Reading The Pictures: A Judy Miller-ish Fixation On Little Boats

The way the NYT has been handling the Iranian speed boat story has now become just plain, well, Judy Miller-ish.

Two days after the blogosphere had largely unravelled the military's original story and the Navy itself was starting to backtrack, the paper-of-record felt compelled to trumpet the threat on its front page with a piece titled: Iran Encounter Grimly Echoes '02 War Game. (Link.) And then yesterday, more than a week-and-a-half later, The Times not only returned to the subject with more saber-rattling, but with a visual display of impressive disproportion.

In an op-ed piece in the Week In Review by one David B. Crist -- ID'd as a Marine Corps reservist who served in Iraq in 2003 -- the headline touts: Iran's Small Boats Are a Big Problem. (Link.)

Using snapshots Crist took himself (when, five years ago?), The Times deemed to blow up these images three columns wide and stack them a-third-of-a-page tall (the one on top, naturally, featuring some kind of mobile rocket launcher) to give the impression that -- after what the military said didn't happen that way; and based on a hysterical act of propaganda on the eve of Bush's Iran-bashing Middle East trip (also attempting to distract from a completely failed Israeli-Palestinian policy) -- these small boats (pictured all-by-their-scary-lonesome) must, must, must loom large as a threat at this point in time.

For more of the visual, visit BAGnewsNotes.com.

Comments

[Mark701]

When I read about the mean Iranians harrassing our steel, ultra modern guided missile frigates with fiberglass speed boats I almost peed my pants I was laughing so hard. If those boats actually represent a danger to US ships then I want my tax dollars back from whoever designed and built them for the navy!

[RumiSouth]

Can I just point out one more ludicrous element of this "Bomb-Iran" marketing blitz?

Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has been dressed up as the "dictator-of-the-month" for propaganda purposes, but he's not a dictator. He doesn't dictate anything. He doesn't control the armed forces, he doesn't control the economy, he doesn't control domestic policy, and he has only partial control of foreign policy.

He has less actual power than most US state governors.

[elusiveyo]

rthis is exactly the reason I did not renew my subscription years ago, they are no better thatn the rest, "all the propaganda that's not fit to print"

[Ides]

This has gone from careless to stupid to malevolent in the baldfaced attempts to push a war with Iran.

[FreeThinkn1]

I saw the video and listened to the audio clip of the so called Iranian attack on our battle ships. The person speaking on the tape does not have a Farsi accent. He sounds like a bad imitation of "The Terminator" or Karl Hungus, the Nihilists, from The Big Lebowski. "I wants da muhny Lebowskee!" This is not an unusual incident between our Navy and Iran, so why is this incident being reported and not the incident in December 2007 when USN shot warning shots at the Iranian boats?

We have troops in a country that borders their country; our battleships were 16 miles off of the Iranian coast; we have a President with an itchy finger on the button who just declared a branch of the Iranian government a terrorist organization; we provided Iraq with weapons and money during the Iraq-Iran war (including the chemical weapons Saddam used on the Iranian army); we removed the Iranian Prime Minister who wanted hold democratic elections and transition Iran into a Democracy (and take control of the oil from the UK) and we installed a dictator the Shah in Operation Ajax; we "accidentally" killed 290 people on domestic Iran Air Flight 655 while we were in Iranian waters (we gave all of the crewmen medals and lied about being in Iranian waters); we destroyed six Iranian ships and two oil platforms causing high Iranian casualties; and we blamed Iran for the downing of the Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie when it was actually Libya. All the while, we either denied or covered-up "embarrassing" facts that were later revealed by independent investigations and International Tribunals. History seems to indicate that we"ve been the aggressor and we've been less than truthful about our dealings with Iran. But, why let a little thing like history and the facts get in the way? Yeah, the Iranians are definitely the aggressors and are lying in this situation.

[larry278]

Rule 1: If the NYT says that it is true-don't believe it.

[SPENCER]

You folks should read this story in the Asia Times that accuses the Pentagon of hyping the incident; a very detailed account:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA17Ak03.html

[JulieSA]

Mr. Shaw, thanks to the link to the Crist article. It's a very informative and reasoned discussion of the problem being caused by the unpredictable actions of the IRGC.

[johnvirginia]

My recollection is that a similar destroyer cruising innocently in this strait shot down an Iranian passenger plane killing nearly 300 people.

Why should the Iranians be concerned about us being there, we are there for the common good.

[JulieSA]

"Two days after the blogosphere had largely unravelled the military's original story and the Navy itself was starting to backtrack..."

The only questionable part of the event was the verbal threat over the radio. Many people who've served in the Persian Gulf think the threat may have been made by the Filipino Monkey, one of the hecklers that hassles ships over the radio.

There is no question that the IRGC boats buzzed around the warships and dropped objects in the path of one of them. This was after the warships had already IDed themselves with regular Iranian Navy forces.

[fourex]

NY Times is not alone in dinghy rattling. Martha Raddatz of ABC on a PBS show gave a horrified account of the speed boat attacks on the fleet. She concluded that only great restraint by US Naval officers kept the sea from turning blood red. Apparently the entire MSM is under marching orders to scare people with phantom attacks. God bless Bush.

[hopefull]

Why would Iran wish to provoke a War with US?

[MajorKong]

Usually if you're going to ambush somebody you don't call them up on the radio and say "I'm coming to get you! Nyaah! Nyaah! Nyaah!". It tends to spoil the element of surprise.

[Justtellthetruth]

Am I wrong in assuming that at least as it pertains to broad, endless, unnecessary war in the Middle East, the NY Times is simply a neocon mouthpiece? Miller? Kristol? Friedman? These and endless other war mongering, saber rattleing non stories?

It seems logical to conclude that it can no longer be trusted as a source of factual, unbiased news on ANYTHING having to do with the middle east.

[WilliePilgrim]

Little boats or "little man in the boat"?