feel the pull of "costly apparel" , aka a boat, 4 wheelers, nike's or whathaveyou, long before we have a years supply.
(excuse them in their sins, all is well in Zion)You should be flinging love, not blame.
(how do you know?)yet you see only Rome
(We still know it.)what happened to knowledge that our military is the largest supporter of Ron Paul?
(this is obviously really just an underhanded attack at those you disagree with, since you herein feel free to judge us all. But to answer you, I feel for the people next door first and foremost and that is why my contempt is focused on the cause of that ill. I want to cleanse the inner vessel because I'm smart like that. I waste no love on Iran, but then I use the same exact measure on my own nation and it too falls far short. Why should I care about Iran? Since apparently it is only okay to hate them and love my pathetic homeland.)why is it that you feel for Iran and Iranians in this yet feel so free to condemn the other side?
Great reminder SwissPitch.SwissMrs&Pitchfire wrote:It isn't about them to me, it is about accountability for us, and what we are.
Looks like you've been proven right Army...Army Of Truth wrote:More great truth from my man, threepercentite.
I finally saw and heard both videos from the U.S Navy and the Iranian government and it was comical. Anyone who knows the Arab culture and their accent (like myself - I've lived in Saudi Arabia for 8 years) knows that this threat was PHONY and NOT from any Arab living in Iran or anywhere else on this planet. Nothing in the PHONY threat of "you will blow up in a few minutes" has an Iranian accent, but an AMERICAN accent. WAKE UP people and CALL A SPADE A SPADE.
Too many sheeple think America can do no wrong and Iran can do no right. Fascists have used this kind of public mentality to their advantage throughout history. Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin invoked public fear of communists, capitalist infiltrators and basically "terrorism" throughout their countries by creating an external 'enemy' who has infiltrated their borders and is now an internal threat as well. Once they do this, they creat a "good vs evil" mind set throughout the public. This is exactly what georgie did in his quote "you're either with us or against us". It seems too many people have this mind set - we are the "good" and arabs/muslims/Iranians are the "bad". This kind of 'black and white' thinking is what is dangerous. This world has a rainbow of colors - physically and spiritually.
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - The U.S. Navy said Friday that one of its ships fired warning shots at a small Iranian boat in the Strait of Hormuz in December during one of two serious encounters that month.
The USS Whidbey Island fired the warning shots on Dec. 19 in response to a small Iranian boat that was rapidly approaching it, said a U.S. Navy official.
"One small (Iranian) craft was coming toward it, and it stopped after the Whidbey Island fired warning shots," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
It was the first official confirmation that the United States had fired warning shots in any recent confrontation with Iran in the Gulf.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
CAIRO, Egypt (AP)—The top U.S. military commander in the Mideast said Friday that Iran runs the risk of triggering an unintended conflict if its boats continue to harass U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf.
Adm. William J. Fallon, chief of U.S. Central Command, said a threatening radio call heard during an encounter Sunday between U.S. Navy ships and Iranian boats in the Strait of Hormuz was likely connected to Iran's provocative actions. He said the exact origin of the message was still unknown.
"This kind of behavior, if it happens in the future, is the kind of event that could precipitate a mistake," Fallon told The Associated Press. "If the boats come closer, at what point does the captain think it is a direct threat to the ship and has to do something to stop it?"
Iran has tried to downplay the encounter as a normal occurrence, but U.S. officials have said that five Revolutionary Guards boats charged three U.S. Navy ships in a threatening manner, dropping boxes in the water in an apparent attempt to intimidate the Americans. The confrontation occurred just days before President Bush was scheduled to begin his first major Mideast trip.
The Pentagon has released a video showing small Iranian boats swarming around U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz. In the recording, a man threatens in accented English, "I am coming to you. ... You will explode after ... minutes."
Fallon said Friday that the U.S. was still trying to determine the source of the threatening radio call but remained convinced that it was related to the actions of the Iranian boats.
"The voice is very strange. I don't know whether it came from the boats or one of the shore stations," he said in a telephone interview from Central Command headquarters in Florida. "But the timing of it is pretty suspicious. In my mind it is related to the maneuvers."
"It certainly doesn't sound like a third party that just happened to say something threatening at that moment," he added.
The radio call was heard over an open frequency often used by mariners to identify themselves and avoid accidents.
Iran has denied that its boats threatened the U.S. vessels and accused Washington of fabricating the video. Iran has released its own video, which appeared to be shot from a small boat bobbing at least 100 yards from the American warships.
The footage does not shown any Iranian boats approaching the U.S. vessels or any provocation, and does not include the threatening radio call. U.S. officials have said the controversial parts were edited out of the Iranian video.
U.S. Navy and Iranian officials have said in the past that vessels from the two rival nations frequently come into contact in the waters of the narrow, heavily trafficked Gulf. They often communicate by radio to avoid incidents.
But the latest encounter was the first time U.S. officials have spoken of such a direct threat from Iranian boats.
I think this goes right along with their plans for the map of the "new Middle east" does it not?lundbaek wrote:How accurate can we expect this story to be?
BTW, here goes President Bush again (under the direction of his puppet masters, I hope everybody realizes) http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 328418.ece
"President George Bush last night called for Israel to end what he unequivocally called its "occupation" of territory seized in 1967 and proposed "compensation" as a means of solving the issue of Palestinian refugees."
Not true. True you only named CHH, but you singled out everyone who:why on earth would you think I was speaking to you? The only person I singled out was me and CHH.
Good, but it does not then follow that we should despise nothing (much different than no one).what I am saying is love your "pathetic homeland" and "them" equally, and hate no one
Some of the company thought I was not a very meek Prophet; so I told them: "I am meek and lowly in heart," and will personify Jesus for a moment, to illustrate the principle, and cried out with a loud voice, "Woe unto you, ye doctors; woe unto you, ye lawyers; woe unto you, ye scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites!" But you cannot find the place where I ever went that I found fault with their food, their drink, their house, their lodgings; no, never; and this is what is meant by the meekness and lowliness of Jesus.
A heckling radio ham known as the Filipino Monkey, who has spent years pestering ships in the Persian Gulf, is being blamed today for sparking a major diplomatic row after American warships almost attacked Iranian patrol boats.
The US navy came within seconds of firing at the Iranian speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz on January 6 after hearing threats that the boats were attacking and were about to explode.
Senior navy officials have admitted that the source of the threats, picked up in international waters, was a mystery.
And now the US navy's journal, Navy Times, has claimed that the threats, which were broadcast last week by the Pentagon, are thought to have come from an infamous radio prankster.
It said the Filipino Monkey, who could be more than one person, listens to ship-to-ship radio traffic and then interrupts, usually with abusive insults.
Rick Hoffman, a retired captain, told the paper: "For 25 years, there's been this mythical guy out there who, hour after hour, shouts obscenities and threats. He used to go all night long. The guy is crazy.
"Could it have been a spurious transmission? Absolutely."
An unnamed civilian mariner told the Navy Times: "They come on and say Filipino Monkey in a strange voice. You're standing watch on bridge and all of a sudden it comes over the radio. It's been a joke out there for years."
Last week, the Iranians and the US issued different video versions of what took place.
On the Pentagon's version, a strange voice, in English, can be heard saying "I am coming to you. You will explode in a few minutes." The voice sounds different from one heard earlier in the recording and there is no background noise that would usually be picked up from a speedboat radio.
In the Iranian version, there is no hint of aggressive behaviour.
The Pentagon said it recorded the film and the sound separately and then edited them together to give a "better idea of what is happening".
But Commander Lydia Robertson, a navy spokeswoman, admitted: "We don't know for sure where they [the threats] came from. It could have been a shore station."
The US lodged a formal complaint with Iran over the incident, and the president, George Bush, warned Tehran of "serious consequences" unless it stopped such aggression.
During the 20-minute incident, five Iranian patrol boats swarmed around three US warships and came within 200 metres, puttingthe ships on alert.
The US navy said its gunners came within seconds of firing on the speedboats.
Bogus Iran story was product of Pentagon spokesman
Published: Wednesday January 16, 2008
An American journalist and historian who was the first to break the story of a secret Iranian peace overture to the Bush Administration in 2006 alleges that the latest Pentagon encounter between Iranian ships and a Navy vessel was a deliberate fabrication.
The incident, on Jan. 5 in Strait of Hormuz off the Iranian coast, was originally described as a non-event -- then quickly became one in which Iranian boats threatened to "explode" American ships.
At about 4 am on Monday Jan. 7, the commander of the Fifth Fleet issued a news release on an incident with small Iranian boats. According to reporter Gareth Porter, writing in the Asia Times, "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," he adds. "'Following standard procedures,' the release said, "Hopper issued warnings, attempted to establish communications with the small boats and conducted evasive maneuvering.'"
No reference was made to a US ship nearly firing on an Iranian vessel, or suggestions that the US ships would "explode," or white boxes dropped into the water in the path of the US fleet.
This press release, however, went ignored by the media, Porter notes. Instead, the focus turned to CNN's Barbara Starr, who touted allegations that military officials told her Iranian boats were carrying out "threatening maneuvers." CBS soon followed up with a story positing that the Persians had dropped white boxes in the water around the American ships.
Starr added that one American boat had been given the order to fire, and the Iranians had moved away just in time.
Porter identifies Bryan Whitman, the Pentagon's top spokesman, as the culprit for the spurious account. Most of Whitman's remarks that formed the basis for Starr's and other stories were drawn from an off the record press briefing that was held on the condition he not be identified as a source.
But, "in an apparent slip-up, however, an Associated Press story that morning cited Whitman as the source for the statement that US ships were about to fire when the Iranian boats turned and moved away - a part of the story that other correspondents had attributed to an unnamed Pentagon official," he writes.
After facing suspicion, the Pentagon released a four-minute, 20-second condensed video clip that appeared to show small Iranian boats swarming around a US Navy vessel. A voice was heard to say, "I am coming to you. ... You will explode after (inaudible) minutes."
In the wake of reports, the Iranians said the footage had been fabricated.
What later emerged was a more complex view of the incident -- that in fact the threatening transmission did not come from the Iranian ships.
On Jan. 13, Pentagon officials said they did not know the source of the radio transmission, backing off a previous claim that it came from one of the boats. The Navy Times said the voice in the audio sounded different from the one belonging to an Iranian officer shown speaking to the cruiser Port Royal over a radio from a small boat in the video released by Iranian authorities.
Some now believe the threats actually emanated from a heckler known as the "Filipino Monkey," likely more than one person, who listens in on ship-to-ship radio traffic and then jumps on the net shouting insults and vile epithets.
Ultimately, other elements of the story swallowed by Pentagon correspondents were also discredited. The commanding officer of a missile cruiser said the white boxes "didn't look threatening."
Fifth Fleet commander Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff denied that his ships had been close to firing on the Iranians. So did destroyer commander Jeffery James.
Porter asked a spokeswoman for the Navy's Fifth Fleet whether or not commanders were upset with Washington's portrayal of the incident.
Lydia Robertson of Fifth Fleet Public Affairs would not comment directly, he wrote. "There is a different perspective over there," Robertson said.
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."
The naval commanders seemed most determined, however, to scotch the idea that they had been close to firing on the Iranians. Cosgriff, the commander of the Fifth Fleet, denied the story in a press briefing on January 7. A week later, Commander Jeffery James, commander of the destroyer Hopper, told reporters that the Iranians had moved away "before we got to the point where we needed to open fire".
The decision to treat the January 6 incident as evidence of an Iranian threat reveals a chasm between the interests of political officials in Washington and navy officials in the Gulf. Asked whether the navy's reporting of the episode was distorted by Pentagon officials, Lydia Robertson of Fifth Fleet Public Affairs would not comment directly. But she said, "There is a different perspective over there."
Last week, RAW STORY's Nick Juliano spoke with Steven Aftergood, an expert on military secrecy, who has recently published an NSA assessment on a notorious incident during the Vietnam war in which Vietnamese ships were said to have attacked American vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin.
"The parallels (between Tonkin and Hormuz) speak for themselves, but what they say is that even the most basic factual assumptions can be made erroneously [or] can prove to be false," Aftergood, of the Federation of American Scientists, said. "Therefore extreme caution is always appropriate before drawing conclusions ... that might leave to violent conflict. That's almost so obvious that I feel embarrassed saying it, but there is a history of mistaken interpretations of these kinds of encounters that ought to teach us humility."
"It's also surprising that President Bush was permitted to get so far out in front on this issue, even though there were significant uncertainties on what transpired," Aftergood added.
Read Porter's full story here, and Juliano's story linking the Iranian incident and the Gulf of Tonkin here.
