Iranian maritime comedians.

[Drake Dun]

Am I the only one who can't suppress giggling every time he hears that audio clip?

I am coming to yoooooooou. You will explooooooode after few minutes.

All that's missing is organ music in the background.

Drake

[Beneath the Shadows]

I cannot say that I laugh over it. I'd have to hear it, first.

[Drake Dun]

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=5JTVwI...eature=related

4:45 - 4:20

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_US..._naval_dispute

Apparently I'm not the only one who finds the apocryphal audio clip humorous:

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=4GLlKfFV1Ms

For those of you who have missed the entire story, the U.S. is trying to make hay out of what is probably nothing in order to justify potential military action against Iran. The gravitas is a confrontation that took place in the Straight of Hormuz (a choke point in the Persian Gulf) on Jan. 6, in which Iranian patrol boats allegedly harried U.S. warships.

The whole business of the comical audio clip has become something of an embarassment, with the Pentagon having admitted that it was not a part of any original video and was in fact spliced into one of their video releases from a separate source, leaving you to add in your head the silent words, "for the purpose of intentionally deceiving and further terrorizing the American public in order to drum up support for yet another war of aggression."

Third parties were quick to assert that the accent of the voice in the audio was not Iranian (I'm not knowlegeable enough to form an opinion on this point myself) and to note that there is no ambient noise such as might be expected if the transmission were coming from an open-topped speedboat. The U.S. Navy has since admitted that they don't know where the voice came from.

The incident touched off a rash of cock jerking, bible thumping and saber rattling among the Republicans, with Bush somehow managing to seem calm compared to Mike "preserve our honor" Huckabee, that paragon of Christian mildness, who advised Iranians to be prepared to "see the gates of hell".

Meanwhile, the U.S. media can't even agree with itself about how many boats the Iranians had, what they were armed with, whether the U.S. Navy was on the verge of opening fire and if so with what weapons, where the audio transmission came from, etc.

Most of them, with the exception of a couple of infamously leftish outlets, have missed the central irony - that the Straight of Hormuz is where the U.S. shot down an Iranian passenger airliner in 1988 (an unfortunate side effect of its efforts to aid the CIA's boy Saddam Hussein in his war of agression against Iran), cutting short the lives of 290 civilians in an incident which has escaped the selective memory of the type of Americans who are now busy whipping themselves into a righetous fury over a few outboard watercraft with ugly paint jobs.

Another thing those of us who have long since run out of credulity to give the government haven't forgotten is the fact that the U.S. has a glorious tradition of using factually murky incidents involving naval vessels to get over the public's reluctance to go to war.

Remember the Maine! And the Lusitania, the Arizona, the Maddox...

Wake up, America.

Drake

[Beneath the Shadows]

Well, in the video, the "threats" are heard after the video ends... in other words, there's no more video, and only audio. In such a case, I ask, is it not possible that whoever posted the video is the culprit?

And the Wiki article says that "These accusations have so far been unfounded, and no contradictory evidence or proof of tampering has been found or made public."

Between a piece of a video which may have been tampered with by someone not in the US military, and a Wiki article, which can be altered by anyone and their uncle, at this point I'll still have to give the US Navy the benefit of the doubt.

[Drake Dun]

The official line is that the threat was radioed to the U.S. ships on a public channel some time during the incident. They admit that its presence in the released footage is an edit job.

Drake

[DepthsofSpace]

Originally Posted by Drake Dun

Remember the Maine! And the Lusitania, the Arizona, the Maddox...

Wake up, America.

Drake

And we forget to poor USS Liberty...

May I blog that, with you as the author?

That was a frickin' awesome post. And I hadn't even considered the fact that the strait is the place we gunned down the Iranian Airliner.

I loved Ron Paul's answer to this question at the GOP debate. It well characterized the situation. A few speedboats buzzing around and we want to do to war. If they had tried to ram the Destroyer, yes they would have seen the gates of hell, but that's all that would have been needed to be done.

[Dreggas]

First off, The U.S is not making hay of this a very select few are making hay of this, namely morons with inferiority complexes. Now that my whinging is out of the way.

The Pentagon is saying the audio could have come from many sources, the boats, the shore, hell from the ship they were filmed from. According to some people I know who were in the navy, the US navy uses Channel 16 in the gulf for communications. This channel is public and they were saying that this channel is used by people all over the place there, mainly to shout threats and insults about others' families and such as well as the usual racial tirade against phillipinos (the Gulf states have a lot of phillipinos working there).

The day it came out the majority of news and opinion makers laughed at it. Of course there was some caution after the attack on the USS Cole but for the most part it was laughable. It was only the morons in the reich wing who seemed to get all twitterpated over it.

If they start war with Iran I believe there will be a run on pitchforks and torches.

[Dreggas]

Oh and even more Ironic. This happens just as CIA papers from the vietnam era were made public which proved once and for all that the Gulf Of Tonkin incident was faked.

I simply ask that people NOT lump us all in with the asshats in power. It's not our fault that a lot of people are apathetic and that we are indeed a large country with a proportionate amount of morons. We are working on fixing the issue, I promise.

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by Drake Dun

The official line is that the threat was radioed to the U.S. ships on a public channel some time during the incident. They admit that its presence in the released footage is an edit job.

Drake

The official line? So, then, you can go to the U.S. Navy's official page (or anything that's more official and YouTube and Wiki) and find an article there stating this? Because if you can, I'll gladly take a look.

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by DepthsofSpace

And we forget to poor USS Liberty...

May I blog that, with you as the author?

Naturally, but I would appreciate it if you put it into context. Just preface it with something like, "This is a post to a forum I participate in from a guy named Drake" or something.

Drake

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by Dreggas

First off, The U.S is not making hay of this a very select few are making hay of this, namely morons with inferiority complexes. Now that my whinging is out of the way.

Yes, and that's worth pointing out, although we need to bear in mind that said morons include the President, the Pentagon, and the mainstream media.

From my experience abroad, I can say that foreigners, including English speaking Europeans, often fail to appreciate that George Bush and the Pentagon are not the same thing as the citizens of the United States. Thank you for the reminder.

Drake

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows

The official line? So, then, you can go to the U.S. Navy's official page (or anything that's more official and YouTube and Wiki) and find an article there stating this? Because if you can, I'll gladly take a look.

I can back it with secondary sources at the drop of a hat, but I am presently scouring the net to see if I can do better and give you primary sources. Give me a little time.

Drake

[Kanedawg]

On the one hand I worry about the saber rattling. On the other I imagined the Iranians throwing cows and geese and waving their private parts at our aunties.

[Drake Dun]

As promised.

(1) The official line is that the threat was radioed to the U.S. ships on a public channel some time during the incident.

Primary source:
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcrip...nscriptid=4116

Adm. Kevin Cosgriff: "At one point during this encounter, we received a radio -- the ships received a radio call that was threatening in nature, to the effect that they were closing our ships and that the ships might -- the ships would explode, the U.S. ships would explode."

Secondary source - directly quoting commander of U.S. ship which received the threat:
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/01/navy...an-speed-boats

Cmdr. Jeffery James: "One of the transmissions was, 'I am coming to you,' and then, shortly after that, 'You will explode in a few minutes.' Whether it was coincidental or not, it occurred at the exact same time that these boats were around us and they were placing objects in the water, so I would say the threat appeared to be building."

A video of the conference is supposed to be available, but I can't find it anywhere.

(2) They admit that its presence in the released footage is an edit job.

Sorry, but the best I could do here was one direct and several indirect quotes from secondary sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/wo...st/10iran.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...080DEA1DFE.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/internatio...240532,00.html
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/0..._radio_080111/

Adm. Gary Roughead: "The reason there is audio superimposed over the video is it gives you a better idea of what is happening."

They all attribute the information to U.S. officials, and I have not found any conflicting reports on that point.

General reference... primary stuff I turned up while doing my homework:

Pentagon's propaganda edit:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/brie...ingslideid=320

Less alarming original version:
http://pentagontv.feedroom.com/?skin...&autoplay=true

Very dubious Iranian release:
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=W4EMuahjhxM

Mullen transcript:
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcrip...nscriptid=4119

Cosgriff transcript:
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcrip...nscriptid=4116

Note that the conversations in the American and Iranian versions involve different participants and different ships, although in each case the American vessel identified is indeed one of the ships passing through the straight that day.

The American voice in the threat audio does seem to be the American shown at the radio on the bridge in the Pentagon's releases. The voice that issues the threat is clearly different from the Iranian voice in the American full release as well as the Iranian voice in the Iranian release.

Drake

[ArtificialOne]

Iran has always been provocative in the striaght. They would like nothing more than to have a US ship fire at them (and destroy a vessel) to maintain their political power base in Iran. No better excuse to keep in power than to show evidence of the boogeyman in action.

The radio transmission could very well have been a couple of idiots on the docks **cking with the ships. But, combined with the fact that iran is often aggressive with their new toys (the speedboats) and have abducted sailors and others "supposedly" in their waters.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2...tm?POE=NEWISVA

I mean are we at a point where most of you will argue Iran was in the right?

And Drake makes a point that most people overseas do not differentiate between our different govt agencies.

And that airliner that was shot down...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...uly88crash.htm

It was a long time ago and during a war in which an incident had taken place shortly before the shooting down. It was a horrible incident. If I remember correctly and the article above states this also, there was a problem with being on the wrong frequencies and not recieving a Friend or Foe response from the airliner.

Remember this isn't Bush's navy, or a neocon navy, or any other kind of far off whacky conspiracy theory. It's just another incident in a long history in a bad part of the world.

Bottom line? We were in international waters and Iran, whether they sent a radio message or not, speeded towards a couple of warships. Not a bright thing to do.

And the CIA? Does anyone think that Iran hasn't done covert missions in the middle east to cause trouble? Are they somehow saints?

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by ArtificialOne

I mean are we at a point where most of you will argue Iran was in the right?

Remember this isn't Bush's navy, or a neocon navy, or any other kind of far off whacky conspiracy theory. It's just another incident in a long history in a bad part of the world.

Bottom line? We were in international waters and Iran, whether they sent a radio message or not, speeded towards a couple of warships. Not a bright thing to do.

I wouldn't disagree with any of that. My beef here is not with the U.S. seamen, who appear to have handled the situation very nicely, but with the Pentagon, one or two Navy spokespeople, and the media for blowing things out of proportion (intentionally, in the Pentagon's case).

It is unfortunate that some people who share my distrust for the powers that be can't see that there are shades between "The evil Iranians attacked us!" and "Another Bush false flag operation!". For the record, I do not think this was a false flag operation or anything like that.

As to the question of how much blame Iran deserves, I'm not a navy man, but judging from the video the Iranian boats were indeed a little more... interactive, let's say, than needed simply to communicate with or identify the U.S. warships, which everyone agrees were in international waters. They cannot be seen in the video to "speed at" or "charge" the U.S. ships, but I think "swarm around", which also came out at some point, was a fair word choice.

For those of you who wonder how the outside world views these things, I have an interesting story to report. Yesterday I was with one of my clients, a successful real estate business owner, and he was complaining that Japanese people are obsessed with human rights and peace. A couple of minutes later, I mentioned the Hormuz incident. His response: "But that was just a mistake, right?"

Drake

[CptSternn]

Originally Posted by ArtificialOne

Bottom line? We were in international waters and Iran, whether they sent a radio message or not, speeded towards a couple of warships. Not a bright thing to do.

If you reverse that statement, does it sound any more plausible?

For example,

Iranian WARSHIPS drop anchor 2 miles off the coast of New York City. US Coast Guard speed boats speed towards them - not a bright thing to do.

Think about it - these are WARSHIPS they are parking off the coast in efforts to provoke. They are 4,000 miles away from home, sitting on the front porch of a country they claim wants war, but yet hasn't made the same 4,000 mile trip that the US has, nor have they built up troops on the US border - unlike the Americans have done.

This is equal to say driving to the home of someone you don't like, parking in the street in front of their house, and then taunting them telling them 'im not on your property'. Then when the home owner comes out to investigate you try and claim they are the aggressor and are the ones causing the issue.

And your saying the Iranians are the dim ones here...

[DepthsofSpace]

Originally Posted by CptSternn

If you reverse that statement, does it sound any more plausible?

For example,

Iranian WARSHIPS drop anchor 2 miles off the coast of New York City. US Coast Guard speed boats speed towards them - not a bright thing to do.

Think about it - these are WARSHIPS they are parking off the coast in efforts to provoke. They are 4,000 miles away from home, sitting on the front porch of a country they claim wants war, but yet hasn't made the same 4,000 mile trip that the US has, nor have they built up troops on the US border - unlike the Americans have done.

This is equal to say driving to the home of someone you don't like, parking in the street in front of their house, and then taunting them telling them 'im not on your property'. Then when the home owner comes out to investigate you try and claim they are the aggressor and are the ones causing the issue.

And your saying the Iranians are the dim ones here...

I love the Ron Paul logic. xD I used that one on my father and he used a Strawman argument to avoid it, saying Russian subs still come near our coast and we leave them alone. *eyes roll*

And at last I check, we weren't talking of going to war with Russia. Apples and Oranges.