Are they sure they were in the Straights of Hormuz, and not the Gulf of Tonkin?

We should invade, just to be on the safe side. What could possibly go wrong?

I buy the Iranian claim that the whole thing was made up. On the BBC News you can clearly see that there was an image of Popeye on the bow of one of those boats, and a Duckie on another.

/obscure?

Well this article sure clears things up.

Just two days after the U.S. Navy released the eerie video of Iranian speedboats swarming around American warships, which featured a chilling threat in English, the Navy is saying that the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship.

Well then, that makes it okay to threaten US ships.

See, if we would've just shot at them right away, we'd already be focusing on war, and wouldn't have time to nitpick over who said what or who threatened who. Way to get bogged down by details, pacifists.

TheConvincingSavant: Well then, that makes it okay to threaten US ships.

For all we know the voice is a pair of ensigns messing with a noob just out of the academy.

TheConvincingSavant: Just two days after the U.S. Navy released the eerie video of Iranian speedboats swarming around American warships, which featured a chilling threat in English, the Navy is saying that the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship.

Well then, that makes it okay to threaten US ships.

Damn, I came in here for a terrible cartoon.

Code_Archeologist: For all we know the voice is a pair of ensigns messing with a noob just out of the academy.

You don't have to tell him about that sort of thing, when he was a soldier in the Core he probably saw all kinds of jokes like that.

Mordant: Code_Archeologist: For all we know the voice is a pair of ensigns messing with a noob just out of the academy.

You don't have to tell him about that sort of thing, when he was a soldier in the Core he probably saw all kinds of jokes like that.

LOL, I wonder if that will be taken as obscure?

Mordant: when he was a soldier Marnie in the Core

FTFY

/Sorry
//Pet-peeve
///heh, Marnie

So, this was all so that Bush can gain support from his hideously stupid voter base, who now will only remember that Iran threatened us.
Which justifies war right! Nuke em fro... glass parkin..... yah whatever.

Even if the Iranians weren't issuing actual threats, what business do they have being in the Persian Gulf of all places?

If every country behaved like that, we'd have Mexican's in the Gulf of Mexico and Chinese in the South China Sea.

When will the rest of the world realize that planet Earth belongs to the United States, and the United States alone.

Mordant: Code_Archeologist: For all we know the voice is a pair of ensigns messing with a noob just out of the academy.

You don't have to tell him about that sort of thing, when he was a soldier in the Core he probably saw all kinds of jokes like that.

You would think that he would just create a new handle. How about CoreWarrior?!!

It's Corps

Well, thanks for clearing that up ABC news.

This just in, radio signals are not point to point.

"I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes."

Tomorrow they'll reveal the message was just an errant signal from an Iranian porno.

FLAKENGA: It's Corps

They know that. They're just being liberals. See my profile.

Is it better or worse they could have come from the shore?

HotWingConspiracy: "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes."

Tomorrow they'll reveal the message was just an errant signal from an Iranian porno.

When I originally read the quote, I thought they were just trying to make our guys very uneasy (in a gay kind of way).

/"US warship to unidentified speedboats ... I don't like you in that way."

The Bush Administration lied to us?

What a shocker, eh?

schiefaw:
/"US warship to unidentified speedboats ... I don't like you in that way."

I laughed mucho grande.

TheConvincingSavant
Well then, that makes it okay to threaten US ships.

you can't threaten a ship by travelling alongside it trying to make out the serial # and maintaining radio contact.

Oh wait, you're a neocon. Everything threatens you, unless it hurts someone else instead, and apparently concocting a video that could escalate a war is the idiotic threat you seem most comfortable with after all.

Iranian Speedboat to US Warship: I'm here to repair office copier.

/Cue Seventies porn soundtrack

wowzer97pooh: Iranian Speedboat to US Warship: I'm here to repair office copier.

/Cue Seventies porn soundtrack

lol

Of all things...

WE INVADED THEIR SPACE. How can everybody not see this for the blatant propaganda that it is? How exactly do the anti-Iran people in this affair think that we would react if the Chinese were sitting just off of our west coast in international waters?

Executive summary for those that didn't bother to read the article: While Iranian speedboats were in close contact with USN ships, USN ships received a radio broadcast saying "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes." Being a broadcast, the Navy can't conclusively say it came from the speedboats, since you'd need a lot more than that for direction finding, even if they had the gear. It is therefore possible that it came from a passing ship or shore, a sort of international incident/prank call.

Meh, I think it's an understandable, reasonable clarification. When receiving a broadcast in the clear, it's pretty hard to tell who's on the the other end. Duh.

Is the idea of this even being threatening in the first place a joke to anyone else? Look at the footage, and tell me how it doesn't make you laugh. Three single motor bass boats against US WARSHIPS. What the shiat are we afraid of?

I should add, "while bombing Canada AND Mexico"

seriously, wtf

It would be so freakin sweet if we could get a puppet government into Iran as well, we would have the two largest untapped oil reserves left on the planet and we could ensure that they sell their oil in dollars and if oil becomes scarce enough to overtly fight over we will have troops in both countries to keep the oil flowing into our SUVs.

How exactly do the anti-Iran people in this affair think that we would react if the Chinese were sitting just off of our west coast in international waters?

Russians did it every day for about 40 years. The US military watched, occasionally mooned them, that's it.

"It could have come from somewhere else".

My money would be on The American Enterprise Institute.

Whatsleft: What the shiat are we afraid of?

Whatsleft: Is the idea of this even being threatening in the first place a joke to anyone else? Look at the footage, and tell me how it doesn't make you laugh. Three single motor bass boats against US WARSHIPS. What the shiat are we afraid of?

Another U.S.S. Cole incident (new window).

Headso: Whatsleft: What the shiat are we afraid of?

I was just about to post that.

/still think the 'incident' is being overblown.

I'm certain the DF data are somewhere, and that the public will never see it.

Kind of sounded like McBain ("The goggles do nothing") was radioing to them when I heard it.

Perhaps they thought they were attacking a ship full of CommiNazis.

Headso: Whatsleft: What the shiat are we afraid of?

Uh, Iran wouldn't be dumb enough to do this. I am very glad that cooler heads prevailed in this situation. I know that the Administration are probably pissed that we didn't atta- I mean that they didn't attack us.

Hmmmm, I think I've read this book before. Let me see if I have the ending down:

1. Bush Admin lies to American people
2. American people (baaaaaaaah) back the Bush Admin
3. Bush Admin abuses temporary public trust to kill a few hundred thousand brownies in the name of Jesus

Yup, that about does it. I already have my pop corn out! Yeeeeeeh haaaaaaawwwww!

Three single motor bass boats against US WARSHIPS. What the shiat are we afraid of?

Guided missile cruiser USS Cole, October 12, 2000, attacked by one kamikaze small craft loaded with explosives while in port in Yemen, 17 killed. Ship had to be carried back to the US on top of a special recovery ship to keep it from sinking. Iranian small craft closed to within a couple hundred yards, close enough that reaction time to an attack run could have been insufficient. I don't know if the deck guns will even depress far enough to hit at that range. That leaves individual machine gun mounts and the CIWS (anti-missile gatling gun, some can be used against surface targets), but CIWS has a history of jamming at interesting times.

rppp01a: Uh, Iran wouldn't be dumb enough to do this.

I don't believe they would either, but that doesn't change that fact that a small speedboat can kill 18 soldiers and do 250 million dollars worth of damage to a ship.

Interesting. The Following headlines (and the accompanying articles and threads) hit the main page:

Iranian ships provoke U.S. warships in Gulf of Tonkin... err... Strait of Hormuz

Because the U.S. didn't sink those Iranian speedboats, Iran now thinks they're afraid of them

Professors from Columbia University to travel to Iran and apologize to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for their president getting all up in his grill last year

Iran claims U.S. Navy video is fake. U.S. Navy heard to mutter that next time those sinking Iranian boats will be very real

Bush says Iran is a threat to whirrled peas



This one hits the politics tab:

Pentagon: Remember that video proving Iran boats were threatening to blow up a US ship? Well funny thing, umm we actually don't think it was them who said it but included it anways.

/just thought that was weird.

Funny how Iran must truly be thinking US is out to get them. If the speech in that pentagon video was truly bogus, then yesterday Iran must have been 100% CONVINCED that the US is untrustworthy and out for a fight.

Also on the main page:

Claiming the U.S. version is fake, Iran releases their own video of the gulf warship encounter with voiceover work by Eddie Haskell

Don't know how I missed that one.

OH NO!
It's an Iranian "Hit Team!"




Be afraid, Be very afraid!

For all we know someone on an American vessel could of been fooling around and said it as a joke.

choice and consequence: Being a broadcast, the Navy can't conclusively say it came from the speedboats, since you'd need a lot more than that for direction finding, even if they had the gear. It is therefore possible that it came from a passing ship or shore, a sort of international incident/prank call.

Of course, the fact that there is no background noise in the transmission argues strongly that it did not come from a open speedboat with a large outboard motor.

But it sure did make for 'dramatic' propagandavideo, right?

Shafty: Another U.S.S. Cole incident (new window).

If those boats got any closer, they'd have been blown into teeny-tiny shards of fiberglass by the guns on the Warships.

There is essentially no chance they could have gotten close enough to hurt the ships, even if they were stacked to the gills with c-4.

You go to war with the video you have - not the one you want.