Posted on 01/07/2008 7:30:10 AM PST by maquiladora
CNN) -- The U.S. military reported Monday on a "significant" confrontation involving five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats that "harrassed and provoked" three U.S. naval ships in international waters over the weekend.
U.S. military officials said the incident occurred Saturday night in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow shipping channel leading in and out of the Persian Gulf.
The five Iranian ships made "threatening" moves -- in one case coming within 200 yards of a U.S. ship, the U.S. officials said.
n one radio transmission, the Iranians told the U.S. Navy: "I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes," the U.S. military officials told CNN.
When the U.S. ships heard that radio transmission, they manned their gun positions and officers were "in the process" of giving the order to fire when the Iranians abruptly turned away, the U.S. officials said.
(snip)
No additional details were immediately available.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
“n one radio transmission, the Iranians told the U.S. Navy: “I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes,” the U.S. military officials told CNN.
When the U.S. ships heard that radio transmission, they manned their gun positions and officers were “in the process” of giving the order to fire when the Iranians abruptly turned away, the U.S. officials said. “
Well that took a lot of restraint.
So why isn’t the Iranian navy resting at the bottom right now? We just going to keep taking their crap?
I’m guessing the only reason the Iranian ships weren’t immediately dispatched to the sea bottom is that the US crew was incapacitated, overcome by uncontrolled spasms of laughter.
And the Quakers are defending AchmedDinnerJacket’s right to have nukes too. Nukes For Kooks, brought to you by the Quakers.
HOW TO GUARANTEE THAT THOSE FIVE BOATS NEVER THREATEN OUR SHIPS AGAIN:
Blow them out of the water!
Teddy Roosevelt advised us to speak softly and carry a big stick. We’ve done about enough soft speaking. It’s time to use the stick, and jerk the slack out of some of the tin pot dictators that have been swaggering around and taunting us for too long! IMHO, of course.
Probably a risky attempt to test reaction times.
Because they turned away?
It took a verbal threat to man the guns? We didn’t learn from the Cole? WTF??
I assume, but do not know, that such transmissions received would be recorded, also. But if there is such a recording, then that statement should have been the last thing those five rag-head boats made/heard.
Couldn’t we have blown one of their ships up? Just for fun?
Well, MY conclusion is that our reaction time was obviously too slow. They should have been blown up before they turned away.
They guessed that we wouldn't fire, as the stakes are very high. They'll do it again, coming a little closer this time.
I suspect this is intended to keep the price of crude high.
So far it's working.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1949564/posts?q=1&;page=51
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1949565/posts?page=1
“...coming within 200 yards.”
Speed-boats can close that gap within seconds. That doesn’t seem to be enough time to sight in the guns, unless they’d been trained on them for some time.
Congressman Billybob
I'd like the answer to that question, too.
Testing our semi- squishy resolve, call before engagement , can’t we all get a long Riceian philosophy of conflict. No knock at our Navy, they just have to call the state department first and ask what would Huckabee-Paul-Carter do.After all as RuPaul sez, we are the “bullies”.
I married into a quaker family. I am a southern baptist. The quakers are a peace loving bunch. To the best of my knowledge they are the only religion that if inducted into the service has the right not to carry weapons.
Unfortunately, they will be the first ones beheaded by the islam whack jobs because they will offer their meeting house for the event.
I agree. Or a morale building excercise on their part.
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