Informed Comment

Informed Comment

Juan Cole shows the "Other Video" and audio from the Gulf of Tonkin ... oops ... I mean Persian Gulf Incident.
Juan Cole points out that "The video released by the Pentagon (at whose orders?) showed these little tiny vessels only a little bigger than what children play with in bathtubs, with no visible armaments. The video does not show anyone dumping white cartons into the water, as was initially alleged (an action which would probably have drawn fire from the US ships if it had happened, lest they be mines). While even a small vessel could be dangerous if it carried high explosives, there is no evidence that they got close enough to the US vessels to form any sort of threat nor that the Iranian government is so foolish as to openly attack the US Navy.

The Iranians analyzed the Pentagon video released to the US media and found that the audio track was not synchronized properly with the video, pointing to serious tinkering.

And sure enough, we now know that the tape is a fabrication in the sense that the Pentagon says the video and the audio were recorded separately and then combined. And they can't even be sure where the audio came from! The NYT reports,"