Mr. Thompson rocks tonight. Asked about the recent confrontation between United States warships and Iranian speedboats, he suggests casually that if Iran's Revolutionary Guard becomes more hostile, the Iranians will see those virgins they've been looking for.
Mr. Paul goes on a tear, suggesting his rivals want to start World War III over Iran. Brit Hume, one of the moderators, points out that all of the rivals have said they would react passively, to which Mr. Paul replies, "I'm very sorry, I can't hear a word you said." Mr. Romney takes a slap at Mr. Paul, drawing boos from the audience.
While I'm sure someone must've pointed this out, I'm going to say it for good measure because a) I like seeing my picture up on the comments, hehe and b) it's worth repeating. The original speech was supposed to be "military-industrial-congressional" complex. The last part was left out to not step on too many toesies.
Well, maybe. I, for one, don't trust the Iranians any more than I trust neocons, though.
My guess would be that the incidents happened but were unauthorized in any official capacity, and this is the Iranian way of disavowing it while making the US look like chumps.
Well, maybe. I, for one, don't trust the Iranians any more than I trust neocons, though.
My guess would be that the incidents happened but were unauthorized in any official capacity, and this is the Iranian way of disavowing it while making the US look like chumps.
I don't think the incident didn't happen. But when the DoD releases a tape they intentionally alter with disclosing that fact until it is pointed out by others, it raises serious red flags. Especially since the DoD has a bit of a credibility problem when it comes to truth-telling and such.
Well, maybe. I, for one, don't trust the Iranians any more than I trust neocons, though.
My guess would be that the incidents happened but were unauthorized in any official capacity, and this is the Iranian way of disavowing it while making the US look like chumps.
I don't think the incident didn't happen. But when the DoD releases a tape they intentionally alter with disclosing that fact until it is pointed out by others, it raises serious red flags. Especially since the DoD has a bit of a credibility problem when it comes to truth-telling and such.
You're referring to this?
Naval and Pentagon officials have said that the video and audio were recorded separately, then combined. On Wednesday, Pentagon officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak officially, said they were still trying to determine if the transmission came from the speedboats or elsewhere.
. . .
The audio includes a heavily accented voice warning in English that the Navy warships would explode. However, the recording carries no ambient noise - the sounds of a motor, the sea or wind - that would be expected if the broadcast had been made from one of the five small boats that sped around the three-ship American convoy.
Yeah, it does raise red flags. The whole, "I am coming to destroy you" schtick sounded pretty hokey and cartoonish, too, like something out of a Schwarzenegger movie, or maybe Bad Boys II. Still, I can't say as I'm ready to draw any conclusions yet about what components of the event are being lied about by whom.
Well, maybe. I, for one, don't trust the Iranians any more than I trust neocons, though.
My guess would be that the incidents happened but were unauthorized in any official capacity, and this is the Iranian way of disavowing it while making the US look like chumps.
I've been considering that since the incident. I'm with you Zarth, in that I'm not so sure I would believe either side.
Not only did the transcripts of the recording did sound pretty ridiculous, the still photos I've seen them showing do not really seem show what they are purporting. Speed boats racing around, I see. I don't see them in the wake or even proximity of any US ships. Weren't they supposedly crossing in between the US ships ?
I am in the Navy and have been over there multiple times. I served on a submarine so I didn't spend as much time on the surface where they could all see us, but we did have to surface to go through straights (such as Hormuz) or canals (such as the Suez). These kind of things do happen. Ours were never as coordinated or serious as this, but we definitely had their ships come much closer to us than we liked.
The most serious was actually when we were underwater. It was shortly after the Suez so they knew there was a submarine in the area. An Iranian sub basically shadowed us for about 6 hours, constantly hitting us with active sonar(a very aggressive maneuver for a submarine). We manned battlestations and got our torpedos and defensive measures ready but continued on our course. We couldn't send them messages or anything since we were underwater obviously, but we just kept going or way until they eventually got bored and left.
I'm not sure what the reason for it was. Maybe they were trying to provoke a fight (unlikely), maybe just giving us shit(maybe), or just letting us know that they were aware of us being there and didn't like it(probably). Either way it was a very intense experience for me.
I don't believe that the DoD would make something like this up. It is a little sketchy that the audio doesn't have background noise I'll admit, but all it takes is a closed room really. I haven't seen the boats so I couldn't tell you one way or the other for sure.
The big point is that we can not afford to take these events lightly. If we had sunk all of those speedboats I would have been completely fine with it. I've seen what happened on the Cole, I even got to take a tour of it recently now that it's all put back together. It's terrifying, honestly. I'm not sure what else to say, if anybody wants to know anything more just ask.
jtemperance
Chicago, IL
January 2004
JAN 10, 2008 07:45 PM