Speedboat attacks.. does anyone think that Bush is desperately seeking a reason to

[Morris Onions]

attack Iran before he leaves office?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvqKY9Q806E

This thing is just laughable.

Several huge US battleships, bristling with weaponry and technology, "threatened" by a couple of speedboats driven by prats.

And yet the Yankers are making it out to be the biggest thing since 9-11

Scary.

[non sociopath skin]

1. In a word, "Yes".

Candour might also compel persons of good will to point out that the Iranian "intruders" were a little nearer home than the Yanks.

Presumably an Iranian battleship schlepping around the New England coast would be given a hero's welcome by the US coastguard? :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin:

The Skin

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. The Straits are about as wide as the English Channel as Dover

It would be a bit rude to send out speedboats and say "you're going to blow up" to any ship going through a recognised international waterway like that, naval or not.

[Mr Creosote]

4. About as rude

as faking a tape where someone threatens to blow you up.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Yeah, if the tape is fake, then that puts it in a different light

It's not an excuse for any action by the US even if it did happen. Overall, I'm more likely to believe there's some idiot motorboat commander in the Iranian navy who'd shoot his mouth off than that several of a US ship's officers and crew would participate in a complete fake just to give Bush a talking point.

[Mr Creosote]

6. Well when I saw it on Sky

the presenter said that the video and audio didn't necessarily take place at the same time.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Which I don't think is a problem

The question is whether it's actually an Iranian officer making the 'you will blow up' threat. There's a thread in GD, I think, in which an Iranian speaker, writing for the Huffington Post, disputes that it's an Iranian accent - and if that had been faked, then the American story falls apart. If the American ship has an audio recording of the radio traffic, and a video camera pointed out of the window but which doesn't pick up the talk on the radio, that's no big deal - and the general manoeuvring by the Iranian boats isn't a real problem either, I'd say. The "you will blow up" is what seems a threat.

[Mr Creosote]

10. Sounds like

Peter Sellars to me.

[Mr Creosote]

12. Told ya so!

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4115702&page=1

(shamelessly lifted from LBN)

[WritersBlock]

3. Yep. Not a doubt in my mind.

But I don't necessarily think it's *. I think it's his handlers.

The current war isn't popular. There's an election in less than a year. They know Iraq is a major liability for them in the coming election, but they also know that if the public can be fooled (and I use the term literally) into supporting a war next door to the clusterfuck they've currently got going, they've got a much better chance of retaining the White House.

Because things will just be hotting up nicely by then, don'tcha know. Perfect timing.

Hell isn't hot enough and eternity isn't long enough for these bastards to ever face justice for what they've done and what they want to continue doing.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

8. He is probably looking for ways to escalate things

although when it comes down to it he doesn't have the political capital to get the US into a war before his term is up, and the Iranians probably realise this and feel they have room to be mischievous.

[LeftishBrit]

9. Yes, I'm sure he's trying to!

I doubt that it will work, however. The Americans are not in a mood for more war.

[CJCRANE]

11. Plan B could be

similar to what happened to Iraq - they kept the sanctions going throughout Clinton I's 8 years - then finished the job with "shock and awe" when Bush II came into office.

So true to form they could keep up the pressure on Iran during Clinton II then do a "shock and awe" when Bush III takes power in 2012 or 2016.

[Briar]

13. Doubts grow over Iranian boat threats

Doubts grow over Iranian boat threats


· Pentagon climbdown over 'you will explode' video
· Mystery remains over where voice came from

Ed Pilkington New York


Doubts intensified last night over the nature of an alleged aggressive confrontation by Iranian patrol boats and American warships in the Persian Gulf on Sunday, after Pentagon officials admitted that they could not confirm that a threat to blow up the US ships had been made directly by the Iranian crews involved in the incident.

Several news sources reported that senior navy officials had conceded that the voice threatening to blow up the US warships in a matter of minutes could have come from another ship in the region, or even from shore...

...the mystery remains of where the voice that apparently threatened to bomb the US ships came from. The Pentagon has said that it recorded the film and the sound separately, and then stitched them together - a dubious piece of editing even before it became known that the source of the voice could not, with certainty, be linked to the Iranian patrol boats.

A post on the New York Times news blog yesterday from a former naval officer with experience of these waters said that the radio frequency used in the Strait of Hormuz was regularly polluted with interfering chatter, somewhat like CB radio. "My first thought was that the 'explode' comment might not have come from one of the Iranian craft, but some loser monitoring the events at a shore facility."

...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2239119,00.html