Iranian “Boat Taunt”

Of course video can be edited; we know that.

Iran has released a video of the “encounter” between small Iranian boats and the US Navy. No threats are heard or seen. The US Navy is saying that the video has been edited to cut out that part. Possibly. But this is the pot calling the kettle black, because the US release was reported as coming from two different tracks, one video and one audio. How simple is it to offer two mismatched tracks? Even simpler than dubbing an audio over a video. At any rate, watch this CNN clip and listen to the audio track offered by the US Navy.

Whaddya think? Bogus?

The US has been embarrassed or goaded into lodging a formal complaint now, so we can turn this into an explosive incident.

You know, we have to do something so that George can leave office with something to show history for his years as a "war president". I was just thinking about that a little earlier today, wondering if maybe before he leaves we would see the capture of Bin Laden. I can't believe he'll leave without something definitive to laud in the anals of war history. The Iraq fiasco isn't going to cut it.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Update:

Just two days after the U.S. Navy released the eerie video of Iranian speedboats swarming around American warships, which featured a chilling threat in English, the Navy is saying that the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship.

  ABC

Uh huh. But we filed that formal complaint anyway.

The Navy never said specifically where the voices came from, but many were left with the impression they had come from the speedboats because of the way the Navy footage was edited.

Uh huh. As was intended by the Navy.

We're saying that we cannot make a direct connection to the boats there," said the spokesperson. "It could have come from the shore, from another ship passing by. However, it happened in the middle of all the very unusual activity, so as we assess the information and situation, we still put it in the total aggregate of what happened Sunday morning. I guess we're not saying that it absolutely came from the boats, but we're not saying it absolutely didn't."

Oh what a tangled web….

Absolutely par for the Bush 'Bogus' Administration course. Make up something and see if anybody calls us on it. If they do, just make up something else.

Update 1/17/08 Final word