At least it didn't go without comment.

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Obviously the iranian action was calculated. To what end? From what I have read, had they come an an inch closer, the Navy would have blown them away. How would that have served their purposes? Maybe the media, which would convict the Navy as trigger happy gunslingers, is something that the Iranians would find useful.

I suspect more goading Bush into stretching our resources prior to the next president coming into office.

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69 days left http://www.backwardsbush.com/

Actually, I have to wonder why myself since it was common practice for them to run parallel to us, shaking their fists and acting all tough whenever we would go through the Strait.

They did not charge us however, and if they had engaged a cruiser, destroyer and frigate there wouldn't have been enough left to make matchsticks out of.

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how about bombing those fucking boats

Unless they had actually attacked, it would have served no purpose. The Iranians wouldn't have stood a chance against 3 US Navy warships.

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The Captain in charge of that group of ships was the one to make the decision, not Bush. If the Iranians had continued their course, teh Captain would have been completely by the ROEs to take them out, and those ROEs have been in place for decades.

A ship's captain doesn't care WHO you vote for.

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Few Know About the Tonkin Bay Incidents

On August 4, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson spoke on national television, asking Congress for authorization to use force in Vietnam in response to a claimed "unprovoked attack" against a U.S. destroyer on "routine patrol: in the Tonkin Gulf on August 2, followed by a "deliberate attack" by North Vietnamese PT boats on a pair of U.S. ships two days later. Three days later, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed by Congress, unanimously by the House (416–0), and by the Senate 88–2, with Senators Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska casting the only dissenting votes. That resolution was the slender reed on which the subsequent vast escalation of the war was built. Here I. F. Stone offers one of the first investigative reports into the omissions and deceptions in mainstream reporting of the Tonkin Gulf incidents.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5769537

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Remember, remember, the 11th of september The Gunpowder Treason and plot;
I see of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.....

Obviously, if the Iranians had attacked, the US ships should have surrendered without firing a shot.

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Seems like that's the mentality, doesn't it?

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Report reveals Vietnam War hoaxes, faked attacks
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Report_..._01082008.html



Raw: Pentagon Releases Video of Iranian Boats Confronting US Warships
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=26424

Well clearly our ships have to have a policy: Come within X distance and get blown up. This would have to vary with the type of enemy craft. For these "boats" I'd say X = 1000 feet. Clearly they were not torpedo carrying craft so the only real threat they posed was a ramming attack.

From the video, it's not clear if the boat going around the back side came closer than this or not. The rest of the boats appear to have stayed beyond this distance.

Ignoring the loons and their "we lied" claims. Ther are several reasons I can think of why the Iranians would charge. The first and most obvious would be to see how close they can get before any real action is taken. Since they did not press to a shooting incident I suspect they had a pretty good idea of how close they could come and were testing to see if still true.

As far as I am concerned they got much to close.

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Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

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Yeah, they're muslims, so naturally they don't care if they get killed. They figured that it's all for Allah anyway, so they risked being blown to bits just to test the waters.

Makes perfect sense dude.

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-Ronald Reagan

The USS Cole attack was carried out how, exactly?

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