Subscribethree blind mice: Do not mistake Iran for Iraq or Hezbollah ... the Iranians actually have the ability to fight back ... I'm not saying it would be a fair fight, but it would actually be a fight...Wasn't Bush refusing to rule out the use of nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive first strike against Iran just, oh, a few months ago?
The seemingly harmless pleasure craft and propeller planes suddenly turned deadly, ramming into Blue boats and airfields along the Gulf in scores of al-Qaida-style suicide attacks. Meanwhile, Chinese Silkworm-type cruise missiles fired from some of the small boats sank the US fleet's only aircraft carrier and two marine helicopter carriers. The tactics were reminiscent of the al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole in Yemen two years ago, but the Blue fleet did not seem prepared. Sixteen ships were sunk altogether, along with thousands of marines.(Previous posts)
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.The commenter, who signed his posting ‘SWO officer,’ went on to say, ‘I hope everybody exercises great caution here and doesn’t jump to conclusions.’
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 shore facility.
The four-minute video showed an Iranian commander in a speedboat contacting an American sailor via radio, asking him to identify the U.S. vessels and state their purpose.That would seem to be a much less aggressive interaction between the American and Iranian forces, of course. But the timing of the recording could not be confirmed, and as Iran itself has said, these types of exchanges happen all the time.
‘Coalition warship number 73 this is an Iranian patrol,’ the Iranian commander is heard to say in good English.
‘This is coalition warship number 73. I am operating in international waters,’ comes the reply.
However, the recording carries no ambient noise — the sounds of a motor, the sea or wind — 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.</blockquote?
“The recent controversy over an incident in the Strait of Hormuz involving five Iranian speedboats was punctuated by an allegation that an Iranian voice warned a U.S. ship, ‘I am coming to you. You will explode in a few minutes.’ But the voice ‘may have come from a locally famous heckler well known to Navy crews.’ The Navy Times reports:In recent years, American ships operating in the Middle East have had to contend with a mysterious but profane voice widely known as the ‘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 epithets.
Rick Hoffman, a retired captain who commanded the cruiser Hue City and spent many of his 17 years at sea in the Gulf was subject to the renegade radio talker repeatedly, often without pause during the so-called ‘Tanker Wars’ of the late 1980s.
‘For 25 years there’s been this mythical guy out there who, hour after hour, shouts obscenities and threats,’ he said. ‘He could be tied up pierside somewhere or he could be on the bridge of a merchant ship.’ […]
‘He used to go all night long. The guy is crazy,’ he said. ‘But who knows how many Filipino Monkeys there are? Could it have been a spurious transmission? Absolutely.’”
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posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 1:14 AM on January 9, 2008