What century are we living in? Can someone explain to me how the US Navy quite literally almost declared war on Iran on the basis of a radio transmission from a phantom voice known as the "Filipino Monkey" (not my term by the way) radio transmission? Read the latest news about the near-war incident in the Strait of Hormuz:
"The threatening radio transmission heard at the end of a video showing harassing maneuvers by Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz may have come from a locally famous heckler known among ship drivers as the "Filipino Monkey."
Since the Jan. 6 incident was announced to the public a day later, the U.S. Navy has said it's
unclear where the voice came from. In the videotape released by the Pentagon on Jan. 8, the screen goes black at the very end and the voice can be heard, distancing it from the scenes on the water.
Indeed, the voice in the audio sounds different from the one belonging to an Iranian officer shown speaking to the cruiser Port Royal over a radio from a small open boat in the video released by
Iranian authorities. He is shown in a radio exchange at one point asking the U.S. warship to change from the common bridge-to-bridge channel 16 to another channel, perhaps to speak to the Navy without
being interrupted.Further, there's none of the background noise in the audio released by the U.S. that would have been picked up by a radio handset in an open boat.
So with Navy officials unsure and the Iranians accusing the U.S. of fabrications, whose voice was it? In recent years, American ships operating in the Middle East have had to contend with a mysterious but profane voice known by the ethnically insulting handle of "Filipino Monkey," likely more than one person, who listens in on ship-to-ship radio traffic and then jumps on the net shouting insults and jabbering vile epithets.
Navy women -- a helicopter pilot hailing a tanker, for example -- who are overheard on
the radio are said to suffer particularly degrading treatment."'
So, apparently the US Navy is operating with near zero ability to tell the difference between a radio pirate screaming profanities and a declaration of war. Based on this madness, the president of the United States nearly declared an all out war. Here is what our dear leader said earlier in the week about this incident:
"There will be serious consequences if they attack our ships, pure and simple," Bush said during a news conference in Jerusalem. "And my advice to them is, don't do it."
Bush was referring to an incident in which five high-speed Iranian boats reportedly threatened to attack the USS Port Royal, USS Hopper and USS Ingraham as they were entering the Persian Gulf on Jan. 6.
Defense officials said the Iranian boats maneuvered aggressively, threatened the U.S. ships via radio and dropped objects into the water in the path of one of the ships.
The U.S. president said "our ships were moving along very peacefully off the Iranian border in territorial water -- international waters -- and Iranian boats came out and were very provocative. And it was a dangerous gesture on their part."
Bush said that earlier in the day, Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, made it "abundantly clear that all options are on the table to protect our assets."
Protect our assets? Are you people collectively drunk? Does no one in this administration at least think it prudent to wait for an investigation before starting WWIII?
We are faced with two possibilities here in explaining this entire incident, and neither of them makes us look remotely good. The first possible explanation for this madness is that we are being led by morons who in turn get their information from other morons, who in turn are so inept that they should not be allowed anywhere near military machinery. This makes us look so incompetent that it quite literally is a danger to our national security. But this is not what I think happened. Call me cynical, I don't care.
The other possible explanation as to how a situation such as this may have happened -- and the scenario I believe to be likely -- is that we were either attempting to provoke Iran or we were attempting to frame Iran as a justification for war. The propaganda failed, which is why no one in the US government is making any sense when speaking about this incident.
Why do I believe we were attempting to recreate the Gulf of Tonkin? Well, we have been trying to go to war with Iran for years now, nearly doing so in March of 2006. We have created hysteria over a WMD threat, which fell apart. We later claimed that Iran was behind the insurgency in Iraq (most of the foreign fighters are Saudis by the way), which did not sell all that well either. We then went on to claim that Iran is why we are losing the war in Iraq and that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are the ones providing the IEDs that are being used against our soldiers.
That too did not go anywhere. We have also supported the claim that not only is Iran willing to destroy Israel, but that they are also capable of doing so, yet American Jews did not buy it and would not support a war. Finally, we have also conducted illegal covert operations against Iran, including the use of terrorist groups (like the MEK), who have - either on their own or on our orders - assassinated 22 Iranian officials.
We still continue to menace Iran's turf and threaten an all out attack. Now, with the Cheneyites trying this hard to start a war, what would prevent them from creating an incident that could be used as justification? A sudden moral line that cannot be crossed? Or perhaps a lately developed conscience? Really, does anyone buy that this administration is operating in good faith on anything, let alone on the topic of Iran?
So the next time you hear, "they hate us for our freedom," whomever they are likely really hate us for this type of bullshit, or more accurately our imperialism.