By
Daniel M Pourkesali, Virginia
Iran's release of the
video taken on the morning of Sunday January 6th in the Straight
of Hormuz, clearly debunks Pentagon's hype of depicting a routine patrolling
operation by the Iranian Navy as an act of unfathomable aggression against the
United States.
Timing of this so called 'provocation' incident
in the Persian Gulf just before Mr. Bush's trip to the region was also very
convenient as he went on reminding the world and all the client Arab states in
the region during a
press conference in Israel yesterday that they must fear this menacing
"threat to the world peace" and prepare for a joint U.S./Israeli action to deal
with Iran.
Some have rightfully compared it with another
eerily similar 'incident' in the
Gulf of Tonkin on August 2, 1964 when another government lie started a war
leading to over 50,000 American deaths and millions of Vietnamese casualties.
But several gigantic errors and miscalculations
severely undercut this latest concoction. First, this is not 1964 and thanks to
internet people no longer have to rely on radio, television, and newspapers
version of the events which often report such official claims as absolute
truths.
Second, Iranians unlike their American
counterparts, do remember and have learned quiet a bit from their history with
the United States especially in the aftermath of the 1953 CIA coup which put an
end to their budding democratic government.
The amateurish video audio
hodgepodge released by DoD to bolster U.S. claims, raised more questions
rather than confirm portrayal of the U.S. as victim of the Iranian mischief.
According to a report published in the
New York Times, unnamed Pentagon officials are saying that the threatening
voice heard in the audio clip which was recorded separately from the video
images and merged together later by the Navy, "is not traceable to the Iranian
military".
That voice spoken in an unfamiliar accent was the
dead giveaway for many Iranians including this writer that the video was a hoax.
To the contrary, the
Iranian version appears realistic with audio and video perfectly
synchronized in what appears to have been shot with an ordinary camcorder most
of us are familiar with. The Navy men speak in a very familiar accent while
going about their business of patrolling and identifying ships sailing in or
near Iranian territorial waters.
Here is the text of the conversation that took
place between the two patrolmen on the Iranian Navy speed boat as translated
from Persian:
0:07 #1:
"Announce its position"
0:30 (Patrolman
#2 calls the other by name with a reference to need for safety procedures)
0:45 #1: "Slowly
get a little closer... can't make out the ship number"
0:50 #2: "Did you
get it?"
0:51 #1: "Yeah,
it is not clear"
0:56 #1: "Wait
just a moment"
0:57 #2: "It is
better now"
1:16 #1: "Is it
73?" (Boat proceeds to pull a little closer)
1:32 #1: "I hear
something being announced from its loudspeakers, what is it saying?"
1:50 #1: "I
think they're talking to us"
2:35 #2:
"Channel?" (Getting ready to establish radio communication)
2:36 #1: "16"
2:37 #2: "What
was the ship number?"
2:38 #1: "73"
2:40 (Then
patrolman #2 starts the radio communication in English)
At the very end of this 5 minute video one of the
Iranian patrolmen is heard reciting the ship's position: "26 and 30 minutes
north and 0 and 56 minutes east" and the American ships are shown sailing
away west without incident.
Welcome to the Persian Gulf.
http://www.politube.org/show/341
http://www.politube.org/show/340
http://www.politube.org/show/339
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/degrees-of-confidence-on-us-iran-naval-incident/?hp
... Payvand News - 01/11/08 ... --
