U.S. warships provoke Iran

[Sky]

http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=33036&language=en


Iran released new video and audio recordings of the contact between Iranian patrol boats and a three-ship US Navy convoy in the Persian Gulf on Thursday. The exclusive footage aired by Alalam TV from Tehran.

The four-minute video showed an Iranian commander in a speedboat contacting an American sailor via radio, asking him to identify the US vessels and state their purpose.

"Coalition warship number 773 this is an Iranian patrol," the Iranian commander is heard to say in good English. "This is coalition warship number 73. I am operating in international waters," comes the reply.

The move came after the US Army released a fake video and audio tape on Tuesday to back its charge that Iranian speedboats swarmed around US warships in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday and radioed a threat to blow them up.

Iran accused the United States on Wednesday of "clumsily" fabricating the footage. "The pictures that the Pentagon broadcast of the naval incident are file pictures and the voices have all been fabricated," a senior Navy commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) told Alalam.


This is part of a United States global policy to intimidate and harass countries that do not follow Washington's dictates in international affairs, but instead choose their own path of development. The hegemonic designs of the United States, its hatred of revolutions, its desire to change the course of history and its unscrupulous nature are evident in this threat against a poor Muslim country. The United States is trying to dominate the world with its war machine, indiscriminately crushing underfoot anything in its path.

The presence of United States fleets off the Persian Gulf, whether in international or territorial waters, is a continuous source of threat and aggression and constitutes interference in the sovereign descision-making powers of the coastal countries. Since the Persian Gulf is thousands of kilometers from the United States, there cannot be a rational explanation for it dangerous military presence. The United States has arrogated to itself the right to use the open sea for provocative military maneuvers and to test weapons, while at the same time exploiting and pillaging the resources of the sea.

The right to use international waters is quite different from using the gulf adjacent to Iran, since that region is the cradle of civilization and religion and its inhabitants have long lived in peace and security.

[E.G. Smith]

It's insane that Bush is saying "Iran provoked us" when we're circling their coastlines constantly. Reminds me of the "kidnapped" British soldiers that had trudged into Iranian waters.

And now Iran is claiming the US made it up. Not that I'm an Iran supporter, but I wouldn't put it past them. Not like we've never fabricated reasons to go to war...

[Colonello Buendia]

exactly, I'm not pro-Iran but the Americans were being way more threatening from the looks of it, however we can't really comment because the only information we have is from 2 rival Governments so we don't know if either of them are being honest

[Comeback Kid]

Would not give a fuck if the two theocracies blew the fuck out of each other TBH.

[bootleg42]

Would not give a fuck if the two theocracies blew the fuck out of each other TBH.

But it will be the poor and working class of Iran who's blood would be shed in such a "blowing up of each other".

This is a childish response.

I hate both states but to not give a fuck if there's a war????? You know the people of Iran would die in the high numbers the people in Iraq are dying today.

[Tower of Bebel]

Lol, I thought this thread was a joke, since it said the US provoked Iran. But you're right, the Western newspapers only showed me the American perspective of this case, just like they did with the case of the captured Brittish soldiers.

[BobKKKindle$]

There are clearly parallels between these events and the Tonkin gulf incident; in both cases the United States created the illusion of naval aggression in order to provide a pretext for an aggressive war. The provocation of the United States is not limited to the presence of a strong naval force adjacent to Iran; the United States has also provided funds to the Jundullah terrorist group operating in the eastern province of Baluchistan, which periodically strikes across the Pakistaini border to inflict attacks on Iranian citizens and government installations - in addition to demonstrating general American aggression, this funding also makes a mockery of the United States' accusations of Iranian intervention in Iraq.


Would not give a fuck if the two theocracies blew the fuck out of each other TBH.

What an immature view. Revolutionary Socialists have always maintained a policy of support for countries facing imperialist aggression; a war between the USA and Iran would lead to destruction of a colossal scale and the deaths of millions of Iranian workers - clearly such a war would do nothing to aid Socialism, and, if anything, would accelerate the tendency towards Islamism in the Arab states.

[Colonello Buendia]

I support neither but I think Iran is being provoked by the Oil hungry Yanks, I won't go all enemy of our enemy on this. plus it's not like this incident benefits socialism in any way

[blabla]

Looks like they're trying to manufacture another Gulf Of Tonkin incident.

These people in the Bush administration are insane. If we don't stop them they will blow up the whole world.

[Sky]

Degrees of Confidence on U.S.-Iran Naval Incident
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/degrees-of-confidence-on-us-iran-naval-incident/

The list of those who are less than fully confident in the Pentagon’s video/audio mashup of aggressive maneuvers by Iranian boats near American warships in the Strait of Hormuz now includes the Pentagon itself.
Unnamed Pentagon officials said on Wednesday that the threatening voice heard in the audio clip, which was released on Monday night with a disclaimer that it was recorded separately from the video images and merged with them later, is not directly traceable to the Iranian military.
That undercuts one of the most menacing elements from the Pentagon’s assertion that Iranian forces threatened the Navy ships: The voice on the radio saying, “I am coming to you. … You will explode after … minutes.”
Here’s an excerpt from an article in this morning’s New York Times on the Pentagon’s assessment of the audio:

The audio includes a heavily accented voice warning in English that the Navy warships would explode. However, the recording carries no ambient noise — the sounds of a motor, the sea or wind — that would be expected if the broadcast had been made from one of the five small boats that sped around the three-ship American convoy.
Pentagon officials said they could not rule out that the broadcast might have come from shore, or from another ship nearby, although it might have come from one of the five fast boats with a high-quality radio system.
Update, 3:36 p.m. ABC News just reported more details from the spokesperson for the U.S. admiral in charge of the Fifth Fleet, who confirmed the above and explained why they concluded that the threat came from the Iranian boats:
“It happened in the middle of all the very unusual activity, so as we assess the information and situation, we still put it in the total aggregate of what happened Sunday morning. I guess we’re not saying that it absolutely came from the boats, but we’re not saying it absolutely didn’t.”
***
Update, 5:48 p.m. At a news conference this afternoon, a reporter asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates about his level of “confidence in the U.S. military version” of the incident. He was unequivocal:
I have no question whatsoever about the report on this incident from the captains of the ships and also from the video itself.
***
Earlier on Wednesday, a reader posted a comment on The Lede claiming to be a former Navy officer with experience in the Strait of Hormuz and offering an explanation for how easily a mistake could have been made by Navy personnel trying to sift through radio transmissions filled with chatter:
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 commenter, who signed his posting “SWO officer,” went on to say, “I hope everybody exercises great caution here and doesn’t jump to conclusions.”
President Bush was criticized today for doing the opposite. According to The Washington Post, “some diplomatic and military officials in Washington” said that Mr. Bush’s statements on arriving in Israel Wednesday “inflated the significance of the brief incident” in the strait.
In his remarks, Mr. Bush warned Iran that “all options are on the table to protect our assets.”
Meanwhile, the video images that were released by the Pentagon came in for some more contradiction from Iran, which has contended that the United States was exaggerating a workaday encounter between two naval powers in the Persian Gulf: A competing video purporting to show Sunday’s incident from the Iranian side was broadcast today on Iranian television.
Here is how the semiofficial Fars News Agency described it:
The four-minute video showed an Iranian commander in a speedboat contacting an American sailor via radio, asking him to identify the U.S. vessels and state their purpose.
“Coalition warship number 73 this is an Iranian patrol,” the Iranian commander is heard to say in good English.
“This is coalition warship number 73. I am operating in international waters,” comes the reply.
That would seem to be a much less aggressive interaction between the American and Iranian forces, of course. But the timing of the recording could not be confirmed, and as Iran itself has said, these types of exchanges happen all the time.
Agence France-Presse noted one way that Iran’s video seemed to match up with the United States account of the encounter: all three U.S. vessels involved in the incident are seen in the video.
But The Associated Press was skeptical, saying that “the short clip likely did not show Sunday’s entire encounter.”
Update, 11:37 a.m. The Iranian video is now online.
A reader using the name Hamid Pasha sent The Lede a link to an English-language Iranian web site, PressTV.com, that has posted the Iranian video.
The clip is a bit over 5 minutes long. The first few minutes are views of coalition warships shot from smaller boats (if you thought the motorboats seemed to be moving fast in the American video, wait until you see the bow waves on the warships). In the latter portion, we see an Iranian on the boat using a microphone handset to hail “coalition warship 73″ by radio, in fairly clear but accented English, and we hear responses in an American voice.
The video clearly covers only part of an encounter — perhaps the encounter, though there’s no obvious way a layman would be able to know — and it cuts off abruptly after the American voice is heard answering several inquiries from the Iranian by saying simply that the coalition ship is operating in international waters. We don’t see or hear what happened next.

[spartan]

I know that everyone is saying that it was Iran who were harrassing the US (Which is Iran probably trying to show a David (Iran) and Goliath (USA) moment) but from the comments of people on this post you all assume that Iran are the ones being victimised.

You do know that it is entirely possible that Iran deliberately moved their ships here to put them in harms way as a way of gaining sympathy by looking like the bullied good guys right?

[blabla]

You don't know but there is a story from ABC News that tells a different story.


U.S.: Voices on Recording May Not Have Been From Iranian Speedboats

Chilling Threat Could Have Come From the Shore or Another Ship, Navy Says

By MARTHA RADDATZ and JONATHAN KARL
Jan. 10, 2008

Just two days after the U.S. Navy released the eerie video of Iranian speedboats swarming around American warships, which featured a chilling threat in English, the Navy is saying that the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship.

U.S. Navy Face-Off With IranThe near-clash occurred over the weekend in the Strait of Hormuz. On the U.S.-released recording, a voice can be heard saying to the Americans, "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes."


The Navy never said specifically where the voices came from, but many were left with the impression they had come from the speedboats because of the way the Navy footage was edited.

Today, the spokesperson for the U.S. admiral in charge of the Fifth Fleet clarified to ABC News that the threat may have come from the Iranian boats, or it may have come from somewhere else.

We're saying that we cannot make a direct connection to the boats there," said the spokesperson. "It could have come from the shore, from another ship passing by. However, it happened in the middle of all the very unusual activity, so as we assess the information and situation, we still put it in the total aggregate of what happened Sunday morning. I guess we're not saying that it absolutely came from the boats, but we're not saying it absolutely didn't."

The Iranians have denied using the threatening language and are saying U.S.-released video is fabricated. Today, the Iranian government aired its own video of the event on state-run TV there. On the audio, the voice that the Iranians say is the communication from their vessel can be heard identifying itself to the American ship, "Coalition warship No. 73 this is an Iranian navy patrol boat."


The incident ended without shots being fired, but senior defense officials told ABC News that the USS Hopper's gunners were within seconds of firing on the Iranians.

[Zurdito]

I know that everyone is saying that it was Iran who were harrassing the US (Which is Iran probably trying to show a David (Iran) and Goliath (USA) moment) but from the comments of people on this post you all assume that Iran are the ones being victimised.

You do know that it is entirely possible that Iran deliberately moved their ships here to put them in harms way as a way of gaining sympathy by looking like the bullied good guys right?

why the fuck is the US even in those waters?

exactly.

of course Iran deserves more sympathy. I'd sympathise with Iran even if Iran had sent its entire navy to blow up the US ships.

[blabla]

why the fuck is the US even in those waters?

exactly.

of course Iran deserves more sympathy. I'd sympathise with Iran even if Iran had sent its entire navy to blow up the US ships.


Right??? The media always portrays the victims of American imperialism in a negative light. It makes my blood boil. Why is the U.S. in those waters???
Like why was the U.S.A. in the Gulf Of Tonkin??---To conduct sabotage operations against North Vietnam. And also didn't the U.S.A. shoot down several Iranian passenger planes loaded with hundreds of innocent civilians in the past????

[RedAnarchist]

Right??? The media always portrays the victims of American imperialism in a negative light. It makes my blood boil. Why is the U.S. in those waters???
Like why was the U.S.A. in the Gulf Of Tonkin??---To conduct sabotage operations against North Vietnam. And also didn't the U.S.A. shoot down several Iranian passenger planes loaded with hundreds of innocent civilians in the past????

According to Wikipedia, this happened in the late 1980's - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

[Spirit of Spartacus]

Would not give a fuck if the two theocracies blew the fuck out of each other TBH.

For a Marxist to say something like this is utterly ridiculous. Its not even childish. Most children would have more sense.