Seems a bit similar to reports we used to hear of US and USSR ships and planes feinting at each other in the Mediterranean. It should be expected that each side will try to test each others defenses and responses as part of its training and patrolling.

The US seems to be looking for any excuse to start shooting. Their response when UK sailors were detained by Iran near Basra was similarly unfounded.

It may be that we've come to the point where one nut on a CB radio can start a major war. Heckuva job.

Of course they just let the fact that there were white boxes in the water go. Didn't notify anyone about that. They close burger joints for suspicious cans of vegetables donated to food drives, they don't panic when warships have things thrown at them. Makes sense, hm?
The ships would have done a major response to something like that, unless it is commonplace for the Iranian navy to do that? If it is common, then this was nothing more than a common event?

folks, they think we'll believe anything.

>And it took a week for that to become clear.

...for the 500-1,000 American's that have bothered to follow up on this story.

The other 300 million feel that we are attacked, or at the very least, seriously endangered by Iran.

And oldtree is right. It's like the Boston Police Department is now in charge of our national security. And the Iranians are dropping Lite-Brights in the Strait of Hormuz

Our mighty navy needs to stock up on Boston Whalers and cigarette boats - and to recruit some guys experienced at tow-in surfing.

How many jet skis could we buy for the price of one aircraft carrier ?

Republican primary voters will think we were in danger from these speed boats.

Is our nation motivated mainly by fear and hatred ?

cnn.com/2008/TECH/01/13/seals.new.boat.ap/index.html

nytimes.com/2008/01/12/washington/12navy.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

I wonder if there are smaller versions of craft such as these that can be outfited to challenge much larger craft?

I also see no menton of the size of these boxes?

A Koolatron 12 Volt Microwave/Inverter, with a battery, in a styrafoam cooler, could with an open door and running provide a decoy that Aegis would assume was a threat.

In the heat of massed missile strikes on Belgrade and Yugoslavian air defense radar positions in the spring of 1999, the telephone rang one night in a St. Petersburg apartment.

It was the chairman of the radio club of Yugoslavia, Khranislav Milocevic. Valentin Kashinov answered. The Yugoslav described the great destruction and casualties caused by strikes of NATO aircraft, "HARM" air-to-ground missiles, and Tomahawk cruise missiles. Milocevic asked for help in fending off these bombardments. Valentin Vladimirovich immediately inquired if they had any microwave ovens. This was followed by a puzzled silence, and then: "Of course!" Kashinov advised that they get some ordinary microwave ovens and aim them upwards, with doors open, around an installation they wanted to protect, and then turn them on. Khranislav understood at once. The fact was that an American HARM missile would home in on any strong source of radio emission in the 400-10,000 MHz range, exactly the range of conventional household microwave ovens. Literally the next day following this conversation, NATO forced bombed their own embassies in Belgrade.

NATO pilots were fooled, and bombed microwave ovens instead of Serbian tanks for nearly half the time of the air attacks.

According to a British officer who spent six months in the region and offered his own assessment of bombing damage, the Serbs lured the NATO planes using household microwave ovens to simulate the emissions of armored transport systems.

The NATO propaganda machine initially announced that more than 100 tanks, 250 APCs, and 389 cannon had been destroyed. These damage figures have since been revised, since independent observers found only 13 tanks knocked out. As it turned out, the same targets were targeted (and destroyed) repeatedly by different pilots.

A NATO officer who gave an anonymous interview to the British Herald stated that only three tanks were found. "The Serbs use a lot of tricks to elude NATO bombs. The use of microwave ovens from houses in Kosovo to thumb their noses at the alliance was only one of their ruses."

I guess I can understand an annoyance with the manner that the news handled the story, but to claim that there was no threat based on the news that was reported was absurd.

Also, the generalization that small craft cannot be a threat is simply not true, in combination 'specifically' in the straights, these craft are the 'expected' threat.

Blame the MSM and Not the Navy

Dee Illuminati wrote on January 14, 2008 3:08 PM:
"A Koolatron 12 Volt Microwave/Inverter, with a battery, in a styrafoam cooler, could with an open door and running provide a decoy that Aegis would assume was a threat."

Thanks for the tip, Dee Illuminati!
Very interesting indeed!
One silly question, however, how do you manage to turn the oven on, so it can emit microwaves, if the door is open?
Of all of the brands I've seen, none will start until you close the door.

APISHAPA wrote on January 14, 2008 3:20 PM:

If Iran sent thier ships to within a few miles of U.S. land, we would sink them. Iran's behavior seems to be pretty restrained in my opinion.

I have to point out for the sake of illustration that Cuba and the USA are about 100 miles from one another. And during the cold war the norms of international maritime navigation prevailed.

At 7 p.m. October 22, President Kennedy delivered a televised address announcing the discovery of the installations. He proclaimed that the United States would "...regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response..." He also placed a naval quarantine on Cuba to prevent further Soviet shipments of military weapons from arriving there.

The following day all non-essential personnel were evacuated from Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, and the U.S. military was put on world-wide DEFCON 3 alert. Later that day the Organization of American States unanimously supported the decision to quarantine Cuba, and by the end of the day, 180 U.S. Navy ships were prepared for the blockade.

However, Khrushchev claimed that the blockade was illegal and ordered ships to bypass the quarantine. This became known to U.S. officials on the night of October 23 at a civil function in Washington, D.C. Lieutenant General Vladimir Dubovik made several comments that suggested that they would ignore the blockade, and when Ambassador Dobrynin arrived later he did not refute the account. A statement by Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) claimed that U.S. ships would be attacked in response to any attack on Soviet shipping.[3]

The blockade went into effect at 10 a.m. on October 24. At the time, nineteen ships were en-route to Cuba from the Soviet Union. Sixteen of these were clearly identified as reversing course, and only the tanker Bucharest continued towards the U.S. lines. The other two, the Gagarin and Komiles were later discovered only a few miles from the U.S. lines, and they were being escorted by a Soviet submarine positioned between the two ships. The USS Essex group was instructed to block the progress of the submarine and was authorized to use "small explosives" if necessary. At 10:25 a.m. John McCone received an intelligence message and announced that the ships had gone dead in the water. Dean Rusk leaned over to McGeorge Bundy and noted "We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked."[3]

The point is this, approaching another craft in international water is defined as an act of agression.

While the media did sensationalize the issue, nonetheless Iran bears a responsibility in international waters to avoid creating an incident that could lead to escalation of conflict.

I'm just a bit irritated that the blame America first crowd wants to exonerate the Iranian acts, when the approaching of the craft were a clearly understood provocation by both parties.

I mean you can swim from Cuba to the United States, and all during the cold war, and for close to 60 years, by following the tradition of maritime law the two nations have avoided conflict.

I feel if this had been a psyops job, it was damn poor. I see it as yet another wild-eyed exageration by FAUX news that the other MSM as bottom feeders jumped upon, and was really exploited by FAUX in the SC GOP debate.

I didn't see a lucid response from the candidates with the exception of John McCain and thought that Fred Thompson more dangerous than Ron Paul with his remarks.

But lets not suddenly imagine that Iran didn't understand fully their behavior in the event, or ascribe benevolence to them when it isn't warranted. What they did was calculated, dangerous, and just as irresponsible as some of the responses from the GOP in the SC debate.

As a sidebar:

FORT TAYLOR BEACH, Florida (CNN) -- Australian distance swimmer Susie Maroney wearily stepped ashore at Key West, Florida, Monday afternoon, the first person to swim the 112-mile Florida Straits from Cuba to the United States.

JW wrote on January 14, 2008 8:06 PM:

Did the Navy overstate this?

Or did Faux?

w.newshounds.us/2008/01/10/fox_news_chickenhawks_regret_strait_of_hormuz_incident_didnt_turn_into_armed_conflict.php

Watch the video, who hyped this crap, not the Navy, if anything they have been setting the story straight all week long.

I find the conspiracy theory of Naval commanders plotting to support GOP talking points funny.