Gulf of Tonkin, meet Straits of Hormuz

[FourScore]

Gulf of Tonkin, meet Straits of Hormuz
by 8ackgr0und N015e
Mon Jan 07, 2008 at 07:27:35 AM PST

Breathless reporting:

Iranian boats 'provoke' U.S. Navy ships

Five Iranian boats provoked three U.S. Navy ships in international waters on Saturday, CNN reported on Monday.

Interesting....

There are also reports of a "threatening" radio transmission.

"I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes," CNN reported, citing U.S. officials.

but wait

At one point a radio message from one of the Iranian boats warned, "You are going to blow up within minutes."

Ok, sounds about the same... why is this an issue?

Check out the reporting on this... why equivocate and put 'provoke' in quotes? Either they were provoked or they weren't. But beyond that semantic hedge is a whole bunch of problems. Unidentified sources. Inconsistent reports. Unconfirmed events. Ah the dulcet tones of The Mighty Wurlitzer ring across the land....

Now... lets look at the Straits of Hormuz, an extremely narrow waterway chock full of ships, both military and civilian.

Ships moving through the Strait follow a Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS), which separates inbound from outbound traffic to reduce the risk of collision. The traffic lane is six miles wide, including two two-mile-wide traffic lanes, one inbound and one outbound, separated by a two-mile wide separation median.

No one reports where in the straits this event allegedly occurred. No one reports whether the US ships were in a lane, out of a lane, near Iran's shore, or any other information.

The fact is these sort of close encounters are routine. The claimed radio transmission is suspicious to me. Why? Because telegraphing an attack on a fully armed set of ships is a good way to get sunk. If someone really wanted to start a conflict they would actually pull a trigger without any warning. Oh, and by the way, Iran has surface to surface Silkworm missiles they can use to sink anything they want in that narrow body of water.

Now this is serious stuff. How serious?

"It is the most serious provocation of this sort that we've seen yet,"

Really? Who said that?

said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

Oh.

Of course this is not happening in a vacuuum:

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have been higher than normal for months as the Bush administration has called for sanctions against Tehran because of its nuclear research. Washington believes Iran is trying to develop atomic weapons...

READ THE REST:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/7/95833/37585/113/432106

[Naturyl]

1. What's that smell?

[NightWatcher]

2. he's got blue balls for another war.

the NIE said that the Iranians do not have nuclear weapons and something like another "Tonkin" is the only way that the chimperor will ever be able to get war in Iran.

They are not even original....Tonkin, been done already...do they think we dont remember?

[spanone]

3. kick and Recommend

[Marr]

4. Yeah- it's beyond fishy. And that anonymous "official" just puts it over the top.

I'm afraid we're about to see yet another reason why there should've been an impeachment last year.

[demnan]

5. Also Bush is in Israel

Not an unrelated event.

[TomInTib]

6. The transmitted threat has got to be bogus.

So we are supposed to believe that the Iranians are dialed into our radio freq's?

Maybe we have established a common band, I do not know.

But releasing radioed threats to the public?

I'm calling Total BS on this one.

[cloudbase]

9. There are common VHF channels that everyone monitors. n/t

[TomInTib]

16. Thanks, I suppose I have been out of the Service for far too long. nt

[Thothmes]

24. Bridge to Bridge radio

All Naval vessels and almost all commercial ships monitor a couple of VHF frequencies in their pilot houses. These radio frequencies are reserved for safety of navigation information between ships. English is the language used on these channels. Any number of hand held VHF radios can be set to the international frequencies. Don't think that it is total BS that,if the incident actually happened, the Iranian's would use the bridge to bridge freqs.

[havocmom]

7. All the missing money sent to Iraq would buy a lot of operatives in the area

cheney in a corner (and he is) with lots of unaccounted for cash could sure as hell hire enough goons to get his war on under yet another false pretense.

Chalabi's gang probably works fairly cheap.

[mopinko]

8. can we set the table now, nancy?

or do we need to see that mushroom cloud (ours) first?

[AzDar]

10. And the timing isn't suspicious at all, is it? What with Chimpolini

(along with 10,000 security peeps for the Most Hated Man in The World) visiting Israel for the first time in his entire pResidency
to discuss (what else?) 'Iranian intentions' in the region.
I don't know whether to :rofl: or :puke:

[Supersedeas]

17. just a miscommunication-like confusing an Airbus A300 for an F15

[TahitiNut]

11. Tell me what sane person didn't foresee EXACTLY this??

Shit ... the script was written over 40 years ago, and the revisions completed over 6 years ago.

Nobody ever expects the Spanish Inquisition ... but EVERYONE should expect the Gunboat Provocation!!

Remember the Maine????

[Old_Growth]

12. Could all be a misunderstanding

From what I've read from reports I just wonder if this was US naval ships entering the "red zone" which might be laden with mines and Iranian boats warning them they might blow up if they continue on. Just a thought...

[PATRICK]

13. The story then is not

a musunderstanding by the government at all. It is a deliberate misunderstanding by the news media which is repeating the unsourced story without any brain in action whatosever.

Come on. If LBJ had this media and this Congress he wouldn't have needed the phony pretext. This pure dumb repretition and beyond even an insult to intelligence.

[Old_Growth]

14. I got the idea...

after reading the snippet from Press TV.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=37833§ionid=351020101

"The US vessels approached the Iranian boats in the Persian Gulf on Sunday, warning they were in the red zone, the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Press TV on Monday."

[PATRICK]

21. The US approached

them before any "aggressive" response? Not even trying and the MSM can't imagine our monster boats sailing around their vital straits have a righteous chip on their shoulder. I hope to God our Navy personnel aren't that stupid. We would have had WWIII decades ago.

[riverdeep]

15. Imagine Iranian ships patrolling 50 miles from New York.

Think we might get a little nervous? Them telling us that they're just keeping an eye on us because we have WMDs and have used them and have invaded, without provocation, their neighbors. It would be legitimate, wouldn't it? Joe Biden might get his impeachment fix after all.

[FourScore]

19. Exactly. n/t

[PsN2Wind]

18. "Remember the Maine"

N/T

[dave123williams]

20. Bush's war must continue forever, don't you understand that?

They will do anything, say anything to keep this going and....expand it.

[AntiFascist]

22. What do you bet...

those Iranian boats have nothing to do with the Iranian government. Sounds like some sort of "stay behind" program.

[TankLV]

23. Gee - a couple of row boats manned by IRANIANS says the scared USA AIRCRAFT CARRIER...

or some other such mega football field large fucking WARSHIP...

OK - choices:

US special ops disguised as Iranian rowboat...

Totally utter fabricated bald faced LIE that never happened...

and they KNOW the sheeple ARE THAT stupid...