FROM JUAN COLE: One of the most astute and brilliant analysts covering the Middle East and elsewhere, writes this detailed expose of the atrocious and incompetent lies we are being fed about that dangerous and threatening IRANian sea attack on our sovereign nation. Jingoism and yellow journalism hardly begin to describe what is being done to us.
Of course, its only because They know that a LOT of us are going to swallow this without chewing, that emboldens them to even try it.
Time to do something. Or not.
They're counting on it.
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The Bush administration's assertion that 5 small Iranian boats confronted big, well-armed US ships in the Straits of Hormuz and threatened to blow up the American vessels is looking more and more like a serious error if not a Republican Party fabrication.
The Iranians analyzed the Pentagon video released to the US media and found that the audio track was not synchronized properly with the video, pointing to serious tinkering.
And sure enough, we now know that the tape is a fabrication in the sense that the Pentagon says the video and the audio were recorded separately and then combined. And they can't even be sure where the audio came from! The NYT reports,
'The audio includes a statement that says, “I am coming to you,” and adds, “You will explode after a few minutes.” The voice was recorded from the internationally recognized channel for ship-to-ship communications, Navy officials have said. Naval and Pentagon officials have said that the video and audio were recorded separately, then combined. On Wednesday, Pentagon officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak officially, said they were still trying to determine if the transmission came from the speedboats or elsewhere."
Wouldn't it have been better to determine if the transmission came from the Iranian speedboats before super-imposing it on the videotape of the Iranian boats and then issuing it in such a way as to possibly foment a war?
A posting to the NYT "the Lede" blog page observed that the frequency used for ship communications in the Gulf is very busy and has lots of extraneous traffic, including the hurling of racial epithets against Filipinos etc. The experienced former naval officer said, "My first thought was that the 'explode' comment might not have come from one of the Iranian craft, but some loser monitoring the events at a shore facility."
This episode is just about the most pitiful thing I have seen since Bush came to power, and believe me I've seen plenty.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards issued their own video and audio of the encounter, which shows a routine identity check (see below).
Hamshahri reports in Persian that Sayyid Mahmoud Jazayeri said that questioning passing ships is a completely routine activity for the Iranian speedboats. Jazayeri accused Washington of attempting to paper over its serious defeats in the Middle East with this gimmick.
The USG Open Source Center translates some of the transcript below.
"Iran TV Says BBC, CNN Complicit in 'Falsity' of US Footage
Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 1
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Document Type: OSC Translated Text
The navy of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps aired a clip of the Hormuz Strait incident, which proves the falsity of the claims by American officials. In pictures aired today, the Iranian vessel only asks a few questions from the American one. The American vessel responds to the questions by Iran and this is a routine matter in the activities of the patrol units in maritime territory.
(Iranian patrol in English) Coalition warship seven, three. This is Iranian navy patrol boat Tatone - 16. Navy warship, navy warship seven, three. This is Iranian navy patrol boat Tatone - 16. Come in, over.
(US navy officer over radio, in English) This is Coalition Warship seven three. Roger, over.
(IRGC officer, English) Coalition warship seven three. This is Iranian navy patrol boat Tantoma - 16. Over.
(Passage indistinct)
(Presenter) CNN had aired a clip in which the Iranians had surrounded the American vessel threatening that in a few minutes time you will explode. The CNN and BBC networks aired Iranian footage today but without the sound.
The Iranian deputy admiral of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said that the claims of the American officials on threats against the American warships are totally false, because in the main reel the military number of the Iranian person (on his uniform) speaking is shown quite clearly.
Admiral Fadavi added that the conversation between Iranian vessels and other passing vessels is perfectly normal, which happens over and over again.
(Iranian TV aired parts of the video with Farsi caption on English conversations)
(Description of Source: Tehran Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 1 in Persian -- state-run television). "
The Iranian press is suspicious about the timing of the Pentagon videotape, noting that it was released just as Bush was heading to the Middle East to try to convince the Arab allies of the US to make common cause with Israel against Iran. The Gulf monarchies in particular are very afraid of the Iranian navy, and the Bush administration video would have been useful for pushing the Kuwaitis, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia into agreeing with the Bush grand strategy of surrounding Iran and then cutting it off.
--
Posted By Juan Cole to Informed Comment at 1/11/2008 06:30:00 AM
Read more!!
Friday, January 11, 2008
Sunday, January 6, 2008
DRANT #282 and 282A: UPDATE! CIA KILLS BHUTTO, U.S. TROOPS MOVE IN
DRANT #282 (below)was sent December 28.
It is even more obvious that everything in it was not only right, but that its worse than we imagined.
And again, all of this was PLANNED months BEFORE the CIA knocked Bhutto off.
Check it out:
http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
CIA to get broad powers to act inside Pakistan: Report 06 Jan 2008 The administration of President [sic] George W Bush is considering granting the Pentagon and CIA new authority to conduct covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan, The New York Times reported on its website late Saturday. Citing unnamed senior administration officials, the newspaper said the plan calls for giving Central Intelligence Agency agents broader powers to strike selected targets inside the country, in some cases using intelligence provided by Pakistani sources.
U.S. Considers New Covert Push Within Pakistan 06 Jan 2008 President [sic] Bush’s senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Many of the specific options under discussion are unclear and highly classified. Officials said that the options would probably involve the C.I.A. working with the military’s Special Operations forces. At the White House and the Pentagon, officials see an opportunity in the changing power structure for the Americans to advocate for the expanded authority in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country. [Hmm... Who benefits from the Bhutto assassination? Do we really need Scotland Yard to figure out who was behind the assassination?]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DRANT DAILY
Number 282
December 28, 2007
Oh come ON people.
Cui Bono Cui Bono, how many times I gotta tellya CUI F*****CKING BONO !!!
And, remember, when the pimp press all sing one song, yer BS detector bettah start howling.
There is no US diplomatic disaster in Pakistan.
The Bushists did not make a mistake.
Here again: IDIOCY BY DESIGN.
Can Any of you spell P-I-P-E-L-I-N-E ???
As in: Trans-Afghanistan pipeline and the Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline.
What do you think we're doing there ?
Ya think its for the Pashtun food ?
We killed Benazir's old man.
We put Musharraf in power.
Bin Laden (Al CIAda),The CIA, The Mujahideen, and ISI go back a looong way. They endure as a deadly menage-a-treachery.
We dragged Benazir back to Pakistan.
And we have obviously knocked her off.
Now comes the chaos, the smashing of windows, burning of mosques, overthrown cars, a bunch of corpses, and tons - I say TONS-
of footage on the pimp media showing screaming brown folks acting crazy.
Well, says Sheriff Bush, we bettah ride into town and make it safe for our ole pal Dimmokracee one mo' time.
And, just like crock-work, in comes Da Army !
Please note- the deal was made LAST MONTH.
U.S. Troops to Head to Pakistan
Washington POST
Early Warning
William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
December 28, 2007
Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning.
These Pakistan-centric operations will mark a shift for the U.S. military and for U.S. Pakistan relations. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the U.S. used Pakistani bases to stage movements into Afghanistan. Yet once the U.S. deposed the Taliban government and established its main operating base at Bagram, north of Kabul, U.S. forces left Pakistan almost entirely. Since then, Pakistan has restricted U.S. involvement in cross-border military operations as well as paramilitary operations on its soil.
But the Pentagon has been frustrated by the inability of Pakistani national forces to control the borders or the frontier area. And Pakistan's political instability has heightened U.S. concern about Islamic extremists there.
According to Pentagon sources, reaching a different agreement with Pakistan became a priority for the new head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Adm. Eric T. Olson. Olson visited Pakistan in August, November and again this month, meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Gen. Tariq Majid and Lt. Gen. Muhammad Masood Aslam, commander of the military and paramilitary troops in northwest Pakistan. Olson also visited the headquarters of the Frontier Corps, a separate paramilitary force recruited from Pakistan's border tribes.
Now, a new agreement, reported when it was still being negotiated last month, has been finalized. And the first U.S. personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan by early in the new year, according to Pentagon sources.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For a much more insightful account, please access:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/dec2007/bena-d29.shtml
Bhutto assassination heightens threat of US intervention in Pakistan
By Bill Van Auken
29 December 2007
With Pakistan erupting in violence over the assassination of its former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and amid conflicting accounts as to both the identity of her assassins and even the cause of her death, official Washington and the American mass media have coalesced around a version of events that has been crafted to suit US strategic interests.
Without any substantive evidence, the crime has been attributed to Al Qaeda, while Bhutto herself has been proclaimed a martyr both in the struggle for democracy in her own country and in the US “global war on terror.” Meanwhile, the government of President Pervez Musharraf has been exonerated. There is ample reason to question this “official story” on all counts.
The obvious intent is to turn this undeniably tragic event into a new justification for the pursuit of US strategic interests in the region. In the week leading up to the assassination, there have been a number of reports indicating that US military forces are already operating inside Pakistan and preparing to substantially escalate these operations.
...The lines separating Al Qaeda—or, to be more precise, radical Islamist elements in Pakistan—from the country’s military-intelligence apparatus are hardly firm. Pakistan’s military-controlled regimes have encouraged and rested upon support from Islamist forces—as a counterweight to the working class and the left—ever since General Zia-ul Haq seized power and carried out the hanging of Benzir Bhutto’s father, then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in 1979. The military regime—and in particular its intelligence arm, the ISI—further cemented these ties during the US-backed war against the pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It was then that the ISI and the CIA worked to build up the movement that became know as Al Qaeda and collaborated directly with Osama bin Laden.
That these ties still exist is without question...
Read more!!
It is even more obvious that everything in it was not only right, but that its worse than we imagined.
And again, all of this was PLANNED months BEFORE the CIA knocked Bhutto off.
Check it out:
http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
CIA to get broad powers to act inside Pakistan: Report 06 Jan 2008 The administration of President [sic] George W Bush is considering granting the Pentagon and CIA new authority to conduct covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan, The New York Times reported on its website late Saturday. Citing unnamed senior administration officials, the newspaper said the plan calls for giving Central Intelligence Agency agents broader powers to strike selected targets inside the country, in some cases using intelligence provided by Pakistani sources.
U.S. Considers New Covert Push Within Pakistan 06 Jan 2008 President [sic] Bush’s senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Many of the specific options under discussion are unclear and highly classified. Officials said that the options would probably involve the C.I.A. working with the military’s Special Operations forces. At the White House and the Pentagon, officials see an opportunity in the changing power structure for the Americans to advocate for the expanded authority in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country. [Hmm... Who benefits from the Bhutto assassination? Do we really need Scotland Yard to figure out who was behind the assassination?]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DRANT DAILY
Number 282
December 28, 2007
Oh come ON people.
Cui Bono Cui Bono, how many times I gotta tellya CUI F*****CKING BONO !!!
And, remember, when the pimp press all sing one song, yer BS detector bettah start howling.
There is no US diplomatic disaster in Pakistan.
The Bushists did not make a mistake.
Here again: IDIOCY BY DESIGN.
Can Any of you spell P-I-P-E-L-I-N-E ???
As in: Trans-Afghanistan pipeline and the Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline.
What do you think we're doing there ?
Ya think its for the Pashtun food ?
We killed Benazir's old man.
We put Musharraf in power.
Bin Laden (Al CIAda),The CIA, The Mujahideen, and ISI go back a looong way. They endure as a deadly menage-a-treachery.
We dragged Benazir back to Pakistan.
And we have obviously knocked her off.
Now comes the chaos, the smashing of windows, burning of mosques, overthrown cars, a bunch of corpses, and tons - I say TONS-
of footage on the pimp media showing screaming brown folks acting crazy.
Well, says Sheriff Bush, we bettah ride into town and make it safe for our ole pal Dimmokracee one mo' time.
And, just like crock-work, in comes Da Army !
Please note- the deal was made LAST MONTH.
U.S. Troops to Head to Pakistan
Washington POST
Early Warning
William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
December 28, 2007
Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning.
These Pakistan-centric operations will mark a shift for the U.S. military and for U.S. Pakistan relations. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the U.S. used Pakistani bases to stage movements into Afghanistan. Yet once the U.S. deposed the Taliban government and established its main operating base at Bagram, north of Kabul, U.S. forces left Pakistan almost entirely. Since then, Pakistan has restricted U.S. involvement in cross-border military operations as well as paramilitary operations on its soil.
But the Pentagon has been frustrated by the inability of Pakistani national forces to control the borders or the frontier area. And Pakistan's political instability has heightened U.S. concern about Islamic extremists there.
According to Pentagon sources, reaching a different agreement with Pakistan became a priority for the new head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Adm. Eric T. Olson. Olson visited Pakistan in August, November and again this month, meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Gen. Tariq Majid and Lt. Gen. Muhammad Masood Aslam, commander of the military and paramilitary troops in northwest Pakistan. Olson also visited the headquarters of the Frontier Corps, a separate paramilitary force recruited from Pakistan's border tribes.
Now, a new agreement, reported when it was still being negotiated last month, has been finalized. And the first U.S. personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan by early in the new year, according to Pentagon sources.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For a much more insightful account, please access:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/dec2007/bena-d29.shtml
Bhutto assassination heightens threat of US intervention in Pakistan
By Bill Van Auken
29 December 2007
With Pakistan erupting in violence over the assassination of its former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and amid conflicting accounts as to both the identity of her assassins and even the cause of her death, official Washington and the American mass media have coalesced around a version of events that has been crafted to suit US strategic interests.
Without any substantive evidence, the crime has been attributed to Al Qaeda, while Bhutto herself has been proclaimed a martyr both in the struggle for democracy in her own country and in the US “global war on terror.” Meanwhile, the government of President Pervez Musharraf has been exonerated. There is ample reason to question this “official story” on all counts.
The obvious intent is to turn this undeniably tragic event into a new justification for the pursuit of US strategic interests in the region. In the week leading up to the assassination, there have been a number of reports indicating that US military forces are already operating inside Pakistan and preparing to substantially escalate these operations.
...The lines separating Al Qaeda—or, to be more precise, radical Islamist elements in Pakistan—from the country’s military-intelligence apparatus are hardly firm. Pakistan’s military-controlled regimes have encouraged and rested upon support from Islamist forces—as a counterweight to the working class and the left—ever since General Zia-ul Haq seized power and carried out the hanging of Benzir Bhutto’s father, then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in 1979. The military regime—and in particular its intelligence arm, the ISI—further cemented these ties during the US-backed war against the pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It was then that the ISI and the CIA worked to build up the movement that became know as Al Qaeda and collaborated directly with Osama bin Laden.
That these ties still exist is without question...
Read more!!
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