International waters
I wish NPR would not clean up Trump’s blurts to make them sound less deranged. That’s not their job.
NPR:
President Trump says the U.S. Navy should fire on Iranian boats if they continue to harass U.S. warships in the Gulf, a move that raises the prospect of open hostilities between the two rivals.
What Trump actually said:
He didn’t say “the Navy should,” he said he has instructed the Navy to. He didn’t say “fire on,” he said “shoot down and destroy.” He didn’t say “on Iranian boats,” he said “any and all Iranian gunboats.”
It’s a journalistic convention, I guess, to re-word/paraphrase things people say and then give the direct quote, but the convention shouldn’t be to clean up after a dangerous lunatic.
Apparently Iran and the US have been playing You Are No YOU Are for weeks (and for years, at various levels of intensity).
Last week, U.S. military ships were in the northern Persian Gulf for exercises. The U.S. warships were in international waters, though relatively close to Iran.
In other words standing just outside the fence going “Nyah nyah.”
Iran sent small boats, known as “fast boats,” toward the American warships, with one coming as close as 10 yards, according to the Navy, which released a video. The Pentagon accused Iran of sending 11 fast boats to make “dangerous and harassing approaches” to six American warships.
Who are there just minding their own business, “relatively close to Iran.” (Relative to what? NPR doesn’t say.)
These kinds of standoffs in the Gulf have been taking place for many years. The U.S. and Iran usually observe unwritten rules and the confrontations rarely escalate into actual hostilities, with occasional exceptions.
All very intelligent and productive I’m sure – but Trump is bored with that so he’s putting a foot over the line. I’m sure he’ll make an excellent wartime president.
Which causes me to recall the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The story was that US Navy ships were ‘attacked’ by North Vietnamese gunboats, so President Lyndon B. Johnson responded with an air raid on North Vietnam, then waited 3 days for a response. When there was none, he commenced a full scale bombing of North Vietnam, designed to convince the North to “leave your neighbours alone.” After one helluva tonnage of dollars made their way from the public purse to the coffers of the US military-industrial complex, to match the tonnage of bombs dropped, the US lost the war anyway. Which just goes to show yet again that wars are far easier to get into than get out of. Doubly so with someone like Trump as Commander-in-Chief; and double that again when he is in a face-off with the Islamic-fanatic mullahs of Iran.
Nothing beats a good old-fashioned war in distracting the population from their woes at home. I’m not too sure it would work against a pandemic but Trump won’t care; he knows that Presidents traditionally get lots of praise when they’re ordering the killing of many foreigners, and praise is in short supply for the Donald just now.
He needs the plaudits like we need oxygen, so surely you can’t begrudge him his fix of adulation, can you? What am I saying? Of course you can.
Those damned flying boats, I want to shoot them down too. :P
This, of course, highlights one of the many dangers of the risks involved in electing someone who embraces willful ignorance.
The US has, indeed, played these ‘games’ with Iran–and also China, North Korea and so forth–for years, and arguably decades. Every once in awhile there’s an incident, and the diplomats rush in and try to extract some sort of concession out of the other side, but mostly it’s just showboating.
But you can’t explain that to Two-Scoops. He sees only the surface (just as he fails to understand that we aren’t in NATO to protect Europe from Russia, but rather to prevent the European nations from having to protect themselves from Russia, because the military build-up that that would trigger–particularly by Germany, France and England–is demonstrably a bad idea to anyone who has ever cracked open a history book). So he sees our boats and their boats in the water rushing around each other, and assumes he needs to ‘win’ this encounter in a way that other presidents couldn’t.
In short, Freemage, he doesn’t understand poker. He thinks you actually have to have the “best” hand to win.