The owner of the Japanese tanker that was attacked on Thursday in the Gulf of Oman, the Kokuka Outrageous, contradicted the US military’s claims about the attack. Central Command reported that the two tankers were hit with limpet mines, a type of mine that is attached to the hull of a ship below the waterline using magnets. But Yutaka Katada, the owner of the Kokuka Outrageous, said he received reports a projectile hit the ship.
"We received reports that something flew towards the ship," Katada said at a press conference, "The place where the projectile landed was significantly higher than the water level, so we are absolutely sure that this wasn’t a torpedo. I do not think there was a time bomb or an object attached to the side of the ship."
US Central Command released a grainy black and white video of a boat alongside a ship, claiming it was an Iranian patrol boat removing a limpet mine from the Kokuka Outrageous, the claim being they were getting rid of the evidence. The video does not conclusively prove anything, as it is hard to tell what the boat is doing. Iranian state media said Iran rescued the crew of both tankers, so the video could have just been a recording of the rescue efforts.
In an interview with Fox and Friends Friday morning, President Trump blamed Iran for the attacks on the tankers. Trump cited the video as proof, "Well Iran did do it, and you know they did it because you saw the boat. I guess one of the mines didn’t explode and it’s probably got essentially Iran written all over it."
Trump, who has been known to sometimes contradict his more hawkish cabinet members, fell in line with his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who on Thursday, accused Iran of attacking the tankers with no evidence to back up his claim.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt made a statement on Friday, "We are going to make our own independent assessment, we have our processes to do that, (but) we have no reason not to believe the American assessment and our instinct is to believe it because they are our closest ally."
No US officials have responded to the Japanese ship owner’s claims.
Dave DeCamp is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn NY, focusing on US Foreign policy and wars. He is on Twitter at @decampdave.
Every schoolboy knows the best place to put a mine is under the water line. The water serves as a pressure plate to concentrate the force of the explosion into the boat. Plus when you are done you have a hole under the water which is more of a problem than a hole in the air.
Yes, and “Iran” is apparently terrible at sinking unarmored civilian vessels. You’d think the “world’s foremost state sponsor of terror” would know how to sink a civilian freighter.
That other state sponsor of terrorism, Israel, couldn’t sink the USS Liberty either.
Yeah, just kill a lot of innocent American Sailors.. And place a bookmark in history that with an “ally” like them, one needs to question their every utterance & twitch… Not to mention that our president was so compromised by them that he scotched sending help to the injurdoctor & dying…
The U.S. lying is pretty much its default key.
You got that right, antarcticus. The US lying’s pretty much its default key. Both Pompous Pompass and Bonkers Bolton are pathological liars; and it was Pompass that lied this time in pointing the finger at Iran.
It was most likely Israel did it, using a submarine in this false flag attack. Bibzy Nutty&Yahoo gave the sub captain a green light to attack the Japanese oil tanker Kokuka Outrageous .. Why? Japanese PM Shinzo Abe was in Tehran speaking with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini regarding tensions between Iran and the US, on DJT’s behalf.
In fact Pompous is on record admitting that if it helps the US he lies, cheats, deceives………We are dealing here with a bunch of unreliable scrounges..
It is worse then that. They are not just unreliable, assuming that HE knows what help US or what is good for US — but they are venal and vengeful. Japan and Norway shippers being prime examples of punishment for not staying away from Iran.
Exactly. This looks like a message from SOMEBODY to Japan. This will happen to you if you dare give good optics to Iran — while we are demonizing them.
And let us not forget the earlier victim, a Norwegian ship, whose owner is known for his pro-Iranian links. Known as “lifeline of Iran”. Ge got a message as well.
Our Alice of Wonderland Washington, with Humpty Dumpty Trump precariously sitting in that wall of lies, with Mad Hatter Bolton and wide Cheshire Pompous running around like nuts. Congress full of proudly deformed creatures, while Queen Hillary lurks in the background — approving.
This cannot end well for us. Too many countries had been our targets one way or another. They may all murmur some platitudes our way, hoping it blows over them, not in their face.
I never understand why you use the phrase “the U.S.” when you are talking about some small, specific group of people (politicians or whatever they are). Isn’t that the confusion they want to instill in you?
Same reason we hear “The Russia” investigation repeated ad nauseam.
We’ve been conditioned to think of an entire nation as being our “enemy” or the US being the one “keeping us safe”. A default the establishment does not want discarded.
We are not a very bright species, on our best days.
The saying is the human race is clever but not really intelligent.
The U.S. is a nation-state, it must be referred to as such.
The distinction you’re making is a contrivance, because the characterization of promoting falsehoods transcends administrations. The only small group in the U.S. are those of us who even care about these things.
Oh I think a awful lot of us care , But there seems to be little we can do about it
“… (but) we have no reason not to believe the American assessment and our instinct is to believe it because they are our closest ally.”
Yeah….I mean it’s not as if the US ever lied Britain into a war before. What pathetic losers the Brits have become.
Yeah. That’s the claim alright. But the leaders of the countries being “lied to” are in on the deception. Else when the truth comes out, those leaders would be pissed off. Instead they make excuses. Oh well. We flushed a few hundred billion down the loo. A lot of people got killed and maimed. No harm done.
Israel. CIA. Obviously.
Drones come in all sizes these days…..mercenary operators.
Well, if Jeremy Hunt, slavish UK FM, believes the US blaming, who are we to argue???
Where is Abe? What has he said?
Fake news! The ship’s owner must be lying.
The crew members never saw something that flew towards the ship!
If our most honorable SOS Pompeo (who stated “We lied.We Cheated.We stole!”) said it was an Iranian limpet mine then it was an Iranian limpet mine!
Why deny the truth? Why try to spoil this good Christian man’s reputation?
Spot on. Porcine Pompeo and the Walrus are upstanding, righteous Christians and true patriots.
Reminder that the question is not only whether Vietnam or the villain-du-jour attacked at Tonkin but also whether this warranted going to war.
The common reaction to the current incident(though not all across the board) is that of a lot of people very eager to go to war.
They aren’t bothered with the possibility of getting it wrong and they aren’t bothered with overreacting. Therefore this cannot be an issue of deterrence and defense, rather it is an issue of pretext.
Deterrence is to be able retaliate enough to discourage aggression but no more than that.
The lesson with Tonkin was not “The Vietnamese did not attack then and therefore the US should not have gone to war”.
Obviously this is difficult for Americans to understand because traditionally they’ve been in the position of the strong party and therefore have been very easily offended or have been very quick to feel mortally threatened with existential threats.
Obviously the fact that Iran is not an easy pushover paradoxically reduces the sense of an existential threat and induces caution. one wonders why.
You might have a point there. The American people turned en mass anti war, AFTER their men returned in body bags. Meanwhile millions of Indo Chinese people had already been slaughtered to death. The war started after the French defeat in Dien Bien Phu in 1954 by the Vietminh. The 1954 Geneva Accords (go to Google) recognised Vietnam as one single country. There was no border there was a Demarcation line. The US attempted unsuccessfully to create a separate state in South Vietnam.
This from an ex Vietnam protestor.
Cue a lackey to step forward and proclaim “slam dunk”.
There is very reason to belive that it was a false flag operation.There are interested powers
What’s funny is that if that video footage was real evidence of attack on the tanker, U.S just stood there recording the attack and not radioing the tanker or coming to their aid before it exploded. Bunch of liars! So says Mr. Stewart.
What’s funny is that if that video footage was real evidence of attack on the tanker, U.S just stood there recording the attack and not radioing the tanker or coming to their aid before it exploded. Bunch of liars! So says Mr. Stewart.
Lying and reneging on promises has a long tradition in our history.
Just ask any Native American they can verify the veracity of your statement, having witness it for numerous generations.
Yup, some 500 treaties thrown in the trash bin.
It’s starting to sound like one guy with some drones or an RPG might have done this. No state at all may have been involved, never mind certainty that a state was AND that it was Iran.
How does that fucking idiot Trump think mines got above the water level ?
The next story will be about this guy having a horrible “accident” I’m sure. Begin on the premise that the US government is lying, and you will be correct 99.9% of the time.
Remember the “alien autopsy video”? It was black & white film. The US military has been using color film since 1944 so it was easy to prove a fake. Why would this not be in color also? It’s not film, but still, why black & white, poor quality? Was this filmed in the 1920’s?
They lied in Viet Nam with the Tokin story . Almost every thing was a lie in Yugoslavia that so mysteriously just fell apart , Again in Iraq and Ukraine . Now we learn Assad was not gassing his own people . No one believes the United States any more . There a 190 countries in the world and we should say Iran did it . Why would anyone believe you
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
Galileo Galilei
———
Festina lente folks .
How comes that many post authors who do not know the truth post that x or y is a liar . Why don’t they tell the truth instead of spreading red herrings and/or using ad hominem ? .
I am wondering if we are not seeing something.
Is it possible that what US is doing is damaging as many as possible energy producers — and making them take years to recover their infrastructure or markets? Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, Iran, Russia. Why?
It finally clicked — we know that fracking while producing oil and gas — has never proved the profitability model , as new drilling is paying loans for previous. With an incredibly high accumulated debt, smaller producers were bought out by bigger, and now majors are saddled with debt. Two problems are imminent — the so called sweet spots are exhausted and other fields are less productive, a drill is down to 10% output in a year. Second problem — infrastructure of pipelines, port facilities for liquid gas and ships are not being built — there is no confidence in profitability. But some of them may move forward due to political pressure. Bottom line — HIGH PRICES FOR OIL AND GAS ARE NEEDED TO MAKE US sales profitable.
So, what is going on? In spite of the loss of volume from the aforementioned countries , prices have remained stable or lower.
If US can force Europe to abandon buying Russian gas — then US can at least have European captive markets. But US may force them to buy, and prices can go up later.
Bingo.
“HIGH PRICES FOR OIL AND GAS ARE NEEDED TO MAKE US sales profitable.”
But politicians can campaign on “we need to get your gas prices UP!”
So it has to be done through “reluctant” negative foreign policy engagement.
Iran is interfering in the US elections!
Japanese officials say Tokyo has dismissed a claim by the United States that Iran attacked two oil tankers — both of them carrying “Japanese-related” cargo — in the Sea of Oman.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/06/16/598631/oil-tankers-Oman-Sea-Iran-Japan
Where is the video of the villains placing the mines on these ships?
America now has incontrovertible proof of Iranian Weapons of Minor Destruction!
All that is needed now is to resurrect Colin Powell for a show-and-tell session at the United Nations.
Cue up another Coalition of the Killing.
It’s invasion time!
America now has incontrovertible proof of Iranian Weapons of Minor Destruction!
All that is needed now is to resurrect Colin Powell for a show-and-tell session at the United Nations.
Cue up another Coalition of the Killing.
It’s invasion time!