 WASHINGTON – Despite the official and media portrayal of the incident in the Strait of Hormuz early Monday morning as a serious threat to U.S. ships from Iranian speedboats that nearly resulted in a “battle at sea”, new information over the past three days suggests that the incident did not involve such a threat and that no U.S. commander was on the verge of firing at the Iranian boats….[New information] includes the revelation that U.S. officials spliced the audio recording of an alleged Iranian threat onto to a videotape of the incident….Further undermining the U.S. version of the incident is a video released by Iran Thursday showing an Iranian naval officer on a small boat hailing one of three ships. ...Furthermore, as the New York Times noted Thursday, the recording carries no ambient noise, such as the sounds of a motor, the sea or wind, which should have been audible if the broadcast had been made from one of the five small Iranian boats….
The only boat that was close enough to be visible to the U.S. ships was unarmed, as an enlarged photo of the boat from the navy video clearly shows. …
[There is] no … evidence of Iranian boats “making a run on U.S. ships” as claimed by CBS news. … |
|
|
Navy officers now admit that these small boats, some with machine guns, others unarmed, were virtually incapable of damaging the US vessels. The much-heralded “objects” in the water were not regarded as dangerous. Follow the link to read the details. Best comment I’ve read: “What happened to the skier?”
How ’bout we learn from this?
The President’s government wants very much to topple Iran. Big Media wants very much to break a big story. Here’s the lesson: Take them with a grain of salt. From Havana harbor to the Gulf of Tonkin to Iraqi WMD, we gullible Americans have said, “They can’t do that to us!” after swallowing utterly unreliable tales, and followed leaders with ulterior motives into war. (You do know, don’t you, that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never said that Israel should be “wiped off the map.” It’s a media error. And media errors—like the speedboat story—are usually not corrected. See Iran-US relations, part 2.)
Let’s not get too excited over what presidents and Big Media pitch. Their records are not good.
Tags: Iranian+boats, MSM, Hormuz, Bush, Navy, war+on+terror, mainstream+media, Monte Asbury
to this blog
The Least, First 
Here’s what I mean by Bush making a mockery of America:
http://fanonite.org/2008/01/14/an-open-letter-to-george-w-bush/
naj
January 14, 2008 at 9:46 am
I’d say, EVEN IFFFFF Iranians, or Ommanis, or anyone who lives ashore persian gulf carried operations to push Americans back, instead of going ooohooo about it, the American public should be saying: “good for them, American warships have no place in that region!”
I don’t know what part of “you are not welcome” it is that Americans do not understand.
That this became a news item, and the CIA revalataion of their 1974 report on Israel’s nuclear arsenal is NO WHERE on the news, repeats the SAME truth: No one should take MSM seriously.
By the way, George is making a mockery of the LAST grain of dignity that the US may have had, by “trying” to scare teh Arabs from Iran!
Uhm … was the dumbass sleeping when the Arabs were extending invitations to Iran’s president to attend their different “Arabs summits” for the first time, ever.
America is suffering a crisis of identity; and as bad as it may look now, I think it is good for the world and it is good for the Americans as well. Time for them to awaken from their childish somnia of thinking the world gives a big damn about what US wants!
Monte says: Thanks, Naj, once again, for an insider’s view. I have to say, “Amen.” Ironically, Bush would maintain that he heroically pursued his war because he didn’t give “a big damn about what” the world thinks.
I might say it like this: “Time for [Americans] to awaken from their childish somnia of trusting their government to pursue peace and democracy.” It is interested in economic control, and that unspoken motive alone outweighs the entire stack of supposedly noble motives put forward to justify its actions.
naj
January 14, 2008 at 9:38 am