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Just saw this on the news. It happened Saturday, but just now making the news in the U.S.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats harassed and provoked three U.S. Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route off the Iranian coast, over the weekend, CNN reported on Monday.

Citing unidentified U.S. officials, CNN said the Iranian vessels came within 200 yards (meters) of the U.S. ships in the strait on Saturday.

this news just breaking here - apaparently the captain of the us ship was just about to fire on them but held off.

Sheryl;754738 wrote: Just saw this on the news. It happened Saturday, but just now making the news in the U.S.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats harassed and provoked three U.S. Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route off the Iranian coast, over the weekend, CNN reported on Monday.

Citing unidentified U.S. officials, CNN said the Iranian vessels came within 200 yards (meters) of the U.S. ships in the strait on Saturday.


This is depressingly regular. The centre of the channel is disputed water and both sides deliberately go over the others boundary to "beat the bounds" and the other side respond to say "we still claim it".

Every now and again it gets ratched up another notch and prisoners are taken for a while before being paraded round and released.

Much like the games little children play in the yard but with real guns and such.

Sheryl;754738 wrote: harassed and provoked three U.S. Navy ships in the Strait of HormuzOut of interest, if the Iranians sent a few warships to exercise within sight of New York would you hope the Coastguards went out and shooed them away?

spot;754911 wrote: Out of interest, if the Iranians sent a few warships to exercise within sight of New York would you hope the Coastguards went out and shooed them away?


I would hope that we would welcome them by buzzing the ships with bikini clad miss america contestants on jet skis:-6

But that would probably only happen were I to be elected president...

Hey I'm not claiming we have a right to be there. I just posted the article because I was thinking uh oh here we go again with another middle eastern country. :rolleyes:

grh;754920 wrote: I would hope that we would welcome them by buzzing the ships with bikini clad miss america contestants on jet skis:-6Same thing - what bikini clad miss america contestants are to the US the Revolutionary Guard are to Iran. You should see the pin-ups.

How dare you, sir! Now I've been accused of posturing and churlishness in the same evening?

Jester;755066 wrote: Dang you! Thats two words in two nights I have to look up! I can't take much more of this! :wah:


I'm glad you're around and I can just wait for YOU to say the things I'm thinking...:p

spot;755037 wrote: How dare you, sir! Now I've been accused of posturing and churlishness in the same evening?


That was me, that was. :-6

Well at least the the American's didn't let themselves get taken hostage like those British sailors last year, god how embarressing. Still its easier to defend yourself in a Frigate than in a dingy I suppose.

You know, if Iran sent war ships to lord their power right off the U.S. coast, people would see that as a provocative act. But we do that, and then Bush complains about speed boats off the coast of Iran?

Seems like a double standard is applied when assessing threats to world peace.

they sent them a diplomatic note saying they weren't very happy.

Shades of the Gulf of Tonkin incident do you think?

The accusers seem to be scrambling for alternative explanations after it was pointed out the soundtrack has no speedboat noises.

Scrat;756550 wrote: See the video? Got a link? I hear a lot of different facts about it.


Both US and Iranian video versions are linked from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 181929.stm

The New York Times noted on Wednesday that the US-released audio includes no ambient noise of the kind that might be expected if the broadcast had come from on one of the speedboats.

Pentagon officials said the voice heard in the video clip is not directly traceable to the Iranian military, but could still have come from a high quality radio on one of the small boats, the paper reported.

There was a time when I would have placed weight on the word of anyone at the Pentagon in any matter. How times have changed. What a lot they've thrown away in the process. Abandoning their credibility in the long term for a gain in the short term is a one-way street they can't reverse along and it's a road they started down years ago.

yaaarrrgg;756379 wrote: You know, if Iran sent war ships to lord their power right off the U.S. coast, people would see that as a provocative act. But we do that, and then Bush complains about speed boats off the coast of Iran?

Seems like a double standard is applied when assessing threats to world peace.


This is so true - especially with that portion of the Straights being disputed waters - claimed by both Iraq and Iran.

If Iran put its navy off the US coast then it would be them being provocative.

The US put their navy in disputed waters off the Iranian coast then Iran reacting is the provocative act.

Talk about double standards.