Caught With Our Pants Down In The Gulf
Submitted by Justin Raimondo via AntiWar.com,
Your bullshit-ometer should be making an awful racket in response to the shifting explanations given for the twenty-four-hour Iranian hostage scare involving two US Navy boats intercepted in the Gulf.
First they told us “at least one of the boats” had experienced a “mechanical failure.” Then they said the boats had run out of fuel, although it wasn’t clear if they meant both boats. Then they said “there was no mechanical problem.” Then they claimed that the two crews had somehow not communicated with the military command, although “they could not explain how the military had lost contact with not one but both of the boats.” As the New York Times reported:
“Even as Mr. Kerry was describing the release on Wednesday morning, American military officials were offering new explanations about how the two 49-foot patrol boats, formally called riverine command boats, had ended up in Iranian territorial waters while cruising from Kuwait to Bahrain.”
And they still haven’t explained it – or any of the other distinctly odd circumstances surrounding this incident.
The best they could do was have an anonymous Navy officer aver “When you’re navigating in those waters, the space around it gets pretty tight.” However, as the Times put it:
“But that is hardly a new problem, and the boats’ crews would almost surely have mapped out their course in advance, paying close attention to the Iranian boundary waters. And each boat has radio equipment on board, so it was unclear how the crews suddenly lost communication with their base unless they were surrounded by Iranian vessels before they could alert their superiors.”
We are told they were on a “training mission” – but what kind of mission? The Washington Post adds a helpful detail by telling us that “The vessels, known as riverine command boats, are agile and often carry Special Operations forces into smaller bodies of water.”
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.
Amid all the faux outrage coming from the neocons and their enablers in the media over the alleged “humiliation” of the US – Iran “paraded” the sailors in their media! They made one of the sailors apologize! The Geneva Conventions were violated! – hardly anyone in this country is asking the hard questions, first and foremost: what in heck were those two boats doing in Iranian waters?
And if you believe they somehow “drifted” within a few miles of Farsi Island, where a highly sensitive Iranian military base is located, then you probably think there’s a lot of money just waiting for you in a Nigerian bank account.
Anyone who thinks the adversarial relationship between Washington and Tehran has turned into “détente” due to the nuclear deal is living in Never-Never Land. Our close ally, Saudi Arabia, has all but declared war on the Iranians and that means we are being dragged into the rapidly escalating conflict. In this context, two US military boats coming a mile and a half away from a major Iranian base in the Gulf isn’t an accident. This ‘training mission” was a military incursion, and although we have no way of knowing what mission the US hoped to accomplish, suffice to say that it wasn’t meant to be a kumbaya moment.
Rachel Maddow is also raising questions about this: after a load of nonsense about how showing the sailors on Iranian media violated the Geneva Conventions – they didn’t: we aren’t at war with Iran yet – she pointed out the suspicious nature of the Pentagon’s shifting story during her January 13 broadcast.
To add another layer to the mystery, the Iranian government released the sailors after holding them for less than twenty-four hours – which isn’t the sort of behavior one might expect if those sailors were on a spy mission. And the Iranians issued an Emily Litella-ish statement, as reported by the Los Angeles Times:
“’After explanations the U.S. gave and the assurances they made, we determined that [the] violation of Iranian territorial waters was not deliberate, so we guided the boats out of Iranian waters,’ said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.”
So if those two boats were “snooping,” as the Fars News Agency originally claimed, why would Tehran come out with this all-is-forgiven statement?
None of it makes any sense, at least not until one realizes that the Iranian government is hardly a monolith: power is divided up between various agencies and factions, with only the loosest sort of unity being enforced by the Supreme Leader. Farsi Island is controlled by the hard-line Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the hard-line faction of the ruling elite, which wields enormous political and economic power within the multi-polar Iranian state apparatus. It was the hard-liners who released the video and photos of the American sailors with their hands in the air, and their spokesmen demanded an apology from the US. It was the diplomats, however – the moderates, who negotiated the Iran deal – whose contacts with the US facilitated the sailors’ quick release.
But it isn’t just the Iranians who are riven with factions and conflicting lines of authority: the American empire is overseen by a vast national security bureaucracy involving both military and civilians, and it isn’t monolithic, either. Although, in theory, civilians are in the drivers’ seat and the military just follows orders, in reality the Pentagon is an independent power that can obstruct or even effectively veto whatever diplomatic or military plans the White House has in mind. And while opposition to the nuke deal was centered in Congress, the Pentagon insisted at the last moment that sanctions on conventional arms and particularly those related to ballistic missiles remain in place. Iran’s recent testing of medium range ballistic missiles must have the generals in an uproar, and it could well be that this “training mission” in the Gulf was related – as either a spying mission, or an outright provocation designed to imperil relations. Or perhaps both.
We’ll probably never know for sure: but what we certainly can know is that the official explanation for this latest incident stinks to high heaven. There’s no denying we were caught by the Iranians with our pants down. The only question is – how were we trying to f—k them over?
I warned after the signing of the Iran deal that we are in for a long series of provocations in the Gulf, and this is only the beginning. In order to keep all this in perspective, just remember that the long dance between Washington and Tehran involves at least four partners, including their hard-liners and ours.
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Anyone can speculate fucktard.
But to add butter to the hole, Yomma is following the dicktaste of Zbigneiw Brzezinski's Grand Chess Game Theory, which is to take out Russia and China. Yomama can't do this with out Iran.
The US needs to snuggle up to Iran, which they are, despite the Pentagon's NeoCon/Zionist Game Theory which is in Israels' interest (The Bush administration were their patsies).
Of course the Zionist cunts are going to wail at their fucking wall. They want Iran, Syria, and ultimately all of Islam in their neighborhood destroyed. The US is half-way there, spent $5 Trillion making it happen for them, and now Yomama is fucking up the final soulution.This fact is confirmed by the Yomama Administration's cold shower with BiBi Nuttyahoo.
What we are witnessing is the split foreign policy factions in Washington bickering like little fucking girls about how to rule the world.
After Yomama has had his way with them, the American MSM wipe their zebra cum breath and try to sell a story of continuity and clear foreign policy direction to anyone who will listen.
(Remember that graphic when you watch them speak).
BTW, read this "safer world" shit from the NYT...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/opinion/a-safer-world-thanks-to-the-ir...
There are no "good guys" in the USA govt or intel agencies fighting for Americans or The Constitution. it is a fairy tale.
THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB 1960's INTRO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4C_lUy58Rw (3:08)
I can hear Bruce Springsteen's new song:
"We were caught with our pants down
I can't get it up but I'm still in the game
Don't start without me or you'll be the one to blame."
Two boats with GPS were lost????? There is way too much Hollywood here. There has to be a plot yet to be uncovered. We should stick to making movies.
We seem to lose every war we start.
A missile fired?????
"Just sit right back
And you'll hear a tale
A tale of a fateful trip,
That started from this tropic port,
Aboard this tiny ship..."
Anti-War dot com?
If Justin is so Anti War then he'd support an Iran nuke deal as well as the lifting of sanctions. If the history of the past 100 years (need we go further?) is any indication it's that sanctions, blockades, and embargos inevitably lead to war in the long term, and the leaders of blockaded countries only getting creative/smarter in order to circumvent the immediate economic or even survival issue facing them.
Sanctions also lead to internal support for the ruling regime which is the recipient of sanctions (since they now have a clearly visible enemy to point to who is attacking not only the regime, but the population's well being and standard of living as well), and not any supposed "regime change" that is often touted as the intended effect by the sanctioners.
Indeed, there will most likely be a
"long series of provocations"
by the US,
thousands of miles from its borders,
to back its wahabbist Gulf ally,
petro-dollar resources, finances, pipelines,
and to exact a "clean break" strategy
aiming for globalism full-spectrum dominance.
Nice poem
the compelling thing for me were the passports. those soldiers are gi. the only identification they need are whatever they use to identify them when they are dead. no one needs to know who they are when they are alive except for inventory purposes.
the reason why the zionazis were so quick to frame this as disrespect for the usa is because the point was for the usa and iran, in collaberation, to show the wqorld they are friendly with each other now. they weren't going to send some green soldier who might flip out and fire at the iranians. they send specops for stuff as serious as a fake capture complete with instructions for the co to "apologize" to their hosts.
i agree with justin that none of this appears as it is explained but it was done on purpose. i also agree that the zionazis will not allow detente between the usa and iran without introducing obstacles that may include killing americans to prove their assertions of a duplicitous, evil iran.
the usa military, if you believe hersch(sp), already disagrees with usa policy in the region. patraeus' big career ending mistake was calling israel policy the gravest security threat to usa interests in the region.
israel is insanely angry. saudi arabia can cause some trouble but their oil weapon has been neutered by iran detente. israel is the one to watch. in their insane anger they will do something insane. expect a suitcase nuke or a neutron bomb with made in iran in block letters in english written all over it with brand new, pristine iranian passports in the debris.
Trying to plant a few nukes are we yanks?
Naughty, naughty!
When the truth is not your friend, LIE!
this is only the beginning....
No shit?! Really?!!!
Does anyone recall the plan 9 years ago that Dick Cheney and Cofer Black were working on to decorate U.S. Navy special ops gun boats with Iranian Navy markings in order to attack a U.S. Navy vessel as a "legitimate excuse" to start WWIII?...
Or how 'bout this one for a rust bucket that is too expensive to decommission and take apart in a ship yard state side so why not tell the World the Iranians or Russians were responsible for "blowing it to shit"?!!! MH-17 was a nice dress rehearsal that didn't work... but if at first you don't succeed -Keep trying!... Even if they have severe doubts about this one that launched all those ships in the first place!
Just keep telling yourselves that the U.S. MIC and the Federal Reserve that owns them ain't that desperate!
Tick... Tock... Tick... Tock...
I preferred it when we simply said something was classified or "No comment.". Now, there seems to be this compulsion to come up with a "story" and usually a half-assed one at that. That is when you get into trouble.
None of the pieces fit or hold up from what I read. However, besides the eternal penchant to make all news Jewish news, I do not see any Israeli fingerprints in this. It's a long way through naval chain of command to Iran to having an orchestrated event.
But then a bunch of you want to make all events from earthquakes to Paris massacres Jewish events.
They dropped off special forces. Pretty reasonable assumption.
After running out of fuel they were escorted out of territorial waters..But they were out of fuel? At exactly the same time heading in the same direction gas runs out and both GPS and the compasses failed on both boats. Is this the bermuda triangle?
Horseshit.
Setup! The BO Administration agreed to this Kodak moment. Funny how we got 3 political prisoners back as part of this supposed embarrassing episode. There was no mention of this during theSOUA. BO doesn't care for the military and will emasculate them at every opportunity he gets. The officers in charge had been told before hand to stand down. No one was manning a gun and no was wearing flak vest. This story is total BS.
Iran is our enemy because we think Iran is our enemy.
Because our hasbara Zionist Pravda Newspeak propaganda says it is so.
Like burying the body at sea.
We'll never know for sure.
As I see it, the Iranians wanted X number of prisoners released but only had Y number to trade in return.
So it was necessary to provide them with enough extra hostages to make the deal balance.
The very first fruit of the Donald Trump campaign-- Obama trying to appear like Monty Hall swo far as dealmaking ability is concerned.
Having been in the Persian Gulf, there are all kinds of assets, seal team incursions, AHIP helicopters, cat and mouse games, armed barges, armed decoy Dhows, so an incident like this happening is highly likely, but then the timing is completely suspect and highly unlikely, several days before the handover of funds and lifting of sanctions. These sailors were set up to take the fall and this is an intentional pys-ops exercise for the media and the other players.
The sweetener to get the boats and sailors returned had nothing to do with the apology but everything to do with money. See the last minute addition of $1.7B in funds transfer, mostly in deferred interest paid from the bank account of US taxpayers.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/17/politics/us-pays-iran-1-7-billion/index.html
However, the paper tiger meme created by this incident for the media is intentional. The Iranians have no intention of war directly. It is difficult to see the end game here, but I do believe it leads to Shiite Iran war with Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. What side the US plays in this development and on which side it fights is unknown. The diversion away from the terrorist Wahhabi state is understandable, especially after this lead OPEC country shafted American consumers for decades. China's Xi is headed to both these countries now to diplomatically attempt to keep the peace and oil flowing. But everyone should remember PNAC's long run plan in this context, Afghanistan, check, Iraq, check, Egypt check, Libya, check, Syria, check. What does that leave in the plan but Iran currently without WMDs?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUCwCgthp_E&list=WL&index=11
You know someone is gettig set up when the third excuse was the batteries on their dashboard garmin GPS went dead. But is it the American people, Obama, or Iran?
Simple. The US SOCOM operators were short on munitions, so they stopped @ Wahabi Lobby for a quick resupply.
About the obvious: If the boats were some sort of covert operation, Iran could have simply said...
The suggestion that this is some sort of propaganda ruse seems likely.
The US is the "Great Satan" to Iranians. Period.
From Wiki: "The term was originally used by Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini in his speech on November 5, 1979 to describe the United States whom he accused of imperialism and the sponsoring of corruption throughout the world."
This does sound appropriate. Given the historical record it is just such a shame that the US Government has done so much to earn the epithet.
I say it's time for Zerohedge to send a delegate to Tehran on behalf of Americans who "get it". Between hits of hasheesh, communitiy ties will be formed and both nations will be better. I'm hoping we can make a few rural towns "Sister Cities" with a foreign exchange program. We all have a lot in common, Iran and ZHers. In good faith we should trade pimped out 4wd vehicles.
If GoogeEarth has Farsi Island located correctly, it's about 115 miles north of the northern tip of Bahrain and 135 miles north of the northern tip of Qatar. (It's about 30 miles between Bahrain and Qatar by water)
That morning, http://earth.nullschool.net/ showed a strong wind out of the north channeling down the Arabian Sea from Farsi down to Bahrain/Qatar.
Apparently both boats lost power (which disabled their communications) and drifted over 100 miles against strong wind and currents to land on a strategic island in the Gulf midway between Saudi and Iran.
It's just as simple as that. No conspiracy theory required on this one.
Tikihut, please... two US boats lost power? Strong wind from the north? What, are they in sail boats and can't hove? You twit!
Fuck off with your conspiracy theory. Or, should I say thanks for the info?
Those waters are well travelled. The idiots on board apologizing is about as Bullshit as your locutions. Go back to Mr. Peabody.
Yes, but HOW? Surely this is the ONLY question!!
.
.
.
.
EMP bitchez!
He's being sarcastic, boat don't drift (especially 100 miles) AGAINST strong winds and currents. As for losing power, a problem for engines maybe but not radios that use batteries, even a hand held marine vhf could be used. He is trying to use data to show how absurd the story is.
"It's like this Mr Mullah, I can't just give up the terrorist spies we captured red handed in our territory, you need need to trade something for their release, like for instance some.......captured US military? "
No, Really, Mr. Mullah... It was a prank call. See, we had an order to deliver these Xtra large Hawaiian Tiki Hut Pizzas with ham and pineapple and stuffed crusts and, like, it was just a prank call. "We're really sorry". Can we go home now?
Shape up America! Bibi is not happy with you.
Truth masquerading as cynicism.
When you wrongly imprison a person
(while offenders roam free)
remember, that person, when released
will become your worst adversary
nay, your worst enemy
who will pray everyday for your death
nice poem
I'll bet those boats made a direct course to Farsi from Kuwait...
Prez Golfstix has always had a fail/fail foreign policy record. Now that he has more leisure time on his hands to sue Christians for complaining about Muslims that won't deliver beer after being told it was there job when they were hired, expect his foreign policy decisions to become abysmal.
As a foreign observer, the Obama administration and its foreign policy is defined for me by the image of the American military personell kneeling before their Iranian captors. Never imagined I would see that and I'm sorry for it.
Yeah, guy, I'm sorry about the 0bama administration too. It's too bad that the American military folks have to get on their knees before it. Thanks. Don't let it happen to you.
It's OK. The US is not the country it once was. It has been usurped and is now something of an alien among the peoples of the world. The jokers that apologized while kneeling were not the brightest and best. They enlisted for a paycheck (mercenaries) and or they may have enlisted because they thought they were bringing freedom and democracy to the world. In either case not having the brains to know better.
SWIFT boat Kerry wanted pay back from the Navy for their veterans prior embarrassment of him and to also look like a diplomatic hero.
The swan song of John F'ing Kerry.
His final hurdle before being sent to the glue factory.
I kinda like Iran. Not sure why, but I'm sure it's just as shallow as why people hate her. Persian women rock, ohh but they're the devil. Boggity boggity!
"Truth is the first casualty of government."
Very few of you will have been physically near Iranian Revolutionary guards. I can tell you they are mean looking. President Rafsanjani visited my former Saudi University once. The Guards are very useful looking so don't mess with them. I saw them standing outside my Reserach Institute with baseball bat type weapons.
America don't mess with these people.
Deny Iranians the means of defence ... in this case, nuclear weapons .... how does that differ from "gun-grabbing"?
Seems to me that it's exactly the same mentality at work.
Well this didn't take long!
https://www.rt.com/news/329268-tehran-us-sanction-illegal/
US sanctions illegal as American arms used against Palestinians, Yemenis - Iranian FM
Iran has accused the US of hypocrisy and said that new sanctions imposed by the US are illegal, as arms sold by Washington are being used against people in Palestine and Yemen, the Iranian Foreign Ministry has stated.A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Hossein Jaberi Ansari, says that Tehran will continue to enhance its missile capabilities, despite Washington introducing fresh sanctions, following a missile test by Iran in October, Press TV reports.
"The US sanctions against Iran's ballistic missile program ... have no legal or moral legitimacy," Reuters cited Ansari as saying in a televised news conference.
"America sells tens of billions of dollars of weaponry each year to countries in the region,” Ansari said. “These weapons are used in war crimes against Palestinian, Lebanese and most recently Yemeni citizens.”
On Sunday, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on 11 companies and individuals for helping to supply Iran’s ballistic missile program.
“Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat to regional and global security, and it will continue to be subject to international sanctions,” Adam J. Szubin, acting Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in a statement.
“We have consistently made clear that the United States will vigorously press sanctions against Iranian activities outside of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – including those related to Iran’s support for terrorism, regional destabilization, human rights abuses and ballistic missile program.”
On December 31, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that Tehran should expand its missile program in response to threats of new US sanctions.
In a letter to Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan, Rouhani said that Iran needed to step up its missile capabilities in response to aggressive actions by the US, which was threatening to impose more sanctions over a missile test that Tehran held in October. Rouhani said Iran had a right to continue developing its missiles, since they are not capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
“As the US government is clearly still pursuing its hostile policies and illegal meddling... the armed forces need to quickly and significantly increase their missile capability,” Rouhani wrote.
Iran knows what snakes the asshole zionists that run the US government are, they've been bribing them since GW Bush, here is the proof of executive level treason -since GW Bush.
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/schlumberger-oilfield-holdings-ltd-agrees-...
GW had Clinton and GW Bush appointees on the SLM board.
Iran knows the US Executive office is for sale, the only question is price.
Obirdbrain is an apex progressive. What we see here is progressive policy at it's finest.
And of course, the progressive stupid, it burns.
True constitutional conservatives would have never intervened in Iran's affairs. Foreign intervention is wholly owned progressive criminal shit-show.
Grimaldus
Sounds like the plotline for a new 'Expendables' movie.
"I repeat, this is a strict re-con only. Do not engage under any circumstances. Got it?"
" Well, what if we ran out out of gas, our GPS goes down and the engines fail? Can we blast our way out?"
" That is a negative, gawddammit!"