How does the Iranian boat incident differ from the Russian bombers?

UK jets scrambled to intercept Russian aircraft

Fighters - small, fast, agile - were scrambled to intercept a Russian reconnaissance plane.

Pentagon says ships harassed by Iran

Speedboats - small, fast, agile - were sent out to intercept a Navy WARSHIP convoy.

An Iranian fleet of high-speed boats charged at and threatened to blow up a three-ship U.S. Navy ... then vanished
Source

Perhaps in Russia the news could have read: "Fleet of UK Tornados charged aggressively at peaceful Russian reconnaissance plane and then vanished."

Russia could have released a video of the incident, edited, chopped up and added a spooky voice at the end saying "we are coming at you... you will explode in ... minutes". They could leave details ambiguous calling it: "heavily accented"... Mysterious Voice

I find it difficult to simply trust and believe in the stories we are told in the news when our Defense Secretary says something like this:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking aboard the USS New Orleans pierside in San Diego, told reporters on Monday "it would be nice to see the Iranian government disavow this action and say that it won't happen again."

There is so much going on AGAINST Iran from our side, that I can't even keep up... To imply the best course for Iran is to simply allow us to sail Warships (likely fully armed), 12 miles from their coast would be a monumental tactical error... Gates is setting Iran up for failure. Iran will NOT disavow these actions, they cannot. As many Americans will see it, Iran will be "defiant" once again (and thus supports "aggressive tactics" against the US). If Iranian warships sailed 12 miles off our coast, would we not have boats there to greet them and ask them their heading/speed among other useless requests until they are headed away from our country?

I do not wish any harm come to our troops. I fully acknowledge that they should and MUST protect themselves at all times. But I look at this "incident" and see so many holes and half-truths in the Pentagon's story, it makes my blood boil. There are men and women are on these boats putting their lives on the line and we're playing political games.

1. In my humble opinion, 5 boats is not considered a "fleet".
2. It is irresponsible and a lie to say "the Iranians threatened to blow up our ships" without establishing the identity of the voice. The way it is worded in the article made it sound like they had established contact with, and were directly threatened by the Iranians.
3. The "hit-and-run" tactics described in the article (charging at and then vanishing) are a lie as well. The Iranians did not vanish. They stopped and "saw our ships off" (as the UK article describes it).

To have outright opened fire on the Iranians would have been a mistake as well and again, in my opinion, another lie. Perhaps they meant they would have fired WARNING shots first... Why leave it so ambiguous? To leave it so is to further imply there was greater danger present than there probably was.

To see the full 45 min video go to: www.pentagonchannel.mil... there is a search bar in the bottom left; "Iran boat" should result in the video coming up on the first page.

[edit on 1/13/08 by Angry Danish] (speling)

[edit on 1/13/08 by Angry Danish]

I don't think that many people actually know what really happened in either case. All we have to go by are the media reports.

If there really was a threatening transmission before the boats started approaching the US ships, then I think there is a very large difference. It would be one thing if we hadn't lost some sailors to a similar sized boat being detonated next to one of our ships in the past. To my knowledge, the Russians didn't make any threats before doing their fly by.

Again, are we being lied to by the media? Could be. We easily could be in the middle of a big mind game to try and push the people into wanting war with Iran.

But if we were to take both stories at face value, then I think there is a pretty substantial difference between the Iranian ships and the Russian planes.

The incident was provocative to say the least. The boats dropped things in the water, unusual behavior for speed boats, and then we have the radio comments and repeated "runs" at the US ships. The US boats were operating in recognized internationational waters. They have to consider any vessel coming close to it a potential threat, an explosive laden speedboat hitting a destroyer would be worse that it getting hit with a torpedo. It has been warplanned that Iranian Revolutionary Guard Naval units would use such tactics, so it is not beyound the pale to think the actions could be aggressive. Iran will not fight in a conventional manner against the US Navy, they can't go toe to toe with it.

A better analogy would have been the Chinese pilots who got too close to the US recon plane and clipped wings. Risky behavior like that can spark international incidents.