And my father was at Iwo Jima. Niether of these facts is remotely relevant.
I have no reason to doubt it. Why do you mention it, unless you are angling to imply some lack of patriotic respect on my part? Want to hit below the belt, hit, and be done with it.
And so? Again, you want to say something, say it.
Whatever real danger was involved in this incident has passed. The danger that remains has to do with people exaggerating the significance of this event. It is, just as you say, an unreasonable provocation. Which provokes doubt, in my mind. What is to be gained by such provocation? If the Iranians actually wanted to start a war with us, nothing could be easier.
Has it occured to you that there are any number of people who might see a benefit to their interests to have a millitary confrontation between the US and Iran, and that these people haven’t our best interests at heart?
You gotta be kidding. What possible advantage could be gained? If the Iranians seriously wanted to sink a destroyer, they likely could, I suppose. And then they would have the living shit kicked out of them. You think maybe they don’t know that?
So what could possibly be gained by examining the parameters of an attack that could only be suicidal?
Tough bastards. They could have recovered and investigated the boxes. What happened is anyone’s guess, but it would have been a hazard to navigation to leave a potential explosive floating in the shipping lanes, so we can assume they were called out.
If you children are done squabbling, the grownups would like to talk now.
I can really see the Iranian point of view in this situation. The straits of Hormuz are very narrow, and U.S. ships traveling into the Gulf come within 15 or so miles of Iran. If Iranian ships were traveling through the straits of Florida that close to America, we surely would be sending some sort of force to escort them. The difference between that and “buzzing” them is a matter of degree and perspective. We need to recognize that this is a very sensitive area for Iranian security, and keep military transits to the absolute minimum. Iran needs to recognize that the straits are international waters, and keep the aggressive posturing to a minimum.
There have been myriad sources saying that it was a couple of hundred yards. You do realize that in naval terms even 500 or a 1000 yards is pretty close, right? Ships don’t exactly turn on a dime, especially large warships.
Is your point that the navy shouldn’t take such a thing seriously? That this didn’t actually happen? That it’s being overblown? What exactly are you saying here?
What source would you accept? There is a story on CNN’s web site atm that says about 200 yards in front of the USS Ingraham.
Which is why it would be wise to get as many of our forces out of there (the ME, as a whole) as quickly as feasible. I don’t see that we are causing more good then harm (but will allow that the news that is relayed back to us focuses almost exclusively on the harm).
Why? Why do you think this isn’t serious? How has past behavior of the Iranians given indications that such actions are to be disregarded?
Also…we didn’t in fact fire on the Iranians. We didn’t lodge a formal protest. Who is exaggerating the importance of all this exactly? Where is the exaggeration? I though Bush was supposed to be foaming at the mouth for a confrontation with Iran…where is the indication, since the Navy SEEMS to have shown unusual restraint in all this considering the provocation AND the probable ROE they are probably operating under in the region. Where is the Bush administration going over board and preparing for war based on this incident? Where, again, is the exaggeration exactly?
How many primary sources have said that? I didn’t find that factoid over at the pentagon last night; but now that the office of special plan’s been disbanded, perhaps I need to look elsewhere to get the straight dope?
You will note that I expressed above my concern that these provocations might cause a reaction on our part. Takes two to tango, and the responsibility to lessen tensions here falls to both parties.
I hope they do so. Really I do. But in an attack on our forces, we will shoot back, and rightfully so.
As to what could be gained, you tell me. What do the Iranians gain by permanent alienation from much of the world? What do they gain from permanent American sanctions and UN ones brought on by the nuclear crisis?
It is pretty clear to see what they gain by testing our forces in this way if you accept that they are implacably hostile to us. I don’t think we should minimize that - we should be realistic about it.
In no way does this preclude dealing with the Iranians if we can avoid conflict, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that they are our friends or even that they are right. Whatever grievances they may have, they do not deal with them as normal nations do. They don’t negotiate, they don’t bargain, they don’t abide by treaties, they don’t fight by accepted rules of war. They cheat and sponsor terrorist attacks against us, and harass our ships engaged in normal navigation.
As to danger, there is danger too in trying to minimize incidents like this. As a nation, we tend to ignore threats until way too late - and you seem to be studiously ignoring this one.
The theory might be is that the reason that the Iranians are doing this now in the straits of Hormuz, is to demonstrate to the world that, when the US leaves the Middle East, the Iranians become much more important players in keeping the flow of oil going…
Clearly, we need to widen that damn straight of Hormuz. Just like those A-rabs and I-rainians to make it so narrow in the first place. I bet we have just the bomb for the job, too!
If you mean in the form of an actual captains report my guess is…none. I saw something on CNN last night where they were interviewing a rear admiral (I didn’t catch the name) where he was saying essentially ‘a couple of hundred yards’ in front of the rear most ship. That is probably as good as it’s going to get in the near future. There will probably be a more in depth report on all this later on.
Even a couple of hundred yards…even a thousand yards…is pretty close to be playing chicken with warships though. And very damn close to be tossing boxes out at them. How serious that is depends I suppose. It was pretty obviously an attempt either to provoke an incident (which would have resulted in a lot of dead Iranians and probably some dead US Navy personnel as well), an attempt to send some kind of message or an attempt to rattle our cage and/or see how far they could push us…and more disturbingly to me see what our response would be and how our ROE are currently standing.
I could give a shit what they are getting out of threatening our navy. My main point is that I don’t care to help their country while hurting ours. From where I stand it looks like the war in Iraq has done nothing but help Iran’s position, both in the ME in general and internally with their citizens. Getting in a limited naval engagement with the US would help their position further: every country in the ME would rally around Iran convinced of America’s imperialistic ambitions while their citizenry would unify to fight the great Satan. A larger conflict, say an invasion by the US, is not tenable; we could easily take them (destroy their air force, air defenses, naval power, armor, etc…), but I seriously doubt we could invade and hold for any length of time or even topple their government. We don’t have the resources for the first and the Iranians don’t hate their government enough for the second. Regardless, the cost to us of destroying their military assets, toppling their government, occupying their country, or even sinking a couple of their ships looks to be much higher than any benefit we would get out of it.
Yep. Responding in kind is just playing into their hands however.
Maybe there are some voices that insist we should talk. Fuck em. I don’t think the Iranians really want to talk to us. I am not sure what we would gain from talking to them. I think we would gain political capital if we said we wanted to talk; if we went through the motions and blamed breakdowns on them. I do value our soldiers and sailors and think we should defend ourselves if attacked, but we weren’t attacked. We we’re provoked.
I am just tired of the amateur, ham-fisted approach to world politics employed by this administration and espoused by people like the OP who want to sink boats at the least provocation or others who would bomb Mecca in retaliation for a car bombing without thinking about the costs to this country. Can you say Pyrrhic victory?
I think they did the right thing in not responding with force. The Iranians were just showing they have balls. Kind of like a toy poodle. Yap Yap Yap. Big Fucking Deal. Be sure the poodle knows it’s not even a snack.
The president is in the middle east.
Remember when Ashcroft went to Moscow, and did his special “dirty bomb” news conference? This incident too is being played up for political purposes.
We should all expect that by now.
I see someone’s released a 4:20 video of the incident now. Given that it was shot from the bridge of the USS Hopper, and considering how many videos the navy has released of its ships on manuevers over this past year, I’m certain that there were no shennanagins involved in getting it out in time for the president’s big legacy push.
