One step kloser to the edge…
By Thoreau
Iran is being accused of provoking US Navy ships in the straits of Hormuz. With all the activity and tension in the area, it wouldn’t surprise me if somebody got too close to somebody else and nearly started something by accident. However, this part seems bizarre:
A radio transmission from one of the Iranian ships said, “I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes,” CNN reported, citing a U.S. official.
That seems like a weird thing for somebody to broadcast. If they are planning to, say, ram an explosives-packed boat into a ship, why announce it? If they are just cruising around, seeing how close people will come to a line, not actually planning to attack, why send a message like that? Until we hear more, I’m assuming this allegation is bullsh!t, a way to beat the war drums.
Comment by Dave Woycechowsky —
January 7, 2008 @ 10:01 am
“I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes,†. . . seems like a weird thing for somebody to broadcast.
Sounds like somebody’s pr0n got picked up on the radio.
Comment by wade —
January 7, 2008 @ 10:11 am
Say what you like about the iranians, but they sure know how to hand out a good taunting.
Comment by Thoreau —
January 7, 2008 @ 10:26 am
But do they fart in our general direction?
Comment by Sir Oolius —
January 7, 2008 @ 10:32 am
If all else fails, we’ll Tonkin our way into war with ‘em!
Comment by Doug —
January 7, 2008 @ 11:11 am
Or they with us.
Comment by Doug —
January 7, 2008 @ 11:12 am
By the way, Iranians smell of elderberries.
Comment by LBS —
January 7, 2008 @ 11:21 am
Remember the Gulf of Tompkin incident — that very effective lie that very effectively started a disasterous war.
Comment by ran —
January 7, 2008 @ 11:25 am
oh noes, someone’s taunting our boys. call the waaaaambulance, stat.
Comment by joe —
January 7, 2008 @ 11:35 am
Sometimes I think our navy should stock dummy rounds just for situations like this.
You wanna see what “coming close” looks like? Splash!!!
Just a little good, clean fun all around.
Comment by borehole —
January 7, 2008 @ 1:46 pm
I too am going to assume it’s bullshit until we hear more. And when we hear more, I’ll assume that’s bullshit too.
I don’t know why the neocons think this is what they need to salvage their legacy, but they do, and if we can’t see the lyingest liars in Fibberstan for what they are by now, we deserve to inherit the ashes they keep trying to bequeath to us.
Comment by Ian —
January 7, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
I notice in the article that the American ships were also issuing some “warnings.”
“Come closer and we will blow you out of the water!”
“Oh yeah? Well, I’m coming for you! You will explode in a couple of minutes!”
“You will explode right now if you don’t turn around!”
etc.
That seems like a plausible exchange — a pissing contest between 19 year olds. Of course, only Iranian naval maneuvers are alarming, and only Iranian threats count.
Comment by borehole —
January 7, 2008 @ 2:05 pm
Turns out it’s really hard to nail down the etymology of “pissing contest” via search engines, on account of language nerds tend to have frequent pissing contests over etymology.
Comment by mds —
January 7, 2008 @ 3:11 pm
Crikey, what’s next? “A small Iranian vessel signaled distress; we took it in tow and brought the skipper aboard. The Iranian captain suddenly lunged, one hand outstretched, at an American swabbie, exclaimed ‘Got your nose!’ and disappeared over the rail.” I’m expecting tensions in the Gulf to escalate, with calls of neener-neener leading to Dutch rubs and swirlies.
Can’t beat Woycechowsky’s lead-off comment, though.
Comment by Argonaut —
January 7, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
C’mon guys, you know how we kicked all the gay translators out of the army/navy/congressional softball teams. This is just a bad translation. What the Iranians really said was, “All your base are belong to us.”
Comment by mary —
January 7, 2008 @ 5:52 pm
And then there was the USS Cole ~ Perhaps reminding sailors of this incident makes for a “good taunting” as wade(#2) above notes. As I looked once again @ the Navy’s list of the dead, I’m not sure why but the death of a cook, an African American woman, Mess Management Specialist Seaman Lakeina Monique Francis from Woodleaf, North Carolina, made me cry then and makes me sad now. These were real people, the seventeen who died when the little boat blew a hole in the Cole.
Comment by Tom Scudder —
January 7, 2008 @ 6:01 pm
Note that Iran has parliamentary elections scheduled for this March, which Ahmadinejad’s faction seems likely to do poorly in. So there may be some attempts to stir up election-related nationalist feeling on the other side as well.
Comment by Thoreau —
January 7, 2008 @ 6:05 pm
So there may be some attempts to stir up election-related nationalist feeling on the other side as well.
The sane people of both countries should just send their 28 percenters (or whatever the number is) to a padded arena where they can go after each other.
Comment by wade —
January 8, 2008 @ 4:10 am
looks like they’ve succeeded in taunting you, too Mary
Comment by Alex —
January 8, 2008 @ 6:42 am
18: well, yes. They did it to jerk your chain, knowing full well that the US Navy’s presence in the area is currently not just low (1 CV) but further stretched by the F-15 maintenance crisis, which means the carrier has to cover more of the bill for close air support in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Comment by Dave W. —
January 8, 2008 @ 8:34 am
These were real people, the seventeen who died when the little boat blew a hole in the Cole.
Dead people are more real when the Navy lists them. Dead people who are uncounted and unlisted are more fake./sarc
Comment by ajay —
January 8, 2008 @ 10:51 am
15: …the USS Cole, which was attacked by AQ, not Iran. Iran has nothing to do with AQ.
Comment by mds —
January 8, 2008 @ 11:13 am
Hmmph. Next you’re going to start spouting “Sunni” and “Shiite” and all that other confusing stuff. Iran hates us for removing their good buddy and fellow al Qaeda traveler, Saddam. And for our freedom. Why do you hate freedom?
(Here come the drums, here come the drums.)
Comment by Jack —
January 8, 2008 @ 11:33 am
Well, as a 20 year Navy Surface Warfare Officer (ship driver) with several deployments in the Arabian Gulf, I’ll weigh in:
- Harassement via Bridge to Bridge radio, including threats, is not all that rare in the Arabian Gulf. I would not dismiss it automatically simply because it doesn’t fit into your preferred narrative. Like most of you, I doubt a whole lot of things coming from the neocons, but I have little reason to doubt the Fifth Fleet Commander in this specific situation; it is a quite feasible scenario.
- What may be in question is where the transmission of note came from; one of the IRG boats or an uninvolved vessel within VHF radio range that was listening in on the probably very excited BTB radio back and forth.
- For ran, who said this “oh noes, someone’s taunting our boys. call the waaaaambulance, stat.” Seriously, that’s kinda offensive, I’m pissed off just reading it, and I hope you are just joking and don’t really mean to dismiss out of hand the fear and tension that “our boys” face when something like this occurs. Going through the Sraights of Hormuz with several aggressively manuevering IRG boats surrounding you, in the context of our naval combat history with Iran, in the further context of the IRG being the least professional, wingnutty and politicized of the Iranian uniformed services, in the even further context of the USS Cole and handful of US Navy ships that have hit mines in the AG: It can be unbelievable tense. Knuckles-white, gut-sick tense. But belittle away, by all means.
- For Joe, regarding “dummy rounds”: well, we do, sort of. The five inch guns on the destroyer and cruiser can fire “Blind Loaded and Plugged” (BL&P)rounds, which are essentially non-exploding dummy rounds used for exercise and practice. But it can be hard to switch between those and real rounds, so its not a good idea to fill your magazine with those if you may face hostile fire. Also, if the boats got as close as I suspect, a 5″ gun becomes impracticle, it would be a .50 cal scenario.
- Ian, the warnings that the Navy ships were issueing were almost certainly the standardized, pre-approved, multi-stage warnings for this type of situation. They are specifically designed to prevent engagement where possible, not to escalate.
Comment by mds —
January 8, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
So’s starting another war under false pretenses, Jack.
Yeah, and I’m pissed off that the Pentagon is trumpeting it around, coincidentally as part of an administration that keeps flailing for casus belli.
No, I think ran means to dismiss out of hand the blatantly obvious use of it as propaganda. You even note that such goings on aren’t rare; why was this incident pushed out to the media with such a breathless byline, then? So we’ll keep on belittling a bunch of lying warmongers in the executive branch for their fake “Oh noes!” hysteria, while acknowledging that our men and women in uniform are often in harm’s way, and aren’t the ones shrieking to the media about this “dangerous” Iranian action. By all means, enjoy ladling “stab in the back” sanctimony in all directions, Jack.
Hooray. Here’s hoping they remember that when the Pentagon is issuing press releases about “unduly provacative” threats from the “unpredictable” Iranian government.
Comment by Jack —
January 8, 2008 @ 12:51 pm
mds,
- I am absolutely opposed to the neo-con dolchstosslegende. I am a consistant and aggressive criticizer of this administration and its neocon enablers. After re-reading my comment, I still don’t see where you would get that, unless disagreement on a very specific issue with a (perhaps frequent?) commenter is grounds for neo-con labeling. Perhaps we are speaking around each other, perhaps I you feel I have put meaning to ran’s words that he did not intend, because you sure as heck have done that with mine.
- I agree that we should be very skeptical of any attempt to use an incident like this as grounds for moving us toward hostitilies with Iran. I stipulate this without reservation.
- Where I disagree with ran has to do with what appeared to me a belittling of the situation from the perspective of the crews on those ships, and others. If you disagree with my interpretation, if you think I am being overly sensitive, then say so, why add the “stabbed in the back” accusation?
- I did not mean to imply that “such goings on aren’t rare;”, what I stated and meant was that harrassement via BTB radio is not rare. The combination of mulitiple aggressively manuevering IRG boats with such aggressive radio comments/threats would be rare, and that combination mulitplies the tension.
- The story is not coming entirely from adminstration officials. I count the Fifth Fleet Commander as a member of the military, a guy who has done his fair share of time in the Gulf. He is getting his reports from the ships. I don’t mean to imply that Admirals are perfect arbiters of truth and free of all political influence. But in this specific situation, given what I have seen in the gulf, I can believe this incident. I do so without making the ridiculous jump from “it appened” to “we must now attack Iran.” I do so without suggesting that we have been stabbed in the back.
Comment by Thoreau —
January 8, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
I did not know that. I guess it makes sense that there would be some trash talk between military forces in close proximity. Are there lines that people know not to cross, so that routine trash talk can be distinguished from more serious threats? Do they switch from slang to more serious language? Or does the trash talk come from grunts, while the more serious stuff comes from guys higher up?
How does this work?
I’m genuinely curious. I’d never considered the possibility of navies trash talking each other before.
Comment by Thoreau —
January 8, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
I’m just imagining a bunch of Americans laughing and blasting gangster rap over the air waves while some Iranian grunt is yelling insults on the radio. Then everybody goes stone cold sober when an Iranian Captain gets on the radio and announces that the American boat is near a formally marked boundary.
Comment by mds —
January 8, 2008 @ 1:35 pm
My apologies, Jack. Conflating “the administration” with “the troops” has an ugly history, and I overreacted to what I saw as another attempt to do so. Again, my default assumption, based on my own prejudices, was that ran was not belittling “our boys,” but those who are attempting to spin this as more evidence of the spooooky Iranian Menace. Sure, the sailors in the Straits regularly face peril; but even if the incident happened as reported, I suspect it was met by those on the scene with more stoicism than the Pentagon displayed.
I’ll try not to have such a hair-trigger in the future. (Yes, regular commenters bothering to read this are rolling their eyes right now.)
“I did punch a baby once… in anger. In my defense, the baby was being kind of a dick.”
Comment by joe —
January 8, 2008 @ 1:40 pm
Jack,
No one is asserting that the episode was fictionaly, and no one is demaning the sailors.
The complaint here is that this, as you say, unremarkable occurance is being bandied about as propaganda by politicians trying to start a war.
Also, I knew all of that about the ordnance, and the proximity. I was just joshing.
Comment by joe —
January 8, 2008 @ 1:41 pm
Also, I know how to spell fictional and demeaning.
Comment by Jack —
January 8, 2008 @ 3:28 pm
mds, thanks, I appreciate your saying so.
Joe, no no, I am not at all saying that this incident, as described, is routine. It is absolutely not. Harassment and sometimes threats via the BTB are common, but the encounter as described would leave me pretty freaking tense. Keep in mind the BTB VHF radios are like the internet: anonomous if you want them to be.
Thoreau, an overly wordy and unnecessarily complicated explanation:
It works like this: U.S. Navy ships are incredibly anal retentive about radio communications. On the bridge, speaking on the radio is one of those hard learned lessons we teach our junior officers. We are so anal retentive and stilted in our VHF radio use that guys in fishing dows and merchant ships make fun of us about it. Whereas you might say something like:
“Hey red fishing boat near bouy 44, what are you doing, can you turn to the right a bit?”
We would say “Unidentified fishing vessel, red hull, white pilot house, operating in vicinity of bouy 44 off Hanigans Point on course 150 degrees, this is U.S. Navy Warship 70, off your starboard bow, on course 090 degrees: Your identity and intentions are unknown. Request you modify course to port in order to pass my vessel no closer than 500 yards.” Yeah, we are like that. Not everyone speaks this way, the more experienced guys know you have to simplify things for language barriers, and ship captains are a lot more comfortable speaking less formally, but we are VERY stilted and formal on the radio. Our naval aviator brethren really razz us about it. We berate our radio talkers with the holy phrase: Think, Key, Speak. IOW, you have to think fully what you are gonna say before you even key the mike.
In other words, your scenario with the grunts and the rap music blasting is really really unlikely.
With that as background, let me finally get to your question. I seriously doubt any U.S. navy guys were trash talking the Iranians. When we transit a straight the bridge is filled with people, including the CO and other officers, and nobody is gonna be able to just pick up the BTB radio and trash talk. I’m not pretending we are angels, I’m just telling you navy ship guys know it would be really easy to get caught if you screw around on a omni-directional unencrypted, anyone can listen radio.
- The BTB has a whole lot of channels, some of them are designated the standard hailing channels, some for emergency, some for specific geographic areas etc. Its a lot like a CB radio. Ever listen to those? Recall how much BS goes on on the CB? BTB is like that. Now insert a U.S. government fuddy duddy into the mix talking like an anal retentive hole: you get razzed. We ain’t exaclty popular in that region, we get harrassed just for being there, with some anonomous threats. The Iranians are particuarly sensitive about their claimed territorial waters, and sometimes are a bit imaginitive in where they think that line really is. Recall the British sailors taken by the Iranians some months back. The IRG really are the wingnuts of the Iranian uniformed services. They are provocative where they do not need to be.
- If a ship or other vessel is doing something that concerns a U.S. navy ship they will issue preformated radio messages to the vessel of concern requesting they state their intentions and turn away. If they don’t the radio messages get more forceful, with the stated willingness to defend the ship. So you have these aggressively manuevering IRG wingnut gun boats, you have US warships following their radio template with increasingly tense radio comms, you have somebody saying something threatening on the BTB, you have “things” being dropped in front of the US ships, and according to the MSM reports, very shortly before one of the US ships was getting ready to open fire the IRG turns away. Nerve wracking.
All of this occurs not just in the context of the Iraq war: we have a pretty long and not at all happy relationship with the Iranian naval forces, and those things in the water would worry me a lot: In the last 20 years, mines have damaged our ship more frequently than any other hostile weapons. Samuel B Roberts (1988), Tripoli (1990), Princeton (1990).
Comment by Thoreau —
January 8, 2008 @ 4:02 pm
Jack-
When you said that threats over the radio are fairly common in the Gulf, I misinterpreted that as implying that a lot of stuff gets said over the radio that isn’t meant seriously. I didn’t realize what a tense business it is.
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Comment by Badtux —
January 8, 2008 @ 5:14 pm
We must defend our ships in the
Gulf of TonkinPersian Gulf. We must issue a strong warning, then tomorrow, when they attack our ships again, make sure that theNorth VietnameseIranian gunboats get a lesson and then launch air strikes againstNorth VietnameseIranian sites. We must always remember that our military never misinterprets actions in chaotic waters and that our politicians always tell us the truth. If our President tells us that theNorth VietnameseIranians have attacked our ships in theGulf of TonkinPersian Gulf, I will believe him uncritically, because he is the President.- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Comment by lemuel pitkin —
January 8, 2008 @ 5:56 pm
Jack-
Really appreciate your sharing your expertise with us here. First-hand experience, or anything close to it, is painfully rare in these discussions.
I don’t think I’m the only one here who’s far more frightened of the wingnuts in the US than of the wingnuts in Iran. but I’m quite ready to believe that the US Navy is a much more professional organization than the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Comment by Jack —
January 8, 2008 @ 6:42 pm
lemuel pitkin, Thanks! I often feel that I have nothing worth adding on this site, so I am glad that in this one one instance I can contribute.
Badtux (and all other Gulf of Tonkin snarkers), That is rather snarky, and a point well made, worth remembering etc. I am quite with you on the willingness of the administration or their enablers to exagerate or distort an event ion order to advance a political agenda. That said, in this particular case, I am VERY confident that the incident occured largely as it is being reported, and the Iranian spokesman is doing what official spokesman often do: lying. One interesting thing to remember in attempting to construct a Gulf of Tonkin style case, is that their would be much more evidence available to recreate the incident and thus show what really happened. Shipboard mounted cameras, radar feed and electronic symbology storage, automatic recording of designated radio circuits, etc. The generation of a GoT incident would be much harder to cover up post fact. Additionally, unless all members of the bridge and combat teams had been completely buffaloed: I think someone would talk.
Remember when Salinger accused the US Navy of a massive cover after an Aegis Cruiser (USS Normandy) supposedly shot down TWA Flight 800 of Long Island in 1996? My first thoughts upon hearing that were NOT “we wouldn’t screw up that bad” or “our Navy wouldn’t lie about that.” No, my first thoughts were “Yeah right, we could not possibly cover that up. Far too many people are involved in a missile shoot. Even if you covered up and supressed all the data records, some one would talk. This ain’t the 1950’s.”
Some of my proudest moments in the past two years have been hearing about the whistle blowing and resignings of Naval Officers who are unwilling to go along or keep quite about adminstration abuses. I am pretty confident someone would blow the whistle on a GoT attempt.
Comment by Badtux —
January 8, 2008 @ 7:24 pm
The military figured out that their sonar-man had been chasing his own prop wash within 24 hours of the Gulf of Tonkin “incident”, and the President was informed early on that the post-action report had not yet been finalized and there was still some question of what went down. Unfortunately, President Johnson had already said “who cares what our guys were really shooting at?” and we all know the rest of that story.
With the release of the video this afternoon, I am more confident that there was a chaotic easily-misinterpreted event in the Persian Gulf yesterday similar to the event which got the USS Maddox in hot water (i.e., the Maddox was observing a bunch of South Vietnamese gunboats which were attacking North Vietnamese targets, North Vietnamese gunboats responding to the attack did not see the gunboats, saw the Maddox, assumed the Maddox had just attacked their radar site, and attacked the Maddox under that assumption). The risk is not that our military and President will outright fabricate an incident. The risk is that a chaotic event will be misinterpreted as a hostile action, shots fired, and, well, we know the rest of that story.
That said, the IRG is not exactly the most sane and stable bunch, and their habit of getting close-up views of ships transiting the Straits clearly is the cause of the chaotic situation in this case, not anything that U.S. warships are doing (unlike the Gulf of Tonkin, where U.S. warships were closely observing South Vietnamese gunboat attacks against North Vietnamese targets and thus easily misconstrued as hostile parties). But the danger of misconstruing a chaotic situation into a hostile act is a danger worth warning about, in my opinion. We’ve already seen what happens in that case (see my original snark).
BTW, this intercept was *not* in international waters. The Strait of Hormuz is approximately 21 miles wide. Iran’s internationally-recognized maritime border extends 12 miles from its coastline, as do the internationally-recognized maritime borders of Oman and the United Arab Emirates on the other side. What this means is that the entire strait is within the territorial waters of one nation or the other (12+12=24, doh!). A look at a handy CIA-provided map shows that the shipping channel is forced by the depth of the water — it is within Omanian waters where you round the horn, then veers into Iranian water shortly thereafter. Oman, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates have signed treaties formalizing the geographically-imposed shipping channels, but the United States is not a signatory to those treaties. In short, the Iranian gunboats had every right under international law to be where they were, and the only right that the U.S. had was passage rights granted by either Oman or the UAR to the shipping channels negotiated by Oman or the UAR (I’m assuming that the U.S. did not apply to Iran for passage rights
. . Not that this matters, as the war on Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, etc. show the only international law that the U.S. respects is the international law of “might makes right”.
Comment by Jack —
January 8, 2008 @ 8:02 pm
Badtux, all good points, and although you do state it, I think it gets lost among your more strongly stated points:
- I take your point about International waters, but given the complicated rules regarding Right to Transit Passage, as applicable in the SoH, use of “international waters” is not as bad a slip as one would suppose from your explanation. The larger point is that this was NOT in Iranian waters.
- While the Iranians had, as you say, every right to be in those waters, the had no reason to get that close and manuever the way they did. They are creating unnecessary tension, and it looks to me like provocation.
- You are correct that such an incident could result in confusion-generated hostile fire. In order to prevent such an incident, would it not be prudent to publicize our concerns and lodge a diplomatic complaint with the Iranians? That seems to me what we have done. Perhaps this is a broken watch situation.
Comment by Jack —
January 8, 2008 @ 8:17 pm
I have tried to lay out my views more thoroughly here:
http://thecrossedpond.com/?p=2396
Comment by Badtux —
January 9, 2008 @ 3:53 am
Yes, you lodge a complaint — quietly. Going public and ranting and raving on the news channels isn’t what you do if you’re trying to de-escalate a situation. It’s what you do if you’re trying to score points in some sort of propaganda game runup to war.
Comment by Jack —
January 9, 2008 @ 2:52 pm
Badtux,
I don’t see the statements from the Fifth Fleet Commander to be ranting and raving at all. I find them dead on.
As to handling this quietly and behind the scenes; while that is certainly appropriate at times, others events call for public attention. The IRG’s behavior in this incident called for the latter, IMHO. Going public with the video and the transcript helps to effect the opinion in the region, though it may be grudging, and is more likely to result in regional pressure to reign in IRG provocative actions.
What happens if you keep it quiet, the IRG doesn’t change pattern, and down the road you have a shooting incident? At that late date if you try to claim an IRG pattern of provocative behavior and trot out your videos, people are gonna wonder why this was all supressed before? They will find it a little too convenient.
Look, I’m with you on jaded skepticism of our gov’s intentions and how they use the IRG-Navy incident. But that skepticism does not mean that every action we take is automatically wrong, and the Iran is automatically given a free pass when they pull these provocative stunts. OK, strawman and hyperbole in that last sentence, but I think you get my meaning.
Comment by Gary Farber —
January 10, 2008 @ 3:13 am
Here’s a link to the audio.
Comment by Gary Farber —
January 10, 2008 @ 3:14 am
This may or may not be more direct. I had trouble getting that one to play;
Comment by Gary Farber —
January 10, 2008 @ 3:15 am
Here’s another.
Of course, the Iranians say it’s a fake.
I posted three times, since Jim’s software eliminates text with more than one link.
Comment by Jack —
January 10, 2008 @ 2:17 pm
“I posted three times, since Jim’s software eliminates text with more than one link.”
I think it’s because you are so new to this “blog” business.
Comment by srp —
January 10, 2008 @ 9:50 pm
I think people need to pay more attention to Tom Scudder’s comment. Not only is the election in Iran coming up, but there is seems to be a faction close to (and perhaps including) Ahmedinejad that has long wanted to provoke a US attack on Iran for internal reasons.
I even think there are people in the Administration who’ve figured this out. They may still decide they need to do attack Iran (although, contrary to the more suspicious here, I’ve seen zero evidence of any eagerness by Bush on this score–his reluctance is palpable), but it will be after they get backed into a corner.