H16375
Headlines : "War on Terror"US navy alleges Iran 'provocation'
The warmongers in Washington lied to the world in August 1964 when was a pair of alleged attacks by North Vietnamese gunboats on two American destroyers, the USS Maddox and the USS C. Turner Joy. The Bush Administration is attempting the same, with a false statement of “provocation” by the Iranian Navy in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran, which has a peaceful agenda in the region, and proven not to have nuclear weapon ambitions, is still at the mercy of America which has an ambition to destroy, with malefic Christian intent, the people of Iran.
[Posted By drp2p]Republished from Al Jazeera English
The US navy says it has been harassed and provoked by Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz in an incident the White House called a “serious provocation”.
Officials from the Pentagon said on Monday that Iranian speedboats surrounded three US navy ships over the weekend, radioing a threat to blow them up.
“We urge the Iranians to refrain from such provocative actions that could lead to a dangerous incident in the future,” Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the US national security council, said in a statement.
The incident occurred at about 5am local time on Sunday as a US navy cruiser, destroyer and frigate were on their way into the Gulf and passing through the strait – a major oil-shipping route.
Posted by drp2p
Currently a student at Arizona State University working of a History degree and another in film. The greatest enemy to humanity has been the philosophy of christianity and white hegemony that uses this philosophy to oppress. See this social sickness for what...
Good thing it was the Iranians otherwise we would have had another USS Liberty on our hands
you prolly don’t want to miss the video that goes with it . . .
Bush Bemoans Iranian Gulf Intercept
President Bush said Tuesday that Iran’s confrontation with the U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf was a “provocative act.”
“It is a dangerous situation,” he said in a White House news conference. “They should not have done it, pure and simple. . . . I don’t know what their thinking was, but I’m telling you what my thinking was. I think it was a provocative act.”
The top U.S. Navy commander in the area said an Iranian fleet of high-speed boats charged at and threatened to blow up a three-ship U.S. Navy convoy passing near but outside Iranian waters on Monday, as they headed into the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian fleet “maneuvered aggressively” and then vanished as the American ship commanders were preparing to open fire, said Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff. No shots were fired.
In Tehran, Iran’s Foreign Ministry suggested the Iranian boats had not recognized the U.S. vessels. Spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini played down the incident. “That is something normal that takes place every now and then for each party,” he told the state news agency IRNA.
But White House press secretary Dana Perino said the incident was hardly routine. “It was not normal behavior,” she said. “It was out of the ordinary. It was reckless.”
“It’s just another point of reference for people in the region who are concerned about the behavior of Iran,” Perino said of the skirmish early Sunday local time. But, she said that while Iran will be ‘part of the discussion’ during Bush’s travels, “it’s certainly not the main reason for the trip.”
And, of course Rice warns Iran against ‘provocations’
And, not coincidentally: IAEA’s Iran probe moves into final stage: diplomat
A U.N. inquiry into Iran’s nuclear activity has entered its final phase with Tehran addressing U.S. intelligence about secret, past efforts to “weaponize” atomic material, a diplomat close to the process said on Tuesday.
The development coincides with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei’s decision to pay a rare visit to Tehran on Friday and Saturday for talks with Iranian leaders to speed efforts to clarify Iran’s past and present nuclear work...IAEA officials see Tehran’s new readiness to examine and respond to the information as a potentially important step to rebuild confidence in its nuclear intentions.
Ahead of ElBaradei, IAEA officials flew into Tehran late on Monday to resume talks aimed at resolving lingering questions about the program. Iran hid it from the IAEA until 2003 and stonewalled inquiries until agreeing last August to come clean.
After broadly clarifying how work began with materials obtained from nuclear smugglers, Iran has begun substantive talks with IAEA officials on the intelligence about attempts to militarize the program, the diplomat said.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry suggested the Iranian boats had not recognized the U.S. vessels?
LOFNL
“That is something normal that takes place every now and then for each party,”
END OF QUOTE
I don’t know. Does that sound like they have a Russian adviser on board?
“Rumors” have been surfacing to the effect that the “reckless” Iranian behavior could turn into a Gulf of Tonkin incident so, just in case Gs on the street run into this baby, I wanna make sure everyone knows what the correct response is. Ready? It’s
Rubbish
for the simple reason that Johnson’s speech announcing that the provocation ‘required’ him to “order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply” was written TWO MONTHS PRIOR to the event.
That was the hot pastrami in the Pentagon Papers.
That’s why Nixon was impeached. To create a destraction. Nothing more, nothing less. Watergate break-in pffffffttttt…... please.
I could be mistaken but I think Noam thinks it’s because Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard — thus infuriating the bankers. That can’t be true. I must have that wrong. You don’t really think that Noam. Do you?
Where did I read that . . . .?
BTW, while we’re making a ruckus, The Economist is warmongering with their front cover this week, the more things change, the more they stay the same, so.
Vigilant Gs should please take the time to ‘touch’ the top copy in the rack and turn it face down on the stack. Thank you very much.
They want that trillion plus and they’re going to energizer bunny until they get it.
You can tell it’s been a long time since I’ve watched TV. LOL.Shazam, did you watch the Al Jazeera video? There’s a really funny image of GW.
If this was no ruse, I wonder, how would the US react if Iran had a couple of ships cruising the Gulf Of Mexico? Or in plain view off the coast of New York City? Would the “international waters” routine still apply? Doubtful.
Why does everyone seem to start WW3 so bad?
We all lose that way.
And fuck the motherfackin Zionists in Israel. Let them fight their own unnecessary wars.
they have actual video of these speed boats zinging around the US ships.
makes you realize how useful(less) the navy will be when the shit hits the fan.
I think it was just Iran’s way of showing that when the shit hits the fan all those lumbering big boats the U.S. has in the gulf are Fucked!
Interestingly, the NSA has just released a report which tries to suggest that the Gulf of Tonkin fabrication was just the result of a mistranslation, and not a pre-planned scheme to launch a war of aggression. Funny timing ‘dat.
Here’s the video guano mentions.
It basically really is just speed boats weaving through the behemoth’s big battleships but. At the end of the video the radio exchange emerges. “I am coming to you” comes through pretty clear and then, it’s true, the speedboat side says “you will explode after [inaudible] minutes”. The voice on the Iranian side is very TV. Definitely Jokey. The US MICkey receiving the transmissions then offers “you will explode after fifteen minutes”?
That’s it. That’s the full exchange.
OPEN QUOTE from Shazam’s AFP link
North Vietnamese made hoax calls to get the US military to bomb its own units during the Vietnam War, according to declassified information that also confirmed US officials faked an incident to escalate the war.
END OF QUOTE
Holy Gazeebo Batman!
The behemoth is trying to save face. A perfectly understandable reaction, given the context. Luckily we are living now in the days of real mass media coverage and the international community is getting much better at stepping in and suggesting that the big bully might wanna just cool it.
Good coverage of the Gulf of Tonkin PR stunt can be found in John Pilger’s Heroes (South End Press 2001) on page 187 OPEN QUOTE
During the spring and summer of 1964 the United States organized commando raids from the South against the North . . . Hence, Washington was already engaged in unprovoked hostilities against Vietnam.
[A US] spy ship, the USS Maddox, took part in this action.
On August 2 the Maddox fired on two torpedo boats off the coast of North Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin.
[so the MICkey fired first]
The boats had neither attacked the Maddox nor returned its fire.
Two days later . . . the Maddox . . . noticed two ‘mysterious dots’ on [its] radar screen and concluded they were torpedo boats.
It was a blustering, stormy night and visibility was nil.
PAUSE here’s the cable sent to Washington following the ‘mysterious dots’ incident :
Freak weather events on radar and over eager sonar men . . . No actual visual sightings by Maddox. Suggest complete evaluation before any further action taken.
END OF QUOTE
Half an hour later LBJ was on National US TV saying, “sorry folks, but we’re just going to have to kill all those Vietnamese, or at least 3 million of ‘em. If you know what’s good for ya, you’ll buy stock in Dow Chemical NOW.”
Given that the made for TV speech that LBJ delivered was written two months prior to the event that actually supposedly “made it necessary” to deliver it, I think we would be well within reason to wonder about the national origin of those Torpedo Boats that the North Vietnamese supposedly showed up with.
Iranian TV: Pentagon Video, Audio Fake
Iran on Wednesday called video and audio released by the Pentagon showing Iranian Revolutionary Guards boats confronting U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz “fabricated,” a state-run television station reported.
“The footage released by the U.S. Navy was compiled using file pictures and the audio has been fabricated,” the English-language channel Press TV quoted an official in the Revolutionary Guards as saying.
..The Pentagon on Tuesday released a four-minute, 20-second video that included audio showing small Iranian boats swarming around U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf. In the recording, a man speaking in heavily accented English threatened, “I am coming to you. ... You will explode after … minutes.”
The Iranian boats appeared to ignore repeated warnings from the U.S. ships, including horn blasts and radio transmissions, according to the video, which was shot from the bridge of the destroyer USS Hopper.
From the Hopper, after spotting the approaching Iranian boats, a U.S. Navy crew member says over the radio: “This is coalition warship. I am engaged in transit passage in accordance with international law. Intend no harm.”
The audio and video recordings were made separately but were pulled together by the Navy. Often uneven and shaky, the video condenses what Navy officials have said was a 20-minute or so clash.
Also from AFP:
“The pictures that the Pentagon broadcast of the naval incident are file pictures and voices have all been fabricated,” the Fars news agency quoted a senior commander in the Revolutionary Guards as saying…“The voices and pictures broadcast by the Pentagon about the latest incident have been fabricated so clumsily that the pictures and voices in the video are not even synchronized,” added the source…That fact that it is a fake is clear to all.”
Also, from M A Bhadrakumar at the Asia Times: Bush’s last throw against Iran
No doubt, the Strait of Hormuz incident comes in very handy. Whether Washington orchestrated the incident, we will never know. But the incident most certainly makes out a neat case for the massive arms deals worth US$20 billion that Washington is offering pro-Arab regimes in the Persian Gulf.
It corroborates US Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ recent call for the establishment of an “air and missile defense umbrella” over Persian Gulf states to deter missile attacks by Iran. (It is immaterial whether the real US target is Iran, or Russia.)The Pentagon announced last month proposed sales of Patriot missile defense and early warning systems to the UAE and Kuwait worth more than $10 billion. The Pentagon also notified the US Congress of a sale to Saudi Arabia of upgraded airborne warning and control systems worth $400 million.
Actually, all that being said, we have no way of knowing where the “iranian” voices were actually coming from — whose imagination.
Although Iran made a point of issuing a press release immediately following the event emphasizing that it was all in good fun and no big deal.
Next: plastic duck attack…
The Straights of Hormuz incident
OPEN QUOTE
The BBC published the video and the audio tape of several, seemingly unarmed, civilian looking speedboats coming out to inspect the 3 US warships, that were 15 miles off the coast of Iran.We see no aggressive manoeuvres, no weapons. The speedboats have no visible mounted cannons or machine guns. All we see is a number of speedboats that clearly have no radar, that are coming out, probably to carry out a visual identification of the US Navy ships. The closest any one of them gets is within about 200 yards of the US ships. The video does not show any of them dropping boxes in the water in front of US ships as the US claims.
more . . .
‘A Heartbeat Away’ From War
With Iran and Pakistan
by Justin Romando
As if by magic, US blacklists Iranian commander, Syrian-based TV station (AFP)
The US Treasury said Wednesday it had blacklisted a top-ranking Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer and a Syrian-based television station for allegedly “fueling” insurgent acts in Iraq.
The Treasury said its financial sanctions targeted Ahmed Foruzandeh who it said was a brigadier general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Qods Force, as well as Syrian-based Al-Zawra television.
US officials accused Foruzandeh of helping foment attacks in Iraq against Iraqi government officials and American troops.
Al-Zawra was said to have broadcast messages through patriotic songs to the Islamic Army of Iraq group which Washington labels a Sunni terrorist group.
...The US sanctions against the top-ranking Iranian military officer come amid heightened tensions between the United States and Iran.
US President George W. Bush, currently on a trip to the Middle East, warned Iran of “serious consequences” if it attacked US warships, following an encounter between US and Iranian vessels in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend.
“Iran and Syria are fueling violence and destruction in Iraq. Iran trains, funds, and provides weapons to violent Shia extremist groups, while Syria provides safe-haven to Sunni insurgents and financiers,” said Stuart Levey, the Treasury’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
...The Treasury said Foruzandeh “leads terrorist operations” against US and Iraqi forces in Iraq, which borders Iran, and claimed he was responsible for managing assassinations of Iraqi citizens…US officials believe the Iranian officer has based his operations in the former US embassy compound in Tehran.
...They claimed Foruzandeh had set up training courses in Iran for Iraqi militias which include lessons on guerilla warfare and of how to plant improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have been responsible for the deaths of US troops.
____
It’s like a video portal into the Israeli government’s wet dreams. And what on earth is the “Treasury” doing delving into crazy international terror conspiracies, while the U.S. economy teeters on the brink.. Oh yeah. Well, it’s all coming together I guess.