Steve,

If that's a valid causa belli then the U.S. Navy would have been at war with Greenpeace years ago.

Of course, I guess memories of USS COLE take a lot of the fun out of it these days. (The kind of fun we didn't admit to having when we used to joust with Greenpeace back when I was in the Navy.) But again; even with those memories, this isn't grounds for going to war. It's grounds for a very statesman-like and strongly-worded diplomatic note from the State Department/cc: The World Community/ advising Iran that, yes - we do in fact still remember the Cole and as a result there could well be some itchy trigger fingers out there in the Fleet. Therefore, if Iran insists on this kind of provocation, *Iran will bear the blame and the responsibility for the consequences.* 'You have been warned, the civilized world is our witness.'

As for the poor quality of the video: you have to remember that a Navy warship's primary mission isn't making home movies. As a general rule, they don't have teams of trained cinematographers armed with state-of-the-art cameras, loitering around on deck just waiting to film 'the action.'

Indeed, a warship closed up at General Quarters doesn't have a lot of spare bodies just standing around, waiting for something to do - like making home movies. As a general rule, everybody has a job that's very important to the operation of the ship and they're expected to be doing that job. (If they didn't have a job, they wouldn't be aboard eating the groceries and taking up rack space.)

If this incident had involved the surface ship I served aboard at the end of my Navy hitch, I'd be willing to bet that the sequence of events would have gone like this:

Officer of the Deck: Chief of the Watch sound General Quarters! Messenger of the Watch!"

MoW: Sir?

O.O.D.: Who's got a video camera? Anybody? ... Who? ... The Navigator? Messenger - run down to the Navigator's cabin and see if you can find a video camera. If you can, grab it, then run back up here and start filming those guys."

MoW: Aye, aye sir!"

I concur with J. Grey. These were fast "go boats" that could have been packed with explosives ala the US Cole. This wasn't the Iranian Navy by the IRG Navy that are nutcases just like the President of Iran. They were trying to provoke and incident and/or testing/probing the fleets defensives.

I would have splashed them before they got that close. This was in international waters. Yes we are ensuring the safe passage of oil through the Strait. The Iranians would very much love to bottle up the Strait. Sinking a warship in this narrow channel would be one way of doing it.

RBT

I have to chuckle at the musings of posters.

First of all this and any international transport of U.S. Flagged ships is a normal FON (Freedom Of Navigation) action in international waters. There are the International Laws of the Sea that go back to the 1400's time that govern actions on the "high seas".

These so called "fast go" boats are allowed in IW just as any other shipping. They did not present any "hostile" intent. They did not aim any weapons, nor fire up any tracking radars. Driving a boat at another boat is not a hostile act until it gets to a certain distance, of which they did not go any further.

These warships are armed with Phalanx, 5" guns, SLQ-32V5 plus many layered defense weapons. The chance of them getting any close to fire/launch any kind of weapon is slim to none. We should be more worried about the C-802 Silkworm missiles and shorter-range C-801 Sardine missiles which the Iranians have upgraded and successfully tested.

It seems that some have forgotten the deadly Exocet missiles which hit the HMS Sheffield during the Falkland wars. Those are more of a threat traveling at 100' and Mach 2.5

With the Signals Intelligence, overhead surveillance, picket submarines, and the myriad of other intelligence and surveillance sources, one cannot believe that our Navy was "surprised" by the appearance of these craft nor their actions.

Having flown through and above the Straits of Hormuz, I can guarantee you that it would take a lot more than a single warship to bottle up any channel.

Rocketsbrain needs to consider the fact that why would they sink an armed warship (near impossible) when one of their own or a commercial ship would do the same thing? It would also be a detriment to them since they need that SLC (Sea Line of Communications just as much as anyone else. How does anyone think how Iran ships their products and consumables?

Now one would think that before making a statement that the IRN would want to sink a single warship ship to stop shipping, would consult a map. As an exercise in such I have below a map (Google) of the SOH. The white line represents the "navigatable" shortest line distance. It happens to be 21.34 miles (statute).

Uh RBT now how many ships (200' approx) would have to be sunk to "bottle" up the SOH?

Sorry for some reason the image didnt load.

I'll try again. The silkworm is a honking big missile.

"I have been there",

I agree with you re this confrontation could be used as a screen for using a Silkworm from the shore.

I would also repeat that the IRG are not rational actors and this is why these incidents are so dicey. In support of my post and mention of bottling up the Strait, I would refer to Spook86 of In From the Cold in this piece:

What Happened in the Strait?

Spook86 has the creds/expertise to comment on this incident.

RBT

Here's another take:

Observing the Hormuz Strait Incident

RBT

Here's a political analysis by Col. Austin Bay that gives some insight into the background posturing by the Mullahs:

Speedboat Bluff in the Persian Gulf

RBT

Steve -

I would comment that the Iranian action was clearly a provocation; if you heard the verbal exchanges between our ships and theirs, you would note that the Iranians warned our vessels, “You will explode in two minutes.” The boats came within 200 yards, which means at the speeds they were traveling, they were only seconds from our ships. If that isn’t confrontational, what is it?

Given these facts, I would suspect that under international law, we would have been fully justified, at the very least, in sending shots across their bow.

And while our naval officers apparently showed much restraint (given the memories of the US Cole) you seem primed only to point an insinuating finger at Bush.

"Is it outside the realm of possibility that a violent exchange between U.S. warships and Iranian boats could escalate into a truly terrible conflict? Is it possible that such a confrontation could lead President Bush to seek some sort of license to escalate a conflict?"

And J is right, our service men and women on a ship in the Persian Gulf have more functionable duties than providing high quality recordings and videos of unprovoked, spontaneous provocations, just to satisfy a distrustful and jaundiced media.

"I hope the evidence is more substantial than a 4 1/2-minute grainy and garbled videotape taken by an anonymous sailor. Is anyone else stunned that the U.S. Navy's warships, operating in a war zone, don't have better resources for recording battle action?"

And while I certainly appreciate media as a watch-dog of our government; it serves no one when the watch-dog is merely cynical of its own government and leaders, while exhibiting an air of indifference to the provocations of hostile nations.

Good evening,

Just a couple of responses....

I don't expect sailors at station to detour from essential duties to take videos of combat action. But it does surprise me that we see excellent, military-produced combat footage from air operations, from Marine and Army operations in the field, from carrier operations, etc. Military photographers are still attached to many units in the field.

But put a fast destroyer in harm's way, and we get a bad home movie.

That just surprises me. Remote cameras can transmit from the furthest reaches of space, but not from a destroyer.

Keep in mind if there were a violent altercation leading to escalation, the international community would want evidence. Do you suppose those 270 seconds of film with bad movie dialogue would fly with the Security Council? I know, some you probably don't care about the U.N. But the rest of the world does and our reputation is already trashed.

I'm not arguing our Navy should not defend itself or respond to a threat. But if they do, they damn well better have it documented.

Which brings up the question of my cynicism.

President Johnson and the Pentagon lied us into the Vietnam debacle. They fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident and used that as an excuse to drag this country into a no-win war.

President Bush and the neo-con hawks lied us into Iraq and then mismanaged the war.

My cynicism, I fear, is rooted in reality. Does anyone really think it is outside the realm of possibility that this administration would, at least, overstate matters to get its way.

Sorry, I don't trust. A trusting media helped get us into Iraq. A bit more cynicism then might have saved a whole lot of lives later.

You want me to trust that this was a dangerous confrontation between the U.S. Navy and armed gunboats -- prove it to me.

steve

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There ought to be high quality video on every ship and jet....just as every single surgery should be videotaped up close. The eyes can tell far more(lies)than the old stories of so-called "eyewitnesses".

It is indeed a shock that there are not more and higher quality video capacities in our warmaking machinery.

I am PRO Waterboarding....if....they videotape it.....ALL of IT !

David Elton
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Steve,

I would suggest that high-quality videos are pretty much luck of the draw. If there is a combat cameraman or an embedded video journalist on the scene when the fighting goes down, then yes - we get good video.

But how many air-strikes and firefights go undocumented out of the hundreds occurring every day? How many times is the reportage, of necessity, "The fighting took place right over there..."

If, because of simple random chance, there's nobody there to film it - or to film it professionally - then there's no film. And as I say; as a general rule, there's nobody standing around on a destroyer's deck during a routine transit solely for the purpose of filming an unexpected terrorist attack.

Now, I'd be willing to bet that there's a new standing order out requiring a trained videographer to be stationed on the bridge during every Hormuz transit, because now the attack isn't so unexpected. The military is very good at hindsight. (I'll also wager ten years from now, some guys is going to be standing out in the wind and the rain on the bridge wing, wondering why he's got to be there with a video camera to film nothing at all. "That's the standing order. You don't need to know why. You just need to do it.")

As to your cynicism - I share it. I rather suspect that nowadays, quite a few folks do. It is for that reason that I'm simply not that worried about this incident. I don't see any way for this to get blown out of proportion into another Gulf of Tonkin. It was harassment and a provocation, no doubt. But that kind of thing actually happens all the time, all over the world. It simply wasn't anywhere near the magnitude of a justification for war.

270 seconds of grainy video prove that beyond doubt.

Mr. Smith,

"Bush lied" re Iraq is an opinion and not a fact. But because it is repeated time and time again by the MSM it's an "accepted" truism. I concur there were major mistakes made before and after the invasion of Iraq.

I doubt I can change your opinion but for others do read Kenneth Timmerman's new book, Shadow Warriors

RBT

RBT

Newsflash....BUSH LIED...and the beat goes on.

Enjoy the flotation device on the Egyptian River(-:

Just my opinion
I could be wrong

elton

I am concerned that an Ace/Deuce Sailor can have access to a cell phone while on a Warship. It would not take much for vital information to be called out to someone on shore, either video, data, text or audio.

There are "official" phones aboard our ships for calls out.

I am also surprised the Signals Intelligence hasn't supressed these actions with a Cell Phone Jammer.

BTW RBT all that crap those guys post on those web sites come straight from the Early Bird or other official Military News sources. They are nobody special. One can set auto google searches to get that stuff live as soon as it hits anywhere on the internet. Dont go praying to false gods.

SIPRNET and NIPRNET ride on top of the Internet Protocals. Along with GBS and ENTNET which have separate bands. With ENTNET being a WAB (wide area broadcast) You just cant get it.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAA/is_3_29/ai_n13783528

I remember sitting at Camp Blanding, FL and watching real time video of the Chinese surface to surface missile launches in the China Sea.

Also the good old days of AUTOVON where you just had to time the receiver clicks to dial your number.

I have been there,

Agreed but I've found both Col. Austin Bay and Spook86 to provide useful, timely, relevant, and generally correct information. I can't say the same for the MSM. BTW when is the last time you've seen any reporting re the citizen unrest in Iran by the MSM? Instead we seem to get endless talking heads filling airtime on the latest screwup of the presidential candidates or the current status of Ms. Spears:-)

RBT

David,

Your opinion of course. Mine is different after analyzing many different sources of info. So far Timmerman has the best summary. Read the link I gave above to a recent interview with him.

This is why I have such a low opinion of entrenched governmental bureaucracies.

Here's a classic war story re ICE. Our patrol folks arrested an Afghan man who was attempting to pass a stolen and forged County of San Bernardino check. I was doing our weekend "in custody" paperwork when I came across him. Unfortunately he had already bailed out of jail by the time I got the case.

He admitted to the arresting patrol officer that he was in the Country illegally. He said he was part of a fraud ring and was concerned about his family's safety. Mind you ID theft/economic crimes is how financial terrorist cells raise money in country. The folks at the county jail called the "fan belt inspectors" but I don't think they made it over to the jail before he bailed out.

I called the 24 hour contact number for ICE I got of their website. I ID myself as a "detective" calling about an individual our dept had arrested. The ICE person on the phone was first questioning giving me hell about how I got this number. After we got by this, he asked if I was calling about a NCIC hit (FBI hosted nat'l computer system of wanted persons or other alerts/flags). I said no. Then the ICE guy was asking why I was calling! DAH!!!

Mind you the enemy is not dumb and will not send in operatives that are on one of the national watch lists. I think I finally got through to the guy that one, I have the fingerprints/photo of this guy and perhaps secondly, this is someone they might want to look at to include on a list.

In my experience re crooks in general I didn't put any trust in a name given until I had a match by fingerprint records with a criminal history that was based on fingerprint records of prior arrests.

I'll save for another time my suggestion to our regional FBI JTTF team re doing a reverse cyber sting ala Cliff Stolls's book Cuckoo's Egg. Mind you the higher up legal eagles didn't want to play:-). Goes with why I couldn't send an email to the Agent in Charge of the JTTF because of their "airwalling off". I finally created a throwaway Yahoo email account for him that he could access from a clerical computer that was in the "open" in their office!

RBT

Kenneth Timmerman now has a new article up re this incident:

Iran Seeks Confrontation in Gulf

RBT

Regarding Mr. Timmerman's article:

"The near-miss confrontation between Iranian speedboats and a U.S. naval convoy in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday was a clear provocation by Iran, aimed at testing the reaction time of U.S. Navy commanders and the political will of the United States, sources within the Iranian military tell Newsmax.

The U.S. failed the test, because no shots were fired, the Iranians said.

As a result, the U.S. Navy can expect similar provocations in the future, as Iran seeks to determine what red lines the U.S. Navy is willing to draw in the narrow sea lanes."

Oh, puh-lease! We're being scolded by Iran for not shooting up their agent provocateurs??! Like they'd leave us alone if we had? Like that'd be the end of it? Gimme a break.

More likely if we'd taken the bait and fired on those go-fasts it would have played right into the hands of the knuckle-headed thugs who are really in charge of that benighted country.

As it turned out, they're just miffed because we showed restraint and spoiled their attempt at a bread and circuses distraction for the increasingly restive mobs at home.

The U.S. Navy commanders on scene are to be congratulated for handling that situation just exactly as it should have been handled. Let the mullahs throw their temper tantrums and make their laughable attempts to spin this embarrassing flop into something positive for them.

J. Grey,

"George Smiley" a co-blogger with Spook86 at In From the Cold has a similar assessment re training and intelligence re situational awareness that played a big roll in deciding not to engage these go boats.

Did We Blink in the Persian Gulf, Redux

Yes, the Mullahs need a distraction because the Iranian natives are definitely getting very restless. Of course we aren't hearing about this from MSM sources.

As an aside here's the latest blurb re the growing unrest re the Mullahs failure to perform on basic services.

Government offices in northern Iran come under fiery attack

The Mullahs need a diversion and why not scapegoat The Great Satan:-)

I think Dana Carvey said it best....

"Could it be....SATAAANNN ??? "

(-:

RBT....I see your point(s)...we jsut have a semantic disagreement of sorts.

elton
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I've started a new thread that provides a bit of new information.