ranians threatened U.S. ships in Hormuz: Pentagon

mAd_ScIeNtIsT · January 14, 2008, 12:18pm

Re: ranians threatened U.S. ships in Hormuz: Pentagon

Why shoud Iran be responsible for the behaviour of local pranksters? The US Navy should validate where threats come from before considering opening fire.

A heckling radio ham known as the Filipino Monkey, who has spent years pestering ships in the Persian Gulf, is being blamed today for sparking a major diplomatic row after American warships almost attacked Iranian patrol boats.

The US navy came within seconds of firing at the Iranian speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz on January 6 after hearing threats that the boats were attacking and were about to explode.

Senior navy officials have admitted that the source of the threats, picked up in international waters, was a mystery.

And now the US navy’s journal, Navy Times, has claimed that the threats, which were broadcast last week by the Pentagon, are thought to have come from an infamous radio prankster.

It said the Filipino Monkey, who could be more than one person, listens to ship-to-ship radio traffic and then interrupts, usually with abusive insults.

Rick Hoffman, a retired captain, told the paper: "For 25 years, there’s been this mythical guy out there who, hour after hour, shouts obscenities and threats. He used to go all night long. The guy is crazy.

“Could it have been a spurious transmission? Absolutely.”

An unnamed civilian mariner told the Navy Times: “They come on and say Filipino Monkey in a strange voice. You’re standing watch on bridge and all of a sudden it comes over the radio. It’s been a joke out there for years.”

It would have been considerable egg on the US Navy’s face if they did open fire on the Iranians, sparked a war, and then found out in the middle of the war that they’d been Punk’d!

Now, I bet that after the very highest levels of the US administration formally complained to Iran… that they won’t have the decency to formally apologise for the unjust accusations they made before the world.

The accusations against Iraq were found to be untrue only after so many thousands of unneeded deaths both on the Iraqi and American sides. I guess that we should be grateful that nobody had to die before this particular US accusation against Iran was also revealed to not be true.