Thatās not the only inconsistency. Notice the draft marks (?) in the video frame published by Stars and Stripes (hardly a left wing rag) that do not exist in photos claiming to show a mine attached to the ship.
Isnāt that them right under the point of the big red arrow?
No, notice how clearly the aft draft marks show up in the arrow photo. The draft marks in the Navy photos are clear and bright would show up very well on images published earlier.
The photo below shows another image.
And, hereās another photo that shows the deck arrangement. It doesnāt seem to match those shown in the video. Notice the manifold location marks, they are vertical rectangles vs circles with numbers in them.
What berets are you seeing? Iām only seeing the red/orange horseshoe collar and pixel bleed in the pic
But what if the lack of draft marks in the wide shot is proof of photoshopping the mine?? That tug fender smudge on the hull directly under the manifold from the āTā to the waterline is clearly visible to me in both photos.
It is all very suspect, but without a picture of whomever planted the mines, how can we believe any of it?
Judging by the large differences in the photos of the ship from several angles and dates I would say that we canāt believe a single pixel of any of them. We are being played by people who stand to benefit by beating the war drums.
Are the deck arrangements in this frame of the video even close to that shown in photos of the ship?
ā¦did this āleadershipā ever have been convinced of something?
Usually āthe leadershipā is convinced, if France and Germany unite and say soā¦
Lots of foreshortening in that photo ā notice the T-shaped marks that look like little men?
Hereās Kokuka Courageous in '16 in Singapore (Marinetraffic.com):
https://photos.marinetraffic.com/ais/showphoto.aspx?photoid=3303777&size=full
If you look at the image full size you can easily see the circles, and how much broader the T marks are than appear in the other photoā¦
Good points, the foreshortening is evident.
Our leadership is certainly not ideal but I prefer it any time above yours to be honest.
Itās the same ship!! The smudge from tugs under the āTā is a constant in all pictures. The draft marks are in the same spot, but more visible with the better resolution image.
IT IS THE SAME SHIP.
CENTCOM didnāt tinker with the images. If, after looking at the crisper color images, you look again at the low resolution B&W image originally released, you can see the GD lifejacket of the guy in the bow of the boat. . . It isnāt rocket science here.
And what about the crew-served weapon in the boat? That weapon is not really in the MO of coalition forces.
All yāal gots to stop looking for little green men.
Ahem. Tonkin Gulf and WMD say that looking for little green men is entirely appropriate.
Looking for them and not finding them is of course the desired outcome.
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I donāt know? Should I be accepting congratulations, or expressing condolences? 
Yeah. WMD INTEL was cooked, Chairman Powell addressed that thoroughly. However, given that Saddam had used chemical weapons on his own population, that was prima-facia evidence he had WMDās. It was only after the war we found out that his generals were misinforming him.
GOT? Like I said, 02 August was real. 04 Aug was not. And it wasnāt the military that said 04 was real. In fact, the OTC (officer in tactical command) who was the rather of Jim Morrison (of the DOORS) told his superiors to hold off reporting the events of 04 Aug up the food chain, until he (Morrison) had time to review the records of the engagement.
His conclusion was that the radar contacts were ghosts, and the torpedo/sonar contacts were the result of the two shipās high-speed maneuvers and turns, which put āknucklesā in the water, causing false echos. His recommendation to his superiors was not followed. And we know what Johnson did.
Iām all for being cautious; my dad served in the Navy from 1938 until the end of WW2. He was at Guadacanal, North Africa and Okinawa. He was recalled in Korea and for the Berlin crisis in 1962. I served in Viet Nam, and my son served downrange multiple times in Iraq and Afghanistan and came back with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. But what Iāve witnessed in this discussion about subterfuge with the images from arm-chair generals and admirals is beyond reasonable.
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My question for you is do you really want to get dragged into a proxy war with Iran based on questionable evidence? How many instances of being hoodwinked do we have to endure before we as a nation can maybe take a step back and consider what we are getting into and to what end?
Put Pompeo in front of the UN Security Council with some photos of whomever is responsible planting the mines that donāt look like they were shot with a first generation 1.3 megapixel digital camera and I may start to get behind it. Otherwise Iām with the crowd of people who have been burned too many times watching this bullshit unfold while sitting on the sidelines and asking why are we doing this. Right now Iām not seeing enough evidence that these Iranians in a patrol boat werenāt just removing an explosive device before it possibly went off. This may not be the case, but Iāll be patient and wait for corroborating evidence to be laid out. We donāt want a war with Iran, but I know a few players in that region that would love for us to start one.
We all together are supposed to be our own Sovereign; our formal leadership is a mess, and we have just to endure the European bureaucracy.
For the rest of my life, I will be living in Switzerland.
Permit me to remind folks that there is not one āIran;ā it is a deeply factionalized state.* So you must consider the schisms in any analysis of who did what and why. This requires a level of sophistication not yet demonstrated by our Administration.
Earl
*That is, until you start a shooting war with them. Then countries tend to become cohesive in a hurry.
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That is very true. They are factionlized due to the creation of artificial borders for Arabs which encompassed the entire middle created by the British and the French about 1917. These borders are now unraveling. Later Israel was created at the last of the 1940s and has consistently violated all UN agreements to control their expansion. These events have created a ticking bomb.
What you said about Iran coming together in times of conflict is very true. At the end of the day most of the Iranians consider themselves Persian. Many factions from other countries may well come to their aid in times of conflict.
The USA should be careful in how they conduct their affairs in that part of the world lest they go the way of the UK and Russia before them. The USA certainly cannot financially afford to fight any war. They have neither the monetary means nor volunteers.
āFor they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind .ā
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It didnāt stop our warmongers from duplicating the Sovietsā classic mistakes in Afganistan.
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