U.s. Navy Iran - The original government and media scenario - the boats had engine failure and were "in danger" - has now been replaced by an entirely new story.
When news of the detention of two US ships in Iranian territorial waters first broke, the US media - in addition to presenting it as Iranian aggression - uncritically referred to the US government's explanation of what had happened. We're told one of the boats suffered a "mechanical failure" and "accidentally drifted" in Iranian waters. On
U.s. Navy Iran
The American media, which published the government's version of events, repeatedly quoted these phrases - "mechanical failure", "unintentionally adrift" and "boat in distress" - as some kind of hypnotic mantra. This is Eli Lake
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Iran's behavior in this situation violated international norms. … Two small U.S. naval vessels sailing between Kuwait and Bahrain strayed into Iranian territorial waters due to mechanical failure, according to U.S. officials. This means the boats were in danger.
Lake quoted John McCain as saying that “boats do not lose their sovereign immunity when in distress at sea. On the night of the news, Reuters was quick to say that "the boats may have accidentally drifted into Iranian waters" and "another US official said mechanical problems may have disabled one of the boats, leading to both vessels accidentally drifting into Iranian waters . "
The US government itself now claims that this story was false. There was no engine failure and the boats were never "in danger". After the sailors were released, the AP said
Reported: "In Washington, a defense official said the Navy had ruled out engine or propulsion failure as the reason the boats entered Iranian waters."
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Instead, as Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told a news conference this morning, the sailors made a "navigational error that mistakenly brought them into Iranian territorial waters." He added that they "appear to have misbehaved" when, according to the New York Times, "they came within a few miles of Farsi Island, where Iran's Revolutionary Guards have a naval base." The
Provided this new official explanation: “The sailor may have entered the wrong coordinates into the GPS device and they were off course. Or the crew members may have taken a shortcut to Iranian waters by going to a refueling vessel, officials said. The initial wording "abandoned unintentionally" - indicating that the damaged boat floats helplessly where the sea takes it - has now been replaced in the script with "wild by error", meaning that the boats were mistakenly diverted into Iranian waters without going to go swimming there. .
It is of course theoretically possible that this latest interpretation of events just happened. However, there are many reasons to suspect otherwise. First, American sailors often travel between Bahrain and Kuwait, two of America's main allies, the former of which hosts the headquarters of the Fifth Fleet; they were familiar waters.
Moreover, none of the ships ever reported to anyone that they had accidentally "stumbled" into Iranian territorial waters, an event significant enough to warrant some kind of radio or other announcement. "Americans. Defense officers were baffled as to how the navigational systems of both ships did not alert them that they had entered Iranian waters,” he said.
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Nancy Youseff on Tuesday night. Carter tried to explain this by saying, "Maybe they were trying to work it out at the time they ran into the Iranian boats." Not a single sailor on any of the boats could report an "error"? Moreover, a "misdirection" within a few kilometers of the Iranian Guard's naval base is a striking coincidence (a.k.a.
Summarized the exciting and interesting story of how the boats were probably out of fuel, entered Iranian waters only as a "shortcut", suffered engine failure while trying to escape, and on top of all these mishaps suffered a radio failure).
What we do know for sure is that the "mechanical failure" and "poor American boat in distress" story that Lake relied on solely to blame the Iranians was complete fiction. At least according to the latest government release, the boats worked well. But as always, the bulk of the narrative in the US media has been built around completely unsubstantiated, self-serving claims by the US government, which have yet again been proven to be completely false.
Perhaps there are valid reasons why the US military - while the sailors were still in Iranian custody - would falsely claim that the boats had suffered a "mechanical failure" and were in "danger" because that would justify deliberate action (one of the sailors) . In the video recorded by Iran, they claimed they were "having engine problems". But the fact that the US government has good reason to make false claims does not justify the US media indiscriminately repeating them or building a narrative based on them that portrays Iran as the aggressor; it may be shocking, but the US government and the US media have different roles to play.
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It happens again and again. There is a notable incident such as the US bombing of the MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The US government claims what happened. The American media repeats them uncritically over and over again. And then the US government just rewrites its history over and over, implicitly admitting that the stories it originally told were completely false. But the next time a similar event occurs, there is no increased doubt about the US government's claims: their media treat them as gospel.
The behavior of the American media in this case was frankly embarrassing, even by their standards. CNN's Erin Burnett has publicly and repeatedly suggested that this was a calculated move by Iran to humiliate the US and Obama in his State of the Union address (much like Iran hypnotized sailors into territorial waters at will). In general, this unauthorized incursion into Iranian territory has been consistently described as an act.
(compare this with the US administration's proposal that Turkey has the right not only to intercept but to shoot down any Russian jet that even briefly crosses its airspace). Article 25 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, entitled "Rights of the Coastal State to Protection", states that "the coastal State may take the necessary measures in its territorial waters to prevent non-innocent navigation".
All you need to know about the US media is: Imagine what they would say and do if two Iranian ships entered US territorial waters without warning or permission and the Iranian government lied about why this happened. Not to mention mass
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Which exploded in 1988 when the US Navy blew an Iranian civilian jet out of the sky, in roughly the same areas where those ships were "misrouting", killing 290 passengers, including 66 children, and then tried to cover up responsibility .
So, to summarize the US media narrative: when the US Navy enters Iranian territorial waters without permission or notice, and Iran detains them and then releases them within 24 hours, then Iran is the aggressor; and the same is true when Iran brazenly allows one of its civilian jets to be shot down by the US Navy. And no matter how often the US government makes blatantly false statements about its military activities, those statements are entitled to be unequivocal, uncritically treated as truth the next time a similar incident occurs.
Wait! Before you start talking about your day, ask yourself: What are the odds that the story you were reading would have been produced by another news outlet if The Intercept hadn't? Consider what the media world would be like without The Intercept. Who would hold the party elite accountable for their values? How many secret wars, miscarriages of justice, and dystopian technologies would remain hidden if our reporters weren't kept up? The kind of reporting we do is essential to democracy, but it's not easy, cheap or profitable. The Intercept is an independent, not-for-profit news site. We're ad-free, so we rely on our members - 35,000 and counting - to help us hold the powerful accountable. Joining is easy and doesn't have to cost a lot: you can become a supporting member for as little as $3 or $5 a month. That's all it takes to support the journalism you rely on Become a memberAccording to additional information from the site, only two military commanders connected to the Farsi Island investigation have been removed from command - not three. The officer in charge of the Kuwait Riverboat Division was on duty and technically could not be relieved from his command post. A total of nine service members have or will face administrative action or relief in connection with the report.
PENTAGON - Lax standards, poor operational discipline and ignorance of the rules of engagement led to the capture of ten American sailors during a routine Iranian military operation in January, according to a newly released report on the incident.
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The investigation found that the crews of the two Riverine Command boats were not properly prepared for the short journey from Kuwait to Bahrain and
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