Just Foreign Policy is a relatively new think tank that advocates Achieving A Just Foreign Policy Based on Cooperation, Law and Diplomacy.
Imagine.
Key staffers at Just Foreign Policy include:
* Sebastian Anti, Fellow
* Patrick McElwee, Policy Analyst
* Chelsea Mozen, National Co-Coordinator
* Robert Naiman, Senior Policy Analyst, National Coordinator
* Benjamin Phillips, Ethiopia Fellow
Robert Naiman is leading the drive to DEMAND that Congress investigate the manipulation and deceit that are at work behind the affair FishOutofWater discusses here. Naiman's call to action is below the fold.
But before you get to Call to Action to demand that Congress investigate the Persian Gulf incident, be aware that Just Foreign Policy is sponsoring an ambitious, month-long, Folly of Attacking Iran tour featuring author Steven Kinzer and his latest book, All the Shah's Men and Trita Parsi, author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States
Now, Just Foreign Policy's call to action:
You have probably seen or heard about the video recently released by the Pentagon: Iranian motorboats are sailing near U.S. warships while a voice threatens that the U.S. ships will soon explode. The U.S. media hyped now-discredited reports that a "battle at sea" nearly took place.1
But now, the Pentagon has admitted that the audio in the video might not have come from the Iranian ships and might not have been directed against the U.S. warships.2,3 Administration officials are trying to spin this admission as not being a big deal. They are wrong. It is a huge deal.
Ask your Members of Congress to investigate why the Pentagon released this dubious video to the public, fueling press about alleged threats from Iran and ratcheting up
military tensions.
In fact, there is much evidence that the radio transmission did not come from the boats shown in the Pentagon's video. There is none of the background noise of motor, waves and wind that one would expect from a motorboat.4 This particular radio channel is notorious for being cluttered with users hurling insults,5 and it is not at all clear that the voice in the Pentagon's audiotape is even Iranian.6
Presumably, all the information that we have now about this incident was available to the Pentagon - if they were interested - when they released the tape.
Ask your Senators and Representative to investigate: Why the rush to escalate tensions and release this video without checking?
It is likely that there was a rush to release the video prior to President Bush's trip to the region, because his goal is to isolate Iran. If so, like the unsubstantiated claims that Iran had a nuclear weapons program, the Bush administration is once again misleading the world, undermining U.S. credibility, and behaving in a dangerously provocative way.
Congress needs to investigate.
Thanks for all you do for a just foreign policy,
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
References:
- "Official Version of Naval Incident Starts to Unravel," Gareth Porter,
Inter Press Service, January 10, 2008
- The Washington Post reported on Friday:
The Pentagon said yesterday that the apparent radio threat to bomb U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf last weekend may not have come from the five Iranian Revolutionary Guard speedboats that approached them â€" and may not even have been intended against U.S. targets.
"Iranian Boats May Not Have Made Radio Threat, Pentagon Says,"
Robin Wright, January 11, 2008
- The New York Times reported on its website Thursday:
The list of those who are less than fully confident in the Pentagon's video/audio mashup of aggressive maneuvers by Iranian boats near American warships in the Strait of Hormuz now includes the Pentagon itself. Unnamed Pentagon officials said on Wednesday that the threatening voice heard in the audio clip, which was released on Monday night with a disclaimer that it was recorded separately from the video images and merged with them later, is not directly traceable to
the Iranian military.
- The Times reported Thursday:
The audio includes a heavily accented voice warning in English that the Navy warships would explode. However, the recording carries no ambient noise â€" the sounds of a motor, the sea or wind â€" that would be expected if the broadcast had been made from one of the five small boats that sped around the three-ship American convoy.
"Iran Accuses U.S. of Faking Persian Gulf Video,"
Nazila Fathi, January 10, 2008
- On Wednesday, a reader identifying himself as a former Navy officer with experience in the Strait of Hormuz wrote to the Times:
All ships at sea use a common UHF frequency, Channel 16, also known as "bridge-to bridge" radio. Over here, near the U.S., and throughout the Mediterranean, Ch. 16 is used pretty professionally, i.e., chatter is limited to shiphandling issues, identifying yourself, telling other ships what your intentions are to avoid mishaps, etc.But over in the Gulf, Ch. 16 is like a bad CB radio. Everybody and their brother is on it; chattering away; hurling racial slurs, usually involving Filipinos (lots of Filipinos work in the area); curses involving your mother; 1970's music broadcast in the wee hours (nothing odder than hearing The Carpenters 50 miles off the coast of Iran at 4 a.m.)
On Ch. 16, esp. in that section of the Gulf, slurs/threats/chatter/etc. is commonplace. So my first thought was that the "explode" comment might not have even come from one of the Iranian craft, but some loser monitoring the events at a
[http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/degrees-of-confidence-on-us-iran-naval-incident/
shore facility].
- The Washington Post reports:
Farsi speakers and Iranians told The Washington Post that the accent did not sound Iranian.
"Iranian Boats May Not Have Made Radio Threat, Pentagon Says,"
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/10/AR2008011000692.html
Robin Wright, January 11, 2008]
Ask your Senators and Representative to investigate why the Pentagon ratcheted up tensions with Iran by releasing a video appearing to show Iranian threats to blow up U.S. warships - but which even the Pentagon now admits does not show that at all.