Faked Iranian-US government incident

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Pat H

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Now that cooler heads have reviewed this so-called incident, it's obviously and recognized as a monumental, crudely made, fake.

Even the Pentagon is distancing itself from it. Only Bush II thinks it's real, and we all know what kind of mental giant he is.
rofl1-vi.gif


Glenn Greenwald
Thursday January 10, 2008 14:49 EST
The U.S. military inflicts more damage on its own credibility

(updated below - Update II)

It seems increasingly clear that the U.S. military's initial claims about its interaction with those five Iranian speed boats in the Strait of Hormuz was exaggerated in significant ways, approaching Jessica Lynch/Pat Tillman/Iraq-is-going-great territory. It's impossible to resolve all of the conflicting details of each side's self-serving version, but the most inflammatory facts which the Navy originally asserted, and which the American news media uncritically regurgitated, are quite dubious, if not demonstrably false.

Here, for instance, was the first paragraph of Tuesday's Washington Post story by Robin Wright and Ann Scott Tyson, highlighting the most dramatic and scariest part of the U.S. military's narrative:

We're coming at you, the Iranian radio transmission warned. Your ships will explode in a couple of minutes.​

The next paragraph summarized the Navy's version that "five Iranian patrol boats sped toward the USS Port Royal and two accompanying ships as they crossed the Strait of Hormuz" and then "'maneuvered aggressively' on both sides of the U.S. ships." The next paragraph recounted:

After the radio transmission, two of the Iranian boats dropped "white box-like objects" into the water, [Vice Adm. Kevin J.] Cosgriff said.​

Those are the two "facts" that infused the story with such a sinister tone -- explicit threats from the Iranian boats to destroy the American ships, followed by their dropping of unidentifiable boxes, which, one was supposed to infer, could easily have been explosive devices.

But the first "fact" seems almost certainly false, and the second one is highly questionable. Iranian Hooman Majd at The Huffington Post noted that the voices on the tapes issuing the melodramatic threats were unquestionably not Persian. As he put it: "the person speaking doesn't have an Iranian accent and moreover, sounds more like Boris Karloff in a horror movie than a sailor in the elite branch of Iran's military." A regular Iranian commenter at Cernig's blog made the same point. Listen for yourself to the audio and see how credible the threats sound.

Since then, additional facts have emerged strongly negating the claim that that message came from those Iranian boats. The audio of the threats is crystal clear in sound quality, with no ambient noise -- something highly unlikely to be the case if delivered from a small, speeding boat. Moreover, as the New York Times' Mike Nizza reports today, quoting a reader claiming to be a former Naval officer, the channel that was used to convey the transmission is easily accessible to all sorts of private parties and is often the venue for hoaxes, pranks, and false messages.

Even the Pentagon itself is now acknowledging the lack of proof for the initial version, "saying that the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship." As Nizza put it: "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."

The video released by the U.S. military contained video and audio that were patched together, and as Cernig notes, the audio containing the threatening messages was suspicious from the start:

The section of the released tape which contains the actual threat to "blow up" anyone, as I noted yesterday, comes at the very end and is very much unconnected in any causal sense to the rest of it. The sound is clearer and less cluttered by background noise, while there is no video accompanying it -- the only such section of the tape -- just an ominously black screen. The accent of the alleged Iranian threatener is way wrong. I've known several Iranians well in the UK and their accents when speaking English were all very different from that on the tape -- less gutteral.

Moreover, the audio and video released by the Iranians, from the vantage point of one of the Iranian speed boats, shows verbal interaction between them and one of the American ships, in which each is identifying themselves to the other.
Read the complete article
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I've been loosely following the developments on this story too. The sad thing is, it really doesn't surprise me one bit that this is turning out to be fabricated. I'm just glad it's getting publicity as likely being fake.
 
They faked the landing on the moon, as well as the speedboat attack on the U.S.S. Cole, too. Ask the source on the Huffington blog about that; he's an expert. ;)
 
A link to the motivation:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2654965

A link to the source:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/10/iran/

The author makes his living off of Bush derangement syndrome. A compulsion to loath the President. See his work at the borders of the source site.

As to the article. I see much conjecture but nothing nefarious. The fact that the vessel wasn't blown clear is evidence of cool heads not conspiratorial plots. Note that the referenced authority for him is Iranian Hooman Majd at The Huffington Post to make it sound like some kind of ploy but winds up backing up what the military acknowledged, that it was suspicious and the transmission could have come from anywhere.

If you walk into a restaurant and looking around you see trash and grime, do you figure that what they are offering you to consume isn't tainted? Same with web sites and sources. If trash and grime are present why would you assume credible offerings to consume.

It seems that ravenous consumption of tainted offerings has caused some very noticeable symptoms to manifest. Consume trash and grime and the vile symptoms of contamination are inevitable and quite noticeable.

Fabricate the incident? To what end? Show that the military isn't trigger happy?

The story seems to be one of classic baiting. The vessel attempted to cause the Navy to fire upon it. It didn't and that's the end. Not any fruit for the Bush administration to harvest. So why, fabricate this?

It's simply the daily offering for consumption. Enjoy.
 
Pat: Just curious if your education equals an MBA from Harvard?
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You know, I used to make the same argument in support of Bush that you're implying. That ended in late 2001 when it became increasingly obvious that there was something "missing" from Bush II, something that should have precluded his earning a bachelors degree from Harvard, much less a masters. My guess is that Bush had a full time, family paid "tutor" with him at Harvard, otherwise someone with his low level of intellectual curiosity would never make it through that school.

I had a fellow graduate student explain business school (where he was, not me) at the MBA level to me once. He said he was moderately challenged intellectually 110% of the time. He was engaged in a race to read huge volumes of texts in order to be able to discuss them rationally in his classes.

Have you ever, at any time, seen this sort of characteristic in George W. Bush, even a single spark of it?

I have not.

In fact, I've only seen the opposite.
 
as well as the speedboat attack on the U.S.S. Cole
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With that incident fresh in the minds of the Navy, it should be noted that the commanders of the ships remained resolute to avoid escalating the incident into a international blow up. Unlike the Gulf of Tonkin which some like to compare this incident too, nothing happened except exchanges of some words.

More importantly Iran is trying to assert its power into the Strait of Hormuz, which is in international water. Meaning no one country can control it. The US Navy is doing its job trying to protect a major international shipping causeway from being taken over by the Iranians. The Iranians are the aggressors not the US. To add the US Navy for at past 150 years has been a protector of free commerce on the open seas.
 
With that incident fresh in the minds of the Navy, it should be noted that the commanders of the ships remained resolute to avoid escalating the incident into a international blow up.
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This really boils down to whether or not the US naval commanders really felt threatened or not.

I believe that if the US naval commanders really felt threatened by the Iranian fast boats, they should have immediately blown them up, given what happened to the USS Cole. They have been praised for not escalating the situation, but if there was a real threat, then their indecisiveness was a major error and nothing less than dereliction of duty. Their decision to not engage put their ships and lives of US servicemen at risk.

Now, if they really didn't feel threatened, then this is not an incident in the first place. In that case, it should not even have been national news, and is simply more saber rattling by Bush.
 
Derelict in duty? Exactly how so? This ought to be interesting. After all, they are only commanders on Navy ships, so I'm sure that you possess that same level of expertise, much like the certain members of the press. Consequently, please let us know:

1. What factors caused the commanders to perceive a threat from the speedboats.

2. How the perceived threat from the speedboats changed during the incident, from the beginning, to the middle, to the end of the incident.

3. What factors caused the commanders to not fire on the speedboats.

4. If the commanders were somehow "derelict" in their duty by not firing, please tell us exactly when they should have fired at the speedboats.

This ought to be very interesting, I'm sure I'll learn quite a bit. Thanks!
 
My guess is that Bush had a full time, family paid "tutor" with him at Harvard, otherwise someone with his low level of intellectual curiosity would never make it through that school.
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Yep, that's a highly intellectual crowd at Harvard alright :rolleyes:

Timothy Leary's dead.
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.
Timothy Leary's dead.
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.
He'll fly his astral plane,
Takes you trips around the bay,
Brings you back the same day,
Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary
 
You are all missing the point. How many points Bush scored on his SAT, or whether he got through Harvard on his own is utterly irrelevant. If this incident is indeed a fake, and has indeed been used to push for war with Iran, that is completely irresponsible behavior on the part of ANY world leader, from ANY country.

There may be sufficient reasons to go to war with Iran, just like there may have been sufficient reasons to go to war with Iraq. Relying on questionable or outright fake incidents to support a war is unconscionable, will only further alienate the US from the rest of the world, and should not be tolerated. Yes, I know worse excuses have been used for war by every country in the past, including the US, but that is no justification for doing so again.
 
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