In all the hullabaloo over the primaries, this story might have got missed by some:
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) – The U.S. military has video and audio recordings of Iranian boats that threatened to blow up U.S. Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and plans to release them, the top Navy commander in the Mideast said Tuesday. President Bush described the confrontation as a “provocative act.”
Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff disputed Iranian claims that the incident early Sunday was a routine encounter, saying Iran’s “provocative” actions were “deadly serious” to the U.S. military.
“It was a dangerous situation,” Bush told reporters at the White House. “They should not have done it, pure and simple. I don’t know what their thinking was, but I’m telling you what my thinking was. I think it was a provocative act.”
The confrontation was an unusual flare-up of U.S.-Iranian tensions in the Persian Gulf as Bush begins his first visit to the Mideast. In the tour, Bush is to visit Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab allies, in part to coordinate in confronting Iran.
Many Arab countries fear the Iranian-American rivalry could erupt into a military confrontation that would put them in the crossfire and hurt vital Gulf oil traffic.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that its high-speed boats never threatened the U.S. vessels during the encounter, insisting it only asked them to identify themselves, then let them continue into the Gulf. A Guards commander defended his force’s right to identify ships in the sensitive waterway.
Cosgriff, the commander of U.S. 5th Fleet, which patrols the Gulf and is based in nearby Bahrain, said the American vessels had already been identified by Iranian authorities earlier in the day before the confrontation occurred.
With the Cole incident at the back of all naval minds, such an event is highly disturbing. What seems like a mere harassing exercise could swiftly lead to one or more of these motorboats making a suicide run towards a US ship. One thing to keep in mind – US naval warships are designed to fight other naval warships, not motorboats. Our ships have limited capability of thwarting a close-in attack from a small, fast moving target. Some people have expressed dismay over the lack of violent reaction on the part of the Navy during the incident, but my bet is that our ships are ready for a missile attack, an aerial attack, a submarine attack…for all manner of attack, but for some reason no one has considered what to do when a motor boat comes at you in open, though restricted (the Straight is narrow, and has a lot of navigation hazards), waters.
Prudence would seem to dictate that we adopt a policy of firing on any identified Iranian surface craft which approaches within a set distance of a US ship – in other words, we figure out how far out we need a small, fast target to be in order to ensure its destruction, and then don’t let any such craft to come closer than that. On the other hand, the Iranian government might not be unified in its determination to challenge the United States – could be that part of the Iranian leadership realises that full scale war with the US is national suicide, and so they work to keep the aggressive elements of the Iranian government in check…but a shooting incident which the hard-core anti-Americans could exploit? That might tip the balance and convince even semi-moderate Iranians that they must fight. So, we have to tread with care here – and I’m glad that this is precisely what President Bush is doing. War there might be with Iran, but it should only start at a time and place of our choosing.
The larger picture must be kept in mind – and central to that larger picture is the huge strides of success being made in Iraq at the moment. Iraq is the central front in the War on Terrorism, and we must allow nothing to divert us from completing that mission – any threat to that mission must be dealt with severely, but before we go tangling with the Iranians, lets be sure we have all our forces ready for all contingencies. Don’t let the Iranians provoke us into a hasty strike.
Blogs For Victory 
>>Extraordinary Claims require Extraordinary proof. – Magnum<<
I couldn’t agree more Magnum. So please provide the proof of Bush domestically spying on American phone calls. Please provide the proof that Bush lied us into war. Please provide the proof that Global Warming is real.
I have a lot more issues that I will need proof on, but we’ll start with those. Anxiously awaiting your reply.
Rosie O’Donnell says it was fake, a put-up job so it must be true. Having been a sailor on ships in the Tonkin Gulf during the Viet Nam war, I know what its like to live under the threat of attacks like this and it ain’t no game. Our orders were simple, defend yourselves as best you can.
neocon,
Well, here’s President Bush lying to us in April 2004 about court orders in relation to wiretaps:
Here he is in weekly radio address of December 17, 2005 admitting that he was not seeking the warrants from the FISC as required by FISA after the New York Times story revealed his 2002 executive order authorizing violations of FISA and claiming that he was told by his lawyers that he has the authority to order violations of the law:
As they say, “From the horse’s mouth”.
Diana,
You don’t seem to grasp the difference between signals intelligence (something I spent a career in) and wire taps. Your last 2 posts just make you look like an extremely foolish and ignorant partisan.
Retired Spook,
I don’t doubt your credentials. I do understand the distinction between sigint and physical taps. In the President’s spontaneous falsehood of 2004 he did use the word “wiretap”. However, the context of his December 2005 radio address, with its extended rationalization of the activities that he ordered, was the New York Times story published that month revealing the domestic surveillance in violation of FISA. Most importantly, the FISA statute defines the electronic surveillance which it limits as being, among other things (emphasis added):
So, saying it involves signals rather than physical taps isn’t relevant.
Also, as you know, a large proportion of telephone traffic within the United States travels at least part of the way via the radio or microwave bands of the electromagnetic spectrum obviating the need for physical wiretaps.
Diana,
A guy who has done an incredible amount of research on the issue is A. J. Strata. Check out the archives on his blog under FISA/NSA.
BTW, you seem to have an ax to grind on this issue. Have you, or do you know someone who has been a target of such intercepts. It would help me understand where you’re coming from if you could show some kind of standing WRT to this issue.
Diana,
Thank you for your copy and pastes and for another rehash of a four year old argument.
That wasn’t the question though. I asked Magnum to provide specific proof of Bush admin domestic spying. Remember:
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
Retired Spook,
My standing is that of being an American citizen who, oddly enough, believes that the President, of all people, should act in accordance with the Constitution that the Presidential oath directs him or her to “preserve, protect and defend”. Part of the Constitution is that the President “take care that the laws be faithfully executed”. Now, it isn’t hard to imagine the situation of President Bush in the immediate aftermath of the attacks of 09/11/01 perhaps finding that even the retroactive warrants allowed for under FISA were insufficient. In that case, one might argue a case for going ahead with ordering activities contrary to FISA while simultaneously asking the Republican-led Congress to amend the statute.
However, he did not do that. President Bush ordered the violations, gratuitously lied to every American about what the government was doing while reminding any potential terrorists that we were trying to intercept their communications and only asked for amendment of FISA after the law-breaking was brought to light. Not only did he wait for years before asking for changes, but now he’s demanding the unprecedented addition of retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies (other than Qwest, which demanded the required warrants) that cooperated in breaking the law.
That’s called acting in bad faith. That may be fine and dandy for those who venerate this President, but President’s are transitory. The Constitution is not.
neocon,
Well, if the President’s own words won’t work for you then I think you’ve erected an impenetrable wall to keep any proof that will meet your self-improved standards out.
Yes, I realize that I inadvertently used an apostrophe when writing the plural of President. It should have been Presidents.
Diana,
Once again, I never questioned the legalities, nor any utterances from Bush. I asked to see the proof of any such domestic spying abuse.
Names and address’s of victims.
Do I need to dumb that down for you?
Diana,
The egregious violation of the law and the intentional misleading of the public on behalf of the President, as you assert, is an impeachable offense. I beg of you to call your representative and demand action. It’s hard to believe Pelosi and Reid haven’t done anything about it, but you can make it happen and, damn it, you owe to this country to bring forth charges.
I will anxiously await your next move.
Godspeed.
Retired Spook,
Quite frankly, the more I’ve thought about your question here, the more bizarre it seems to me and, I’m sad to say, the more illustrative it seems to me of many surveillance-apologists. Firstly, the programs are secret, ergo, the targets don’t know who they are and the government isn’t going to say. We don’t even know very much at all about what the President has referred to as the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) and we know nothing at all about other programs. Has the HT LINGUAL program been resurrected? Who knows?
However, it seems that you, someone who knows how intelligence works, find it strange that anyone should object to government surveillance if they’re not doing anything wrong or, as Mark put it recently, aren’t being set up for a false charge. That outlook would certainly have met with the full approval of the Ministry of State Security of the old GDR. However, the United States is not the GDR.
neocon,
The TSP is secret. The government doesn’t send a postcard or an email to notify the people whose communications they are monitoring. It’s part of the whole secrecy part of the program. So, that’s why you aren’t getting a list of “[n]ames and address’s (sic) of victims”. I know that aspect is a bit arcane, so to echo your question, “Do I need to dumb that down for you?”
USSID, enacted in July of 1993, creates the following, as described by The American Spectator’s Jed Babbin:
Under Section 4 of USSID 18, communications which are known to be to or from U.S. persons can’t be intentionally intercepted without: (a) the approval of the FISA court…; OR (b) the approval of the Attorney General of the United States with respect to “communications to or from U.S. PERSONS outside the United States…international communications” and other categories of communications including for the purpose of collecting “significant foreign intelligence information.”
USSID 18 goes on to allow NSA to gather intelligence about a U.S. person outside the United States even without Attorney General sanction in emergencies “when securing the approval of the Attorney General is not practical because…the time required to obtain such approval would result in the loss of significant foreign intelligence and would cause substantial harm to national security.”
A careful examination of relevant legislation and precedent shows that the law clearly allows the NSA’s use of unwarranted wiretaps on international communications between persons in the United States and suspected terrorists abroad. To begin, the program operates comfortably within the bounds of the Constitution and does not, as some mistakenly believe, violate the Fourth Amendment. Warrants are required for domestic search and seizure, but in decision such as Katz v. United States and United States v. United States District Court, the Supreme Court specifically allowed an exception to the warrant requirement for domestic surveillance conducted for foreign intelligence purposes.
http://hprsite.squarespace.com/bushs-wiretapping-pro-032006/
js,
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is a statute passed by the Congress of the United States and is part of the United States Code. USSID is an acronym for United States Signals Intelligence Directive. It is a document created within the Executive Branch. As such, it does not and cannot supersede Federal law, to wit, FISA.
Diana,
That hasn’t stopped the media and the Democrats from learning of, and divulging the CIA secret prisons, the financial tracking, the alledged “war plans” for Iran, and of course the wire surveillance, all in an attempt to denigrate the GWOT and discredit the Administration. Surely they would bring to light any actual and specific violations of the NSA surveillance, considering the Democrats treat secrets as politcal play.
So you’re claim that the TSP is double top secret, just doesn’t hold water, ok?
js,
Gosh, you quoted someone writing in the Harvard Political Review saying the President’s actions are hunky-dory. Well, that certainly settles that because they’re just like the Supreme Court and stuff.
Gee,
I really dont thing you have a clue here Diana.
FISA and the Supreme Court have ruled that what Bush did was legal, within his constitutional authority.
Your chewin on old leather there gurl….way out of date. You gettin this all from MoVOn.orG?
neocon,
If you think that constitutes an actual argument then, by all means, pat yourself on the back and enjoy another cup of coffee or whatever. As I’ve said, just trust blindly. Don’t question authority. They only intend to do these things to protect you from the scary world. They’re from the government and they’re here to help you.