In Latest Embarrassment For Obama, Iran Releases Footage Of Arrest, Apology Of 10 U.S. Sailors
With just hours to go before Obama's last State of the Union address, the US president suffered his latest foreign policy fiasco when around noon local time, Iran arrested 10 US sailors in a boat that has allegedly entered deep into Iranian territorial waters.
Needless to say, there was no mention of this in Obama's address and the scandal was quietly swept under the rug when the 9 young men and 1 woman were released earlier today, and all questions just why the soldiers were released only well after the SOTU's conclusion (were they a hostage bargaining chip in case Obama said something out untoward last night regarding Iran) were soundly ignored.
However, while there may have been some doubt as to Iran's intentions yesterday, all doubt was eliminated moments ago when Iran's state broadcaster just released photos not just of the 10 captured soldiers, which were shown earlier, but of their arrest as well as the seizure of the boat and their weapons.
Here is the just released TV footage, courtesy of Sobhan Hassanvand:
Fars news shows the video of capturing the US navy sailors pic.twitter.com/7kbsUe8kDR
— Zaid Benjamin (@zaidbenjamin) January 13, 2016
Here is a video of the US Commander apologizing (via Fox):
Video from Iranian state television shows a US Navy sailor apologizing while being detained. https://t.co/Ymr632ThF1
https://t.co/IlvSh46NLn
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 13, 2016
And here are excerpted photos, showing US sailors being treated as common Somali pirates:
Finally, putting Iran's aggression in context:
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Can we please salute these losers at the Superbowl?
Did anyone else see American flags on any of the craft? I only saw flags for nations that I am not familiar with. So who were these vessels (captured) representing if not the United States. I assume the reason Iran is showing the passport, wait military guys don't take their passport on missions do they?
Something just doesn't smell right here - Iran is trying to tell the world something.
4th pic clearly shows US flags, passport is comical though
That's the Ground Zero Page of an Official Saudi Passport found on 9/11.
Solid green and blue flag with yellow symbol are not Iranian flag that I know of. These are flying on the suppsedly Iranian boats. The US boats did have US flags but they seem to be removed in subsequent pics.
You will never get the whole story.
Seriously? I hope it took more than that one little modified pleasure craft in the pics to force 2 US attack boats and 20 of her finest to surrender.... did the Iranians use an attack dolphin too?
No one is wearing any insignia in the photos. None of the backpack photos show the normal US flags or nametape insignias. There's no identifying markings on the outside of the boat, just one easily removable US flag on the back of each.
This was a special operations team, not a coast patrol. They are all wearing ground operations gear, not navy uniforms. This was an insertion team that got burned.
The question is, how did they get burned?
I was about to post the same thoughts.
Certainly they were not off course.
With today's navagation equipment they knew where they were.
They were captured around noon, local time. In other words, not under the cover of darkness. They were in easily identifiable US Navy boats. The boats have US flags flying. The teams had easily identifiable US uniforms on.
Conclusion: It was not that special of a Special Op.
f'ing squids get lost all the time. I remember back in 79 I got stuck on the Midway for a spell...they pulled out of Yokuska to go on a three hour cruise to Gilligan's Island and ended up in the freakin Persian Gulf. I hate when that happens.
Well, there was that time coming back from the Caribbean, making going home turns on the screw...
Standard Disclaimer: "Torpedo in the water"... Yes, being ahead of schedule put us onto one of our torpedo exercise ranges off the eastern seaboard. True Story.
i suspect they may have been probing for iran's security apparatus and protocol. they have probably been testing the waters since they got there to map the bogies they will have to circumvent. they got surprised(emp?).
i kinda laugh at this in a dark way. the usa has been used to operating without real opposition for decades now. arrogance has a way of missing important data points. i can hear the debriefing now, "everything shut down suddenly". so now they know, 2 klicks inside the wire and you are dead.
And they don't carry passports,,, if that last pic is real.
This pic of the inside of the boat shows a pair of sneakers / running shoes. Also civilian looking clothes in the bags.
I am sure, with more time, I can pick out other peculiarities that don't add up. I bet there are more pics. This is some bullshit.
The Navy doesn't wear thier "white bell-bottomed sailor" (enlisted dress whites) in theater. Those are the issued uniforms Navy personell would wear. Name and rank insignia is on the over-blouse not the under garmets that they are shown wearing. Also it's not regulaton to have flag patches on your packs - thats for the tacticool dick wads at the local gun show.
These where Riverine Combat Boats used by the Navy, SpecOps and Marines. Not shown (probalby for effect) is the other 75 Irainian boats just outside the frame. You've heard of the swarm tatics they use no? Had there been a fight, our sailors would have been out gunned. It wold have been suicide to fight back and leave us with an international crisis.
Doubt we'd be doing an insertion in broad daylight.
Having said that, as usual, this story doesnt add up. We'll never know.
Google US Navy camos and then click images. The Navy wears camo but it is dark blue similar to the dark blue boat.
Not in theater they don't. Look up Navy NWU Type II/III. The aquaflage is not a boots on ground uni currently.
TO ARMS ! TO aRMS ! FILTHY NON KOSHER IRANIANS VIOLATE ALL CIVLIZED LAWS OF MANKIND AND ALL THAT IS SACRED.
pRESIDENT LINCOLN CALLS FOR VOLUNTEERS TO SAVE THE UNION !
Caps LOCK ON, Dude - shout elsewhere, please.
Man those pictures look bad.
da which navy look more professional?
My country, right or wro....my country, usually wron.... my country, dumb as a brick.
The problem is there is a direct disconnect with what the American people want, and the US government does. The US governemnt is purley zionist. Just look at who is bank rolling the Republican debates, Sheldon Adleson. And on the Dems, Clinton's sugar daddy is Soros. Of course it goes well beyond that, but our military is caught in the middle.
these were US spies spec ops going to do some damage to Iran... surprised they were released... If Iran spec ops were trying to harm USA would be a different story
First off you would ONLY hear about it if it served thei zionist media narative.
And you would find many Americans, but NOT The majority that would want to go to war because of it...
It is hard to tell what Americans really want, because we have to relay on a media that is pure PR to "inform us".
Why do you people want our guys to die? We are not at war or overtly armed hostility's with Iran. If those boats had drifted into our allies waters [SA or even Israel] quite likely it would have been a worse outcome.
Those sailors are our people. Every single one of them trained and prepared to die for this country if necessary, and I will wager half my net worth there isn't a coward among them. Yes they could have put up a hell of a fight, but why?
Both these boats have at minimum twin engines with seperate fuel supplies and redundant electronics. They don't just break down, especially two boats. They got EMP'd or, there over night stay dining on Falal was planned. No harm done.
I noticed one of the Iranian guys checking out our boats had a chubby, jonesing to run our equip. : ) Iran is not our governments enemy, we are.
Thank the neo-bolshie-cons for creating the chaos whereby Americans root for the other side. Especially when USSA gov't merc's are doing their best for Soros-Adelman, etc. So please. Don't blame us dumb sheeple. Let us go back to XBox 360. We cheer for the guy with the most KILLS.
This is an ambrassment to the US Navy, not to Obama.
Who is the Commander and Chief of the Armed Forces?
The president is not allowed to make decisions.
I respect your point. Nevertheless, who is the Commander and Chief of the USA Armed Services? Just because he is bought, paid for, and handled, does not mean he is not where the buck must stop.
I am no big Obama fan but, I have to agree it is not that easy. You just don't go in and tell the JCS what to do. I guess he could pull a Truman and fire them but there would massive blowback and the brass would, certainly, make him pay. Look at what happened to JFK after he took them on! I'll bet Obama is counting the days until he is free to retire to Hawaii to design his own golf course and ditch the Wookie!
If a President was going to take them on he would have to take direct control of all forces and surround the NSA, CIA, Pentagon and FBI and spend the rest of his term hiding in a bunker because there would be 1000s of cesium umbrellas just waiting to get a poke at him.
These are expensive toys. The Navy has gone so far as to form a special branch for these speed boats and their crews. They train very much like other special forces. A lot of wanna be's are weeded out in the basic training for Boat Service. Not as far as SEALS, but these guys are Special Forces by any measure. I doubt their value in the age of helicopters and small submarines. But the Navy really enjoys training the crews and running the boats.
Why were they so close to Iran. Well, frankly there are no military uses for the special boat squadrons really. So they operate where they can be close to a hostile shore. I guess this gives them a feeling of real combat training.
In Vietnam the USN had a large river and coastal force. Including Navy Helicopter Gun Ships for support. The Navy likes to keep a highly trained core force of small boats, in case we do another Vietnam type thing. Like in Iraq, these boats would have been present on the major rivers.
His lofo supporters just love this denigration of our country!
Nobody seems to be discussing the possibility that we were doing something we weren't supposed to be doing (illegal war, assasination, spying, espionage, etc.) and had to make up an excuse like mechanical failure.
We were told the sailors were released with their original craft - so did the Iranians fix the problems for us so the sailors could leave promptly?
I hope someone asks questions on this one, I've got a hunch we had our noses where they didn't belong... again.
Right on, do you remember the two "hikers" that the Iranians caught sneaking into their country? they looked like CIA and Mossad, and most likely were, but don't expect zionist media to report that, no.
There is NOTHING more contrived or controlled than the US people's reality. Our music, our movies, our "news", education, elections...all formed to create a compliant nation whose leaders do nothing for the people, yet we keep accepting their reality, even though deep down inside we know they are monsters.
One more point. The modern Anti Tank Guided Missile is these boats worst nightmare. Guided by wire and thus able to counter any attempts to avoid the missile, these boats would come off very badly if any enemy had even semi modern ATGM. Yemen forces have used these to kill Saudi Boats. The Donbass rebels also killed several Ukrainian small gunboats like these using ATGMs. Trying to run away doesn't work, the missile is fast and course corrected right to impact.
The US TOW missiles given to Syrian rebel groups caused Syria to lose a lot of tanks, people and territory. In ground combat these ATGMs are like "mini kings of the battle field."
true and Iran's have thousands of those boats
and armed you do not see
very efficient
Wild conjecture on my part- We have been high speedin our shit hot patrol craft through Iranian waters for quite a few years. The Russians decide to embarrass us by using their directed EMP on this pair. The motors and radios are fried and the Iranians show up in their Boston Whalers.
Occam's razor sez you are da winnah!
I had speculated the Russian involvement up thread, but not the EMP. Why not? What a wake up call.
USN
Never Again
I usually read the story and the comments very carefully before I post a comment. But a brief skim over both have indicated to me most have missed the point of this event.
The point is best crystallized by the following question: A suburban Chicago housewife, with a minivan full of children on the way to a soccer match and a school bake sale would use her iPhone or any other GPS device to avoid straying into a “bad area”...So the United States Navy skirting around what is known to be hostile waters right before the US President's State of the Union speech “stray” into Iran's waters and we think this to be an accident?”
The answer is it is not an accident. Who and what is behind it we can only speculate. But there is a suggestion that there are those who know more about Iran floating around in State, CIA and our military, than the White House and our Press (or our Press is willing to know) and they wanted to send us a message rather than the Iranians wanting to send us a message. To make things easy for us the message is “Watch your shit with the Iranians all is not well, they are not nor will they ever be our friends.” And if you think the Saudis who are our friends suck at being our friends the Iranians will make the Saudis look like Quakers.
Nothing of this significance happens by accident, NOTHING!
Why do you believe the Iranian version of the GPS coordinates?
The GPS coordinates used by the US Navy are the creation of the United States gov. Iran has nothing to do with it. We know not only where we are at all times but where the Iranians are at all times.
I liked your comment, but must question the last part, 'Iran won't be a good friend', really, Iran? It seems to me America, is far more interested in fucking with Iran that they US. I don't recall Iran assassinating and US leaders (Israel on the other hand), and I don't recall any coup instigated by Iran (Israel on the other hand)...
It is important to remember America had no enemies in the Middle East for Israel was created.
THE NEW USSA, OBAMA'S USSA, ON YOUR FRIGGING KNEES "GIRLS" & BEND OVER!
yes, it is so much better just to bomb everyone else into oblivion.
I only wish those who were so hungry for war and death, were those who were on the front lines. A bunch of McShame zionist chicken hawks.
ah, USSA is not on the front line anymore, hello
E M P