Naval Provocations

The stakes keep getting jacked up with Iran. This is a strange story that just seems to keep getting even more strange. It was reported earlier this week that five Iranian boats approached U.S. forces in the Strait of Hormuz and acted threateningly before retreating without further incident. The Bush administration has been rattling its sabers against Iran for quite some time, so this was potentially quite worrying. The Prez wasted no time in "expressing concern" over the incident. But it wasn't long before the story started falling apart. The Pentagon released audio and video of the clash, but some of the audio didn't seem to fit. The most threatening part of the audio was the message, "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes." But it didn't share the same background noise, the voice seemed too clear. It was just wrong.

Well, yes it was. The Pentagon ultimately admitted that the threats may not have come from the Iranian boats and may not have been directed toward American forces. According to TPM Muckraker, Navy Times has reported that the message may have come from a well-known prankster in the area, Filipino Monkey. If that's the case, was the timing a coincidence? Was it intentional? Who knows?

The problem with the situation is that, whether Iran was intending to be provocative or not, the Bush administration appears very ready to be provoked. If any of this sounds familiar, it is. We went through a similar situation with a fabricated attack against U.S. ships by North Vietnamese vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964. That situation led directly to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that inflamed the conflict in Vietnam into a full-fledged war. If there was still any doubt that the alleged attack never occurred (and I didn't think there was), that was put to rest earlier this week in a report issued by the Federation of American Scientists. The evidence of the attack presented at the time was bogus, although the report doesn't have enough information to suggest whether that was intentional or not. We've already been lied into one war by this administration. As the Prez once famously said, "Fool me once, shame on--shame on you. Fool me . . . you can't get fooled again." Let's make sure we aren't.